RECORD ILLUSTRATIONS—CHAPTER SIX

ELLINGTON

East St. Louis Toodle-oo, The Mooche, Mood Indigo, Ring Dem Bells, Stompy Jones, Delta Serenade, Dusk, Warm Valley (in Victor Album P-138) East St. Louis Toodle-oo, Birmingham Breakdown, Rocking in Rhythm, Black and Tan Fantasy, The Mooche, Mood Indigo, Wall St. Wail (in Brunswick Album B-1000) Black and Tan Fantasy, Creole Love Call (Victor 24861) Echoes of Harlem (Columbia 36283) Bragging in Brass (Columbia 36276) Sophisticated Lady, Stormy Weather (Columbia 35556) Across the Track (Victor 27235) Cotton Tail (Victor 26610) Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me (Concerto for Cootie) (Victor 20-1547) Jack the Bear (Victor 36536) A Portrait of Bert Williams (Victor 26644) Take the A Train (Victor 27380) That’s the Blues, Old Man (Hodges) (Victor 20-2542)

BASIE

Dogging Around (Decca 18125) One O’Clock Jump (Decca 25056) How Long How Long Blues (piano and rhythm section) (Decca 2355)

DEVELOPMENT OF THE KANSAS CITY RIFF AND JUMP

Mary Lou Williams—Harmony Blues, Baby Dear (Decca 18122)

Oran “Hot Lips” Page and Band—South, Lafayette (Decca 18122)

Kansas City Seven—Destination K.C. (Keynote 1303)

Benny Goodman and his Sextet—Air Mail Special (Columbia 36720)

Charlie Christian—In the Hall of the Mountain King (Vox Album 302)

“Dizzy” Gillespie—Blue’n Boogie (Musicraft 486)

Chu Berry—Maelstrom (Columbia 37571)

Gillespie—Good Bait (Manor 1042)

Gillespie—Emmanon, Things to Come (Musicraft 447)

Errol Garner—Loose Nut (Dial 1095)

TRANSFORMATION OF THE POPULAR BALLAD AND BEBOP

Billie Holiday—I Wished On the Moon (Columbia 36205)

Bunny Berigan—I Can’t Get Started (Victor 20-1500)

Gillespie—I Can’t Get Started (Manor 1042)

Lester Young Trio—I Can’t Get Started, Tea for Two, Body and Soul, Indiana (Philo 1000, 1001)

Hall-Wilson Quartet—Where or When (Commodore 570)

Lester Young Quartet—Sometimes I’m Happy (Keynote 604)

Goodman and his Sextet—As Long as I Live (Columbia 36723)

“Red” Norvo and Sextet—Hallelujah, Get Happy (Comet 6, 7)

Art Tatum—Sweet Lorraine, Get Happy (Decca 25200)

Coleman Hawkins—Bean Stalking (“Idaho”)—(Asch 3551)

Kansas City Seven—After Theatre Jump (“Dardanella”)

Cozy Cole’s All Stars—Curry in à Hurry (“Sweet Georgia Brown”) (Keynote 1305)

Jazz at the Philharmonic—Vol. 1 How High The Moon (Stinson 453)

Charlie Parker Septet—Bird Lore (Dial 1006) or Ornithology (Dial 1102) (“How High the Moon”)

Charlie Parker Septet—A Night in Tunisia (Dial 1002) (“O Katherina”? “Caravan”?)

“Dizzy” Gillespie—Dizzy Atmosphere (Musicraft 488) and Tempo Jazz. Men (with Gillespie)—Dynamo A (Dial 1001) (“I’ve Got Rhythm”)

Charlie Parker—Lover Man (Dial 1007)

“Dizzy” Gillespie, with Sarah Vaughan—Lover Man (Musicraft 354)

“Dizzy” Gillespie—Hothouse (Musicraft 486) (“What is This Thing Called Love”)

DEVELOPMENT OF THE BLUES AND BEBOP

Mel Powell and Orchestra—Mood at Twilight (Commodore 544)

Hawkins, Young and Clayton—Slow Drag (Clef 103)—in Jazz at the Philharmonic, Vol. 6)

Kansas City Seven—Lester Leaps Again (Keynote 1302) “Red” Norvo and Sextet—Congo Blues, “Slam Slam” Blues (Comet 7, 6)

Theolonius Monk Quintet—Round About Midnight (Musicraft 543)

Errol Garner—Blues Garni (Dial 1093)

Jazz at the Philharmonic—The Blues (Vol 4, Disc 504)

Tempo Jazz Men—Round About Midnight (Dial 1001)

Charlie Parker’s Beeboppers—Billie’s Bounce (Savoy 573)

Charlie Parker All Stars—Relaxin’ at Camarillo (Dial 1012)

Cool Blues, Blowtop Blues (Dial 1054)

Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray—The Chase (Dial 1017)

Lucky Thompson and his Lucky Seven—Boppin’ the Blues (Victor 20-2504)

Charlie Parker Quintet—Buzzy (Savoy 652)

While Ellington is well represented on available records, there are a great many outstanding performances out of print, including some of as recent vintage as Victor’s “Ko Ko,” “Conga Brava,” and “Mobile Bay” (Rex Stewart). Victor also has in its files some of the fine early performances, such as “Jubilee Stomp,” “Got Everything But You,” “Saratoga Swing,” “Black Beauty.” Columbia should restore such old classics as “Ducky Wucky,” “Rocky Mountain Blues” “Boy Meets Horn” and a healthy selection of the fine small group records made under the name of Bigard, Williams, Greer and Hodges, such as “Caravan” “Delta Mood,” “Minuet in Blues,” “Saturday Night Function,” “Echoes of Harlem,” “Dooji Wooji.”

At least twenty out-of-print Basie sides should be made available, from the Decca and Columbia files, including “Swinging the Blues,” both “Lady Be Good” performances, “Taxi War Dance,” “Twelfth St. Rag” “Jump for Me,” “Topsy,” “Lester Leaps In,” “Dickie’s Dream,” “Sent For You Yesterday.” A selection of the Teddy Wilson small group recordings, and the Holiday-Young collaborations, such as “Back in Your Own Back Yard” and “The Man I Love” would also be worth having about.

The credit for recording the modern experimental jazz goes mainly to the small record companies, generally guided by enthusiasts who are willing to follow in the tracks of the growing music itself, instead of setting up standard routines for the musicians to fit. Small companies too, of course, can produce bad jazz. The records listed above, however, all contain, in this writer’s opinion, music of lasting quality, and varied enough in mood and personnel to show the wide range of modern jazz.