A Note on Mitch Miller

Jazz fans owe a debt of gratitude to Mitch Miller, who passed away at the age of 99 on July 31. Miller may have been known to many from his shlocky 1960s television show, Sing Along With Mitch, but he played an indirect role in the success of jazz in the 1950s.

     Miller was an oboist and musical director at Mercury Records, where he produced Charlie Parker with Strings, an album that many people love and probably an equal number hate. In 1950, he became a talent scout for Columbia Records, which at the time was only the number four record company, in spite of bringing the long-playing record (LP) to market only two years earlier. Miller brought in a slew of new talent to Columbia, including Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Johnnie Ray, and Johnny Mathis. (Of course, he missed some opportunities as well: disliking rock ‘n’ roll, in 1955 he turned down Elvis Presley.)
     Miller had an unfortunate obsession with novelty tunes, which nevertheless often turned out to be big hits. He got Rosemary Clooney to sing “Come on-a My House” - and made her a star in the process - and Jimmy Boyd’s “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” sold two million copies. The most notorious example of this was a tune forced on Frank Sinatra called “Mama Will Bark,” a duet with TV personality Dagmar (who clearly couldn't carry a tune) that featured howling hound sound effects. Sinatra gets to sing lyrics such as “Hot dog. Woof!” on this barker, which was a minor, if embarrassing, hit. Miller was able to produce a string of pop singles, and in just two years, Columbia’s profits increased by 60 percent.

     The reason this is relevant to jazz is that Columbia’s phenomenal success in pop music allowed it to take some chances on jazz musicians. They not only spared no expense in recording jazz artists but they also marketed them like their pop stars, bring jazz a new-found prominence in American culture. Their stable eventually included Dave Brubeck, Erroll Garner, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, and many others. Signing with Columbia Records became the sign that a jazz musician had finally arrived. So, Miller’s instincts as a showman, and the cash he brought in to Columbia, led directly to the phenomenal growth of jazz in the 1950s and beyond.

Avoiding the Elevator Shaft

Thelonious Monk once said, “All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.” The problem for Monk was that he was working in trigonometry and most other musicians of his time were at best in advanced algebra. His conjugated music was notoriously difficult rhythmically and harmonically, and, of course, Monk himself was absolutely uncompromising in his playing, making soloing with him a challenge for all but the bravest (see Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane). Many listeners also found his music jagged and perhaps even unpleasant to listen to. Having just finished reading a biography of Monk, I’ve been listening to his music more and more recently and enjoying a new appreciation for it.
     One song I’m returning to again and again is “Five Spot Blues” from Monk’s Dream (1963), Monk’s first Columbia album and his best-selling LP. He first recorded this song several years earlier for Thelonious in Action (Riverside, 1958), a live date at New York’s Five Spot Café. His contract with Columbia was a sign that Monk had made it – gone from underground to mainstream – and many feel that his music lost a certain edginess. I think Monk was always an innovator and explorer right up to the end and Monk’s Dream has a sense of him coming into his own.
     Coltrane once said about playing Monk’s music, “Miss one chord and you feel like you’re falling down an elevator shaft.” Plowing straight ahead seems to be the best strategy and that’s what Charlie Rouse does here on sax on “Five Spot Blues.” Rouse is often slighted as a Monk soloist – he had the misfortune of following both Rollins and Coltrane in Monk’s band and suffered for it. He easily avoids the elevator shaft on this tune and seems to almost out-Monk Monk, playing with an angular and bluesy fervor. Monk on his solo explores the repetitive riff of the song in his usual obsessive-compulsive, and always interesting, way. John Ore on bass and particularly Frankie Dunlop on drums keep the proceedings percolating throughout the brief, three-minute song.

Teo

“Teo” is a song from Someday My Prince Will Come, a little-known Miles Davis album from 1961. The entire album was recorded in just three days. “Teo” is one of two songs on which John Coltrane makes an appearance. It begins with a kind of clapping rhythm (Jimmy Cobb on drums, Paul Chambers on bass), with a Middle-Eastern flavor, then Miles comes in and has some playful interaction with Wynton Kelly plunking on the piano. He then soars off into high modal territory, both playful and plaintive at the same time.
     Just before the four-minute mark, Coltrane comes in and from the first note he asserts his authority. This is the mature Coltrane who at this point in his career has found his full sound. He makes Miles sound almost delicate in comparison to his strong, emotive, and longing tone. Coltrane also explores the upper registers, combining brief spurts of fast notes with long, high tones, a sound that evokes in me something of a bird call, perhaps a great gull soaring along a fog-bound coast. But then I live in San Francisco.
     Many people have remarked over the years about how Coltrane’s sound, particularly in the latter stages of his career, seemed to come from deep within him and resonated for them in a personal way, a way that was often only possible to express in quasi-religious terms. One feels that here in the searching quality of his solo.
     Coltrane goes deeper into the song, where Miles seems to float within it. Miles returns to restate the theme, but it almost feels as if Coltrane’s solo is still echoing until the end.

My First Post

I'm a jazz enthusiast, and I mean that in the true sense of the word enthusiasm. That word comes from the Greek enthousiasmos meaning "to be inspired" or more specifically "inspired by god." Jazz can strike me like that and I often find myself listening over and over again to a particular song until I feel that I finally absorb it somehow. Does this happen to anyone else?
     The current enthusiasm is the song "Far More Blue" by The Dave Brubeck Quartet. This song is from the album Time Further Out, recorded in 1961. It's a sort of funky waltz that begins with a beautiful Paul Desmond lead on the melody. Brubeck is considered part of the "cool" school of jazz, and Desmond's solo is a perfect example. But Brubeck's solo which follows is an argument against it, unless he's trying to be the nerd of the cool school. The piano solo is rhythmic and in fits and starts, as were many of Brubeck's solos, as if the waltz were trying to break out into a Charleston or something. The rhythmic play against the drums and bass are what make the song so enjoyable for me. Brubeck returns to the melodic waltz at the end - almost as if to say "I can play like this too."