B-6503

Moody/Wallington - The Beginning And End Of Bop

Released - 1969

Recording and Session Information

Apex Studios, NYC, October 19, 1948
Dave Burns, Elmon Wright, trumpet; Ernie Henry, alto sax; James Moody, tenor sax; Cecil Payne, baritone sax; Hen Gates, piano; Nelson Boyd, bass; Teddy Stewart, drums; "Gil" Fuller, arranger.

BN340-4 The Fuller Bop Man
BN342-2 Oh Henry!
BN343-2 Mooda-Morphosis

Apex Studios, NYC, October 25, 1948
Dave Burns, Elmon Wright, trumpet; Ernie Henry, alto sax; James Moody, tenor sax; Cecil Payne, baritone sax; Hen Gates, piano; Nelson Boyd, bass; Art Blakey, drums; Chano Pozo, vocals, bongos; "Gil" Fuller, arranger.

BN344-0 Tropicana
BN345-1 Cu-Ba
BN346-0 Moody's All Frantic

Audio-Video Studios, NYC, May 12, 1954
Dave Burns, trumpet; Jimmy Cleveland, trombone; Frank Foster, tenor sax; Danny Bank, baritone sax, flute; George Wallington, piano; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums; Quincy Jones, arranger.

BN573-2 tk.8 Festival
BN575-0 tk.13 Frankie And Johnnie
BN576-1 tk.16 Baby Grand
BN577-0 tk.19 Bumpkins

See Also: James Moody BLP 5006, George Wallington BLP 5045

Track Listing

Side One
Artist	Title	Recording Date
James Moody And His Modernists	Oh Henry	October 19 1948
James Moody And His Modernists	Tropicana	October 25 1948
James Moody And His Modernists	The Fuller Bop Man	October 19 1948
James Moody And His Modernists	Cu-Ba	October 25 1948
James Moody And His Modernists	Moodamorphosis	October 19 1948
James Moody And His Modernists	Moody's All Frantic	October 25 1948
Side Two
George Wallington And His Band	Festival	May 12 1954
George Wallington And His Band	Bumpkins	May 12 1954
George Wallington And His Band	Frankie And Johnnie	May 12 1954
George Wallington And His Band	Baby Grand	May 12 1954

Liner Notes

During the course of a 1938 magazine interview, Duke Ellington was quoted as saying that what jazz needed to rejuvenate itself was something new. The world had to wait almost ten years before that desired revitalization had taken place, but take place it did. It took the form of a new ordering of melody, harmony and rhythm (an interconnected reshuffling of these three elements, one must add) that drastically altered the modes by which musicians had apprehended and handled musical construction in jazz to that time. The new music was spearheaded by a number of original minds (altoist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianists Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell and drummer Kenny Clarke were among them), and had been anticipated or suggested in the work of such earlier, germinal figures as tenor saxophonist Lester Young and guitarist Charlie Christian.

The new music was bop, and its arrival as a mature, fully developed formal style is probably signaled in the magnificent series of quintet recordings Parker initiated for the small Dial label beginning in 1945. Though its birth pangs extended back over the preceding two or three years at least, the new music was scantily documented on record during that period. This was due to a musicians union ban on recording that prevented posterity's hearing, to cite but one example of many, any samples of the work of Parker and Gillespie while both were members of pianist Earl Hines' bop-rich orchestra during 1943-44, crucial years in the development of the new music. Once the ban was lifted, however, a number of recording sessions were held in which various aspects of the new idiom were displayed, though not always in the most congenial surroundings. Parker, for example, recorded as sideman on several mid-'40's recordings under the leadership of Tiny Grimes, Red Norvo, Slim Gailiard, Sir Charles Thompson and others, while Gillespie appeared in a somewhat more sympathetic unit led by veteran tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. Hawkins generally has been cited as making the first bop recordings — six sides for the new Apollo label recorded February 16 and 22, 1944.

Like any radically new artistic approach, bop inevitably met with a great deal of resistance and misunderstanding in its early years. A critical public, and musician and music-industry indifference to the new music gradually gave way to recognition and support, however, and by 1947 or so there was a great deal of interest in bop and its leading figures. Much of this interest, it is true, was of a superficial nature and was centered on the more outrageous, flamboyant habits, dress and vocabulary the bopsters had affected to draw attention to themselves and their music. And while a good deal of spurious musical activity was foisted on an uncritical public as bop, the real thing not only was coming to maturity and profoundly altering the face of jazz, but was producing a series of masterpieces as well.

Chief among these were the numerous small group recordings in which Parker distilled the essence of his art, and the various recordings, both combo and orchestral, under Gillespie's brilliant leadership. It was with the large unit that the trumpeter achieved his greatest success and popular acceptance. Beginning in 1946, Gillespie's national tours with his lust-formed big band, his recordings on the Musicraft and Victor labels, and the vast amounts of publicity he and bop were receiving combined to make bop a household word and a prominent musician. A master showman, Gillespie skillfully brought to bear all the skills of presentation and stage business he could muster to beguile audiences, but his musical achievements were even more impressive. As recordings attest, Dizzy's orchestra was first-rate, He drew upon the finest composers and orchestrators to craft for it arrangements that would utilize the most advanced ideas of bop and which would serve as effective frameworks for his own musical talents and those of his bandsmen.

Two men involved in the 1947 Gillespie band joined forces the following year in the production of a provocative series of recordings for the independent jazz label, Blue Note. Six of those eight recordings are contained on the first side of this interesting LP.

For his first recording session as a leader, tenor saxophonist James Moody, a member of Gillespie's reed section, assembled a group of men who were, like himself, members of the first wave of musicians to whom the vocabulary of bop was a natural mode of expression. They were the first generation of post-Parker jazzmen. Comprising the octet, originally called "James Moody & His Bop Men," were trumpeters Dave Burns and Elmon Wright, alto saxophonist Ernie Henry, Moody on tenor, baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne, pianist James Foreman (also known as "Hen Gates"), bassist Nelson Boyd, and drummer Teddy Stewart. The group participated in two recording sessions during the summer of 1948. On the second of these, drummer Art Blakey replaced Stewart and Afro-Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo was added on bongo drums. Recorded at this second date were "Tropicana," "Cu-ba" and "Moody's Ali Frantic," as well as "Tin Tin Deo," not included here.

The band's music is quite exciting and holds up remarkably well today, for which two factors are mainly responsible. First, the band members themselves spoke the language of bop with fluency and ease and brought a good deal of convincing excitement to their performances of the material. Second, the octet's material was solid and viable. This is why these performances hold interest beyond any importance they may possess as historical documents of a significant phase in jazz development.

Responsible for the material was the formidable young arranger, Walter "Gil" Fuller. Born in Los Angeles April 14, 1920, and raised there and in Newark, N.J., Fuller was drawn to music early. While still a teenager, he was writing orchestrations for the orchestras of Nina Mae McKinney, Floyd Ray, and Tiny Bradshaw, among others. Returning to California, he was associated with the orchestra of Les Hite from 1940 through 1942, at which time he entered the Army. During the war years he was increasingly absorbed with studies of the emerging bop idiom and, on his demobilization, became one of the first and most successful arrangers to work in the new music. He was associated with the large bop-influenced orchestra singer Billy Eckstine had formed in June, 1944. Fuller wrote a number of arrangements for Eckstine's orchestra — arrangements that consolidated and extended his grasp of bop's melodic, harmonic and rhythmic resources.

Fuller came into his own as a mature, original writer in the modern orchestral style with his association with the Gillespie orchestra, which he helped to assemble and rehearse and of which he was chief musical director. He was responsible for a good number of the band's most distinguished orchestrations, among them such classics of the bop idiom as "One Bass Hit", "Ray's Idea," "Manteca," "That's Earl Brother," "Swedish Suite" and the magnificent "Things To Come."

When Moody was asked to set up a recording session for Blue Note, Fuller was the obvious choice as arranger. The charts he fashioned for the octet made skillful use of the tonal possibilities implicit in the two trumpet, three reed-rhythm section format of the group, which was between small and large in size. Fuller was able to exploit to the fullest the advantages of such a lineup. His arrangements knowledge- ably tread a middle ground between the freedom and looseness of the small group and the power and massed sound of the larger band. Though the group's execution is occasionally ragged, its handling of the charts is exciting and vigorous and more than makes up in brashness, enthusiasm and exuberance what it might lack in polish. Typically, most of the band the tenor saxophonist assembled for the recording sessions were recruited from the ranks of the Gillespie band: trumpeters Burns and Wright, saxophonists Henry and Payne, pianist Forman and bassist Boyd were fellow bandmates of Moody's at the time.

Moody was born in Savannah, Georgia, February 26, 1925, and his stint with the Gillespie orchestra, which he had joined in 1947 following three years of Army service, was his first musical experience with a major jazz unit. Moody, however, was well on the way to the development of a strong, mature, cohesive style solidly based in the vocabulary and inflections of bop, as his recorded work so clearly demonstrates. Not only did he have the "chops" — that is, the requisite facility to execute ideas fluently at top speed — but he also showed a growing mastery of musical construction and invention.

For all its occasional raggedness and unevenness of solo work, the music of the Moody bop octet is quite interesting for a number of reasons. Most notable are Fuller's orchestrations and the ways in which they exploited the resources of bop. "Oh Henry," for example, is on surface a rather conventionally-styled piece. The saxophones state a simple harmonized line built on the 12-bar blues structure; but notice, however, the witty and sophisticated use of rhythmic displacements in the line, knowingly implying a much more subtle underlying rhythmic scheme than would at first appear to be the case. Then, there's the very fresh approach to the responsorial role played by the trumpets in the second chorus and, too, the striking trumpet-led figures that signal the close of altoist Henry's two choruses and lead into a brief trumpet solo before returning to the theme and out. A very concise and imaginative piece of writing.

Following the serpentine unison line that introduces "The Fuller Bop Man" (and which might stand as a very definition of the idiom's characteristic approach to melody), Fuller has crafted a most intriguing contrapuntal thematic treatment, again on the blues. Then, there are the several forays into Latinate rhythms, "Tropicana" and "Cu-ba," which continue a line of development that Fuller had earlier signaled in his work with Gillespie. The arranger had come into close contact with several of the leading Afro-Cuban musicians in the mid-'40's and he had arranged for both Machito and Tito Puente, two of the leading purveyors of Latin polyrhythms, Fuller found their exciting approach to rhythm very striking and he began experimenting with a fusion of jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms for Gillespie, who shared his enthusiasm for Latin rhythms. Chano Pozo, who had been featured with the Gillespie band, was added to the Moody octet for these several forays into rhythmic cross-fertilization, and they are among the group's most exciting efforts.

Something of the extent to which bop transformed America's music is indicated in a comparison of the music of the Moody bop octet and that of George Wallington And His Band, heard on this album's second side. If the music of Moody and his bopsters is successful in indicating something of the excitement and creative ferment that marked bop's early years, the music of the recording sextet led by the stimulating pianist Wallington some six years later reveals how profoundly bop had affected the course of modern jazz. The music of the Moody octet strikes the ear even today as harsh and angular, while that of the Wallington group impresses with its urbanity, sophistication, polish and utter, flowing ease. It's as smooth as butter, and apparently as natural a mode of expression to the participants as the English language. Bop had won its battle, and the revolution was complete.

The leader of this tasty, imaginative small band is one of the important innovators in modern music. Born Giorgio Figlia in Palermo, Italy, October 27, 1924, the son of an opera singer, George Wallington was brought to the United States the following year. He studied music privately for a number of years and was a full-fledged professional at the age of 15, when he worked with a number of local bands in the New York City area, Early drawn to the innovations of the bop masters, Wallington quickly became a member of the music's inner circles and was pianist in the first regularly constituted bop combo, a quintet Dizzy Gillespie organized for a 1944 engagement at the Onyx Club, on New York's 52nd Street, Wallington speedily developed as one of the most fluent, inventive bop pianists in the mid-'40's and was active in a large number of important small groups of the period. He contributed a good number of compositions to bop's growing literature, including "Godchild," "Lemon Drop," and the compositions heard here. The sessions were held in New York in the summer of 1954 and resulted in five important performances in mature bop style. All but "Christina" are included here. (Incidentally, "Festival" here was originally titled "Summertime Festival," perhaps in acknowledgment of the recording season.)

Though an extraordinarily gifted composer, Wallington did not orchestrate and always employed others to score his music, On this set of recordings, this was done by the young Quincy Jones, then free-lancing on the New York scene after having left the trumpet section of the Lionel Hampton band after a two-year stay, His charts are full-bodied, harmonically arresting, and enhance Wallington's lines perfectly, The musicians comprising the Wallington sextet constitute some of the freshest and most accomplished young post-bop men, as well as several bop veterans, on the New York scene of the mid-'50s. Tenor saxophonist Frank Foster had just instituted an association with the Count: Basie orchestra that was to be as fruitful as it was long-lived. The facile and inventive trombonist Jimmy Cleveland had left the Hampton band to try his hand in the New York recording studios, where his prodigious technical and interpretative gifts have stood him in good stead since. The underappreciated Dave Burns had been a member of Gillespie's epochal big band of the late '40's and was also featured in James Moody's bop octet. Oscar Pettiford, one of the giants of modern bass, had co-led the first working bop unit with Gillespie in 1944. He had been a featured member of the Charlie Barnet Orchestra and was one of the most in-demand performing and recording musicians all through the '40's and '50's, working with a wide variety of leaders. Kenny Clarke was of course the founding father of modern drumming, a key figure in the shaping of the rhythmic basis of bop. He was a participant in most of its major activities and a charter member of the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1952.

Pete Welding
January, 1969

Discographical Data:

Oh Henry
Dave Burns, Elmon Wright, trp.; Ernie Henry, alto; James Moody, tens; Cecil Payne, bar.; James s "Hen Gates" Forman, pno.; Nelson Boyd, bs.; Teddy Stewart, dms. — recorded Summer 1948, N.Y.C. (mx. BN 342-2; orig. issue Blue Note 555, BLP 5006)

Tropicana
same personnel as above except Art Blakey replaces Stewart; add Chano Pozo, bongos. (mx. BN 344; orig. issue Blue Note 553, BLP 5006) recorded December 1948, N.Y.C.

The Fuller Bop Man
same date and personnel as Oh Henry (mx. BN 340-4; orig. issue Blue Note 553, BLP 5006)

Cu-Ba
same date and personnel as Tropicana (mx. 345-7; orig. issue Blue Note 554, BLP 5006)

Moodamorphosis
same date and personnel as Oh Henry (mx. BN 343-2; orig. issue Blue Note 554, BLP 5006)

Moody's All Frantic
same date and personnel as Tropicana (mx. BN 346; orig. issue Blue Note 556, BLP 5006)

Festival
Dave Burns, trp.; Jimmy Cleveland, trb.; Frank Foster, ten.; George Wallington, pno.; Oscar Pettiford, bs.; Kenny Clarke, dms.—recorded Summer 1954, N.Y.C. (mx. 9; orig. issue Blue Note BLP 5045)

Bumpkins
same date, personnel, orig. issue as Festival (mx. 19)

Frankie And Johnnie
same date, personnel, orig. issue as Festival (mx. 14).

Baby Grand
same date, personnel, orig. issue as Festival (mx. 18)