Seattle Jazz History Hiding in Used Grooves

My back ached. My fingers were covered with dust. I had to pee. 15,000 used records to search and I was only up to the H’s. Then the familiar chimes of Red Garland’s piano introduction to “If I Were a Bell” rang through the record store. Miles Davis’ gravelly muted trumpet crooned the melody, “Ask me, ‘How do I feel?’ Ask me now that we’re cozy and clinging…” My woes disappeared. I whistled along contentedly to the solos on the 1956 record Relaxing with the Miles Davis Quintet.

That’s one of the cool things about used record store shopping – the salesperson wove me into his improvised real-time commercial-free playlist. Goodbye earbuds. “The looking and hanging out at a record store is a thrill,” confesses one character in Vinyl, a documentary film about record collecting.

I wouldn’t go as far as “thrill,” but the hunt for interesting recordings is a personal habit that goes back to my first discretionary income. As a young Missouri teen the early 1970’s I would spend my meager allowance on Top 40 singles at Kmart. During college I would comb the racks at Illinois record stores weekly looking for Blue Note, Prestige, and Impulse jazz albums. Pilgrimages to Chicago’s Jazz Record Mart drained my bank account. My collection moved with me in the mid 1980’s to New York City where compact discs from Tower Records and J&R Music became the source of growth.

Thirty boxes of records and CDs followed me to Seattle in 1993. My first stop was Bud’s Jazz Records in a Pioneer Square basement. Hearing I was new in town, Bud Young played me local saxophonist Don Lanphere’s 1949 recording with New York bebop pianist Al Haig. Then he proudly pointed me toward the section of the store dedicated to new recordings by local artists. Scanning the CD spines I began to familiarize myself with the names of Seattle players.

On a recent tour of Seattle used record stores, I can still find those names and more. I found the most in West Seattle at Easy Street Records. The rarest was a 1960 Max Roach record Parisian Sketches with the Turrentine brothers and Seattle trombonist Julian Priester. This vinyl included an original composition by Priester called “Petit Dejeuner.” A block south at Rubato Records I came across percussionist Tom Collier’s Mallet Jazz.

The second largest cache of Seattle recordings was at Everyday Music on Capitol Hill. I found a 1994 recording Lopin’ of saxophonists Don Lanphere, Bud Shank, and Denny Goodhew with the New Stories rhythm section of Marc Seales, Doug Miller, and John Bishop. At nearby Wall of Sound I spotted a 1981 solo piano vinyl recording Guides & Spirits by Murl Allen Sanders.

The third biggest stash was at Silver Platters in Queen Anne. That’s where I found Don Lanphere’s 1983 vinyl Out of Nowhere signed by Lanphere and trumpeter Jon Pugh. At nearby Easy Street was pianist Dawn Clement’s 2008 CD Break.

The mellowest vibe was at M&L Records north of the University District. I found trumpeters Fred Radke and Mike Vax on vinyl from 1982 called First Reunion with a rhythm section of Barney McClure, Dan Dean, and Tom Collier. At nearby Neptune Music I didn’t find much but the basement location reminded me of Bud’s Records.

Searching through record albums is one way to learn about jazz history. The packaging yields information in liner notes, recording dates, personnel, and repertoire. The grooves contain voices of artists and their conversations. Each song is a meeting room – a gathering place for stories and emotions. Listening to recordings transports a former now into the current now. We feel resonance with the assiduous song of humanity. Pioneering New Orleans saxophonist Sidney Bechet said, “I got a feeling inside me, a kind of memory that wants to sing itself… I can give you that. I can send it out to where it can be taken, maybe, if you want it. I can try to give it to you.”

Giving songs defies profitable business models. When bassist and record company owner Gene Perla was asked for advice on starting a label he said, “Rob a bank and leave the country.” Bechet said, “My answer—all I can say of it—it’s just to be giving, giving all your life, finding the music and giving it away.”

That generous creative urge can be seen today in the large number of self-produced releases. Seattle’s Origin Arts label won JazzWeek’s Record Label of the Year in 2009 with over 250 albums from 12 years of operation. These CDs are typically financed by the recording artist.

Meanwhile, stores are closing. Tower Records closed in 2006. Bud’s closed in 2008. J and S Phonograph Needles on NE 45th closed last year. Borders Books filed for bankruptcy this year. Music collections soon will evaporate into the Amazon Cloud.

One collector mused in the book Vinyl Junkies, “I don’t believe in the idea of ownership—hey, we’re all gonna die someday so you don’t own that record, you just get to use it for awhile. There is no joy in ownership, the joy comes when you play the record. The hair stands up on the back of your neck and that’s it, that’s what you’re living for.”

The last stop for my hairy neck was Ballard to mine the quarry at two stores on either side of Market Street. In the doorway of Sonic Boom hangs an enlarged copy of the Blue Note album by Lee Morgan of the same name. There I unearthed I Dig Dancers by Quincy Jones. In the band from 1960 were trumpeter Floyd Standifer and bassist George “Buddy” Catlett. Across the street at Bop Street Records there was a good four inches of shelf space for vinyl from singer Ernestine Anderson.

But I headed for the door empty handed. The salesperson spun the Rolling Stones “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” That’s for sure. “But if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.” I’ll be back.

Class Topics

Here are some ideas for our class:

• Jazz Genres
• Groove
• Classic and Best Selling Recordings
• Earshot Jazz Festival
• Emotions/Feelings
• Miles' Styles
• Singular Saxophone Sounds
• Drummers
• Musical Virtuosity
• Concerto de Aranjuez
• Social Commentary
• Live vs. Analog vs. Digital vs. Compressed

Review of The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl

Here is a review of the art exhibit we toured at the Henry. It was written by PSCS board member and Stranger art critic Jen Graves: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/time-stuff-and-love/Content?oid=14272228

Clave in Latin Jazz

Here's a good post about "clave" which means "key" in Spanish. http://www.kplu.org/post/clave-key-latin-jazz.

Local Jazz Radio

KPLU plays jazz M-F midnight-4am, 9am-3pm, 7:30pm-midnight, Sat midnight-5am, 3pm-6pm, Sun midnight-5am, 9am-6pm. I highly recommend these Sunday shows: 1pm Jim Wilke w/ Jazz Northwest, 2pm Marian McPartland w/ Piano Jazz, and 3pm Ken Wiley w/ Art of Jazz.

KBCS M-F 9am-noon, M 9pm-3am

Click on the call letters above to listen online.

Jazz Genres

Genre	Characteristics	Era	Artists
Acid blues
Acid jazz	Combined elements of soul music, funk, disco, including looping beats and modal harmony	1980s–90s	A Tribe Called Quest, Brand New Heavies, Brooklyn Funk Essentials. Digable Planets, Incognito, Us3
Asian American jazz			Hiroshima, Fred Ho, Vijay Iyer
Avant-garde jazz			AACM, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor
Bebop			Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker
Bossa nova	Brazilian Genre influential in Cool Jazz/West Coast Jazz	1960s+	Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim
British dance band			Ray Noble
Cape jazz			Abdullah Ibrahim
Chamber jazz			Modern Jazz Quartet
Continental Jazz	Early jazz dance bands of Europe in the swing medium, to the exclusion of Great Britain.
Cool jazz	Genre in opposition to the hard, fast sound of Bebop. Based largely on Lester Young.	1940s-1960s	Chet Baker, Lee Konitz
Crossover jazz	Pop jazz		Grover Washington, Al Jarreau, Spyro Gyra
Cubop	Cuban jazz		Mario Bauza, Chano Pozo, Mongo Santamaria
Dixieland	Northern US name for New Orleans "hot" jazz.		Jimmy McPartland, Eddie Condon, Bud Freeman
Ethno jazz
European free jazz			Derek Bailey, Evan Parker
Free funk			Ornette Coleman, James Ulmer
Free improvisation			Art Ensemble, Anthony Braxton
Free jazz			Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor
Gypsy jazz			Django Rienhardt
Hard bop			Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Tadd Dameron
Indo jazz	Fusion of jazz with Indian music (see also Sitar in jazz and Jazz in India).	1950s+	Yusef Lateef, John McLaughlin, Alice Coltrane
Jazz blues			Mose Allison, BB King, Arnett Cobb, Jimmy Witherspoon, Phil Upchurch
Jazz-funk			Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock
Jazz fusion	Combines elements of Jazz and Rock. Characterized by electronic instruments, riffs, and extended solos	1970s+	Weather Report, Return to Forever
Jazz rap			The Last Poets, Gil Scott Heron
Jazz rock			Cream, Grateful Dead
Kansas City blues			Big Joe Turner, Jay McShann
Kansas City jazz			Count Basie, Buck Clayton
Latin jazz	Draws heavily on salsa and merengue influences. Heavy use of percussion, including congas, timbales, bongos, guiros, and others.		Tito Puente, Airto
Livetronica			Soulwax, Sound Tribe Sector 9
M-Base	Brooklyn based music collective prefering to use odd meters.		Steve Coleman, Geri Allen, Greg Osby
Mainstream jazz
Modal jazz	Fewer chord changes, song sections typically use one chord for many bars.		Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, John Coltrane
Neo-bop jazz			Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman
Neo-swing			Brian Setzer
Novelty ragtime			Zez Confrey
Nu jazz			French St. Germain, Groove Collective
Orchestral jazz			Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Gil Evans
Post-bop			Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan
Punk jazz			John Zorn, Lounge Lizards
Ragtime			Scott Joplin
Shibuya-kei	Tokyo jazz		Serge Gainsbourg
Ska jazz	Jamaican jazz		Skatalites
Smooth jazz	Combines jazz and jazz fusion elements with other styles of music, mostly R&B but also funk and pop music.	1970s–present	Creed Taylor
Soul jazz			Ray Charles, Cannonball Adderley, Horace Silver
Stride jazz	Piano style with left hand playing 10ths.		James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, Willie The Lion Smith
Straight-ahead jazz
Swing		1930s-1950s	Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman
Third stream	Mixes classical and jazz.		Gunther Schuller
Trad jazz	New Orleans "hot" music		Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet
Urban jazz
Vocal jazz			Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn
West Coast Gypsy jazz
West Coast jazz	A less frenetic, calmer style than hard bop, heavily arranged, and more often compositionally-based sub-genre of cool jazz.	1950s–60s	Chet Baker