Fletcher Henderson's Casa Loma Stomp

Somehow we were ignorant of the recording of "Casa Loma Stomp"by Fletcher Henderson. The original, a hot swingin' affair by a catchy white band, is great. But Henderson's orchestra had the inimitable Coleman Hawkins, the brilliant Rex Stewart, and an impeccable sense of rhythm and cohesion. People must have been cutting up quite a rug in the early 1930s...

Jungle Nights in Harlem

"Jungle Nights in Harlem" is one of those classic pieces of Ellingtonia reflecting the "jungle" phase in his music. It's a wild, inventive ride that shows just how advanced jazz composition already was by 1930. 

Fletcher Henderson's Christopher Columbus

Whilst recently listening to more recent recordings of Sun Ra's Arkestra performing classics from the Swing Era, we were reminded of Fletcher Henderson's excellent version of the tune. Henderson's band is cookin' while the Benny Goodman recording is a little lifeless. Of course, Sun Ra playing these pieces for several minutes and turning it into a fun romp is the best.

Casa Loma Stomp

"Casa Loma Stomp" is another one of those classics from the Swing era...not that they're the most musically proficient band of that time. These cats just knew how to swing in a euphoric manner.

Sing, Sing, Sing

A classic from the legendary Benny Goodman. While Krupa's "primitivist" percussive work here is more interesting for representing an era in jazz's most popular phase, one cannot deny the brilliance of the arrangements and orchestration of Goodman's band.

Sun Ra's Christopher Columbus

Listening to Sun Ra's musical tributes to the legendary Fletcher Henderson is always a delight. You can tell the Arkestra was having a lot of fun with this one.

Sun Ra's Queer Notions

Sun Ra loved to occasionally pay homage to our heroes. Heroes, in this case, includes important African American bandleaders and musicians in earlier epochs of jazz. Fletcher Henderson, whose "Queer Notions" is a rather strange composition, would have smiled had he heard this lively rendition from Sun Ra in the 1980. Sun Ra's cover is a bit funkier but captures that joyful, celebratory quality in swing that Henderson brought to the fore. Perhaps the contradictions of the song, alluded to by its title, capture the modalities of modern living. 

San Sue Strut

"San Sue Strut" is one of those gems of the early swing era we forgot about in Gunther Schuller's work on the Swing Era. It might even surpass "Casa Loma Stomp" in its irresistible beat. The palpable tension and call and response of the horn section here is masterfully performed and arranged. Glen Gray and these other white cats almost got us wanting to read Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz: 1915-1945.

Shanghai Shuffle

 

Fletcher Henderson's 1934 recording of "Shanghai Shuffle" is pure swing. Somehow I had forgotten about this number, which perfectly illustrates Henderson's perfection of the swing aesthetic of the 1930s. His earlier 1924 recording, featuring Louis Armstrong, also swings. Unfortunately, in a more dated 1920s style than the excellent later recording.

Until the Real Thing Comes Along

A big hit for Andy Kirk and His 12 Clouds of Joy, "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" is a classic. Mary Lou Williams undoubtedly established the band's greatness with her arrangements. 

Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop--A History

Due largely to my desire to learn more about the context of Bennie Moten's music in the 1920s and 1930s, I read the history of Kansas City jazz by Driggs and Haddix. Beginning with ragtime, white dance bands, and the social and economic conditions which led to Kansas City, Missouri becoming a "Paris of the Plains" in the 1920s and 1930s, before the fall of the Pendergast political machine, the history ends with the demise of big band and the rise of newer musical forms (bebop, R&B, rock). As one of the few histories of Kansas City's important role in the development of jazz (a simple perusal of the prominent jazz musicians who were schooled there demonstrates its significance), the history is quite detailed. The authors take great pains to demonstrate how the Pendergast political machine's flagrant violation of gambling, prostitution, and alcohol prohibitions favored a lively musical scene in the city's various bars, brothels, saloons, and nightclubs. Even in a racially segregated city such as this one, the amount of opportunities for gigs and the city's vibrant nightlife made Kansas City the premier city for jazz in the West. 

While at times the text throws so many names and abruptly shifts its focus from one musician or band to another, the reader cannot help but feel attached to black Kansas City and the musical world of 18th & Vine. Bennie Moten, Andy Kirk, Jay McShann, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Count Basie, and Mary Lou Williams are among the most well-known names in this history, but a plethora of sidemen, arrangers, and lesser-known artists like Eddie Durham and Gene Ramsay shine. These artists attempts to make it big locally and within the Southwestern and Midwestern territorial circuit, as well as compete with the nationally-known eastern bands from New York illustrate how the "Kansas City" aesthetic to jazz and swing deserves it place in the accolades of jazz history. Their impeccable sense of rhythm, use of riffing and the blues helped define the swing sound so immortalized by Count Basie. Indeed, without influential Kansas City-based artists like Bennie Moten, whose music bridged the ragtime era and age of Swing, whose management and incorporation of early swing aesthetics blended eastern sounds (like that of Fletcher Henderson) with home-grown elements, there would have been no Basie.

As is the case with Chicago, New Orleans, and New York, jazz in Kansas City is irrevocably linked to a racist Jim Crow music industry, segregated venues, and thriving criminal underworld which seized most of the profits while African American musicians and entertainers had to make do with less. Of course, the addition of Jim Crow travel accommodations, the impact of the Depression, and the demise of big bands after WWII impacted Kansas City's jazz scene, culminating in the "end" of the Kansas City sound. It lived on through Count Basie's orchestrated jazz and transformed in the bebop of Parker and the R&B of Big Joe Turner, but its "traditional" sound is not cultivated in the same way that New Orleans preserves Dixieland. It's a shame, since so many of the most important jazz artists of the swing and bop eras either started in or perfected their art in Kansas City: Mary Lou Williams, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Count Basie. And these artists, although forced to establish themselves in New York or other cities, prove that Kansas City was not a peripheral region when it came to jazz creativity.

Panama

Luis Russell, who happened to be Panamian, recorded one of the best renditions of the old standard named for the land of his birth. Composed by William Tyers, the song has dropped its Latin rhythms but Russell added the best of the New Orleans sound in an early swing context. 

The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz

The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz is not a biography that I was searching for. Nonetheless, Magee's text is a detailed analysis of Henderson's music across the entirety of his career, stretching from the 1920s "society orchestra" phase to swing. While I have long been a fan of Henderson, this text explains how Henderson the musician and arranger established the template for swing and jazz at its height as popular music (the Kingdom of Swing, a cultural symbol of the New Deal). It would seem that Henderson, and particularly skilled arrangers such as Don Redman, were able to breathe life into stock arrangements, incorporate the soloistic virtuosity of instrumentalists like Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins, and transform jazz through arrangements of Tin Pan Alley and popular tunes for Benny Goodman.

While Henderson himself is often in the background or his involvement with arranging prior to the 1930s is shrouded in some degree of mystery, it is clear that his orchestra coalesced different influences in jazz and popular music of the era to lay the foundation of became known as swing. Louis Armstrong, Don Redman, Benny Carter, Horace Henderson, Leora Henderson were clearly pivotal in the direction of the orchestra, and the number of musicians who were schooled in Henderson proved to be important in the future of the music. Without Don Redman and Fletcher, working collaboratively with excellent musicians, to parody, reinvent, signify, and expand the repertoire of popular song, blues, and jazz with an impeccable swing, the annals of the music's history would look quite different. 

While more details of Henderson's personal life could have shed light on some of his decisions, Magee considers sociological suggestions made by Gunther Schuller and others on the role of class, as well as cultural and ideological factors, in the development of the Henderson "sound." As a product of a "black middle class upbringing", with a respected father in Cuthbert, Georgia as his father, Henderson was a graduate of Atlanta University. College-educated, and reared in the respectability of his background, Henderson learned jazz and blues in New York, where he moved in 1920. His class background, as someone whose formal training in music was classical and church-based, he represents what Gunther Schuller referred to as a shift in jazz as African American musicians with more formal musical training entered the field. Henderson's musical career, analyzed by Magee, is a wonderful example of this trend on a micro-scale as his band's versatility and "symphonic jazz approach" to the blues balanced "hot" and "sweet." Unfortunately, with only the recordings, extant charts, and some personal testimonies, we still lack a full picture of how Henderson electrified live audiences and dancers in legendary clubs and ballrooms of New York...

Radio Rhythm

Another classic from Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra, 1931. The band's impeccable sense of rhythm and playfulness in interpreting the composition are pure delight. In a live context, perhaps at Connie's Inn up in Harlem, Henderson and the band must have delighted audiences. I'll have to search for more recordings of Billie Holiday's father on guitar, too. 

I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart

Duke, Duke, Duke. A half century of music encapsulated in one man's life and work. 

Hotter than 'Ell

Sun Ra and his "political theosophy" had a number of kooky elements. But he wasn't wrong to claim the swing bandleaders such as Fletcher Henderson were our heroes. This is swing at its best, with the excellent arrangements and musicianship of Henderson's orchestra. 

Cotton Club Stomp

A classic from Duke Ellington's Cotton Club years. This swinging number, coauthored with Johnny Hodges and Harry Carney, is a good indication of the sort of dance material used by Ellington's band at the legendary (and whites-only) club.

The Stampede

An early swingin' number from Fletcher Henderson's band. These cats were the early masters of swing, and exemplify how far the genre had moved since the early jazz recordings from the late 1910s and early 1920s. 

Cavernism

Earl Hines swings "Cavernism" with a violin solo. Unfortunately, it's too brief but it shows a jazz violinist of equal refinement as those of Grappelli. Despite its brevity, this is a wonderful example of the best in swing during the early 1930s. I am ashamed to admit I have not properly listened to Earl Hines, a pivotal figure in the history of jazz piano. 

Chinatown, My Chinatown

"Chinatown, My Chinatown" is another one of those gems of the Swing era recommended by Schuller. Coleman Hawkins and the other members announce swing before its official birth here in 1930, performing this older standard with an undeniable rhythmic pulse. One can see how a Benny Goodman would not exist if it were not for Fletcher Henderson.