The record changer (Jan 1955-Dec 1957)

12 Fugue; we feel we could not alter a note or a gesture and still get the yock or the gooseflesh they evoke. Even hearing them for the first time something in us recognizes something in them; we try to express this inexpressible fact by such formulations as "It says something." This is what rules out the arbitrary, which has no place in art. You cannot make art as you please, but only as it demands to be made, organically. Tony Scott is a fine jazz musician — whenever he permits himself to be. Fortunately that is at least half the time on Scott's Fling. For the other half, however, what I call The Blight descends on him. The Blight is a mistaken notion, discouragingly prevalent among jazz artists today, that in order to be acknowledged as something more than mere entertainers they must contrive to be High Toned. Now, without discussing the validity of such a goal, it plainly has nothing in common with the goal of art, which is just to "say something" as simply and strongly as possible. You cannot genuinely make art in order to prove how High Toned you are, just as you cannot genuinely make love to prove how virile you are (or anything else). The itch to impress injects a foreign substance, the arbitrary, into the work, making an organic statement impossible. The fact that the artist himself may deceive himself that this is his best effort, and even enjoy doing it, is beside the point; we must listen only to the results, which often appear to lead a life of their own, independent of and intractable to the artist's will. The foreign substance in Scott's Fling is most perniciously represented in two atonal and arhythmic items, Abstraction No. 1 (may there be no additions!) and Three Short Dances (the dancer who tried to dance to rhythmless music would have my sympathy) ; less so by Requiem and Autumn, which are merely glum without being expressive; and, to a degree, by various arranged passages throughout, by means of which both Tony and Dick Hyman seem more determined to exhibit their ingenuity than make interesting music. The natural and good music they can create, when they choose, will be found in the Blues, Sunday, and Fingers (all Tony's originals), and in Billy Byers' modest and musicianly arrangement of Our Love. But I fear it was not primarily these, but the more pretentious stuff cited, which the jacket notes refer to as "indicative of the seriousness, the musicianship," etc. Certainly seriousness is a virtue in its place, but when a preoccupation with it results in music which at its worst makes no sense at all (Abstraction) and elsewhere (Nocturne) resembles a Hollywood sound track of the usual sort, then one asks why this alleged seriousness is to be preferred to levity, or — more pertinently— to the genuine seriousness of the less pretentious jazz artist sticking to his own last. Like who for instance? Well, like Louis playing Dallas Blues, Charlie Parker playing Scrapple From The Apple, Thelonious playing Round About Midnight or like Tony Srott when he isn't itching to be High Toned. (Fingerpoppin' is really good.) Needless to say, the musicians he picked were all up to his own high standards, and all perform well: F.ddic Wasscrman (ts), D.mny Hanks (bs), |immy Nottingham (tp), Billy Byers (tb), Milt Hinton (h), Osie Johnson (d). (RCA Victor IJM-1022) (R.B.) (b) mr. music — al cohn and his orchestra Something For Lisa/Count Every Star/Cabin in the Sky/Move/Never Never Land/La Ronde/This Reminds Me of You/Breakfast With Joe/Cohn My Way On the Al Cohn Question, I have fun into two schools. One calls him "Mr. Music," with all that that implies; the other, in the minority I think, objects that — as one musician put it to me — "I feel Al Cohn must be a great musician. I just wish he'd let us hear Al Cohn some time instead of Prez." Even if I agreed, my answer would be "So what?" since I can hardly imagine a nicer way to blow; but in fact I hear much that is personal in Al, though he does constantly recall Lester, in a hundred beautiful ways. In the golden days of the Italian Renaissance a young painter's progress was judged by how closely he could follow his master, until his own "hand" in due course showed itself, and there was certainly no disgrace in being recognized as "School of Botticelli." When jazz history is written, I doubt that Al Cohn will feel terribly humiliated by the classification "School Of Prez." Al's writing and arranging alone would deserve the attention of music lovers. Six of the tunes in Mr. Music were his scores, one of them his original (Lisa), and all are excellently wrought. My favorite Cohn arrangement here was Move, but then I'm always prejudiced in favor of the most swing; however, Lisa is also fine, with its simple, forthright jazz theme and satisfying structure of good writing and good improvisation. His ballad arrangements are unexceptionable, though I seldom find the genre exciting. La Ronde is interesting for the way it alternates 19th-century tinkling and solid jazz "commentary" while avoiding The Blight (see previous review). The final three tunes are by P„alph Burns, Johnny Carisi, and Manny Albam respectively. You'll like Burns' Reminds if you enjoy what is vulgarly called "mood music" (I don't) ; and Johnny's Breakfast is an unassuming medium tempo blues with few written parts, which serves chiefly as a frame for Joe Newman's solos. But for me the star work on this whole date (as a piece of writing) was the very last tune, Manny Albam's highly original Cohn My Way. Would that it had been five times as long! Starting with a pleasantly singable jazz tune — one that rocks right from the first note — Manny proceeds to exploit the superb talents of these men (Cohn, Sol Schlinger, Gene Quill (saxes), Joe Newman (tp), Billy Byers (tb), Sanford Gold (p), Buddy Jones (b), Osie Johnson (d)) to the hilt, with as exciting an architecture of written and improvised jazz as I've heard since the best of Woody Herman. If there were nothing else of value on this record, Cohn My Way would have made it worth the buying. Most of the solos are so uniformly good that it would be unfair to single out any. However, there were several moments when I found myself wishing Joe Newman would exercize his proven inventiveness instead of producing a string of musical puns. Aside from that, he, like his colleagues, plays with to quote the entirely just claims of the liner notes — "a swinging continuity which just never gives up." If you dig modern jazz, you'd better run II out and get this one. If you don't, | iii might be the right place for you to s tt (RCA Victor LJM-1024) (R.B.) the trios: darnell howard, ll nodes, and baby dodds Slow and Easy Mama/I Know lal You Know / Baby Food / Sa el Georgia Brown volly de faut, hodes and ja$.Bi taylor Someday Sweetheart / Washbcrc Stomp /Tishomingo/Copenhagen The idea of having Jasper Taylor |n< Volly De Faut in high fidelity perform; :e may be said to be enticing enough in i^li Besides, there are some interesting per la album notes written by Hodes that are v nl pondering. On Georgia Brown and toward the ei' o Baby Food, Hodes does some effect el thought-out and careful stuff, some o:i best work he has recorded. Dodds does tn of his usually inventive drumming h bop men re-discovered the large "meli ic contribution that a drummer's work :a have) and he has some appropriately ie moments that some are going to be surpto at. Howard is today quite the surer lm more professional of the two clarinets. ( ;>tl are currently "out of the music busine I He does a Noone for the most part, a | i lucid on Mamma and Georgia BrownD Faut has certainly been hearing his C )d man, but he knows his Noone. He is be o Sweetheart, but the lovely melodic liij* that piece gets too far away from everjH And Howard doesn't catch up to the , hie I know. Give a receptive ear to the percus I Dodd's drums and Taylor's washboard n drums. And, if you can, project it ic into the records of the twenties when d ix and cymbals wouldn't record and a drui v. had to clonk his temple blocks to get o th recording at all. (Paramount 113) (M.1Y. sarah vaughan sings with jftl kirby orchestra It Might As Well Be Spring/Jre nade/I Can Make You Love Me/.h Peanut Vendor/ You Go to My r * /Ripples/Em Scared/Sextet ffl Lucia Only every other selection is Sarah J» each one is a delight. The four recof fif were made in 1946, when Sarah had yin delicacy but mature control. This wa th unaffected, sincere musician who influt* almost every girl singer to come after. Tl charm, the tasteful inventions, the s 'tl blossoming of style, have not been prest t quite the same degree in recent 'I Sarah's voice has thickened considei «| and she has added a "commercial" vi it that only renders her poor current ma fO less palpable. I prefer to remembei IB clean, fresh voice on these records as** Sarah Vaughan. The four Kirby ditties seem thrown '! fill out the record. All the old Kirby e*l are there, but these 1946 dates don't Hi ■ II