Jazz for aficionados

Awesome Basie clips, Rok. “Cleanhead” sounds great; past his prime or not. Definitely someone who has gotten short shrift here.

Glad you liked the “Caravan“ clips, nsp. I agree with your take on them.

Pjw, I think you misunderstood what I wrote about Maynard; perhaps I wasn’t clear. I never said he started playing that way later in his career. ALL the clips I posted were meant to be examples of early Maynard, including the Kenton. He was in his prime then. High register playing was always his main calling card. He was a pretty good improviser, but hardly a standout in that respect. You’re right about playing in the high register when the music called for it. The job of a lead trumpet player is to play in that register only when the chart calls for it. One may disagree about the tastefulness of the high trumpet writing in the Kenton chart, but that was not up to him. It was written that way and he was one of the few who could play the part as he did and why he got the gig. When he started fronting a big band later in his career (‘70s) the arrangements were designed to feature his playing in the stratosphere and that’s pretty much all he did and is when his playing got over the top. Besides, he was then the boss and could do whatever he wanted. All this coincided with the decline in the popularity of big bands and Maynard (as well as Woody Herman and others) went the “Big Band Fusion/Rock/Disco” route. Kept them and the bands working. It’s an exciting sound in a way; but, for me, only for about a minute.

What happens when a brass player plays that hard all the time is that the lip and face muscles (not the lungs, unless there are health issues) give out and get conditioned to playing that way and the player loses the control needed to play delicately and with finesse. That probably started to happen before he started fronting his own band. If you listen carefully to early playing and compare it to the later “over the top” stuff you’ll notice that in the early things (including the early Kenton things) the tone is a lot nicer, intonation is better and the note attacks are more accurate and secure.

Blast from the past, Pryso. The band Chase was big during my college days. It should not go unnoticed that this type of the horn laden Rock band sound coincided with the huge popularity of bands like a “Blood Sweat and Tears” and ”Chicago”.

https://youtu.be/SFEewD4EVwU

Thanks frogman for the clarification on Maynard Ferguson.

My favorite trumpet player has always been Clifford Brown.

Clifford Brown # 1 then Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, and Lee Morgan tied for # 2

Today’s Listen:

Gene Ammons’ All Stars -- THE BIG SOUND
with / Coltrane (alto), Quinichette, Pepper Adams

Another outstanding Saxophone grouping.  Jerome Richardson (flute)

Only four tunes, so I posted them all. Notes by Ira Gitler. Mr Gitler says that this was Coltrane’s first recording on Alto. He switched to Tenor while in Dizzy’s band in 1951.

Gitler went on to say that Coltrane, on the tune ’The Real McCoy’ "showed a little rust in handling the lighter, faster horn tonally".

I would like to hear The Frogman’s comments on that.

These critics sure have nerve. First Wynton, now Trane. next?

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH07y7nLF1g

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuH9Q3BxRuM

Cheers

Coltrane/Gitler/alto:

First of all, Gitler is way off with his “facts”. Coltrane recorded on alto well before that Gene Ammons date (1958). He recorded on alto with Dizzy, among others, about a decade earlier.  Moreover, he “switched” to tenor in 1947 two years before his first recording with Dizzy (on alto). He did not switch to tenor “while in Dizzy’s band”; he had already done so, but continued to play alto on occasion. Tenor became his main horn. The proof:

https://youtu.be/3Qn7123lcTM

https://youtu.be/d92SCcKfc9o

First known recording of Trane on alto at 19 yrs old (terrible audio):

https://youtu.be/ypcCcpob27k

Now, let’s put Gitler’s other comments in better context:

Coltrane started on alto (and clarinet), but he didn’t really begin to find his true voice until he switched to tenor in 1947. After all, if he had found his voice on alto why would he switch to tenor and put the alto on the back burner? Notice how much he sounds like Bird (surprise!😉) on that early recording.
By the time that he recorded with Ammons in 1958 he had made dozens of recordings on tenor and the 1952 recording in the clip above is the last known recording of him on alto prior to the Ammons session. Obviously, he was playing alto less and less and the reason he played alto with Ammons was probably (my guess) that there were already two tenor players on the session. By 1958 he had a very defined voice on the tenor; he had an identifiable style.

While Gitler’s comment “showed a little rust in handling the lighter, faster horn tonally" is technically inaccurate in suggesting that Coltrane struggled with the smaller horn (he did not) I think I know what he meant. Each horn in the saxophone family lends itself to a certain way of playing. I think Coltrane sounds great on that Ammons session, but he sounds like Coltrane the tenor player. He sounds like a tenor player playing alto. I think that is what Gitler means by the use of the term “ rust...tonally”; a strange way of putting it. This sort of thing can be heard with some other players who play more than one saxophone. Listen to Sonny Stitt, he sometimes sounded like an alto player when playing tenor. It’s a certain way of voicing the notes on the instruments and a certain shape to the lines that he plays while improvising. In Coltrane’s alto solo on that Ammons session one can here that this was the beginning of his “sheets of sound” approach and there are several obvious “Coltraneisms” in his solo. His tone on alto, especially in the low register of the horn, sounds like a smaller tenor. But, “rusty”? No way. I like what he plays. A player that strong can get the message across on a kazoo and Trane could do it better than just about anyone. I think Gitler was nitpicking for no good reason.

My two cents.