BN-LA-507-H2

Fats Navarro - Prime Source

Released - 1975

Recording and Session Information

WOR Studios, NYC, September 26, 1947
Fats Navarro, trumpet; Ernie Henry, alto sax; Charlie Rouse, tenor sax; Tadd Dameron, piano; Nelson Boyd, bass; Shadow Wilson, drums.

BN304-0 The Chase (alternate take)
BN304-2 The Chase
BN305-0 The Squirrel (alternate take)
BN305-1 The Squirrel
BN306-0 Our Delight (alternate take)
BN306-5 Our Delight
BN307-0 Dameronia (alternate take)
BN307-2 Dameronia

Apex Studios, NYC, September 13, 1948
Fats Navarro, trumpet; Allen Eager, Wardell Gray, tenor sax; Tadd Dameron, piano; Curley Russell, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums; Chino Pozo, bongos #1,2.

BN332-0 Jahbero (alternate take)
BN332-1 Jahbero
BN333-0 Lady Bird
BN333-1 Lady Bird (alternate take)
BN334-1 Symphonette
BN334-2 Symphonette (alternate take)

Apex Studios, NYC, October 11, 1948
Howard McGhee, Fats Navarro, trumpet; Ernie Henry, alto sax; Milton Jackson, vibes, piano; Curley Russell, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums.

BN336-1 The Skunk (alternate take)
BN337-1 Boperation
BN338-0 Double Talk
BN339-0 Double Talk (alternate take)

WOR Studios, NYC, August 9, 1949
Fats Navarro, trumpet; Sonny Rollins, tenor sax; Bud Powell, piano; Tommy Potter, bass; Roy Haynes, drums.

BN360-0 Bouncing With Bud (alternate take 1)
BN360-1 Bouncing With Bud (alternate take 2)
BN360-2 Bouncing With Bud
BN361-0 Wail (alternate take)
BN361-3 Wail
BN362-0 Dance Of The Infidels (alternate take)
BN362-1 Dance Of The Infidels
BN363-1 52nd St. Theme

Track Listing

Side One
Artist	Title	Recording Date
The Tadd Dameron Sextet	Our Delight (Alt. Master)	September 26 1947
The Tadd Dameron Sextet	Our Delight	September 26 1947
The Tadd Dameron Sextet	The Squirrel (Alt. Master)	September 26 1947
The Tadd Dameron Sextet	The Squirrel	September 26 1947
The Tadd Dameron Sextet	The Chase (Alt. Master)	September 26 1947
The Tadd Dameron Sextet	The Chase	September 26 1947
The Tadd Dameron Sextet	Dameronia (Alt. Master)	September 26 1947
The Tadd Dameron Sextet	Dameronia	September 26 1947
Side Two
The Tadd Dameron Septet	Lady Bird (Alt. Master)	September 13 1948
The Tadd Dameron Septet	Lady Bird	September 13 1948
The Tadd Dameron Septet	Jahbero (Alt. Master)	September 13 1948
The Tadd Dameron Septet	Jahbero	September 13 1948
The Tadd Dameron Septet	Symphonette (Alt. Master)	September 13 1948
The Tadd Dameron Septet	Symphonette	September 13 1948
Side Three
The McGhee/Navarro Boptet	Double Talk	October 11 1948
The McGhee/Navarro Boptet	Double Talk (Alt. Master)	October 11 1948
The McGhee/Navarro Boptet	Boperation	October 11 1948
The McGhee/Navarro Boptet	The Skunk (Alt. Master)	October 11 1948
Bud Powell's Modernists	52nd Street Theme	August 9 1949
Side Four
Bud Powell's Modernists	Dance Of The Infidels	August 9 1949
Bud Powell's Modernists	Dance Of The Infidels (Alt. Master)	August 9 1949
Bud Powell's Modernists	Wail	August 9 1949
Bud Powell's Modernists	Wail (Alt. Master)	August 9 1949
Bud Powell's Modernists	Bouncing With Bud (Alt. Master)	August 9 1949
Bud Powell's Modernists	Bouncing With Bud	August 9 1949
Bud Powell's Modernists	Bouncing With Bud (Alt. Master)	August 9 1949

Liner Notes

FATS NAVARRO

When I was a lad of six and a half my father took my mother and I on one of his business trips to England. It was quite an adventure for a small boy, sailing on a large ocean liner (getting seasick) and living in the heart of London at the Cumberland, a big commercial hotel right across from the Marble Arch entrance to Hyde Park.

I did not return to London until 1969 and, after a couple of days, set off to see the area that was still etched in my memory 34 years later. When I arrived on the scene I might have been the Colossus of Rhodes for the street between the hotel and Marble Arch had shrunk to a ribbon's width, the cars were Corgis and the buildings were dwarfed. It was as if I were looking through the wrong end of binoculars — and I was because I was looking back with a six-year-old's vision. The time telescope plays strange tricks. The same thing happened to me when I visited my high school more than 20 years after graduation to give a lecture. The gymnasium had always been a bandbox (strong home court advantage) but now it was a matchbox.

I can't do quite the same thing with Broadway because I've been there almost continuously since the early '40s. Oh, the topography has changed — Orange Julius has replaced Nedick's — but I can take that into account because I've seen it happen gradually. Traveling in my mind, however, the Broadway of the summer of 1948 seems like a stage set: the Rialto Delicatessen (it was still there in 1975); Phil Kronfeld's clothing store (where the grey suede shoes were out of my price range); Harry Kotler's shirt shop (the "Mr. B" collars in the window spread their wings and flew around the tab jobs); and the tropical drink stands with bright-green artificial grass and countermen wearing Hawaiian shirts.

Standing under the marquee of the Strand Theater (later called the Warner) on the west side of the street and looking across Broadway you could see the Royal Roost, or at least the entrance to the stairway that led down to the land of chicken-in-a-basket (left over from when it was called the Royal Chicken Roost) with its bandstand canopied in part by a large artificial tree.

The Roost presented several groups for long engagements (Charlie Parker, Charlie Ventura) but none was there longer than Tadd Dameron's. As house band leader Tadd spent 39 weeks at the cellar club. His personnel had some changes but the constants were Curly Russell, Kenny Clarke, Allen Eager and Fats Navarro. Whenever I think of the Roost I think of Fats and vice versa because this is where I heard him do most of his playing. As 52nd Street clubs became more strip than hip the scene began to shift to Broadway. The Roost, later known unofficially as the Metropolitan Bopera House, was a spearhead in this movement. A year earlier, in the summer of 1947, I heard Fats for the first time in person. He and Bud Powell sat-in, for one set, with Charlie Parker's quintet at the Three Deuces. Then there was Dameron's group at the Onyx with Fats and alto saxophonist Ernie Henry, a group that recorded for Savoy. Like everyone else concerned with the new, vital sounds I was listening to as much Navarro as I could.

Who was Fats Navarro? I never got to know the man, only the musician. At that time I became friendly with Curly Russell and Allen Eager but I don't ever remember being introduced to Fats, let alone having a conversation with him. Dizzy Gillespie, whose place he took in the Billy Eckstine band in 1945, later described him as "sweet. He was like a little baby. Very nice." I don't think many people really knew Fats. He had a high-pitched voice and the nickname "Fat Girl" was hung on him, leading to all kinds of speculation about his masculinity. He was a mystery man of sorts, shy, cherubic and totally dedicated to his music. "I'd like to just play a perfect melody of my own," he once said, "all the chord progressions right, the melody original and fresh — my own."

When Fats Navarro was making music the idea that he was as serious about what he was doing as Bach or Beethoven was not exactly a widely-held attitude. Maybe it isn't today either but more people are beginning to see the light—or at least turn it on. Where did this young giant come from and how did he get to where he created a compact but powerful legacy for the musicians of his and later generations?

Theodore Navarro was born in Key West, Florida on September 24, 1923. His ethnic background was African, Cuban and Chinese. Charlie Shavers, another trumpet great, was a third cousin. Young Navarro, who took up the trumpet at 13, didn't care for Key West. He played tenor sax with Walter Johnson's band in Miami and. after high school. in 1941, he split for good with Sol Allbright's band out of Orlando, When they arrived in Cincinnati he found himself a trumpet teacher. Moving to Indianapolis he joined Snookum Russell (J J. Johnson was with him, too) and played with the pianist's band in 1941-42 before becoming part of Andy Kirk's trumpet section in 1943.

It was with the Clouds of Joy, as Kirk's outfit was called, that Fats encountered Howard McGhee, then the featured trumpet soloist with the band, "He was the influence," said Fats in 1947. "I used to go and jam with him all the time."

There were other influences, too. McGhee has made special mention of Roy Eldridge. "Fats and I, when we were with Kirk, used to go hunt up Roy. He killed us. He had a style of, like, running on trumpet."

Then, of course, there was Dizzy. He turned McGhee around and was a strong factor in Navarro's style, especially some of the Jumps into the upper register. But Fats' solos did not have the jagged contours that mark the terrain of a Dizzy flight. Perhaps because of his early saxophone training, or the pervasive influence of Charlie Parker, his lines flow more in a reed-man's manner, however brassy in texture they might be. Trumpeter Don Ferrara once wrote: "Harmonically his playing was closer to Bird's. Fats was the only trumpet player I ever heard who dared to play Bird's great solo on Ko Ko...it flowed out of him, technically perfect, and with tremendous feeling and vitality..."

When Gillespie left the Billy Eckstine band in 1945 he suggested that Billy listen to Fats as a possible replacement. Eckstine only heard Navarro playing behind a chorus number with Kirk but it was sufficient evidence to hire him. He enhanced his reputation among musicians during his 18 months with Eckstine, more through location performances than recordings which were few. In late 1946 when he left the band and based himself in New York, this was remedied through a series of studio dates with Kenny Clarke, Sonny Stitt, Kenny Dorham and Coleman Hawkins.

In 1947 he played and recorded with Illinois Jacquet, cut some with Hawkins and, in addition to a date with Dexter Gordon, did some sides as a leader. It also, as I have mentioned before, marked the beginning of his association with Tadd Dameron. There is no doubt that with the astute Dameron as his mentor, Navarro really developed. "Singing on your horn" was something Tadd stressed. "Breath control was the most important thing if you had the other things," he once told me. "So many people forget that..."I would work with Fats, Freddie (Webster), Sarah Vaughan and Billy Eckstine, and tell them to think this way — sound the note, then bring it out, then let it slide back. Another thing so many musicians forget is what happens between the eighth and ninth bar. It's not a place to rest What you play there is terribly important It should be. It should make all the difference between the great musician and just someone else.

Tadd would tell Fats, "When you play a solo, you're going from your first eight bars into your second eight, that's where you really play—those turnbacks...Look, that's where you can tell whether a man can really blow — when he starts playing that eighth and ninth bar and then when he comes out of the middle into the last eight. Those turnbacks mean so much."

With Dameron, Fats' sound (a "big butter sound" trumpeter Joe Newman called it) and long-lined continuity of melodic invention blossomed as never before. Dameron intimated to me in later years that Fats' talent had intimidated some of his contemporaries. used to try and get other fellows to play with me," said Tadd, "and they'd say. 'Oh, is Fats in the band? Oh, no!' It got to the point where I had to pay him so much money that I told him he should go on his own. I said, 'Once you start making this kind of money, you need to be a leader yourself? But he didn't want to quit, He didn't have security because of his habits."

Dameron was referring to Fats' heroin addiction, a habit he acquired after coming to New York. It has been written that Benny Goodman, after using him on the fabulous recording of Stealin' Apples (with Wardell Gray) in 1948, wouldn't hire him for his big band bop experiment because Fats' health and musical abilities were declining. Lee Konitz who, like Fats, had rehearsed with the band but never appeared with it, echoed something Navarro said at the time when he related: "Benny wasn't too cool. In fact, he was outright corny to me."

If Fats' playing was in decline in 1949 it certainly doesn't show up on the recordings with Bud Powell. The abuses caught up to him in 1950. I saw him at Birdland — it might have been February but I'm not positive, certainly not before — and he was no longer fat. Rather he was drawn, his ill-fitting shirt collar and baggy, double-breasted suit underlining the drastic amount of weight he had lost. Coughing fits halted the old long, elastic lines and he obviously was a very sick man, It was tuberculosis and on July 7 he died in a hospital without reaching his 27th birthday. Shit, even Bix made it to 28. But Bix didn't live in the bebop era. Sonny Berman checked out at 22 in January 1947 but that didn't stop a lot of people from putting needles in their arms.

The music in these two LPs represents a period of almost two years in Navarro's short life: four sessions ranging from September 1947 to August 1949, Of interest to collectors is that the last time these selections were available on LP, there were 22 tracks in The Fabulous Fats Navarro, volumes 1&2 (Blue Note 1531 & 1532). This reissue contains 26 cuts, the extra ones being the original masters of Wail, Bouncing With Bud, Dance of the Infidels and 52nd Street Theme from the Bud Powell date.

First is the Tadd Dameron Sextet of September 1947. Basically it is the quintet from the Onyx Club with Charlie Rouse added on tenor. An extra horn doesn't make that much difference in some groups but Dameron wrote such wide voicings that the third instrument in the front line was an especially valuable tool in his hands, As a pianist, Tadd was a vigorous, percussive accompanist who did not care to feature himself in a soloist's role. But he sure knew how to put a band together and make it cohere on the stand. The rhythm section here is completed by bassist Nelson Boyd, who also worked with Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie; and Shadow Wilson, already celebrated as an excellent big band drummer with Count Basie, with Illinois Jacquet's big little band, and who later also made his mark with Woody Herman, Erroll Garner, Ella Fitzgerald and Thelonious Monk.

Another future Monk cohort, Charlie Rouse, having served a tour of duty with Dizzy Gillespie's big band of 1945, was already exhibiting some of the very idiosyncratic characteristics that have made him one of the most recognizable stylists to come out of the '40s but some of his early influences were showing, too.

Alto saxophonist Ernie Henry (later with Gillespie's big band and Monk's group, played in a personal version of Charlie Parker's idiom at a time when that particular thing was very difficult for an alto player to do.

Our Delight, a Dameron composition like all the selections on the first two sides, had been recorded by Gillespie's big band, and became a jazz standard in the '40s and '50s. The beautiful ensemble passage that is the out chorus, except for Tadd's chorded bridge, is typical of Dameron's ability to write a variation on his opening theme to really climax a performance, Rouse sounds like a cross between Dexter Gordon and Ben Webster in the original master and Fats is particularly brilliant.

The Squirrel, a jumping blues with call and response between piano and horns, supposedly came to Tadd while he was watching a bushy-tailed rodent in Central Park, It first showed up as a background in his arrangement of Cool Breeze for the Eckstine band, Rouse, in retrospect, occasionally parallels the Morris Lane of the Bebop Boys date that Fats made for Savoy. Henry cries a little like Sonny Criss, He could really play the blues, Fats begins both his solos with a quote from The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down, but the second one is more polished with some high register stuff ala Diz.

The Chase, also known then as Tadd's Chase to differentiate it from The Chase of Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon, contains an opening phrase like A Kid Named Joe, a quote that Bird made famous.

Dameronia is Tadd's version of Monk's Well You Needn't. There is a "new" ensemble passage in the last eight bars of the out chorus and a broadly-voiced Dameronian ending. Henry, sounding more Bird-like than usual, and Rouse split a chorus while Fats has a whole one to himself.

A year later it was the band from the Roost that went into the studio. Diverse players like trombonist Kai Winding and alto saxophonist Rudy Williams had filled the third horn spot but here it was Wardell Gray, who had come out of the West and recordings with Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker, to New York to star with the Benny Goodman Sextet First inspired by Lester Young he cross-pollinated his style with Charlie Parker like so many other players of the period, One of these was Allen Eager, a New Yorker who had gained invaluable experience on 52nd Street. Gray and Eager had similar ingredients in their respective styles but given the similarities there were also differences in tone and attack.

The drummer is bebop pioneer and percussion master Kenny Clarke, former house band leader at Minton's; ex-Gillespie band propellor; and later-to-be charter member of the Modern Jazz Quartet. The bassist is Curly Russell, participant in some of the most important Parker-Gillespie collaborations and a strong cog in the Bud Powell trio.

Lady Bird is one of Tadd's beauties. The chords later served as the base for Half-Nelson. Fats is the lead-off man and his solo on the original take is a perfect gem, followed by Allen's ethereal, floating swing and Wardell's slightly deeper sound and more assertive approach.

Jahbero is an exotic treatment of All the Things You Are with an authentic Latin beat from bongo player Chino Pozo, a cousin of Chano Pozo's, who had played with Machito, but was with the Jack Cole dancers at the time of this date. Wardell has the first solo; then Fats with a send-off from Pozo (dig Fats' bridge on the alternate); and finally Allen.

Symphonette was a nickname for disc jockey Symphony Sid's comely blonde wife, Lois. The solo order is the same as on Jahbero. Fats is remarkable throughout this date. If it had been done in the days of the LP, how everyone would have stretched out with the tenors no doubt engaging in a spirited "battle."

Although recorded for 78rpm there is a "battle" of the trumpets in the October 1948 date which brings the old Andy Kirk section-mates, Navarro and Howard McGhee, together. Russell and Clarke are again on hand, as is Ernie Henry, with Milt Jackson doubling piano and vibes. Milt had arrived in New York from Detroit with Dizzy Gillespie's group and, after playing with his big band, had worked with McGhee, Dameron and Monk, all as a vibist. Before joining the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1953, he again played with Dizzy, on piano as well as vibes. His piano style is deliberate and percussive, not unlike his vibes work but with some Monkish touches.

McGhee, after Kirk, had furthered his reputation with Coleman Hawkins, led his own group and starred with Jazz at the Philharmonic. Although capable of high-note technics, he stays more in the middle range in these performances, Maggie, like Jackson and Clarke, is one of the bebop survivors, not a small accomplishment.

Double Talk opens with a vamp figure that leads into a bright line and opening choruses by Fats and Howard in that order. Then each takes 16 bars, Jackson and Henry solo before the co-authors return for more 16s, 8s and 4s with Fats again the lead-off. They end with the vamp figure but no theme.

The alternate Double Talk has the same format except they use eight bars of theme before the vamp in the out chorus. The rapport between the trumpets is marvelous. Listen to the way Maggie answers Fats' screams in the second 8 of the last round of 4s.

The August 1949 date was first released under the name, Bud Powell and his Modernists. When Powell was at the top of his game, as he was here, he could be nothing short of miraculous and the equal of any improviser in jazz. More often he was heard in a trio context. so this quintet date is a rare treat with a mature Navarro and a budding Sonny Rollins as the front line. Tommy Potter, best known for his tenure With Charlie Parker in 1947-49, is the bassist and Roy Haynes. who had only played with Monk, Coltrane, Lester Young and Parker — he was between jobs with Pres and Bird at the time—is the drummer.

Monk's 52nd Street Theme was the sign-off theme on "the Street," and Bird used it from then on. There's good riffing behind Rollins and then Fats comes on swiftly, eating up the changes, the notes spitting out of his horn like guided missiles of joy. to be followed by the incomparable Bud.

A Middle Eastern fanfare precedes the theme of Powell's Dance of the Infidels with its augmented blues changes and rhythmic hesitations. Bud strides majestically across the keys in complete command; Fats' strength is delicate: and Sonny is funky. his unique sense of time in evidence even then.

Bud is again magnificent on the alternate: Fats again subdued, power in reserve; and Sonny inventively uses the theme to get off on.

Wail in those days meant to swing hard, to really cook. Bud's Wail does that right from the git-go, with Sonny digging in Fats sets himself up with a neat introductory phrase and then goes on to quote I Hear Music. Bud is at his blazing best. You can sense after his choruses that he is just getting warmed up. Haynes crisply dispatches the final bridge.

The alternate is even faster. Fats begins his solo with the same phrase but then goes off in another direction. The ensemble on the way out is sloppy but the solo by Powell is incredible.

Lover Come Back To Me serves as the basis for Bud's third composition of the date, Bouncing With Bud, presented here in three takes. You can follow even more closely the similarities and the differences as the piece develops.

Speaking of development, the four sessions within afford a clear picture of a young trumpeter's evolution to giant stature. Fats Navarro, heir of Gillespie, progenitor of Clifford Brown.

Who was Fats Navarro? Tadd Dameron said it this way: "He pretty quiet. soulful, sensitive He never found himself, really. He was always searching, I don't know what was looking for — he had it!"

IRA GITLER

Carl Woideck - The Complete Blue Note And Capitol Recordings Of Fats Navarro And Tadd Dameron

In the 1940s, the careers of trumpeter Fats Navarro and composer-arranger-pianist Tadd Dameron were tightly intertwined. Navarro was Dameron’s first-call trumpeter and probably the best interpreter of Dameron’s compositions. Navarro, a confirmed freelance artist, found his most frequent and sympathetic night club and recording exposure under Dameron’s leadership. This 2-CD set of Blue Note and Capitol recordings brings together a large proportion of each artist’s best work of the 1940s.

Tadley Ewing “Tadd” Dameron (1917-1965) is often credited with being the first mature composer-arranger of bebop. He learned his skills as a writer with swing-era big bands such as Blanche Calloway, Zach White, Harlan Leonard and Jimmie Lunceford. Pivotal in the development of Dameron into a modern jazz composer-arranger were his meetings with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (in Kansas City and New York City, respectively). Dameron moved decisively into his own style with compositions/arrangements such as “Cool Breeze” and “Our Delight” for the big bands of vocalist Billy Eckstine and Gillespie. Despite these and other big band arrangements, Dameron (who called himself “the most misplaced musician in the business”), viewed himself more as a composer than an arranger. In 1961, Dameron told Ira Gitler that he was “trying to build a bridge between popular music and the so-called modern music,” and his philosophy found his expression as early as 1948 with Sarah Vaughan’s recording of “If You Could See Me Now” (words by Carl Sigman), partially inspired by a phrase of Gillespie’s. Dameron’s recorded partnership with Navarro began in 1947, and the two waxed three combo dates that year for the Savoy label.

Dameron was a jazz romantic for whom beauty was essential. “There’s enough ugliness in the world,” he told Metronome magazine’s Barry Ulanov in 1947. “I’m interested in beauty.” Six years later, Ira Gitler heard Dameron coaching his group: “It has to swing, sure, but it has to be beautiful.” Significantly, a 1962 composition was titled “Dial B for Beauty.” To Ulanov, Tadd stressed his feeling that personal expression should take precedent over convention: “End your phrases where you feel they should end, don’t look for resolutions you don’t feel because the books call for them.”

The trumpet style of Theordore “Fats” Navarro (1923-1950) in many ways founded the mainstream of modern jazz trumpet playing from the late 1940s until well into the 1950s. His most prominent experience came with the big bands of Snookum Russell and Any Kirk (1043). It was in the Kirk band that Navarro became acquainted with the already veteran trumpeter Howard McGhee who Navarro later called “the influence.” McGhee was in the process of transcending his strong Roy Eldridge influence and moving into a moder trumpet style. Through Howard, Fats was introduced to the music of Dizzy Gillespie who was by then largely independent of his Eldridge roots and was already a force to be reckoned with for modern trumpeters. In 1945, Dizzy left the Billy Eckstine big band and recommended that Eckstine hear Navarro in the Andy Kirk band, Eckstine hired Navarro and was strongly impressed. “Fats played his [Gillespie’s] book and you would hardly know Diz had left the band.” Navarro began freelancing in New York in 1946, and was soon recording with leaders as diverse as Kenny Clarke, Coleman Hawkins and Illinois Jacquet. Fats’s first recording session as a leader came in January, 1947 for Savoy, significantly, he chose Tadd to play on the date, certainly more for his strengths as an organizer than his technique as a pianist.

If Dameron was a romantic, Navarro could be described as a jazz classicist who felt that balance and form were of utmost importance. In a 1947 Metronome magazine article, he told Barry Ulanov, “I’d like to just play a perfect melody of my own, all the chord progressions right, the melody original and fresh – my own.” This quest for perfection occasionally found Navarro returning to similar ideas in alternate takes of his recordings. In conversations recounted in Charles Mingus's highly-embellished memoir “Beneath the Underdog,” Navarro emerges as a sensitive soul with articulate observations about racism in the U.S.

For his first recording for Blue Note (September 26, 1947), Dameron chose a three-horn front line consisting of Navarro, alto saxophonist Ernie Henry and tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse. Joining Tadd in the rhythm section were Nelson Boyd on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums. “The Chase” is a Dameron composition (as are all but one of the first CD), and is in a 32-bar AABA form. Unusual for Tadd is the improvised B (or “bridge”) section, unlike Charlie Parker, Dameron most often wrote out every part of his compositions. Navarro plays with a cup mute on the head, them switches to open horn for his solo. Both the originally-issued and the alternate take find Navarro playing with fresh ideas, on the quicker master take he is particularly crisp and coherent. “The Squirrel” is a simple call-and-response blues which, according to Ira Gitler, came to Tadd while watching a squirrel in Central Park. Fats’s penchant for clever quotations is heard in his reference to “The Merry-Go Round Broke Down” in opening both takes. The AABA-formed “Our Delight” was originally composed and arranged for the Dizzy Gillespie big band. For this combo version, Tadd changed the key from the original Db to Ab and added an effective half-chorus “shout” section (with Navarro using cup mute) during the last chorus. Fats solos articulately on both takes. The chord progression and melody of the A sections of Tadd’s “Dameronia” strongly resemble those of Theonious Monk’s “Well You Needn’t” which Monk would record for Blue Note exactly four weeks later (the songs’ B section chord progressions are completely different, however). Perhaps both composers drew upon a melody and chord that were “in the air” much as Coleman Hawkins and Monk did with their similar pieces “Rifftide” and “Hackensack.” Navarro handles the song ‘s chord progression well on both takes and even plays some comparatively rare double-time during the bridge on the alternate.

Almost exactly a year later (September 13, 1948), Tadd Dameron recorded his second date with his star soloist Fats Navarro. Dameron had just begun an engagement at a newly-opened New York night club called the Royal Roost, and the Roost group formed the core of this recording ensemble. Dameron’s group (often with guest stars) broadcast every week from the club, and live recordings of this radio broadcasts made over a six-month period form the largest part of Tadd’s discography. In addition to Tadd and Fats, present from the Roost group were tenor saxophonist Allen Eager, bassist Curly Russell and pioneer modern jazz drummer Kenny Clarke. Tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray, although not part of the core group, played with them at the Roost on at least one occasion.

Added starter Chino Pozo (conga drum), a cousin of the more famous Chano Pozo, begins the exotic “Jahbero.” This sinuous melody is one of Dameron’s best, and yet never solidly found its way into the modern jazz repertoire. The song is based on “All The Things You Are,” but with creatively modified chords for the head (and a few for the solos.) Fats solos authoritatively, beginning each take with the same idea. He had clearly worked out some ideas that he liked on this chord progression, on the alternate take, his second 8 bars are nearly identical to his final 8 bars, only a lower fourth lower as the chords require. On that take, listen also for some great double-time phrases from Fats. Allen Eager solos later. Both shared Lester Young as a model with Wardell displaying more Charlie Parker influence. Although Eager and Gray do not solo back-to-back here, live recordings of the band display the two inspiring one another in friendly competition. “Lady Bird” is a short, 16-bar Dameron piece (reportedly written in 1939) with an original chord progression, as was Tadd’s norm. Fats’s solo on the master take is more deliberate and poised; on the alternate take, he lets loose with a few double-time phrases during his second chorus. On this track, Eager solos before Gray. “Symphonette” is another AABA piece with Wardell soloing before Allen. Fats shows a bit of his Dizzy Gillespie influence in the originally-issued take. With words and music by Damerson, “I Think I’ll Go Away” is an example of his attempt to weld bop harmonic and melodic practices with popular-song sentiment and accessibility. It was recorded at a time when parts of the jazz community were concerned that modern jazz was losing the audience that the swing-era music had built. Certainly the song is not as strong as “If You Could See Me Now” and the interpretation by singer Kenny Hagood is strained, but the effort was worthwhile. Hagood was an eager singer who was sympathetic to bebop musicians; in the 1940s he also recorded with Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. Navarro’s warm, cup-muted passages suggest that he would have been a great jazz ballad player, but ironically, Fats never soloed on an instrumental ballad performance in the studio.

In the late 1940s, the Capitol label made a concerted effort to record the new sounds coming from the jazz world. Among the first to be recorded at that time were two significant mid-sized bands whose instrumentations lay between a combo and a big band in size (interestingly, both of these groups were recorded live on broadcasts from the Royal Roost). The better-known group of the two was the justly-famous Miles Davis nonet/octet whose recordings for Capitol were later collected on the album “Birth of The Cool.” Reaching the studio three days earlier than the Davis band was Tadd Dameron’s octet/nonet which recorded two sessions for Capitol. For the first date, the group was augmented by two Afro-Cuban percussionists. Although not as innovative as the Davis sides, these underrated Dameron recordings document several new sounds in his musical palette.

The first Tadd Dameron session for Capitol (January 18, 1949) featured excellent writing for the octet by Tadd, the Royal Roost rhythm section and strong soloists in Fats Navarro and tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon. The melody of “Sid’s Delight” (later recorded by Miles Davis as “Tadd’s Delight”) is voiced as a tutti for all the wind instruments. With Fats’s crisp solo come the Afro-Cuban percussionists, but the Larin and jazz rhythm teams never fully succeed in finding a common polyrhythmic or swing groove. Much more successful from a percussion point of view is the exotic Latin composition “Casbah,” based on the chord changes of “Out of Nowhere,” first in the key of Db, then in the usual G. This is one of Tadd’s most haunting themes (Charlie Parker liked to quote it in live performances), but is seldom-recorded by others. Perhaps inspired by several recordings by Duke Ellington (“Transblucency” was recorded in 1946), Dameron features the soaring “instrumentalized voice” of Rae Pearl. Navarro leads a modulatory interlude, showing what a fine lead trumpeter he could be when called upon. He then solos briefly, straining a bit for a high note. Fats also ably leads the final ensemble.

That session was Fats’s last recording with Tadd. By that time, Navarro was a heroin addict, and Dameron later recounted how Navarro's addiction-driven requests for higher pay made him too expensive to employ. Tadd began using trumpeter Miles Davis, and it was Davis who was present when the group (now a nonet) made its second Capitol session (April 21, 1949). The ninth player was underrated electric guitarist John Collins; this basic group with Davis, Collins, et al, had worked at the Royal Roost in February, and was ready to record. Two of the pieces are settings for vocalist Kay Penton, who had recorded with Dameron for Savoy in 1947. Of particular interest is “Heaven’s Doors Are Open Wide,” with its words and music by Tadd. Certainly he was a better composer than a lyricist, but the song as a whole is so much better than most songs heard on “Your Hit Parade” that it makes one wish that Dameron could have gotten more often an interpreter on the level of Sarah Vaughan to put his songs over to the general public. The two instrumental tracks are notable in part because he chose to have guitarist John Collins doubling the lead on “Casbah,” instead of Rae Pearl. Kenny Clarke’s experience with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band is evident in his creative rhythmic support during the ensembles. “John’s Delight” is 32 bars in length and could be described as ABA/C in form. After J.J. Johnson’s trombone solo, the saxes play a solo which is not only beautiful from a melodic standpoint, but also sounds amazingly full with just three saxophones. The form of “Focus” is unusual for Dameron in that it is not based on proportions derived from Tin Pan Alley song forms. After the 8-bar introduction, the form could be described as A (12 bars) A’ (14 bars), followed by an 8-bar interlude, solos follow a conventional AABA form.

One unusual aspect of Fats Navarro’s career is the fact that he managed to record as co-soloist with nearly every important bebop-era trumpeter, a sign of how respected and sought-after he was. In 1946, Navarro recorded twice with a small group that also included trumpeter Kenny Dorham. In 1949, Fats, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie all soloed on a Metronome All-Stars date, an excellent opportunity for the listener to hear Gillespie, the source of modern trumpet style, and two of his disciples. But by far the most substantial recorded collaboration between Fats and another trumpeter was the “McGhee/Navarro Boptet” session for Blue Note (October 11, 1948). Since their days together in the Andy Kirk big band, both trumpeters had found their own styles. McGhee retained more traces of Roy Eldridge (especially in the broadness of his tone and more rapid vibrato in the lower register), but it was more independent of Dizzy Gillespie in style. Navarro was more influenced by Gillespie (and of course Charlie Parker) and had developed a more compact tone and a crisp articulation which were particularly agile in fast passages.

The group recorded three selections, two of conventional three-minute length and one of double length to fill both sides of a 78 r.p.m. record. Joining McGhee and Navarro were alto saxophonist Ernie Henry, pianist/vibraphonist Milt Jackson, and two musicians drawn from Tadd Dameron’s Royal Roost group, bassist Curly Russell and drummer Kenny Clarke. “The Skunk” (probably a reference to “The Squirrel”) is a 12-bar riff blues in Db by McGhee and Navarro. Fats solos before Milt Jackson’s piano solo, and McGhee solos after. It would be difficult to say whether the LP master (track one on this CD) or the 78 master (track four) is superior; the trumpeters are quite consistent, and both takes have fine moments. In between the two versions of “The Skunk” are two takes of Fats Navarro's ABCA-formed composition “Boperation.” Fats had written some tricky double-time passages which the trumpeters execute more tightly on the alternate take. However, more inventive solos on the master take may have given that version the nod for the release. Milt Jackson is heard piano at the beginning and end. Howard McGhee took over the piano bench in time for Jackson’s vibes solo.

Among the soloists, Navarro and McGhee split the first 16 bars in that order (almost seamlessly on the master take, more clearly on the alternate; the original LP and previous CD liner notes incorrectly listed Fats as taking all 16).

Later, Navarro, Henry and McGhee trade fours in that order.

These exchanges were just a warm-up for the trumpet fireworks heard on McGhee and Navarro’s double-length “Double Talk.” To lead off, Navarro and McGhee in that order take one chorus each of the 32-bar AABA form, followed by 16 bars each in the same order. Later, they return in the same order for one chorus of 16-bar trades, a chorus of 8-bar trades and a chorus of 4-bar trades. These exchanges are the high point of the McGhee-Navarro collaboration. Their styles are similar enoiugh to foster competition and different enough to lend variety. With Navarro in the lead slot, McGhee has his hands full responding to and trying to top his former protégé. In comparing the two versions, the trumpeters are a little more tasty and cagey in the master take, and a bit more aggressive and showy in the quicker take. Luckily, we have both versions to savor this friendly battle.

The recording session by “Bud Powell’s Modernists” (August 8, 1949) is one of Powell’s best dates and is also unusual in his early discography in that Bud added two horns to his usual trio on four of the pieces recorded that day (all four of which are included here.) Certain aspects of Powell’s quintet predict the conventions of the “hard-bop” style of the mid- to late-1950s. For example, tenor-trumpet front lines like Powell’s became much more common in the 1950s than previously, and, more specifically, the timbre and attack of Fats Navarro’s trumpet and Sonny Rollins’s tenor sax anticipate the incisiveness that led people to call bop “hard”. Like hard bop composers such as Horace Silver, Benny Golson and Clifford Brown, Bud Powell put a lot of care into his three compositions, writing out each section, including introductions. In fact, the overall sound of this group greatly resembles that of one of the most famous hard-bop groups, the Clifford Brown-Max Roach quintet of 1956. Fats Navarro of course played in the Powell group, and a trumpeter who had been strongly influenced by him, Clifford Brows, was in Brown-Roach. Significantly, Sonny Rollins lent his gritty timbre and characteristic attack to both ensembles. Ironically, Bud Powell’s brother Richie (who did not have a style like Bud’s) was the pianist in the Brown-Roach quintet. “Bouncing with Bud” is a straightforward 32-bar AABA Powell composition, Rollins and Navarro split a chorus. Sonny does his most consistent work on the master take; Fats begins each take with a quote of “Lover, Come Back To Me.” A fleet Powell introduction leads to Bud’s ABCA’. “Wail” with a chord progression similar to “I Got Rhythm.” Navarro plays well on the alternate take, but everything comes together for Fats on the slightly slower master take, and he comes close to creating the “perfect melody” of his own that he was striving for. Listen for his quotation of “I Hear Music.” A trumpet-tenor introduction based on a whole-tone scale leads to “Dance Of The Infidels,” a Powell blues whose melody is basically 12+2 bars in form, with solos using the usual 12-bar form. Navarro’s solo on the master take is more poised and focused. “52nd Street Theme” is an original composition by Powell’s mentor, Thelonious Monk. Sonny, Fats and Bud all solo strongly, aided greatly by a grove laid down by Tommy Potter and the amazing Roy Haynes.

This CD collection ends with a unique Fats Navarro item from the Capitol label. In the mid-1940s, swing-era Benny Goodman had been critical of modern jazz, but in the late 1940s, he changed course and briefly flirted with the new sounds. Certainly there was a lot to bebop that Goodman could relate to. For example, many bop compositions were based on the sam underlying chord progression that he regularly played. In addition, Goodman had stressed a high technical standard on his instrument, and so did the boppers. It was at this time, them, that Goodman began making some recordings arranged by writers sympathetic to modern jazz and with a few bop-oriented soloists. One of the modern players that Goodman enjoyed was Wardell Gray (heard on the 1948 Dameron-Navarro session on this CD), probably because of Wardell’s roots in Lester Young. Goodman said, “If Wardell Gray plays bop, it is great. Because he’s wonderful.” Gray cam be heard on a variety of Goodman studio and live recordings, but this Goodman septet performance of “Stealin’ Apples” (September 9, 1948) is the only studio cut with Fats Navarro. Fats Waller’s composition was familiar territory for Benny, and although the arrangement has plenty of modern jazz mannerisms, Goodman is free to solo in his style. After Wardell’s inventive and swinging solo, a cup-muted Navarro solos to some good effect.

After his last dates with Tadd Dameron, Fats Navarro had to look elsewhere for employment. He freelanced in New York, played at least one Jazz At The Philharmonic concert and made the fine studio recordings with Bud Powell heard on this CD. Live recording of a memorable engagement with Charlie Parker show the two horn players bringing out the best in one another. In general however, Fats got less public exposure in 1949. Navarro had been suffering from tuberculosis since at least 1948, and his heroin addiction further undermined both his health and his career. Fats Navarro died of tuberculosis complicated by addiction on July 9, 1950. A 1951 Ebony article pictured the formerly heavy Navarro performing in his last months and noted that he was down to around 100 pounds. Late in his career, Fats Navarro played with Clifford Brown in Philadelphia and reportedly encouraged the young trumpet player. Brown developed the Navarro message and in turn influenced modern jazz trumpeters including Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw. Through these and other players, the spirit of Fats Navarro lives on.

Tadd Dameron’s career lasted much longer. After recording his last session for Blue Note, Tadd Dameron, along with Miles Davis and Kenny Clarke, traveled to Paris for the May 1949 Festival International de Jazz. Tadd lived in England for two years, writing music for various bands and then returned to the U.S. in 1951, after Fats Navarro’s death. The 1950s were a mixed bag for Dameron, considering his stature, employment opportunities as wither a composer-arranger or bandleader were minimal. One of the few jobs that used a wide range of Dameron’s talents was a summer engagement in Atlantic City in 1953 for which, according to Ira Gitler, Tadd wrote not only the band’s music, but also the words and music for the entire stage show. For the band, Tadd hired Fats protégé, trumpeter Clifford Brown, who carried on the Navarro tradition with a combination of fluent technique, incisive tone quality, blazing drive and lyricism. Dameron expanded his compositional scope with his 1956 piece, “Fontainebleu,” a three part programmatic work based on his impressions of the famous French palace.

Not heeding the lesson of Navarro, Dameron became involved with narcotics during the 1950s, and was arrested and sentenced in 1958. While in prison, Dameron accepted an offer to arrange some pieces for a Riverside label LP by trumpeter Blue Mitchell. On these, Dameron wrote for a string section and a brass ensemble (including French horn, a new sound for Tadd.) Upon his release, he arranged for Milt Jackson and Sonny Stitt LPs. Most important was Dameron’s own 1962 Riverside album, “The Magic Touch.” That LP was the first under his own name since 1956, and would unfortunately be his last. Sadly, Dameron has developed cancer, and he died on March 8, 1955. Interest in his work continued and in the 1980s, a group called Dameronia dedicated itself to playing Tadd’s music. To this day, jazz musicians regularly play many of his compositions, including “Lady Bird,” “Our Delight,” “Good Bait” and “On A Misty Night” and keep the Dameron legacy strong.

-Carl Woideck