DOWNBEAT: THE GREAT JAZZ. INTERVIEWS. A 75th Anniversary Anthology,
edited by Frank. Alkyer and Ed Enright. Published by Hal Leonard. 340 pp; pb ...
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Reviews DOWNBEAT: THE GREAT JAZZ INTERVIEWS
Jelly Roll Morton, ‘inventor of jazz’
commentators, from Loren Schoenberg to Jim Godbolt, are mentioned as having an antipathy towards the idea. Nevertheless Gerber persisted, to the extent that the chapter devoted to Shaw, and the many comments by Schoenberg, go a long way to make Jazz Jews important to the historian and committed jazz listener.
A 75th Anniversary Anthology, edited by Frank Alkyer and Ed Enright. Published by Hal Leonard. 340 pp; pb; illus. ISBN 978-1-4234-6384-9
This is a large paperback (11 by 81⁄2 inches) and the many impressive photographs included are therefore sensibly large as well. The editors decided to concentrate as much as possible on the words of the musicians themselves and though some articles are not strictly speaking interviews they still contain plenty of the subject’s own memories and opinions. The dozen selections from the 30s feature Armstrong, Ellington, Basie and Goodman as well as Jelly Roll Morton’s historic letter attacking W.C. Handy and claiming that he personally invented jazz. Moving into the 40s we find a memoir of King Oliver dating back to 1936 alongside Willie The Lion and Thelonious Monk as well as, of course, Pres, Bird and Diz. The latter two are presented consecutively and Dizzy disagrees with his fellow pioneer over bop’s links with earlier forms of jazz and insists on the need for a steady beat that dancers can relate to. Pieces from the 40s add up to another dozen but the 50s and 60s are represented by over 40 different musicians, some of whom (Armstrong, Ellington, Goodman et al) have been heard from before while others are important swing-era musicians sustaining their careers (Hawkins, Eldridge) and still others are expanding the boundaries (Tristano, Coltrane, Dolphy and Ornette Coleman). Particularly interesting are the comments on the latter made by Mingus. (I won’t try to summarise them but the overall verdict was definitely positive.) Mingus has his own piece in the 70s but by then Downbeat was starting to cover the rock scene and we find Captain Beefheart and Stevie Wonder alongside Roland Kirk and Dexter Gordon as well as a man whose career stretched back to the 20s – Milt Hinton. By the 80s the stylistic net stretches wider with Clark Terry representing the old guard and Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill speaking up for the avant-garde. In between them is the first black revivalist, Wynton Marsalis, while Brian Eno and Carlos Santana represent something more commercial.
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In the 90s Rollins and Milt Jackson get a chance to express themselves and so do Van Morrison and Dr. John. The current decade looks back with the aged Hank Jones and Dave Brubeck and takes in B.B. King and James Brown (as well as Elvis Costello) with only Jason Moran and Dave Douglas pointing to possible routes forward. As the total number of separate pieces is 110 there are clearly more names unmentioned than those I’ve picked out. It follows from the above that there’s far more in the book than these few paragraphs can cover and many pages would be needed for a detailed review. Not everything is of equal interest but overall I can recommend this compendium very strongly. Every now and then you can come across something intriguing and I’ll give a single example. In 1959 Roy Eldridge told Dan Morgenstern he’d completed his autobiography but no American publisher would touch it because it was too outspoken. So what happened to it? Where is it now?
Graham Colombé
The chapter on Artie Shaw is from an interview conducted in 2002 at Shaw’s house. Gerber sketches the Californian background: ‘Nice house though not as huge as one might expect, with a swimming pool in the garden which overlooks the surrounding mountains. But the house itself, despite the expensive paintings on the walls, looks a bit seedy now, like an elderly person’s place. I suppose that when you’re dependent on other people looking after you, as Shaw is at ninety-one, that’s what happens.’ The interview with Shaw is characteristically assertive, even combative, on Shaw’s part. Further instructive insights come from Gerber’s consideration of Jewish tunesmiths and lyricists. For instance, the author draws attention to the JazzStandards.com website, with its top 1,000 listing of jazz standards. Of the top 100 standards, 43 were composed by Jewish songwriters. George Gershwin has 11 in the top 100. Jerome Kern has 21 in the top 1000, Irving Berlin 24. Songwriter Dave Frishberg is quoted on the matter of lyric poetry. Good lyrics don’t sound like poems, he maintains, believing that superior lyrics should be literate speech that says something in a lyrical way. ‘The great songwriters knew that good lyrics come up to the edge of poetry and turn left,’ he says.
JAZZ JEWS Mike Gerber. Five Leaves Publications, hb, £24.99. ISBN 978 0 907123 24 8
During a discussion on the Johnny Carson television show Artie Shaw was asked what, as a child, he had wanted to be when he grew up. ‘I want to grow up and be a gentile’, Shaw had replied. Author Mike Gerber is commendably honest in admitting that the theme of Jazz Jews didn’t meet with total approval. By Gerber’s own account, Artie Shaw quickly asserted his opposition to the title. Shaw wasn’t the only one. Several distinguished Jewish
Loren Schoenberg: antipathy
