I SHOULDN'T BE SO LUCKY! THE TENOR DIVISIONS

i found myself the other day being subjected on Facebook to a rather unexpected and unwelcomed cross-examination because I had said I wasn’t a great fan of Lucky Thompson.

Why didn’t I like him? What was it I didn’t like about him? Why did I suggest his playing was detached? What did I mean by detached anyway? What’s the matter with his tone? Etc etc.

The tenor saxophone is my favourite instrument in jazz, even though I am a drummer. As previous readers of these “musings” will have gathered, Lester Young is my favourite jazz musician of all time. This is as subjective a personal preference as my mild dislike of  Lucky Thompson, Don Byas and Illinois Jacket for example.

“Why don’t you like Don Byas?” Oh please don’t start!

Funnily enough, I have to confess I recently asked Simon Spillett why he did like Don Byas. His reply was interesting: “Well, it’s a saxophone thing”. So I assume there are technical aspects of Don’s playing which would only be apparent to a fellow saxophonist but Simon might also have meant that he knew why Don Byas might not be my cup of tea anyway. Let’s accept that one’s tastes in jazz are as subjective as one’s taste in tea. (For the record I’m an Earl Grey man, not “builders’”).

Behind personal likes and dislikes, there is a body of historial, objective fact that underlies the different styles and sounds of a whole succession of tenor players. It might be interesting to rehearse this once more. On this occasion I shall omit mention of the distinctively Texas tenor – for these guys, please turn to the previous Musing “The moan in the tone”. 

When Lester Young came along (and alas we can’t hear what he sounded like until 1936 when he was already 27 years old), Coleman Hawkins was king of the jazz tenor and master of all he surveyed. His tone was gorgeously rich and full and his improvisation was dense and packed with even semiquavers. His definitive recording is of “Body and soul” in 1939.

Lester breezed in on a revolutionary wind. According to Billie Holiday, Hawkins disciple Herschel Evans asked him “Why don’t you buy an alto, man? You only got an alto tone!”. To which Lester replied (tapping his forehead) “There’s things goin’ on up there, man. Some of you guys are all belly”.

Lester’s sound was clear, light, vibratoless and his soloing was harmonically adventurous. It was also captivatingly melodic, like young Billie’s voice, and he achieved powerful swing by phrasing which was not afraid to leave gaps. His first ever recording session remains definitive: “Lady be good” and “Shoe shine boy” in 1936.

A fork in the road had been reached in the history of the tenor saxophone. Eventually, the two routes would once again merge but for a long while you could easily tell them apart.

Initially, Lester was imitated by the white cool school of Allen Eager, Stan Getz, Brew Moore, Warne Marsh, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and others and cloned by the black tenorist Paul Quinichette. He was also a less obvious but overarching influence on Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon and James Moody. Not forgetting our own Bobby Wellins and Duncan Lamont. Aspects of his style later became an ingredient in the playing of all subsequent tenor players.

The Hawkins school was most prominently represented by Chu Berry, Ben Webster, Ike Quebec, Al Sears, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Gene Ammons, Benny Golson, Paul Gonsalves and Archie Shepp. (Those are the ones I love but in fairness I should add Don Byas and Lucky Thompson!) Worthy UK members are Tony Coe, Danny Moss and Don Weller.

But already by the mid-fifties, the “hard bop” style developed by Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Rouse, Junior Cook, Clifford Jordan, plus Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes this side of the Atlantic, showed the two roads converging.

Sonny Rollins is a real one off! His early sound had a Hawkinsesque richness and sonority although his lines came from Lester. After his famous sabbatical on the bridge, he came back with a cleaner more keening tone closer to Lester and it is fascinating to listen him and Coleman Hawkins playing with, for and “at” each other on the RCAVictor album Sonny meets Hawk which is one of my all-time favourites.

With John Coltrane came another generation. Pharoah Sanders, Dewey Redman, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Sam Rivers, Bob Berg, Michael Brecker,  Joe Lovano, Chris Potter and on……………

The styles are very different - modal, harmonic, free – but Bean and Pres are both there in the mix, underlying the sound and the spirit. The two roads have merged into a motorway stretching as far as the ear can hear.

I’m sure you will tell me I’m already out of date. I spend more and more of my time listening to the “old stuff”. But then it is such a rich heritage and I have of course been unashamedly subjective.