The Evolution of Jazz; 28; Transition into Modern Jazz, Part One

The evolution of jazz. A survey of an American art form from Scott Joplin to Lenny Tristan. The evolution of jazz as a tape recorded feature presented under the auspices of Northeastern University by the Lowell Institute cooperative broadcasting Council Nat Hentoff associate editor of Downbeat Magazine discusses the growth of jazz from its roots in Europe and Africa and considers the musical as well as the sociological forces that shaped it. Mr Hentoff. Last week we were discussing some of the notable jazz figures of the 30s and 40s. There was also Mildred Bailey widely admired by musicians both for her personal qualities and musicianship. In this recording she was accompanied by Johnny Hodges. Bunny Berrigan on trumpet. Teddy Wilson piano and grandma on bass.

And she sings Fats Waller's with me. There was a girl from Chicago it would mired Louis Armstrong more than any other vocalist.

Unlike him learn to use your voice as an instrument. The girl with the swinging beat almost equal to Ella Fitzgerald. Some nights perhaps more potent and a sound that has influenced many young vocal those in the 50s like June Christy Her name is Anita O'Day. This is the old day sound and beat. You. With Grandma. And you know when you're gone

do. I do. Oh.

And I was through the late 30s and 40s and under today there has been Billie Holiday Billy has experienced an enormous amount of pain and bitterness in a personal life almost from the time he was born. In later years some of it yourself perhaps was responsible for. In any case it is because of what she knows of the father's side of reality. But she has been able to communicate more emotionally than any other jazz singer. Here is an original written by Billy. God bless the child. During the late 30s and into the 40s Billie Holiday made many records backed by

mixed units made up of the best jazz musicians in both a large and small band field. These are outstanding records musically and also help to provide a kind of laboratory for musicians of the highest jazz caliber. For example on this recording she was accompanied by Benny Goodman Roy Eldridge Ben Webster John Kirby cozy cool and guitarist John true heart of affording a chance for these musicians to play with each other. And to absorb stylistic elements from their respective playing Billie Holiday and Miss Brown to you. On many of our finest recordings Billy was accompanied by Mark Clayton and Lester

Young who had been with Count Basie band. I was on this with Benny Goodman also in attendance and Teddy Wilson NPR. And I was hearing where I was. Another vocalist of stature was Lee Wiley. Still is one of the best

interpreters of show standards by composers like Gershwin Porter Harold Arlen Rodgers and Hart. She is generally a song when not as a single with Dixieland musicians and like them her view of jazz is more based on the kind of language prevalent in Chicago and later in New York in the playing of musicians like just Stacy and the Condon group than it is on later developments in jazz. She is a stylist in the better sense of that often battered wood. For you. I don't mind telling you.

I've not given much space to the Dixieland musicians in the 30s and 40s. Incidentally one of the more

creative of them Bud Freeman was the tenor soloist on the preceding record. Because while the stories are interesting and their music was often quite good they did not contribute anything to the evolution of jazz in that period as did the members of the live negro bands in the smaller units. However I should mention one leader who unlike Whiteman and other allied band leaders of the 20s like Ted Lewis did more than hire just wanted to jazz musicians and try to make them fit into the sewer of the non jazz mold of his orchestra. Mostly it was a jazz musician himself one who felt the music in those bands always interested musicians he was a drummer and his name was Ben Pollack in the 20s and into the early 30s men like Benny Goodman Jack Teagarden Jimmy McPartland and many others worked creatively in his van. In the late thirties one of his units walked out almost on my ass and became the Bob Crosby band as a cooperative outfit with Crosby only the front most of the musical direction of the band was in the hands of Gil Roden. This band had a small unit

within it called the Bobcats. That at one time or another through the late 30s and 40s featured most of the better Dixieland musicians. Men like monkeys pannier Floyd O'BRIEN Just AC. And the personnel on this record which included Joe Sullivan on piano Billy about a field trumpet Warren Smith trombone Eddie Miller tenor one of the early cool Dixieland tenor sax his sax was in that his vibrato was almost nonexistent. And he has a restrained method as you'll hear of attacking a solo. Irving has all of the New Orleans clarinetist not being the Mar guitar bog Haggard on bass and Raven Duke on drums. These groups played some very refreshing Dixieland through the 30s and 40s. They played not only the standard Dixieland repertoire and marches but also standards but they metamorphosis ised like love missed it. I am I

am I am I am. I am. I am

I am. I am. I am. Bunny Berrigan was an important jazz voice of the 30s until he died in 1942 at the age of

31. Louis Armstrong while he was a loud Berrigan was alive publicly called him his favorite trumpet player. An accolade that must have meant a great deal to Barragan who had based his style on the leaves and Berrigan lived and how he developed self discipline. He probably still would have been one of the major voices of jazz. For he had the breath to absorb new elements of the jazz language and he had himself developed an original style he is best known for I can't get started.