The Penguin Jazz Guide by Brian Morton, Richard Cook Page A
Authors: Brian Morton, Richard Cook
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Rhodes, LeRoy Tibbs, Fats Waller (p); Dave Wilborn (bj, g, v); Ralph Escudero, Billy Taylor (tba); Cuba Austin, Kaiser Marshall (d); Jean Napier (v). July 1928–December 1930.
Mary Lou Williams said (1976): ‘When McKinney’s Cotton Pickers came to town, that was the best band most of us had ever heard. Todd Rhodes became a kind of mentor to me. He’d get me to play on jams and even once let me sit in with the band. Prince Robinson was a good player, too.’
Originally led by drummer Bill McKinney, the Cotton Pickers were hired by Jean Goldkette for a residency at his Detroit Graystone Ballroom in 1927. Hugely popular, they eventually recorded several sessions in New York, but the band declined when several key players left in the early ’30s, It was primarily John Nesbitt who built McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (although Goldkette gave them their name). Redman’s arrival in 1928 brought his distinctive touchas arranger to the band’s book, but Nesbitt’s driving and almost seamless charts were as impressive, and they remain so, more than 60 years later. McKinney’s Cotton Pickers were among the most forward-looking of the large bands of their era: while the section-work retains all the timbral qualities of the ’20s, and the rhythm section still depends on brass bass and banjo, the drive and measure of the arrangements and the gleaming momentum of their best records both suggest the direction that big bands would take in the next decade.
EARL HINES &
Known as ‘Fatha’; born 28 December 1903, Duquesne, Pennsylvania; died 22 April 1983, Oakland, California
Piano
Earl Hines Collection: Piano Solos 1928–1940
Collectors Classics COCD 11
Hines (p solo). December 1928–February 1940.
Earl Hines said (1977): ‘First off, I tried to play trumpet, but it hurt my ears. Then I found Louis Armstrong was playing exact things I wanted to play. So I think that’s where my “trumpet style” on piano, if you want to call it that, comes from.’
Earl Hines had already played on some of the greatest of all jazz records – with Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five – before he made any sessions under his own name. The piano solos he made in Long Island and Chicago, one day apart in December 1928, are collected on this Classics CD – a youthful display of brilliance that has seldom been surpassed. His ambidexterity, enabling him to finger runs and break up and supplant rhythms at will, is still breathtaking, and his range of pianistic devices is equalled only by Tatum and Taylor. But these dozen pieces were a preamble to a career which, in the ’30s, was concerned primarily with bandleading. The intuitive brilliance one heard on the ‘Weather Bird’ duet with Armstrong carried forward into his bandleading as well, where every component has its proper place in the mix, but one can readily hear Hines playing keyboard almost orchestrally, even at this early date.
& See also Earl Hines Plays Duke Ellington (1971–1975; p. 390)
JIMMIE NOONE
Born 23 April 1895, Stanton Plantation, Cut Off (Algiers), Louisiana; died 19 April 1944, Los Angeles, California
Clarinet
Jimmie Noone 1928–1929
Classics 611
Noone; George Mitchell (c); Fayette Williams (tb); Lawson Buford, Bill Newton (tba); Joe Poston (cl, as); Eddie Pollack (as, bs); Zinky Cohn, Alex Hill, Earl Hines (p); Junie Cobb, Wilbur Gorham, Bud Scott (bj, g); Johnny Wells (d). 1928–1929.
Jimmy Giuffre said (1987): ‘Of the older fellows on clarinet, I’m drawn to Noone rather than Dodds. He had that soft-edged sound that seemed to flow over the rhythm rather than bounce off it.’
Noone studied with his contemporary Sidney Bechet before joining King Oliver in 1918. He was a Chicago star during the ’20s, but never made much impact in New York. A fondness for eating shortened his life and nowadays he’s largely forgotten. What’s needed is a good sampler of Noone’s earlier material. There are examples of the great musician he could be, but they’re
Mary Lou Williams said (1976): ‘When McKinney’s Cotton Pickers came to town, that was the best band most of us had ever heard. Todd Rhodes became a kind of mentor to me. He’d get me to play on jams and even once let me sit in with the band. Prince Robinson was a good player, too.’
Originally led by drummer Bill McKinney, the Cotton Pickers were hired by Jean Goldkette for a residency at his Detroit Graystone Ballroom in 1927. Hugely popular, they eventually recorded several sessions in New York, but the band declined when several key players left in the early ’30s, It was primarily John Nesbitt who built McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (although Goldkette gave them their name). Redman’s arrival in 1928 brought his distinctive touchas arranger to the band’s book, but Nesbitt’s driving and almost seamless charts were as impressive, and they remain so, more than 60 years later. McKinney’s Cotton Pickers were among the most forward-looking of the large bands of their era: while the section-work retains all the timbral qualities of the ’20s, and the rhythm section still depends on brass bass and banjo, the drive and measure of the arrangements and the gleaming momentum of their best records both suggest the direction that big bands would take in the next decade.
EARL HINES &
Known as ‘Fatha’; born 28 December 1903, Duquesne, Pennsylvania; died 22 April 1983, Oakland, California
Piano
Earl Hines Collection: Piano Solos 1928–1940
Collectors Classics COCD 11
Hines (p solo). December 1928–February 1940.
Earl Hines said (1977): ‘First off, I tried to play trumpet, but it hurt my ears. Then I found Louis Armstrong was playing exact things I wanted to play. So I think that’s where my “trumpet style” on piano, if you want to call it that, comes from.’
Earl Hines had already played on some of the greatest of all jazz records – with Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five – before he made any sessions under his own name. The piano solos he made in Long Island and Chicago, one day apart in December 1928, are collected on this Classics CD – a youthful display of brilliance that has seldom been surpassed. His ambidexterity, enabling him to finger runs and break up and supplant rhythms at will, is still breathtaking, and his range of pianistic devices is equalled only by Tatum and Taylor. But these dozen pieces were a preamble to a career which, in the ’30s, was concerned primarily with bandleading. The intuitive brilliance one heard on the ‘Weather Bird’ duet with Armstrong carried forward into his bandleading as well, where every component has its proper place in the mix, but one can readily hear Hines playing keyboard almost orchestrally, even at this early date.
& See also Earl Hines Plays Duke Ellington (1971–1975; p. 390)
JIMMIE NOONE
Born 23 April 1895, Stanton Plantation, Cut Off (Algiers), Louisiana; died 19 April 1944, Los Angeles, California
Clarinet
Jimmie Noone 1928–1929
Classics 611
Noone; George Mitchell (c); Fayette Williams (tb); Lawson Buford, Bill Newton (tba); Joe Poston (cl, as); Eddie Pollack (as, bs); Zinky Cohn, Alex Hill, Earl Hines (p); Junie Cobb, Wilbur Gorham, Bud Scott (bj, g); Johnny Wells (d). 1928–1929.
Jimmy Giuffre said (1987): ‘Of the older fellows on clarinet, I’m drawn to Noone rather than Dodds. He had that soft-edged sound that seemed to flow over the rhythm rather than bounce off it.’
Noone studied with his contemporary Sidney Bechet before joining King Oliver in 1918. He was a Chicago star during the ’20s, but never made much impact in New York. A fondness for eating shortened his life and nowadays he’s largely forgotten. What’s needed is a good sampler of Noone’s earlier material. There are examples of the great musician he could be, but they’re
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