In 50 years, music has become a vast
communications industry where one
performer can now reach hundreds of
thousands of listeners. It's been a long
journey, accomplished in a relatively short
time. When Melody Maker started in 1926,
popular music was a small scale entertainment, its emphasis on do-it-yourself, with
sheet music sales far out-distancing
records.
Radio was a new toy. Amplification, as we know
it today, was non-existent. And the first full-length sound film hadn't even hit the cinemas.
In the ensuing years, the world has seen shattering social change. Through it all, a universal
popular music has evolved, fighting off the appeal
of the movies, to reign supreme.
Appropriately projecting the extravagance of today's scene is Elton John. He is pictured on stage
at the 75,000-capacity Dodger Stadium, Los
Angeles, by Terry O'Neill. In just a few short years
Elton has risen to dominate pop music all over
the world.
Surrounding him are some of the musicians who
have developed popular music over the decades and paved the way for the music of the Seventies.
ELVIS PRESLEY spearheaded the youth revolution of
the Fifties, and provided the real identity for the new consciousness reflected by James Dean and Marion Brando.
A white boy who broke free of the moral' straightjacket of
Middle America, Elvis leaned heavily on the music of black
singers like Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup and made the world
aware of the sexual explicitness of rock and roll.
DUKE ELLINGTON, who died in May 1974, was jazz's
first great composer, and the leader of, arguably, the
greatest band of the twentieth century. Impatient with the
advocates of nostalgia, Ellington, continually moved forward throughout his 75 years, and was looked upon as a
God by the entire jazz fraternity. Ellington's dignity and
poise left its mark on hundreds of titles recorded during
his long and honourable career.
THE BEACH BOYS represented the summer of American
pop with their harmony-dominated surf music in the years
from 1962 to 1967, their achievements culminating in the
"Pet Sounds" album, which many feel is on a par with
the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper." In more recent years they've
lost their creative impetus but retain a sunny, almost
joyous stage presence.
JIMI HENDRIX singlehandedly changed the sound of
the electric guitar in rock music. At heart a blues player,
Hendrix ushered in the age of the Guitar Hero. His memory
has been tainted by the release of many sub-standard
sessions issued posthumously, but he was, unequivocably,
a giant, even if his imagination sporadically ran ahead of
his technique.
LOUIS ARMSTRONG was the trumpeter who elevated
jazz into the realms, of art. The first great soloist, he was
a master of the blues idiom, and his influence was felt
throughout American music. The line from Satchmo to
Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Roy Eldridge and Miles Davis
can be easily traced.
SLY STONE, alias Sylvester Stewart, rose to prominence with the Family Stone, the soulful side of the San
Francisco sound. In the mid-Sixties, Sly's music was
characterised by an emphasis on choppy bass guitar lines
and pumping brass, but with the Seventies he grew introspective and the resultant albums, particularly 'There`s A
Riot Gain' On," were to be profoundly influential. Jazz-rock,
soul and the current disco vogue owe a tremendous debt
to this renegade Californian deejay.
CATALYST
The Stones
and the
Who - two
British
giants of
the Sixties
THE ROLLING STONES
(Mick Jagger pictured right
by Robert Ellis) burst on to
the rock scene in 1963 with
aggressive British R & B
based on Black American
music. They were the epitome
of rebellious youth, with
vocalist Dagger's outrageous
dancing, the couldn't-care-less
attitude of guitarists Brian
Jones and Keith Richard and
the stone-faced boredom of
drummer 'Charlie Watts and
bassist Bill Wyman. Since
then, the Stones have survived the years to become
established rock superstars. Pete Townshend (pictured
left by Robert Ellis) was the
archetypal London mod in
1965 when his group, The
Who, shot to prominence on
the crest of his song "My
Generation," one of the most
evocative youth rock songs of
the Sixties. Since that emergent period, Pete has estab-
lished himself as one of the
most articulate rock musicians, as well as being one of
the most creative, notably
with " Tommy," a highly-acclaimed rock opera which
was later made into a film.
***********************************************
LAST WORDS
******************************************
The 'bible' and me, by Max Jones co-author of the book Louis
FOR ME, by chance and for a variety of unlikely reasons, the Melody Maker is not so much a
paper more a way of life. How it started
is not clear now, but my initial contact with
the journal was made at school during the
opening years of the Thirties.
And since that day, more than 43 years ago, there
have been very few issues of the Melody Maker I haven't seen.
[t became, in the lingo of those few then in the know,
simply "the bible," the only source of jazz wisdom.
It wasn't the magazine - then a fat, eagerly-awaited
monthly - which introduced me to hot music, or rhythm
known. Gramophone records
and then the wireless had
already done that.
If readers will pardon a
personal reminiscence, I'll
explain.
My brother and I, keen
on unusual records by the
Denza Dance Band and the
like, bought pawnshop instruments and started an
off-the-cuff bard which developed at school sufficiently
to stagger both staff and
fellow students at an end-of-term concert By then,
radio's Christopher Stone
had whetted our appetites
for American jazz discs.
Several members of the
group, called the Campus
Club Dance Band at one
time, were recruited at the
Poly in Regent Street where
I was fortunate enough to
be instructed, unofficially
During art class or private
studies, in the mysterious
ways of the dance band world.
Our monthly Melody Maker was the
only guide we knew to
which band played where
and who was in it, to what
record was most worth getting, to who was in town,
what music was published,
and how much chance there
might be of buying a new
sax, clarinet or trumpet.
For semi-pros, there was
also the opportunity of entering one of the Melody
Maker band contests.
Impossible today to convey the atmosphere of those
years for boys of 15 or so
in search of enlightenment
on a new, sacred, semi-secret subject.
Let me say, though, that
it was a voyage of fascinating and haphazard discovery
which took us in and out of
music and record shops
from Regent Street to
Charing Cross Road, up to
Selfridge's roof at lunchtime
to hear the latest dance
records, and down as far as
the exteriors of Soho bottle
clubs and dance halls to
gaze at photographs of such
as the 43 Club band, Syd
Roy's Lyricals or, no less,
Joe Loss and his Harlem
Band.
And it drew us by
curiosity and necessity to
the pages of the Melody Maker, organ
of "the profession", which
among other wonders announced sudden and usually
totally unexpected happenings like the imminent
arrival at the London Palladium of Louis Armstrong
or, a little later, Duke
Ellington's band the Boswell Sisters or Mills Brothers.
It wasn't out-and-out jazz
with us then, or out-and-out
anything. It was listening to
and trying to play music
which possessed something
of the new flavour, the
swing spirit.
The Melody Maker reflected this
underground enthusiasm
and, through the writings of
men such as Spike Hughes,
John Hammond and Edgar
Jackson, fed and encouraged
it. Hughes, who was critic
"Mike", influenced a
generation of jazz jeunesse.
Thus, at an early age, I
engrossed myself in the
feeling and excitement of
hot music.
Perhaps it was the beginning of a misspent youth
which in turn grew into
misspent adulthood and
middle age: I dare say it
was, and if so the monthly
"bible" (followed by the
weekly journal) deserved a
hefty share of the blame.
Anyway, I've had very few
regrets.
As I've said, we needed
the Melody Maker in order to know
and get around. More than
anyone else, you needed it
if you were a player of
almost any sort of popular
music over here.
It was the musicians'
paper, their directory and
publicity organ. "The Staunchest Pillar of the Profession" was how it was
sometimes advertised in the
middle Thirties: Every
Friday, 3d. That it was, and
an excellent three-pennies'
worth our band considered
it. Then, as now, one copy
often went round a whole
band.
At no time did it set out
to be a jazz paper, though
older enthusiasts complaining of disenchantment
often suggest otherwise. No
dance musician the Melody Maker
claimed, could he up-to-date
in his views without it.
And the faces looking out
of its pages were more
likely to belong to Lou
Preager, Ambrose, Al
Bowlly, Henry Hall, Jack
Hylton, Harry Roy or Carroll Gibbons than to Bix,
Hawkins, the Teagardens or
even Louis - though Armstrong always enjoyed a
special association with this
paper (Which ran the first
letter from him ever to
burst into print) and was
fairly heavily featured in it
through the Thirties.
Although it was the
mirror of the dance profession, the Melody Maker nonetheless
gave hospitality to jazz
writers in its features pages
and letters columns - I
wrote to the latter before
the war without success,
though my brother got one
in - and sponsored the
Rhythm Club movement
from its inception in June
of 1933. No doubt the Melody Maker
was the first weekly in the
world to run regular jazz
record reviews.
The clubs were a vital
factor in spreading rhythm
around, as you might say,
and when the Melody
Maker published Hilton
Schleman ' s pioneering
Rhythm On Record in '36,
the author dedicated it to
the clubs. R on R, a rare
book today, came out for
seven-and-sixpence and was
a very enterprising Melody Maker
venture into the jazz field.
And that field, I should
explain for younger readers,
was - quite unlike today's
jazz scene in Britain. Homegrown jazz, stifled almost
in its infancy by an official
ban on US jazz and dance
players, was far from flourishing.
Melody Maker contests uncovered
talented individuals: Rhythm
Club jam sessions sometimes presented them: and
the "bible" reported and
supported their activities.
But the music suffered
badly from feelings of
insularity and inferiority,
though Benny Carter's arrival in 1936 as resident
arranger for the BBC Dance
Orchestra gave it a powerful boost.
The war changed Britain's
music scene abruptly, as it
changed everything, and
after 1939 the profession
was never the same for
what we thought of as "the
bands". That aspect of
West End life, of the
luxury trade, was altered
for ever. And tastes were
changing too.
During the war, the Melody Maker
naturally endured a lean
period - short of newsprint and staff and cut off
still further for a while
from musical ideas from
abroad - but it survived
the vicissitudes and maintained what was in some
cases literally an army of
loyal readers spread about
the world. Sinclair Traill,
Ken Brown, Vic Bellerby
and Hector Stewart are
four, still writing about
jazz, who managed to see
the Melody Maker in India.
Up to this time, if I may
return to a personal note,
my connection with the
paper had been that of a
keen reader who followed
dance band contests and
went to special Melody Maker events - such as the musicians'
matinee for Armstrong, the
EIlington and Carter concerts and so on - and was
involved with the Number
One Rhythm Club and
others affiliated to the Melody Maker.
It's true that through
Johnny Claus, in whose first
band I played sax until I
was rumbled, I had met
Edgar Jackson and others
who worked for the paper.
I started two or three
rhythm clubs, even a federation of same, and sometimes visited the Melody Maker to
drum up publicity.
By now I had started
scribbling down thoughts
about jazz and Afro-American music, and very purist
and pretentious most of
them were, and contributing
occasional scripts to Radio
Rhythm Club. But the
notion of working for
the Melody Maker hadn't crossed my
mind.
It came about by accident when Bill Elliott left
the Collectors' Corner feature, and his partner Rex
Harris, who I knew well
through the rhythm clubs,
invited me to take over
from Bill. Later, purely on
a chance recommendation
by Edgar Jackson, I was
asked to join full-time.
The decision didn't take
long, as I recall, though I
was supposed to return
from the Civil Defence to
my father's business. It was
metal versus music, no
contest really, and so I
jumped with no experience
into a world disturbed by
reports of Glenn Miller's
disappearance, presumed
dead, and interested in Ted
Heath's decision to start his
own orchestra. My own
head was filled with Bunk,
Louis, Bechet, Yancey and
music-makers of that kind.
Those were the days
when the traditional or New Orleans "revival" was
getting off the ground over
here: modern jazz groups
were catching up with bop
happenings: Sunday Swing
Concerts and Jazz Jamborees were big attractions,
and most of the big bands
left were showing the
marks left by Glenn Miller's
Band of the AEF.
Stimulating times they
were for the Melody Maker, which
identified editorially with
the changing tastes of
young musicians, and (to be
personal again) for me, who
began to realise that the
more music you listen to,
especially live, the more
you realise how little you
know.
Ah, well, a way of life as
I remarked at the start, and
what a way to work!
Meeting Django Reinhardt,
Toots Camarata, Jimmy and
Marian McPartland, the
Miller musicians and such
critics as Hugues Panassie.
Charles Delaunay and
Robert Goffin within my
initial year or two on the
strength helped to convince
me I was being hired to
enjoy myself.
That's how life has continued: another point is that
no one on the M M ever
tells me what to say in
print.
Jazz: the art with nine lives, by Leonard Feather. Melody Maker contributor since 1933,
who has two books due: The Pleasure Of Jazz and The Encyclopedia of Jazz In The 70's.
FIFTY YEARS ago, when the Melody
Maker was born, jazz was not even
the minority-interest music it would soon
become. The word itself was well known:
the Melody Maker first flourished during what was
known as the jazz era, though nobody knew
precisely the meaning of the term.
There was even a so-called King of Jazz,
but only a tiny minority within the
minority knew that Paul Whiteman, who
bore that crown with all the pomp of a
grand pretender, had precious little right
to the throne.
The evolution of jazz from half-ignored,
half-despised novelty to respected art form,
taught in countless American colleges and
heard throughout the world on offical US
Government missions, is inextricably interwoven with the story of the black man's
rise from a swamp of oppression that
almost engulfed him in the early years of
this century.
That the music matured from its original
character as a lusty, primitive folk form
could be attributed more to the indomitable
spirit and determination of the performers
than to any encouragement they received
from the American people.
There had been just a few milestones in
the development of jazz at the time the Melody Maker
first appeared. At the turn of the century
Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag'' had just
been published and the ragtime craze
would overlap with the advent of the freewheeling Dixieland and New Orleans bands.
The blues, a seminal form powerful
enough to make its presence felt throughout every stage of jazz history, went
public in 1912 and 1914 with W. C. Handy's
"Memphis Blues" and "St Louis Blues".
The 12-bar form found a substantial place
in the repertoire of the Original Dixieland
Jazz Band, the white quintet that broke the
recording barrier in 1917. In 1923 King
Oliver made his first classic sides with
Louis Armstrong on second cornet.
But just where was jazz in 1926?
Most of the developments that seem
vitally important from today's retrospective
went by virtually unnoticed at the time.
I Louis Armstrong was still mainly a
sideman, with the Carroll Dicker-son and
Erskine Tate bands in Chicago, but it was
during '26 that his early Hot Five sessions
began to gain currency.
Duke Ellington, ensconced in a downtown
New York speakeasy, the Kentucky Club,
recorded with a ten-piece ensemble such
works as "East St Louis Toodle-O", the
band's radio theme song for the next 15
years.
Bix Beiderbecke spent the first part of
the year working in Frank Trumbauer's
band before he and Trumbauer both joined
the Jean Goldkette orchestra. in October
they recorded with the band, alongside Joe
Venuti and Eddie Lang.
On a memorable night, October 13,
Goldkette's band played opposite the
Fletcher Henderson orchestra at Roseland,
the dance hall at 51st and Broadway. That
may have been the night when the strong
friendship began between Bix and Henderson's featured cornettist Rex Stewart, who
idolised Bix and a year later copied, note
for note off the record, the Beiderbecke
solo on " Singin' The Blues "
Among the other events of 1926 were the
first recordings by Jelly Roll Morton's Red
Hot Peppers: the organisation of the
orchestra led by Ben Pollack, who (despite
Whiteman's claims) had the first genuinely
jazz-orientated white band and made
extensive use of such soloists as his
incredible 16-year-old clarinettist, Benny
Goodman.
Something happened to John Coltrane,
Ray Brown, Gerry Mulligan and Miles Davis
in 1926. They were born.
Jazz evolved during the late Twenties and
the Thirties on four main levels: rhythmically, there was a gradual improvement in
finesse as guitars replaced banjos and
string basses took over from tubas,
harmonically, men like Ellington, Don
Redman. Fletcher Henderson and Benny
Carter showed the way, both as composers/arrangers and soloists, towards
newer and bolder horizons: melodically, the
innovations were a direct offshoot of jazz's
harmonic growth: and improvisationally,
the music gave jazz possibly its most
distinctive quality of all.
It has often been said that every change
in jazz begins with the soloist, and that
the orchestral evolution reflects the innovations of the soloists. This over-
simplification does not take into account
certain swing era developments that could
be attributed mainly to the big bands and
their arrangers.
The use of riffs as a sectional or
ensemble device was first prominently
heard in Glen Cray's Casa Lama Orchestra,
an otherwise second-rate white band: in
some of Fletcher Henderson's writing for
Benny Goodman (though it's true that
"King Porter Stomp" started out in life as
a head arrangement in Henderson's own
band): and of course in the Count Basic
orchestra, which before it could afford to
pay for arrangements relied very largely on
riff constructions.
It is also beyond question that the
expansion of jazz to a point where it could
take valid material out of popular songs of
the day was due substantially to the efforts
of Henderson and a few of his contemporaries.
While this development may not have
been essential to the aesthetic advancement
of jazz, certainly it was a vital factor in
bringing greater public acceptance during
the 1930-1945 period when big bands
dominated the scene.
In the retrospective light of 1976 the
swing era looks very different from the way
it appeared three or four decades ago when
the media - mainly radio, magazines and
newspapers - made an effective propaganda machine for the prevailing heroes - Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Artie
Shaw, to some degree Ellington and Basic - while all but ignoring the other giants of
big band jazz, the Jimmie Luncefords and
Chick Webbs and Andy Kirks and the
Teddy Hills, whose work opportunities were
confined largely to black theatres, clubs
and ballrooms.
Nor must it be forgotten that the swing
era produced a tremendous wealth of
soloists. A handful, notably Art Tatum,
worked mainly on their own (but could not
gain access to concert halls - their solo
recitals had to be held in smoke-filled
bistros). Others worked in small combos or
big bands but gained individual prominence by recording as leaders in their
own right.
The European market for jazz records
played a great role in bringing these giants
to prominence.
Bessie Smith and the early folk-blues
singers such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and
Leadbelly had shown that jazz could indeed
be a vocal art, but it was during the
Thirties and Forties that jazz singing and
the pop world overlapped effectively,
influencing one another.
It was during the Forties that the
evolution of jazz took a dramatic turn. For
the first time, instead of a vague blending
and interrelating of idioms, there was a
sharp uprise in factionalism as bebop was
brewed by Gillespie, Parker, Monk, Bud
Powell and their fellow-radicals.
The Forties also were the years of belated
acceptance for jazz on the concert level.
The jam session, once an all but secret
after-hours event, was offered on big stages
at home and abroad through the courtesy
of Norman Granz.
If any one factor can be singled out as
having been the dominant element in the
Fifties, it was the quest for respectability.
Jazz found its way into the high society
world of Newport with the first festival
there in 1954: into equally prestigious
magazines.
Dave Brubeck took his quartet into
colleges for concerts that were actually
regarded seriously as musical events: John
Lewis dressed his MJQ in swallow tail coats
and played music that sometimes reflected
his concern for Johann Sebastian Bach.
Bop coalesced into cool jazz as the
Influence of the Miles Davis nine-piece
band was felt worldwide. The cool sounds
of Davis, Gerry Mulligan with his pianoless
quartet, the cerebrations of the Lennie
Tristana combo (whose "Intuition" in 1949
was the world's first example of free jazz)
all contributed in their various ways to a
sense of respectability through moderation,
dignity and intellectuality.
Stan Kenton tried another route, switching from a regular size band to the
"Innovations" ensemble, heavy with strings
and bombast, which didn't last very long,
though it was in fact a harbinger of the
jazz-and-classics Third Stream movement
that would be brought to fruition by John
Lewis, Gunther Schuller & Co a decade
later.
The Fifties also saw the belated expansion of jazz as a medium of expression
through all instruments. The organ, flute,
french horn, oboe and bassoon edged their
way in from the sidelines. Afro-Cuban
instruments and rhythms became commonplace, thanks to the initiatives of Kenton
and Gillespie.
The late Fifties and early Sixties were
years of agonising reappraisal. No longer
was the music limited to 4/4 time: waltzes
finally were not regarded as oddities.
John Coltrane, Miles and others began to
explore the uses of modes rather than
tones as a medium for adlibbing, while
Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and other
prophets of the new, free jazz movement
cast aside all taboos, shucked off tonality
when so inclined, and rejected the
mathematical simplicity that had tied down
so much of jazz to multiples of four bars.
Along with the gradual breakdown of the
old concepts of meter and symmetry came
new racial awareness.
By around 1967 the cross-cultural encounters had brought jazz and non-jazz music
and musicians into contact, blending this
once pure Afro-American form with
rhythms, melodies, modes, timbres and
concepts from all over the world - India,
the Near East, the Middle East, Brazil,
Spain, the Dutch East Indies, and the Iron
Curtain countries.
One result of this internationalisation was
a gradual shift of the centre of gravity.
More and more, since about 1962, the
heralds of the new free jazz, whatever their
nationality, have found their most frequent
opportunities for expression of their aims
at concerts and festivals in Europe.
It was, in fact, in West Berlin and in
Scandanavia that Eric Dolphy, Cecil Taylor,
Albert Ayler, Don Cherry and George
Russell found some of their most appreciative audiences.
The past decade is viewed by some critics
as crucial because of the incorporation of
Jazz and rock. and because of the greatly
Increased use of electronic instruments in
jazz circles.
Certainly the contributions of such rock-influenced groups as those of Miles Davis,
Herbie Hancock, Blood Sweat & Tears,
Chicago and Return to Forever have made
a deep mark in the music of this period:
and beyond question the electric piano and
synthesizer contributions of Hancock, Chick
Corea, George Duke and many others, like
the electric bass of Stanley Clarke and Ron
Carter, have brought a permanent change
in the sound of jazz.
Yet I find even more important- ???
another facet of today's sce- ???
complete breakdown of national- ??? as racial lines.
It is extremely significant that Miles
Davis saw fit to import from Britain such
men as John McLaughlin and Dave
Holland: that the style of the Adderley
Quintet was determined in large measure,
for nine years, by Joe Zawinul from
Vienna: that three of the most respected
bassists in the world are Miroslav Vitous,
George Mraz and Niels Pederson.
Crystal ball gazing is a dangerous game,
one in which I have indulged cautiously
and infrequently during an adult lifetime
spent listening to jazz and watching it :
grow,
Having been around when it all happened, I am thoroughly aware that none of
us, in 1942, had the slightest inkling of
what bebop would be, nor of the enormous
change it would make in the entire face of
jazz.
Neither was anybody in the late Fifties
able to predict accurately the role that
would ultimately be played, and the legacy
that would be left to posterity, by Coltrane
or any of the other messengers of the
avant garde. Knowing this, I can only make
a few comments concerning any peep into
the future.
First, there may be a new development
under way that is just as unpredictable as
were those other apocalyptic events, and
ten years from now it will seem incredible,
in hindsight, that all of us failed to see the
writing on the manuscript paper, or hear
the sound bouncing off the wall.
Second, I predict that more than ever
the great innovators of jazz will be an
international group. It is already obvious
that men like Albert Mangelsdorff, Karl
Berger, and the others cited above have
something influential to offer, and that the
background on which the fight for the
future will be waged may just as well be a
concert hall in Berlin, London or Tokyo as
in. New York, Los Angeles or New Orleans.
I don't think any music of the future will
render obsolete the achievements of the
past and present. The true giants, from
Earl Hines and Eddie Lang to Oscar
Peterson and Joe Pass, have shown that
there is no time limit on the acceptance of
such talent. They or their records will be
around, and will be a part of our scene,
long after many of our contemporary nineday wonders are forgotten.
lastly, I predict that the blues will
continue to be played, for this is the one
ongoing element that has proved to be a
common thread since the first notes were
played that were identified as jazz.
I don't know what will be the equivalent,
In the year 2000, of B. B. King or Muddy
Waters or Jimmy Witherspoon, but I hope
and believe that something comparable will
still be around to acquaint the aficionados
of that distant year with the essential roots
of an art form that by then will have
rounded out its first incredibly eventful
century.
Note ??? means there were parts of the magazine where the prints has faded.
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