A Cup of “Ko-Ko”

“Ko-Ko” was a song recorded on this date in 1940 by the famous Blanton-Webster version of the Duke Ellington Orchestra (bassist Jimmy Blanton and saxophonist Ben Webster were featured soloists). Ellington said that the song was meant to evoke Congo Square in New Orleans (where Louis Armstrong Park is now), a place where African-Americans gathered on Sundays in the pre-jazz days of the nineteenth century to dance to drum music. The Duke originally intended it to be part of his musical history that eventually became the jazz symphony “Black, Brown and Biege” (1943).

Even today, this song has an exotic, raw energy to it. One can hear how it might have been disturbing for some people who listened to it at the time. The whole Ellington band is in attack mode on the piece, with Harry Carney blowing a rhythmic baritone sax and Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton “speaking” through his trombone. Nanton was one of the pioneers of the use of the plunger mute and he employs a raucous “wah-wah” voicing to great effect here.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy Blanton!

Bassist Jimmy Blanton was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on this date in 1918. He was the first great innovative jazz double bassist, known mainly for his recordings with Duke Ellington from 1939 to 1941. Before Blanton, the bass was used primarily to lay down the beat and provide the harmonic underpinnings for a tune. Blanton played his bass as a harmonic instrument, using both plucking and bowing techniques to create what have been described as “horn-like” solos. Ellington provided plenty of opportunities to showcase Blanton’s swinging soloing capabilities - so much so that the Ellington band at the time became known as the Blanton-Webster band (Ben Webster was the other featured player). The Blanton-Webster legacy has been well preserved due to some excellent recordings on the Victor label. Ellington also recorded some piano/bass duets with Blanton - their renditions of "Body and Soul" and "Sophisticated Lady" are exquisite. Unfortunately, Blanton’s career was cut short: he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1941 and died the following year at the tragically young age of 23.

Happy Birthday, Cat Anderson!

Jazz trumpeter William “Cat” Anderson (1916 - 1981) was born in Greenville, South Carolina. His parents died when he was only four years old, so Cat grew up in an orphanage in Charleston. It was here that he learned how to play the trumpet. Fellow orphans gave him the nickname “Cat,” not for his trumpet playing but for the way he fought on the playground.

     He played with various big bands in the late 1930s and early 1940s, including Claude Hopkins’ and Doc Wheeler’s groups, and he recorded with Lionel Hampton. In 1944, he joined the Duke Ellington Orchestra for the first of several long stays, punctuated by short breaks during which he attempted (unsuccessfully) to start his own bands. He was with Duke from 1944 to 1947, the entire decade of the Fifties, and from 1961 to 1967. After 1971, he settled in Los Angeles and mainly did studio work. He died of a brain tumor in 1981.

     Cat was famous for his high-note playing. He had a range of five octaves and could play up to triple C with astonishing power. But he was no mere blaster - he could also play in a swinging and subtle style with the mute, as seen in this video with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1967.

Happy Birthday, Paul Gonsalves!

Paul Gonsalves, born on this date in 1920, was a tenor saxophonist mainly known for his long association with Duke Ellington. He was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, but his parents were of Cape Verdean heritage. As a child, he and his brothers played Portuguese folk songs on guitar for family gatherings. They also played “hillbilly” and Hawaiian music. These family dates, however, became a chore and turned off the young Paul from playing music. Fortunately, he and his oldest brother, Joseph, became enamored of jazz, particularly Duke Ellington, which reignited his interest.

     At sixteen, he took up the saxophone. His main early influence was Coleman Hawkins. As Gonsalves said later, “There was something in his music that coincided with Duke’s, that for me denoted class.” After serving in World War Two, Gonsalves played in the Sabby Lewis Orchestra, and then with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. He joined Ellington’s band in 1950 after walking up and introducing himself to the Duke at Birdland one night. He stayed for the next twenty-four years.

     Gonsalves’ entire career is overshadowed by one event, his spectacular solo on Duke’s “Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue” at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, which contained an astounding twenty-seven choruses. The rather diffident Gonsalves is about the last person in the Duke’s orchestra who would crave the limelight, but this was one of the first impactful extended sax solos in modern jazz history. The crowd went wild and it was a huge comeback for Ellington. (The performance can be heard on Ellington At Newport 1956 and here is a 1958 concert version from The Netherlands that gives some flavor of the Newport date, although before a much more restrained audience.) But in addition to his more straight-ahead melodic playing with Ellington (critic Gary Giddins called his playing “all liquid rhapsody,” although I’ve always heard a somewhat rougher edge in it), Gonsalves was an inventive player throughout his career and an experimenter with tonalities on the tenor sax. This can be heard to better advantage on some of his small group recordings, such as Gettin’ Together (1961) and Tell It the Way It Is! (1963).

     Unfortunately, alcohol and narcotics abuse cut Gonsalves’ life short. He died in 1974, just nine days before Duke Ellington’s death.

A Must See for Duke Fans

Duke Ellington: Live in ’58, part of the Jazz Icons video series, shows the Ellington band at the top of its game. The November 1958 concert at Amsterdam’s famed Concertgebouw was filmed for television and also recorded for radio broadcast. The result is a gem: a great little black-and-white jazz film, a bit grainy due to late Fifties technological limitations, but with robust sound. It fully captures the magic of an Ellington date.
     Things get off to a mellow start – the band looks tired from having been on the road for several weeks - with “Black and Tan Fantasy,” “Sophisticated Lady,” and a lovely version of “My Funny Valentine” with a solo by Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet. They certainly don’t sound tired. All the featured soloists throughout step up to microphones at the front of the stage. The filming moves from full orchestral shots to close-ups of the soloists.
     The tempo picks up with “Kinda Dukish” and “Jack the Bear,” with Jimmy Woode featured on bass, both classic Ellington tunes that had been around for years. Johnny Hodges steps forward for a really swinging rendition of “All of Me.” His beautiful solid tone is on full display. My favorite was probably “Mr. Gentle and Mr. Cool” featuring Shorty Baker on trumpet in a rhythmic and bluesy back-and-forth with Ray Nance, who just nails it on violin. Excellence is the order of the day with all the soloists.
     The second set opens with “Hi-Fi-Fo-Fum,” which includes an extended drumming exhibition from Sam Woodyard. There’s also a lengthy (thirteen songs) “greatest hits” medley of Duke’s music, including old favorites like “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and “I’m Beginning to See the Light.” The highlight is probably the brief vocal by Nance on “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” which includes a little scat singing and he busts some moves too.
     The concert comes to a rousing conclusion with “Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue” with Paul Gonsalves doing the honors on the tenor sax. This was the same number that two years earlier at Newport caused the crowd of 7,000 people to go wild. On that occasion, the Duke kept Gonsalves up there for twenty-seven bluesy choruses. The Duke - always the consummate showman - was not one to let a good thing go, although he doesn’t carry things to quite such lengths in Amsterdam.
     Live in ‘58 is a chance to see Ellington and his band up close and putting on a great show. Highly recommended.