Jeff Barnhart: You loyal followers of hot music and the dissection thereof will rejoice that musician and musicologist Dan Barrett again joins me with great insights, anecdotes, and expertise to continue our exploration of the final recording session of the Kansas City titan Bennie Moten and his Orchestra, featuring the pianistics of the Kid from Red Bank (NJ): the as-yet uncrowned Count Basie (at the time, still young Bill Basie). You casual dippers-of-ear-and-eye mustn’t fret; as with any good series, you need not have taken in the first installment to enjoy the second—although it (along with every article, review, cartoon and rant published herein) is perpetually available online to the general betterment of members of the discerning class.
Between the band’s April 1931 recording and the one from December 13, 1932, so much happened stylistically in the band. Part of this change was brought about by a significant shift in personnel. Trombonist Thamon Hayes left the Moten group in 1931 (taking with him almost half the band including trumpeters Ed Lewis and Booker Washington, reedsmen Harlan Leonard and Herman “Woody” Walder, and brass bassist Vernon Page) to form Thamon Hayes’ Kansas City Rockets.
Undeterred, Moten flipped the script, switching banjoist Leroy Berry permanently over to guitar and replacing tubist Vernon with Walter Page, former bandleader of The Blue Devils and a pioneer of the “walking” style of bass that would epitomize the sound of the 30’s and beyond. There would be no more clarinet trios as Eddie Barefield was the only clarinetist (doubling on alto sax); alto and baritone saxophonist Jack Washington abandoned clarinet and Ben Webster came on board armed with all he needed: the tenor saxophone that he’d ride to stardom! With three trumpets, two trombones, and three reeds backed by a rhythm section of piano, guitar, double bass, and drums, the newly-outfitted Moten Orchestra was among the first groups to explore what would become the archetypal “Big Band” sound.
We’ll start by listening to the band’s interpretation of a Rodgers and Hart chestnut, “Blue Room” (herein entitled “The Blue Room”). While there’s no such thing as a bad Rodgers and Hart tune, I’d not found this one to be one of my favorites until I heard this side. Dan, welcome! What do you think of this recording?
Dan Barrett: Hello, Jeff! I hope your travels have been fun and rewarding. I’m finally home for a bit, and glad to be able to continue our discussion of the great Moten band, and several of the band’s recordings.
Whether one thinks “The Blue Room” is a great composition, a real dog, or somewhere in between, one can’t argue it’s been around for decades. It continues to be discovered by younger performers and their audiences.
The song itself is one of several which Richard Rodgers composed using a songwriting device that served him well over the years. Without getting too technical about it, any listener should be able to tell that the song starts with a lower note, followed by a higher one. Then, it drops back down to the same lower note. The next note is a full step higher than the previous higher one. Then it’s back down to the same lower note, and up to a note still higher than the one before. The higher notes form a diatonic scale (“Do-re-mi…”), anchored by the repetitive lower note. That lower “anchor” note, and the scale created by the upper line, make the song easier to sing; hence, its popularity.
Other melodies by Rodgers that come to mind which employ this effective device (or a similar approach) are: “The Surrey With The Fringe On Top” and “Johnny One Note.”
Moten’s treatment of “The Blue Room” must have come as a shock to those who only knew the song from its life on Broadway; it would have been performed quite “straight” there. (It’s said that Rodgers didn’t enjoy hearing his songs “jazzed up.” If he ever heard this version of “The Blue Room,” he must have had a conniption fit!)
The side opens without any introduction: the saxes just start swinging, loosely paraphrasing the melody for the first sixteen measures. The brass section joins them at the bridge. The arranger here—almost certainly the great Eddie Durham—introduces some “off-beat” writing that presages the Swing Era.
The saxes return to finish the chorus.
Next up is trumpeter Hot Lips Page, playing a typically hot muted solo. The saxes provide rich support, their heat turned down to a low smolder.
Although I’ve heard this record many times over the years, I hadn’t previously noticed the “chimes” effect Basie uses during Page’s solo. It’s interesting, and its simplicity works well. However, it also unfortunately makes very clear just how out of tune the piano was at this session. Like, wow! Fingernails-on-the-chalkboard time.
Jeff, do you ever use this type of “chimes” effect in your performances?
JB: I love what I’d call Basie’s “bell chords,” which became a favorite device for pianists after King Oliver’s terrific “Chimes Blues.” I enjoy using them to accent bassists’ solos, giving a reference for what to an average audience might seem an abstract moment in the selection.
DB: Regarding Basie’s piano accompaniment on “The Blue Room,” I hadn’t made the connection with “Chimes Blues.” Good point! Of course, you’re right. Those King Oliver sides were popular with most jazz musicians of the time, and especially the cats in the southwest. For instance, I think Hot Lips Page must have spent many hours studying and playing along with Oliver and Armstrong. Certain references show up in his playing from time to time.
The next chorus features Ben Webster. After sixteen bars of Webster’s wonderful, Southwestern-style tenor sax work, a funny thing happens. Clarinetist Eddie Barefield comes in at the bridge, while the brass play the melody. With all due respect, I must point out that he hits a woefully wrong note, and then just…backs way off! A few measures later, having gotten it together, he comes in again at the top of the ensuing chorus, riding over the other horns. So, despite the “clam” he played at his first entrance, I think the real reason he suddenly backed off so much was because he realized he’d entered at the wrong spot! (Maybe he skipped a line in a hastily-copied page of music, or had forgotten a quick oral instruction given just before they started recording. Things like this do happen at sessions.)
JB: I agree with you Barefield’s was likely a “wrong entrance:” arrangers of Durham’s—and Barefield’s—caliber wouldn’t use the same clarinet-over-the-ensemble trope in two different places so closely together). The band keeps on truckin’ though!
DB: Right! Note that Webster returns for the last eight bars, seemingly unperturbed by it all, while the brass and other saxes revert to that swinging off-beat stuff behind him.
Then, each of the final three choruses is Louis Armstrong-inspired. This reinforces my opinion that the arrangement is indeed by Eddie Durham. Like his colleague Fletcher Henderson, Durham’s arranging—especially the rhythmic phrasing he wrote for the horns—was grounded in the swinging rhythms and stylistic devices and ideas that made Louis Armstrong such a huge influence on every jazz musician of that era, and after.
The final chorus starts with a riff that’s rhythmically identical to what Armstrong plays near the end of his colossal recording of “St. Louis Blues,” made three years before. Kansas City isn’t that far from New Orleans, in more ways than one.
Along the way, we’re treated to a brief, flying-fingers alto sax solo (Barefield), and another bridge by Hot Lips Page, who seems happy to stay in the Armstrong groove.
The unpredictable ending reminds me of that old joke about why spelling “banana” is so difficult: you don’t know where to stop!
Even with the out-of-tune piano, and the rather hapless clarinet, this is still an exciting recording. Jeff, what do you have to say here?
JB: Dan, you beautifully covered this side, so I’ll only comment on some highlights for me. I love how Rodgers’ melody is only hinted at until the brass provide it on the bridge of the third chorus. The final two outchoruses leave me breathless; the last eight bars of the final chorus turn into fourteen as the brass figure doubles in time at bar five and the band keeps that up for the final four bars and an extra six! Spectacular playing met virtuosic arranging and the world (at least mine) would never be the same!
The next side, “Imagination,” is neither saxophonist Fud Livingston’s novelty piano piece from 1927, nor (obviously) the swinging ballad created in 1940 by song-writing team Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen. Rather, this haunting tune features some Djangoesque/Lang-like figures from guitarist Eddie Durham as well as the Sterling Russell Trio (vocalist/composer Sterling Russell with vocalists Hamilton Stewart and Clifton Armstrong) beautifully navigating multi-syllabic lyrics and complex harmonies.
This song stays with you long after you’ve first heard it. The vocal verse is accompanied by only guitar and string bass. The band takes a back seat here, simply playing long tone figures behind the vocal chorus. An interlude introduced by the ensemble quickly gives way to Durham’s poignant chord arpeggiations. Next, the brass play the melody, the reeds have a gentle rhythmic figure, Durham obligates throughout, and the trio alternates between long-tones on the sound “Aah” and solo scat improv, presumably executed by Sterling Russell, as is the solo vocal bridge and final eight bars of the song. A barbershop-like tag rounds out this mysterious beauty. Dan, this single-day session is remarkable not for the incredibly high quality throughout but also for the variety. The band somehow found time to record this unusual song, complete with visiting vocal trio; there’s no indication the singers were part of the touring ensemble. Dan, what do you hear here?
DB: Hear, hear!! I agree with you that “Imagination” is “haunting.” It’s one of those recordings that’s both strange and wonderful. Eddie Durham sets the mood with his mysterious, “groovy” guitar introduction. Then, the vocal trio comes in, and sings for a full minute and forty-five seconds—more than half the record!
The horns play a very brief (one measure) exclamation. It’s as though someone opened a door, and a band is swinging in the next room. Then, the door suddenly closes again!
This serves to set up a second brief solo by the mega-talented Eddie Durham. (He was a wonderful guitarist, but also played solid trombone, and composed and arranged many iconic pieces of the Swing Era, including memorable charts for the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra.) This second guitar solo is an unusual five measures long, and serves as a “palate-cleanser”—a little breathing room—before the vocal trio returns.
The trio sings a descending line, based on the harmony to Irving Berlin’s very popular song, “Blue Skies.” The saxes play an arpeggiated figure behind them, adding interest to the trio’s simple whole-note phrase.
After that, dig the scat singing! The singer gives us some pretty hot “double-time” stuff. (“Double-time” is an exciting rhythmic device wherein the soloist—instrumental or vocal—implies a tempo twice as fast as the actual tempo. It takes skill, technique, and a bit of “planning ahead.”). As I listened to the terrific scat singing, the timbre and overall “style” reminded me of Cab Calloway. The solo vocalist brings the proceedings to a close, joined at the very end by his buddies and a closing chord by the band.
My final thought about this unusual side is that the vocal trio probably had their parts rehearsed and “set” prior to the date, and that the band arrangement was added later. The band doesn’t have much to do here; the piece is all about the singers. In fact, the band’s contribution is minimal enough that the chart (such as it is) could have been sketched out the night before. Again, this is just a guess.
JB: Dan, the next tune is a standard still today: Hoagy Carmichael’s immortal “New Orleans.” Moten’s Orch. and Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orch. were the first two groups to record it although neither release was a commercial success, perhaps because they were both conceptualized as bouncy fox-trots. There are some riches to mine here, though. Beautiful trumpet tone on the melody leads into organ chords from the horns underneath Ben Webster’s angular solo. The next chorus features Jimmy Rushing’s stentorian (yet lovely) vocal and the highlight for me is Hot Lips Page’s muted solo under long tones from the reeds (with Walter Page’s bass and the brushes of drummer Willie McWashington prominent in the mix). The final chorus has a nice horn riff backing Eddie Barefield’s clarinet solo that includes a bit of the growl we associate with Pee Wee Russell. A brief tag once again bringing Webster to the fore gently closes this side.
DB: I first heard this great Hoagy Carmichael song when I was in high school, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The late cornetist Al Crowne used to play and sing it with the South Frisco Jazz Band. I’ve heard it—and played it—probably thousands of times since then. I still like it!
Another departed artist, composer-pianist-singer Dave Frishberg once told me about a time he was talking with fellow composer Johnny Mandel, who composed many beautiful songs, including “The Shadow Of Your Smile” for the film The Sandpiper. Frishberg asked Johnny about Carmichael’s iconic song. He said Mandel looked a little sheepish. I’ll paraphrase Johnny’s reply, based on what Dave told me.
Johnny admitted, “I’d known Hoagy’s song, ’New Orleans,’ for years, and loved it. It wasn’t until after The Sandpiper premiered in the theaters that I heard the similarity the beginning of my song shared with the opening few notes of ‘New Orleans.’ I was very happy— and relieved—that the similarity ended there!”
Moten’s record is a feast! The nice intro sets the table. The first chorus is played by one of the trumpeters; either Dee Stewart or Joe Keyes; it isn’t Hot Lips Page. Ben Webster’s four bars in the middle foreshadow his own brilliant solo in the next chorus.
In his solo chorus on tenor sax, Webster really takes the tune apart, and shakes all the pieces at the end. Like every other tenor sax player worth his salt in those days before Lester Young rose to prominence, Webster shows the strong influence of Coleman Hawkins, but is already finding his own identity.
Next, the band’s vocalist Jimmy Rushing takes center stage. Rushing had a long career: He toured and recorded as both a sideman and leader all through the 1950s and ’60s, into the ’70s. He can be seen in the very special TV show from 1957, called The Sound Of Jazz. His performances during the show are exciting and moving.
So here he is early on in his career, singing with the exaggerated diction that vocalists employed to make their lyrics understood in the last rows of large theaters and dance halls, long before amplification. (Microphones—and electrical recording—were de rigeur by 1932, but many singers—including Rushing—clung to the earlier approach.)
Rushing sings with something like “gusto.” Also, note how accurately he negotiates the rather hard-to-sing intervals which begin the song. (Rushing was also a professional-level pianist. In between band gigs, he would play solo gigs at clubs around Kansas City, accompanying himself as he sang. Naturally, knowing the keyboard helped him a great deal when he had to learn a new tune.)
Jeff, have you seen that 1960s video of Rushing being interviewed by Ralph Gleason? Rushing sits at the piano, and plays a few things. He also accompanies himself as he sings. What’s your take on his piano playing?
JB: Dan, I’d not seen this, and an entire column could be written on just this episode alone of Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual. In fact, let’s do just that together in the future, if you’d agree? All I’ll say for now is I enjoyed Rushing’s playing; he perfectly accompanies himself as he ALWAYS knows what the vocalist is going to do!
DB: The next chorus reveals why we didn’t hear the band’s star trumpet soloist earlier. They were saving him for the next chorus!
Lips Page plays a soulful muted solo, sounding very much like he did later on. His style didn’t really change as much as it deepened. He knew who he was, and what he was about, very early on.
Also, note how bassist Walter Page moves easily from two-beat to four-four. He plays in four behind soloists Webster and Page, and stays in four for the last chorus. (Whenever the rhythm section shifts to four-four, especially behind Lips, it sounds and feels like the way guys played several years later).
Clarinetist Eddie Barefield follows Lips, riding over the band’s final chorus with an attractively acidic tone. The band plays something resembling the melody, but arranged in the choppy style that came and went in the very early 1930s. Lots of triplets, and staccato notes. For better or worse, by the later 1930s, all this had been streamlined. (Except for Hal Kemp’s band. It somehow missed the update.)
The side ends with a marvelous cadenza by Ben Webster, sounding more like early Coleman Hawkins here than I’ve ever heard him. By 1936, he was invited to record with Duke Ellington’s band, and there one can hear him coming into his own. He continued to refine his very personal style, but he’d already found his identity by the time these sides were made; he played beautifully with Moten’s band, and he brings this terrific Moten side to a most satisfying conclusion. Such a great player!!
JB: Our final side is “The Only Girl I Ever Loved,” again featuring guitar work by Eddie Durham and vocals by the Sterling Russell trio. It would’ve been fun to hear a side with them backing Jimmy Rushing! The reeds introduce the melody for the first eight bars with brass punctuations and then Basie owns the following eight bars, sounding more influenced by Earl “Fatha” Hines then by his stride heroes. Reeds back for the bridge lead to a straight trombone statement of the melody. Eddie Durham’s guitar interlude takes us to an instrumental rendering of what I assume is the verse. The next chorus presents the vocal trio with clever lyrics and tight harmony.
Ensemble 4’s alternating first with alto sax and then with clarinet take us to the bridge where Ben Webster takes over, a final ensemble eight bars and tag lead us out. The tag is great; after Page’s final bass note, the band builds a wavery “pyramid chord,” at once paying homage to a flash-in-the-pan effect popular in the late 1920s but bringing it forward in time with their tone and their voicings.
DB: Jeff, before I comment on this final recording, let’s thank Andy Senior for giving us this platform, where we could discuss some of our favorite jazz records. Thanks, Andy!
This is another outstanding recording by the Moten aggregation. Again, we have those Camden, New Jersey, sound engineers to thank for the clear recording quality and the natural balance of all the instruments. The recording is so good, in fact, that one can hear just how out of tune that poor piano was! It’s been the only recurring flaw in this legendary 1932 session. We can only sally forth, just like the band itself did at the studio.
I suspect Eddie Durham wrote this “modern” arrangement. The swinging, off-beat writing made me think of what he wrote just a couple of years later for the Jimmie Lunceford band. Not enough is said about Durham’s influence on the years that became known as the “Swing Era.” Don Redman; Gene Gifford (Glen Gray’s early arranger); Fletcher and Horace Henderson; Jimmy Mundy; and Durham were just a few of the leading arrangers who brought the Roaring ’20s into the Swinging ’30s. Durham’s importance can’t be stressed enough.
After a harmonically-interesting introduction (lots of chromatic ninth chords and other juicy stuff going on), the saxes “give out” with the melody. The brass play off-beat punctuations in the style of Fletcher Henderson’s later writing. Listen to the first ending, at the end of the first eight bars. That’s a hip, swinging figure the brass play, just before Basie continues the melody on his…uh… over-ripe piano.
(A FREE TIP TO BUDDING JAZZ ARRANGERS: write most of your figures OFF of the beat! Marching bands can play ON the beat, but jazz bands shouldn’t; unless for some reason you want your jazz band to sound like a marching band.)
Here, as you pointed out, Jeff, Basie’s playing in the style of Earl “Fatha” Hines (dig the octave tremolo). Hines was as much of an influence upon pianists of the day as Louis Armstrong was upon trumpet players.
The saxes return for the attractive, minor-key bridge, then trombonist Dan Minor finishes the first chorus with a yeoman-like solo. Durham plays the brief guitar bit just after the trombone solo, setting up the minor-key “verse.” Then, we’re back to major-key happiness, and the Sterling Russell Trio sings the cute, busy little melody in three-part harmony (think, “The Boswell Brothers.”)
If you can, listen to this side again and focus on Basie’s playing behind the singers. He really opens up here, and his liberal fills and other accompanying phrases almost form a solo of his own behind them. It sounds as though Basie is going to town here, and I for one am glad he did.
After the vocal chorus, Basie plays an off-beat figure that helps to set up the arranged, off-beat phrase that the horns play when they enter. Four bars later, there’s an alto sax solo. I think it’s Jack Washington, another unsung hero of early jazz. He played alto and baritone saxes, and his strong playing on the latter anchored the sax section of the classic 1930s Count Basie Orchestra. He was also an exciting improviser.
In the next eight bars, the brass plays full, shouting “blue” chords and low unison saxes state the melody for four measures, just before Eddie Barefield’s clarinet solo.
The band’s tenor sax star, Ben Webster, takes the bridge. The bridge ends with Hot Lips Page playing a few exciting rising notes, lifting the band into the last eight bars.
Those last measures begin with a swinging reference to “Moten Swing,” and end with a solo trumpet smacking out eight solid quarter notes right on the beat before his final two concluding notes.
(Yes, I know: earlier, I directed “budding arrangers” to write OFF-the-beat. Yet, here’s a cat playing right on the downbeats! What gives? Well, please listen to the other horns UNDER that solo trumpet. They’re all OFF the beat, creating an exciting tension. So, there you go.)
I love the ending! As Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over!” The different sections—and a couple of soloists—keep stacking layers of harmony until the final chord, finally ending on a “modern” thirteenth chord. That ending wasn’t really for the foot-stompers. I think it was more for the musicians. It’s a humorous, unexpected ending.
JB: And this is where we end! Dan, see you next month to conclude our Bennie Moten story!!
