Trumpeter and Bandleader Wynton Marsalis is fond of saying: “Change the rhythm and you change the music.”

Pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton often remarked on the “Spanish Tinge” that influenced Jazz from its earliest days in New Orleans.

To paraphrase composer extraordinaire George Gershwin, he claimed that the defining characteristic of Jazz was not melody or harmony but its syncopated rhythms.

After reading the following review of a recently published book about Paul Simon and his music it would appear that his encounter with the rhythms of South Africa changed both his music and some aspects of his life - forever.

‘Days of Miracle and Wonder’: Paul Simon’s African Tunes

After a string of successful records came to an end, the songwriter was seeking fresh inspiration. He found it on a cassette tape.

By David Kirby

Aug. 14, 2026 Wall Street Journal

It’s 1984 and Paul Simon is ready for a change. His previous album, “Hearts and Bones” (1983), has not lived up to his label’s expectations. He’s been shuttling between Manhattan and Montauk, N.Y., on Long Island, where he’s building a beach house he intended to share with his second wife, Carrie Fisher, but as the house is going up, his marriage is crumbling.

Fortunately, he has some upbeat tunes to listen to: Someone sent him a bootlegged cassette of mbaqanga, a type of South African dance music that reminds Mr. Simon of the three-chord pop hits of the 1950s like “Mr. Lee” (1957) by the Bobbettes and “Jim Dandy” (1956) by LaVern Baker.

Mr. Simon is already familiar with the music of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a 10-member a capella Zulu choir known for its bass-heavy harmonies. The more he listens to the cassette, the more he likes what he hears and the more his spirits rise. Lenny Waronker, at the time the president of Mr. Simon’s label, Warner Bros. Records, later recalls that the singer had “just figured out a way to do dance music his way, and dance music was so powerful in those days.” Mr. Waronker tells Mr. Simon he should start working with Nile Rodgers, the producer behind hits by David Bowie, Madonna and others. But Mr. Simon has other ideas. The lackluster performance of “Hearts and Bones” has freed him. “I can do whatever I want,” he thinks, and what he wants is to go to South Africa.

But there’s a problem. Memories of the Soweto uprising of 1976, in which an estimated 600 people protesting South Africa’s apartheid system were killed, are still fresh. In 1980, the United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution calling for all of its members to prohibit cultural exchanges with South Africa, though its vague language presents a challenge, given that cultural expression takes so many forms.

Mr. Simon has no intention of performing in South Africa, but he is aware of the sensitive nature of his desire to record there, so he seeks the advice of industry professionals, including Harry Belafonte, who advises him to go. Belafonte offers to put him in contact with the leadership of the African National Congress, the principal opponent of the apartheid regime. And with that, Mr. Simon is off to Johannesburg with his longtime producer, Roy Halee.

As described in splendid detail by Ashley Kahn in “Days of Miracle and Wonder,” the next 1½ years see a total reinvention of Mr. Simon’s way of writing and recording songs. On no previous album had he focused so completely on starting with rhythm and harmony tracks and adding melodies and lyrics later. More importantly, on none had he collaborated so completely as he did here with other musicians. In Mr. Kahn’s words, “Graceland” would become “the most ambitious, all-in gamble” of Mr. Simon’s career.” (Mr. Kahn, a music historian who has written books on John Coltrane and Miles Davis, was a member of the “Graceland” tour production team; here he connects the making of the album to politics, the music industry and the individuals involved like no other book of its kind.)

Mr. Simon bonds with the South African musicians immediately. They were used to being treated badly by record executives in their own country as well as by visiting musicians, but even before he arrives, Mr. Simon let them know they would be getting paid triple the American union scale. “Right away we were treated really first-class, man. First-class,” bassist Bakithi Kumalo recalls. “They bought us lunch.”

At Ovation Studios in Johannesburg, Mr. Simon works with musicians from three bands, eventually choosing Mr. Kumalo and two others to continue recording with him in New York. For the South Africans, that trip includes their first passports, their first flight on a plane, their first time leaving their country. And culture shock: At one point in New York, Isaac Mtshali, the drummer, asks, “when do we have to go to register with the police?”

For his part, on “Graceland” Mr. Simon transitions from what he calls “ordinary language” to “enriched language” that “let the words tumble this way and that way.” If you compare the steady march of a trademark early Simon & Garfunkel song such as “The Sound of Silence” (1964) with “You Can Call Me Al” (1986)—the breakaway single from “Graceland”—the difference is striking: The earlier song is brick-by-brick construction of a bleak urban landscape whereas the later one is a verbal hurricane that almost makes sense. Or at least it makes enough sense: In Mr. Simon’s own words, the lyrics “would come by you so quickly that all you would get was a feeling.”

The album’s very title remains a bit of a mystery. Originally Mr. Simon wanted this record to be global rather than focus on American culture the way his earlier songs did. So why name its title track after Elvis Presley’s fabled Memphis home? Initially he thought of the name as a placeholder, but “it wouldn’t go away.” Eventually he realizes that he doesn’t mind “the emotional shadow that Graceland and Elvis casts over the song. In some way I think it adds an emotional punch.”

The album becomes everything the musician and his label could hope for. It wins the Grammy for album of the year and, led by the ubiquitous radio play of the bouncy single “You Can Call Me Al,” earns the No. 2 Billboard spot for LPs and cassettes sold and No. 1 for CDs.

Yet controversy dogs it: The term “virtue signaling” has not entered the common parlance yet, but on U.S. college campuses and elsewhere, Mr. Simon is confronted by protesters accusing him of defying the U.N. ban. His defenders include Angélique Kidjo, a singer and political exile from her native Benin, who views the album and subsequent tour as “part of the movement that came around to get Nelson Mandela out of jail.” Oliver Tambo, the president of the African National Congress, tells Mr. Simon, “we love you. . . . You’re a brother and you have our respect and you’re welcome here.”

Fittingly, the art on the album’s cover is a 15th-century rendering of a knight on a quest, and the outcome of quests are notoriously unpredictable. “There was almost a Don Quixote feel to it,” recalls one Warner Bros. executive. “He could be on his way to Graceland.”

Mr. Kirby teaches at Florida State University. He is the author of “Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ’n’ Roll.”

I got to know Ray Pizzi [1943-2021] a bit when we worked together on a series of educational films for UCLA.

The music was written and produced by Frank DeVol who wrote the themes for Family Affair, The Brady Bunch and My Three Sons television shows and Eliot Daniel who wrote the famous theme song for the I Love Lucy TV show.

Although the music was not particularly demanding, there was a lot of it and sight-reading was critical because rehearsal time was at a premium.

It resulted in a somewhat stressful environment which didn’t usually last long because Ray’s “always-on” sense of humor defused it.

The Hollywood Bowl was also familiar to me as I passed it every Friday on my way to the Hollywood Musicians Union Local 47 on Vine Street to pick up my performance and recording checks. I also played the Bowl a few times as part of its “Battle of the Bands” series.

Both Ray and the Hollywood Bowl are the subject of the following remembrance by Irving Bush which was featured in the December 1997 issue of Gene Lees’ Jazzletter.

© Copyright ® Gene Lees, copyright protected, all rights reserved, used with permission.

A Brief Introduction

Ray Pizzi, born January 19, 1943, in Everett, Massachusetts, studied at the Boston Conservatory and the Berklee College (then School) of Music. He is an outstanding saxophonist and flutist. Ray toured with Woody Herman, and has played with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra, Frank Zappa, Milcho Leviev, and Willie Bobo, as well as singer Nancy Wilson. He has recorded with Moacir Santos and Dizzy Gillespie. He was one of Henry Mancini’s favorite musicians.

Irving Bush, born and raised in Los Angeles, received B.A. and M.A. degrees, cum laude, from California State University in Los Angeles, then played trumpet with Harry James, David Rose, and Nelson Riddle. For three years he was Nat King Cole’s first trumpet player. Like Ray Pizzi (and, contrary to legend, many jazz musicians) he is equally at home in classical music. He played from 1962 to 1982 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, then became the orchestra’s personnel manager.

I am often struck by the the affection and respect of American jazz musicians for each other, the delight they take in each other’s idiosyncrasies. Irving’s portrait of Ray Pizzi, which follows, reads like a great short story, a slice of American musical life.

The Ray Pizzi Story

By Irving Bush

Part 1

July 1985

Read more

“For Pete, interpretation is the art of translating self. The composer’s melody, harmony, and rhythm serve as his starting point; his true inventiveness stems from his ability to develop an idea into a personal statement. Every Jolly improvisation is permeated with a germ whose harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic roots lie in the original theme. But because the theme serves primarily as a vehicle for the performer’s personality, his playing seems entirely natural, indeed effortless. Of course, playing jazz piano is far from effortless, but Pete makes it sound as if it were.”

Ed Barr, sleeve notes to The Pete Jolly Trio - Yeah! [VSOP #98CD]

This piece gets its title from pianist George Wallington’s tune Variations, which Pete seems to be the only pianist to have attempted it other than its composer and also because it contains a variety of opinions about Pete Jolly and his music. [I know, I’m stretching things a bit here.]

I always thought of Pete Jolly [1932-2004] and Lou Levy [1928-2001] as the West Coast equivalents of Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan - out of Bud Powell but with a gift for making Bop more lyrical in terms of the melodies they improvised in their solos.

The sound of Jazz that came out of their style of playing somehow seemed lighter, prettier, and happier and helped to create a mood of satisfaction and contentment when listening to it.

It also helped to provide a nice contrast to the aggressive and energetic horn solos often associated with Bop, especially the Hard Bop form of the music. And it fit right in with either the more laid-back and understated style of West Coast Jazz or the harder, straight-ahead versions of the music that manifested themselves from time-to-time.

But none of this is intended to belittle Pete’s magnificent pianism as the speed and power of his technique were virtuosic. Pete was a bona fide two-handed piano player whose ability to express himself on the instrument was seemingly unlimited.

As was the case for many musicians associated with what music historian and critic Ted Gioia refers to in the title of his book - West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 [1992] - the defining moment in Pete Jolly’s career was when he became a member of trumpeter Shorty Rogers’ Quintet. Ted describes it this way in his seminal work on the subject of Jazz on the West Coast [paragraphing modified]:

“Pianist Jolly, whose hard-swinging piano work made a significant contribution to this quintet, became part of the group only after Rogers’s first two keyboardists departed for apparently greener pastures. Russ Freeman, who had served in Rogers’s band when it first formed at the Haig, left to go on the road with Chet Baker. Freeman’s replacement, Marty Paich, also departed after a brief stint because of his increasing outside commitments as a player and arranger.

Like Paich, Jolly had followed the unusual path of learning the piano after studying the accordion, but unlike Paich, Jolly continued to play the accordion in jazz settings even after his piano career took off. On the piano Jolly boasted a crisp, hard-bodied sound and a predilection for intricate Bud Powell-inflected lines.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on June 5, 1932, Jolly spent his early music career in Phoenix, Arizona, where he played with guitarist Howard Roberts. In the early 1950s, first Roberts and then Jolly made the move to Southern California. Rogers first heard Jolly, then still known by his birth name, Pete Ceragioli, when the young pianist sat in at the Lighthouse. When the piano spot in the Giants became open, Rogers brought the up-and-coming twenty-two-year-old keyboardist into the fold.”

In addition to his stint with Shorty [1954-56], Pete also played and/or recorded with tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld, clarinetist Buddy DeFranco and vibraphonists Terry Gibbs and Red Norvo, alto saxophonist Art Pepper and tenor saxophonists Buddy Collette and Richie Kamuca.

According to the Andrew Jaffe profile on Pete in Barry Kernfeld, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz:

“Jolly also recorded with his own ensembles intermittently from 1955-c.1969. From the 1960s, he concentrated on studio work in films and television; though he continued to play with his own small groups.”

Most of what is in the Jazz literature about Pete can be found in the sleeve or insert notes of his various recordings and I thought it might be fun to mine these for more information about Pete for this blog feature.

But I also found this early-in-his-career article by Sharon A. Pease in the December 14, 1955 issue of Downbeat and thought it might be a good place to start this profile on Pete and his music.

“The sensational young pianist, Pete Jolly, is featured in a new Victor album, Jolly Jumps In. That title describes exactly what Pete has done - “jumped” into a prominent spot in the musical limelight.

The story of Pete’s success should be an inspiration to all young musicians regardless of where they live, for he didn’t make the jump from New York, Hollywood or Chicago - but from the middle of the desert, Phoenix, Ariz.

Jolly, who was born in New Haven, Conn., and is now 22, began his musical training when he was 3. His first instrument was a 12-bass accordion, and his early lessons were under the tutelage of his father, Pete Jolly, Sr., a professional accordionist and teacher.

Young Jolly progressed rapidly and when he was 7, made an appearance on the network radio program, Hobby Lobby, from New York City. ‘It was on the trip to New York that we discovered that Pete had absolute pitch.’ the elder Jolly relates. ‘It was his first trip by rail and he was soon identifying the strange new sounds of the moving train in terms of musical letter names.’

When Pete was 9, he began studying piano, and his formal training continued through the next 5 years. During that time, he became interested in dance music and had started working with dance bands before he moved with his parents to Phoenix. ‘My early influences were Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson and Maurice Rocco,’ he recalls.

‘Later it was the more progressive influence of Woody Herman’s Second Herd and the Charlie Ventura group with Roy Kral and Jackie Cain. After we got to Phoenix, I learned a great deal through an association with [guitarist] Howard Roberts and Howard Heitmeyer, and the other Jazz musicians in the area. And, of course, I kept digging records - Tristano, Powell, Wallington and the others.’

During the 1952 season, a young Phoenix Jazz enthusiast, Chuck Terry, opened the Jazz mill which used a local rhythm section with Pete on piano and imported name musicians from the coast. Among those featured during the season were Chet Baker, Herb Geller, Georgie Auld, Barney Kessel, Jack Teagarden, Wingy Manone, Benny Carter, and Maynard Ferguson. Quite a diverse representation of stylists, yet Pete readily adapted to fit each need.

News of the unusual talent was carried back to the coast, and later, when he visited the Hollywood area, he was often asked to sit in with various Jazz groups. On one occasion, Shorty Rogers was one of the side-men and later when he and Shelly Manne formed the Giants, Pete was selected as the pianist, He has been \with the group since, working all their engagements including the concert tour with Stan Kenton.

Since his arrival in Hollywood, Pete has recorded with Red Norvo (Label “X”), Frank Rosolino (Capitol), Jon Eardley (Prestige), Lennie Niehaus (Contemporary), Shorty Rogers (Atlantic), and now he has his own recording contract with Victor. Jack Lewis, director of jazz artists and repertoire for Victor, plans two more albums for Jolly that will be released soon.

The accompanying style example is one of Pete’s original compositions included in Jolly Jumps In. Originally titled Relaxing, which accurately described the mood, it was changed to El Yorke, for the album in order to lessen the confusion with other similar titles.

The principal theme, with first ending, is a transcription of the first

16 measures of the recorded version. The repeat of the principal theme, with second ending, is from the last 17 measures of the recording. The first and fifth measures employ a pleasing scale harmonization.

Measures three and four have a transition through the cycle of fifths, E fiat to A flat to D flat, which leads chromatically to tonic harmony. Measures eight (last count) through 14 utilize clever harmonization of the repeated melodic motif. The entire illustration is an artistic example of Pete’s excellent taste and feeling for good form.”

Here are some comments by Bill Zeitung from the notes to Pete’s first album Pete Jolly Duo, Trio, Quartet [RCA Victor LPM 1125 1955 reissued on CD in 1996 as BMG Spain 74321424532].

“It sometimes seems that on the basis of its mere eighty-eight keys, the piano could not possibly give rise to such an incredible variety of jazz stylists. Yet just when it appears that limits have been set beyond which no one else can possibly go, along comes someone with a fresh approach, a different technique and more elaborate ideas who once again stretches those limits just a little bit farther. Of all types of music, jazz, by its very improvisationsal nature, offers the ideal terrain for experimentation, with the result that someone like Pete Jolly is always possible; he invariably appears overnight, and while such a talent by no means comes as a surprise, it is always pretty amazing, not to say pleasant, to discover that someone new, after all that has gone before, can still do something different and exciting with the often seemingly prosaic piano.

Although only twenty-one, Jolly is obviously a mature pianist, and despite the fact that, in this day and age, it is next to impossible to escape being influenced by someone, he has carefully developed what is certainly a highly individual style. There is without doubt some trace of Bud Powell in Jolly’s work, as well as of several others of the somewhat more abstract school, yet everything he has picked up along the way has been adapted to, and transformed by, his own personality, by his own distinctly original and refreshing ideas on the music before him. A member of that West Coast group which has been responsible for a great deal of the more stimulating innovations in modern jazz, Jolly has played, and is playing now, with various adherents of this so-called “school”.

They have, quite naturally, had their effect upon him, and in like manner, it can undoubtedly be said that he has reacted strongly upon them. In the present album, Jolly is heard in three strikingly different settings, brought about by the fact that he is accompanied, at various times, by one, two or three musicians. There is the duo (with Buddy Clark, bass) in which his piano is heard in its most severely classical vein, the trio [with Clark and Art Mardigan, drums) whose work, with the addition of percussion, is perhaps more driving and incisive; and the quartet (with Clark; Mel Lewis, drums; and Bill Perkins, tenor sax) in which there is, simply because of the added horn, a greater interweaving of the melodic line.…

On the basis of this music it is apparent that Jolly has not one style, but many. There is certainly one philosophy at the bottom of all his work, but his ideas and attack readily shift and change to meet the existing musical situation. He is apt to be abstract and classic, lyric and tender, driving and polished, sometimes all in the course of one performance. But regardless of what particular mood he is attempting to convey, he never once forgets to swing, and that, in the world of modern piano, has been a quality too often neglected in favor of aimlessness and aridity.”

These excerpts are by Shirley Hoskins Collins from the notes she wrote for Pete’s second album under his own name: Pete Jolly Trio & Sextet: Jolly Jumps In [RCA Victor LPM 1955 which was reissued on CD in 1998 as BMG France 74321592632].

The emphasis on jazz in the last year has been upon the neophytes, the newcomers, the third generation fortunate enough to have been bred upon an established jazz instead of having to struggle for the right expression of a new form- -the prodigies and the proteges. These are the “discovered” ones.

Almost everyone of any executive stature has decided it is his responsibility to find some budding musician to introduce to the musical world as his “discovery.” The new find is signed by companies who hope they have a promising musician. And because people want to be considered aware, the neophyte gains followers who are too easily led by the word “new” and not enough by the word “quality.” And so it goes...

It is one of those circumstances, prevalent and understandable, that the neophyte is often presented before he is ready. People do not object to some imperfections, but they do expect a certain amount of intelligent and worthwhile expression from the touted musician. Unfortunately, most discoveries are simply not yet ready for hearing. They need more working-out in the field, more of thot admittedly hard-to-get stuff called experience, more opportunity to find the right niche for their personal expression. Sometimes even one or two years chronologically will take care of the deficiency.

So it is a pleasant experience to introduce to the jazz world a young man who might easily be considered a kind of genius. We are cautious with that appellation, but feel that the talent of this young musician will likely warrant the usage in your own estimation. Just twenty-one, he hos already served his fledgling apprenticeship and here on RCA Victor records makes his debut as one of the truly authentic and authoritative novices in the realm of jazz. His name is PETE JOLLY and we feel certain thot you will hear it often in the future of music. He has, we feel, that hard-to-come-by quality, maturity.

With the presentation of new musician PETE JOLLY, RCA Victor feels that it has one of me most exciting of those representing the young blood of jazz.

There is much said about whether or not contemporary music has vigor or appeal or original expression, This album is proof that inspired and intelligent thinking in modern music does exist, PETE JOLLY is one of the finest pianists to be heard and is an accordionist of merit. He is also a composer of real promise, and these three things - all done unusually well - raise him above the norm. For anyone who loves jazz, this album will supply a few moments of jay.

[Throughout] PETE JOLLY expounds another special facet of his musical prowess - the strength and full-bodied skill of a classical musician. He shows he is a pianist. If every newcomer played as well, we would thrill to the surge of a constantly evolving jazz, and we would look forward to what is to come with great expectation.”

When Pete Jolly Trio & Sextet: Jolly Jumps In was reissued on CD in 1998 as BMG France [74321592632], the Shirley Hoskins Collins notes were replaced by those written by Francois Billard of Jazz Magazine. Here are some excerpts of his very perceptive observations about Pete and the whole West Coast Jazz scene as translated by Don Waterhouse.

“Having set the scene, what about the musical context? Jolly is generally considered a West Coast pianist, even though typical West Coast pianists, paradoxically, do not play in the West Coast style! One might contend that there is, in fact, no specifically West Coast style, whatever the instrument. But rather than pursue that particular argument, it would seem more appropriate to evoke more concrete criteria concerning Jolly himself. He frequently plays in single notes, thus revealing an avowed Bud Powell influence: moreover, as his accordion playing testifies, he remains very aware of saxophone and trumpet phrasing. What might seem an arbitrary approach for a pianist is surely much less so for an accordionist: for on the accordion, which rather regrettably is ail too rarely heard in a jazz context, Jolly is forced to square up the problems facing wind-instrumentalists, to yield to a technique that in its more usual context ihe accordion would not demand. He has to make a real effort to sound jazzy rather than like a French dance-hall artist; to enunciate clear distinct lines rather than churn out hurdy-gurdy refrains. It is interesting to note that the accordion thus emerges as a sort of halfway-house between wind and keyboard instruments.

Although Pete Jolly plays within a domain defined by Bud Powell, he is no mere disciple. On the contrary, he distinguishes himself from Powell by a certain sense of economy and sobriety. What he perhaps loses in intensity, he gains in incisiveness. As with Horace Silver, the climate of each piece is quite distinct, the execution perfectly poised between piano and rhythm section. And yet Jolly is by no means a predictably measured player, his rigour fully capable of making way for shattering lines of attack. On Will You Still Be Mine, for example, he might well remind us of the fabulous Eddie Costa

Besides its undeniable pianistic virtues, this album offers a pleasant surprise: three tracks by a sextet including Shorty Rogers and Jimmy Giuffre, and featuring Jolly on accordion. This is really swinging accordion, an unusual treat that leaves us wanting more. With an album like this, Pete Jolly shows himself firmly entrenched as a member of the jazz fold.”

Later in his career, Pete’s recording career was well-served by the release of three CD’s on VSOP [which stands for “Very Special Old Phonography”] which are essentially compilations of both studio and in-performance recordings spanning roughly 1955-1995.

Many of these tracks feature his long-standing trio with Chuck Berghofer on bass and Nick Martinis on drums, a group that was together for almost 40 years until Pete’s passing in 2004.

Some were made for the short-lived Ava Records, a label co-owned by famed dancer Fred Astaire and choreographer Hermes Pan.

As the insert notes to Pete Jolly and Friends [VSOP #78CD] explain:

“Three Pete Jolly albums were recorded and released by Ava/Chorco between 1963 and 1965, all of which were engineered by Bones Howe. Selections from each of these three recordings are featured on this compact disc.

During this time, he continued to perform with his trio at Sherry’s on Sunset, and Shelly’s Manne Hole He also had the distinction of being among the first pianists to perform at Donte’s in 1965 [when the North Hollywood club first opened]. Since then, Pete has worked extensively in television and movie studios. as well as recording with Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass and under his own name for Columbia and A & M Records. In recent years he has been performing frequently at Alfonse’s [Toluca Lake, CA], doing concert dates and working in the studios. His is the piano on the soundtrack to [Clint Eastwood’s film] “Bird.” He also has recorded an album in Japan (”Strike Up The Band’‘ on Atlas), and appears on many recent recordings, including those by Shorty Rogers, Sammy Nestico and Anita O’Day.”

I got to hear Pete quite frequently during his long tenure at Sherry’s Bar on the Sunset Strip and some of his work from this period in his career is documented on Pete Jolly Live in LA: The Red Chimney and Sherry’s Bar Recordings [VSOP #91CD]. The insert notes offers this background on how these recordings came about:

“The recordings featured on this album are part of a marvelous collection of live recordings made by photographer George Jerman during the 1960s and 1970s. George Jerman’s career as a highly regarded photographer of album covers, first as an independent, and later as a staff photographer for Capitol Records, brought him into close and regular proximity with many of his favorite jazz musicians. “With jazz as my main interest next to photography, I used to hang out in a lot of clubs,” Jerman recalls. “One of the projects I took on, just for the heck of it, was to do a series of live recordings for the sake of preservation. I knew that many of the musicians I followed never had the chance to record live. I used an Ampex 960 tape recorder at 7 1/2 ips, which was by no means considered the best quality for making a record, but they came out just fine. For the most part, my recordings were done with no more than three mikes. The few technical flaws in the sound quality do not really matter because the music is so good.”

There is a great deal of truth in Jerman’s final statements for the ten performances heard throughout this release have not dated nor lost their joyful power. Pete Jolly, heard in duets with bassist Ralph Pena and in a trio with bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Nick Martinis (who amazingly enough in 1994 are still members of Jolly’s band), was clearly in his early prime. The pianist remembers: “] was at Sherry’s on the Strip from 1960-64 playing six nights a week from 9-2, so I was in very good shape. I have a lot of nice memories of working there. Sherry’s was one place where they tuned the piano every week and it was strictly a piano room; there are not that many like that around today. Ralph Pena was a very accomplished bass player who I had worked with at the Haig several years before. He also joined Shorty Rodger’s Giants while I was there after Curtis Counce passed on and we worked many jobs as a duo.

But by 1964 I was starting to do more studio work and it was getting difficult to work six nights a week at Sherry’s. As it turned out, one of the owners of Sherry’s (John Ricella) called to tell me he was buying a place hi the Silver Lake area called The Red Chimney and asked if I’d like to play there with a trio three nights a week instead; by then Chuck Berghofer was on bass and we added Nick Martinis who had sometimes sat in with us at Sherry’s. After we were at The Red Chimney for a year, John sold his interest and one day called to tell me he was buying a place on Lankershim Blvd. and asked if I would like to play there. So I helped open Donte’s!”

Which leads us very nicely into another VSOP recording Timeless [#105CD] which was recorded on July 12, 19,25 & 26 1969 at Donte’s by George Jerman this time with Nick Ceroli in the drum chair joining Pete and bassist Chuck Berghofer.

The insert notes for this recording are by bassist Whitey Mitchell who was active on the New York Jazz scene from about 1955-1965. After 1965 he largely ceased playing jazz and moved to Hollywood on advice from Lenny Bruce and André Previn to pursue a career as a television writer. He worked on shows such as Get Smart, All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Odd Couple, Mork and Mindy, and several Bob Hope television specials. He wrote the feature film Private Resort starring Johnny Depp.

Whitey knows what he’s talking about so I thought it appropriate to share his comments in their entirety to give you a fuller appreciation of Pete and his music.

“I remember 1969 as an extraordinary year. Nell Armstrong landed on the moon, screenwriter William Goldman turned some myths and semi-truths about a couple of small time bandits named Butch Cassidy and The SunDance Kid into a hit movie, The Beach Boys were still getting Good Vibrations, and I was enjoying my first staff gig writing a show called GET SMART. Rock’n roll was in and jazz was definitely beginning to be out.

But over on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood a struggling jazz club called Donte’s (named after the owners’ wives.. Donia and Tess) continued to buck the trend by presenting good-to-great jazz music nightly. Even though the pay was minimal, outstanding Hollywood jazz musicians, eager to forget the less-than-wonderful music they’d played that day in the studios, would line up to perform. One such player was the brilliant pianist Pete Jolly, who had been working with his favorite bassist Chuck Berghofer for so many years (starting at Sherry’s, then later at the Red Chimney) they could, musically speaking, read each other’s minds, complete each other’s sentences, fill in the blanks., however you want to say it. In these remarkable recordings by photographer/jazz chronicler George Jerman they’re joined by one of the great L.A. drummers of that era Nick Ceroli, who fit them like a glove. Nick impressed me when the two of us were on Benny Goodman’s big band a few years earlier, but he was better known (and better paid) for being the drummer with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

Donte’s is gone now, as are the Gemini Space Program, Nick Ceroli, and George Jerman. BUTCH CASSIDY &THE SUNDANCE, KID can still be seen on the Really Late Movies channels, and GET SMART is still kicking butt in re-runs. (Incidentally, Pete Jolly played keyboard on the sound-tracks of both of those projects). And, speaking of Pete [who died in 2004] … these recordings from 1969 that you’re about to listen to are as modern and up-to-the-minute as anything you can hear today... and a bit better. But judge for yourself. Okay, about the music:

MILESTONES. I’ve heard a lot of recordings of Milestones, Miles Davis’ classic jazz tune based on rotating sixteen bar phrases; the Gil Evans, Joe Pass, and Gerald Wilson versions, to name a few. But here are three guys capturing the essence of Miles’ composition with just piano, bass, and drums and making an exciting performance out of it. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, Pete Jolly is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you’re gonna get. For instance, if you listen closely you might just hear a few bars of Nature Boy tucked into the intricacies of Milestones.

TEA FOR TWO. This is not your business-as-usual version of Tea For Two. And it’s not the one they’d use for cha-cha lessons on the Promenade Deck. This is Pete at his best doing a little Bud Powell ascending chromatic chord changes during the opening and closing choruses. Thank God he used the normal changes (which come fast enough) for the solo work, which features Pete, Chuck, Nick, and some nice trading of ‘fours’ between Chuck and Nick, presumably while Pete rested his chops for the onslaught to come or made a quick trip to the john. I remember in New York City in the mid-fifties a few of the bebop piano players were also using these Bud Powell changes, but not at the warp speed Pete and the guys use here. Don’t try this at home, kids!

OLD DEVIL MOON. Some actors are better at improv than others, and the same applies to jazz musicians. I’m sure that Pete and Chuck and Nick Martinis (the drummer who normally works with them) have done Old Devil Moon (a great standard which lends itself well to jazz) a million times over the years they’ve played together. I’m equally sure they never played it exactly like this version. These guys are capable of endless improv, endless variety, and endless interesting chord variations. In this cut they changed only ‘the turnaround’ (chords at the end of an eight bar or sixteen bar phrase) and Burton Lane’s tune never sounded better. And, of course, Pete keeps living up to the box-of-chocolates theory as he gives us a tantalizing hint of And The Angels Sing somewhere near the coda.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME. A pleasing mid-tempo jazz piece based on yet another good standard tune. Chuck Berghofer gets featured here as Pete demonstrates what the thoughtful jazz pianist should do doing a bass solo: nothing. Most keyboard players (particularly the ones I work with who I haven’t had the time to train yet) play interesting harmonic and rhythmic inventions which are so busy the bassist is forced to stop playing whatever he had in mind and fit his solo into the gaps thus created, and the soloist soon becomes the accompanist. I don’t know much Italian, but I think the word ‘solo’ means ‘alone’. End of sermon.

THE STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER. When I was a short, fat fifteen year old sophomore playing the sousaphone in the high school marching band we played The Stars And Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa, the guy my instrument was named after. I’ve never played that tune since, and neither has anybody else in the jazz world except Pete (Box Of Chocolates) Jolly, who apparently is omnivorous when it comes to music. He just devours everything in sight and makes it his own wonderful special material. He’s sort of a jazzy Will Rogers... never met a tune he didn’t like.

I SHOULD CARE. When Axel Stordahl and Paul Weston wrote the music to I Should Care they didn’t use the chords Pete and Chuck use here, but they would have loved them. The words ‘tasty’, ‘poetic’, and ‘lovely’ come to mind. So do the words ‘burger’, ‘fries’, and ‘Diet Coke’ but that’s only because I haven’t had lunch yet. When I talked to Pete about his early piano influences he mentioned the legendary Teddy Wilson, a giant of early jazz, but I don’t really hear much of Teddy in Pete’s playing, although they both play eighth-note runs beautifully and in perfect time. But Pete has his own wide ranging style, which is constantly full of surprises. You think you’re hearing Bud Powell, but no, its Oscar Peterson. Wait! Its Errol Garner... no that was definitely Gene Harris. Maybe it’s that those other guys all listened to Pete. Works for me.

HEY JUDE. In the late sixties, about the time these recordings were made, The Beatles, Elvis, Country & Western music, Rock-a-billy and heavy metal took their toll on me and drove me out of the music business. But not Pete. He just adapted and survived. He took this Lennon/McCartney hit of the day and turned it into another performance piece. Starting off with a shuffle rhythm, reminiscent of Louis and Keely and Sam Butera & The Witnesses, Pete and the guys soon settle into making Hey Jude into a jazz standard. Leaving the chords pretty much the way they were written except for a little half-step-up key change for one bar in the second sixteen (maybe just to see how many Donte’s patrons were paying attention) and another brief onset of shuffle rhythm, they do a great job with this Beatles classic. Maybe if The Beatles could have swung like this they might have been a hit. I mean with me.

Some of the CDs in V.S.O.P.’s excellent catalogue are wonderful microcosms of the eras in which they were recorded. Not so, this album. This is no time capsule. This set could have been recorded last week. My hat is off to George Jerman for realizing way back then that Pete Jolly is really... timeless.”

Fast-forwarding to 1995 and with thirty years of working together under their collective belts, Pete, Chuck and Nick can be heard at the top of their form in The Pete Jolly Trio - Yeah! [VSOP #98CD]. Ed Barr offers these very pertinent observations about Pete and his music in his sleeve notes:

“At the heart of this trio is the very personal, highly-defined style of Pete Jolly. His playing appeals to the most ardent, hard-core jazz aficionados as well as to casual listeners, a characteristic of few jazz players. Pete’s style begins with his prodigious technique and strong sense of time. It continues with his impeccable articulation and use of dynamics. He is further blessed with a gift for melody that makes his improvisations sparkle. Pete avoids cliches in favor of thematic development, tastefully balancing the use of blues and whole-tone scales, and his playing never smothers (he listener with heavy-handed pathos.

For Pete, interpretation is the art of translating self. The composer’s melody, harmony, and rhythm serve as his starting point; his true inventiveness stems from his ability to develop an idea into a personal statement. Every Jolly improvisation is permeated with a germ whose harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic roots lie in the original theme. But because the theme serves primarily as a vehicle for the performer’s personality, his playing seems entirely natural, indeed effortless. Of course, playing jazz piano is far from effortless, but Pete makes it sound as if it were. He is so facile that a surface listening may fail to reveal his ability. It often sounds deceptively simple. The dialogue Jolly creates with listeners is confident, relaxed, easy-going, at times playful, but never ostentatious. Those who know Pete say that this describes the man himself. Here art accurately translates artist, and that is the hallmark of true genius.”

If you are a fan of piano-bass-drums trio Jazz, then these recordings by Pete Jolly belong in your collection. Once you do acquire them, you may have a hard time getting them out of your disc player.”

Winner of the 2025 Jazz Journalist Association Special Citation for Historic Writings, Steven Cerra is a professional Jazz drummer and the author of anthologies on Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Shelly Manne, Jazz West Coast Readers Vols. 1-3, Profiles in Jazz, Vol.1, Jazz Drummers A Reader Vols. 1-2, Jazz Saxophonists A Reader, Vol. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Piano A Reader, Vols. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Trumpet A Reader Vols. 1 and 2 and A Companion Celebrating The 100th Anniversary of the Jean Goldkette Orchestras, 1926-2026. He also hosts the jazzprofiles.blogspot and cerra.substack blogs.

A Companion to Jazz Interpretations of Porgy and Bess is now available as a paperback and eBook exclusively through Amazon.com. Just enter my name in the search box under “Books.” With so much of this music now available on YouTube you’ll be able to listen to the music while you read the commentaries.

Here are the details:

A Prologue, Preface, Introduction and Epilogue plus 32 chapters by a variety of Jazz authors documenting Jazz interpretations of the folk-opera Porgy and Bess, one of America’s great cultural achievements, including those by Bethlehem Records, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Gil Evans and Miles Davis, Bob Crosby, Oscar Peterson’s Trio, Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass, Hank Jones, Paolo Fresu, Diahann Carroll, The Jim Cullum Band, Rex Stewart and Cootie Williams, Ralph Burns, Mundell Lowe, Joe Henderson, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Bill Potts, Clark Terry, Nueva Manteca, Eddy Louiss, Phil Woods, Buddy Collette, Sammy Davis Jr. and Carmen McRae, Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue by Hollis Alpert, pp. 8-14

Preface - The Embryonic Beginnings and Flavor of the Times by Hollis Alpert, pp. 15-37

Introduction to A Companion of Jazz Interpretations of Porgy and Bess - Steven A. Cerra, pp. 38-43

Chapter 1. The Bethlehem Records Release of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess by J.F. Quinn, Joseph Laredo and Art Hilgart, pp. 44-70

Chapter 2. Porgy and Bess - Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - Lawrence D. Stewart, pp. 71-97

Chapter 3. Ella and Louis and Porgy and Bess by Ricky Riccardi, pp. 98-101

Chapter 4. Miles, Gil, and Porgy and Bess - In the Jazz Literature - Steven A. Cerra, Editor, 102-106

Chapter 5. Miles and Porgy and Bess - Jack Chambers, pp. 107-113

Chapter 6. Gil Evans and Porgy and Bess - Gene Lees and Charles Edward Smith, pp. 114-124

Chapter 7. Gil Evans and Porgy and Bess - Stephanie Crease, pp. 125-132

Chapter 8. Porgy and Bess: Ray Charles, and Cleo Lane (1976) by Benny Green, pp. 133-147

Chapter 9. Summertime - Norman Granz and Ted Gioia, pp. 148-152

Chapter 10. Duke Ellington with Edward R. Murrow on Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess—and a Response from the Office of Irving Mills (1935/1936), pp. 153-161

Chapter 11. 1959 Bob Crosby “Porgy and Bess As Gershwin Would Have Liked It” by Nelson Riddle, pp. 162-165

Chapter 12. Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass Play Porgy and Bess Notes by Benny Green, pp. 166-169

Chapter 13. Porgy and Bess Swingin’ Impressions by Hank Jones - by Edward Jablonski, pp. 170-173

Chapter 14. Paolo Fresu and the Jazz Orchestra of Sardinia - Porgy and Bess by Marcello Piras and Paolo Fresu, pp. 174-179

Chapter 15. Diahann Carroll and the André Previn Trio - Porgy and Bess by Edward Jablonski, pp. 180-186

Chapter 16. The Jim Cullum Jazz Band - An Original Transcription of Porgy and Bess, pp. 187-192

Chapter 17. “Porgy and Bess Revisited Stewart-Williams & Co.” - George T. Simon, pp. 193-199

Chapter 18. Ralph Burns - Porgy and Bess by Burt Korall, pp. 200-208

Chapter 19. Gershwin’s PORGY AND BESS by the Mundell Lowe All-Stars - Frank Talmadge, pp. 209-214

Chapter 20. Joe Henderson’s PORGY AND BESS - A Review of the Jazz Literature - Steven A. Cerra, Editor, pp. 215-220

Chapter 21. The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess - Joel Dorn, Ira Gitler and John Tynan, pp. 221-230

Chapter 22. Bill Potts - The Jazz Soul Of Porgy And Bess by André Previn and Steve Wallace, pp. 231-253

Chapter 23. Clark Terry with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra - Porgy & Bess - Steve Graybow, pp. 254-258

Chapter 24. Oscar Peterson Plays Porgy & Bess by Lawrence D. Stewart and Benny Green, pp. 259-264

Chapter 25. Nueva Manteca Porgy and Bess - Jan Laurens Hartong, pp. 265-268

Chapter 26. Eddy Louiss, Ivan Jullien and PORGY & BESS - Alain Tercinet, pp. 269-272

Chapter 27. Porgy and Bess - The Jazz Class Orchestra Meets Phil Woods - Vittoria Franchini and Gabriele Comeglio, pp. 273-277

Chapter 28. Paolo Fresu – Kind Of Porgy & Bess, 278-280

Chapter 29. Buddy Collette and the Poll Winners - Modern Interpretations of Porgy and Bess - John Tynan, pp. 281-285

Chapter 30. Sammy Davis, Jr. and Carmen McRae - Porgy and Bess - Wil Haygood, pp. 286-294

Chapter 31. Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte Sings Porgy and Bess by George Durham, 295-298

Chapter 32. Akiyoshi, Bailey, Hanna, Mraz and Rosengren - Not a Law Firm! - Steven A. Cerra, pp. 299-301

Epilogue -Porgy and Bess - Some Considerations and Reviews Excerpted from Gershwin Biographies, pp. 302-317

Winner of the 2025 Jazz Journalist Association Special Citation for Historic Writings, Steven Cerra is a professional Jazz drummer and the author of anthologies on Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Shelly Manne, Jazz West Coast Readers Vols. 1-3, Profiles in Jazz, Vol.1, Jazz Drummers A Reader Vols. 1-2, Jazz Saxophonists A Reader, Vol. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Piano A Reader, Vols. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Trumpet A Reader Vols. 1 and 2 and A Companion Celebrating The 100th Anniversary of the Jean Goldkette Orchestras, 1926-2026. He also hosts the jazzprofiles.blogspot and cerra.substack blogs.

“Virtuosity means different things to different people. Musicians worship it when they encounter it because they understand its elusive mystery and endless process. But critics sometimes distrust it as a distraction, suspicious that a veneer of well-practiced skill may be camouflaging an emotional or creative apathy. Consistency may be admirable, but inconsistency often makes a better story. Clark Terry’s surprises were subtle and came in oblique miniatures, easy to overlook and often undervalued. He was just so consistently brilliant, the wonders he wrought were hidden in their familiarity.”

• John McDonough

“Every musician in the world who ever met Clark Terry is a better musician and person because of it. He now belongs to the ages.”

• Christian McBride, bassist

“What is deeper than respect and love? That’s what we felt: veneration.”

• Wynton Marsalis, trumpeter, bandleader

No other Jazz musician embodied the spirit of love, tolerance and generosity more than Clark Terry [1920-2015. He was an inspiration to me and a constant reminder that above all, Jazz is about having fun.

The following portrait of Clark by John McDonough which appeared in the May/2015 issue of Downbeat magazine will tell you more about why he was such a special human being and one who was beloved throughout the Jazz community.

© Copyright ® John McDonough, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with permission.

“WHEN CLARK TERRY DIED ON FEB. 21 [2015] in Pine Bluff, Arkansas — eight days after moving from his home to a nearby hospice — the jazz world lost not only one of its greatest trumpeters, but also one of its finest ambassadors. Terry had been suffering for several years with failing health exacerbated by diabetes. He was 94.

Some of his recent activities (from 2010 to 2013) were documented by director Alan Hicks in the film Keep On Keepin’ On, which chronicled Terry’s decline with an unflinching honesty as he faced, among other things, amputation procedures for both legs. Through the health crises, he continued to mentor his latest protege, pianist Justin Kauflin. Produced by Quincy Jones— another Terry protege from long ago — the film debuted to great acclaim in April 2014 at the Tribeca Film Festival. The soundtrack, released Feb. 24 on Varese Sarabande, features historic recordings of Terry performing with Count Basie, Duke Ellington and the Jazz at the Philharmonic All-Stars.

Most musicians — trumpet players in particular — foretell their demise through their horns: shorter solos, weakening intonation, the strained high note or imprecise phrase. Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and even studio stalwarts like Harry Edison all buckled in their late years. Reluctant to give up the stage, they chose instead to devise ways of concealing and patching their weaknesses.

Clark Terry postponed that reckoning longer than nearly anyone, thanks to reserves of technique and an unquenchable optimism. Even as an octogenarian, he delivered masterful work. In 2005 I gave his recording of Porgy & Bess with Jeff Lindberg and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra a rare 5-star review in DownBeat. It was a virtually perfect performance.

I saw Terry perform around the same time at the Iridium in New York City and found that it was not a mirage of post-production trickery. Though walking with a cane, Terry still played with the effervescence and elegance I remembered as a 15-year-old fan sitting a few feet from the Duke Ellington Orchestra at Chicago’s Blue Note club back in 1957. At the Iridium, as Terry’s eyesight and legs were failing him, his sound, breath control and attack seemed beyond the reach of time.

In 2008 Terry retired from performing, ending a career that spanned more than 60 years. His sound and phrasing were impossible to mistake for anyone else’s. It’s a kind of exclusivity shared by only a few trumpet players — Armstrong certainly, Ruby Braff and perhaps Edison. One could add Bix Beiderbecke, Gillespie and Davis (who is said to have studied Terry), of course, but they all became “schools” unto themselves and spawned many imitators and talented disciples. Terry owned his style so completely and protected it with such an impenetrable and subtle virtuosity that no one was capable of infringing on his territory.

“He taught so many cats,” Wynton Marsalis told me in Chicago just a week before Terry’s death. “Everybody’s been touched by him because he took his time with everybody. He carried the feeling of [jazz] with him, so when you were around him, you were around the feeling. He didn’t have to explain a lot. He just had to be himself. I’ve known him since I was 14. He’s the first person I heard who really was playing. It was the mid-’70s. Everybody was playing funk tunes. Miles was playing rock and funk, so nobody was playing jazz. But Clark Terry was playing. And no one played like CT.”

Terry was so good, so unerring, for so long, that he suffered the penalties of perfection. He was taken for granted — probably because he was never caught climbing out of a cracked note, a clumsy turn of phrase or an indifferent 12 bars. His performances were a fizz of wit and urbanity, never anguish or indecision. He made it all look so easy.

If he was underestimated, the last several years saw a rush to correct the record. He was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 1991. Readers elected him to the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 2000. The Recording Academy recognized his lifetime achievement four years ago. He even scored a hometown star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Virtuosity means different things to different people. Musicians worship it when they encounter it because they understand its elusive mystery and endless process. But critics sometimes distrust it as a distraction, suspicious that a veneer of well-practiced skill may be camouflaging an emotional or creative apathy. Consistency may be admirable, but inconsistency often makes a better story. Terry’s surprises were subtle and came in oblique miniatures, easy to overlook and often undervalued. He was just so consistently brilliant, the wonders he wrought were hidden in their familiarity.

But musicians never overlooked him. One of the earliest to spot him was trumpeter Charlie Shavers, who had heard him playing in the late ‘40s with the George Hudson band, a regional orchestra in St. Louis, where Terry was born on Dec. 14, 1920. As musicians do, Shavers spread the word. While making A Song Is Born for Samuel Goldwyn in 1947, bandleader Charlie Barnet asked Shavers if he knew a good jazz trumpet player. He immediately recommended Terry, who had become so captivated by the trumpet as a 10-year-old that he made one of his own from a section of hose and a funnel.

Terry was not a player whose style grew and evolved in public view over the years. He hit the Barnet band fully formed and singularly distinct, becoming an instant soloist in a brass section that also included Jimmy Nottingham and a young Doc Severinsen.

“To have an opportunity at age 21 to work with guys like that was inspirational,” Severinsen recalled after Terry’s death. “Clark was like my big brother. Anything he played, I was going to try to play it, too. I was pretty well-trained, but I simply could not do some of the things he did. He could play these long lines, for instance, because he learned to take in air as he would play — circular breathing. Yet, Clark never used it in a way that wasn’t good for the song. It was never a stunt. He was just a great trumpeter, period. He had a picture-perfect embouchure, which is why he was able to play as long as he wanted to.”

On Terry’s first record date with Barnet in September 1947, the trumpeter’s arrangement of “Sleep” was already in the book, showcasing his long, glancing phrases and sudden flame-throwing dynamics. So was his wit. He tossed off casual references to Shavers and even Harry James. On “Budandy,” his triple-tongue pirouettes contrasted sharply with Barnet’s swaggering masculinity. But the best, most dazzling Terry work from the Barnet band was captured on its December 1947 Town Hall Jazz Concert, released by Columbia in the 1950s.

Terry’s singing — he called it, more accurately, “mumbles” — was an explicit extension of his trumpet phrasing, a kind of rat-a-tat scat of double-talk: bubbling yet precise, with a bottled-up restraint that seemed itching to escape. Back then, his singing was less mumbles and more straight bebop. It was a small sideshow among his talents that Barnet never used on a commercial record and remained something of a secret until it became familiar to audiences via The Tonight Show in the 1960s. Terry’s vocals didn’t appear on a record until Oscar Peterson + One, released by Mercury in 1964. That album included a few Terry compositions, including “Mumbles.”

Shortly after the 1947 Town Hall concert, Terry left Barnet for Count Basie’s band. The timing could hardly have been worse. James Petrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians, called a strike against the record companies, shutting down the entire industry through 1948. Bookings fell off, and one famous band after another shut down.

Terry stayed with Basic through 1949, but the records from the period are not memorable. One exception is “Normania” (a.k.a. “Blee Blop Blues”) from Basie’s final RCA session in August 1949. Terry etches a stunning solo, crowded with a dry pointillist precision that had no precedent in the Basie book. It was a kind of prickly virtuosity jazz had never encountered — fluid, contained and full of Haydenesque detail. But the band was in its final months and broke up on Jan. 8, 1950. For Terry, though, it would only be a brief layoff. He was back in a month, this time in a Basie combo that included clarinetist Buddy DeFranco.

It was a transitional interlude. Terry marked his time as Basie struggled to rebuild. His trumpet was the backbone of the octet, but he soloed rarely on the few sides it made for Columbia in 1950-’51. He remained with Basie through the beginnings of the New Testament band in the spring and summer of 1951. Then, Duke Ellington beckoned.

Terry joined Ellington on Nov. 11,1951. It had been a period of swift changes and recalibrations for the band. Alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges and drummer Sonny Greer had departed in February, taking with them two of the primary spectrums of the bands color scheme. Ellington might have tried a patch job. Instead, he bet on a reformation. Between March and November 1951, Terry and drummer Louie Bellson became a wind of modernity sweeping through the band.

Ellington presented Terry with what would be the first magnum opus of his career, a concert-size version of “Perdido,” a piece that had been in the book since 1941. Terry polished it to a high gloss, making it a full-dress, eight-minute summary of his entire work Triple-tongued arcs flared like geysers, then leveled off, spreading into long, cool landscapes that rolled evenly across half a chorus without a breath. When he twisted a pitch or broke composure with a sudden spritz of schmaltz, it was always with a sardonic wink His playing flexed and bristled with an unforced passion wrapped in a strict sense of form and musical intelligence.

“Perdido” was recorded in July 1952, just in time for Columbia to add it to what would become Ellington’s first landmark album of the long-play era, Ellington Uptown. The band had stumbled into a new peak period, invigorated by Terry’s crackling audacity and Bellson s barreling drive. For Terry, “Perdido” and Ellington Uptown were a career-making twosome that put him in the big time. But just as that album was released, the band moved to Capitol for an indifferent two-year period during which it was eclipsed by the sensational renaissance of Count Basie.

Then came the legendary performance at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival (and subsequent concert album Ellington At Newport). Suddenly Ellington was back on top and on the cover of Time magazine. For the next three years, Terry would play to the largest audiences of his career and develop a fan base of his own. He became a fixture in a band of extraordinary fixtures: Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Juan Tizol, Ray Nance, Britt Woodman, Harry Carney and Ellington himself.

After the 1956 Newport fest, Ellington grew more ambitious, and Terry was well represented in the flow of new works. He became one of the first musicians to bring the flugelhorn into the jazz scene with “Juniflip” (from Newport 1958). There were wonderful odds and ends, among them “Spacemen” (from The Cosmic Scene) and “Happy Anatomy” from his final Ellington project, Anatomy Of A Murder. Best remembered may be “Lady Mac” and “Up And Down, Up And Down” from 1957’s Such Sweet Thunder.

As Terry rose on the Ellington tide, other opportunities opened. He moonlighted on sessions with Clifford Brown, Maynard Ferguson, Dinah Washington and Horace Silver on EmArcy Records. He joined Thelonious Monk for the landmark 1957 album Brilliant Corners (Riverside). Monk returned the courtesy, appearing on Terry’s In Orbit (1958). And Hodges used him often on his Ellingtonian excursions on Verve.

Late in 1959 Terry left Ellington, worked on and off with Quincy Jones, then Gerry Mulligan and Bob Brookmeyer. But Terry’s real quest was to get off the road and stay in New York The chance came in 1960 when the major networks, after years of pressure, finally began to integrate their staff orchestras. Terry became the first African American musician to join the NBC staff.

He may have settled down a bit, but the 1960’s would become his most productive decade. Nearly half the jazz recordings of his career would be done during that time.

It was also the decade in which Terry became widely known beyond the jazz world. When Johnny Carson took over The Tonight Show in October 1962, conductor Skitch Henderson brought Terry into the band, where he proved a natural showman with his “mumbles” scat singing. A regular feature of the show became “stump the band,” in which Carson would invite audience members to make offbeat tune requests. No request was too obscure for Terry, who would raise his hand. “I think Clark has it,” Carson would say. Terry would then mumble a made-up scat line as the other musicians nodded in mock recognition. He became the most famous sideman in America’s most famous jazz band.

When The Tonight Show moved to Los Angeles in 1972, Terry remained in New York and became increasingly active with younger musicians through a growing network of jazz educators, often recording with various student bands. He toured with a big band of his own periodically, playing festivals, cruises and other venues. (Vanguard released Clark Terry’s Big B-a-d Band Live At The Wichita Jazz Festival 1974).

Terry’s most consistent recorded output through the ‘70s and ‘80s was on Pablo, where the label’s famous founder, Norman Granz, regularly featured him with Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson and on his own leader projects. He recorded on smaller labels with endless pick-up groups as he traveled the world. But alongside the playful spirit and adroit craft lived a powerful blues player as well, never more so than on Abbey Lincoln’s 1990 album, The World Is Falling Down.

On the bandstand, Terry combined his formidable instrumental skills with a strong sense of showmanship. “Being able to entertain is very important,” he said in a June 1996 DownBeat cover story. “The real jazz fans may think that’s commercial — playing the horn upside-down or working with both horns at once. But the idea of playing music to an audience is to present it so they’ll enjoy it. If you don’t want to do that, you may as well rent a studio and play there. I try to pass on to young players the importance of remembering that when you’re onstage, you’re entertaining. Playing jazz is not heart surgery. You’re there to vent your feelings and have fun. We don’t work our instruments. We play them.”

Among Terry’s last sessions were Friendship (a collaboration with drummer Max Roach) and the Porgy & Bess project in 2003 with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra.

Terry also had an important impact as a pioneering jazz educator. In addition to conducting clinics and workshops, he had a long stint as an adjunct professor at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. He donated instruments, correspondence, print music and memorabilia to the university in 2004.

Clark Terry lived a long life — with a coda that gave his many friends time to say their goodbyes. Some are movingly captured in Keep On Keepin’ On. But one special goodbye came last December. The entire Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra diverted from its tour route and played a birthday concert at Terry’s hospital bedside. “We didn’t want to stop,” Marsalis later wrote on his Facebook page, “but it was time for all of us to go. But before that somber moment, we gathered around the bed and played ‘Happy Birthday for him. When he went to blow out the candles, he broke down. Many of us joined him. We all said goodbye and he once again recognized each individual with a touch and some kind words.... And then it was that time. What is deeper than respect and love? That’s what we felt: veneration.”

On Feb. 23, bassist Christian McBride posted a tribute on his Facebook page in which he reflected on Terry’s influence: “Every musician in the world who ever met Clark Terry is a better musician and person because of it. He now belongs to the ages.” DB

“Improvisers intimidated by the unhurried ballad’s unavoidable requirement to think often address the problem by doubling the established tempo and falling back on a familiar pattern of notes. Mundell Lowe, a deep thinker and consummate guitarist, uses no such trick because he doesn’t need to. He observes the melodies of these cherished songs, sometimes embellishing them a bit, sometimes using their harmonies as touchstones for lovely melodies of his own. It is an album of mood music for the mind as well as the spirit.”

- Orrin Keepnews

Donald Byrd said to the author, critic, editor Gene Lees many years ago, “After all my years in this business, I have concluded that the hardest thing to do is play straight melody and get some feeling into it.” Gene followed up with: “Listen to Bill Evans playing Danny Boy and you will know exactly what he means.”

This quotation also brought to mind Mundell Lowe’s interpretation of David Rose’s Our Waltz with its gentle, loving, introspective, beautiful examination of the tune, in which all the glories of Mundell’s guitar-playing are on display. I think Mundell’s playing on this track is a quintessential example of playing straight melody with some feeling in it.

Mundell Lowe has been a part of my Jazz Life almost from its beginnings as I was fortunate to acquire two of his earliest recordings for Riverside Records just after they were issued in 1955/56.

Orrin Keepnews, the owner, operator of that label, was also fortunate in terms of his association with Mundell because due to Mundell’s southern “roots,” Lowe introduced him to pianist Bill Evans who was then a student at Southeast Louisiana State College [Mundell is from Laurel, MS, about a two hour drive northeast of SELSC].
Mundell passed away on December 2, 2017 in San Diego, CA at the age 95 and I thought I’d remember him with the following retrospective of the highlights of Mundell’s career by Gene Lees, some excerpts from Orrin’s insert notes to Mundell’s two Riverside albums and a YouTube with Mundell’s beautiful rendition of David Rose’s Our Waltz serving as its soundtrack.

When I mentioned Mundell in a recent correspondence with a Jazz friend, he commented: “A genius of harmony, tasteful accompaniment and amazingly inventive voicings. A top tier master!”

© -Gene Lees, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Guitarist Mundell Lowe has performed in a notable variety of styles and idioms. From 1936, when he was fourteen, until 1940, he played traditional New Orleans jazz in that city, at a time when many of its founding figures were still around. Then he went to Nashville and played what was then known as hillbilly music, later refined to country and western, per­forming on Grand Ole’ Opry radio broad­casts. He went with the Jan Savitt band in 1942, then into the U.S. Army. On being discharged in 1945, he joined the Ray McKinley band and stayed for two years. Somewhere along the way, he—like Herb Ellis and just about every other guitarist in jazz — came under the influence of Charlie Christian, and then in the period of bop evolution, of Jimmy Raney.

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“George Gershwin’s 1935 musical Porgy and Bess enjoyed quite a revival in the late 1950s due to the release of a film version directed by Otto Preminger and starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. The 1959 movie prompted a veritable glut of soundtrack recordings of wildly different approaches and quality. Simon decided to get Cootie Williams and Rex Stewart to jump into the fray and co-lead a soundtrack album released as Porgy and Bess Revisited.

There are no singers on the album; the novel idea for this project was to portray the roles instrumentally. Cootie was cast in the role of Porgy with Simon writing that his open horn work was “one of the most soulful, at times mournful trumpeters I’ve ever heard. What an ideal sound for the songs of the crippled Porgy!” The other parts were Hilton Jefferson (Bess), Rex Stewart (Sportin’ Life), Lawrence Brown (Serena and Clara), and Pinky Williams (no relation) playing Jake on baritone saxophone. Except for Pinky Williams, the soloists were all ex-Ellingtonians and four of the group had participated in The Big Challenge. The arrangements were written by Jim Timmens (1920-1980), who would spent his last decade in charge of the music for Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.

The reviews for the album were very good. The Cleveland Call and Post said the solos “range from very good to excellent.” They added that Cootie “is at his best on “I Got Plenty of Nothin’.” Metronome ran a single-page review comparing a selection of the many Porgy and Bess albums on the market. A total of nine LPs were rated, produced by artists like Miles Davis and Gil Evans, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr. and Carmen McRae, and Mundell Lowe. The Williams-Stewart effort was deemed the “best of the whole collection.... The casting is excellent—Cootie in particular is brilliant, and his duet with Hilton Jefferson is a high point of the album. Almost any jazz fan will find this an unusually pleasant album.”

• Steve Bowie, Concerto for Cootie, The Life and Times of Cootie Williams [2005]

Some Jazz fans may know George T. Simon as the author of the many editions of The Big Bands who also took on the role of Jazz critic for Metronome magazine for many years with a primary emphasis on big bands. In 1959, he became the producer of Porgy and Bess Revisited Stewart-Williams & Co. for Warner Bros [W-1260]. As noted in the above quotation from Steve Bowie’s biography of Cootie Williams, what sets this version of the Gershwin-Dubose opera apart is that instrumentalists play the role of Porgy and Bess [and other characters in the opera] rather than vocalists singing the songs, arias, et al.

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A new book on Mahalia Jackson releasing on August 18, 2026 - Mahalia Jackson, Moving On Up A Little Higher by Timothy B. Tyson and Mary D. Williams - and now this boxed set of the music of Ma Rainey! Talk about a surfeit of riches.

David Garrow closes his Wall Street Journal review of the Jackson bio with this statement:

“Mahalia Jackson died at only 60; at her funeral Belafonte mourned her as “the single most powerful black woman in America.” Belafonte lived to 96. His songs may be fading from American memory. Jackson’s have not. She, like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith who came before her, remains an enduring touchstone of black musical culture.”

Here’s more on the Ma Rainey book set and I’ll follow with the entire Garrow review of the new Jackson bio in a future posting.

‘Ma Rainey: Mother of the Blues’ Review: A Music Legend Made Brilliantly Clear

This watershed boxed set features cutting-edge remasters of the singer’s 1920s recordings, substantiating her centrality in blues and beyond.

By Barry Mazor

July 20, 2026 Wall Street Journal

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Many have heard of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886-1939), recalled as “the Mother of the Blues,” but few have really heard her. The August Wilson play “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” made an impression, though it was not especially biographical, and the soundtrack for its film adaptation employed very little of the the music she actually performed. More important, she had recorded exclusively for the early Paramount label, notorious for its poor recording quality and worse shellac pressings. On the 78s she left behind, she’s an intriguingly forceful presence—but remote, as if heard from the next room through a paper cup and string. Attempts over the years to improve the sound were lackluster at best. That distancing has diminished modern perceptions of her talents and importance, as compared with, most obviously, her better-recorded friend and disciple Bessie Smith.

David Stocker

That gap ends with the July 24 release of “Ma Rainey: Mother of the Blues—The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923-1928” (Black Swan/The George H. Buck Jazz Foundation). Sonically improved to levels never before achievable, and accompanied by a lavish and detailed 100-page book, the 5-CD, 118-track boxed set encompasses all of her released sides and a good many outtakes and test pressings. It is absolutely revelatory regarding how Ma Rainey sang, how it mattered, and who she was.

That she was a vocalist with great lung power had never been missed. (She was marketed not only as the blues’ “Mother,” but sometimes as their “Assassinator.”) What becomes clear here is that her singing, whether loud or soft, could be masterfully nuanced—attuned in volume, attitude and phrasing to diverse instrumental backing. She was generally right on target for the dramatic stories related, as take-charge and cheeky, witty, or sobbing and heartbroken as the lyrics required. One result is that her numbers, including those most commercially successful and appreciated, have range—folklore-tinged balladry such as “See See Rider” and “Stack O’Lee,” both related from a wounded woman’s point of view; 12-bar blues that explored and helped establish major blues themes (“Chain Gang Blues,” “Louisiana Hoo Doo Blues,” “Rough and Tumble Blues”); and ragtime-influenced novelties that were a legacy of her long years as a working vaudevillian (“Those Dogs of Mine” concerning her feet, “Georgia Cake Walk,” and the eventually famed dance-craze number “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”)

She was the composer of many of her songs, and she also took up numbers from leading singer-songwriters of the time who sometimes played with her as well—such as pianists Lovie Austin, Lil Hardin Armstrong and Georgia Tom Dorsey; the last would later become known as Thomas A. Dorsey, one of the founders of modern gospel music. By Ma Rainey’s own testimony, she’d picked up on and incorporated into her compositions blues lines she’d heard used by wandering folk musicians. But as she employed them, they became perennial sources for multiple emerging genres. It is a thrill—and for many it will be a surprise—to hear her sing “I went to the depot, looked up and down the board” and “I’d rather be in the river, driftin’ like a log / Than to be in this town, feelin’ like a dog,” words that anticipate country’s Jimmie Rodgers. And she told us “I’m standin’ here wonderin’ will a matchbox hold my clothes” before Blind Lemon Jefferson, decades before Carl Perkins or the Beatles.

That broad influence justifies the “Mother of the Blues” appellation, even if it was a marketing term to begin with. The very term “blues” still suggests different sounds to followers of jazz, folk, country and rock ’n’ roll, respectively, but she has mattered to them all, the musical adaptability demonstrated on this set being an important reason. She’s backed on her earliest recordings by jazz ensembles she’d put together and led, and by such jazz icons as Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson and Coleman Hawkins. Later on, in a highly unusual move, she’s accompanied by leading lights of the blues recording genre—Papa Charlie Jackson, Tampa Red, Blind Blake. And she was adventurous enough to employ down-home lead acoustic guitar, banjo and jug-band backing on several cuts when very few associated with jazz would go there. The “Mother of the Blues” would.

The book included with the set is loaded with revealing rare photos from throughout Ma Rainey’s career; images of playbills and original lyric sheets; details of all of the recording sessions; as well as the story of her life from her upbringing in Alabama and Georgia until its end in 1939. Its quality is a credit to author David Sager, musician and scholar, and to commentators Gaye Todd Adegbalola and Dom Flemons. The book does lean on two major Rainey biographies, by Sandra Lieb and Dick Spottswood, but paired with the strongly enhanced recordings it is a significant contribution to getting the story told.

As for the long-germinating version of the records included, credit goes to celebrated audio engineer Doug Benson. Infamously, Paramount, based in Grafton, Wis., had disposed of its recording masters as the company collapsed, with some thrown in the river nearby, so Mr. Benson and a collection of serious record collectors spent years amassing the very cleanest 78s available, some quite rare, before he remastered the set to reach their remarkable sonic level.

What the biographical material informs us, and the recordings very much reconfirm, is that Gertrude Rainey was first and foremost a dynamic performer, bringing years of live vaudeville performance and musical knowledge to her recording career. In some sense she played a character called “Ma Rainey,” one who stunned with eye-catching beads and her dress and demeanor.

The central irony of her story is that because she was as much at home with rural-derived down-home music as with more sophisticated urban fare—the very fence-jumping that makes her more potent today—the label became less confident of how to market her recordings to either city or country audiences.

She stuck with rural carnival and black-oriented theater settings for her appearances, and stayed South, never focusing on the big Northern cities and venues as Bessie Smith did. As the Depression took hold, Paramount sought to cut her pay, and she simply walked away. Always a self-motivated leader, she is said to have bought and run two theaters in Georgia as her recording career ended. Her musical legacy had been well-established. Now, a century later, we can really hear what it is.

Mr. Mazor reviews roots and country music for the Journal.

Appeared in the July 21, 2026, print edition as ‘Ma Rainey Made Brilliantly Clear’.

“Bob Haggart arranged a Bob Crosby album released as Porgy and Bess as Gershwin Would Have Liked It. [Dot 3193 1959]. Especially with Gil and Miles on the case, no one took Crosby seriously, and Crosby didn’t take the arranger seriously enough - Haggart was unidentified on the LP that he later declared his finest work. I’ve never heard that album, but the playing can’t have been more ebullient than that of Randy Sandke’s crew on The Music of Bob Haggart [Arbors Jazz]. Lucid harmonies and polyphonic embellishments - Dixie-swing reborn.”

• Gary Giddins, Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century [2004].

• “Bob Haggart’s arrangements played an invaluable part in the success of Bob Crosby’s band; a large percentage of their outstanding recordings were based on his orchestrations. Besides South Rampart Street Parade, Dogtown Blues, DigaDigaDoo, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, etc, he also added delightful touches to tunes that didn’t deserve the artistry he bestowed on them. As a composer, Bob enjoyed several successes in the late 1930s, one can only surmise how prolific he would have been if his arranging schedules had not been so time consuming.”

• John Chilton, Stomp Off Let’s Go, The Story of Bob Crosby’s Bob Cats and Big Band.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to drummers George Wettling [1907-1968], Dave Tough [1907-1948] and Gene Krupa [1909-1973] which may sound like an odd compliment from someone who is essentially steeped in modern Jazz drumming.

Another of my early heroes was Ray Bauduc [1906-1988] when he was with the Ben Pollack Orchestra which morphed into Bob Crosby’s Bob Cats and Big band.

Listening to recordings of George’s playing, and those of the other “Chicago-style” drummers like Gene Krupa and Dave Tough, I realized that what they were doing was essentially phrasing 2-beat New Orleans or Dixieland Jazz with the 4/4 time feeling that came of age in the Swing Era. The music was so alive and I just really enjoyed everything about it. And although Ray came through New Orleans, he also was a trend setter in traditional jazz circles. His precise, disciplined, yet fiery patterns and syncopated fills, helped New Orleans drummers make the transition into swing from the rigid, clipped progressions that had defined the previous era.

Without George, Davey and Gene and Ray’s tutelage, which I came by indirectly through countless hours of listening to their classic Jazz recordings, I would have missed out on one of the happiest gigs of my life.

The job in question was in a bar in Glendale, Ca and for three nights every week from 9:00 PM until 2:00 AM, I got to play classic New Orleans tunes like That’s A Plenty, Muskrat Ramble, St. James Infirmary and some later adaptations of this style in tunes like China Boy, Hindustan, and Wolverine Blues in a hot Chicago-style or Traditional or whatever Jazz band made up of trumpet, trombone, clarinet, piano, bass and drums [aka Me!] and it was a blast.

At first I was greeted with some hesitation by the older guys mainly along the lines of “He’s too young to know much about this music;” “He’s probably a Bebopper;” “He doesn’t know any of the tunes.”

But thanks to George, Davey, Gene and Ray, I more than held my own.

With few extended solos, most of the tunes lasted only 3-4 minutes so that meant that we played a bunch of songs each set, sometimes as many as 15 a set totaling around 60 a night. I had a ball. Loved every minute of it.

My chops loved it, too; as my hands got stronger, my wrists were able to relax thus increasing my speed and power.

I added some heat and sizzle to the the usual four-bar drum breaks or “kickers” that help serve as tags to take most tunes out, but I made sure that I kept my bass drum doing four-beats to the bar so that the “old timers” could count when to come back in.[Grins].

And I owe it all to George Wettling, Dave Tough, Gene Krupa and Ray Bauduc.

Here are arranger-composer Nelson Riddle’s liner notes to Bob Crosby and His Bobcats Porgy and Bess as Gershwin Would Have Liked It. [Dot 3193 1959]

“George Gershwin once told Bob Crosby that many of the songs in Porgy and Bess were written to be played by Bob’s orchestra. This is very easy to believe. While listening to this album, I couldn’t help but feel that this was what the composer had in mind when he wrote the wonderful score. The happy music is happy, uninhibited and swinging. The blues are moody and soul-searching. The love songs are tender and stirring. The entire effect is one of impeccable taste, fine musicianship and complete sympathy with the composer.

Gershwin wrote tomorrow’s music yesterday. Almost every musician who contemplates a Gershwin tune is a little startled to discover that the melodies, harmonies and rhythms are right up to date. No matter what kind of revolution takes place in music, it seems as though Gershwin has already been there, written it and gone on into the future. The presentation in this album reflects that timeless quality. It contains Dixieland, swing and the subtleties of modern Jazz.

Bob Crosby’s Bobcats have always had that quality of combining the best of the old with the best of the new. They manage to keep the music fresh and up-to-date while still acknowledging the roots of Jazz Dixieland. This accomplishment is a tribute to Bob’s taste and imagination.

My first contact with Bob occurred in New York shortly after my discharge from the army. As a struggling freelance arranger, I welcomed with open arms the invitation to write arrangements for Bob’s orchestra. A few months later, I was sitting in a dentist chair when Bob called and asked if I would like to go with him to the West Coast. I jumped at the chance and made the move which eventually changed my entire career.

I have had many assignments since those days but few have been more interesting than writing for the Bobcats. Bob’s fine taste and musical standards are a challenge for any arranger.

I might add, with regret, that I had nothing to do with the music on this album. I am, however, delighted to be cast in the most important of all roles; that of the listener.”

The singer, who would have celebrated his centennial this year, was a committed defender of pre-rock standards in a career distinguished by his vocal technique and artistic integrity.

By John Edward Hasse

July 29, 2026 Wall Street Journal

Tony Bennett, whose centennial arrives Aug. 3, left an indelible legacy as a pre-eminent interpreter of American song. He believed that George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Duke Ellington had created American art built to last—a conviction he championed throughout a 70-year career.

In addition, he was one of the 20th century’s greatest song stylists, singing with taste, swing and emotional directness. Listeners sensed that he believed in the songs and in the values they carried: craft, elegance, feeling and sincerity. When he died in 2023, tributes celebrated his courage, fidelity and artistry.

At the turn of the 1970s, when reinvention seemed to signify relevance, Bennett’s boldest decision was to remain himself and stay true to his musical values. That quiet defiance nearly pushed him out of the business.

With several No. 1 hits and a Carnegie Hall triumph under his belt, by 1969 Bennett was already a major star. That’s when Columbia Records chief Clive Davis handed him a list of contemporary rock songs to cover, including “MacArthur Park” and “Eleanor Rigby.” Davis—the legendary executive who died in June after shaping the careers of Bruce Springsteen and Whitney Houston, among others—made the commercial logic plain to Bennett: adapt, or watch the label move on without him. The singer went into the studio and vomited from the strain of artistic compromise. The resulting album—“Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today!”—remains a musical and commercial debacle.

Bennett viewed corporate trends as a threat to artistic integrity. A few years later, he chose the wilderness over surrender. In 1972, he walked away from Columbia Records, an almost unheard-of split. What followed looked like career suicide. His own boutique label, Improv, buried him in debt. The IRS came calling. In 1979, he nearly died of a cocaine overdose. For a decade, the man who had immortalized “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” couldn’t get a major label to return his calls. Holding his ground cost real money—and to the casual observer, his refusal to adapt had destroyed him.

The turnaround began that same year: His son Danny took over as manager. The younger Bennett felt that the product was fine; only the distribution needed fixing. He booked his father onto late-night television, into alternative rock clubs, and eventually onto MTV, with the music itself left untouched.

When his “MTV Unplugged” aired in 1994, Generation X met a man in his late 60s performing songs from their grandparents’ youth, with no irony and no apology. The resulting album went platinum and won the Grammy for album of the year. The culture, running out of places to find something durable, had circled back.

Formidable musical craft sustained that spectacular comeback. Bennett anchored his vocal style in Italian bel canto discipline but infused it with a jazz musician’s timing. He forged his laid-back phrasing decades earlier by studying such instrumentalists as Art Tatum and Louis Armstrong. Bennett could bend notes, delay a half-beat, then effortlessly catch up. That classical foundation explains why, at 80, he sang without strain, delivering lyrics like thoughts unfolding in real time.

Maturity distinguishes his moving mid-1970s collaborations with pianist Bill Evans. On tracks like “Make Someone Happy,” their telepathic interplay draws Bennett’s voice and Evans’s sensitive, lyrical lines into a single, breathing entity. It is one of the finest recordings by either artist. Several years later, Evans, gravely ill from drug abuse, urged Bennett to “just concentrate on truth and beauty,” as the singer recalled in his memoir “The Good Life.”

We hear this same assurance on Bennett’s “The Art of Excellence” and his Grammy-winning tributes “Perfectly Frank,” a collection of Sinatra numbers, and “Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot & Cool.”

Bennett’s story is also a study in brand discipline, though he would never have used the phrase. Instead of gravitating to rock or its offshoots, he preserved the product and trusted that quality would eventually become a competitive advantage. It did, although vindication took roughly 15 years. Late in his career, such pop-rock musicians as Elton John, Billy Joel and Paul McCartney came to record with him.

In his 80s and 90s, living privately with Alzheimer’s disease, Bennett recorded “Love for Sale” with Lady Gaga, sold out Radio City Music Hall, and closed his performing career still singing standards written before the age of television. That was the pull for younger listeners: a singer who never once tried to sound like them. In a marketplace saturated with manufactured novelty, that made him rare.

Bennett spent seven decades betting that a superb song, sung with conviction, would outlast every fashion built to bury it. The bet nearly bankrupted him; it also secured his place in American music. Bennett made the old values sound indispensable. His real innovation was patience—an asset that never depreciates.

Mr. Hasse is curator emeritus of American Music at the Smithsonian. His books include “Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington” (Da Capo) and “Discover Jazz” (Pearson).

[Winner of the 2025 Jazz Journalist Association Special Citation for Historic Writings, Steven Cerra is a professional Jazz drummer and the author of anthologies on Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Shelly Manne, Jazz West Coast Readers Vols. 1-3, Profiles in Jazz, Vol.1, Jazz Drummers A Reader Vols. 1-2, Jazz Saxophonists A Reader, Vol. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Piano A Reader, Vols. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Trumpet A Reader Vols. 1 and 2 and A Companion Celebrating The 100th Anniversary Of the Jean Goldkette Orchestras, 1926-2026. He also hosts the jazzprofiles.blogspot and cerra.substack blogs.]

Jeffrey Sultanof

Aug 05, 2026

Steven Cerra describes himself as a writer, photographer, web producer, film maker/videographer and audio producer. He has a blog, and he is a fellow Substack writer. But he goes the extra distance by assembling and editing ‘readers,’ volumes that compile written materials on a given subject. He is prolific; so far he has self-published readers on Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Stan Kenton, Shelly Manne, West Coast Jazz, Saxophone players, Trumpet players, Pianists, and Drummers. He’s a hard man to keep up with! Happily he issues these as not only printed volumes, but also as kindle books at a VERY reasonable price for volumes that are over 700 pages!! I for one ran out of space for small books let alone giant monsters like these, but having them on kindle makes my life much easier. As an historian, I love having these many articles at my fingertips.

While I look forward to his work in progress on “Porgy and Bess,” I am ecstatic over his reader “A Companion Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Jean Goldkette Orchestra.”

Before the 1960s, the Goldkette Orchestra was mostly known by historians of 1920s big bands, and while there were isolated reissues of the recordings of Goldkette, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Whiteman and others in the LP era, research and important articles only appeared in magazines and books in the late 1950s onward. Interviews with musicians started to appear, and books by Rex Stewart, Richard Sudhalter and others were found in bookstores by the mid-to-late 1960s (I well remember The Nostalgia Book Club, an arm of the publisher Arlington House, where you could get books on Bix Beiderbecke, the Dorsey Bros., Benny Goodman and many other musicians, and I got my early education from them).

We now know that Goldkette’s was one of the most important big bands of any era. It had a powerful swing, excellent musicians, and creative arrangements that were copied by other arrangers, in spite of a poor recording legacy. It certainly pointed to the music of the mid-1930’s when the swing era was in its earliest days.

Goldkette was a concert pianist, who started to play in jazz ensembles. He eventually became a ballroom owner and a booker of bands. His 1924-1926 orchestra was a real crowd pleaser; musicians included Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, Steve Brown, ‘Doc’ Ryker, Bill Rank, Don Murray, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Russ Morgan and arranger Bill Challis. The band was so good that it shocked Fletcher Henderson’s musicians when they played opposite each other at Roseland Ballroom in New York City. Unfortunately, their records did not properly show off what they could do. Goldkette lost money on the ensemble, and Paul Whiteman offered the musicians places in his band. Beiderbecke, Trumbauer, Venuti, Lang and others joined; the resulting ensemble was one of the best that Whiteman led.

The original book of arrangements for the Goldkette ensemble mysteriously disappeared, but thankfully Whiteman asked Challis to recreate it for his band, and those versions are safely stored at Williams College with the rest of the Whiteman Collection. Challis has been cited by no less than Benny Carter as one of the best arrangers of that era.

Many years later, Challis re-created the Goldkette sound, adapting new arrangements from his Whiteman re-do’s. Ironically, Vince Giordano, who produced this album, told me that Challis destroyed them after the session (the liner notes for the album are included in the reader of course).

Cerra gathers many fabulous articles, liner notes and book excerpts printed over the years detailing the Goldkette band’s importance and coverage of his many legendary sidemen, and as with most of his readers, several of these are obscure and hard to get. Such writers as Gene Lees, John Chilton, Albert McCarthy, Brian Rust, Dan Morgenstern, and Sudhalter may be found here, as well as Rex Stewart’s reminiscences of his ‘meeting’ with the band as Roseland. Of course there is duplication of information which is inevitable, but Cerra wisely does not edit the articles.

Since they were also part of the Goldkette story, he has wisely included material about other bands that Goldkette managed - the equally legendary McKinney’s Cotton Pickers directed by Don Redman, and The Orange Blossoms, which later became another pioneering dance orchestra, the Casa Loma Orchestra. Most thankfully, he has included big chunks from Sudhalter’s, Philip R. Evans, and William Dean Myatt’s book on Beiderbecke, which for several reasons has not been available for many years (the reasons are too detailed to chronicle here; as my readers know, Dick Sudhalter was my friend for many years, and was very sad about this. Recently, there has been some discussion about this book on Facebook).

This is a treasure trove of material about a very important chapter of American music. Thank you, Steven.

Here is a link for this publication:

https://www.amazon.com/Companion-Celebrating-Anniversary-Goldkette-Orchestras-ebook/dp/B0H9GG9P4M/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ZJO7FVEJA6FA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.y_coTq7rQJ6kFM5AR96hh9FWCt1SSTKCvSqgX0k7HJm54DuFqq4zYjHnKFM2XLZGUSfSAiOuBaz1LW3L_6QAg_eUdnfOO2LosVhF6skXn9uRn31NGP0VvpsMAATk4ubpUkH6JY4_97xaym3tvyfwh09HQs_MHCvn50ICTvNnsdtnjqgYLDlKYJrfM6ShTH5BJNPHrGQCmCzDwEg5lsSmBBPvZTNWd4mIZJyFfsEag8I.749P5_sCdd8u6taTdRdgPWN2HKL__ZfrbmzSqzS-xEA&dib_tag=se&keywords=steven+cerra&qid=1785953840&sprefix=steven+cerr%2Caps%2C213&sr=8-1

“I remember probably better than anything the time we were tied up in Shanghai alongside a ship that had come out later, and somebody on it had a record of Black and Tan Fantasy- played, as I did not learn at the time,...

by Duke Ellington. That was a world heard through a porthole, and never to be forgotten.”

- Otis Ferguson, Seaman First Class (later journalist), ca. 1928

“Duke Ellington has not been well served by writers. Two books, one by Terry Teachout and one by James Lincoln Collier are not only inaccurate but border on the malicious. Unlike them, Jack Chambers knows jazz. His books on Miles Davis and Richard Twardzik are the results of research, tempered with admiration. The overriding impression that remains when you read this book is of Chambers’ love and admiration for his subject. In his own words he hopes ‘to provide new insights to readers who already know Ellington’s music and ‘most of all’ to offer ‘an entry-point for relative newcomers’.

The task of encapsulating the vast legacy that Ellington left is a conundrum. Chambers has rejected the biographical or the discographical approach. He has, as the book’s title suggests, chosen to look at themes. The themes include the importance of plunger mutes, tenor players from Webster to Gonsalves, the mystery of the Hodges-Strayhorn relationship, the story of “the stockpile”, Ellington’s piano playing and the musical links with Shakespeare and with Africa and Asia.

This is a fascinating book full of generosity, insight and detail that is not available elsewhere. It is a script to return to. It challenges, informs, illuminates, reassures, intrigues. The admiration that Chambers has for his subject is evident throughout. He is a great guide to the vast swathes of Ellington; driving you back to the albums or inspiring you to buy some of the music. The book stands side by side with the other great book on Ellington. ‘A Listener’s Guide Duke Ellington’ by Eddie Lambert (Scarecrow Press). Both of them increase understanding and enable deeper understanding of the remarkable musician and composer.”

-Reviewed by Jack Kenny, Jazz Views blog

Jack Chambers, a jazz author and critic is perhaps best known for his two-volume biography of Miles Davis Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis [New York: William Morrow, 1989].

He has also written the first full-length biography of the pianist, Bouncin’ With Bartok: The Incomplete Works of Richard Twardzik, published by The Mercury Press. In 2008.

Talk about a study in contrasts: from one of the most well-known and influential Jazz musicians in the history of Jazz to one of the music’s most short-lived and obscure players!

Jack is once again back to the famous and prominent, this time as the author of Sweet Thunder: Duke Ellington’s Music in Nine Themes [self-published, Milestones Music and Art, 2019].

“Sweet Thunder explores the music of Duke Ellington by tracing nine themes through his amazingly productive 50-year career as composer, orchestrator, pianist, and cultural icon. Lifelong listeners to Ellington and newcomers seeking an entry-point into Ellington’s voluminous works will find this book stimulating, illuminating, and entertaining.”

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© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“He is perhaps the only great writer in Jazz history who has always tended to work as an arranger of the work of others and rarely as a composer of his own material.”

- Leonard Feather

Evans’s originality does not require original compositions for its demonstration. His arrangements of other people’s compositions simply sparkle with his individualism; they overflow with invention. …

His tastes have been unencumbered by convention or bias, and his career has been almost untouched by self-promotion or self-aggrandizement.

And he has managed, on his own terms and at his own pace, to produce a body of work that holds its own proud place in Jazz.”

- Jack Chambers

“He knows what can be done, what the possibilities are.”

- Miles Davis

For someone who was virtually unknown to the general public, especially during the early years of his career, Gil Evans certainly didn’t escape the attention of Max Harrison as the following, exhaustive retrospective of Evans’ music will attest.

In his essay, Max explores in greater detail the concept of Gil’s arranging skills serving as a basis for re-composition.

Max Harrison’s narrative is a model of thoughtful analysis about one of Jazz’s largely unrecognized Giants.

Harrison’s style is characterized by well-written prose that reflects his skills with language, but his literate writing can also be quite dense at times. If you stick with it you’ll be rewarded with many insights about Gil and his music.

© -Max Harrison/Jazz Monthly Magazine, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“There has always been cool jazz. Far from being a new development of the 1950s, this vein of expression, wherein the improviser ‘distances’ himself from the musical material, goes back almost to the beginning. The clarinetists Leon Roppolo of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Johnny O’Donnell of the Georgians, two bands that recorded in 1922, both avoided the conventions of ‘hot’ playing, as did other prominent jazzmen of that decade like Bix Beiderbecke and his associate Frankie Trumbauer. Much recorded by the New York school of the late 1920s follows a similar approach to expression, and this is true of several prominent figures of the 1930s such as Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, and particularly Lester Young, whose links with the official ‘cool’ movement are acknowledged. The free jazz of the 1960s, also, had its ‘cool’ exponents like John Tchicai and John Carter.

The comparatively reticent expression of such players was at a disadvantage in the early years, when jazz was heard mainly in noisy dancehalls and cabarets, and attempts at an orchestral extension of their work suffered for a related reason. The large bands of Fletcher Henderson, Jimmy Lunceford and many others spent most of their days touring, and this imposed various kinds of standardization, not least upon instrumentation: a leader playing one-night stands, perhaps with long distances to travel between them, could scarcely appear with a different personnel, repertoire and instrumentation at each. Despite their undoubted—if somewhat overrated—contribution to jazz, the swing bands, once established, stood in the way of further orchestral developments. These could only resume when the bands came off the road and orchestral jazz was created by ad hoc groups assembled mainly, if not exclusively, for recording purposes. Such conditions allowed far more varied instrumentation than hitherto, a wider choice of repertoire—which no longer had to be orientated to a dancing public, and the application of more diverse techniques of writing. Missing from much of this later music is that feeling of integration which can only be achieved when a group of men play the same repertoire together over a long period, but in compensation the studio players’ superior executive skills allowed more adventurous scores to be attempted.

As usual when such changes occur, the shift of emphasis had begun earlier than is generally assumed, and in an unexpected place. At first, Claude Thornhill’s band had sounded rather like that of Glenn Miller (!), but he showed it was possible, with fairly discreet additions to a conventional dance band instrumentation, like French horn and tuba, and with devices such as having the reed section play without vibrato, to produce a strikingly fresh sound. This change, however, was not merely for the sake of novelty, which would be of little musical interest, but was a step towards expressing modes of feeling different from, perhaps even opposed to, those of the swing bands. Snowfall, a rather static composition of Thornhill’s, confirms this, but, although he always insisted it was the leader who created this sound, it was Gil Evans who knew what to do with it. As Evans said, the sound “hung like a cloud” (Quoted in Nat Hentoff, ‘Birth of the Cool,’ Down Beat, May 2^nd and 16^th, 1957), which implies extreme relaxation; upon this background he imposed movement, and part of the exceptional effect of the best Thornhill recordings arises from an ambiguity between the energy of the music’s gesture and the passivity of its basic tonal quality.

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“One of the arrangements that didn’t make the final cut of Miles Ahead was a particular favorite of Gil’s, “Summertime.” From that seed, however, grew the second and most enthralling of the three key Davis-Evans collaborations, Porgy and Bess. Never before had Davis’s emotional range, from the chillingly stark laments to the unexpected closing splash of big band euphoria, been so compellingly displayed.”

• Gary Giddins, Vision of Jazz: The First Century [1998]

“Miles Davis and Gil Evans hardly needed the commercial boom to encourage Columbia’s executives to finance their version of Porgy and Bess in high style because their collaboration on Miles Ahead left no doubts whatever about the commercial potential of further collaborations. Nevertheless, it must have done them no harm at all when they chose to work on Gershwin’s score at such a commercially propitious moment. ….

The extent to which Davis and Evans’s Porgy and Bess is a recomposition of the original is truly remarkable; one can easily imagine the consternation of the Columbia executives when they realized - if they did - that moviegoers looking to this record for a recapitulation of the music they heard in the movie would discover, at most, a few scattered melodies and absolutely nothing else. Davis and Evans’s work resembles the original opera no more than does Gershwin’s own Suite from Porgy and Bess of 1936, perhaps even less…..

Among the outpouring of jazz scores at the end of the 1950s and later, which were never more than jazzed-up versions of their Broadway or Hollywood originals, Davis and Evans’s Porgy and Bess is a breed apart. It is a new score, with its own integrity, order, and action.”

• Jack Chambers, Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis [1983].

James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and The Lost Empire of Cool [2024], The Autobiography MILES DAVIS The Centennial Edition with Quincy Troupe [2026] and Ian Carr, Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography 2nd Ed. [1999] are important sources of information about Miles Dewy Davis [1926-1991], but when it comes to a discussion and analysis of Miles’ music, my preference is Jack Chambers, Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis [1983].

As was the case with an earlier feature, this piece dovetails nicely into both a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Miles Dewey Davis [1926-1991] while also serving as a chapter for inclusion in my forthcoming Companion to Jazz Interpretations of Porgy and Bess which I hope to self-publish later in the year.

© Copyright ® Jack Chambers, copyright protected; all rights reserved, used with the author’s permission.

“Jazz versions of Broadway musicals, movie and television themes, and the works of Tin Pan Alley songwriters had proven to be an unexpected boon to record companies in the wake of an enormously successful jazz version of some songs from the musical comedy My Fair Lady by the trio of Andre Previn, Leroy Vinnegar, and Shelly Manne [Shelly Manne and His Friends, Contemporary c 3527), a best-seller on the pop charts for two years after its release in 1956. Jazz players - and pseudo-jazz players - had started cranking out versions of almost every imaginable score, from current Broadway hits such as West Side Story and Li’l Abner, to songbooks by Cole Porter and Harold Arlen, to the unpromising Nutcracker Suite and Peter and the Wolf, and even to school fight songs and national anthems.

Miles Davis and Gil Evans hardly needed the commercial boom to encourage Columbia’s executives to finance their version of Porgy and Bess in high style because their collaboration on Miles Ahead left no doubts whatever about the commercial potential of further collaborations. Nevertheless, it must have done them no harm at all when they chose to work on Gershwin’s score at such a commercially propitious moment. The details are as follows:

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“During the vinyl age (roughly the early 1950s through the 1970s), record album covers played an essential role in music enthusiasts’ listening ritual. This ritual involved delicately removing the disc from its protective wrapper inside the printed paperboard sleeve, then carefully placing it on the turntable while revving up the hi-fi. Each step was key to a multimedia experience that also included reading the liner notes and communing—the best word I can think of—with the artwork that adorned the album. Consciously or not, all the artists and artisans involved in creating a record package worked toward the same fetishistic outcome: making an immersive fusion of sight and sound.

When Mark Havens and Chris Entwisle invited me to preview the preliminary contents of WAIL: The Visual Language of Prestige Records, I had not heard of Prestige. I was reminded, however, that before the cable TV era when music videos were the next-big-music-industry-thing (replaced by online digital pyrotechnics), the simple paperboard album cover triggered more than mere commercial sales appeal. Cover art tapped into the listeners’ personal senses of memory and emotion. WAIL celebrates these intimate relationships made between art, artist, music, and listener. Through oral histories and a wealth of ephemeral printed artifacts acquired over a twenty-year dig, it chronicles Prestige Records’ graphic, typographic, and photographic legacy and the illustrators and graphic designers who made all the components come together. I had never seen any of these covers before, nor had I known about Prestige’s place in the historical continuum.

Not every cover is virtuosic or resonant; some designers are clearly more talented than others, some outcomes look slapped together, and one or more seem to mimic graphic styles from other labels. A few of the rougher designs, interestingly, prefigure the punk or grunge anti-art style that became the graphic emblem for later generations. But unearthing this treasure trove of design relics is—seen en masse—as exhilarating to the eye of a design documentarian (like me) as are previously unheard tunes to the ear of a music connoisseur. This book is an important exploration, especially for those studying the histories of the postwar American jazz era.”

• Steven Heller - “The Little Record Company That Could”

“The Prestige album covers of the 1950s trace a breathtaking creative arc. At no other label was the connection between jazz and graphic design as emphatic. Designers were free to take risks, and each used that extraordinary freedom to refine and codify their individual styles. As David Rosenthal points out, “the years 1955 to 1965 represent the last period in which jazz effortlessly attracted the hippest young Black musicians, the most musically advanced, those with the most solid technical skills, and the strongest sense of themselves, not only as entertainers but as artists.”’ This was equally true of the designers drawn to Prestige, as record packaging provided new opportunities to create a visual corollary to jazz. At its best, the music and art achieved a remarkable symbiosis.

Inspired by contemporary European graphic design and typography movements, Prestige’s designers employed a range of radical techniques. Clearly, Weinstock was open to a wide variety of graphic approaches: successive covers moved rapid-fire from photography to painting to collage to street art. In this environment, anything was possible and each solution had its own intrinsic logic. Designers made the most of their modest resources and a proto-punk DIY sensibility prevailed. They cut type from magazines to incorporate into their layouts, photographed everything from discarded tangles of wire to frying eggs, and scratched album titles graffiti-style onto railroad boxcars and derelict buildings. There was no branding in the conventional sense; the work was unified only by the uncompromising creativity of its makers.”

• Chris Entwisle and Mark Havens - “Radical Design at Midcentury: Prestige Records 1949-1960”

The visual arts have always formed a close alliance with Jazz. Since it’s almost impossible to represent Jazz in words, [wordless] images often create a bridge that adds another sensory dimension to the audio aura of the music.

Photographs, paintings, illustrations, drawings, caricatures - all have been employed to underscore and add depth to the listening experience.

Album covers serve as a mnemonic device to connect the audio with the visual.

- Hollis King

With the advent of the 12” long play 33 ⅓ rpm recordings in the 1950s, the covers that enclosed these records became a perfect platform for the visual arts in all their manifestations.

This was not only the case with the larger labels such as Columbia, RCA and Capitol, but especially so with the independent Jazz labels that carried the spirit of entrepreneurial risk over to employing young artists just getting started in their career.

The results were often magnificent and magical almost to the point where album cover art became its own art form.

Some of the independent Jazz record companies did designate the name of the artist or production company that produced the cover art, but the actual “act of creation” was rarely discussed.

Even books that published album cover art prints such as the Graham Marsh edited Blue Note: The Album Covert Art [Chronicle Books, 1991], California Cool: West Coast Jazz of the 50s & 60s The Album Cover Art [Chronicle Books 1992] or the more recent Joaquim Paulo and Julius Wiedemann, Jazz Covers [Taschen 2025] essentially print photographs of the album covers with little explanation of what when into the making of them.

The quotation on the back cover of Jazz Covers from Artists & Illustrators states: - A visual feast of 12-inch-square draftsmanship and photography at its finest.” But the work is heavy on the “visual” and light on draftsmanship and photographic techniques that produced them.

What makes Wail - The Visual Language of Prestige Records by Chris Entwistle and Mark Havens so distinctive and why it is also fitting that the Rochester Institute of Technology should be its publisher is that the work emphasizes the technology involved in making the cover art.

Before you get the impression that this is little more than a technical manual about illustration and photography techniques, the book also has an overriding human dimension in that some the principals involved with creating Prestige Records [1949 - 1971] including founder and producer Bob Weinstock, liner notes writer and producer Ira Gitler and Don Schlitten who produced AND designed, photographed and illustrated are represented through interviews.

To pull the lens back for a wide angle view of what’s on tap for the reader in Wail - The Visual Language of Prestige Records - Chris Entwistle and Mark Havens magnificent contribution to the Jazz literature [play on words intended], Hollis King sums it up perfectly in the following opening paragraphs to his Epilogue:

“History is not dead. It paces in the shadows waiting for the right person, time, and opportunity to allow its layers to slowly peel away.

Wail - The Visual Language of Prestige Records includes some of the most memorable album covers of their era. Looking at these covers as a collection, so much is revealed about the design, craftsmanship, typography, and production as it was done some seventy years ago…..

“In some ways this was the golden age, with the emergence of great artists like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Zoot Sims along with new technology. Weinstock saw the music and the covers as pieces of art. I remember talking to producer Bob Thiele of Impulse! Records about recording Coltrane and others. He said, “I just felt these guys were doing something important, so I recorded them and stayed out of the way.” Looking at the covers of Prestige, I get the same feeling about these visual artists. Reid Miles, Tom Hannan, and others were allowed the freedom to explore. They did painting, photography, typography, and design seamlessly. They were creating a world that had never existed before, a world we needed. [Emphasis mine. Add graphic designer and photographer Bob Parent, photographer Scott Hyde and graphic designer, illustrator, photographer and producer Esmond Edwards and graphic designer, illustrator and photographer David X. Young along with Miles and Hannan and the list of “others” becomes complete in terms of those artists whose work is explored in the book.]”

In addition to the myriad album covers, all in their original colors printed on luxurious thick paper stock, something that one would expect in such a retrospective, what also makes the book so pleasurable is that the authors have unexpectedly provided first person interviews with many of the principals that are very much in line with William Zinsser’s instructions for how to conduct an effective interview:

“Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing so animates writing as someone telling what he thinks or what he does — in his own words.

His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land. They carry the inflection of his speaking voice and the idiosyncrasies of how he puts a sentence together. They contain the regionalisms of his conversation and the lingo of his trade. They convey his enthusiasms. This is a person talking to the reader directly, not through the filter of a writer. As soon as a writer steps in, everyone else’s experience becomes secondhand.

Therefore, learn how to conduct an interview.”

- From “Writing About People: The Interview” in William Zinsser’s On Writing Well

Zinsser

Following introductory essays by Steven Heller - The Little Record Company That Could and Chris Entwisle and Mark Havens - Radical Design at Midcentury: Prestige Records 1949-1960, we get the producers and artists telling their story in their own words along with examples of their cover art and images and photographs showing the reader the techniques they employed.

Bob Weinstock, Founder Producer, Photographer

My father loved jazz.

When I was eight years old, he and I were walking on Broadway and we saw a sign that said “RECORDS-9 CENTS.” My father said, “Come on, come on! We gotta buy these!” I said, “Pop, we don’t even have a record player.” He said, “It doesn’t matter! There’s enough people in the building that got players. We’ll borrow theirs!” That’s when it started for me. These were 78s from jukeboxes—Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington. The vocal side was almost worn out but the other side was the instrumental that hadn’t been played at all. It was like getting a brand-new record. So I became a real swing collector early on.

To get to school, I had to change trolley cars by the old Commodore Music Shop. I’d go in there every day. Jack Crystal, Billy Crystal’s father, was the manager. He was a great guy—he knew I didn’t have much money, but he liked me. Every time he’d see me, he’d say, “You gotta hear this!” He started playing me these bootleg records that were coming out—The King Oliver Band, Louis and the Hot Fives, Bessie Smith, all that Hot Club stuff. Musicians like George Brunis, Wild Bill Davison, and Pee Wee Russell would come in and I’d talk to them, so I sort of gravitated to the old stuff. I really got into it. When I was sixteen, I started a mail-order business selling records out of my parents’ apartment. I wanted to sell records, but I really did it to buy up collections for myself. This was right after the war when there wasn’t much jazz being produced, so the records were real collectibles. I used to sell a lot of Blue Note, the early stuff—George Lewis, Sidney Bechet. Alfred Lion would deliver the record orders himself. One time when he stopped by, he said, “Here, listen to this,” and he gave me a Thelonious Monk. That’s how I got into bebop. Soon I had so much inventory and so many people coming to my house, it was overwhelming. I was into this thing twenty-four hours a day and it just overran the apartment. I was only eighteen, but I thought, “I need a store.”

So I rented a counter at the Jazz Record Center for a while before starting my own place called the Jazz Record Corner. I was on Forty-Seventh Street between Fifth and Sixth and then moved to Forty-Eighth and Eighth across from the old Madison Square Garden. I had it set up so people could play records all day. It was a collector’s place; I made it like I would like it. I stayed open late— I even sold cigarettes. A lot of companies were bootlegging records, and I carried them. I moved some big quantities. My store carried it all. Everything, you name it, I used to track it down.

Soon I got to thinking. I could see the important musicians were Dizzy and Bird. I couldn’t afford Dizzy—he wanted big bands—and Bird was so unreliable it was ridiculous. But I could also see that there was another wave coming with Miles and Getz and Konitz. That’s when I got interested in starting a label. Since my company started as an outlet for modern jazz, at first I called it New Jazz, not Prestige.”

Ira Gitler Producer Writer

“I got my education at The Savoy.

My brother and I used to go there and dance. I grew up on Basic and Louis Jordan and The Savoy Sultans and Jimmy Lunceford. It was all around you. It was in the movies, it was on the radio. I really got into it, I just had an affinity. But there was a big schism after the war between beboppers, dixieland, and swing fans. All kinds of nasty stuff being said about each other. In France they had fistfights about it, but that’s the French, what are you going to do? They booed The Rite of Spring, made the curtain come down. Whatever. I didn’t stop loving Coleman Hawkins and Buck Clayton just because I loved Bird and Dizzy Gillespie. I was in my teens, but it just clicked, you know?

I met Bob Weinstock through Stanley Sands, a friend of mine who’d gone to grade school with him. We all used to listen to Platterbrains, Leonard Feather’s jazz show on WMCA. Stanley would write to Leonard and eventually was invited to come down to the studio. That’s where he and Weinstock got reacquainted. Bob was supplying Leonard with rare 78s, so Stanley was my link to Bob. At first, Bob was selling and trading records out of his parents’ apartment; he didn’t have a store back then. In the summer of 1948 he got a counter in what was called the Jazz Record Center. It was run by this guy who used to be a strongman in the circus. He mostly sold traditional jazz. It was like a loft. You had to go up one flight and there was a big banner: “Everything from Bunk to Monk.” Bob was selling a lot of modern jazz there before he started the Jazz Record Corner. Then he’d send me mail-order catalogs when I was in college. I’d get all my new releases from him and I’d see him when I came home on vacation.

Bob started the New Jazz label in 1949.I remember going to the Stan Getz session when he did Long Island Sound. In the fall of 1950, I went to work for Bob because by that time he’d started Prestige and had a storefront. In those early years, I was sweeping the floors, packing record boxes to be shipped, writing label copy and publicity. It was my postgraduate degree. Originally, the covers didn’t have anything at all on the back or they’d just have a list of albums. But then Bob told me, “You’re the writer. I want you to write some notes for this new record.” It was called Swingin’ with Zoot Sims, and it was a milestone recording because it was the first time they had extended takes in the studio. I was at that session. Zoot was so into playing this blues that he didn’t look up when people were wigwagging from the control room. So it went on for eleven minutes or whatever. Later on, they asked him to do East of the Sun in a stretched-out version and it came out on either side of a ten-inch LP. That was a historic record for Zoot (and for me, too). After that, Bob wanted notes on all the new releases. I wasn’t paid anything extra; it was just part of my job. I didn’t actually get paid for writing liner notes until I started freelancing.”

Don Schlitten Graphic Designer, illustrator, photographer, producer

“I was a strange little boy.

I was born in the Bronx—I’m a real Bronx person. But I wasn’t one of those kids who played baseball in the streets and that kind of stuff. I was really trying to find something. When I was thirteen, I heard the music and that was it. I started investigating. I started collecting records, I started playing the saxophone. I wanted to be the Jewish Don Byas.

I used to sneak into jam sessions at clubs in the Bronx. I’d go to Club 845 on Prospect Avenue and 165th Street. Dexter Gordon and Lockjaw Davis would play there. Every Sunday afternoon there was a jam session. This was about 1946 or so. Once I saw Miles, Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, and Max Roach at the Red Mill Inn on 170th Street and Jerome Avenue. That was the band for the afternoon, and I was lost forever. That was it—I mean that was if. Imagine being fifteen years old and going to a jam session. The stage is about knee-high, and everybody’s moving their chairs up close. In front of you are Thelonious Monk, Sonny Stitt, and Gene Ammons. Do you think your life would ever be the same? It was like all of this went right into my arm and I became a total junkie. Forever and a day.

I met Bob Weinstock when I was around sixteen. Byas had gone to Europe and was recording for Blue Star in France, so his records were really hard to find. Weinstock

was only a little older than me, but he was already starting to sell records out of his parents’ apartment. Somewhere along the line, he got my name as a collector and mailed me a list of his stuff. So I got in touch with him and we met up. In his room, he had these bookcases made out of orange crates with all the records in them. Since Bob and I were pretty much the same age, we got to be friendly.

You have to realize what was going on in our history at that time. A lot of young people wanted to get into the arts or be artists. Everything was new. Record companies were new, the music was new, business was new. You would go around and investigate everything, you know. You’d take your portfolio to a record company or a book publisher or an advertising agency. So instead of working in an office someplace, you’d work for an art studio, learning how to do mechanicals. You’d start out doing a $30 a week job and you were really a gofer, but you watched and you listened—and that’s how all of it evolved.”

Wail - The Visual Language of Prestige Records intersperses commentary about key benchmarks in Prestige’s development. For example:

Evolution: The Twelve-Inch Era

“The twelve-inch era at Prestige begins with several artists who designed only a handful of covers for the company. A Touch of Taylor,’ the label’s first twelve-inch LP, features Fran Scott’s studio portrait of a genial Billy Taylor emerging from behind a modernist screen. ….

Photojournalist Carole Reiff (Galletly) was one of the most incisive documentarians of the postwar jazz scene. She was a habitue of clubs, studios, rehearsal lofts, and festivals, where she captured some of the most definitive portraits of the era. Reiff designed two covers for Prestige…..

Gil Melle was the only musician to both design and record for Prestige. ….

Finally, the irreverent Don Martin illustrated a series of wildly eccentric covers just as he was beginning his relationship with Mad magazine. His neurotic menagerie of screaming buzzards, lockstep marathoners and trombone-toting monks resonated with young jazz fans, making an implicit connection between the music and then-current sick humor.

While a true continuity of visual style would begin to develop only with the emergence of Tom Hannan in late 1956, there is such diversity in these first twelve-inch covers—posed photo shoots, public domain art, scabrous cartoons, surreal line drawings—that any single concept could have provided a graphic identity for the label.” [Emphasis mine.]

Tom Hannan, graphic designer, illustrator, photographer

“In the new field of record packaging, Hannan recognized an opportunity to combine his great loves—jazz and visual art. Bob Weinstock vividly remembered Hannan knocking on the door of the Fiftieth Street Prestige offices, portfolio in hand, and introducing himself as an art director. Described by Weinstock as “a Village-type

At Prestige, Harmon found a highly personal voice. He was as likely to draw inspiration from nineteenth-century broadsides as interwar modernist art movements. His visual lexicon included vintage engravings, Japanese calligraphy, gilt wooden signage, custom rubber stamps, and his esoteric collections of musical instruments and antique bottles. On Jackie McLean’s 4, 5, and 6,2 Hannan uses a Weinstock session photograph and an improbable combination of type and spacing. The backlit photo is drastically enlarged, exaggerating the grain of the original. McLean, surrounded by a haze of smoke, slouches in a chair between takes, cigarette in hand: this is Friday afternoon in Hackensack. The indifferent title (it’s simply the number of players on each tune) along with Hannan’s color palette—incandescent vermillion and a deep coral monotint—results in one of the most memorable covers of the era.”

Scott Hyde, photographer

“The family across the street had a portrait studio.

When I turned sixteen, I worked for them and liked it a lot. They taught me to print pictures because all their printers kept getting drafted; this was during World War II. They thought, “Wow, if we could get us a sixteen-year-old, we’d have him for two years.” Well, that only lasted a month or so, but I got such a taste for it that I applied to the biggest commercial studio in Portland and started working there after school and in the summers.

There was no fine arts photography establishment to speak of at that time. Without galleries, book jackets and record covers were some of the only outlets I had for the kind of abstract pictures I was doing in my personal practice. The first album cover I ever did was a portrait, though. Bob Dorough was a buddy of mine, and Bethlehem Records wanted a cover photo for an album he’d just done. So Bob had me take some pictures of him sitting at the piano. When I showed them to Bethlehem, they told me, “That’s fine, but we can’t do anything with this. It needs graphic design.

Do you do that?” I said I didn’t, so they said, “Well, there’s this fellow we work with sometimes,” and they put me in touch with Tom Hannan. I went to see him, and he was extremely reassuring.

The Prestige covers that I did with Tom came after Bethlehem. Tom would get a phone call, then go tearing down there and they’d give him the assignments. He saw some shots I’d done with a 4 x 5 camera, purely for myself. They were virtual images, pictures of things you couldn’t see. The camera could see them, but your eye couldn’t. Tom said, “We could use these!” They were the result of a long series of experiments.

.

The rectilinear images like the one on the Evolution cover were made using a scalp vibrator that I picked up in a secondhand store. Held against the side of the tray, it set up interesting patterns of standing waves. So you’d get these incredibly distorted yet distinct shapes scattered across the surface of the water.

I don’t remember how the work for Prestige ended. I doubt that it had anything to do with money. We never said, “Never again.” We were so strung out that we never turned down anything, whether we got paid or not. We just prayed that we’d get paid.”

Perhaps the best summation of what’s on hand for the reader in Wail - The Visual Language of Prestige Records by Chris Entwistle and Mark Havens is contained in the following closing paragraphs from their essay by Jazz historian Dan Morgenstern:

“It was invariably a labor of love for anyone working in the relatively small world of jazz. Prestige was a pioneering modern jazz label, but it was like a mom-and-pop store, operated on a shoestring.”

This perpetually tight budget ensured obscurity for many of the covers. After a small initial print run, the designs often changed. Ensuing releases of the same title might appear with small tonal variations or in wholly different colors, depending on whether Weinstock had paid his previous printing bill. In addition to these inconsistencies, the company would often completely redesign an album cover and give it a new title—sometimes within a year of its original release. If a rising star played as a sideman on a recording, he might be elevated to leader on the album’s next printing. Designer Don Schlitten explained: “Weinstock would change the covers a lot; as soon he ran out of covers for an album, he would give it a new number or a new cover. I think he hoped that maybe the distributors wouldn’t notice the difference and would think it was a new record!” This freewheeling approach expanded the scope of what was possible as Weinstock’s impulse to regenerate product provided the designers with uncommon opportunities to reimagine the original concepts.

Collectively, the album covers of Prestige’s first decade are a compelling picture of the explosive creativity of midcentury New York. In the midst of a dizzying golden age, this ragtag group of young designers captured postwar jazz at its popular apogee and created a body of work that remains audacious, visionary, and resolutely modern.”

For order information go here.

[Winner of the 2025 Jazz Journalist Association Special Citation for Historic Writings, Steven Cerra is a professional Jazz drummer and the author of anthologies on Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Shelly Manne, Jazz West Coast Readers Vols. 1-3, Profiles in Jazz, Vol.1, Jazz Drummers A Reader Vols. 1-2, Jazz Saxophonists A Reader, Vol. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Piano A Reader, Vols. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Trumpet A Reader Vols. 1 and 2 and A Companion Celebrating The 100th Anniversary Of the Jean Goldkette Orchestras, 1926-2026. He also hosts the jazzprofiles.blogspot and cerra.substack blogs.]

While I sometimes jest about the “editorial offices” at which I work, the truth is that I do everything you see here myself. My apologies for any typos, line breaks and other errors in grammar, syntax or in the final printed format.

For the 100th anniversary of the birth of Miles Dewy Davis [1926-1991], this piece dovetails nicely into both a commemoration of that occasion while also serving as a chapter for inclusion into my forthcoming Companion to Jazz Interpretations of Porgy and Bess which I hope to self-publish later in the year.

The following is extracted from James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and The Lost Empire of Cool [2024].

“Earlier in the year, Cal Lampley [a new producer at Columbia replacing George Avakian - “a Black man who in a certain way represented Miles’ road not taken - he was a Juilliard trained pianist and composer whose job at Columbia was to put bread and butter on the table] had phoned Miles with an idea for a follow-up to Miles Ahead: an instrumental version of George Gershwin’s 1935 opera Porgy and Bess, to be scored by Gil Evans. Davis shut Lampley down abruptly.

Gershwin’s great and controversial work was much in the air in 1958: a Samuel Goldwyn film adaptation, starring Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, and Sammy Davis, Jr., was in production, and several jazz interpretations of the opera had come out recently: a 1956 version with Duke Ellington’s orchestra and the (white) singers Mel Torme and Frances Faye; a 1957 instrumental LP with the saxophonist Buddy Collette leading a sextet; a 1958 recording by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald singing all the parts and backed by a full orchestra. Possibly it all seemed to Miles like too much Porgy and Bess. But then something— the chance to work with Gil again, the opportunity to put his stamp on a piece that had entered the jazz canon—changed his mind.

A couple of weeks after Newport, at the Thirtieth Street Studio, Davis joined Gil Evans and a nineteen-piece orchestra (mostly brass, and including Cannonball and Paul Chambers, as well as Philly Joe) to begin making the album. Evans’s arrangements were rich and strange, and extremely complex: “Gil reconstructed Porgy and Bess both narratively and musically,” Stephanie Stein Crease writes. “He reordered Gershwin’s songs almost completely, stayed close to some, considerably recomposed others, and left out those that didn’t fit well in this rendering.” It was post-bop big-band music as only Gil Evans could arrange it. And much of the writing reflected Miles’s own shift toward modality—fewer chords, more solos, new scales with notes that, to unaccustomed ears, sound wrong.

Read more

I subscribed to The JazzLetter for many years.

Its author, Gene Lees, who died in April, 2010 at the age of eighty-two, published The JazzLetter in monthly editions of 6-8 manuscript-sized, printed pages and mailed them to his subscribers.

Gene would often get behind in his efforts to put it out on a monthly basis and a clump of them would sometimes arrive in one envelope.

Who cared. Whenever one or more copies of The JazzLetter hit my mailbox, it marked a joyous occasion as I was about to be transported into some aspect of the world of Jazz and its makers by Gene Lees, whom Glen Woodcock of the Toronto Sun once labeled: “… the best writer on Jazz in the world today.”

Although, Tim Berners-Lee devised the first web browser and server at CERN and launched the World Wide Web in August, 1991, about ten years after Gene began publishing The JazzLetter in 1981, the publication never made an appearance on the world-wide-web.

Irrespective of the fact that The JazzLetter never went digital, I have always thought of it as the first Jazz blog.

Perhaps after you read this account from Gene’s introduction to his Cats of Any Color compilation on the origins of The JazzLetter you, too, might agree that the publication deserves to be considered in this fashion.

Also, when you read Gene’s account of how it all began, you may get a sense of nostalgia at the thought that such a time will never come again.

Read more

This was my very first effort at compiling a reader. It was self-published in July 2023 and is available as a paperback and an eBook exclusively on Amazon. Just enter my name under books.

Since then, I’ve given it a new cover and published 19 more anthologies to keep it company.

When it was first published, a number of friends and colleagues were kind enough to review it and I’ve gathered these and republished them below in the hopes that my many new Jazz buddies will consider adding a copy of the book to their Jazz libraries. 50 % of my royalties are contributed to the Gerry and Franca Mulligan Foundation to help individual students purchase musical instruments. So far these have totaled around $500.

After the reviews, you’ll find the Table of Contents with the listing of the articles, interviews, and commentaries that make up the book.

I hope you will excuse this unabashed plug but since there is no marketing budget, I am reduced to self-marketing the work along with self-publishing it.

GARY GIDDINS

“Dear Steve, Thanks so much for sending and, indeed, for composing your opus on GM. You did an extraordinary job of finding obscure and illuminating pieces that would otherwise never be seen and which fully represent Jeru as man and musician. It’s the kind of book that you dare not open unless you’ve got time to spare because it’s impossible to stop flipping through and getting ambushed by pieces you never expected. I hope it gets the attention and readership it deserves. Best, Gary”

MARC MYERS AT JAZZ WAX

“Gerry Mulligan. Steve Cerra, founder of the blog Jazz Profiles, has just published A Gerry Mulligan Reader: Writings on a Jazz Original. The book artfully brings together a large and varied selection of pieces written about the baritone saxophonist, composer and arranger. Pieces are culled from books, album liner notes and Steve’s own posts. Fascinating examinations by writers throughout Mulligan’s long and influential career.”

BILL CROW, former bassist with Gerry Mulligan’s quartet and big band

“I finished reading your book, Steve, and enjoyed it. There were many things I hadn’t seen before. I like the way you organized all that material. I’ve been spreading the word. I see it is available on Amazon. Best, Bill”

BILL CROW, writing in The Band Room, the NYC Musicians Union Local 802 Newsletter

“Steven Cerra sent me a copy of his new book, “Gerry Mulligan, Writings on a Jazz Original,” a fine collection of writings about Gerry, including some of mine, plus some interviews. Steven writes: “The purpose of this book is to provide the reader with a sequential and thematic account of the life and music of Gerry Mulligan (April 5, 1927-January 20,1996.) I’ve been enjoying reading it. Steven Included an anecdote from one of my books: …Gerry continued to work with his quartet: Brookmeyer, Mel Lewis and me. We appeared on Mike Wallace’s television show during the time that Wallace was in the process of building a reputation as an investigative reporter. Wallace’s TV interviews were popular partly because of his prosecutorial style. At the rehearsal, Wallace was courteous and low-key. He asked questions that had been prepared by his staff, and Gerry answered frankly about his career, his experiences with drugs and the law, and other aspects of his life. On the air, Wallace’s tone became more contentious, and instead of asking the questions he had asked at rehearsal, he said accusingly, “I understand you were involved with drugs, and did some time because of it!” This left Gerry with little more to say than “yes.” Though Wallace was using the information Gerry had given him at the rehearsal, he gave his audience the impression that he was confronting Gerry with the results of his own private investigations. Gerry managed to field Wallace’s questions with his usual aplomb, but he found himself at a loss when Wallace asked him, “I notice there are no black musicians in your group. Is this accidental, or by design?” Actually, it was the first time in years that, by happenstance, there were no black musicians in Gerry’s quartet, but any short answer to that question would have sounded lame. As Gerry considered how best to respond, Bob Brookmeyer glared at Wallace, jerked a thumb at Mel Lewis, and said frostily, “We’ve got a Jewish drummer. Will that help?” Wallace dropped the subject.”

JAMES HARROD at Jazz Research

“At last, a resource of critical writings gathered in one place covering the career of one of the most influential jazz artists of the 20th century. The large format, 8.5 x 11 inches, enables a decent font size to read this collection that includes liner notes from many Mulligan CD releases where the text was often so small that a magnifying glass was needed. Cerra’s choice includes many hard-to-find items like a chapter from the now out-of-print and pricey Ruddick biography of Chet Baker discussing the formation of the Gerry Mulligan quartet. “

GORDON JACK, writing in Jazz Journal

“Gerry Mulligan: Writings On A Jazz Original by Gordon Jack “Steven Cerra studied drums with Victor Feldman and Larry Bunker before going on the road with Bobby Troup, Anita O’Day and Juliet Prowse during the sixties. He eventually left the music scene in 1970 to pursue work in other fields. His interest in Gerry Mulligan began when he first heard the Mulligan sextet’s famous 1954 San Diego concert which featured Jon Eardley, Bob Brookmeyer, Zoot Sims, Red Mitchell and Larry Bunker. That album began a life-long interest in Mulligan’s music. This is the third book published this year devoted to one of the most innovative performers of the post-war jazz scene. The Gerry Mulligan 1950s Quartets by Alyn Shipton is a forensically detailed look at one of one of the genre’s most unique small groups. Being Gerry Mulligan: My Life In Music comes from a collection of audio tapes he left behind which have been lovingly reconstructed as an autobiography by Ken Poston. Back in 1986 Raymond Horricks wrote a brief appreciation which he expanded in 2003 to include a discography of commercial and bootleg material (Gerry Mulligan’s Ark). Jerome Klinkowitz’s 1991 Listen: Gerry Mulligan is a useful reference but Jeru’s Journey by Sanford Josephson published in 2015 is a disappointing attempt at a biography revealing little that is new. Just like the Miles Davis Reader and the Duke Ellington Reader, Writings On A Jazz Original offers something a little different. The fifty-two articles, interviews and liner-notes by major jazz writers here reveal a fascinating anthology of his activities over the years: George T. Simon (Insert notes to Elliot Lawrence Plays Gerry Mulligan), Peter Welding (Insert Notes to Birth of the Cool), Peter Welding (Insert Notes to The Complete Pacific Jazz and Capitol Recordings of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and Tentette with Chet Baker), Steven Cerra (Gerry Mulligan and Stan Kenton), Alun Morgan (Insert Notes to The Fabulous Gerry Mulligan Sextet), Nat Hentoff (Gerry Mulligan-The White Mainstreamer), Leonard Feather (Before and After), Bill Crow (From Birdland to Broadway), Bill Kirchner (Booklet Notes to The Complete Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Band Sessions), Michael Cuscuna (Booklet Notes to The Age of Steam), Gene Lees (Meet Me at Jim & Andy’s), Ira Gitler (Swing to Bop) and Mathew Ruddick (The Life And Times of Chet Baker). There are three Downbeat Blindfold Tests that Mulligan undertook including one with Harry Carney. Cerra also includes interviews with Gerry’s two wives Arlyne Brown Mulligan and Franca Rota Mulligan. Writings On A Jazz Original is a most welcome addition to the extensive literature already devoted to one of the giants of the music. When the definitive Gerry Mulligan biography is finally written, Steven Cerra’s book will be an essential source. Gerry Mulligan: Writings On A Jazz Original By Steven A Cerra. Self Published. 355 pp. Gordon Jack”

MICHAEL STEINMAN at Jazz Lives

“GERRY MULLIGAN: WRITINGS ON A JAZZ ORIGINAL,” by STEVEN A. CERRA (Amazon, 2023) www.jazzlives.wordpress.com Posted on November 9, 2023 | 4 comments “Forgive the culinary metaphor, but some books are snacks, some are satisfying dinners. Steve Cerra’s new book on Gerry Mulligan is a delightfully overwhelming banquet. When I first received a copy, I found it engrossing but I also thought, “I might need a few weeks to do this book justice.” So this admiring review comes with the caveat that I, the admiring reviewer, have read here and there in the book. But I think it is such a valuable compilation that it should get heralded right now. To me, Mulligan is in the odd position of being simultaneously celebrated and viewed at a curious distance. He had a nearly fifty-year career as a jazz luminary, a deep influence as a singular player of a sometimes-underestimated instrument, the baritone saxophone. For some, he would have been slightly behind Ellington’s majestic Harry Carney; for others, he would have outstripped Carney as an innovator and creative thinker. Mulligan appeared to “move with the times,” but in reality he stubbornly chose to be himself, no matter what the context: his piano-less quartet, his Concert Jazz Band, the “Birth of the Cool” group; his later recordings that each seem to be jubilant explorations of new landscapes. To understand him, one has only to make a quick mental list of the people he played with and chose to work with: Bill Crow, Miles Davis, Brew Moore, Charlie Parker, Bob Brookmeyer, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Jimmie Rowles, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Jack Teagarden, Tony Fruscella, Bill Charlap, Zoot Sims, Johnny Hodges, Teddy Wilson, Thelonious Monk, Art Farmer, Ben Webster, Phil Woods, Elliot Lawrence, Joe Sullivan, Gene Krupa, Annie Ross, Billie Holiday, Clark Terry, Stan Getz, Paul Desmond, Lee Konitz, Chubby Jackson, Charles Mingus, Mel Torme, Shorty Rogers, Zoot Sims, Lionel Hampton, Cleo Laine . . . and that is not including his arrangements for Lawrence, Krupa, Claude Thornhill, Stan Kenton, and his own groups. He has been categorized as part of the “cool jazz” or “West Coast jazz” school, but those schools are merely names journalists give to groups of musicians when they need a quick and often inaccurate classifier. Cerra’s book is not the only one on Mulligan: Sanford Josephson’s biography, JERU’S JOURNEY: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF GERRY MULLIGAN, appeared in 2015, and two oral histories appeared earlier. But Cerra’s book, an appealing collection, does not duplicate the previous works. It is a Reader, or a collection of articles, interviews, and liner notes to recordings. As such, it is not only a shifting multi-layered portrait of Mulligan, person and artist, it is also a cross-section of journalistic and essayistic jazz history. Consider, if you will, a book of reviews of Ulysses: a reader would learn not only about the subject, Joyce’s work, but how it was regarded, decade after decade. Thus, Cerra’s large-format book (with illustrations) is fifty-plus perspectives on the artist, his groups, his colleagues, and his reputation as the times shift. Cerra himself doesn’t demand center stage, but his writing is clear and unfussy, a pleasure. Let us assume, even if it’s heresy, that the imagined reader isn’t terribly fascinated by Jeru in all his many selves. The book is still an arresting collection of stories (I was reading it last night, or this morning, at 2 AM). I didn’t know that George Duvivier had been invited by Duke to join the band at the same time Duke found Jimmie Blanton, and why Duvivier said no; I hadn’t known how Al Cohn had lost one eye; his tumultuous relationship with Chet Baker, his working relationships with Miles Davis, Gil Evans, and much more. For those who thrive on darkness, there’s heroin, cancer, imprisonment, broken hearts as well. I won’t describe the book more, because I don’t want to take away the serendipitous joys of finding a new story, a new insight, musicians seen from multiple perspectives. At first, I was disconcerted that the book lacked an index (possibly a financial decision) but rambling through its pages, I have welcomed the opportunity to find surprises without arrows pointing to them. One of the most charming aspects of Mulligan is that he understood, and loved, the whole history of the music. Had there been a jazz festival with Leon Roppolo and Ornette Coleman on sequential stages, Gerry would have sat in with both of them and made everyone feel at home with his presence. And, in turn, he was loved and respected by Coleman Hawkins and Rex Stewart, among other “elders.” This leads me to the filmed evidence (December 1957) of the magic moment when I first saw and heard him live. You’ll recognize the sublimely glittering crew, and please marvel once again at how Jeru not only gets comfortable but lifts the music: After Jimmy Rushing walks to one side, there’s the Basie rhythm section (without Walter Page, who was ill): Basie, piano; Eddie Jones, double bass; Freddie Green, guitar; Jo Jones, drums. Then Ben Webster, tenor saxophone; Bennie Morton, trombone; Joe Wilder, trumpet -- then Gerry, soaring, lyrical and down-to-earth; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Roy Eldridge, trumpet; Emmett Berry, trumpet; Coleman Hawkins, tenor saxophone; Dickie Wells, trombone; Joe Newman, trumpet; Basie and the ensemble, cheered on by Billie Holiday. Of course there are thousands of hours of Gerry on record and film to savor. But this book will add to the enjoyment, and I salute its diligent author-editor. It’s available as a large-format paperback or ebook here, and Cerra says in his acknowledgments that after publishing costs have been met, half the proceeds will go to the Gerry Mulligan Foundation “to support school music programs and acquiring instruments for students,” commendable indeed. Make room on your shelves.”

PIERRE GIROUX, writing in the Jan. 2024 Ed. of The New York City Jazz Record

“Gerry Mulligan: Writings on a Jazz Original, by jazz historian Steven Cerra, delves into the life and work of the groundbreaking baritone saxophonist, composer, arranger and bandleader. The book is a reader, and its seven discrete chapters cover specific periods in the musician’s musical life, each chapter presenting selections from essays, articles, interviews and liner notes by various hands and providing insights into Mulligan’s unique style, contributions and impact on the jazz genre. Throughout a nearly 50-year career (this month marks the baritone saxophonist’s 28-year deathaversary), Mulligan was at the inflection point of many changes in jazz. In 1944, at the age of 17, he started out in big bands and his musical career from then until the early ’70s represents his most productive and innovative period. This fact is reflected in the compelling written material sourced by Cerra, which comprises the book’s first three chapters and represents over two-thirds of the book’s pages. Among the many highlights, we learn of the impact he made arranging and composing for the big bands of Gene Krupa, Claude Thornhill and Elliot Lawrence in the mid to late ’40s, his captivating contributions to the Miles Davis Nonet Birth of the Cool sessions (1949) and the formation of the groundbreaking pianoless quartet with trumpeter Chet Baker in the early ‘50s, which foreshadowed the West Coast jazz movement. For the balance of the ’50s all the way into the early ’70s, Mulligan burnished his reputation with various iterations of the quartet, which included trombonist Bob Brookmeyer and trumpeter Art Farmer. He also led an influential sextet that included Brookmeyer, saxophonist Zoot Sims and trumpeter Jon Eardley, led his own twelve-piece Concert Jazz Band from 1960-64 and joined Dave Brubeck’s group from 1968-72. This is not meant to be an exhaustive recounting of Mulligan’s activities but rather to demonstrate the richness of his endeavors. Readers will additionally gain valuable insights into Mulligan’s musical influences, collaborations and partnerships, which affected the evolution of his distinctive sound. Contributors to the book include George T. Simon, Ira Gitler, Michael Cuscuna, Jack Gordon, Nat Hentoff and Leonard Feather, among others. Mulligan died on January 20, 1996, at what would be considered a still youthful 68. Cerra has provided a comprehensive and insightful exploration of his contribution to jazz, offering a profound exploration of Gerry Mulligan’s musical legacy as well as his enduring impact.”

REVIEWS FROM FRIENDS

WELL DONE STEVE! Just received your handsome Reader. Although I’m familiar with it from your emails over the years, I intend to start re-reading now it’s in book form. It’s been a long struggle, but your book provides essential information to the ongoing Mulligan research which hopefully will one day result in a full-blown biography. Steve WONDERFUL. I have only read the introduction thus far, but I wanted to tell you, that I can see that this book is just what I was expecting, and I believe that it will fill a huge void in understanding - and appreciating - Gerry Mulligan. Whilst I have enjoyed (to a degree) all the books previously published about Gerry, I do not believe that any of them, bar perhaps Alyn Shipton’s recent publication, have come anywhere near addressing Mulligan’s real significance in jazz history. I think you have achieved something special in pulling this together. I thank you. I hope you make a fortune - both for the Foundation and for yourself. (I have already persuaded a good friend to purchase this book and will try with others I know). Congratulations, and above all thanks. I now look forward to months of careful reading (probably with Mulligan playing in the background....) Hi Steve, Well, I’ve read enough of your book to allow me to think that I can comment intelligently on it. First off, it’s great! I love your idea of telling the story by way of excerpts from the writing of various authors. I do think that it gives a more well-rounded picture of Jeru than any single author could offer.I was familiar with many of the pieces, of course, but reading them again--the excerpts surrounded by other essays/articles that focus on the same period--helps me, at least, get a firmer idea of the author’s point of view on that subject. And there were/are various excerpts in your book that I hadn’t seen before. I was especially happy to find the piece by Matthew Ruddick from his book on Chet Baker. I think it’s the best summation of the beginnings & contributions of the original Quartet that I’ve ever read. I’ll have to get Ruddick’s book. I do love the book and appreciate the time and effort that you’ve put into it. It’s a worthy addition to the jazz canon, and I’d unhesitatingly recommend it to anyone. And, print format or not, I’m really enjoying reading it.

“Just got your Mulligan book today from Amazon. Amazing work!!”

“When I heard that Steven was writing this book, I couldn’t wait to receive it because I have enjoyed his jazz writing for some time, and I have been a Mulligan disciple for over 40 years. The first surprise when it arrived is the size of this book. I was expecting it to be the standard paperback size, but this book is large. Given that the print size is standard, that was when I realized how comprehensive the book was going to be. Cerra covers Mulligan’s music from his beginnings as a teenager to his final output while also paying attention to the legacy Jeru left behind. Using a combination of full articles, excerpts, and personal observations it’s clear that this is a labour of love. I highly recommend this book for any fan of Gerry Mulligan, but also for any fan of jazz. Mulligan is in the pantheon of great jazz innovators and his legacy is given the justice it deserve’s in Cerra’s tome. Read this book and buy Gerry’s music. You’ll regret neither.” - Kevin Goss

“The very title makes it clear that this is not a biography in the conventional sense. However, in many ways it works better than a normal biography. The author has identified six phases of Gerry Mulligan’s career and illustrated each with several suitable pieces of writing - not his own, but drawn from a vast array of sources - including both contemporary and retrospective pieces such as comprehensive sleeve notes, magazine articles, and interviews. I realised that there are considerable advantages to this approach. A conventional biographer will form a picture of his subject and this view will tend to shape everything he writes. The use of pieces from several dozen writers helps us get a much more rounded picture of the subject - and it is clear that Gerry Mulligan did indeed have several sides to his personality. True there are a number of episodes and anecdotes which get repeated several times but I did not find this obtrusive; rather, seeing the same story from different sources helped me form a more balanced picture. Biography or not Steve Cerra has arranged the materials to enlighten us about each stage of Gerry’s career. It all works beautifully, with important recordings illustrated with the original sleeve notes and contemporary reviews, and for each self-contained section it is natural to return to listen once more to the recordings themselves. This isn’t one of those books where you say ‘I couldn’t put it down’ and I suspect the author would be rather disappointed if anyone did. I’m pleased to say it took me six weeks to read. I’ve enjoyed Mulligan’s music for more than sixty years - we called our first cat Mulligan - but I learned a great deal. It’s not just the book list that is extensive; the author’s knowledge of Mulligan’s music and across the jazz scene as a whole is encyclopedic. I enjoyed the book immensely and was happy to take my time to enjoy each section and its associated music. I unreservedly recommend A Gerry Mulligan Reader.” - Alan Parr

Table of Contents

THE 1940’s: BOP; BIG BANDS; BIRTH OF THE COOL

Peter Clayton, Insert Notes to Gene Krupa Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements [Verve MGVS 6008] and [World Record Club LP release [TP 351]

George T. Simon, Insert Notes to Elliot Lawrence Plays Gerry Mulligan

Arrangements [Fantasy F-3 206; OJCCD-117-2]

Claude Thornhill, Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan: Three of a Mind - CLAUDE AND GIL from Gerry Mulligan in Being Gerry Mulligan: My Life in Music with Ken Poston [2023]

Ira Gitler, Jeru and Bird, Swing to Bop [1985]

Peter Welding/Gerry Mulligan Insert Notes to CD Reissue Birth of the Cool [Capitol Jazz CDP 7 92862 2]

THE 1950s: THE QUARTETS, TENTETTE, AND SEXTETS; THE “MEETS” LPs; THE MOVIES

OVERVIEW: Joe Goldberg, Gerry Mulligan, Jazz Masters of the 1950s [1965]

Gerry Mulligan and Stan Kenton - Opposites That Didn’t Attract [Excerpts from the Jazz Literature]

Gordon Jack, Interviews with Gerry Mulligan and the following members of the 1952-53 Gerry Mulligan Quartet featuring Chet Baker: bassists Bob Whitlock and Carson Smith; drummers Chico Hamilton and Larry Bunker in Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective [Scarecrow Press]

Will MacFarland, Mulligan - The Sound Alone, Theme Magazine, January, 1954

Herb Kimmel, Mulligan - The Man Behind the Sound [An Unpublished Rejoinder to Will MacFarland sent to Jimmy Valentine, publisher/editor of Theme Magazine]

Arlene [Arlyne] Mulligan, Make Mine Mulligan, Theme Magazine, March, 1954

Gordon Jack, Arlyne Brown Mulligan and Gerry Mulligan [May 16, June 20, July 25, 2019, Jazz Journal]

Gerry Mulligan, “Gerry Mulligan Tells - The Importance of Jazz Tradition” [Downbeat, September 21,1955]

Peter Welding - The Complete Pacific Jazz and Capitol Recordings of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and Tentette with Chet Baker [Excerpts from the Insert Booklet notes to Mosaic Records, MR 5-102]

Matthew Ruddick, Chapter 4, The Gerry Mulligan Quartet in The Life and Times of Chet Baker [2012]

Konitz Meets Mulligan: Lee Konitz and The Gerry Mulligan Quartet [Pacific Jazz LP PJM 406 and Capitol CD CDP 7 46847 2]

Alun Morgan, The Fabulous Gerry Mulligan Sextet - [Insert Booklet notes Fresh Sound Records FSRCD 418-419]

Gordon Jack, The Gerry Mulligan Sextet, Jazz Journal 3/2016

Michael Cuscuna, Insert Notes to Reunion: Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker [Pacific Jazz Series 1957 CDP 7 46857 2]

Gordon Jack, Gerry Mulligan Quartet - Newport Rarities from 1957 [intended as sleeve notes for a never released CD; submitted to Jazz Journal, as yet unpublished]

Raymond Horricks, Gerry Mulligan, Jazz Masters Series [Apollo] - MEETS LPs

Gordon Jack, Stan and Gerry: Occasional Collaborators, Jazz Journal 10/2017

THE 1960s: THE BLINDFOLD TESTS; THE CONCERT JAZZ BAND; BRU & JERU - COMPADRES WITH BRUBECK

OVERVIEW: Nat Hentoff, Gerry Mulligan, The White Mainstreamer, Jazz Is [Limelight Editions] and The New Yorker [3/21 and 3/28, 1959]

Leonard Feather, Before and After, Gerry Mulligan, Down Beat May 26, 1960 and June 9, 1960

Leonard Feather, “Mulligan Stew,” - Gerry Mulligan Blindfold Test, Down Beat, November 14, 1957

Leonard Feather, “Gerry Mulligan - The May 26,1960 Down Beat Blindfold Test”

Robert Gordon, The Gerry Mulligan Quartet in Concert -[1957 and 1962] - insert notes to Pablo PACD-5309-2]

Leonard Feather, Harry Carney and Gerry Mulligan - Two of a Kind, Blindfold Test, Down Beat, November 18, 1965

Bill Crow, Gerry Mulligan, From Birdland to Broadway: Scene from a Jazz Life [Oxford]

Bill Kirchner, Booklet Notes to Mosaic Records “The Complete Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Band Sessions [MD4-221]

Bert Vuijsje, Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band: Young Blood Live in Amsterdam 1960 [Netherlands National Jazz Archives NJA CD - 1902]

Gordon Jack, Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band, September 7, 2021 Jazz Journal.

Gerry Mulligan and Judy Holliday as Told By Gene Lees [from Meet Me at Jim and Andy’s [1988]

Jerome Klinkowitz, Compadres with Gerry Mulligan, Listen Gerry Mulligan: An Aural Narrative [Schirmer Books]

THE 1970s: THE AGE OF STEAM; THE 1974 REUNION WITH CHET BAKER; THE RECONSTITUTED CONCERT JAZZ BAND

- Steven A. Cerra, Gerry Mulligan at Mid-Career, The 1970’s and Onward

Gerry Mulligan with Ken Poston- The Age of Steam: A Turning Point. Being Gerry Mulligan: My Life in Music [2022]

Michael Cuscuna, Booklet Notes to The Age of Steam, A&M CD, Artist House Music DVD

- Steven A. Cerra, Gerry Mulligan - Chet Baker 1974 Carnegie Hall Concert: Some Personal and Professional Perspectives

Gerry Mulligan’s European Period aka The Mulligan Renaissance - Steven A. Cerra

Richard Cook, “Gerry Mulligan - The Elusive Giant,” Jazz Review, October, 2001

Richard Brown, “Gerry Mulligan, Cool Charts Bearish Tone, Down Beat, June 7, 1979

THE 1980s: WALK ON WATER; LITTLE BIG HORN; SYMPHONIC MULLIGAN; MORE CJB; QUARTETS WITH PIANO

- Steven A. Cerra, Mulligan in the 1980’s, Busier than Ever, Meeting New Challenges

Les Tomkins, “Gerry Mulligan: My Approach to the Orchestra,” Crescendo International, June/July, 1985

Richard Cook, “Gerry Mulligan, Big Band, Baritone and Beard, The Wire, No. 25, 1986

Michael Bourne, Gerry Mulligan, Singing a Song of Mulligan, Down Beat, January 1989

THE 1990s: REBIRTH OF THE COOL; DOWN BEAT HALL OF FAME; OBITUARY

Gerry Mulligan, ‘Rebirth of the Cool’ - 1991 - A Collective Overview, Steven A. Cerra

Into the 1990s - Gerry Mulligan and the Piano Quartets - Steven A. Cerra

Gordon Jack, After You Jeru, [On the 50th Anniversary of the Original Gerry Mulligan Quartet], March 22, 2002, JazzJournal

Mitchell Seidel, “Mulligan Enters the Hall of Fame,” Down Beat, January, 1994

Gerry Mulligan 1927-1996 - The Obituaries

RECAPITULATION:

Gene Lees, “Gerry Mulligan: I Hear The Shadows Dancing,” Arranging the Score: Portraits of Great Arrangers [London and New York: Cassell, 2000]

Winner of the 2025 Jazz Journalist Association Special Citation for Historic Writings, Steven Cerra is a professional Jazz drummer and the author of anthologies on Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Shelly Manne, Jazz West Coast Readers Vols. 1-3, Profiles in Jazz, Vol.1, Jazz Drummers A Reader Vols. 1-2, Jazz Saxophonists A Reader, Vol. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Piano A Reader, Vols. 1, 2 & 3, Jazz Trumpet A Reader Vols. 1 and 2 and A Companion Celebrating The 100th Anniversary Of the Jean Goldkette Orchestras, 1926-2026. He also hosts the jazzprofiles.blogspot and cerra.substack blogs.

I’m delighted to announce that the Companion Celebrating The 100th Anniversary Of the Jean Goldkette Orchestras, 1926-2026 by Steven A. Cerra is available as a paperback and an eBook exclusively through Amazon.com.

Just enter my name in the search book under “Books.”

I hope you’ll consider adding a copy to your Jazz library. With everyone so busy these days, the Reader is constructed so that each article can be read and enjoyed independently.

Commenting on the Jean Goldkette Orchestra in his Jazz Masters of the 30s [1972], trumpeter Rex Stewart wrote: “One of the great mysteries, as far as I am concerned, is why so little has been written about this most important white swing band.” The 38 essays and interviews in this anthology, some very rare, attempt to solve this “mystery” and also celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, and two of the orchestras managed by his National Amusements Corporations: McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and the Orange Blossoms which gained national prominence as the Casa Loma Orchestra. The music associated with these orchestras was extremely influential on the big band Jazz just coming into existence in the 1920s, yet all three of these outfits tended to be overlooked by Jazz critics, then and now, when they weren’t being openly hostile toward them. This companion seeks to redress their reputation.

Here’s the Table of Contents:

TABLE OF CONTENTS, pp. 7-8

Preface - Gunther Schuller, pp. 9-10

Prologue - Ruta Sepetys, pp. 11-17

Introduction - Steven A. Cerra, pp. 18-21

Chapter 1. Music In The Twenties: The Jean Goldkette Orchestra - Russel B. Nye, pp. 22-38

Chapter 2. The Jean Goldkette and Ben Pollack Orchestras by Richard Sudhalter, pp. 39-59

Chapter 3, The Jean Goldkette Orchestra - Brian Rust, pp. 60-61

Chapter 4. The Jean Goldkette Orchestra - Albert McCarthy, pp. 62-65

Chapter 5. The Jean Goldkette Band by Rex Stewart, pp. 66-71

Chapter 6. From Ragtime to Jazz: An Exclusive Interview of Steve Brown by Frank Gillis, pp. 72-85

Chapter 7. The Pioneer: Bill Challis by Gene Less, pp. 86-98

Chapter 8. Doc Ryder - “Goldkette’s Doc” by Jerry Kline, pp. 99-107

Chapter 9. Spiegle’s Story by Jerry Kline, pp. 108-115

Chapter 10. Cincinnatus Afternoon: Spiegle Willcox by Gene Lees, pp. 116-123

Chapter 11. The Scranton Sirens, the Dorsey Brothers and the Jean Goldkette Orchestra by Herb Sanford, pp. 124-130

Chapter 12. Bix Beiderbecke and His Time on the Jean Goldkette Orchestra - Digby Fairweather, pp. 131-135

Chapter 13. Bix Biederbecke and the Jean Goldkette Small Group Recordings by Dick Sudhalter, pp. 136-140

Chapter 14. Bix and Bill by Gene Lees, pp. 141-145

Chapter 15. Part One: Bix with Jean Goldkette - Richard Sudhalter, Philip R. Evans with William Dean Myatt, pp. 146-156

Chapter 16. Part Two: Bix with Jean Goldkette - Richard Sudhalter, Philip R. Evans with William Dean Myatt, pp. 157-167

Chapter 17. Part Three: Bix with Jean Goldkette - Richard Sudhalter, Philip R. Evans with William Dean Myatt, pp. 168-179

Chapter 18. Fiddler Joe [Venuti] by Gene Lees, pp. 180-186

Chapter 19. Eddie Lang [1902 -1933] - Richard Hadlock, pp. 187-199

Chapter 20. Frank Trumbauer: The Divided Self by Richard Sudhalter, pp. 200-205

Chapter 21. “Bix and Tram in the Goldkette Orchestra” from The Frank Trumbauer Story by Philip R. Evans and Larry F. Kiner, pp. 206-212

Chapter 22. “The Jean Goldkette Orchestra 1926-1927” from The Frank Trumbauer Story by Philip R. Evans and Larry F. Kiner, pp. 213-222

Chapter 23. Bix Beiderbecke with Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra 1924-1927 [Retrieval RTR 79040 Jazz Nostalgia] insert notes by Richard M. Sudhalter, pp. 223-229

Chapter 24. Timeless Historical Jean Goldkette Bands 1924-1929 [CBC 1-184 Jazz] insert notes by Ate van Delden, pp. 230-237

Chapter 25. Dance Hits of the ‘20s In Stereo: Jean Goldkette and His Orchestra - Notes by Dom Cerulli, pp. 238-240

Chapter 26. Bill Challis’ The Goldkette Project as played by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks insert notes by Evan Challis, pp. 241-247

Chapter 27. McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by Thurman and Mary Grove, pp. 248-258

Chapter 28. Many Stars in Famed Sepia Ork; Goldkette Men Jammed in Band by Buddy Howard, pp. 259-260

Chapter 29. McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (1928-1930) The Band Don Redman Built by Dan Morgenstern, pp. 261-264

Chapter 30. Part One - McKinney’s Music - A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by John Chilton, pp. 265-276

Chapter 31. Part Two - McKinney’s Music - A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by John Chilton. Pp. 277-286

Chapter 32. Part Three - McKinney’s Music - A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by John Chilton, pp. 287-296

Chapter 33. Part Four - McKinney’s Music - A Bio-Discography of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers by John Chilton, pp. 297-303

Chapter 34. Don Redman - The Frank Driggs Interview, pp. 304-312

Chapter 35. The Casa Loma Orchestra by Albert McCarthy, pp. 313-318

Chapter 36. The Casa Loma Orchestra by Gunther Schuller, pp. 319-328

Chapter 37. Casa Loma Stomp by Richard Sudhalter, pp. 329-347

Chapter 38. Glen Gray - The Best of the Big Bands The Casa Loma Orchestra - Will Friedwald, pp. 348-351