Buck and Cow Cow

Perhaps only baseball players and mobsters have more colorful and varied nicknames than jazz musicians. I did an earlier post on jazz musicians with animal nicknames entitled “Little Bird and Papa Mutt,” which included the following list:

• Bird - Charlie Parker
• Cat - William Alonzo Anderson
• The Cat - Jimmy Smith
• Duck - Donald Bailey
• The Fox - Maynard Ferguson
• Frog - Ben Webster
• Gator - Willis Jackson
• The Great Dane - Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
• The Hawk - Coleman Hawkins
• The Lion - Willie Smith
• Little Bird - Albert Ayler and Jimmy Heath
• Mouse - Irving Randolph
• Mousey - Elmer Alexander
• Mule - Major Holley
• Mutt or Papa Mutt -Tom Carey
• Pony - Norwood Poindexter
• Rabbit - Johnny Hodges
• The Stork - Paul Desmond
• Tiger - George Haynes

     A reader suggested the following addenda: Ben Webster was also apparently called "Beast"; saxophonist Sonny Stitt was yet another "Little Bird"; and Charles Edward Davenport, an early boogie woogie piano player, was known as "Cow Cow." I also found a few others to add, thanks to Bill Crow’s (who doesn't need an animal nickname) book Jazz Anecdotes:

• Bunny - Roland Berrigan
• Honeybear - Gene Sedric
• Hoss - Walter Page
• Octopus - Tal Farlow
• Porky - Al Porcino
• Sharkey - Joseph Bonano

     Trumpeter Wilbur Dorsey Clayton, who played with Count Basie, was nicknamed “Buck” by his mother, although this was apparently a not-so-subtle allusion to his American Indian ancestry. A couple of questionable additions: Trumpeter Charles Melvin Williams, who spent many years with the Duke Ellington orchestra, was known as  "Cootie." I call this “questionable” because the word cootie refers only to a body louse, and I would hesitate to include this under the category of animals. Ditto for guitarist Clifton “Skeeter” Best - a mosquito is an animal only by the broadest definition.
     Finally, there’s trumpeter and composer Joseph “Wingy” Manone, who lost an arm as a boy in New Orleans as a result of a streetcar accident. This nickname has to rank as a bit of gallows humor, although Manone’s 1948 autobiography was entitled Trumpet on the Wing. Jazz violinist Joe Venuti, who was a notorious practical joker and good friend of Manone, used to send “Wingy” a single cufflink every year on his birthday.

A Groovin' Groover

Organist Richard “Groove” Holmes (born May 2, 1931) must have been extremely fond of his nickname. Or the marketing people at the record labels he recorded for were just cashing in on his brand. For whatever reason, variations on the word groove appear in numerous album titles:

• Groovin' with Jug (1961)
• Blue Groove (1967)
• The Groover! (1968)
• Workin' on a Groovy Thing (1969)
• New Groove (1974)
• Groove's Groove (1991)

     Songs recorded with the same theme included “Groove’s Groove,” “Groovin for Mr. G,” and “Let’s Groove.” Holmes was firmly in the soul-jazz camp, with his playing characterized by articulate melodies in the upper registers and a pulsating bass - I hate to say it - groove laid down under other instrumentalists.

     Holmes first started recording in 1961, and probably his best-known tune was a version of “Misty” from the 1965 album Soul Message.  This is one of my favorite albums from Holmes - it also contains the doubly eponymous “Groove’s Groove” as well as a terrific version of Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father.”

     Holmes’ playing became funkier through the Sixties and Seventies. Some of his recordings showed a trend toward commercialization, which may have tainted his reputation somewhat. However, Holmes is credited with being one of the pioneers of acid jazz. In honor of that, the Beastie Boys included an organ track on their 1992 album Check Your Head called “Groove Holmes.” He died in 1991 after a long battle with prostate cancer.

Little Bird and Papa Mutt

My previous post on Willis “Gator” Jackson entitled "Give 'Gator' Some Respect" tangentially brought up the subject of animal nicknames for jazz musicians. I was curious to see how many I could find and here’s the list:

• Bird - Charlie Parker
• Cat - William Alonzo Anderson
• The Cat - Jimmy Smith
• Duck - Donald Bailey
• The Fox - Maynard Ferguson
• Frog - Ben Webster
• Gator - Willis Jackson
• The Great Dane - Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
• The Hawk - Coleman Hawkins
• The Lion - Willie Smith
• Little Bird - Albert Ayler and Jimmy Heath
• Mouse - Irving Randolph
• Mousey - Elmer Alexander
• Mule - Major Holley
• Mutt or Papa Mutt - Tom Carey
• Pony - Norwood Poindexter
• The Rabbit - Johnny Hodges
• The Stork - Paul Desmond
• Tiger - George Haynes

Now “Frog” for Ben Webster seems just a little cruel, and I don’t ever recall seeing him referred to by that nickname. Nor had I heard of Paul Desmond as “The Stork.” A few of these animals have actually flocked together for a working menagerie: certainly Cat and The Rabbit; Bird and The Hawk; Duck and The Cat; The Great Dane and Little Bird (Albert Ayler); and The Hawk and Mule.
     Can anyone think of other jazz musicians with animal nicknames?

Give “Gator” Some Respect

In 1964, sax man Willis “Gator” Jackson released the album Nuther’n Like Thuther’n on Prestige Records. This title neatly sums up the main criticism of Jackson: that he made a lot of records and they all sound the same. Granted, Jackson was no musical innovator, but one can still feel how his gritty, lowdown-blues blowing could stir a crowd in a dancehall on a hot Saturday night. Perhaps it’s the Sixties version of “dirty dancing”?
     Jackson was born in Miami in 1932 and was already touring with Cootie Williams, late of the Duke Ellington orchestra, and his band in 1949. He played a lot of rhythm and blues in the early Fifties. His honking and wailing sax style - in performances, he’d lie on his back and play - particularly on the song “Gator Tail” earned him his nickname. Jackson married R&B singer Ruth Brown and toured with her extensively. When he signed with Prestige in 1959, he modified his flamboyant style and became a proponent of soul-jazz playing. “Soul” signifying emotion in this case - something that Jackson wore on his sleeve when he played. Subtlety was not his game - Jackson was about expressing the emotion of the tune, not playing in a “style” per se.
     He was greatly influenced by Illinois Jacquet, who was also a honker in his day, and he admired Gene Ammons. Jackson had this to say about playing the sax: “So many of these saxophonists playing today [1961], they have what I call a ‘peashooter’ sound. They sound like an alto, they’re playing alto on the tenor. They’re wonderful technicians, they all have a good execution, but they don’t make the instrument sound like they should.” No one ever accused Jackson of being a peashooter. Just try sitting still while listening to Jackson’s version of “Swimmin’ Home Baby” from 1964.
     For the next ten years, Jackson made a slew of albums for Prestige, more and more of which are becoming available, including Please Mr. Jackson, Gentle Gator, and a compilation album called At Large. Over the years, he had long associations with both Jack McDuff and Carl Wilson on organ and with Pat Martino on guitar. “Gator” continued playing up until his death in 1987 and he left behind some swinging albums of bluesy soul-jazz, played by a master of the form.

A Good Week for “Baby Face”

On January 23, 1961, saxophonist Lou Donaldson recorded Here ‘Tis, his first album as a leader with an organ quartet. He was trying to get a sound closer to the basic blues. “We tried to play the blues like they were originally played,” Donaldson stated. “Like a conversation with the instruments – just talking to each other.” For this session, he brought in a couple of new faces: Grant Green on guitar and Roosevelt “Baby Face” Willette on the B-3 organ. (He looks like a teenager, hence the moniker.) The results were just the kind of funky sound he wanted on both the driving songs like “Watusi Jump” and on the brooding title tune.

     Blue Note took notice of the newcomers. Five days later, Green recorded Grant’s First Stand, which was his debut album but, in spite of the title, actually his second session. Willette appears on this album as well. Two days after that, Willette recorded his debut album, Face to Face, with Green on guitar and Fred Jackson on sax. All of them shine on the album. Willette composed all but one of the songs, and they all have a propulsive, deep groove, provided by Willette on the organ with his use of sustained rhythmic notes. Jackson has a bluesy, showy style on sax that uses all the tricks in the book. And Green sounds heavy and funky on the guitar on “Goin’ Down” and flying on “Swingin’ at Sugar Ray’s.”
     Grant Green went on to be one of the stars of Blue Note. Willette, on the other hand, recorded only a handful of additional albums after this. Then, he largely faded from the jazz scene. He had always been an itinerate musician, touring with R&B and gospel groups in the Fifties and returning to this life in the Sixties before settling in Chicago. He died in obscurity in 1971 at the age of 37. Still, “Baby Face” had a spectacular debut here in 1961 and left behind a small legacy of great grooves.