The record changer (Jan 1955-Dec 1957)

■If liebermann: bncerto For Jazz Band and Symiony Orchestra: the Chicago Sym►lony orchestra conducted by Fritz i&iner, with the Sauter-Finegan "tchestra I ' Two theories lie behind this composition; [|e is cultural, the other is artistic and 'pves to be something of a Janus leading <ck to the first. Once we have decided on the cultural jimise, that "serious" and "popular" music buld be brought together, we need, it :ms, some kind of form to put them in: ibbermann says that he chooses the i&ncerto Grosso and will give the jazz band fp the symphony orchestra the kind of iilerplay which the concertino, orchestra, jd the tutti had in that form. ' You and I have never heard any authentic ' ifhteenth Century folk music, but we know aehow when we hear a suite (or even a Merto) by Bach that the "folk" material j'peing treated with the utmost respect and rehenticity. None of its essential elements, Ike of its quality, none of its honesty or [figrity are lost. The composer has simply liended this music along its own logically ^ blicit lines to greater expressiveness and Iftlety, without losing or denying anything lit is in it. The only difference, then, f|ween "serious" and "popular" music is h} of extension and self-consciousness. The Credible thing is, of course, that Bach / Id creat such virtuoso pieces of music }\-se as the second Brandenberg concerto I the second orchestral suite and still have T music retain everything, every feeling, li folk music has, and communicate this jkical and aesthetic fact to a listener. But I'te that time, it has been a matter of the Ijrious" composer borrowing a theme here, [, an effect there, and (in the late Ileteenth century) a rhythm here and Ire, and using them, according to his fistic conscience, to make something only ijotely related, in most ways, to whatever fiic he borrowed from. Has Liebermann lie what Bach did; has he taken the music ft he chose to begin with and extended ||I am afraid that he has not and my l iions for thinking this will, I hope, become c jr. Li'he composition is in an introduction and i|" sections, separated by interludes and Mging passages. The introduction is what W | might call Ravel with a large dose of Ijvinsky and most of the interludes sound, trim afraid, like padding. This leaves us ■ k the main sections, the ones based on fp" material and in which the dance b;jd participates. r j he first of these is called "jump." Here Wtrs the artistic premise, for the point of I'arture seems to have been one of blasting, Ijging "jumps" that we associated with ifton. Now Mr. Liebermann can base this I whatever he wishes, of course, and call !l|tever he wishes "jazz." But it seems to ijthat in his own interests as a composer, ■ should be aware of at least what Gillie's big band did ' with this kind of I g — if not Ellington, and Basie, and ■jderson and, more to the point, Morton I I Oliver's "stomps" — in short, of what frfolk" music really is and has expressed. Ijit would we think of him if he learned jUDisney only from Paul Terry, his Hemliyay from James Michener, or his Ravel Bji David Raskin? Kenton's music is li vative and limits and exploits that from Ibh it is derived. And this movement does what his music does; the constellation of delightful and moving things which the others did with the form is not here. I am not even sure, by the way, that this movement has the "feel" of Kenton. And why Kenton? If the excuse is that Kenton is "popular," one might better pick Goodman, Lombardo, or Hugo Winterhalter. The second section is called "boogie woogie" and it has little relationship to any boogie woogie — even Will Bradley's. (This kind of thing was much better done in what is definitely a second-rate piece of music, Aaron Copeland's Concerto for Clarinet. And few would deny that The Honky Tonk Train or Tell 'Em About Me says far more.) However it is in this section that Liebermann comes closest to the kind of baroque interplay between his sections which he announced as his intention. A "blues" follows and this blues has no relationship in form or feeling to any blues whatsoever, neither Dodds nor Kenton. It does suggest the self-pity of a torch song. (The only "serious" use of blues — but what could be more serious than Bessie Smith? — that comes near to any kind of success is, it seems to me, the second movement of Ravel's Sonata for violin and piano. But there, in order to operate, Ravel had to exaggerate certain devices to the point of burlesque.) The final section and, far the most entertaining, is a mambo. Small wonder that the audience was so roused at the Chicago performance with this as a final movement that they demanded a repeat. Again it comes closer to the music of a popularizer than to, say, Prado or Puente. And we all know what Ellington and Gillespie, not to mention Morton, have done with such things; Liebermann either doesn't know or does not respond. And here we need to point to form. The band really carries this thing. And what advantages is there to having the strings make chords under it, the percussion add mechanically executed effects, the brass join in for the big volumes and masses? Is the orchestra there to make things "bigger"? Well, use two orchestras and make them enormous. If Mr. Lierbermann is going to use his considerable talent to put jazz to any kind of use, he should learn what real expressiveness it has often evolved for itself. He will find much to use. A reviewer in "The Saturday Review" said that it was to Liebermann's advantage that his knowledge of jazz was superficial. If he wants to produce only an entertainment or a tour de force, it probably is. But, if he wants to write a piece of music, especially one which will fulfill the meaning behind his cultural premise, it certainly is not. No "serious" composer ever seems to have had any artistic response to any kind of jazz but the most banal. At any rate, the fissure which Liebermann set out to bridge lies wide, for at least three movements, even the unimportant fissure between Dr. Reiner and the Messrs. Sauter and Finegan. (RCA Victor LM 1888) (M. T. W.) young fats waller: (Pianos, Solos) Numb Fumblin'/ Love Me or Leave Me/Sweet Savannah Sue / Valentine Stomp / Smashing Thirds/Baby Oh Where Can You Be/My Feelin's Are Hurt/ Turn on the Heat There were times in the years of success when "Fats" Waller's playing seemed to fall into a collection of predictable "licks" and I I mannerisms. One could enjoy the showmanship and the comedy of the man but, as is almost inevitably the case with a very successful jazzman, one sometimes simply had to "be understanding" of the state of the music. On these records, however, we hear a creative piano player, even on most of the show tunes, and they are Waller records that it is a pleasure to discuss musically. The "stride" school ranges all the way from Luckey Roberts to Art Tatum. It includes such basically similar yet divergent styles as those of Willie "The Lion" Smith and James P. Johnson. It ;s all very well to speak of it as Northeastern, yet such men as Don Kirkpatrick, from North Carolina, find themselves at home in it. Even Count Basie schooled himself in it, and I suspect that Theolonious Monk may really belong in it. It does, however, seem to be Eastern and, besides certain characteristic "licks" and patterns for variations, it has a beat which is quite unlike that which one finds in New Orleans jazz or Mid-western jazz. I cannot describe it technically, but it has something to do with the timing by which the right hand receives its impetus from the bass' beat. It is probably easy enough to place Fats within the group, however. His playing is full of, but not controlled by, that light good-humor that characterized the man. It means, on the one hand, that he never played the blues with that profound sadness that even the crudest piano players often can. He could play them with great delicacy and often a certain pensiveness (see the ironically titled Numb Fumblin'). Indeed, few "stride'' men seem to have the GeorgiaNew Orleans-later-St. Louis feel for the sadness of the form — only James P. on rare occasions (the first chorus of Comin' On With The Come On, for example) seems to have approached it. Beyond that, however, the range of the early Waller was large. Notice how vastly different in mood, but how logically integrated the second, fourth, and last choruses of Numb Fumblin' are, and how much divergence again, there is among them. Valentine Stomp sounds reminiscent, incidentally, of something — perhaps something of Johnson's. The variations seem the same but the chord progression and key or mode differ slightly. fOh, yes, "advanced" over the sequence that James P. might have used and perhaps not quite up to that which "The Lion" would), and there is that magnificent bouncing left hand which could outdo them all both in strength and in becoming a part of the music and not just a base on which to make treble. RCA should mind its processing, by the way. Same faint and peculiar noises seem to creep in here, at least on my copy, especially in the brief Turn On The Heat. [Label "X" LBA 3035) (M.T.W.) (a) scott's fling — tony scott septet Fingerpoppin' Blues/But Not For Me /Forty-Second Street/ Abstraction No. 1/Lucky to Be Me/Requiem for "Lips"/Autumn Nocturne/Our Love is Here to Stay/Sunday Scene/Three Short Dances for Solo Clarinet/Glad to Be Unhappy/Let My Fingers Go Good art has always a quality of inevitability. This is just as true of Bobby Clark's jokes as of the Chromatic Fantasy And