Young Steve Lacy (1954): The Bechet Period

In 1954, while still a student at the Manhattan School of Music, Steve Lacy was performing regularly with a Dixieland repertory band called the Dick Sutton Sextet on both soprano and clarinet. The band wasn’t Dixieland in the strictest sense. At times, they sounded more hard bop and West Coast than Dixieland. 

Lacy recorded two albums with Sutton, the young trumpeter. The first was August 8, 1954, on an album titled Jazz Idiom, and the second was November 24, 1954, on an album titled Progressive Dixieland.

During this period, the Sidney Bechet influence on the 20-year-old Lacy is very evident from his use of the fast and wide vibrato that defined Bechet; his penchant for arpeggiated lines that outlined the chord structure, versus the chromaticism pervasive in the bebop vocabularies; and of course, how he maintains very close ties to the blues when playing the melody and while improvising. He often exclaims that he picked up the clarinet after hearing Bechet’s version of Duke Ellington’s “The Mooche, recorded in 1941.

Before we hear Lacy with Dick Sutton's group, let's first listen to the recording that inspired him to take up the clarinet, showing his entree into jazz. In this version of "The Mooche" recorded on October 14, 1941, we hear Bechet on clarinet, Henry Goodwin on trumpet, Vic Dickerson on trombone, Don Donaldson on piano, Ernest Williamson on bass, and Manzie Johnson on drums. 

On this recording, Bechet does not take an improvised solo. He makes his musical statement solely from how he plays the melody. One of the paramount lessons Lacy probably learned from Bechet was the importance of being able to tell a story with one's sound--something Lacy seemed to have learned well. With regards to Bechet's sound, Lacy had this to say: 

“Many did not care for his sound owing to his excessive use of a very wide vibrato. My own feeling is that this was a means, perhaps, of covering the natural inaccuracy of any given note on the horn itself." 

And this is another tip I imagined Lacy learned from Bechet, when striving to achieve pitch ascendancy over the defiant horn.

After Lacy took up the clarinet in 1949 at the age of 15, he began hanging out at the Stuyvesant Casino, a music venue located at 140 Second Ave., at Ninth Street, that primarily featured Dixieland bands. In this picture, we see a young 19-year-old alongside many of mentors at the time,  such as clarinetist Pee Wee Russell (far right), saxophonist and clarinetist Cecil Scott, who taught Lacy clarinet and the soprano saxophone when he 16 years old, (left of Pee Wee Russell) and trumpeter Harry Hot Lips Page (left of Cecil Scott). This was pre-Monk and Cecil Taylor, mind you. 

In 1951, Lacy played his first gig at the Stuyvesant Casino as the featured performer. The club billed it as “Bechet of the Today.” Something he certainly felt embarrassed about.

Stuyvesant Casino (bandstand)

Stuyvesant Casino at 140 Second Ave., at Ninth Street, New York City 

The following tracks are from the two aforementioned Dick Sutton Sextet albums recorded on Jaguar Records in 1954. What’s really remarkable is that even though Lacy had only been playing the soprano for four years, he already has a personal sound (though influenced by Bechet), excellent sound control, and a good amount of technical fluency. It’s as though he was meant to play the instrument.

Track 1:  "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise" was recorded on the album titled  Jazz Idiom in 1954 on Jaguar Records.


Performers:

Dick Sutton - trumpet

Ray Anderson - trombone 

Steve Lacy - clarinet, soprano sax

Don Sitterlex - baritone sax

Mark Trail - bass

Billy DeHay - drums

Track 2:  "Let's Get Away from it All" was recorded on an album titled Progressive Dixieland in 1954 on Jaguar Records.

Performers:

Dick Sutton - trumpet

John Welch - trombone

Steve Lacy - soprano sax

Frank Caputo baritone sax

Mark Trail - bass

Billy DeHay - drums

Track 3:  "Avalon" was recorded on the album titled Jazz Idiom in 1954 on Jaguar Records. 

Performers:

Dick Sutton - trumpet

Ray Anderson - trombone 

Steve Lacy - soprano sax

Don Sitterlex - baritone sax

Mark Trail - bass

Billy DeHay - drums

The Soprano Stylings of Dexter Gordon

My first time hearing Dexter Gordon playing the soprano saxophone was in the 1986 film Round Midnight by Bertrand Taverier and David Rayfiel, for which Dexter was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and won a Grammy for the film's soundtrack titled The Other Side of Round Midnight in the category for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Soloist.  The two pieces on which I heard him was Herbie Hancock’s “Time Still” and Dexters “Tivoli.”

As is the case with many doubling on the instrument, his soprano sounded like his main horn up an octave. In Dexter's case, this was not a bad thing. His soprano had many of the qualities that defined his tenor sound: it was deep, full-bodied, and laced with his signature slow and wavering vibrato. In the past, I've been critical of hearing alto and tenor saxophonists using the soprano solely as the third and fourth octave of their larger horns.  All to often, I felt we were only left with a compromised soprano sound, and so much a musical voice. 

This was not true with Dexter.

There was no "cringe factor" with he played the soprano. However, like many who don’t play it all the time, he struggled with the instrument's inherent pitch problems. All things considered, he brought the same warmth to the soprano that was ubiquitous in his tenor playing. Consequently, we got to hear is his sound concept from a new perspective, instead of a higher-pitched, compromised version of it.

Another reason I feel Dexter’s concept worked well on the soprano is that his approach is sound centered: meaning that the sound used to support his ideas are equally as important as the ideas, if not more. This was true for most of the musicians during this era. You could not separate their ideas from their sound. Joe Henderson would have sounded silly playing Wayne Shorter's ideas, and vice versa. Amongst many modern players, this is not always true. In fact, you could take five of the top young saxophonists, have them play each other's ideas verbatim, and it would not sound the least bit out a context. That's because their concepts are more idea-centered. Their sound often serves no other purpose than to deliver their ideas--sound is not viewed as a separate entity. In the era of sound centered concepts, you had a Lester Young school of sound, a Coleman Hawkins school of sound, a John Coltrane school of sound, etc. And even in modern times, we have David Sanborn and Michael Brecker schools of sound.  However, amongst many of today's practitioners, this commitment to sound is becoming increasingly elusive--myself included.

And I actually see the soprano as more of a sound instrument, anyway. A topic I will discuss in more detail in a future post.

These six performances are neither in chronological nor any order of importance. But I did decide to start and end with the two performances from the movie Round Midnight since this was my introduction to the straight horn side of Dexter.

"Tivoli" is from the album The Other Side of Round Midnight, recorded in 1985, and released in 1986 on Blue Note Records.

Dexter Gordon - soprano saxophone

Palle Mikkelborg - trumpet

Cedar Walton - piano

Mads Vinding - bass

Billy Higgins - drums

Composed by Dexter Gordon

“In a Sentimental Mood” from his album Stable Mable, released in 1975 on Steeplechase Records.

Dexter Gordon – soprano saxophone

Horace Parlan – piano

Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen – bass

Tony Inzalaco · drums

Composed by Duke Ellington

        

“How Insensitive “ from his album Sophisticated Giant, released in 1977 on Columbia Records.

Dexter Gordon – soprano saxophone

Frank Wess - alto saxophone, flute, piccolo

Howard Johnson - baritone saxophone

Woody Shaw - flugelhorn, trumpet

Benny Bailey - flugelhorn, trumpet

Wayne Andre - trombone: 

Slide Hampton - trombone, arranger

George Cables - piano

Rufus Reid - bass

Victor Lewis - drums 

Composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim

“Blues for Gates” is from the album Total Swing, Vol. 4, released in 2001 on Starburst Records.

Dexter Gordon – soprano saxophone

Lionel Hampton - vibraphone

Bucky Pizzarelli - guitar

Hank Jones – piano

George Duvivier – bass

Oliver Jackson – drums

Candido (Camero) - congas

Composed by Lionel Hampton

”Seven Comes Eleven” is from the album Total Swing, Vol. 4, released in 2001 on Starburst Records.

Dexter Gordon – soprano saxophone

Lionel Hampton - vibraphone

Bucky Pizzarelli - guitar

Hank Jones – piano

George Duvivier – bass

Oliver Jackson – drums

Candido (Camero) - congas

Composed by Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman

"Still Time" is from the album Round Midnight (The Movie Soundtrack), recorded in 1985, and released in 1986 on Blue Note Records.

Dexter Gordon - soprano saxophone

Herbie Hancock - piano

Pierre Michelot - bass

Billy Higgins - drums

Composed by Herbie Hancock

And here's a clip of Herbie receiving an Oscar for Best Original Score for Round Midnight at the 59th Annual Academy Awards. He had some pretty stiff competition.  At 3:45 we get to see a short segment with Dexter looking happy and proud, just as he should have been.

As an aspiring jazz musician attending the Berklee College of Music at the time, seeing jazz and jazz musicians that we admired being recognized on network television, during prime time, in front of millions of viewers, gave us tremendous hope regarding our future. And Herbie's speech was pretty cool, too.







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Positive words for the week (Zen parable: Moving to a New City)

Moving to a New City 

(Zen parable): There was a person coming to a new village, relocating, and he was wondering if he would like it there, so he went to the Zen master and asked: 

Do you think I will like it in this village? Are the people nice? 

The master asked back: How were the people in the town where you come from? 

“They were nasty and greedy, they were angry and lived for cheating and stealing,” said the newcomer. 

Those are exactly the type of people we have in this village, said the master.

Another newcomer to the village visited the master and asked the same question, to which the master asked: 

How were the people in the town where you come from? 

“They were sweet and lived in harmony, they cared for one another and for the land, they respected each other and they were seekers of spirit,” he replied. 

Those are exactly the type of people we have in this village, said the master.

(Life Lesson): I think there a two closely related lessons to be learned from this parable. (1) What we end up seeing and experiencing in life, is what we choose to see and experience; and (2) some people deal with life with a winner's mindset and others with a loser's mindset. 

Musically speaking, I can be naively optimistic when it comes to seeing and experiencing the positive side of life, especially when it comes to the listening to music.

I’ve attended concerts where the person I’m with might say to me afterward, “That sax player doesn’t play changes very well, ” or “That piano player's rhythm is weak.”--typical things you'd expect from someone listening with an objective ear. Because I was listening with a more subjective ear, what I actually heard was a sax player improvising with a more open harmonic concept, or a piano player having his or her own way of feeling the time. 

By me not judging these musical scenarios as bad or wrong, allowed me to hear these things not as mere flaws but as new and different musical possibilities. I'm not saying that this is always a good thing, especially if you are a teacher and you're paid to listen with a critical ear. But I am someone who has the ability to enjoy music using both subjective and objective listening. This was not always the case. People who know me from earlier years, also know I could talk smack with the best of them. While I was a student at Berklee in the mid-80s, unfortunately, talking negatively about others was our favorite past time--a conversation for another day

But I'm happy to say that I did evolve.

Regarding the second lesson of the parable: having a winner's and loser's mindset. 

Ben Carson came under fire during a radio interview with conservative media personality Armstrong Williams, for expressing similar views regarding poverty.

Here are some statements taking from the transcript of the interview:

 “I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind.” Carson, then he went on to say, “You take somebody that has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there.” And lastly, Carson said, “You take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world — they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom.”

Political affiliations aside, I’m afraid I have to agree with him. 

Many political pundits spun this as him saying that if you’re poor, it’s your fault. Which is not the case at all. He’s basically saying that some people have a rich or successful person’s mindset, some have that of a poor person's, no matter their income--not much different from the man in the parable who only saw people in their village as "nasty and greedy."

In many ways,  most jazz musicians have a winner's mindset when it comes to experiencing life. 

Most of us who play this music (and there are the exceptions) live on very modest incomes. But we actually have a lot of in common with those who make up the upper echelons of the socio-economic ladder. 

If you think about what rich society folks like to do, it's usually:

• traveling to foreign countries (other than the Virgin Islands and Mexico), 
• going to museums,
• enjoying healthy food, 
• eating at nice restaurants, 
• being connoisseurs of fine wine, 
• reading classic books, 
• watching movies by non-Hollywood indie filmmakers, 
• attending operas and ballets, 
• and appreciating art music like jazz and classical. 

I’ve just described 80 percent of all of the jazz musicians I know. And the point I'm making is that jazz musicians do not let the absence of wealth prevent them from experiencing the riches that life has to offer. Many live modestly but have the aesthetical mindset of someone with 10 times their income.

At the other end of the spectrum, look at wealthy pop music entertainers and athletes (or even lottery winners), that come from modest and sometimes impoverished
upbringings. Even though they go on to accumulate a lot of wealth in a short period of time, many still live with a poor person’s mindset and, consequently, often end up broke. Their bank accounts are abundant, but their aesthetical value system is in a deficit.

This is why you might see some these celebrities in $200,000 cars, pulling up to a KFC drive-thru. Or opting to go to strip clubs instead of the opera. And my favorite: Walking around with a $300 bottle of Dom Perignon, drinking it like it's a 40 ounce of Old English. 

You’ve rarely seen an episode of MTV’s Cribs where the guests showed off their vintage record collections and libraries of classic books. It’s usually nonsense like having a chair with fish aquariums in the armrests or having a basketball court next to their bowling alley.

I don't mean to come across as holier than thou. Like the traveler from the parable who only recalls encountering the "cheaters and thieves" of his town, I, too, am often a victim of my own poor person's mindset. I feel I can speak about it because I live it. 

And let's not forget the lottery winners.

According to the National Endowment for Financial Education, about 70 percent of people who win the lottery or come into huge sums of cash, end up broke in a few years. And I won't deny that greedy folks in their lives find ways to exploit them. But much of their downfall can be attributed to their mindset. It's a harsh but unfortunate truth.

So as the parable teaches us: Life is what you make it. You can fill it with great people. You can fill it with horrible people. You can fill it with music that sounds good, or music that sounds bad. You can fill it with riches, you can fill it with poverty. These choices belong to us. 

The Soprano Stylings of Lucky Thompson

During the 20th century, Paris served as a musical and financial sanctuary for two of our greatest soprano players: Sydney Bechet, who moved there in 1925, and Steve Lacy who relocated in 1970.  And this also holds true for a third under-rated master of the straight horn: Lucky Thompson.

Thompson's tenure in Paris was more short-lived than that of Bechet and Lacy, both of whom resided there for the majority of their careers. Thompson lived in Paris between 1957 and 1962. The city offered more work, more hope, and more respect--as it did for many American jazz musicians, including Bud Powell and Dexter Gordon.

And for Thompson, this is also where he began to explore the soprano saxophone more deeply.

I can't say for certain, but I suspect that since the Selmer company introduced the Mark VI line of saxophones in 1954, only three years before his arrival, Thompson probably had access to some of the best-made sopranos in the world, in terms of instrumental mechanics and pitch accuracy. This would certainly make a saxophonist less hesitant about trying out the pitch-defiant horn.

Below are 10 notable soprano saxophone performances by Thompson. Bare in mind, these are performances and recordings that I find interesting. In no way are these being presented as Lucky Thompson's greatest work.  Just some cool soprano playing I thought you might enjoy,

What's interesting about these performances is how comfortable he sounds on the instrument. His tone is pretty uniform, in-tune throughout the registers, and very airy--which is very difficult to achieve on the soprano.  Even when employing many of his swinging double-time runs, there is still a strong melodicism that permeates throughout.

On the slower pieces, Thompson proves why he was one of the great balladeers in jazz. In fact, he was one of the first to come along to accentuate the instrument's sensuous side. Even Sidney Bechet while playing ballads on the soprano approached them pretty aggressively and majestically--much in the street parade style of Louis Armstrong. Bechet's fast and wide-vibrato approach was far from soft, sweet nothings in your ear. Thompson, on the other hand, was much more of a straight horn crooner, with a sound and approach that was less robust, more intimate, and more smooth. Saxophonists like Grover Washington Jr. and Kenny G took this idea of smoothness on the soprano to the extreme, but it was Thompson who introduced this sound into the soprano's sonic lexicon.

Video 1:"Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be?)" was recorded in 1968 at the Blue Note in Paris, France for a French television broadcast.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone
Alice Coltrane - piano
Pierre Michelot - bass
Kenny Clarke - drums

Video 2: "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)" was recorded live at the 1962 Moldejazz festival Molde, Norway.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone
Unknown - piano
Unknown - bass
Unknown - drums

Video 3: "On Green Dolphin Street" was recorded for Dutch national radio on November 22, 1968, at Jazz Club B-14 in Rotterdam.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone
Rob Madna - piano
Ruud Jacobs - bass
Eric Ineke - drums

Video 4 - "The World Awakes" from his album Soul's Nite Out, released in 1971 on the Spanish label Ensayo in 1971.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone
Tete Montoliu - piano
Eric Peter - bass
Peer Wyboris - drums

Video 5: "When Sunny Gets Blue" from his album Soul's Nite Out, released in 1971 on the Spanish label Ensayo.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone

Tete Montoliu - piano

Eric Peter - bass

Peer Wyboris - drums

Video 6: “You Don’t Know What Love Is” from his album Happy Days, recorded March 8, 1963- February 16, 1965, released in 1965 on the Prestige label.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone
Tommy Flanagan - piano
George Tucker - bass
Walter Perkins - drums

Video 7: "Einsames Mädchen Am Meer" from the album  Four Brothers, released November 25, 1960, on the German label Sonogram.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone (on this cut)
Helmut Brandt - tenor and baritone saxophones

Bent Jaedig - tenor sax
Barney Wilsen - soprano and tenor saxophones

Roland Kovac - piano

Larry Atwell - guitar

Jürgen Ehlers - bass

Rudi Pronk - drums

Video 8:  “In a Sentimental Mood” from his album Lucky Strikes, recorded September 15, 1964,  and released in 1965 on the Prestige label.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone

Hank Jones - piano

Richard Davis - bass

Connie Kay – drums

Video 9: "Beautiful Tuesday" from the album Lord, Lord Am I Ever Gonna Know?,  released in 1961 on Candid Records.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone

Martial Solal - piano

Peter Trunk - bass

Kenny Clarke - drums

Video 10: “Have You Met Miss Jones” from the album Lucky in Paris, recorded January 14, 1959, and released in 1999 on High Note records.

Lucky Thompson - soprano saxophone

Martial Solal - piano

Michael Hausser - vibes

Gilbert Gassin - bass

Gerard Pochonet - drums





Please check out my book Life Lessons from the Horn and my new CD, Sopranoville.

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