Billie and Duke on the great jazz reissues
Slowly, sometimes too slowly, the reissue projects of the two major labels (RCA Victor and Columbia) produce the great jazz discs from the era of the 78 rpm record, long out of print but still glowing works of art.
(And where, one may ask, is Decca? Mercury? Capitol? With the material they have, or should still have in their archives, and where are the Charlie Parker discs and the Fats Navarro discs from Verve which bought out Norman Granz’s catalogue years ago?)
However, let us be grateful for our blessings, and three recent releases are most certainly blessings. They are: “Billie Holiday’s Greatest Hits” (Columbia CL 36686): “The Panassie Sessions” (RCA Victor LPT 542) and “Johnny Come Lately,” Duke Ellington (RCA Victor LVP 541). The Holiday album contains 11 tracks, six of which are available in the “Billie Holiday, The Golden Years” ... and five of which are available on “Lady Day” (Columbia CL 637).
The chief attraction of this package is that it makes the first six tracks available on a single LP rather than as part of the big, three-album package project, and that the album offers a lovely photograph of a young Billie Holiday on the cover and some interesting notes by Timmie Rosenkrantz, the Danish jazz fan and writer who espoused the jazz world in the midthirties . ...
In addition, I suppose, the record business being the McLuhan-esque thing it is, the mere fact that these tracks are repackaged and issued again will gain them an additional, larger audience, just because they are up there on the record racks like a new release. And that’s all to the good.
Billie Holiday was without peer as a jazz singer. Rosenkrantz calls her “the jazz voice of our century” and he may be right. He is certainly perceptive when he describes her singing as “biting into the ‘secret places’ of her listeners, tearing at their nerve ends, pulling every lonely soul beside her down some dark and lonely street.”
It was that, all right, and a great deal more. No other jazz singer has ever approached Billie Holiday for pure art. That she should breathe life into the silly commonplace, banal pop songs of her time was astounding. But it was true.
No singer alive today should deny himself or herself the opportunity to hear records, just as all flamenco singers must listen to La Nina de los Peines.
The Panassie Sessions make available 16 tracks from the sessions the French critic Hugues Panassie recorded for the RCA Victor subsidiary, Bluebird, in 1938.
They include the last recordings of the great New Orleans trumpet player Tommy Ladnier, some remarkable work by clarinetist and soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, and some excellent playing by the minor figure in jazz trumpet, Frankie Newton. Three of the 16 tracks feature Newton, the rest feature Ladnier, and Bechet is present on four of the numbers . ...
One of the reasons that Bechet, Ladnier, Armstrong, Oliver and the other New Orleans musicians of the early days were in New York and Chicago by the end of the ’30s is that they were the best ones and could get out. Those who remained, no matter what soulful music they might make, were still and are not the remnants of a great tradition.
Ladnier and Bechet were a great team, driving, swinging, stimulating. The rhythm sections on all of the dates were shaky but the solos by Ladnier, Bechet and on the last tracks, by Frankie Newton, were excellent. The clarinetist Milt Mezzrow (who wrote the great book, “Really the Blues”) plays on most of the album and he was a much more interesting historian and sociologist than a jazz player. But his real role, if jazz legend has it right, was the provider of Mighty Mezz (old slang for marijuana) in the golden days of its legality.
“Johnny Come Lately” is a collection of 15 sides by the Duke Ellington orchestra in 1942, 1944 and 1945. It was a great period for the Ellington band (which has had many great periods, all adding up to a great history) and there is much great and charming music here. Included in it is an interesting (and rare) version of “Prelude to a Kiss” which has baritonist Harry Carney playing in the solo role usually held by Johnny Hodges; the Ellington three-girl trio ( Joya Sherrill, Kay Davis and Marie Ellington) singing “It Don’t Mean a Thing” (one of the deepest philosophical statements to emanate from jazz) and Ray Nance’s cut “Otto, Make that Riff Staccato” vocal.
In addition, there is a good deal of beautiful solo playing by Carney, Hodges, Nance, Ellington himself and other players. “Caravan,” that timeless composition, has a lovely bit by Nance on violin, and there are great versions of both “Moon Mist” and “C Jam Blues” with Beu Webster’s solo.
“California Dreaming,” Wes Montgomery (Verve V-V68672). This is a beautiful album, as is just about every single one Wes Montgomery has ever made. This one has Wes working out on a group of lyrical numbers including the lovely title song, “Sunny,” “Oh, You Crazy Moon” and several originals by Wes and pianist Herbie Hancock . ...
This column originally appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle May 14, 1967.