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That was a little Groovin' High by Dizzy Galepsy to get us started. You're listening to Roots of Jazz and Blues with King Henry here on WAYOFM. Today is the first of three shows dedicated to bop jazz. Our first show today is about bebop pioneers. The next will be hard bop and the third cool jazz. Now the assignment of artists to episodes is somewhat arbitrary since many had long careers across all eras of bop as well as earlier genres such as swing and later genres such as post bop. Today we hope to show how bebop emerged in the mid 1940s. We'll hear how it fundamentally changed the way the rhythm section functioned in jazz. That's the piano, drums and bass. Both piano and drums broke from the even rhythm and let loose with dynamic, unpredictable accents. The bass usually kept the band synchronized but also could launch into solos never before heard. Across all instruments there was greater freedom and in fact solos could entirely ignore the melody.
So our first artist today is Earl Hines. He was a giant of swing, dance and Dixieland jazz and helped pioneer bebop. He led one of the nation's most popular orchestras with both live and radio broadcast shows. During the 1942 to 1944 artist strike we heard about on our last episode stopped new records from being recorded. Earl's band including many of the artists in this episode held late night jam sessions. When recording resumed in 1944 the Earl Hines Orchestra had a new sound, not pure bebop, but swing with bebop notes. Let's listen now 1945 Earl Hines and his orchestra Scoops Carries Mary. Scoop Carries played the alto sax in the band.
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Even before bebop Hines playing had a rhythmic complexity that was rare in swing. Back in 1939 Hines solo piano took the swing standard Rosetta and gave us hints of what was to come.
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Coleman Hawkins played tenor sax. He began his professional career with Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds. You might remember Mamie Smith from the episode on female blues singers. He played in the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and the Benny Carter Orchestra as well as Earl Hines Orchestra and he participated in those 1942 jam sessions. Unfortunately those sessions were of course not recorded because of the musician strike but in 1965 they held a reunion concert at the Village Vanguard in New York City. Hawkins and Hines gave us a hint as to what might have happened back in 1942 with a full bebop version of that same tune Rosetta.
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That version of Rosetta was about three times longer than the earlier. 78s were limited to three minutes per side, which really didn't give jazz artists much time to improvise, so certainly the introduction of the 33 long playing record was a great boon to jazz. Coleman Hawkins played in the first recorded bebop session in 1944. The group consisted of Dizzy Gillespie, Don Bias, Clyde Hart, Oscar Pettiford, and Max Roach, together with Coleman. Let's listen to Coleman Hawkins, Woody and You.
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Dizzy Gillespie may be the name that most people think of when they think of jazz. His father was a band leader and he taught himself to play music at age four. He always loved jazz and played the trumpet in a series of jazz bands in the 1930s and 1940s. Now the jazz world was a tight community and the artists we featured on our show often collaborated, but Dizzy did burn one bridge with Cab Calloway, who was featured on our last jazz episode. The very dignified Calloway fired Dizzy, both due to Dizzy's insistence on performing wild solos and his temperament in picking fights with other band members. One time Dizzy stabbed Calloway in the leg. Now after being fired, Dizzy went on to play with other groups and formed his own band. He played in Hawkins Woody and You that we just heard and the next year 1945 recorded one of the greatest brass solos of all time with Salt Peanuts.
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Dizzy's band for "Salt Peanuts" included our next artist, Charlie Parker. But first, we need to hear how Dizzy helped bring a new source of inspiration into American jazz, namely African and Cuban music. He hired the great Cuban percussionist and composer, Chanel Pozzo, and teamed with numerous Latin jazz players. Let's listen to the 1947 track "Cubana Bop."
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By the 1950s, Dizzy had long lost his bad boy reputation. He was even recognized by the US State Department as the US Ambassador of Jazz, which sponsored an international tour. He continued playing and innovating until his death in 1993. Our next artist, Charlie Parker, was much more the tortured soul of jazz mythology. He struggled with alcoholism, heroin addiction, and mental illness all his life. We were already introduced to Charlie with Dizzy's Salt Peanuts. That same year of 1945, Parker put together a session for Savoy Records under the name Charlie Parker's Reboppers. The group included Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis on trumpet, Charlie Russell on bass, and Max Roach on drums. Now let's listen to 1945, "Coco."
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Later that same year, Parker was arrested in California after setting his hotel room on fire and running naked through the lobby, high on heroin. The next decade, Parker managed to record dozens of records while going in and out of rehab and drug and alcohol-induced manias until his death in 1955 at age 35. One of the most important works during that last decade was Mohawk, recorded in 1950. It featured Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk on piano, and Buddy Rich on drums.
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Dexter Gordon played tenor sax over his 40 year long career. He exhibited the hallmark of inserting melodies from other tunes into his solos. His father was one of the first African American doctors in Los Angeles and his patients included jazz giants, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton. Starting in the 1940s, Dexter Gordon played in Lionel Hampton, Fletcher Henderson and Louis Armstrong's bands. In 1945, he played with Dizzy Gillespie and between 1947 and 1952, he engaged in famous saxophone duels with Wardell Gray. These were documented in several records and in particular, “The Hunt”, which was a big influence on the beat writer, Jack Kerouac. Let's quote from the novel On The Road. "They ate voraciously as Dean, sandwich in hand, stood bowed and jumping before the big phonograph, listening to a wild bop record I had just bought called The Hunt with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray blowing their tops before a screaming audience that gave the record fantastic frenzied volume." Let's listen in now.
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Dexter's output declined during the 1950s because like Charlie Parker, he suffered from heroin addiction. However, his case had a happier ending. He cleaned himself up and starting in 1961, released a steady stream of albums. He spent 14 years in Europe, living and playing in Paris and Copenhagen. When he finally returned to the US, he was honored by the government with Dexter Gordon Day in Washington, D.C. and a National Endowment for the Arts Award for lifetime achievement. Let's listen to a tune from an album entitled "Our Man in Paris," recording when he was living in Paris in 1963. The song is a night in Tunisia. He's accompanied by Bud Powell, another artist we'll talk about today. The song was written by Dizzy Gillespie.
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Theolonious Monk was a great jazz composer and piano player. He grew up in New York City and started piano lessons at age six. He initially learned stride piano, the kind of piano playing that backed female blues singers like Ma Rainey. He also studied classical music before focusing exclusively on jazz. In the 1940s, he played many New York nightclubs and his first recorded sessions as a band leader were recorded at WOR radio station between 1947 and 1952. Let's listen to Thelonious Monk playing Thelonious from 1947.
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Monk's reputation with other musicians steadily grew, but sales remained poor. Critics regarded him as too difficult for mainstream listeners. They also criticized his piano touch and called it harsh and percussive. One critic called him an elephant on the keyboard. Hard to believe, given that beautiful song we just heard. His first big selling LP was in 1956. It included the ballad "Panonica," named after Baroness Panonica de Königswater, who was a close friend and patron of a number of New York jazz musicians. From 1956, the Theolonious Monk, Panonica.
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This is W-A-Y-O-L-P Rochester, and you're listening to "Roots of Jazz and Blues" with King Henry. Monk had a successful career, but suffered from badly treated mental illness, particularly during the last decade of his life, nursed by his wife and Baroness Panonica. Monk was good friends with another jazz pianist, Bud Powell. Like Monk, he had a lifelong struggle with mental illness that was poorly treated, including with shock therapy. But in his case, it was exacerbated by narcotics, beatings to the head by police, and more. He introduced musical innovations, including complex jazz harmonies and jazz phrasings. He was called the Charlie Parker of the Piano. His first great LP album was "Jazz Giant," issued in 1950. Let's listen to a track from that album, "Tempus Fugue It."
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In 1953, Powell, along with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach, performed a concert in Massey Hall, Toronto, one of the concerts that has been named the greatest jazz concert ever. The original album, "Jazz at Massey Hall," only contained the first half of the concert with the full quintet. The second half with the trio of Bud Powell, along with remaining two artists from today's show, Max Roach and Charles Mingus, was only released in 2002. Let's listen to a track from that second half, "Lullaby of Birdland."
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Our next artist, Max Roach, is considered by many to be the most important drummer in the history of jazz. He grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. He started playing jazz clubs as a teenager, and at age 19 appeared on several Coleman Hawkins records. He played in bands led by all of the other artists on today's show, except for Earl Hines. His "Drum Conversation" was part of that historic 1953 Jazz at Massey Hall concert, but that recording was of pretty poor quality. So let's listen to a version he recorded live in France in 1960.
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Roach was a huge innovator. For example, in 1957, he produced the album Jazz in 3/4 Time, which expanded bop rhythms using waltz rhythms and modalities. Let's listen to a track from that - “Blues Waltz”, Max Roach, 1957.
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Well, it's been a long show today, overstuffed with groundbreaking musicians, but I saved my favorite for last. You can't appreciate bop without understanding the role of the bass, and you can't understand the bass without listening to Charles Mingus. As a teenager, Mingus was already composing and performing with Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and Duke Ellington. By the 1950s, he was an established master of the bass. Listen now to his solo opening on "Jump Monk."
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Mingus initially studied classical music, but was discouraged by racial barriers in classical orchestras of the day. Still, he incorporated techniques from classical music into jazz. For example, treating the bass as a cello and bowing instead of plucking. In 1956, he produced the first concept album, "Pithecanthropus Erectus." This is a 10-minute tone poem, and I quote from album notes, "Depicting the rise of man from his hominid roots to an eventual downfall due to his own failure to realize the inevitable emancipation of those he sought to enslave and his greed in attempting to stand on a false security." So, the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was not at all the first concept album. So sit back for the next 10 minutes and have your mind blown. Then join me, King Henry, next episode for Urban Blues, and in two episodes from now, more bebop with hard bop.
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