80 years ago today: the Benny Goodman-Count Basie Octet

By the autumn of 1940, Benny Goodman had undergone his first back surgery and was already on the mend. He had put his orchestra on hold for the summer, with a few men on retainer, like electric guitar wonder Charlie Christian, who'd taken the opportunity to visit family and friends back in Oklahoma, his first chance since he'd hit the big time the previous summer.

While still a popular bandleader, Goodman had somewhat lost some of his spark after the departure of some key men in his big band, namely Harry James and Gene Krupa, and with his current band on hold, rumours were rife. A big one was a possible merger with Count Basie, himself having some problems with his booking agency. Besides mutual admiration and being signed to the same label, a common thread to both bands was producer John Hammond, who had championed both and in 1942 became Goodman's brother-in-law.

Benny Goodman and Charlie Christian sitting in with the Count Basie Orchestra,
Apollo Theatre, Harlem, October 24, 1940 (source)

Electric guitar—Who's on first?

When I blogged about Charlie Christian's centennial last July, I said that discussions about who was first to record a regular, or "Spanish", (not lap-steel or "Hawaiian") electric guitar seemed pointless, given the fortuitous nature of such a feat. Interestingly, literature on early electric guitar is mostly focused on the gear rather than the music. The game-changer that was Charlie Christian may have something to do with that, but let that not stop us from having at least a glance on players from the pre-Christian era.

Gage Brewer (on lap steel). Picture from the
Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum

Notes on Charlie Christian's centennial

Today it's the 100th anniversary of Charlie Christian's birthday. For a special 2h30m programme we've done (in Spanish) in El Club de Jazz, I've spent the last few months re-visiting his complete output (except for a very few items, such as Bill Savory's airchecks housed at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem). My playlist tells me that it's 239 tracks long—about 13 hours straight—including the ones where Christian's presumed to play with Benny Goodman's orchestra. On top of that, I've listened to other guitar players (Bus Etri doing "Flying Home" in 1940, anyone?), plus a generous helping of string music from Texas and Oklahoma also known as Western Swing.

Charlie Christian at the Metronome All-Star session
February 7, 1940. Courtesy of Leo Valdés.

Because it is unavoidable that some of the same old stories will be regurgitated for the centennial, I've jotted down a few notes about CC:

Kenny Clarke's centenary

Kenny Clarke (source: drummercafe.com)

Kenny Clarke, born one hundred years ago today, is one of the great drummers in the history of jazz. Any reference text will tell you about his role in the development of be-bop, his bomb-dropping, his shifting of the rhythm from the hi-hat to the ride cymbal and all that, which is correct and just fine, but there's much more.

Like Don Byas, he's one of those musicians whose place in posterity has been diminished because they left the US, the "out of sight, out of mind" principle. Before that, he played in the major leagues, he was part of the original line-up of the Modern Jazz Quartet (the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band), with whom he recorded this

which seems to be the basis for what Miles Davis recorded as "Two Bass Hit". Interestingly, in the MJQ's version Milt Jackson quotes Clarke's "Epistrophy", a tune he co-signed with Thelonious Monk with origins in Minton's and the sessions with Charlie Christian (the theme was figured out by Clarke while playing some phrases Christian taught him on the ukulele).

A favourite piece of Clarke is the famous recording of "Topsy" from Minton's, with Christian on guitar, Monk on piano, and Nick Fenton on bass. Clarke's time, swing, and punctuation are flawless, but do listen for the way he interacts with Christian. That's peerless, on the spot creativity.

February 7, 1940: A busy day at the office

So, February 7, 1940. The war is going on in Europe, but Pearl Harbor is almost two years away. At the same time, in Manhattan, Metronome magazine has called in the best jazz musicians according to their readers to wax a couple of tunes, a big band take on "King Porter Stomp", and a blues called "All-Star Strut" by a reduced group of nine, presumably the winner in each instrument category.

This kind of pick-up bands are interesting insofar as they differ from our point of view. Two tenor saxes and no Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young or Ben Webster? (OK, Hawkins was just back from Europe, but "Body and Soul" was already out!) A pianist who's not Art Tatum? Jimmie Blanton is not on bass? Not a single member from the Ellington or Basie bands?!!! Quite a travesty, yes, but besides this being a selection being a different time in history, although the swing years are normally presented as an "era" when jazz was popular, it'd be probably fairer to say that popular music was, often but not always, soaked in jazz.

In any case, the men were (in italics, the members of the nonet):

TRUMPETS: Harry James, Ziggy Elman, and Charlie Spivak;

TROMBONES: Jack Teagarden and Jack Jenney;

REEDS: Benny Goodman on clarinet; Benny Carter, and Toots Mondello on alto sax; Eddie Miller, and Charlie Barnet on tenor sax;

RHYTHM: Charlie Christian on the electric guitar; Jess Stacy on piano; Bob Haggart on bass; and Gene Krupa on drums.

ARRANGER: Fletcher Henderson.

Luckily there several pictures from this session (click on them to enlarge). This one, because Christian is still wearing his hat, and Krupa has his jacket still on, as well as their relative positions, may come from the beginning of the session

Charlie Christian, Gene Krupa
(from Leo Valdés's site)

Encore: BG and Sextette... unissued!

Auld, Goodman, Williams, Christian
(Photographer unknown)

Things that just happen: the previous blog was about Charlie Christian and his recordings with Benny Goodman, and this one too.

As everything else, social networking is as good as its end result. For me and whoever is reading this, it will allow us listening to 22 minutes from a radio programme recorded on February 19, 1941, at WNYC, where the announcer, Ralph Berton, requests tunes to Benny Goodman and his Sextet. Although there is a CD (Benny Goodman: A Tour de Force / The Small Groups, Live, Encore 7001) including two tracks from this broadcast ("Sheik of Araby", and "Gone with 'What' Wind"), the rest was unissued, so much so that some of it doesn't even appear on Leo Valdés's discography. The impromptu "Blues in Bb" may be the most interesting bit.

The programme can be listened to here, and the playlist is as follows:

     00:00  Rose Room (ending)
     00:52  Flying Home
     05:49  Blues in Bb
     10:42  The Sheik of Araby
     13:13  Body and Soul (George Auld + rhythm)
     17:38  Gone with "What" Wind
     20:40  Stompin' at the Savoy

Personnel is Goodman on clarinet, Christian on guitar, Cootie Williams on trumpet, George Auld on tenor sax, Johnny Guarnieri on piano, Artie Bernstein on bass, and Dave Tough on drums. Eternal thanks to Loren Schoenberg for the heads up.

Review: Charlie Christian Genius boxed set

(This is a translation of my review for Cuadernos de Jazz)

Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar
(4-CD set, Sony/Legacy 88697930352; released in 2012)

Charlie Christian (el-g) with, among others, Benny Goodman (cl), Lionel Hampton (vib), Cootie Williams (tp), George Auld, Lester Young (ts); Johnny Guarnieri, Count Basie (p); Artie Bernstein (b), Nick Fatool, Dave Tough, Jo Jones (d).

Recorded in New York and Hollywood, between 1939 and 1941.

When it comes to jazz, the recording industry, whatever's left of it, lives on reissues. These are cheap to produce, whether for the legal owners of the masters, or whoever chooses to shield themselves behind EU law. Poor little us are left, in the meantime, with a mess of sets to be checked for price, sound quality and track titles to avoid duplication or just hoarding more stuff. A true nightmare.

A couple of anniversaries

Spring's almost flown by, so I didn't realize that in May it was 70 years since Charlie Christian was recorded at Minton's and Monroe's by Jerry Newman.

MJCD75

Seven recordings exist, two of them recorded at the latter venue, five at the former (for more details, go to "May 8, 1941" here). The most famous, and rightly so, is the improvisation on "Topsy", also titled "Swing to Bop" or "Charlie's Choice", depending on the issue. Unless you're particularly interested in vintage memorabilia, you're more likely to hear this music either on CD, mp3 download or streaming, or YouTube (see below). If that's so, there are two versions that you'll come across. One has more background noise, and some overdubbed applause in certain spots. That's probably taken from Vol. 8 of the Complete Edition of Charlie Christian recordings (MJCD75), published by French label Média 7 in 1994. Upside: pitch is corrected so it sounds in Bbm. The other version is the one on Esoteric/Fantasy CD OJCCD-1932-2, with fuller sound, no overdubbed applause, and in a slightly faster tempo (key is closer to Bm).

The hero in this recording is Charlie Christian. At the time there was nothing, nothing at all, remotely close to what he was doing on the guitar. As for the music, he was an obvious follower of Lester Young but he was going his own way, pushing the envelope as regards rhythm and a sort of less melodic approach to improvisation, showing the way to what Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie would expose in full bloom four years later.

Some people get hung up in the historical importance of all this. That's fine, I guess, but it shouldn't stop anyone from appreciating and enjoying it as what it is, high-quality, swinging music. It's interesting to see how Christian seems to save himself for the B sections, the bridges where he plays mainly long runs of eighth notes disregarding any bar lines (something Lester Young was well-known for). In the rest, the A sections, he goes more for improvised, short riffs.

OJCCD-1932-2

Having the guitar in a more rhythmic role gives Kenny Clarke (who deserves much more credit than he usually gets for making things happen here) the chance to free up his playing. However, it is his playing together with Christian what is really astonishing, they really seem to be making a cooperative effort, especially in the A parts, to play in "rhythmic unison" (don't miss the pianist's punctuation in 3:09). As for the other soloists, besides Joe Guy on trumpet, of course there's the pianist. Even though some experienced listeners and the actual label of the original acetate give Thelonious Monk as the pianist, other experienced listeners are sure the ivory tickler here is Kenny Kersey (if you must know, I'm siding with the Monkians). In any case, it is nice to hear Christian play his straight 4/4 "chug-chug" rhythm guitar on the pianist's second chorus.

In case you get lost, the bridges happen, in the slower, Bbm version, at 0:12, 0:47, 1:22, 1:56, 2:31, 3:06, and then 7:06, 7:40, 8:14... how's that for a steady rhythm section?

Here it is, pitch corrected:

and how it's been known for ages, slightly faster:

You can also hear it on Spotify, in Bbm, or in Bm.

As for the other anniversary, this blog was three years old on May 28.

Thanks for reading.