Barry harris

Barry Harris

The Lady Who Shot Lee Morgan,

A Be-Bop Elder

The Helen Morgan Story

Fall 2015

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THE NEW SCHOOL

NEWS

Randy Weston, ‘Jazz Griot,’ Among Illustrious Artists-in-Residence Who Is

Randy Weston?

A Conversation With Robin D.G. Kelley Plus Performance Thursday, September 10, 2015 at 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm

Jazz legend and New School artist-in-residence Randy Weston.

Photo by Carol Friedman.

John L. Tishman Auditorium 63 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10003

Randy Weston is one of the greatest living jazz musicians, an innovator and visionary who has performed on five continents, formed partnerships with the likes of Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, and forged a unique sound that has brought African rhythms to the foreground of contemporary jazz. “It’s so important to teach the history of our music and the origins of our music, which comes directly from the African continent,” Weston says. “It’s so important to reach our young people. Musicians have to be historians, too.”

Weston will share that history, as well as his wisdom and expertise, with students when he joins the School of Jazz as its artist-in-residence this semester. During his residency, the jazz guru will participate in a lecture series exploring his music and the development of American jazz and its roots in Africa, lead an improvisation ensemble program, mentor students, and perform live. Throughout these activities, Weston will be a conduit to the past, channeling the golden era of jazz in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the genre’s African origins. “In many cases, students aren’t taught the history of Africa or African music,” says Weston, a lifelong student of the continent’s culture and history. “I always say, if you want to learn the language, you have to learn the alphabet.”

Mr. Weston will be joined by other illustrious professional artists.

Naila Al Atrash, a Syrian-born stage director and actor known for her challenging plays, which explore society, economics, and politics. She will guest-direct a play in the Eugene Lang College Theater Program.

Imani Winds, a genre-defying Grammy-nominated wind quintet entering the second year of its residency at The New School.

The group will conduct master classes, perform concerts, serve as guest lecturers in classrooms, and teach entrepreneurship in the performing arts.

Nami Yamamoto, a renowned Japanese dancer and choreographer. She will create a new work for Eugene Lang College dance students, to be performed in their end-of-semester Fall Dance Performances.

The Orion Quartet, a critically acclaimed string quartet that has been an artist-in-residence at The New School for the last decade. The group will lead master classes, perform concerts and offer private one-on-one instruction to students.

Andrew Balio, principal trumpet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. During a daylong residency in October, he will conduct a master class, participate in a panel discussion on the future of classical music and of orchestral music, and perform a recital.

African American Classical Music

Fall 2015 Volume 6 Number 8 Publisher / Editor & Chief Jo Ann Cheatham -Senior EditorFikisha Cumbo

Features

-EditorAgneta Ballesteros

Blues Aesthetics: What Is It? ......... 5

-Contributing WritersHerb Boyd Ed Dessisso Eugene Holley Jr, Harvey Pekan Delridge La Veon Hunter Ron Scott Larry Reni Thomas

Newport at 61: George Wein ........... 9

-Poetry-

Gha’il Rhodes Benjamin

-GraphicsDwight Brewster -MarketingDanyelle Ballesteros -ConsultantsEunice Lewis Broome Jim Harrison Margaret Noldon Greer Smith Ed Stoute Randy Weston

Barry Harris

“The Lady Who Shot Lee Morgan”/ The Helen Morgan Story ...... 12

“The Bebop Elder” Page ........... 16

Back Photo: Lee Morgan

Visit Us Online www.purejazzmagazine.com

Columns Space is the Place ...... 20 What Happened To Nina Simone? ......21

Pure Jazz is published quarterly with editorial and advertising headquarters in Brooklyn, NY. Tel/ 718.636.9671. All rights reserved. The authors and editors have taken care to ensure that all information in this issue is accurate.

Nevertheless, the publisher disclaims any liability loss or damages incurred as a consequence directly or indirectly of the use and application of any contents.

Vinyl Man’s Spin ...... 22 Listen to:

The World of Jazz

Radio/Web Program www.wbai.org - 99.5 FM NYC

Cubana Be Cubana Bop ..... 24

www.theworldofjazz.org International Jazz at its best!

Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 3

With The Music In Mind Publisher’s Statement Dear Pure Jazz Supporters, Barry Harris- “A Bebop Elder”! What can you say about a man who has given his life to jazz? From his vocal workshop on Tuesday evenings to his work with young people, Barry gives a glimpse at his great career--and the talent that we love.

The Helen Morgan story- what a story! I have heard it for years; what was going on that fateful evening that Lee Morgan was shot at the famous jazz club, Slugs. In the article “The Lady Who Shot Lee Morgan” we get some answers. It is so detailed that it has to be a two part story. Sit back and get to know the facts behind a story in jazz.

Everybody hears about the “Blues Aesthetics”. What Is It? This article gives us a chance to know the viable information about the blues.

The festival to end all festivals is “Newport at 61”.

Here’s a chance to look at the history of the festival and what it means. The amount of talent is outstanding, but let’s hear what George Wein is feeling these days.

The genre of jazz is changing so fast that we must keep our eyes on who’s doing what these days. Our look at the new young talents, “Jazzmeia Horn” and “Aaron Diehl” is something to check out.

Look at the information: “What Happened, Miss Simone-- Nina Simone”. It is a look at the legendary singer. You must check it out.

We have not been around for a while because of health challenges, but here is Barry Harris for your enjoyment!

Enjoy,

Jo Ann Cheatham Publisher

Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 4

Founded in 1964 by National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, composer, pianist, educator, jazz legend Dr. Billy Taylor and arts administrator Ms. Daphne Arnstein, Jazzmobile’s mission is to present, preserve, promote and propagate America’s classical music Jazz.

We are the oldest not-for-profit organization founded with this as it sole mission.

“The concerts are FREE but we pay the musicians.”

Dr. Billy Taylor

www.jazzmobile.com For the past 23 years!

EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT!

BLUES AESTHETICS: WHAT IS IT? Delridge La Veon Hunter Blues Aesthetic is the philosophical underpinning of the creative growth and development of Black Creative Music commonly referred to as jazz. It provides the necessary boundary that establishes its mark of distinction from other forms of music. It provides the ingredients to make Black Creative Music a unique form of expression.

Its form of expression permits performers to improvise. Improvisation is the process of expressing concrete ideas as you image them. The intent of improvisation is realized through the manifestation of song. By this usage of improvisation to inform song, Jazz expresses its own philosophical thesis musically.

As a Jazz art, improvisation permits, allows or forces the performer to figure out what storyline is to be improvised. Using a script laid out in the fashion developed as the means of communication, using the voice, or an external instrument, to communicate the script layout, one can hear the composition as it is intended.

The thesis of improvisation is the performer lays out his or her interpretation of what is composed, or, if the piece is composed on the spot (Anthony Braxton comes to mind), the interpretation and composing are simultaneous. The idea allows a fluid or structured performance. However structured the composer expects the chosen performer to create a “solo” that is memorable and complementary. The solo permits the performer to give a personalized vision of the notes on the “dotted line.” This personalization of the solos has become important after Bebop came on the scene. With the advent of Bebop, solos have become more of an individualized experience. This individualized experience now permits the performer to say whatever the consciousness permits, expressed musically.

Improvisation as a philosophical proposition is displayed through the use of sound producing mechanisms. It is called music.

These sounds are expected to produce in-

formation to the ear that complements the thought of what is beautiful. Beauty as an emotive feeling is a subjective way to enjoy a song as pleasing. However beautiful, i. e., a pleasing sound produced, the intent is to please the aficionado to the extreme, with floating scales played as the aficionados and everybody, in location of the music, sit in awe as the performer attempts the greatest musical feats possible. Successfully done with music so pleasing, it offers sounds you are not accustom to hearing, in a manner you never heard before.

Improvisation as a philosophical proposition is displayed through the use of sound producing mechanisms. It is called music. These sounds are expected to produce information to the ear that complements the thought of what is beautiful. Beauty as an emotive feeling is a subjective way to enjoy a song as pleasing. However beautiful, i. e., a pleasing sound produced, the intent is to please the aficionado to the extreme, with floating scales played as the aficionados and everybody, in location of the music, sit in awe as the performer attempts the greatest musical feats possible. Successfully done with music so pleasing, it offers sounds you are not accustom to hearing, in a manner you never heard before.

Mary Lou Williams

At that moment, the idea is to make each listener want to hear the presentation, applying the musical logic or lack thereof of the performer. How is this possible? We may attribute this to the three traditional tones (with approximating Scales) that accompanied the African’s arrival on the United States soil. The three traditional Scales are Ethiopian (Aeolian), Harmonic Minor, and Pentatonic. These three Scales have expanded by the multiples. They have expanded so creatively that any three notes in anyone of the minor scales may become the basis of an extended composition or piece rendered extemporaneously.

With this inherent ability to invent complex or simple musical expressions beautifully, Jazz continues to attract a growing stream of talented artists to the fold. These aficionados now know that the performers all agree on what its attraction is. A potential artist has the ability to master an instrument (voice, traditional, acoustic or other found instruments of expression) to the level that it permits the performer to venture into the unknown as a performance artist. Only a few musicians become masters of this effort.

All musicians agree that their intent is to enhance the performance to the point that they complement and inform the ideas of the composer. By complementing the composer, the enhanced performance elevates a particular song to the height whereby aficionados feel the spirit. The spiritual creates an energy force that makes the atmosphere magnetically flowing with the performer engaged in a paradise seeking experience.

This apparent magic may go on for an extended period of ecstasy. The manner in which a performance is conducted is what makes Jazz so appealing. It serves the purpose of elevating the art of performance to the level of greatness.

Swing! Swing! Swing! The growth and development of the process of improvisation can Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 5

be credited with the invention of “Swing” Low pay, ugly small venues in New York music. Starting with King Oliver, Louis City and the plague of “drugs” kept Jazz Armstrong and Jelly Roll Martin evolving musicians in dire straights, but some how into the songs composed and performed the music survived and advanced. Despite

by Fletcher Henefforts to negate derson, Duke the music, durEllington, Mary ing the time in Lou Williams, bondage, as they and Count Basie, attempted to do Swing has bewhen the music come the manwas called “devil ner in which songs”, Blues in Blues aesthetics general and Jazz assumes its form in particular of distinction have attracted as an improvithe best and the sational music. brightest.

Duke Ellington The introduction of the “solo” With all of the to the repertoire has allowed a performer hardships, thefts of copyright, little or no to develop the skills of improvising by ex- returns on investments, abuse by the “law”, panding the language of music. This has efforts to place shame on anyone who dared required new performance skills. to play the music, lack of financial support, forced oppression and others forms of neAs performers have improved their abili- gation, the music has been so strong that ties to produce creative sounds in a musical it has grown into an intercontinental pheformat, the music called Jazz has become nomenon second to none. Music enthumore attractive to intellectuals that possess siasts from South Africa to Finland, from musical aptitudes beyond what the ordi- Denton, Texas to Japan, from Australia to nary musicians can play. This development France have become big performers and in Jazz as a performance art has placed the aficionados of the art form. One may now music in a category reserved for people receive a doctorate in Jazz Studies from mawho want to get serious about their art and jor institutions of the world. Every type of not use European classical forms as their musical instrument has become a meaning‘’go to place.” ful item called into play.

Instead of learning to play by rote memorization new players are now required to develop their knowledge of the scales beyond anything comprehended before.

Young players are now expected to stumble across, then seek out a master musician as the mentor whose music inspired them, and develop a vocabulary through a ritual of practice/ performance, ad infinitum. The ad infinitum has become the mainstay for musicians that have followed the teachings of performers such as Oscar Peterson, John Coltrane and Clifford Brown. Artistic development is now the usual rather than the unusual. By the 21st Century young players are seeing the value in playing Jazz as a serious performer of art music.

This movement toward acceptance does not come easily. There were musical breakthroughs and major financial setbacks simultaneously, e.g., Bebop. They seemed to go hand in hand. There were few rewards yet the committed continued to perform.

Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 6

No gender has been kept out regardless of how men may have originally thought otherwise. The life has improved for many, but that number is not enough. Many members of the communities that founded the music now think it belongs to somebody else, i.e., the other people. They do their best to tell those other people that they do not “like” or understand Jazz. As a matter of fact, “they hate it.” The organically natural base, the communities that nurtured Jazz, built colleges as institutions of higher learning that failed to allow Jazz to be taught. As their contradiction, they have diminished its importance and are still the last to give it a place to thrive, develop and grow simply because it was “devil songs” created on the other side of the track by the least favored people.

It all started with Devil’s Music or what the African people in bondage who were converted to Christianity like to call, “Devil Songs”. By the time the Antebellum was moving toward a revolution (a Civil War) the African Americans had developed at least three genres in music. They were Spirituals (Praise songs), Jubilee (Freedom) Songs, and Devil (Blues) Songs. These genres used any one of the three traditional scales (tones) to express their music.

The songs were brought into the 20th Century by African musicians, with all three tones (scales), and genres in tact. “Devil Songs” remained underground until they became popular through the works of W. C. Handy (St.Louis Blues). Reading people seemed to have ignored the seminal works in “dialect” (Blues) of Paul Laurence Dunbar. I am speaking of the Blues lyrics he composed. Instead of reading the lyrics in terms of the quality of the work, criticisms focused on “how dare he write in dialect?”

The affluent-poor intellectuals were embarrassed by what they called vernacular language as being primitive. “No right thinking Negro would be caught dead not speaking Standard English.”

More interested in European Choral music the affluent-poor completely ignored “the Blues” and worked toward converting Jubilee Songs to Negro Spirituals. Jubilee Songs were changed from their traditional African (Blues) sound to the scales of European Choral Songs and rendered as Negro Spirituals. This has resulted in the following: new generations are unaware that there were freedom songs rendered in the “Blues”

scales format during the Antebellum period. The Jubilee Songs were not the original praise songs known as “Spi-ru-chels.”

Blues not having to compete with other forms and genres was left to create its own sound, forms, styles, new genres and a way of expressing musical ideas. Its listeners (aficionados) can (may) develop their own categories of music and the manner in which they relate to it. With that freedom of will and determination Blues developed its own aesthetic.

Music that captures you mind... (your listening pleasure) Music that captures your body... (your dancing pleasure) Music that will affect your soul!

The result: a Blues Aesthetic. The artistic discourse mention above is an expression of Blues Aesthetic. This philosophical construct serves as a mark of distinction that indicates Blues has its own manner of presentation in the representation of the music. It also has a philosophical basis for the presentation of all its styles and forms of performance.

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Count Basie Delridge Lavon Hunter is Chairman of African American Studies Department at Medgar Evers College and the author of several books.

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At 61

By Eugene Holley, Jr.

“Jazz will go where musicians take it because they’ll always want to play. And as long as they want to play, somebody’s going to listen.”

George Wein, National Public Radio 2014.

In the summer of 1954, a young, brash Jewish kid, from suburban Boston named George Wein – who fancied himself as a budding piano player-- collaborated with Elaine and Louis Lorillard, a New England socialite couple, and put on something not seen in the U.S., a jazz festival. The site for that festival was the unlikely summer getaway destination of Newport, RI. Against all odds, all social, racial, artistic and economic hardships, the festival has survived for sixty years. Indeed, in an evolving art that morphed into Bop, Hard-Bop, Third Stream, Cool, Cubop, the Avant-Garde, Fusion and beyond, Wein’s festival – which at one time was a global event, from the Big Apple and the Big Easy, to Pittsburgh and Paris – has been one of the few constants in the music. It has served as kind of a sonic census of the scene as documentary of infinite variety of moods and grooves of the day and the era.

George Wein Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 9

Newport Jazz Festival 2014

To order copies contact Duke University Press Box 90660 Durham, NC 27708-0660 www.dukeupress.edu

This year’s festival lineup is as dancing and diverse as ever. It includes: pianists Michel Camilo, Gerald Clayton, Jon Batiste, Aaron Diehl, Fred Hersch, and Hiromi; saxophonists Kenny Garrett, James Carter, Lou Donaldson; drummers Herlin Riley and Jack DeJohnette; guitarist Pat Martino; trumpeters Irvin Mayfield and Ambrose Akinmusire and vocalists Cassandra Wilson and Jose James.

“The focus of this year’s festival is what is the future of jazz,” Wein recently told the Associated Press. “We can never ignore the history of the music, but at the same time, there is such energy and spirit among young musicians today. We try to find the ones that are creative and give them a stage to be heard.”

The festival has been a place of discovery of new talent, and of artistic rebirth. It was where Miles Davis and Duke Ellington revived their careers in the fifties; where

John Coltrane unveiled his lovely supreme saxophone in impressions in the sixties; where rock and jazz merged in the seventies; where the Marsalis brothers launched their neo-classic, ‘Young Lions’ revolution in the eighties and well into the nineties. Today, well into the change of the century, a new generation of improvisers including Houston’s Jason Moran, Christian Scott from New Orleans, and Portland’s Esperanza Spalding are now writing their sonic signatures on the artistic epidermis of their generation.

“… [I] think we should allow these young players to share the spotlight, until the public can fully accept them,” Wein says.

These are all great players who are trying to find their own voice, trying to add something to the music that becomes part of the mainstream of what is happening.

And it’s a privilege for me to present them at Newport.”

George Wein Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 10

Through all of the music’s twists of tone and tempo, Wein has stood as a kind of eternal MC – a master of ceremonies to the longest jazz gig on the planet.

That said, Wein’s achievement must be viewed in a broader context than just the music. What he did was prove that – contrary to even the haters today – jazz, if presented with quality and dignity could be positively presented to the public, beyond the clichéd confines and nocturnal nuances of the nightclub, into the light of the sun.

He also proved that black and white mix and swing in ebony and ivory harmony. (It is no coincidence that festival launched the same year of the historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling).

But just as a jazz solo is an exercise in grace under pressure, Wein’s stewardship at the helm has had its moments of titanic turmoil.

There was protest festival spearheaded by Charles Mingus and Max Roach in 1960.

There was a time when Wein tried to meld

rock and jazz – a move he later regretted.

And there were always critics who thought the festival was a sell-out because it didn’t feature more adventurous programming.

To their credit, sometimes they were right.

But with the ease of a Lester Young solo, Wein adjusted, mended, and molded the

Pure Jazz Historic Moment

festival to walk the near irresolvable tight rope between art and commerce. He performed this balancing act when the jazz masters were dying; when traditional jazz record stores and terrestrial radio stations have almost all disappeared, and when the mention of a jazz musician on TV or in the newspapers was hardly seen unless the musician was in a drug bust or deceased.

In the words of Ellington’s hit, “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be.”

Now, a la Bud Powell, the scene changes. It’s Newport, Rhode Island in 2014. Although Wein is without his wife Joyce , who passed away a few years ago, he is in good spirits, as he rolls around the festival in a golf caddy.

Now, a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, the festival is the best example of jazz as a truly positive avatar of globalization. This is evidenced by the all-world lineup featuring: vocalist Gregory Porter, whose performance literally stopped the rain; chanteuse Cecile McLorin Salvant, who sang her impossibly young heart out; Wynton Marsalis, whose clarion creole trumpet tones brought Mr. Wein to tears, and a whole sepia panorama of jazz artists- young and old, black, brown, bone and beige, all delivering their diverse and dancing twentyfirst century swing at the speed of bop.

“I want to devote the few years left to me to using Newport as a stage for the unique artistry that is out there,” Wein told Jazz Times in 2012. “Jazz, with Newport the principle vehicle, has been my life. If Newport is to continue, it must have a purpose and not be just another jazz festival.”

I’ll lay some good odds against tomorrow that Mr. Wein will be here for the seventieth anniversary of his enduring and innovative festival.

Eugene Holley Staff WriterEugene is a Harlem-based, arts and cultural journalist who contributes to The Black World Today (www. tbwt.net), Hispanic (wwww.hisp.com) as well as PureJazz Magazine.

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The Lady Who Shot Lee Morgan The Helen Morgan Story

By Larry Reni Thomas

Lee Morgan, the fiery-hot, extremely talented jazz trumpet player, died much too soon. His skyrocketing career was cut short at age 33, one cold February night in 1972, at a Manhattan club called Slug’s when he was shot to death by his 46 year old common-law wife Helen. At the time, Morgan was experiencing a comeback of sorts. He had been battling a serious heroin addiction for years and by most accounts, was drug free.

His gig at Slug’s was the talk of the jazz world and was a must-see for all of those in the know. There was always a packed house during his engagements at Slug’s.

He looked good, sounded great and seemed destined for a fantastic future.

Then the unthinkable happened.

The only person who could answer such questions is Helen Morgan (aka Helen More). She was arrested that day, February 9, 1972, served time in prison, released and paroled. She lived in the Bronx, Mount Vernon, and Yonkers, New York, until 1978, when she moved back to her hometown How could of Wilmington, it be? Why North Carolina would Helen to be near her Morgan, who sick mother almost everywho passed in one figured 1980. Helen beloved Lee more came heavily than she loved involved in herself, kill her the Methodist constant comChurch, spent panion? What time with her happened in grandchildren, their decade took classes at long relaa local college Lee Morgan tionship that and received a would cause degree. her to do something that was devastating to Lee and herself and to Lee Mor- No one knew about her past other than gan’s legion of fellow musicians, friends her family. She almost never talked and fans who adored him? about it. Yet, she still had friends in New York, like the late vocalist Etta Jones, Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 12

whom she would telephone frequently to talk about old times. But almost no one, especially in the jazz scene, knew where she was, or for that matter, cared.

Most of them expressed disdain for her, some were quick to call her a coldblooded murderer.

But how cold-blooded was she? How did she feel about the tragic event? What was her life all about? What caused her to commit a crime that she had to live with most of her life? How did a country girl from rural North Carolina end up in the fast lane?

She talked about her life with Lee Morgan in a rare and exclusive interview in February 1996, about a month before she passed away of heart problems in a Wilmington, North Carolina hospital. Her health had been in decline for years, and she explained that she wanted to do her one and only interview because she wanted to tell her side of the story. She was tired, she said, and knew she didn’t have long to live.

Helen Morgan was born in 1926 in Brunswick County, North Carolina on a farm near a town called Shallotte, about 50 miles across the Cape Fear River, from the coastal city of Wilmington.

By the time she was 13, the shapely, attractive, talkative, bronze-colored skin girl had her first child. A year later, she had another child. Both of her children were raised by her grandparents. She left them and moved to Wilmington at age 15 to live with her mother. She said at that point, she became “disillusioned with men” and was celibate for a period after moving to Wilmington. When she was 17-years-old, she started dating a local bootlegger who was 39-years-old.

One night she accidentally walked in on him while he was counting money.

“It was the most money that I had ever seen in my life,” she said, smiling. “He took a liking to me, and I took a liking to the money.”

A few months later, they were married.

Two years later, her husband drowned and she became a 19-year-old widow.

Her late spouse was a New Yorker.

When his relatives came down to take care of the funeral, they took her back to New York, when they finished with their business. She arrived in New York, in 1945, with the intention of staying two weeks.

“I found out I couldn’t live with his family. They were living downtown in the 50s, on 52nd Street between 9th and 10th. I learned my way around and got a job. And then I began to meet other people, and started going uptown to the clubs. First club was the Blue Rhythm up on 145th Street on Sugar Hill. Little three-piece band–the drummer, singer and organ player, Della. I can’t think of her last name. Let’s see, Etta Jones.

“I began to meet all these people. You know I could always fit in. Because I was a talker. I must say myself, I was not bad looking, and I used to fit in very nicely with them. I would be invited to the after-hours joints. But after the clubs would close, that’s when you really heard the music. The jam sessions, you know. They would come uptown and really play.

“But, you know, it’s funny,” she continued, “I met most of the jazz musicians through people who weren’t in the jazz

JAZZ TRUMPETER Lee Morgan and wife Helen in one of their happier monets. Mrs. Morgan now has been charged with the pistorl slaying of her famous husband. (Photo

By Del Edwards)

world, but was in the dope world. Now, see me–I was a ‘hip square.’ That’s what they called me. Yeah. You see. I didn’t use no heroin. Because that was the thing. They called it ‘horse’. You know. I knew the people. The people I met were the dope dealers. I would carry it for them because they knew I didn’t use it.

I met the dope dealers by going to the after-hours spots.”

It was at the after-hours spots that she got the chance to meet and listen to the conversations of some of the jazz musicians. She heard them talk about their lives and their frustrations. Helen was convinced that they used drugs to forget about how the white club owners were using them, especially the ones who made them enter through the back door and the ones who would not allow blacks in the audience. She saw how that affected them and how when they were high off of heroin, situated in the safety of the after-hours spots, they voiced their displeasures and problems in a way that they would never do to the outside world.

Helen said that she thought they carried on very “sensible” talks about world affairs and what was happening to blacks at that time. She was impressed with their intellectualism, yet sadden at the same time, because she was convinced that they were all “hurting inside.” She said that she felt sorry for them because on stage and in public they were putting on a front or an act that everything was fine when it was obvious that this was not the case.

Helen explained that the musicians talked about how the whites were stealing their music, paying them next to nothing and how the whites were bringing all the heroin to Harlem. It was a sad situation that was an illusion to people on the outside who didn’t know any better.

Ms. Morgan, however, saw right through it. “It was like you (the musicians) were living this life. But you really not, you know. You’re just going through the motions. You singing.

The only time you are really yourself is when you are playing, singing and then you forget about everything. You go and play. It would be such mournful sounds. You could hear the sorrow in the music. If you listen hard enough you can hear it.”

Helen gained great respect for the musicians after her visits to the after-hour spots. So much so that she invited them all to her apartment, on 53rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues, not too far from Birdland. “Helen’s place,” she said, “became a location where they could get a good hot meal.” She did not allow any drug use. It was a refuge and a safe haven from the hardships of a jazz musician’s life. It was there in her midtown Manhattan apartment, during the early 1960s, where she met the very young Lee Morgan.

“I met Morgan through Benny Green, the trombone player, who I was messing with at that time. Benny brought him around there. I met him and we talked. I looked at him and for some kind of reason my heart just went out to him. I said to myself ‘this little boy, you know.’

“I looked at him and he didn’t have a coat. I asked him why didn’t he have a coat? He just had a jacket. I said, ‘child, it’s zero degrees out there and all you have on is a jacket. Where is your coat?’

And he told me he didn’t have a coat ‘cause it was in the pawn shop.’ “He had pawned his coat for some drugs. I told him, ‘Well, come on, I am going to go get your coat!’ He said, ‘You’re going to get my coat?’

I said, ‘Yeah, and I’m not going to give you the money! Because you might spend it on drugs. We are going to go and get it!’”

She said it was too cold for anybody to be outside without a coat. When she asked Lee where was his trumpet (“his axe”) he told her it was in the pawn shop too. Helen asked him how was he going to work if he didn’t have an instrument. “How is a carpenter going work without tools?” she asked him Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 13

and every other jazz musician she saw in that sad shape. But because she said she felt sorry for Lee Morgan, Helen went and got his trumpet and coat out of the pawn shop. After that, she said, Lee Morgan “hung on to me.”

work again. Helen said that most of the club owners said they couldn’t depend on him. Some of them had been burned in the past when Lee Morgan was advertised all week to come to their establishment and he didn’t show up.

Lee moved in with her and she “took over total control of Morgan.” She fed him, nursed and pampered him, and started to get his show business career back in order. Helen began to try to book him gigs again. She found out that he really wasn’t working a great deal because most people knew about his chronic no-shows and his drug habit.

He was not working much except for the Jazz Mobile on some summer Saturdays, Blue Note studio recording sessions and other assorted functions.

“If he did not have money to get high with then he did not even show up,” she said. “Ain’t nothing else was on his mind but getting high. Getting high made him normal. He told me that once. He said that Art Blakey was the one who turned him on. Art turned a lot of them on. Lee told me he asked Art how long would the high last? He said Art told him–forever! I am not saying that Art made them use it. I’m just saying that he was the influence. It’s making you feel so good. You know. I never thought much of Art because he turned so many of them on to heroin. All of them (the jazz musicians) were on it.

She recalled the time when a well known jazz musician passed and he was asked to play at the funeral. Lee told her that he could not do it because he did not have any shoes. All he had were bedroom slippers. They laughed when he told her that one of his fellow musicians told him, “Damn, Morgan, all God’s children got shoes!”

It’s not that he couldn’t get a gig. Everybody wanted to hire him. They were just worried that he might not show up.

Helen became a stabilizing force for Lee, according to her, but she couldn’t completely stop him from using drugs.

When Lee moved in, he brought a nonmusician friend, Gary, with him. She called Gary a “parasite.” Ms. Morgan claimed he could not stand her and that he did everything to “make something come between me and Morgan.”

She found out that keeping hustlers, hanger-ons, fans, dead-beats and junkies away from Lee Morgan would be something that she would have to deal with for the rest of their lives. She eventually left the apartment and moved into another place. It was around then that her phone calls and her persistence began to pay off. Lee started getting a band together and getting ready to Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 14

“They were raggedy and pitiful. Real pitiful! Pitiful! Oh! But they came to my house and they were made welcome.

Unless they were really doggish I would let them in because they were people and one thing, they were a mystery to me because I could never figure out how anything could make you in the dead winter time, zero weather, take off your coat and sell it.

“One time Gary and I was talking and he asked me why hadn’t I ever tried heroin. He said ‘Well, you missed the essence.’ I said ‘No Honey, I ain’t miss no essence. Looking at you all, I see the essence. Looking at you all is enough essence for me not to want it!’ ‘I guess you right. I guess you right.’ ” According to Helen, Lee was a fullfledged junkie at that time, during the early 1960s, he had had his teeth knocked out and had broken some braces that had been in his mouth for years. She told him to clean up so she could try to get him some gigs. She convinced him that he could play again if he quit using so much heroin. Lee Morgan turned himself in to a hospital in

the Bronx to beat his heroin habit. That meant that there was no more Gary. She never saw Gary again.

Ms. Morgan found a new apartment in the Bronx where Lee moved into when he came out of drug rehabilitation. It was there in their apartment in the Bronx that she was able to help Lee Morgan get back on his feet. Helen was able to convince most of the club owners that she would personally make sure that Lee would make his engagements.

She was extremely proud that she had, in her words, “brought him back from near death”.

“I’ll never forget,” she said, “the DJ for a black program was Ed Williams and Ed Williams was in my corner. He did the eulogy for Morgan. And people told me that he mentioned me. He said, ‘Regardless to what happened, we can not leave Helen out of this’. He said, ‘Because Morgan was dead to us before she came on the scene. She brought him back to us 5, 6, 7, 8 years, you know. She brought him back alive to us.’

Mrs. Morgan got him to start dressing neatly again and cleaning himself up.

Whenever they would go out or go on the road, she went with him. Lee liked to wear a shirt and a tie and keep his shoes shined, So she made sure all of that was done before he went out for a gig. Helen would iron his shirts for him because she said that he didn’t like what they did to them at the laundry.

They were seen together a great deal and were often out at other jazz and social events. It was backstage after one of those affairs that she first met the legendary trumpeter Miles Davis, who was an old friend of Lee’s. Helen said he was a “nasty.”

“When I met him,” she recalled, “he said, ‘Hello.’” I said, ‘Hello.’ And he said, ‘and who are you supposed to be?’

I said, ‘I’m suppose to be…I am ..I am not supposed to be…I am Helen Morgan!” ‘Oh you Lee Morgan’s woman, huh?’ I said, ‘yes!’ He said, ‘I guess you know who I am?’ I said, ‘I don’t have to

know who you are!’ He laughed, you know. He say, ‘I see you got a quick mouth.’ The words he said was like this, ‘I don’t mess around with bitches with big mouths.’ That was one of his favorite words. And I said, ‘well I don’t consider myself that. But, you know, we ain’t got nothing to say to each other anyway because I don’t play the trumpet, so I sure can’t talk about no music with you, you know’.”

Lee Morgan’s first band, according to Helen, after he got out of rehab, was a very young and highly impressive quintet, one that was exciting live and at the forefront, on the cutting edge of the post-bop, funky soul jazz scene of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. It was known as an adventurous group that went “out” sometimes and took a few avant garde excursions, but always stayed in that soulful, funky, swinging pocket. His working band consisted of Lee on trumpet, Harold Mabern on piano, Jyme Merritt on bass, and Billy Higgins, drums. The substitutes, whenever there were adjustments to be made, were Cedar Walton, piano and Herbie Lewis on bass.

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Lee Morgan and John Coletraine Larry Reni Thomas, a native of Wilmington, North Carolina, is a writer/radio announcer/ lecturer based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who has worked at seven radio stations and whose journalistic work has appeared in downbeat and The New York Times Magazine

Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 15

Barry Harris A BeBop Elder

By Ron Scott Every Tuesday evening over 100 students flock to Manhattan›s Lincoln Square Community Center for an energizing music workshop taught by the lone master bebop jazz pianist, composer, and educator Barry Harris. The aspiring and established musicians who sing and play every instrument from piano, saxophone, drums, to violin come to see the master not only for his playing ability but for his wisdom and knowledge that spans over 65 years on his music journey. The lessons they learn from Harris will be a part of their musical DNA for life. “Barry has that bebop concept, it’s good to know all about the music,” stated aspiring saxophonist Tacuma. «My parents met in this class 30 years ago.»

Noted saxophonist and composer Bill Saxton attends the workshop to share his knowledge of his instrument and «to learn from Barry the master, he is one of the last giants of the era.» Over 50 singers converge weekly at this workshop Mecca where Harris teaches them phrasing and the importance of learning the melody first. Over the years Harris has organized a jazz choir of 40 singers from the workshop. He often conducts these singers (The Barry Harris Choir) during his local club engagements.

The most important thing I have done as a musician and educator is to teach young people how to play jazz,» stated Harris. My main thing now is just to keep jazz alive. I travel the world from Europe, to Japan and Spain to play and teach this music.» In recognition of his commitment Harris is a recipient of the Grammy

Lifetime Achievement Award and has received honorary degrees from such institutions as Northwestern University.

Harris at age 84, is a marquee magnet regardless of the country. When he appears at the famous Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City, the line extends down the block. What is his magic? He plays straight-ahead jazz bebop to be exact, and enticing ballads.

«Once I heard bebop in Detroit I didn›t want to play anything else and that urge continues today,» says Harris. I like playing ballads, they are so beautiful; the great composers like Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin aren›t played much in a jazz context.»

Harris says if you know certain songs, «you can play with musicians all over the world. Today young musicians are so involved in their own thing they forget about the standards song by Rosemary Clooney and Sarah Vaughan.»

Harris born in 1929 made his mark in his hometown of Detroit long before going to New York. His mother, the pianist at Zion Hill Baptist Church, taught her son to play the piano at age four. Harris later played at the church as an adolescent.

With no piano readily available for band members at his junior high school, Harris took to the clarinet; faced with the same problem at North Eastern High School, he played bass in the school›s orchestra and band. «I played clarinet and bass just to be in the band but I always played piano. Piano is my life,» said Harris.

Harris graduated from high school in 1947, his prom date was Margaret Farrell, Alice Coltrane›s (her maiden name was McCloud) older sister. «At the time Alice was only 8 years old. They also had a brother named Ernie,» said Harris. «We were all friends.» Harris was also classmates with Berry Gordy, Jr. who played piano, as well. He went on to become the founder of Motown Records and a film mogul. «Some people laughed at Berry when he left his full-time job to start the record label,» noted Harris.

The city of Detroit was a jazz haven from the 1930s thru the 1950s with its large black population. The city›s Fox Theater was a major stop on the ‘chitlin› circuit’, as well as the dance halls where a young Harris saw the big bands of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Billy Eckstine. «I was 17 when I first saw Charlie Parker at a dance hall and 21 when I saw Art Tatum,» said Harris. «I became entrenched with Charlie Parker and Bud Powell.»

The pianist was Influenced by Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk.

The main ballrooms where many of the musicians played were the Graystone, Grand, and The Mirror. In the late 1940s

Detroit›s eastside known as the «Black Bottom» was all about the music and dancing. Young people came out to see Basie, Duke, Bennie Moten and the like because they knew how to swing. «All of my contemporaries in school followed us because we played dance music and even gave dances. When you think about it, the dancing is what is missing today from jazz,» notes Harris. «The dancing is a key part to the music that was lost.»

While still a teenager Harris would often hang outside the Blue Bird Lounge, one of the hottest spots in Detroit, where he watched the noted musicians. «I was too young to play but Phil Hill, the house pianist, would rush me in and let me play one tune while he went to the bar,» laughs Harris. Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt, and Max Roach played dates at the club during their tours.

As a teenager he was befriended by Gene Ammons whose pianist was Junior Mance. «Junior would sometimes get up and let me play in his spot with Gene, I was only 17 then,» said Harris. Harris remembers his first gig was in Pontiac, Michigan but his mother didn›t want him to go. She felt he was too young and it was too far but she eventually gave in.

A few years later when Harris was old enough to play in bars he became a regular pianist at another hip spot, The Rouge Lounge where he backed some of his favorite musicians like Lester Young.

Harris believed strongly in practicing and made it a daily ritual. Many musicians stopped by his house regularly to get advice from him and share musical

Barry Harris Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 18

concepts. «I showed them some stuff but it wasn›t really my being a teacher it was just helping if I could,» said Harris. «Frank Foster came by but I learned more from him than he learned from me. During that period musicians always came by like John Coltrane, and Benny Maupin.» The saxophonist Joe Henderson noted he was influenced by Harris while in Detroit. Two young jazz musicians, who did stop by for mentoring and later acknowledged his influence were bassist James Jamerson and pianist/ organist Earl Van Dyke. They both went on to become legends in the Motown Records studio band The Funk Brothers. In his early jazz days Jamerson was an occasional member of Harris› trio.

In the early 1950s Harris received a call from saxophonist Benny Golson requesting that he come to New York for his recording date. He soon returned to record with Thad Jones. Back again in 1955 he joined Max Roach with Donald Byrd, Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown. In 1958 he recorded his first album as a leader “Breakin’ It Up “(Argo Records) with bassist William Austin and drummer Frank Grant.

After his stint with Cannonball Adderley in 1960 Harris decided to stay in the jazzy town of New York. That same year he led his own trio on the album Barry Harris at the Jazz Workshop with bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes. “I met Monk right after I came to New York and a friendship developed from there that lasted.”

In 1961 he signed with Riverside Records and recorded Listen to Barry Harris, a solo album that featured his originals “Ascension” and “Sphere.” This early record is one of the best piano solo albums ever recorded. Harris demonstrates a rich bold tone that keeps giving, each note is profoundly accented and touches your heart like a warm mother’s touch and then it swings softly with fluctuating melodies and cascading rhythms. Shhhh! take out your shades and handkerchief even in 2014 a man doesn’t want to be seen crying.

As a youngster Harris was in awe of Coleman Hawkins and listened to his music constantly then in 1965 a wish came true, he performed with Hawkins, and went on to play with the saxophonist until his death in 1969. With a reputation preceding him Harris became a first call

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pianist for musicians like Sonny Stitt, Illinois Jacquet, Dexter Gordon, Lee Morgan, and Charles McPherson. Even with such a busy schedule over a span of 20 years, the pianist recorded 19 albums as a leader.

Harris still had an urge to teach and play music in a friendly nurturing environment for young and established musicians. That idea came to fruition when Harris, bassist Larry Ridley, jazz promoter Jim Harrison and Frank Fuentes became partners in creating the Jazz Cultural Theater (JCT), a storefront located between 28th and 29th Street on 8th Avenue.

The small space quickly became a hangout for young musicians looking to jam and those gigging from out of town.

«Man, that was a nice place for the cats but the rent was high and it was costing a lot of money.» Musicians played every weekend and there were jam sessions. Aside from Harris and Ridley performing others included trumpeter Tommy Turrentine, saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Clifford Jordan, and Charles McPherson; pianists Chris Anderson and Walter Davis, Jr.; drummer Vernel Fournier; and tap dancers Jimmy Slyde and Lon Chaney.

JCT was also known for Harris› music classes for vocalists and instrumentalists.

«We had some really good classes going on that were taught by myself, Frank Foster, and the drummer Vernel Fournier,» says Harris. «When the landlord decided to double the rent it was time to leave.»

Harris recorded his album For the Moment (Uptown Records, 1984) at the site.

«Wednesday, August 12, 1987: The Last Big Bash at the Jazz Cultural Theater» is a newspaper ad that appeared in the New York Village Voice announcing the last week of the Jazz Cultural Theater performances. Harris utilizes a few sites to run his workshops including University of the Streets located in Manhattan›s East Village.

Harris appears in the 1989 documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (produced by Clint Eastwood), performing duets with Tommy Flanagan. In 2000, he was profiled in the film Barry Harris - Spirit of Bebop.

In the 1970s Harris moved to Weehawken, New Jersey to the home of the

Baroness Pannonica deKoenigswarter, where Thelonious Monk was already residing. The house was constantly filled with musicians hanging out and jamming. The Baroness known as a jazz patroness had many songs written in her honor including; Harris› «Inca,» Monk›s «Pannonica,» Horace Silver›s «Nica›s Dream, and Kenny Dorham›s «Tonica».

«I have been fortunate in this music business but I would like to write a piece for the Philharmonic Orchestra, stated Harris.» Philharmonic are you listening this is a chance of a lifetime for your organization.

Barry Harris continues to perform and teach worldwide. When he is not traveling, he holds weekly music workshop sessions in New York City for vocalists, students of piano and other instruments.

Eugene Holley, Jr. is a contributor to Publishers Weekly, Down Beat, Newmusicbox.org and NPR: A Blog Supreme.

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Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 19

Where the Music & the Universe Meet

By JoAnn Cheatham

Jazzmeia “Jazz” Horn, hailing from the great Dallas, Texas, has already earned a reputation in New York City as a dynamic musician. Her name speaks for itself, capturing her very essence. Jazzmeia is a passionate vocalist and she continues to receive accolades from top critics and musicians alike. Her soulful sound, understanding the jazz idiom and story telling have earned her comparisons to classic vocalists. She earned her comparisons to classic stylists—for being side by side with Sarah Vaughn, Nancy Wilson and Betty Carter.

“Jazzmeia Horn is one of the greatest vocalists I’ve heard in 40 years”, says Jon Hendricks . She came to New York, studied and graduated from The New School For Jazz and Contemporary Music. Her first live radio appearance was on WBGO-FM. She went on to appear in legendary venues like the Apollo and to compete in the Sarah Vaughn International Vocal Competition. Jazzmeia is appearing in various clubs around the globe with her own quintet called ‘www.The Artistry of Jazz Horn’.

Aaron Diehl is one of the most sought after jazz virtuosos.

He consistently plays what has been called “melodic precision, harmonic erudition, and elegant restraint”. Diehl’s meticulously thought-out performances, collaborations, and compositions are a leading force in today’s generation of jazz contemporaries. He says, “One of the best things about jazz is that you’re interacting and improvising, in real time, with other individuals. That’s something that’s very special, that can’t really be duplicated in other genres.”

The soft-spoken, earnest Juilliard jazz graduate hails from Columbus, Ohio, where his early musical skills were evident. He learned in both the Protestant and Catholic Churches around eight years of age. Diehl lives in Harlem and plays piano for the St. Joseph of The Holy Family Church on 125th St. and Morningside Drive. He says it reminds him of his roots, and of his church when he was younger. “It’s a real community,” he says. His new album is ‘Space Time Continuum’. He can be reached at www.aarondiehl.com.

Jo Ann Cheatham is the publisher of Pure Jazz Magazine

What Happened to Nina Simone?

This is a must see movie, the “High Priestess of Soul” is captured. Her life is told with all the unique subtleties of the star she was destined to become. When you think of Nina Simone all you can remember is the extraordinary talent this lady would display. This feature had a full length run at the ICP theater in New York City ( at Sixth Avenue and Third street) and was well worth seeing on both the large and small screens. It still airs from time to time. Most filmgoers have seen it twice. You will not be disappointed. A huge thank you goes to the film distributor Netflix where you can catch it anytime, a movie not to be missed — www.netflix.com Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 21

Vinyl Man’s Spin Something Old, Something New…

By Ed Dessisso Thanks mainly to the excellent discoveries to be had on the Internet, (You Tube musical offerings), I’ve neglected my vinyl for a long period of time. The magic of new and unheard classics has been so alluring that searching for surprising ‘exotics’ took precedent over rambling through my own meager stack of Jazz gems. My time away from the collection served as well to underscore just what my taste in music has been, in so far as collection is concerned. Coming home, I found myself with the comfort in the many periods of Miles Davis, a musical personality who is still very much with us, to my way of thinking.

One is only as cool as one’s Miles Davis story.

MD shared that distinction with Nina Simone, another icon of the music that lived without fear and changed the context of every tune she ever touched. Listening to Miles is also a lesson in who else was on the scene at the same time. Playing with only the best musicians was a signature aspect of Davis’ music. The music could morph in so many directions because everyone playing is an arrived musical sensibility capable of changing the character of whatever they engage. A Miles solo becomes a Wayne Shorter solo or a Herbie Hancock transition or a Tony Williams/Ron Carter flight or any permutation of musical majesty from the Who’s Who of who has played with Miles. I treated myself to a 50’s jammie; BLUE NOTE 1502: MILES DAVIS with Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Art Blakey, where Miles on an open trumpet stretches all the way out to stay with a flying rhythm section totally confident in their business. Then I dropped DIG on the turntable: Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, Walter Bishop, Tommy Potter and Art Blakey keep Miles’ musical feet to the fire in a whole other swinging incarnation of 50’s Bebop.

Then, just because I was in the flow of a Miles mood, I indulged a disk where he was a sidePure Jazz Magazine - Page 22

man along with Bud Powell, Tommy Potter and Max Roach for the incomparable Charlie Parker. This was on Volume 2 of SAVOY RECORDS’ CHARLIE PARKER MEMORIAL SERIES. This record is worth whatever you pay for it. Just the history alone makes it a must have if you can get it. On the second half of side two, John Lewis is on piano and Nelson Boyd is on bass for the remaining 4 cuts on the side. This is exquisite music that invents itself as you are listening, living tissue so to speak. The point is that Miles is Miles and makes sense throughout all of this music. He not only fits, he is integral to making it happen.

nity. The scope of their travels brought to the community the newest of everything, along with the provocation of new sounds and modes of presentation. When Sun Ra explained that “Space Is The Place” he dressed for it, along with all the other members of his Arkestra. Miles was known to ship his Maserati to Europe to have his wheels while on tour. While his sartorial statements were never as pronounced as Sun Ra and company, Mr. Davis was famous for dressing “cleaner than the board of health” and always sported the latest. He looked the part of the number one Jazz celebrity on earth. Everyone could tell a Miles story.

I refused to stay in the Parker mode where the wonder of that musician dwarfs almost everyone who ever made the music. I put on KIND OF BLUE, arguably the finest Jazz album ever recorded. Here again, Miles is surrounded with tour de force performers totally at ease with the repertoire and stretching out with Miles. FREDDIE FREELOADER contains my all-time favorite alto solo, when Cannonball Adderley pours pure Florida funk into that swinging blues. Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, Miles and Cannonball put the musical bar at the pinnacle for generations to come, in the sphere of recorded music. As everyone knows, there’s not a dull moment on the entire record-- not a wasted track. BLUE IN GREEN and FLAMENCO SKETCHES open the door to the ‘Modal’ period of Mile’s musical progression. It is interesting to me that Cannonball Adderley had reached the same modal plateau in his signature recordings as well. Coltrane was already there. When geniuses of this caliber collaborate, culture is created.

Back at the playlist, I jump into IN A SILENT WAY, a spooky, reflective piece that creates pure atmosphere. In many ways, this is my personal favorite. It holds memories of a younger time in my life that encapsulates elements of my growth-- manhood milestones, so to speak. The title track swings hard but is the very soul of relaxed rhythm. Joe Zawinul adds an organ to the electric pianos of Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea in a rhythm section that includes Dave Holland on bass, Tony Williams on drums and John McLaughlin on guitar. Wayne Shorter and Miles are their usual stellar selves. The whole album comes across as a quest. It is music for inside emotions and reflections.

That is actually the reason for spotlighting Miles Davis in this edition of my Spin.

He is the template of what is referred to as “cool” specifically because his existence created culture. More than bringing together the finest practitioners of the Jazz aesthetic, more than advancing the music into newer and riskier realms of appreciation, more even than living entirely within a musical context his whole life, Miles Davis on his own terms, bequeathed a musical legacy of unrivaled beauty to all humanity and managed to do it telling the truth as he knew it; and he got paid. No one and nothing is cooler than that.

The Jazz musician has always been at the forefront of taste making. There are whole social periods spawned by the personalities of Jazz artists from Dizzy’s ‘Tam’ to Horace’s ‘McNasty’ to anything at all by Monk. The trendsetters were the music makers. They were always the best-dressed, latest ‘lingoed’, most sophisticated members of the commu-

Just as reflective and interior is the wonderful examination Miles Davis gives to George Gershwin’s PORGY AND BESS, under the direction of Gil Evans. The liner notes to the album addresses the fact that Miles and Evans were both intrigued by the inherent blues based Jazz in the original opera. They set out to work within that inherent framework to pull forth an amazing interpretation of the vocal masterpiece, with only the Davis trumpet as the singing voice. Not enough attention has been paid to the musical feat rendered by Miles in the act of ‘singing’ the opera on his horn. People argue the authenticity of PORGY AND BESS as a legitimate opera because of its profound blues/gospel musical core (and some folks say because it’s about Black people in the hood) but the music is undeniably beautiful, evocative of every major human theme experienced everywhere on the planet. Issues of love and lust, greed and generosity, altruism and ambition, sanctity and heresy, and the stuff they call ‘pathos’, spill full-grown into the laps of those who follow Gershwin’s libretto.

Miles captures every nuance of the many contrasts, the differing facets of the opera’s movements. Playing against a 19 piece orchestra of simpatico musicians who understand the challenge and the achievement,

PORGY AND BESS is a must have for any collector of Miles Davis’ music. Under Gil Evan’s direction was a trumpet section of Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, John Coles and Bernie Glow; trombone section of Jimmy Cleveland, Joseph Bennett, Dick Hixon and Frank Rehak; saxophone section of Julian “Cannonball’ Adderley and Danny Banks; French horn section of Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins and Gunther Schuller; flute section of Romeo Penque and Phil Bodner; tuba by John (Bill) Barber; bass by Paul Chambers; drums by Philly Joe Jones with replacements involving Jimmy Cobb and Jerome Richardson. Everybody shuts up when I play this album. It is the natural thing to do in the face of such brilliance. I discover something new every time I play the record.

I have to marvel at this man’s ability to play the truth of melody in a modern non-vocal accuracy that transmits meaning, mood and human emotion. I find myself mouthing the words as he plays the song. And therein lays his magic; he blows a trumpet as casually as a man whistling to himself. His musical concern is a personal intimacy the rest of us manages to voyeuristically observe and gain uplift from. The magic of Miles is to witness his very private love of the music and discover facets of that love in oneself for the very same tunes. I thank Miles Davis for turning me on to Red Garland, a piano master with the perfect sense of framing, to magnify the beauty in Davis’ horn. While Red Garland is only one of the many great players to accompany Davis, I found the virtuosity of his talent worth pursuing for his sound alone. My collection of Garland’s vinyl is yet another valuable aspect of my love of the music. Garland’s gems came to me as a result of hearing him with Miles. I don’t think anyone understood Davis’ music better than Red Garland.

Certainly, no one accompanied him better.

I’m now into the double pocket United Artist album 9952 entitled simply MILES DAVIS.

By now, as you can tell, I am in full indulgence mode and completely under the sway of Mile’s music. These are not the easy pieces that killed pop radio; the crap you hear without listening. These works represent the musical attention of more than a week in time.

Miles’ music cost time. Time is the very fabric of music and particularly so with Miles’ music. Miles effectively J.J. Johnson, used time Jackie McLean, in his music Gil Coggins, to delineate Oscar Pettiford space.

He and Kenny is all about (Klook) Clark where you get to riff on place what.

“Woody ’N One does You”, “Donna”, not listen to and “Dear Old Miles withStockholm” in Jimmy Cobb out a conanother 50’s sciousness of time or space. Then too there expression of Miles back when. Here again, is what I find worth saying to go along with we are before the muted presence that bethe mention of his music- Miles is that kind came his signature. I don’t stay with the of enigma. What is there to say once you’ve album too long because FILLES DE KILIheard his sound? Hasn’t he said it all? Quite MANJARO wants my attention and I am hot frankly, yes he has. I bring him up to ac- to hear “Mademoiselle Mabry”, my favorite knowledge that very point, the man who said example of time and space in all of Davis’ it all. music. Shorter, Corea, Tony Williams and Dave Holland captured the romantic porMILES DAVIS PLAYS FOR LOVERS is Pres- trait of a lady in the Miles Davis story. And of tige album number 7352. It is a compendi- course, she is fascinating. um of romantic chestnuts like “There Is No Greater Love” and “You Don’t Know What So now I’m into QUIET NIGHTS, the bossa Love Is” to grind away on, when the occa- nova Miles, musing on the beauty of Miles sion calls for it. It’s a favorite of mine for rea- with George Coleman, Victor Feldman, Ron sons of Red Garland and Miles, in the grip of Carter and Frank Butler. I’m wondering what various rhythm sections without the help of else is left to say that does not plagiarize the saxophones. He blows a lot of open horn on observations of critics and musical historians this album against players like Percy Heath, of yore. I look at the stack of what I haven’t Oscar Pettiford, Charles Mingus (on piano listened to that is also Miles Davis and am no less), Paul Chambers, Roach, Blakey confronted with: L’ASCENSEUR POUR and Klook, Garland and Silver. Once again, L’ECHAFAUD (ELEVATOR TO THE SCAF-

FOLD) the movie score he did for the French feature film while on tour; JACK JOHNSON, another film score; BITCHES BREW; BIG FUN; GET UP WITH IT and DOOBOP. There’s also scatterings of early pieces like: SORCERER; NEFERTITI; MILES AHEAD; MILES IN EUROPE; ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT, and several editions of GREATEST HITS. I can finally articulate what has impelled me to write about the force of nature know as Miles Dewey Davis-- he is the institution of music. He has played it all.

In some cases he is the only person to have played it. He initiated most of it. Best of all, Miles is still here with us and more relevant now than ever. They complained about his attitude, they railed against his lifestyle, they griped about his honesty, his lack of diplomacy and his blunt language. They tried to limit the effect of his manhood and marginalize his Negritude. None of that means anything.

In the face of what ails us musically, there is Miles Davis. And thanks to recorded music, he’s here forever.

I am grateful there is a Miles Davis to be the top of the musical food chain. It keeps the value of the music high and healthy in the face of ‘Light FM’ and all that so-called ‘smooth jazz’. I bear witness to uncontested excellence that lives on vinyl for whenever I want it. My soul appreciates the undiluted refreshment of music played with the appropriate degree of worship among artists at the pinnacle of their talents, under the leadership of an ascetic, completely dedicated to the perfection of the music’s sonic delivery. Miles Davis ‘live’, was and remains a singular experience.

Miles Davis on vinyl is THE mandatory Jazz tutelage that must be confronted by everyone who calls himself or herself a student of the music. No one encompassed more periods of the music, no one- with the possible exceptions of Armstrong and Ellington, has meant more to the image of the music and no one has made more music than Miles Davis. For generations to come, he will be the musician to study, the one to emulate and the most acute musical ear by which to appreciate and understand Jazz music. This is so because of the density and variety of his musical legacy and the faithfulness with which he put in the work. These are only some of the lesser reasons for his immortality. The best reason Miles Davis will always be the ‘coolest’ is because his very existence was and continues to be, the unquestioned “creation of culture”.

Ed Dessisso is a Free Lance writer and is the author of Vinyl Man, which is regular column in this publication.

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Cubana Be Cubana Bop in Twenties Havana, the size of son groups grew. Ignacio Pinter’s Septeto Nacional included Pinter on bass and Lazaro Herera on trumpet for Ignacio Pinero and His Septeto Nacional (Tumbao). Further advances were made by the blind tres player/composer Arsenio Rodriguez and his conjunto, a group that grew out of black carnival bands. Rodriguez’s music was earthy and hard-driving, with strong African elements. Some believe he was among the first to use the Congoleseinfluenced mambo in clubs, along with bassist Israel “Cachao” Lopez, who gained attention incharanga bands containing flute and violins. Cha-cha-chas were popularized by charanga bands such as Orquestra Aragon.

A Historical Guide to Cuban Music

BY Harvey Pekar Partly owing to the popularity of Wim Wenders’ 1999 movie Buena Vista Social Club, there’s been quite a bit of recent international interest in Afro-Cuban music. Unfortunately, it seems to be confined mainly to the artists who appeared in the film and the Forties and Fifties styles they perform. Some are great performers, others never were. What drew public attention to them was that most were older, had been in the Cuban music scene during the pre-Castro days, and then were pretty much forgotten. Certainly their situations contain some gripping drama, but the extraordinarily rich Cuban music scene has produced many great artists over the past 70 years and continues to do so. Moreover, the decades-long creative exchange between Cuban and American jazz musicians is still going on today.

Those who love what Cuban music they’ve heard but have a limited overall knowledge might want to familiarize themselves with more of its past as well as what’s happening right now.

Cuban music began to make an international impact in the 19th century, such as the habañera from Bizet’s Carmen. The son, blending elements of Spanish and African balladeering is generally thought to have originated in the rural regions of Cuba’s Oriente province. Many pieces called rumbas over here were actually sones, including “El Manicero,” a big hit in the early Thirties, under the name “The Peanut Vendor.” Louis Armstrong’s version could be thought of as an early example of Latin jazz. Son groups were originally composed of vocalists, string (tres guitar), and percussion players, including someone to set the basic rhythm on claves; call-and-response patterns were frequently employed. When sones made an impact Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 24

Arsenio Rodriguez’s band performed a variety of material, some written by Rodriguez, includingson montunos, boleros, and guaguancos. Usually employing a lineup of two trumpet players, a conga player, a pianist, tres, guitar, and other percussion instruments, it featured a number of major instrumentalists over the years. Trumpeter Felix Chappotin (born 1909) could be looked upon as the Louis Armstrong of Cuban trumpeters, a powerful, economical soloist who effectively used trills, grace notes, and rips. Another Rodriguez trumpet alumnus was Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, who later became quite prominent in the United States. The Cuban trumpet style owed something to both the Spanish sounds heard in bullrings and military-band playing. Cuban improvisers, including trumpeters and other instrumentalists as well as vocalists, used syncopation and rhythmic dislocation frequently; their work was very complex and sophisticated. Rodriguez also had two major pianists in Ruben Gonzales (of Buena Vista fame), who never recorded with him, followed by Lili Martinez. These two, along with Pedro “Peruchin” Justiz, were among the founders of the percussive, colorful Afro-Cuban piano style: bright, flashy chordal work and dazzling parallel and contrary motion. Rodriguez was himself a superb tres player who superimposed counter-rhythms over the rhythm section and used advanced harmonic ideas. Dundunbanza (Tumbao) shows his band in top form.

Once Rodriguez left for New York, Chappotin took over the band, and continued Rodriguez’s tradition with a series of excellent

a l b u m s showcasing the powerful, rhythmically precise vocalist Miguelito Cuni.

A highlight is Chappotin’s Que Se Funan (Musica del Sol).

Meanwhile, momentous things were happening to Cuban music in America.

Mario Bauza, a bass clarinetist in the Havana Symphony, switched to trumpet and moved to the U.S. after playing with such highly regarded Cuban artists as Antonio Machin and Don Azpiazu.

Once in America, Bauza performed in the big bands of Noble Sissle, Chick Webb, Don Redman, and Cab Calloway from 1932-1941. A section mate of his in the Calloway band was Dizzy Gillespie. The two discussed the possibilities and potential of blending jazz and Afro-Cuban musical forms with Calloway, and soon were conducting exciting experiments synthesizing the two genres. Bauza became the music director of Machito’s band in 1941, and brought a multitude of ideas from big-band swing arrangements into the vocalist’s charts. Gillespie formed a big band in 1946, and in 1947 hired Cuban percussionist, vocalist, composer Chano Pozo to work for him on some notable recordings for RCA Victor including “Cubana Be Cubana Bop” and “Manteca.”

Around the same time, Machito was featuring bop greats Howard McGhee (trumpet) and Brew More (tenor sax) during his New York appearances. Their music soon became known as Afro Cubop. Later, Charlie Parker and Gillespie made memorable recorded appearances with Machito’s band. The charts they used, by Cuban composer Chico O’Farrill, can be heard on The Original Mambo Kings (Verve). Stan Kenton was also fusing Afro-Cuban and jazz elements at about the same time as Gillespie. The wedding of jazz and Afro-Cuban elements has flourished ever since, eventually giving rise to the genre known as Latin jazz. In 1953, jazz pianist George Shearing formed a band with a great Latin percussion section featuring Willie Bobo on timbales, Mongo Santamaria on congas, and bongo player Armando Perazza, along with Swedish-American vibrophonist Cal Tjader. The band was quite popular, although it often used excessively refined cock-

tail lounge-type arrangements, and can be heard on Shearing’s Latin Escapade (Capitol.)

After leaving Shearing Tjader continued to explore Latin jazz and at one time had Bobo and Santamaria working for him simultaneously, as during Latino Con Cal Tjader (Fantasy). The two percussionists had both worked for Tito Puente, whose charts often had a strong jazz quality. During the mid to late Fifties, it became common for Latin and jazz musicians to work side by side and develop considerable abilities in both areas. During this period, the mambo was extremely popular, and many American musicians played in bands led by Latinos.

Santamaria went on to develop a tri-hybrid style blending jazz, Latin, and R&B elements, as did percussionist Ray Barretto, who also appeared on many jazz and charanga dates.

Barretto’s Acid (Fania) is considered a fusion classic. Santamaria’s hit “Watermelon Man” is available on Mongo’s Greatest Hits (Fantasy.)

Not all Latin/Jazz fusion was going on in the U.S. In 1952 the great Cuban pianist Bebo Valdez led a group through several recorded improvised numbers called descargas (jams) in Havana. His band included perhaps the greatest Cuban trumpeter, Alejandro “El Negro” Vivar, who blended Gillespie’s approach and the more traditional Cuban style wonderfully.

Also in Valdez’s band was tenor saxophonist Gustavo Mas, a fine Lester Young influenced improviser whose work was reminiscent of Moore’s.

The result was electrifying irresistibly infectious music.

More recorded descargas by Valdez followed during the next five years, with not only Vivar but also the topnotch trombonist and arranger Generoso “El Tojo” Jimenez, available on Valdez’s Des-

carga Caliente (Caney). Cachao also led some memorable descarga sessions on which Vivar appeared. Cuban Jam Session Vol. 2 (Panart) is a fine place to start with selections by his group and Julio Gutierrez’s. Cuban musicians were also paying attention to Machito’s big-band experiments. Beny More, often considered the greatest Cuban popular vocalist and a wonderful improviser whose ebullient singing resembled Cab Calloway’s, formed a superb band, the Banda Gigante. Jimenez was More’s primary arranger, and he and Vivar were featured soloists. More and his aggregation are in excellent form on Baila Mi Son (Caney). When Fidel Castro came to power, the flow of Cuban musicians to the United States was drastically reduced. Puerto Rican artists, both those born on the island and in the New York area (Puente, Barretto, Tito Rodriguez, Eddie and Charlie Palmieri, Manny Oquendo) moved to the forefront in the Big Apple. Cuban artists, for their part, kept abreast of developments in the U.S. without missing a beat.

Cuban band Irakere began gaining international acclaim in the Seventies. Far from being unaware of what was going on in the U.S., its individual members exhibited the influence of contemporary jazzmen. Musical director (and son of Bebo) Chucho Valdez, a tremendous technician with a working knowledge of jazz, Latin, and classical forms, was influenced by McCoy Tyner. Clarinetist, alto, and soprano saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera’s playing indicated he was aware of the work of Eric Dolphy and Cannonball Adderley. D’Rivera was also classically trained, while guitarist Carlos Emilio Morales had a fusion style, and high-note specialist Arturo Sandoval was an admirer of Gillespie.

Irakere drew ideas from several sources and put them together in a new way. Their album, The Best of Irakere (Columbia), makes it obvious Cuban music was evolving significantly in the Seventies. In fact, Irakere’s predecessor, Orquestra Cubana de Musica Moderna, was formed in 1967 and included not only Valdez, but also the phenomenal trombonist Juan Pablo Torres. Torres is musical director on the memorable Areito All Star recordings, cut in 1979 by Raoul Diamande, an Ivorian producer based in France.

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Diamande thought Cuban artists weren’t getting enough attention, so he set up this date, on which veterans including Ruben Gonzalez, Chappotin, and Cuni played alongside younger guys such as Torres, D’Rivera, and Sandoval to great effect. Gonzalez’s work is far better than his Buena Vistaappearance, because he was younger and playing more frequently. Prior to the Buena Vista recordings, American producer Joe Boyd had gone to Havana to record a Cuban all-star band, Cubanismo, assembled and led by trumpet star Jesus Alemany. Their Hannibal recordings, although more traditional than Irakere’s, are full of fire and precision. A recent disc with New Orleans musicians, Mardi Gras Mambo, also comes together nicely.

Among the major Cuban artists to emerge in the Nineties is pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, whose tremendous chops, knowledge of various genres, and ability to blend them are reminiscent of Valdez’s. Rubalcaba doesn’t always work within an Afro-Cuban context, also making straight-ahead jazz recordings with bassist Charlie Haden and the avantgarde Blue Note disc Flying Colors with Joe Lovano. Another of Rubalcaba’s very advanced Blue Note efforts is Antigua, on which he skillfully makes use of electronic effects. Cuba has an extraordinary musical heritage especially in view of its small population and in all probability will continue to produce outstanding singers and instrumentalists. As Rubalcaba’s work shows, they are hardly standing still. Many influences are currently weighing on Cuban music, e.g. global DJ culture as well as American jazz and hip-hop. As rich as Cuba’s musical past is how much of the island’s native characteristics its music retains in the future based on present changes is anyone’s guess.

Cal Tjader

Arsenio Rodriguez

Cacho

“Live Jazz” Needs your SUPPORT EVERYDAY It keeps us moving forward Pure Jazz Historic Moment

Harvey Lawrence Pekar was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series

King Oliver with Louis Armstrong Pure Jazz Magazine - Page 26