Hottest jazz ever recorded?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Shirley go gal [not the welsh one]

[Rcartes]

I think that the choice of Sidney Bechet as the hot jazz musician par excellence is an interesting idea. I'm not sure how you could actually grade his many recordings by degree of "hotness" albeit a track like "Spreading joy" could make an excellent benchmark to measure a musician's ability to swing. I've always been taken by the recording he made of "Black stick" which was issued under composer Noble Sissle's name. It was a source of disappointment that nothing else recorded by Sissle seemed to be similar and when I investigated him further you find that his heyday was in the teens of the century.

I would have thought there would have been some more suggestions and I'm a bit staggered at the lack of suggestion for Louis or even someone like Henry "Red " Allen whose approach always seemed to be positively steaming. Track like "Ride, Red, Ride" always notch up the temperature. One of my absolute favourite bands from the 1920's is McKinney's Cotton pickers and for pure heat a number like "Rocky Road" has a blazing shout chorus. You could choose a good number of their recordings as excellent examples of "hot music" and yet it is curious to learn that the inspired John Lewis, surely one of the coolest musicians in jazz, to follow a musical path.

To my ears, the notion of "hot" is epitomised by the likes of Luis Russell, MKCP, Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, MBRB or Bennie Moten. It is almost as if jazz was truly "hottest" before about 1938 even if the "hot" approach has always continued. The most "primitive" jazz I have in my collection is Freddie Keppard and some of the stuff he produced is considerably less sophisticated than either Armstrong or Morton. However, listening to the tracks with the likes of Carroll Dickenson or Erskine Tate, you cannot help but noticing that it is the "hot" element in this music which really separates it from everything else that came before.

If I had to fall on the side of either "hot" or "cool" I would have to choose "hot." For me, some of the most tedious jazz recorded would have to have been the "cool" jazz musicians on the 1950's. It's a harder task to pull off playing "cool" music as the actual structure of the music needs to be interesting to counter the lack of timbre and excitement. It can work both ways, of course. Some of the tenor chase stuff of the late forties or Lionel Hampton's rent-a-jam session work quickly palls yet some of the most players I have found to be the most insipid have all be cool players. I would throw the likes of Paul Desmond, Oscar Peterson, Stan Getz, Chet Baker , etc, in this mix. At worse, it seems like the kind of music you used to get when they had the test card on TV. The best "cool" players are maestros of investion whether you are talking about Lenny Tristano, Lee Konitz, early Miles, Paul Bley or someone like Palle Mikkelborg. Take an instrument like the guitar and I would suggest that the only "cool" musician of merit would be the great Jim Hall. Listen to the stuff from the 1950's and the cool, single line approach of the likes of Raney or Farlow seems pretty tedious. Thank goodness Jimi Hendrix rescued the electric guitar from aural tedium.

I agree that the best of hot jazz was from before the mid-thirties and a bit surprised myself that Louis or Red Allen haven't come up (though I did originally nominate Billy Banks' I would do anything, which had Red Allen on trumpet), so how about Dallas Blues with some passionate Louis (one of my all-time favourite sides) or Red Allen's The River's Takin' Care of Me (the last 8 bars are wonderful!) and Jamaica Shout (the way that Hawk and Allen play the breaks at the end is fascinating: Hawk very stodgy, tentative even, Red wild and flirting gloriously with danger).

Where I differ from Ian, though, is in dismissing much cool jazz, particularly from the 1950s. Chet Baker (hugely overrated, especially when he "sings") and Oscar Peterson I never warmed (oops!) to, but Stan Getz! He's surely not hot, but the supreme elegance of his playing puts him up there with the best. And although I always used to dismiss at the time the (mainly) white "cool" players as uninteresting, I've come round to enjoying much of their work: Bill Perkins, Ritchie Kamuca, Sal Nistico etc are fine players and shouldn't be dismissed as cool and uninteresting.

And, since he was their (musical) godfather, would you dismiss Lester Young also? For me, he's one of the most significant figures in the whole of jazz, and I'd rate him alongside Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker as jazz's most important influences.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

music to my eyes that post Rcartes, no doubt about it!

Stan was nicknamed The Steamer ... this comes to the boil nicely!

[Ian Thumwood]

Here is the recording of "Rocky Road" that I mentioned. It's curious that Don Redman's almost spoken non-singing offers a coolness as opposed to the Armstrong inspired singing of the band's other vocalist, George Thomas. What I love about this track is the screaming aggression of the trumpets in the closing choruses. The first time I heard this I was amazed.