1. Waterworks*
2. A Night On Bop Mountain*
3. Broadway*
4. Sid's Bounce

August 23, 1949

 LINER NOTES

The trombone was a late-blooming jazz horn. Why this was the case can be speculated on but not readily explained. Certainly its use goes as far back as the New Orleans brass bands that stirred the dust of Southern streets around the century; but just as certainly it was two or three decades before the first quasi-virtuosi appeared on the scene. Jazz had its share of genuine instrumental masters as early as the 1920s, an era that first great recorded works by Louis Armstrong, Al Hines, Joe Venuti, Frank Trumbauer, Coleman Hawkins, and even the teenaged Benny Goodman. It was not until the very late Twenties that Jack Teagarden (1905-64) began to show the full possibilities of the sliding brass horn in terms of emotional as well as technical range.

True, there were one or two others for whom one might argue a case. According to Benny Carter, who was his closest friend, Jimmy Harrison, who died in 1931 at the age of 30, was the first true giant of the trombone, but Harrison's legacy on records was regrettably small. His work undoubtedly impressed and influenced Teagarden, Dickie Wells, and other early starters. The apocalyptic events of the bebop era made unprecedented demands on the practitioners of every instrument. The new guidelines were established primarily by saxophonists and trumpeters, all of them under the gigantic shadows of Bird and Gillespie respectively. The clarinet was all but eliminated as an innovative medium during those years, except for the contribution of Buddy De Franco, one of the very few in his field to meet the new challenge. Bud Powell and a host of others adapted bebop lines to the piano. But what, under these circumstances, could possibly happen to an unwieldly, exacting horn like the trombone? Would it not prove even less capable of appropriate manipulation than the clarinet?

The answer came from a source with which some of the better informed musicians had been familiar with even before the bop epidemic broke out. James Louis Johnson, long known as J.J., recalls that his first awareness that new developments were stirring in jazz coincided with his stint with the Snookum Russell band. This was a territory group that played tobacco warehouses and dance halls in the South and Midwest. A fellow member was the trumpeter Fats Navarro, who like J.J. was a teenager. "We were both fans of Pres and of Roy Eldridge," J.J. recalls. "They were our gods! But a little bit later on. I think this was after I had joined Benny Carter. I heard one of the records Charlie Parker had made with Jay McShann, and this completely turned me around.

"I stumbled and fumbled my way into trying to relate this style to the trombone. It took a long time to try to develop the necessary technique. While I was in New York in 1945, mostly hanging around and getting odd jobs, I formed a firm friendship with Miles Davis, who was then studying at Juilliard; and just as Fats and I had worshipped Pres and Roy, Miles and I became Bird and Diz fanatics."

Jay Jay made his first sessions as a leader in 1946-47, using such group names as Jay Jay Johnson's Be Boppers and Jay Jay Johnson's Bop Quintet. After a third Savoy date in February of 1949, he switched a few weeks later to New Jazz, a label just started by a young jazz fan named Bob Weinstock, which eventually became Prestige. "Fox Hunt," "Elysee," "Opus V," and "Hilo" were the products of the initial New Jazz date.

Although the outward characteristic of Johnson's thematic and improvisational statements may seem hard and at times even morose, this is a superficial evaluation, for there is in fact a very special kind of veiled passion in his work. The precision of attack and extraordinary fluency of phrasing are vital underlying factors.

Johnson's accomplishments were well known by this time. Musicians had listened open-mouthed to his first records; some were willing to swear that he was playing a valve trombone, for it seemed impossible that such fluidity of melodic motion could be achieved within the limitations imposed by the seven basic positions of the slide instrument. (Coincidentally, there was one well-known performer who played valve trombone in the early bebop days: Billy Eckstine.) All these aspects of Johnson's playing were brilliantly displayed in the New Jazz date. The writing varies from unadulterated bebop (the bridge of Jay Jay's "Fox Hunt") to intimations of the transition from hot into cool (note the ingenious interweaving in John Lewis's "Elysee" of the three horns, suggesting a miniature version of the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool nonet, one session of which had taken place, with Johnson and Lewis as sidemen, only weeks earlier). Sonny Rollins, only 19, and Kenny Dorham, a Gillespie and Eckstine alumnus who was then in the middle of a two-year stint with Charlie Parker, offer astringently lyrical lines that serve to complement Jay Jay's statements.

It is worth noting that Rollins's line "Hi-Lo" was a blues, and that despite the efforts of the be-boppers to explore new harmonic horizons, the blues remained the common denominator that linked the members of every session presented here. "Sid's Bounce" on the Winding date, "Flowing River" on Green's first session and "Say Jack" on his second, and of course "Bag's Groove" in the Jay-and-Kai collaboration, all are variations on the 12-bar format in moods and tempos that differ while the spirit remains essentially unaltered.

Unlike Jay Jay's pickup sextet, which lasted only as long as the sessions, Kai Winding's group was an organized unit, working together for about a year during 1949-50. The first jobs were offered by the Roost, a Broadway emporium that became the first room ever associated exclusively to the bop movement. When the Roost closed, Kai took his men across the street to participate in the elaborate opening ceremonies of Bop City, a one-flight-up club in the Brill Building at 49th and Broadway. Kai shared the bill with Artie Shaw, who for this much-publicized occasion organized a vast orchestra with strings, playing classical works as well as jazz.

The Winding Sextet gave Gerry Mulligan some of his first combo exposure as soloist and composer. Most of the book was contributed by Gerry, who wrote the serpentine, stimulating line called "Waterworks," and Kai, whose jaunty minor romp, "A Night on Bop Mountain," was indebted to Moussorgsky only in its title wordplay. A young Pittsburgh pianist named Jerry Kaminsky wrote "Sid's Bounce," which naturally earned plenty of airplay from the dean of bebop disc jockeys, Symphony Sid Torin. Winding's biting horn meshed well with the Pres-like tenor of Brew Moore (who, like Mulligan, had worked for a while in the Claude Thornhill talent nursery).

- Leonard Feather

Broadway

Broadway is the name of many streets but there is one Broadway, if you know what I mean.

Broadway is also the name of a tune which is dedicated to the street that I mean.

Broadway in the late '40s was the stamping ground - or, more accurately, the stomping ground - for the young modernists who had learned from Lester Young and the Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie axis. They chipped in to rent rehearsal studios in the Broadway area where they could jam if they were not working. When they did work, it was at the Three Deuces-the last holdout to feature modern jazz on 52nd Street - or on Broadway at the Roost and its successor, Bop City.

Broadway was played quite often at the studio sessions like the ones held at Don Jose's in the summer of 1949. Gerry Mulligan, Brew Moore, George Wallington, and Red Rodney were frequent participants. Anytime Mulligan is involved, there is a good chance that Broadway will be played in one form or another. His Gold Rush is based on Broadway. Broadway and/or Gold Rush have shown up in groups in which he has been a sideman, and in the various combos and orchestras he has led.

Broadway is an example of these musicians' link to the Count Basie-Lester Young tradition. Count recorded it in 1940 with Pres as the featured soloist, and it captured the imagination of a generation of players.

One of these was Kai Winding who came to New York with his parents at the age of 12 from his native Denmark. Three years later, in 1937, he took up the trombone while a student at Stuyvesant High School. By 1940 he was working professionally as a musician. After a tour in the Coast Guard, he was with Benny Goodman for a few months at the end of 1945.

Winding's first wide exposure as a soloist came during his stay with the Stan Kenton orchestra in 1946-47. Then he went into combo work with Charlie Ventura, leaving in February of 1948 to form a combo with singer Buddy Stewart who had been with him in Ventura's group.

Though Winding is now musical director for the Playboy Club in New York, and is best known in jazz circles for the two-trombone group that he and J.J. Johnson led in the mid-50s, the sextet Kai fronted in 1949 and 1950 is well-remembered by those fortunate enough to have heard it. Winding's brash, biting horn was a fully mature voice. He had played valve trombone on one of his earlier recordings in the mid-'40s, but his slide work was even smoother, and like J. J.'s, was often praised for its amazing dexterity.

Brew Moore from Indianola, Mississippi has been a traveling man since he became a professional musician. He has lived in New York, San Francisco, and Copenhagen, among other places, and has always displayed a strong ability to swing no matter in what city or country he was playing his tenor saxophone. In New York, in 1949, his horn would sometimes be held together with rubber bands and matchsticks, but his sound was never rubbery or wooden. Brew alternated between lazy and hard swinging; his full-blown, personal version of Lester Young, a joy to the ear.

Perhaps Gerry Mulligan was not the polished baritone saxophonist in 1949 that he is today, but the ideas and the vitality were there. As it is today, his involvement with the music was complete. Mulligan swung from his shoe-tops on this date. When he and Moore joined Winding, some of the heart went out of the nightly studio jam sessions, because Gerry was a continuous spark, whether he was playing baritone, piano, or just informally using his great organizational talent.

Another who was sorely missed when he went with Winding was George Wallington. Many a night I remember George taking his jacket off, rolling up his sleeves, loosening his tie, opening both the top and front of the old upright, and digging in to inspire all the hornmen with his prodigious comping. As a soloist, he was no slouch either. There are some gems contained here. For instance, notice the way in which he paraphrases the intro on Bop Mountain in his solo.

Recently, a British critic wrote a piece on Wallington, and decried his lack of a really distinguishing style. George, who was one of the originals in the bop movement (having played with Dizzy Gillespie's band in the early days on 52nd Street), did not have the widespread influence of Bud Powell, but anyone hearing Pete Jolly in the '50s, or Don Friedman's recording of So In Love in his Circle Waltz album on Riverside, would not make such a statement.

Wallington has been out of music for a number of years, keeping people cool in an air-conditioning business with his brothers. Any release that makes some of his old work available is always welcome.

The rhythm team of Curly Russell and Roy Haynes was an exceptionally good one. In the late '40s, it was more often Russell teamed with Max Roach, and Tommy Potter with Haynes, but any combination of these four men was sure to produce an expert section. Russell had played with Charlie Parker, while Haynes was about to when these tracks were made. Today, Roy leads his own combo, and Curly is off the jazz scene.

The Winding sextet was a tight little unit whose book was composed of originals and arrangements by Mulligan, some originals by Wallington and Winding, and a few things from outside the group.

Kai wrote the minor-key A Night On Bop Mountain which utilizes Mulligan's deep-throated sound in the ensemble. Moore's tenor in full flight starts the soloing, and the continuity among the horns and Wallington in each man's improvisation is noteworthy.

Waterworks is a Mulligan original based on the chords of I Hear Music. Again the soloists swing hard, as Haynes urges them on with cymbals, and hand and foot "bombs". Roy also comes in for some inventive "fours".

Wallington's introduction leads into a relaxed Broadway in which the group's density of sound is shown off during the ensemble. Kai does some expressive growling in his solo, and Wallington plays some effective double-time runs.

Sid's Bounce is a blues written by the late Jerry Kaminsky, who was a pianist from Pittsburgh. It was not named for Symphony Sid Torin, as most tunes containing the name "Sid" were in those days, but for the head-waiter at the Three Deuces. It has an earthy quality with a rich, full ride-out for a closer. Moore and Winding are the only soloists on this track.

Before Winding had the sextet at the Roost and Bop City - the same one which recorded the four tracks in this album in 1949 which up to a few years ago were included

(Prestige 7023). This is the music they were playing on and around Broadway in the late '40s and early '50s. Broadway has changed and so has the music. Broadway has also endured. So has Broadway.

Ira Gitler (Feb. 1965)

Trombones By Three

The trombone has been a vital instrument since jazz's earliest days. The trombonists represented here are three of the finest of their or any other era. The groups here are very different in character although all are in the modern idiom. A cross-index of modern trombone playing as well as other contemporary solo techniques and styles is afforded by a wide variety of material.

KAI WINDING SEXTET

This is the group that Kai had during late 1949 and 1950. They played at the Roost and when that club was shuttered they moved to Bop City. When they weren't playing gigs, they would jam together at private studios.

Gerry did writing and much arranging for the group and George also contributed originals. Waterworks is Gerry's, Bop Mountain Kai's and Sid's Bounce was penned by a pianist from Pittsburgh named Jerry Kaminsky. Broadway was one of the holdover tunes from the Swing era, one which has long been in favor among this group of musicians. Any band that Gerry Mulligan has something to do with is very likely to have Broadway in the books.

The playing here is vigorous. Kai blows some of his brash biting horn, Brew swings along, alternately lazy and hard, Gerry as usual blows from his shoetops and George contributes some of his inimitable gems. Notice the way he paraphrases the intro on Bop Mountain in his solo.

Ira Gitler