The Jazz Review

[BFrank]

In reading a piece about Ben Ratliff's new book, they mentioned that a lot of his early jazz education came from reading The Jazz Review. This was a short-lived monthly published from 1958-61 with pieces by Nat Hentoff, LeRoi Jones, Quincy Jones, George Russell and others. I wasn't familiar with it, but every issue is available on the Jazz Studies Online site.

The Jazz Review

 

[JSngry]

Don't recall what it was called, but back in the old days of print, there was a book that collected the most "important" essays from that magazine. Made for involving reading then and now. Having the whole shebang available on line like this is such a wonderful resource!

[Larry Kart]

It was "Jazz Panorama," ed. by M. Williams. I have it as a Colliers paperback. 

http://www.amazon.com/Panorama-Pages-Review-dustjacket-Jasens/dp/B000JLF6B8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457389259&sr=1-1&keywords=jazz+panorama

Worthwhile just for Joe Goldberg's "The Symposium."

[BFrank]

It looks like they scanned every page of every issue. A lot of reading here!

[JSngry]

Lots of musicians writing about their own world in here, some are more "natural" at it than others, but they all give perspectives still too-often under-heard. Encouraged consumption!

[paul secor]

My college library had a copy, so I read it back then. If I find the time, I'll have to try and reread it in the present time to see how it strikes me today.

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Lots of musicians writing about their own world in here, some are more "natural" at it than others, but they all give perspectives still too-often under-heard. Encouraged consumption!

Bill Crow's epic takedown of Tony Scott is worth seeking out; few if any non-musicians writing about jazz have ever flayed the skin off a player (and person) the way Crow does here. An issue or two later there was a letter from Bill Evans defending Scott.

A bit messy, but here's Crow's review:

TONY SCOTT and the ALL STARS: .52nd Street Scene. Coral 57239.

On Dines lor "The Street," and Lore Is JIKI hound lite Corner; Joe Thomas, trum- pet: ,1. < . 11 igginbotham , and W ither De Pari>. trombone-; Tony Scott and Pee Wee Kti.— ell. clarinets; Sonny W hite, piano, Den/.il Best, drums; Osear Petiiiord, bass; AICasey,guitar.OnBody and Soul: Cole- man Hawkins, tenor; Tony Scott, clarinet; Tommy Flanagan, piano; Gene Ram ey, ba.-s; Walter Bolden, drums. On Ornithol- ogy; same as Body and Sou! plus Jimmy Knepper, trombone. In Lester Leaps In, t.orer Man, Woody 'A" You, 'Round Mid- night, and Mop Mop: Tony Scott, clarinet and baritone ^as; Al Cohn. tenor: Red Rodney, trumpet; Jimmy Knepper, trom- bone; George W allingtou, piano; Oscar Pelliford, ha«s; Roy Haynes. drums; Mun- dell I,owe. guitar.

 

A legend has somehow grown up around Tony Scott, casting him in the role of "the real jazzman" whose credentials are his eagerness to sit in with everyone and to organize jam sessions. Now it is true that a lot of pleasure, inspiration, and education is available for jazzmen at in- formal sessions. This sort of playing is a source of true recreation, offer- ing a musician more freedom than he may be allowed where he earns his money, or a chance to play when he is out of work, or close artistic contact with other musicians without the responsibility to entertain cus- tomers. These objectives are inter- fered with and often made impossible to attain by the attitude with which Tonv approaches a session. Though he professes a great respect for the work of other musicians, he seldom waits to be asked before leaping onto a bandstand with them, horn in hand —and he eyidences little awareness of the tastes or sensibilities of the musicians playing vyith him. When be is around it is always a show, and it is always Tony's show, unless a bigger ham upstages him.

 

Tony wants to be a star. He uses every situation as a stepping stone in his energetic scramble not for artistry, but for fame. He is so intent on his goal that he doesn't even realize how badly he uses his associates. His manner has become so ingrained that he continues to put on a break-it-up show even when musicians are his only audience. He plays in a tortured, rigid, sensationalistic manner thai successfully attracts attention but has little to do with playing music.

 

Since he usually hires good men, I assume that Tony is able to recognize high quality work, but he does not appear to aim for this quality in his own playing. He concentrates on the end-result image of himself as a musical hero and applies himself to the evocation of that image in more dramatic than musical terms. His en- tire bag of effects are used with no concern for their musical value, but only as large electric signs flashing •"ME! ME! ME!" His affectations of humility are loaded with egotism. He continually professes his respect for the work of Ben Webster. Charlie Parker. Coleman Hawkins, etc.. and showers them with maudlin praise, but his playing indicates that he has learned very little from them.

 

The foregoing notwithstanding. Tony is a definite presence on the jam session scene, and probably be- longs on this album as much as any- one else, since he is the inveterate sitter-in. His presence is representa- tive, if not particularly valid musically. His tone and phrasing here indicate a stifflv held body, shallow breathing, a generally un-giving attitude, and a lack of belief in what he is playing. He tries to make up for all this with dramatics that are about as believ- able as Liberace’s smile.

 

He plays with less affectation on the baritone sax than he does on clarinet, though he is never com-pletely candid. His baritone sound is very clarinet-like. It occasionally slips into the true resonance of the instrument, but Tony evidently pre- fers the airier quality. His clarinet sound is either a fidgety, watery sub- tone or a thin, shrieky full tone, with rare lapses into a more normal tim- bre. Instead of following up the in- teresting fragments of ideas thai pop up in his playing, he falls back con- stantly on his three favorite devices: five-note descending chromatic runs, ear-piercing squeals and glissandos. and hysteric noncommittal twittering around the changes with an air that puts one in mind of Billie Burke in a high wind.

 

Tonv is juxtaposed in an illumi- nating way with Pee \\ cc Russell on Love Is Just Around The Corner.

(They split the opening chorus, alter- nate choruses, exchange fours, and take the tune out together.) Pee Wee's style is. for entirely different reasons. \erv similar to Tonv s. He plays tentatively, uses both subtone and full air . bends notes, and shrieks, but the difference could not be greater. His faltering and mut- tering is an expression of the ago- nizing self-conscousness that causes him to qualify every statement with effacement and apologv. but beneath this is a warm gentle man who w\ith all his stammering, manages to ex- pose his most tender feelings. The indefinit-'iiess in Tonv's playing is of another genre, resulting from, an evasion of rather than an attempt at direct expression. I hear no gentle- ness in him, only hardness at varying levels of volume.

 

Blues For "The Street" is charac- teristic of jam sessions, each man playing several choruses with a rhythm section. A l Casey sets a very easygoing mood in his opening cho- ruses, and Joe Thomas, Sonny White, and J. C. Higginbotham follow in a similar vein, J. C. playing with more enthusiasm than inspiration. Oscar Pettiford's solo is ripe andfluentand his intonation and blend with the accompanying guitar i s exquisite. Tony begins his chorus sotto voce, playing perfectly valid blues melody in what amounts to a loud stage whisper. . . . "Look, look! I'm being subtle!" Wilbur DeParis' straight- forward simplicity seems particularly meaty after all this, and Pee Wee's customary intensity sounds relaxed by comparison. The remaining tracks are more re- stricting, since the amount of indi- vidual playing time has been curtailed in order to give everyone a chance to be heard. Body and Soul is divided among Coleman, Tony, and Tommy Flanagan. Though Tony fools around less here than he does on up tempos, the time would have been much better devoted to further development by Coleman. Hawk makes a whole lot out of his last half chorus, blowing away all the cobwebs with which Scott has decorated the first half.

 

Mop Mop allows each soloist one chorus of / Got Rhythm at a fast tempo, and hardly anyone gets going before his chorus is over. Red Rodney plays with just Oscar accompanying (except on the bridge), and his tone takes on an unusual richness because of Oscar's resonant support. Knepper and Cohn both needed another chorus. Scott plays like a stunt rider on a tricycle. Roy Haynes' excellent half chorus is upset by Pettiford, who puts a lead-in figure on the bridge in the wrong place. Everyone goes along with Oscar, so the ending is strong even though displaced a beat. Roy makes the adjustment nicely.

 

Al Cohn hits his stride on Lester Leaps In. He plays a fat, rolling in- troduction, decorates the lead chorus tastefully, and composes a well-con- structed chorus of his own. Lowe's guitar, Scott's baritone, and Walling- ton's piano solos are satisfactory, and Knepper, Rodney, and Haynes create interesting choruses. Oscar begins his solo with a delayed permutation of the original melody, loses Roy, loses himself, and leads the band back into the last chorus a bar early, but his conception is so interesting and his recovery so absolute that it's a good chorus even with the goof.

 

With all his preciosity, Tony comes closest to playing meaningful music on Lover Man. The notes he chooses have something to do with the tune, and he restricts himself to a mini- mum of archness. Mundell plays a prettily chorded bridge, and Jimmy Knepper's last eight of the first chorus is lovely. George W allington's bridge sustains the mood effectively, but seems terribly sere and brittle.

 

Woody W You allows each soloist eight bars, and there is hardly enough time for anyone to say anything, let alone relate it to what has gone be- fore. Still, it's a pleasant, craftsman- like track. Midnight has a prettily played intro and coda by Red, the melody played rubato with great depth of feeling by Oscar, and a melodramatic clarinet solo played by Theda Bara. The sad thing is that if he would drop the phony passion he'd discover that he is actually play- ing some beautiful notes, and might feel some real passion about that.

Flanagan plays two handsome cho- ruses on Ornithology, illustrating his indebtedness to Hank Jones. Coleman barely gets warmed up to this tune before his time is up. Knepper is agile and imaginative, but sacrifices a lot of tone quality for speed. (What- ever became of the fat trombone sound? Jack T eagarden, Jack Jenney, Murray McEacher'n, and several others played with agility and still got a big tone.) Tony builds an agitated chorus out of his chromatic descending runs and little else, giv- ing an impression of great mobility restrained by tremendous rigidity.

YIKES! I myself grew out of (or, if you prefer, abandoned) at age 14 or so a fondness for Scott that I had developed the  previous year, but -- YIKES! While I basically agree with Crow's strictures, there must have been something personal at work here.

[JSngry]

Certainly seems that way. And I like Scott a fair bit, actually, especially the later things. I get the qualms, really, I do (especially from the time of this record/review) but I feel he justified himself over time.

But you tell me:

 

[Larry Kart]

37 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Certainly seems that way. And I like Scott a fair bit, actually, especially the later things. I get the qualms, really, I do (especially from the time of this record/review) but I feel he justified himself over time.

But you tell me:

 

Well, his clarinet playing certainly has deteriorated.

[AllenLowe]

true story - Jazz Panorama reprinted a Jazz Review DIck Katz piece that was critical of some 1950s Benny Carter recordings; I mentioned this to Dick back in the '70s when he was working with Carter, and he flushed and said "oh shit I hope Benny doesn't read any of that."

[Larry Kart]

Heaven knows what Bill Crow would make of this latter-day Scott performance:
 

 

[AllenLowe]

I gotta say, I like that.

[JSngry]

It does not, how do they say, displease me.

Nor does this.

 

[JohnS]

Thanks for the link to the Jazz Review.  I bought several copies back in the day.  IMO the best Jazz Mag ever.

[Larry Kart]

10 hours ago, JSngry said:

It does not, how do they say, displease me.

Nor does this.

 

Mucho bathos.

[JSngry]

Never hurts to take a bath.

[Larry Kart]

By contrast (as Crow rightly suggests) try this:

 

[JSngry]

Apples and pineapples.

[Larry Kart]

40 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Apples and pineapples.

A neon sign versus self-communion.

[JSngry]

There is a context in which neon is quite beautiful and communal.

Enough with the artsy comparisons. I like where Scott ended up, it took a while, but he got there. Whatever he is or isn't, he is fully himself within himself, and whatever Bill Crow thought about him, he could take to the pit every night and tell it to the people there.

On an unrelated note, is Tony Scott still alive?

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

There is a context in which neon is quite beautiful and communal.

Enough with the artsy comparisons. I like where Scott ended up, it took a while, but he got there. Whatever he is or isn't, he is fully himself within himself, and whatever Bill Crow thought about him, he could take to the pit every night and tell it to the people there.

On an unrelated note, is Tony Scott still alive?

Deceased: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Scott_(musician)

[JSngry]

And Bill Crow?

[Larry Kart]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

And Bill Crow?

 

Still with us at age 89:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Crow

Fine player IMO. Also compiled/wrote two nice books of jazz anecdotes/reminisences and has a regular column of same on the NY musicians union site.

http://www.local802afm.org/news-allegro/bill-crows-band-room/

 

More:

 

 

http://www.billcrowbass.com/billcrowbass.com/WRITING.html

 

http://www.billcrowbass.com/billcrowbass.com/HOME.html

 

[JSngry]

One of the first jazz musicians I ever heard, thanks to the BG Moscow record. God moves in mysterious ways, small town music stores even more so..

I've read both his books and found the jazz one of considerably more interest than the later one. I don't wnat to simplify it as "more interesting people generate more interesting stories", but that's not totally wrong either.

A fine player indeed, but I would count on him to "get" Tony Scott, then or now, like I counted on Phil Woods to "get" Anthony Braxton, which is to say, ok, that's your opinion, thanks for sharing, what else have you got to say about anything else?

Ultimately, what I dig about Tony Scott is that he lived in his own world and nobody talked him out of it. I'm sure that many tried.