Soulful Jazz Part 1: Lou Rawls

Although he might be better known for his more pop-oriented hits like “Natural Man” and “You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine,”  Lou Rawls was a truly versatile performer.  He came from the gospel tradition, recorded with Sam Cooke, and released some fine straight-up jazz records.  He crossed over and back and forth across most music associated with the African American tradition.  He is even credited by some with helping to pave the way for rap.

A Chicago native, Rawls, like his good friend Cooke, was a member of a significant gospel group and achieved early success in that genre.  Serving in the military for two years in the mid-'50's, Rawls embarked on a tour with Cooke after his discharge in 1958.  En route from St. Louis to Memphis their car was involved in a serious wreck.  Cooke was relatively uninjured, but Rawls was almost killed and would be out of commission for almost a year.  Upon his recovery, Rawls moved to L.A. where he played almost any type of gig he could find.  Capitol producer Nick Venet discovered Rawls at a coffee shop in 1962.  His first album, Stormy Monday (also released under the title I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water) paired him with the Les McCann trio and became what Will Friedwald considered a "first-inning home run."  Besides the two alternate title numbers, the album also featured several other jazz and blues standards, for instance, "God Bless the Child," "Tain't Nobody's Business," "Willow Weep for Me."  Although I couldn't find the versions of any of the songs from Stormy Monday Youtube, I am posting a clip of "Willow Weep for Me" from a TV show that features the same instrumentation.  Despite the difference in accompanists, you can get a good idea of the vocal treatment of the singer who Frank Sinatra credited with having "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game" and whose voice another critic described as "sweet as sugar, soft as velvet, strong as steel, and smooth as butter."  More steel than butter or sugar is evident in "Tobacco Road," which became a 1963 hit for Rawls.




















Rawls achieved his first gold record with the album Live, released in 1966.  One feature of this album that would contribute to his future success, and would later cause some to credit him as a precursor of rap, was the use of monologues to introduce some of his songs.  Presented below is "Dead End Street," which won Rawls a Grammy in 1967.



Throughout the late sixties and on through the seventies Rawls achieved his greatest commercial success with such hits as "Love is a Hurtin' Thing," "Natural Man," "Lady Love," and "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine."  Beginning in 1982, however, he signed with Blue Note and recorded some albums that would take him away from the "disco-ish" style of "You'll Never Find," and back in the direction of the music recorded earlier in his career.  One of these, At Last, included two duets with Dianne Reeves, the title tune and "Fine Brown Frame," both of which are presented below.
















Although Lou Rawls was most closely associated with music from the African American tradition, he also had a strong affinity for the Great American Songbook in general, and Frank Sinatra in particular.  It was perhaps fitting that Rawls final album would be Rawls Sings Sinatra, which he recorded three years before his death in 2006 from cancer.  Presented below is the lightly swinging "The Second Time Around" from that final album.

An American Musician at a Danish club named for a Paris landmark: Stan Getz at the Cafe' Montmartre

Few musicians had longer professional careers, or were more prolific than Stan Getz.  Beginning his professional career at 15 in 1943 with Jack Teagarden, he helped usher in the California cool sound in the '50s, and in the early '60s, along with Charlie Byrd, introduced Brazilian Bossa Nova to U.S. audiences.  He continued to play and record until shortly before his death in 1991.  Known for his emotional, beautiful sound, Getz recorded some of his most compelling music in the last few years of his life.

Largely because of problems with the IRS, Getz was among the many American jazz musicians  who relocated to Europe in the 1950s.  Denmark was the locale he chose, and he was a regular at Copenhagen's  Cafe' Montmartre until his return to the states in the early sixties.  Getz, along with a quartet consisting of Rufs Reid (b), Victor Lewis (d), and Kenny Barron (p), returned to Copenhagen and a relocated Cafe' Montmartre in 1987.  This one night stand was taped for broadcast on Danish radio, but when Getz heard the tapes some time later he was so impressed with both the playing and the recording quality that he arranged to have the performance released as two albums.  The first, Anniversary, was released in 1989 and was nominated for a Grammy, and the second, Serenity, in March 1991.  The authors of the Penguin Guide give each of these albums four stars and describe them as "Pristine examples of his art..." and credit Getz with creating a sound of "breathtaking beauty."  Although I couldn't find any Youtube videos from these recordings, I am posting "On Green Dolphin Street" (Serenity) from a live performance by three of the quartet members recorded in 1989, and a live recording of Billy Strayhorn's haunting "Blood Count" (Anniversary) featuring Getz and Barron with a slightly larger combo from 1990. 





















Getz and Barron would return as a duo to Copenhagen for a four-night engagement in March, 1991.  By this time Getz was in the final stages of the cancer that would take his life three months later.  Each night's performance was recorded and a 2-CD album, People Time, was released in 1992.  Kenny Barron wrote the liner notes to People Time and he asserted that Getz "played exceptionally well, giving each solo his all," but he also observed that the horn player was out of breath after his solos.  The authors of Penguin Guide commented that "Some of the butter has run out of his tone..." but they still rated the album ***(*) out of five and lauded Barron for some of the best improvising of his career.  Perhaps as much for the poignancy of the occasion as for the music, the album has become something of a classic.  The original 2-CD album is available, and Sunny Side has recently released a 7-CD box set, People Time: The Complete Recordings.  In 2002 Universal released Cafe' Montmartre, a single CD containing selections from all three of the albums recorded at that venue.  Even if Getz had lost a step or two by the time the People Time recordings were made, the Getz-Barron duo still produced some very beautiful music.  Featured below are the title tune and Charlie Haden's "First Song (For Ruth)."

Everybody's Boppin': Lamber, Hendricks, & Ross

Although they were only together a few years and their recorded output was limited, Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross were and remain one of the most influential jazz vocal groups of all time.  The fact that they recorded together at all involved just a little serendipity.

Dave Lambert, along with Buddy Stewart, recorded what many consider to be the first bebop vocal, "What's This," with Gene Krupa's big band in 1945.  Known primarily as a vocal arranger in the intervening years, in 1953 Lambert met Jon Hendricks who was developing a reputation as a lyricist.  The two made a few recordings in the early and mid 1950s, but attracted little attention.  By 1957 they had conceived of an album of vocalized Basie songs.  Some of these already had lyrics, but Hendricks tinkered with them further and wrote lyrics for the instrumentals.  The original conception was for the album to be recorded by a choir of twelve voices.  Annie Ross was hired as coach for the six male and six female voices.  There was only one problem; the singers they had hired couldn't swing.  As quoted in Friedwald (1992), Hendricks later complained, "... these people couldn't swing if you hung them."  By the time they had figured all this out, Lambert and Hendricks had blown their recording budget and were in a bind.  Some one suggested to them that they record with overdubbing.  Deciding they liked what they had heard of Annie Ross, they decided to use this technique to turn their three voices into twelve.  The result was Sing a Song of Basie and the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross was born.  Although not the version from the album, the following video demonstrates their take on "Every Day I Have the Blues."  The album was successful enough that the Count and his orchestra soon joined them to record Sing Along with Basie.

















Having started out at MGM, the trio recorded the first "pure" L, H, & R album, The Swingers, on World Pacific in March, 1959.  Later that year they signed with Columbia and subsequently recorded three lps on that label: The Hottest Group in Jazz; Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross Sing Ellington; and High Flying.  These Columbia recordings feature several songs that would become their greatest hits and most enduring work.  Arguably one of their songs most recognized today was one that Ross originally recorded solo in 1952, a vocal treatment of a sax solo by Wardell Gray, "Twisted."  Although readers/listeners may not be familiar with the L, H, & R version, this song has been covered over and over.



Two from the Ellington set: "In a Mellow Tone", which already had lyrics, and "Cottontail," which didn't. (You might want to close your eyes and just listen to these two.)





Although I featured it in my post "Cats Who Scat," Hendricks' "Everybody's Boppin'" is worth another listen.



Finally, Hendricks' lyrics applied to Bobby Timmons' "Moanin'", an instrumental hit for the Jazz Messengers.



Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, the trio, came to an end in 1962 when Annie Ross wearied of touring and left the group.  Lambert and Hendricks then teamed up Yolande Bavan, and later Anne Marie Moss, but these teams didn't last long.  Dave Lambert died in 1966, but Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross, who are still living, went on to great success on their own.  Hendricks continued to sing and pen lyrics, while Ross opened her own night club and acted in several films.

Depending on how much Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross you want you can still buy their individual albums, or if "greatest hits" collections are more to your taste, The Hottest New Group in Jazz is a two-cd compilation, while Everybody's Boppin contains 15 songs on one cd.

Charlie, Stan, Tom, Joao, & oh yeah, Astrud, too

I first started paying attention to music after I received a transistor radio for Christmas in 1963-just in time for the British Invasion.  Like most kids my age, I listened to Top 40 radio and reserved my greatest attention for the Beatles, the Stones, the Animals and on and on.  One of the good things about Top 40 radio in the sixties, however, was that what made it on to the playlists wasn't just rock 'n roll or teen-oriented songs.  One song that caught my attention during the summer of 1964 that didn't fit the "yeah, yeah, yeah" formula was "The Girl From Ipanema," an example of a Brazilian style called Bossa Nova.  The beat was unusual and appealing, and the singer sang softly and (what, when I grew older, and understood these things, I would consider), seductively.  "The Girl From Ipanema" peaked at #5 and the album from which it came, Getz/Gilberto, made it to #2 on the album charts, bested only by the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night.  The song and album both won "best-of" Grammys in their respective categories and the album won Grammys in two other categories as well.  Although there was a Bossa Nova fad in the early-mid sixties, my interest was limited to the one song and only for the short time it was on the airwaves.  Fast forward about 25 years to when I decided to buy a copy of the Getz/Gilberto lp at a used record sale for a local NPR station.  When I put it on the turn table (yes, I had hung on to my turn table) I was blown away.  The music still sounded fresh and I was pleasantly surprised that the album contained a longer version of "Ipanema" than what had been played on the radio back in 1964.  I've had a bit of a thing for Bossa Nova ever since.



















So, enough rambles about my history with Bossa Nova.  What's the back story on Bossa Nova in the U.S. and how "Girl From Ipanema" came to be a hit?  Stan Getz, of the eponymous Getz/Gilberto album did not bring the Bossa Nova to the U.S., nor was this his first Bossa Nova album.  Guitarist, Charlie Byrd, is usually credited with being a major force for importing the music to the U.S. after he discovered it on a State Department-sponsored trip to South America in 1961.  By that time tenor man Getz, who had been around for some time and was considered one of the founders of the Cool School of jazz, was looking for something new and fresh.  Getz met Byrd while playing in Washington D.C.  Byrd played some tapes for Getz that he had brought back with him from his trip and told Getz that he couldn't find anyone to record this "new" music.  Well, Getz was his guy, and the duo recorded the album Jazz Samba.  Interestingly, because of the acoustics, this album was recorded at All Souls Unitarian Church in D.C.  To Getz' surprise, both the album and one of the singes, "Desafinado," became hits on the pop charts; "Desafinado" would also win a Grammy.






In March, 1963 Getz entered the studio to record what would become Getz/Gilberto, this time including two of the pioneers of the genre, pianist and composer, Antonio Carlos (Tom) Jobim and guitarist/vocalist Joao Gilberto.  Unlike the single played on the radio, the album version of "The Girl From Ipanema" begins with Joao Gilberto singing the lyrics in Portugese.  Gilberto, who was extremely shy, did not feel confident enough to sing the lyrics in English, so Getz prevailed upon his wife Astrud, who had never sung professionally, to sing the English lyrics to that song and on another song on the album, "Corcovado (Quiet Night of Quiet Stars)."   The album also contained a vocal version of "Desafinado," which is a nice parallel to the instrumental version of the Jazz Samba session.





Getz would make a total of seven Bossa Nova albums.  None would approach the commercial success of the first two, but they all contain some worthwhile music.  Getz and Astrud Gilberto would team up again on Getz au Go Go, recorded live at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York.  Featured below is "One Note Samba" from that session. 



The next selection is "Um abraco no Getz (a tribute to Getz)" from Jazz Samba Encore, which Getz recorded with guitarist Luiz Bonfa and Jobim.  The Penguin Guide deems both Jazz Samba albums as excellent, and claims that Getz/Gilberto remains peerless.

Although Charlie Byrd actually brought Bossa Nova to the U.S., it is no accident that Stan Getz is the American most associated with the Brazilian style. Both he and Jobim agree that Bossa Nova was influenced by the cool jazz of the late 1940s and '50s, of which Getz was a major figure. That he, in turn, should be influenced by Jobim and his collaborators is only logical: a 1960s musical NAFTA.

Anita's Progeny, Pt. 2: Chris Connor

Just as Anita O'Day recommended June Christy as her replacement in the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Christy, after tiring of the road life with the Kenton band, heard Chris Connor sing with Jerry Wald on the radio and recommended her.  Connor had long had her sites on performing with the Kenton band, and she felt her succession of Christy and O'Day made musical sense, “My voice seemed to fit the band, with that low register like Anita’s and June’s."  Like her two predecessors, Connor also had a hit record with Kenton, "All About Ronnie."  Although her tenure with Kenton lasted only about ten months, prior engagements with Claude Thornhill and the previously-mentioned Wald meant that Connor had been on the road almost continuously for almost six years.  She was ready to go it alone when she left Kenton in 1953.





Upon leaving Kenton, Connor became one of the first jazz artists to sign with the independent label, Bethlehem.  The musicians with whom she recorded on that label included some significant figures from the period: Ellis Larkins, Herbie Mann, Kai Winding and J.J.Johnson.  While with Bethlehem, Connor recorded what critic Will Friedwald designated as the definitive female version of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life."





Connor's three successful recordings with Bethlehem caused some of the larger labels to take notice and helped Atlantic to stake their claim in the jazz world when she signed with that label in 1956;  she would record with that label until 1962.  The three Bethlehem albums and the 12 she recorded with Atlantic (2 per year is a pretty good pace) are considered to be the essential body of Connor's work. While with Atlantic Connor primarily recorded with three types of ensembles: a foursome, a larger ensemble (often a nonet), and a string orchestra.  Many of the larger orchestrations were arranged by conductor Ralph Burns, while pianist Ralph Sharon, who would go on to a long and successful collaboration with Tony Bennett, arranged much of the smaller ensemble work.  One album, Double Exposure,  that didn't fit these categories featured Connor singing in front of the big band of trumpet pyrotechnician, Maynard Ferguson.  Most, if not all, of the Atlantic catalog is available as individual CDs, plus Atlantic has compiled a "best of" collection, Chris Connor Warm Cool,  selected jointly by the singer and critic Will Friedwald.

Friedwald, in comparing Connor to O'Day, described her singing this way, "But mainly, when you think of O'Day, think spontaneity, when you think of Connor, think control.  Think also of an O'Day-ish voice whose shaping of lines and phrases owes more to Holiday, Sinatra, and Lee.  Think of understatement but not undersinging or "minimalism.""  Scott Yanow considered her, along with Christy and Lee, as symbolizing the cool jazz of the 1950s. He wrote, "Her straightforward, vibratoless delivery gives one the impression that she is both vulnerable and very guarded ..."

As teen-oriented music began to dominate the charts in the 1960s, Connor, like many other jazz singers, lost her contract with a major label.  Unfortunately for this blog, the Chris Connor who dominates You Tube is a British Elvis impersonator, and I can't find any videos from her Atlantic years to include.  What follows, however, are two videos of songs Connor recorded on minor labels in the mid-60s that still represent what Friedwald and Yanow wrote about.





Along with many other jazz artists, Connor spent time and gained popularity in Japan during the late '60s and '70s.  She did experience a resurgence in the '80s.  Here is "Sweet Happy Life" from 1987's Classic album.



On August 29, 2009, Chris Connor was the last of the vo-cool school of singers to depart this earth.  She was 81.

Anita's Progeny, Pt. 1: June Christy

I chose the title "Anita's Progeny" for this post and the one that will follow because I will be profiling two singers (June Christy & Chris Connor) who followed Anita O'Day as "girl singer" in the Stan Kenton Orchestra and who, at least early in their careers, sounded remarkably like O'Day.  Neither Connor nor Christy improvised like O'Day, but their tonal qualities and range were similar.  Interestingly, O'Day recommended Christy for the Kenton job and she in turn recommended Connor.

Christy (nee Shirley Luster) grew up in Decatur, Illinois, began performing professionally at 13, and  had taken her career to Chicago where, as the story goes, O'Day discovered the 19-year-old singer.  Itching to escape the confines of the Kenton orchestra, O'Day reportedly approached and asked her, "How would you like to become rich and famous?"  Regardless of the exact details, Christy did join Kenton in 1945 and would become rich and famous.  Her first recording with Kenton, the novelty song, "Tampico," became a million seller.  Not Christy at her best, but it's part of the story.  The sombrero doesn't do a lot for Kenton either.



Christy would record some other hits with Kenton, and while in his employ meet and marry Kenton's tenor player Bob Cooper, a marriage that would last for 44 years.  Christy stayed with Kenton until he temporarily disbanded the unit in 1948.  Between 1947 and 1950 she made a series of singles for Capitol.  In addition to meeting her husband of many years while with Kenton's orchestra, Christy established a professional relationship that would prove fruitful and lasting as well.  Pete Rugolo was a writer and arranger who significantly influenced the Kenton sound of the late 1940's.  He left Kenton in 1949 to become music director for Capitol records.  He would arrange and conduct half of Christy's post-Kenton albums as well as several of her singles.

In 1954 the Christy-Rugolo collaboration created the album, Something Cool,  described by the authors of the Penguin Guide as a masterpiece "meticulously tailored to June's persona." Critic Will Friedwald included this album in his "Don't Show Up At a Desert Island Without 'Em" recommendations. The title song with it's unconventional structure and unconventional lyrics (Friedwald described the singer/narrator as "Blanche Dubois-like") is featured below.











Citing Christy's "perfect breath control and vibrato as well as her emotional colouring [sic]," The Penguin Guide describes several other songs from the album, including "Midnight Sun" as "near-definitive."



While still with the Kenton band, a disc jockey had taken to rhyming Christy with "misty."  To many this pairing seemed apt and it caught on.  Capitol would use it to title another outstanding Christy-Rugolo collaboration The Misty Miss Christy.  The Penguin Guide rates this album as almost as good as Something Cool and considers her version of "'Round Midnight" as one of the "great treatments of that overworked classic."














The Penguin Guide also raves about 1960's The Song is June.  The authors describe Rugolo's chart for "Remind Me" featured below as "astonishing," as good as any arrangement he ever made.




June Christy's "laid back and emotionally reserved" (Scott Yanow, 2008)  singing in the 1950's largely defined what "cool" jazz singing was all about.  By the time she was 40 in 1965, except for an occasional reunion with Kenton or other special occasion, Christy had essentially retired.  She died in 1990 after years of illness.

Cats who Scat

Although not all jazz vocalists are practitioners, no vocal style is more closely associated with jazz singing than scat.  Britannica Online defines scat as the use of "emotive, onomatopoeic, and nonsense syllables instead of words in solo improvisations on a melody."  Scat singing allows vocalists to perform improvisations equivalent to instrumentalists-voice as instrument.  At least one author, psychologist Jeff Pressing, has argued that scatting is more difficult than instrumental improvisation because it does not provide as much feedback for the performer to judge the quality of the output.

Although Louis Armstrong is often credited with inventing the style on his 1926 recording of "Heebie Jeebies," earlier examples of scatting were recorded.  The story (likely apocryphal) as told by Armstrong is that his his music fell off the stand during the recording session, and not knowing the lyrics, in the best "necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention" developed the style on the spot.



Ask people to identify a singer who sang scat and the name Ella Fitzgerald will appear on an awful lot of lists.  The next video is a 1969 performance of her rendition of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "One Note Samba."  Her performance exemplifies two other qualities often associated with scatting: humor and quotations from other songs. 



Ella began her career singing for the Chick Webb big band in the 1930's and many of her scat solos reflect the big band/swing influence.  Sarah Vaughan's scat solos, on the other hand, are said to be more reflective of the later be bop style.  Sarah's "Lullaby of Birdland" is from the great album she made with trumpeter Clifford Brown.  Although she sings the song pretty straight at first, she starts trading riffs with the instrumentalists at about the 2:30 mark.

















Scatting is usually an individual endeavor, but Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross turned it into a group effort. In case you somehow don't get the bop connection in the above video, you can't miss it in their rendition of Jon Henricks' "Everybody's Boppin'."  Hold on to your hat and fasten your seatbelt.

















Mel Torme was well-known for his scatting skills.  Here he is near the end of his career with "Pick Yourself Up" in which he pays homage to Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, as well as J.S. Bach.



Torme was not the first to make the connection between Bach's instrumentals and scat.  In the early 1960s Ward Swingle and his Swingle Singers recorded some vocal transcriptions of Bach's works, including one album titled Jazz Sebastian Bach.


















A few generations of children have probably been introduced to scat singing via Louis Prima's "I Wanna Be Like You" from Disney's Jungle Book.




 In case the Millennial Generation missed Louis Prima & The Jungle Book when they were kids they can still hear a little scat from their contemporary Amy Winehouse in her intro to "Stronger than Me" from her debut album, Frank.