Halfway through CD 3, which is given over to the protean Mel Powell, comes his Sonatina for Piano, nestled between the likes of “You’re Lucky to Me” and “Makin’ Whoopee.” The piece was included on the original Vanguard ten-inch LP release, an album titled Mel Powell Septet, the septet in question also including Buck Clayton, Henderson Chambers, Edmond Hall, Steve Jordan, Walter Page, and Jimmy Crawford, recorded at the end of 1953. High-powered players, and they really dig in on the four tracks where they’re included.
Of course they do. Powell was revered by the jazz community at this point in his career, acknowledging his dynamic jazz piano playing, composing, and arranging, most notably with Benny Goodman in the late 1930s—at which point Powell was still in his ’teens. His earliest piano studies were in the classical realm, but a performance by Teddy Wilson so astonished him that he veered into jazz, with outstanding results. Powell’s Army stint during World War II put him in Glenn Miller’s Army-Air Force Band; while in liberated Paris at the end of the war, the French-fluent Powell sat in with Django Reinhardt and visited the Bibliotheque Nationale’s Debussy archive, celebrating one of Powell’s all-time heroes and inspiring his composition Duplicates: A Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1990.
You can see Powell in the 1948 film A Song Is Born, a vehicle for the always-annoying Danny Kaye but which contains a fantastic jazz sequence in which the incredibly youthful-looking Powell is joined by Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Louis Bellson, and the Golden Gate Quartet. But it won’t prepare you for this Sonatina.
Powell studied with Paul Hindemith and became a devotee of Arnold Schoenberg, two composers whose music I especially enjoy. The three-movement Sonatina bridges Powell’s Hindemith-inspired neo-classical voice and Schoenbergian serialism. The outer movements dance; the middle is a chorale with variations. It’s beautifully structured and repeated listening will loosen an emotional impact that lurks beneath the challenging surface.
It’s immediately followed by “Borderline,” another Powell original, this time in a trio setting with Paul Quinichette and Bobby Donaldson. The harmonies in this piece are sonorous but no less adventurous in their own way, and Quinichette is right at home, his Lester Young-like approach well-complementing this three-and-a-half-minute bop-rich journey. Which means that when they next sail into “Makin’ Whoopee,” you’re ready for anything—and that’s good. Powell’s piano intro sounds at first like a frenzied “Tiger Rag” but slows into a comfortable bed for Quinichette’s easygoing exploration of the tune, Donaldson keeping a propulsive beat going on drums.
This is part of Mosaic Records’ six-CD Classic Vanguard Jazz Piano Sessions, the promised follow-up to their Classic Vanguard Small Group Swing Sessions set, both of them wonderful collections of material John Hammond produced during his brief stint with a label also known for Bach cantatas, Joan Baez, and P.D.Q. Bach. Recorded in the mid-1950s in a benevolent hall, the sound quality is as glorious here as we found in the previous set, and that’s saying something—recording a piano is the acid test of an audio technician.
Jazz Piano Sessions is a deceptive title here, as there’s only one solo-piano session out of the ten herein included. But what a session! Bobby Henderson, underused, undersung, and, too often, unable to be found, lays down ten tracks as a Fats Waller tribute, offering tunes written by or associated with the master as well as a Henderson original, the nearly ten-minute “Blues for Fats,” a deceptively nuanced tribute. Henderson had a wicked stride and an absorbing ability to develop a solo. Producer Hammond had known Henderson for a couple of decades, reaching back to when Henderson worked with Billie Holiday. This 1956 session now remains as one of few items in the Henderson discography.
Hammond’s brief association with Maynard and Seymour Solomon, who founded Vanguard, is detailed in Thomas Cunniffe’s excellent notes, following up on his notes to he earlier set. He’s the force behind the website Jazz History Online, a site well worth checking out for more of Cunniffe’s insights. The trail of wealthy jazz fan Hammond carried him into significant cities and recording studios as he propelled the careers of Count Basie, among many, many others—a list that eventually would include Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.
The Mel Powell Septet recordings described above were made during the earliest of the ten sessions offered here. The following January, (which means 1954), Sir Charles Thompson brought a quartet into the studio. We already heard from Thompson on the Small Group Swing Sessions set, where he’s captured with Coleman Hawkins and Joe Newman, among others; here, he starts out with Basie’s rhythm section—Freddie Green, Walter Page, and Jo Jones—with a quartet of standards including “Honeysuckle Rose” and “Sweet Georgia Brown.” “The fidelity on this session is breathtaking,” writes Cunniffe, but I’d accuse him here of understatement. This 70-year-old mono recording sounds better than many a recent recording, gaining much from its simplicity. A single microphone was the order of the day, strategically placed in the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, where these sessions took place.
Thompson’s first set kicks off with “Swingtime in the Rockies,” and if you’re accustomed (as I am) to a big-band version, you’ll be impressed at how well this number eases into a small-group setting while losing none of its swing. Thompson returns with a session recorded thirteen months later, this time as part of a trio that included Skeeter Best and Aaron Bell. It’s Sir Charles all the way with the first number, “Sonny Howard’s Blues,” giving us some deft boogie-woogie to start, soon adding R&B accents and then a full-blown quote from Meade Lux Lewis’s “Yancey Special.”
As the next number, “Best by Test,” was recorded, Hammond mustn’t have been paying attention, because this is a solid piece of bop (which Hammond hated) with guitarist Best virtuosically going to town. (I love the unexpected “Louise” quote.) And what a mixed bag it is that follows! From the Broadway (and Rosemary Clooney) hit “Hey There” to Cole Porter’s once-naughty “Love for Sale,” from another Goodman number, “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” to the froth of “Mr. Sandman,” all with Thompson’s powerful left hand making this trio sound much more populated. One of the luxuries of these early-in-the-long-playing-era sessions was the lack of time limitation. Hammond advised his musicians to play as long as they wished, and both “Hey There” and “Love for Sale” hover around the six-minute mark—and do so with no flagging of energy or interest.
It’s difficult to resist ranking the components of an anthology like this, what with the too-human tendency to play favorites. My favorite session here keeps shifting, and no doubt will continue to do so. I’m grateful that Powell gets the real estate here that he does; even the exclusion of his Vanguard album Bandstand leaves no regrettable hole. So Powell wins my top spot as long as I’m enjoying discs three and four, which are given over to various Powell configurations. There’s the aforementioned septet, then there’s the trio session with Quinichette and Donaldson—and that one includes what Cunniffe terms “another of Powell’s funereal ballads,” which I find unfair. He’s referring to “What’s New.” It’s slow, yes, but listen for that scent of Ravel in the intro and the avant-garde harmonies that inform the rest of it. But then “Cross Your Heart” swoops in, a thickly-textured stride number that agin reminds us of Powell’s multiple abilities.
We get Ruby Braff on two of the subsequent Powell sessions, first as part of a trio with Donaldson that laid down eight songs. Braff had everything—wonderful tone, inventive approach, take-on-anything chops—and thus was as at home in the challenging Powell originals like “Thigamagig” and “Bouquet” as he was in vintage standards like “Button Up Your Overcoat,” “Ain’t She Sweet,” and (channeling his inner Louis), “California, Here I Come.”
“You’re My Thrill” starts with an Ellington-esque cadenza before Donaldson escorts us into Braff’s rendition of the familiar melody.
The Septet/Quintet session that closes the Powell contributions put a powerhouse assembly into the studio for what must have been a long day in 1955, resulting in an LP titled Out on a Limb. The septet comprised Al Mattaliano on trumpet, clarinetist Peanuts Hucko, tenor sax player Nick Caiazza, guitarist Tommy Kay, and Arnold Fishkin and Bobby Donaldson on bass and drums alongside Powell. They make the texture of “Stompin’ at the Savoy” sound slightly Shearing-esque, even without any vibes, because it’s so charmingly relaxed.
Powell’s meditative intro to “When Your Lover Has Gone” sets up another Ballad-along-the-Seine venture until Debussy yields to a more up-tempo byplay. The LP side ended with “Cooch,” a Powell original showing that even what could have been a straight-ahead bop tune can have its harmony and rhythm tugged out of whack here and there.
Donaldson is back for the quintet sides, but now it’s Braff, Best, and Oscar Pettiford rounding out the ensemble. Powell gives us a Jess Stacy impression on “Beale Street Blues” before Braff sounds some natty blues licks.
Eubie Blake’s “You’re Lucky to Me,” often presented as a ballad, here gets a medium-tempo swing with (not surprisingly) bop accents. There’s a good clip to “Liza,” as you’d expect, and listen for Donaldson’s delightful, straight-ahead solo before Braff returns to play against Powell’s punchiness. You’d think that would be the closer, but a brief, easygoing “Rosetta” claims that spot, and, even more surprisingly, it features only a trio with Braff at the forefront.
Which is a harbinger of the last two discs in this box. They’re devoted to two long sessions from 1955, pairing Braff with pianist Ellis Larkins. And as soon as I get to these discs in my listening, they become the favorites. There’s something oddly naked about trumpet and piano holding forth with no other rhythm behind them, but these two musicians shape each and every song with a richness that suggests a much larger combo.
We heard Sir Charles Thompson’s “Love for Sale” earlier, with its excellent byplay between piano and guitar; Larkins sets up a contrasting feeling, threading syncopation behind Braff’s jaunty journey through the melody (he clearly knows the lyrics), and then, as is his habit, Larkins veers a solo chorus into a contrasting direction, goosing the bridge with stride. Most of the standards chosen for this February session were venerable even in 1955, with Bing Crosby alone covering “I’ve Got a Pocketful of Dreams,” “I’ve Got the World on a String,” and “Please” in the 1930s, and “When a Woman Loves a Man” (not the one associated with Lee Roy Parnell) recorded by Joey Nash in 1934. Nice to hear “Old Folks” without its detestable lyrics, and the session-concluding “Skylark” simply soars.
“You Are Too Beautiful” is also part of that session, and it presages the final disc, a twelve-track tribute to Rodgers & Hart recorded in October 1955. I’m still trying to figure out what makes it so unexpectedly satisfying. Of course there are the tunes, each of them a solid standard and therefore already familiar. But there’s also a late-night looseness that suggests that the duo is counting on you to know the tunes well enough to enjoy these explorations all the more.
“My Funny Valentine,” which starts off the album, includes the little-known verse. That song became a standard without it, which is typical, but the verse sets up the premise that, despite his many imperfections, Val Lamar is still loved by Billie Smith (“Thou noble, upright, truthful, sincere / And slightly dopey gent,”) and the refrain celebrates those flaws (“Your looks are laughable / Unphotographable.”) Larkins dives into that verse, again clearly familiar with the lyrics, before Braff enters on the refrain with enough of a sardonic edge to suggest that he, too, knows what the song is really about. Integral to the plot of “Babes in Arms,” where it first appeared, the song got a slot in the film version of “Pal Joey,” where it doesn’t belong. It was a hit for Chet Baker, of course, but I’ll put Braff’s performance up there at the top as well.
Another “Babes in Arms” standards is “Where or When,” again finding Larkins on the verse and Braff joining him for the refrain. The first two sections of the refrain take you on a climb, the bridge gives a rest, and then the final twelve bars go stratospheric. The reliably snooty Alec Wilder found the song “monotonous” and the finish of it “a contrivance,” but the affecting melodic line suits the song’s sentiment and inspires Braff to lead us on a tuneful journey through his horn’s upper reaches.
There are similar joys throughout, including Braff’s muted “My Romance,” Larkins’ joyful rolling through a chorus of “You Took Advantage of Me,” and the inner melancholy of the ballad “Little Girl Blue.” “The Girl Friend,” which closes the collection, comes from a 1926 show of the same title, and its then-sassy, now-misogynistic lyrics are best ignored.
Whether you already know any or all of the players whom you’ll find within this set, after a journey or two through its fun and surprises, you’ll be hooked. And please give Powell’s Sonatina a second chance.
Classic Vanguard Jazz Piano Sessions
Various Artists
mosaicrecords.com
B.A. Nilsson is a freelance writer and actor who lives in rural New York. His interest in vintage jazz long predates his marriage to a Paul Whiteman relative, and greatly helped in winning her affections.
