Lockjaw

[Larry Kart]

Interesting FB post from reedman David Sherr, longtime friend of Sonny Criss:

'Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. I love Jaws.

'Interesting sequence: Sonny Criss and Jaws were friends and one day Sonny told me that he had seen him the previous night at a party. Jaws left his tenor on the piano and Sonny asked to play it. Sonny told me the reed was so hard that "I couldn't get a sound out of it." Years later, a Los Angeles radio announcer, Jay Green, did a documentary, a four-part series on Coleman Hawkins and interviewed Jaws. Jaws said he once tried to play Hawk's tenor but "the reed was so hard I couldn't get a sound out of it."'

 

[Gheorghe]

Interesting story ! I remember Jaws very well, he was almost a regular in my hometown Viena, every year he played a few days at a well known jazz club.

Even if he never changed his style, he got his own, you must love his swing, his sometimes rough, sometimes softer sound, he odd way of phrasing, he´s one you can recognize imediatly .

The highlite was in 1978 when he brought Harry Sweets Edison with him.

One thing about him: Like Brew Moore, he always remained the same, and never had to change his style. Both played with Miles in the early 50´s and each of them stood his own. Jaws on that 1951 live session with Miles is just great. And how he manages to play the bop tune "Move" in his swing style with those shorter phrases, that sly humour......

[Ted O'Reilly]

That well-known jazz club has to be Jazzland, Gheorghe...one of the best clubs in the world, I'd say.  Been there often, and enjoyed the company of the owners,  Axel and Tilly Melhardt.  I have a Jaws record done at the club, in fact...

[Gheorghe]

Hi Ted !

You are right ! That´s the club. I was a regular there in the 70´s and even played there some times.

The record done at the club is titled "Land of Dreams" if I remember right. The great guitarist Karl Ratzer is on it.

Art Farmer played there at least two times every year. His wife was from Vienna.

And by the way, as you can see on the foto, it´s a nice fancy place with that old church. Now we also got a nice little club on the other side of the river with some good sessions.

When I was a youngster, there was so many clubs in my town, we had "Jazz Freddy" (IMHO the best), "Opus One", "Jazz Gittie´s " "Jazz Spelunke" "Willie´s Rumpelkammer" are only some of them, and there was other joint´s were musicians just met to have some tastes, to hang out. You just might walk the few blocks near the market "Naschmarkt" and might meet some dudes who might say hello what´s up, you come jam with us this night ?

[soulpope]

1 hour ago, Gheorghe said:

 

When I was a youngster, there was so many clubs in my town, we had "Jazz Freddy" (IMHO the best), "Opus One", "Jazz Gittie´s " "Jazz Spelunke" "Willie´s Rumpelkammer" are only some of them, and there was other joint´s were musicians just met to have some tastes, to hang out. You just might walk the few blocks near the market "Naschmarkt" and might meet some dudes who might say hello what´s up, you come jam with us this night ?

Those were the days ....

[Mark Stryker]

11 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Interesting FB post from reedman David Sherr, longtime friend of Sonny Criss:

'Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. I love Jaws.

'Interesting sequence: Sonny Criss and Jaws were friends and one day Sonny told me that he had seen him the previous night at a party. Jaws left his tenor on the piano and Sonny asked to play it. Sonny told me the reed was so hard that "I couldn't get a sound out of it." Years later, a Los Angeles radio announcer, Jay Green, did a documentary, a four-part series on Coleman Hawkins and interviewed Jaws. Jaws said he once tried to play Hawk's tenor but "the reed was so hard I couldn't get a sound out of it."'

 

Funny story that. 

In the early '80s when I was in school in Urbana, some friends of mine drive up to see Lockjaw at the Jazz Showcase. They talked to him and asked about his set-up. I don't rember the specific now but it was a super- open Metal Otto Link mouthpiece and a ridiculously hard reed. (The rule of thumb is generally the more open the mouthpiece, the softer the reed.) I do rember that Jaws explained why he played that combination by saying, "I got a bite!" --  meaning he gripped the mouthpiece with a lot pressure in his embouchure-- biting down on the mouthpiece). 

I love Lockjaw. 

[HutchFan]

Jaws is one of the greats! 

[Guy Berger]

Love his playing.

Didn't someone on this board mention once that Jaws was Jan Garbarek's favorite saxophonist?  Not entirely implausible if you listen to his recordings with George Russell.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

So Jaws not only corked up some keys, he played with an insanely hard reed? No wonder he got such a unique sound.

I still say that any Jaws fan needs to own a copy of "Oh Gee! Live In Manchester".

[Gheorghe]

So much saxophone he played, I was a bit disappointed about the interview he gave Art Taylor (to be read in "Notes and Tones"). He´s statements read somehow in a blunt manner, but maybe that was his personality, the many times I saw him live he really played some great sax, and maybe had a bit of a businessman-personality, anyway I think he was Count´s road manager for a long time.

[BillF]

2 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

"Oh Gee! Live In Manchester".

I know the feeling! 

[paul secor]

5 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

So much saxophone he played, I was a bit disappointed about the interview he gave Art Taylor (to be read in "Notes and Tones"). He´s statements read somehow in a blunt manner, but maybe that was his personality, the many times I saw him live he really played some great sax, and maybe had a bit of a businessman-personality, anyway I think he was Count´s road manager for a long time.

I believe that he also gave up playing for a time in the early 60's and became a booking agent.

[Gheorghe]

7 hours ago, paul secor said:

I believe that he also gave up playing for a time in the early 60's and became a booking agent.

Yes, that´s one of the questions Art Taylor laid on him, if it´s true that he gave up playing for a while and didn´t even touch his saxophone.

Must have been after the collaboration with Johnny Griffin. Those "tough Tenors" Griff-Jaws sold very well. Well, Griff went to Paris after that, and maybe Jaws became a booking agent.

By the way , that "Oh Gee!" is really nice. As I remember it, it´s a simple medium blues in Ab , he played it often.

But otherwise than Lou Donaldson (who also never really changed his style ) , Jaws didn´t seem to play the same numbers at every show. As I remember, his repertoire was quite rich, there were bebop-oriented tunes like "Rifftide", there was wonderful ballads, some bossas, yeah like all great tenorsaxists, he also was a great ballad player.

Oh yeah, and my favourite record is a Pablo thing from the 70´s with the Tommy Flanagan Trio, it got some nice tunes on it "On a clear day", "Wave", "Watch what happen´s"".

And......... he signed it for me !

[Larry Kart]

One of the several bones I've had to pick with the often brilliant British jazz writer Max Harrison is that he loathed Lockjaw's playing. From "The Essential Jazz Records Vol. 2":

[Fats Navarro's] dates with 'Lockjaw' Davis, an arch vulgarian who subsequently found his true metier as a cog in Basie's ponderous latter-day machine, resulted in performances that juxtapose some of the best and worst qualities that jazz has to offer. Sounding as if impaled on his own indignation, Davis naively deploys his armoury of of honks and whinnyings as Navarro soars with majestic freedom...."

Later Harrison refers to "the tenor's incoherent belches" and says that "Davis, hollering and screaming, returns all too soon." OTOH "impaled on his own indignation" is a clever phrase and could have been the beginning of some insight into Lockjaw's music, though Max here is in his "haters want to hate" bag. Eventually I said in print that in this mode Max seemed to me to be the jazz critic equivalent of a flat Earth-er or worse, which was kind of a deal breaker.

In any case, probably no Lockjaw fan would want him to be judged by his playing on that 1947 date (though I would think that his "vulgarian" gestures there might have been just what Savoy's producer [Teddy Reig?] had in mind, perhaps in the hope of attracting Jack McVea fans), but Harrison's sarcastic "subsequently found his true metier as a cog in Basie's ponderous latter-day machine"  suggests that his view of Davis always remained much the same. Max also loathed the New Testament band on the grounds that it traduced the virtues of the '36-'40 Basie band.

[Big Beat Steve]

3 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

In any case, probably no Lockjaw fan would want him to be judged by his playing on that 1947 date (though I would think that his "vulgarian" gestures there might have been just what Savoy's producer [Teddy Reig?] had in mind, perhaps in the hope of attracting Jack McVea fans)

Oh come on .... As a veteran jazz historian-scribe, you know better than that, don't you? Jack McVea (of all 40s sax men), the archetypal honker? Now really, ...

If you "must" draw an analogy, rather use Illinois Jacquet et al, (Leo Parker in his R&B leanings, anyone?), please.

No point going into details but hasn't the discussion and appreciation of the R&B sax honkers in their time, context and purpose progressed beyond this stage? I must admit Bob Porter has a point in his Soul Jazz book where he hints at the analogies between early post-war honkers' screeches as ONE way of extending the range of the sax not totally unlike the free jazz screeches as ANOTHER way of extending that range. IMO he has nailed it. This may be heresy to the "jazz as high art" faction but one man's McNeely is another man's Brötzmann (different strokes, tastes, etc., you know ... )

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

3 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

In any case, probably no Lockjaw fan would want him to be judged by his playing on that 1947 date ...

I don't know about "judged by", but I love his playing on that date. As I have said before...

 

[Big Beat Steve]

Indeed. And FWIW, Jaws' playing on "Lockjaw" and "Athlete's Foot" from his Haven session (which predates the Savoy sesions with Fats Navarro) doesn't strike me as fundamentally different. So it wasn't only the Savoy A&R man, maybe?

[BillF]

5 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

One of the several bones I've had to pick with the often brilliant British jazz writer Max Harrison is that he loathed Lockjaw's playing. From "The Essential Jazz Records Vol. 2":

[Fats Navarro's] dates with 'Lockjaw' Davis, an arch vulgarian who subsequently found his true metier as a cog in Basie's ponderous latter-day machine, resulted in performances that juxtapose some of the best and worst qualities that jazz has to offer. Sounding as if impaled on his own indignation, Davis naively deploys his armoury of of honks and whinnyings as Navarro soars with majestic freedom...."

Later Harrison refers to "the tenor's incoherent belches" and says that "Davis, hollering and screaming, returns all too soon." OTOH "impaled on his own indignation" is a clever phrase and could have been the beginning of some insight into Lockjaw's music, though Max here is in his "haters want to hate" bag. Eventually I said in print that in this mode Max seemed to me to be the jazz critic equivalent of a flat Earth-er or worse, which was kind of a deal breaker.

In any case, probably no Lockjaw fan would want him to be judged by his playing on that 1947 date (though I would think that his "vulgarian" gestures there might have been just what Savoy's producer [Teddy Reig?] had in mind, perhaps in the hope of attracting Jack McVea fans), but Harrison's sarcastic "subsequently found his true metier as a cog in Basie's ponderous latter-day machine"  suggests that his view of Davis always remained much the same. Max also loathed the New Testament band on the grounds that it traduced the virtues of the '36-'40 Basie band.

I've got to put a word in for Jack McVoutie! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isdYaLsLdto

[Larry Kart]

4 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Oh come on .... As a veteran jazz historian-scribe, you know better than that, don't you? Jack McVea (of all 40s sax men), the archetypal honker? Now really, ...

If you "must" draw an analogy, rather use Illinois Jacquet et al, (Leo Parker in his R&B leanings, anyone?), please.

No point going into details but hasn't the discussion and appreciation of the R&B sax honkers in their time, context and purpose progressed beyond this stage? I must admit Bob Porter has a point in his Soul Jazz book where he hints at the analogies between early post-war honkers' screeches as ONE way of extending the range of the sax not totally unlike the free jazz screeches as ANOTHER way of extending that range. IMO he has nailed it. This may be heresy to the "jazz as high art" faction but one man's McNeely is another man's Brötzmann (different strokes, tastes, etc., you know ... )

 

I think your quarrel is with Max Harrison, not me.

[GA Russell]

Was Lockjaw's sabbatical before his recordings for RCA?

[paul secor]

I believe so - from late 1962-early 1963 til late 1964-early 1965.