Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis: Tough Tenor Saxophonist

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Davis straddles bop and swing in his phrasing; if anything, with his swallowed notes, sandpapery tone and sudden shrieks, he’s already a genre unto himself. … Davis was to become one of the most honest, no-nonsense soloist in the music. The knockout power of Davis’ blowing is thrilling.”

- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th Ed.

“Eddie Davis is what you would call a natural musician for he never took a lesson in his life; not one that he didn’t administer himself, anyway. When Eddie decided that he wanted to play the tenor saxophone, he bought one second-hand and with it an instruction book which he studied diligently for eight months. At the end of this period, he played his first job [1942] at Clark Monroe’s Uptown House, one of the first bastions of modern Jazz.”

- Ira Gitler

“He talked the way he played. He was glib, and his silver-tongued, pleasantly confrontational style always elicited a great audience response.

There were players who were better known, more influential, whatever; but they weren’t any more confident or fearless than Jaws. He came to play, and if you were smart you didn’t mess with him. He brought a street-fighter’s instincts to the bandstand.”

- Joel Dorn

Okay, no shilly-shallying around: Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis’ tenor saxophone playing just knocks me out.

“Jaws” constantly delivered a brand of intensity and excitement on the instrument which aptly earned him the reputation for being one, tough, tenor saxophonist.

Whatever the setting – soloist with the Count Basie Orchestra, in Hammond B-3 Organ trios with Shirley Scott or co-leading a quintet with fellow tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin – Eddie barreled through them all with a temerity and a boldness that would characterize his career.

“His sound was, on reflection, a surprisingly complex matter. Unlike many of the players working in the organ-combo format, where Jaws made his biggest impact, his phrasing had an elongated quality that he broke up only with his matter-of-fact brusqueness; as if he was masking emotion with a temperament that told him to get on with it.” [- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th Ed.]

Jaws was a blustery soloist who came to prominence in the world of Jazz at a time when had you had to “make your bones” by engaging in “cutting” sessions with other tenor saxophonists.

Such “duels” might include only another tenor sax player, or perhaps two others or even a stage full of them; some were known to go on all night, ending in the wee small hours of the morning.

The creative sparks flew when tenor saxophones engaged in such battles, and Eddie “Lockjaws” Davis was often tested, but rarely bested in these competitions.

Whether he was playing the blues or a ballad, Jaws spun solos of flat-out exuberance and exhilaration. His sound was always inimitable and accomplished.

We found a nice overview of the salient features of Eddie’s career in the insert notes that Michael Cuscuna prepared for Eddie “Lockjaw” David: The Heavy Hitter [32 Jazz 32057].

“Eddie Lockjaw Davis, more commonly known these days as Jaws, is a thorough master of his instrument and his art. He is a warm, articulate, no-nonsense person who dispatches his business with a flair and a near perfection.

At the beginning of the session that produced this album, I made reference to the second night of recording. Jaws looked at me with surprise and said, "Second night! I'm only sup­posed to do one album. We'll do that now." As we had had no rehearsals and he had never played with the pianist or drummer before, I was skeptical, to say the very least.

But watching Jaws at work was an education. He was affable and encouraging with his sidemen, yet always in charge. He kept things moving without any trace of hurry or tension. Minutes after the rhythm section arrived, everyone was in his place and ready to go. Jaws would quickly talk out an arrangement, never allow a run through, saying, "Save it for the take. Don't give it away now." And every take was a first take with everyone sounding excel­lent and Jaws sounding nothing short of brilliant.

It is a testament to these musicians' abilities and professionalism and a miracle to me that such performances could come out of first takes without one sheet of music or one rehearsal. For the second tune of the night, Jaws turned to the rhythm section and said, "Okay 'Old Folks' and then we'll go into 'Out Of Nowhere.' Do you know the changes to these? I'll take a chorus and a half, the piano for the bridge and the last eight bars of that cho­rus. Then the bass and drums lay out and the piano has four bars to modu­late up to C for 'Out Of Nowhere.' We play 'Old Folks' in F. I'll play this phrase. (He plays it.) Got it? Okay, let's take it."

Jaws' tone is big and rich. He is of that generation and school that makes every note meaningful and beautiful in and of itself. He can burn earnestly without working up a sweat, and he can seduce a ballad without resorting to sentimentality. His solos seem to flow casually out of a bottomless reservoir of creativity and feeling.

Although Lockjaw is chronologically in the age of be-bop, his primary influences were Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Herschel Evans. Born in New York in 1921, he made his first mark in 1942 and '43 with Cootie Williams, Lucky Millinder, Andy Kirk, Louis Armstrong and other band leaders. The be-bop revo­lution was not one that passed him by as is evidenced by the lovely Fats Navarro date on Savoy in which he was featured. But his soul and spirit was and is firmly entrenched in the style and sound of the swing mas­ters. During the post war era, he recorded prolifically on a variety of labels. His first session as a leader was for Haven Records. The originals on the date were ar­bitrarily given the names of diseases. One tune, "Lock­jaw," was a hit. It established Davis and gave him a nickname that remains to this day a part of his moni­ker.

In 1952, Lockjaw joined the Count Basie organiza­tion for the first time and quickly became an attrac­tion as the band's cooking blues soloist. The excite­ment that he generated matched Illinois Jacquet's his­trionics with Lionel Hampton in the forties, but Eddie was a thoughtful soloist who never relied solely on grandstanding. Lockjaw would slide in and out of Basie's band as tenor saxophonist and road manager through the years, his longest stint lasting from 1966 to 1973.

After that first go-round with Basie, Eddie led his own groups around New York, until 1955 when he as­sembled a permanent working band with organist Shirley Scott. That group lasted five years and pio­neered the tenor-organ format in jazz. The group's life span is well documented on a string of soulful, intimate albums on Prestige, many of which included Lockjaw's longtime associate George Duvivier.

In 1960, Eddie joined forces with Johnny Griffin, tenor master with a more modern, bop-oriented bent. For the next two years, they battled it out on many recordings and bandstands in the great tradition of Stitt and Ammons or Dexter and Wardell.

When declining public and eco­nomics took their toll on jazz, Griff moved to Europe, jaws was soon to make the startling announcement that he was giving up the saxophone and taking a position as a booking agent with Shaw Artists, one of the heaviest jazz agencies of the period. Thank­fully, although successful in that ca­pacity, Jaws ultimately found the horn too irresistible and returned to play­ing. His "comeback" was in full force by 1966 when he joined the Basie band in both business and musical capaci­ties.

In 1973, Eddie left Basie again, played with Ella Fitzgerald for a time and then stepped out as a leader and a featured soloist in a variety of settings and circumstances around the planet.

In his later years, Lockjaw often recorded with Harry "Sweets" Edison and he remained a busy soloist up until his death in 1986.”

In this video tribute to Eddie which was developed with the assistance of the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD, Jaws performs Body and Soul with Shirley Scott, Hammond B-3 organ, George Duvivier, bass and Arthur Edgehill, drums.

Benjamin Herman: Soul, Funk and Blues Revisited … in Holland!

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

In order to bring him to your attention, should you be unfamiliar with his music, I wanted to say a few words about Benjamin Herman.

Benjamin is a young alto saxophone and flute player who resides in Holland. For one so young, he is an amazingly accomplished musician with a number of accolades to his credit.

Benjamin Herman was twelve when he started playing saxophone and was performing professionally at the age of thirteen. He has toured with large and small combos in the United States, Japan, Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, South Africa and Russia, as well as appearing frequently at North Sea Jazz Festival.

At 21 he received the Wessel Ilcken Prize [named after a Dutch drummer who died in an accident at the age of 34] for best young jazz musician of the year in The Netherlands.

In 1991, Benjamin was invited to take part in the Thelonious Monk Competition, along with Joshua Redman, Chris Potter and Eric Alexander. Some grouping!

After graduating with honors at Hilversum Conservatory he studied with Dick Oatts at Manhattan School of Music in New York.

By 25 Benjamin had worked with almost every respected group and musician in The Netherlands, and had started initiating his own projects.

What is surprising and yet at the same time satisfying about Benjamin’s music is that so much of it is steeped in blues, soul and funk, qualities that one would expect to find in musicians reared in urban, Atlantic Coast US cities, or in rural southern US townships with a predominately sanctified Baptist church culture, but not in a musician raised in largely, cosmopolitan Holland.

The other noteworthy aspect of Benjamin’s approach to music is its humor, some of which is satirical almost to the point of being sarcastic at times.

One can get a sense of the qualities of character and personality that influence his music while reading the following insert notes which Benjamin wrote for his 1999 A-Records CD entitled Get In! [AL-73173].

[Does the title itself have an element of sardonic humor in it or is it just me?]

“I've been recording for A-Records and Challenge for around six years: two Van der Grinten / Herman Quartet albums, a third New Cool Collective record and another trio CD out soon, not to mention all the material in the freezer.

So when Angelo Verploegen [the CD’s producer] suggested a new so CD with me as the leader, I wondered what all the fuss was about.

It used to be big news when European musicians recorded in the States, but these days it happens all the time ...why couldn't he just give me the money for a well-earned vacation!

But I thought about it. and I knew one person who'd make the project worth­while. [Drummer] Idris Muhammad.

For years I've been telling drummers to play like Idris and check out his records. DJs are crazy about the guy: he's one of the century's most sampled drummers.

Modem music is full of his break-beats. He's the man who played New Orleans drum rhythms over the whole kit while keep­ing the groove authentic and funky.

Musicians from Lou Donaldson to John Scofield and from Curtis Mayfield to Puff Daddy have used his beats. There isn't a drummer who hasn't copied his style in some way or another. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get to the source.

And Angelo set it up in a matter of weeks. But not just with Idris.

He managed to get another of my favorites. Larry Goldings. on Hammond. With Europe's one-and-only Thelonious Monk Award winner Jesse van Ruller on guitar, it looked set to be a swinging album.

As for the material. I just closed my eyes and imagined what the band would sound like. Ten days later. I had about 20 tunes from which I made a selection on the plane to New York. I wanted the album to sound as rough as possible. We played the tunes a couple of times and then started the tape.

Idris and Larry were onto it from bar one, giving every take an awesome drive. Larry is today's leading young Hammond player. The way he comments on the melodies and solos and works with Idris is phenomenal, building up each solo without ever losing the groove.

Time flew by and we were soon back in traffic, heading towards Manhattan. Next day we flew home and three weeks on, it still seems out of this world.

It certainly changed my attitude about this kind of project.

Angelo can call me anytime.

Benjamin Herman

May 1999. Amsterdam”

Benjamin’s attitude and approach come together in his music in such a way as to lend it an air of adroit arrogance.

Perhaps all of these affectations are just his way of being the 21^st century version of a hep cat, or a hipster or a cool-and-crazy-kind-of guy?

Although the beret and to goatee are gone, Benjamin retains the horn-rimmed glasses of the Bebop ear in many of his photos and he’s brought back the slim ties and narrow lapelled, three-button suits which we in fashion half-a-century ago during the height of the Soul/Funk/Boogaloo era [think Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man or Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder].

As you can tell from some of the photographs contained in the video at the end of this piece, Benjamin is not camera shy and often affects exaggerated and, at times, startling poses, trying to broaden the appeal of what he does.

So what if he labels his CDs Pyschodixie for C-Melody Saxophone, or Lost Languages in Sad Serenades & Jocular Jazz or Blue Sky Blonde and writes songs with titles like Get Me Some Whiskey and A …., or The Itch or Inhale, Exhale, the guy swings like mad and is fun to listen.

Whatever his proclivities and affectations, Benjamin has an intense tone similar to that of Ernie Henry or Jackie McLean, a lingering power in his somewhat, off-center phrasing and an inventive style of soloing that leaves a lasting impression in the mind of the listener.

But it would appear that Benjamin’s first and lasting love is to lock into a groove and create melodies that are just brimming with “flavors” of blues and soulful funk.

All of the major characteristics of Benjamin’s music and his personal style are on display in the following video which was developed with the assistance of the ace graphics team at CerraJazz LTD.

The tune is another of Benjamin’s off-the-wall titles – Joe’s Bar Mitzvah – from his Get In CD with Jesse van Ruller on guitar, Larry Goldings on Hammond B-3 organ [Larry’s solo on this one is stunningly “bar mitzvar-ish”] and Idris Muhammad [who issues forth one of his better renditions of a New Orleans syncopated marching band beat] on drums.

In addition to his trio and quartet work, Benjamin has played a major role along with keyboardist and composer Willem Friede in the development of the New Cool Collective.

Originally an octet, the New Cool Collective has expanded to become one of the hottest big bands in Europe and is particular favorite among the young Jazz fans on the continent because of its style of music and the almost party-like atmosphere the surrounds its in-person performances.

Many of the NCC’s big band charts are riff-based arrangements which allow for plenty of solo space and use heavy back beats, sometimes with Latin and Rock overtones, that  make it easy for younger audiences to relate to them.

Here’s an overview of the New Cool Collective as drawn from its website.

“Following its initial gigs at the Club Paradiso in Amsterdam, the New Cool Collective made several festival appearances, including an appearance at the prestigious North Sea Jazz Festival. In 1997 the band toured Germany and Benelux. More dates followed in 1998 leading to an appearance at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and a tour of the UK, taking in Leeds, London and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. October 1999 saw the release of NCC's third CD, Big (Challenge, A-Records). In 2000 the album received an Edison Jazz Award [Dutch Grammy].

Invitations from abroad following the release of the album included concerts at Camden 'Mix' Festival (London) and Aberdeen Alternative Festival (Scotland). More recently, the band has toured South Africa, Russia, Germany and is a regular guest at the East London Jazz Café. New Cool Collective recently received the Heineken Crossover Award. New Cool Collective can currently be seen twice a month at Amsterdam's Panama nightclub. Their new CD, Bring it On, has just been released by Sony. The New Cool Collective is by far Holland's hottest big band.”

Many of Benjamin’s CDs as well as those of the New Cool Collective are available from several online retailers as Mp3 downloads which helps in offsetting the euro-dollar exchange rate.

If you have an interest in exploring Jazz in some of its current manifestations on the European continent, Benjamin’s and the NCC’s music provide an excellent starting point.

You can sample the New Cool Collective Big Band’s music in the following video. The audio track is Lalo Schifrin’s Enter the Dragon and its features Benjamin Herman on flute.

Johnny Griffin and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis: Tough Tenors

The title of this tune as played by the Tough Tenors - Johnny Griffin and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis - is Abundance!


Talk about understatement.

Joining Johnny and Eddie are Norman Simmons on piano, Victor Sproles on bass and Ben Riley on drums. This track is from their Battle Stations recording.

Max Ionata is Making Jazz

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Good stuff.  It's nice to hear someone who appears to be under 60 who doesn't play one cliché after another.”

David Scherr, Composer and Saxophonist

Max Ionata is not a familiar name in Jazz circles.  He should be.

Max’s Jazz tenor saxophone playing is accomplished and refreshingly unique.

To be fair, he’s very well-known in his native Italy and thanks to Matteo Pagano, the owner and proprietor of Via Veneto Jazz, his two recent CDs for that label offer more of Max’s marvelous music which should garner him even more appreciation, both at home and abroad.

You can locate more information about Via Veneto Jazz by going here.  And while currency exchange rates and foreign postal services may be expensive and time-consuming, the good news is that the Via Veneto Jazz CDs Dieci and Kind of Trio along with other of Max’s recordings are available as Mp3 downloads.

For many years, the two signature instruments associated with Jazz were the trumpet  - Pops, Bix, Diz and Miles – and the tenor saxophone – Hawk, Pres, Sonny and Coltrane.

Trumpet and tenor saxophone are the two front-line instruments in most Jazz combos and their sounds blend particularly well when played in unison.

The human ear seems to have an affinity for the tenor saxophone which may, in part, be due to the fact that its sounds are very close to that of the human voice. It has been said that the tenor sax has an almost vocal quality.

Given the imposing stature of the Jazz greats who have played the instrument over the almost hundred years of the music’s existence, a great deal is expected of those who pick up “the big horn” and follow in this tradition.

Max Ionata doesn’t disappoint.

Whether he is featured in quintets that he co-leads with trumpeters Fabrizio Bosso and Flavio Boltro, or evoking the dueling tenor tradition of the great Dexter Gordon & Wardell Gray, or Al Cohn & Zoot Sims or Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt in combination with Danielle Scannapieco, another of Italy’s rising young tenor sax stars on their Tenor Legacy Albore CD, or as a member of drummer Roberto Gatto’s quintet on the Remembering Shelly CDs recently issued on the Albore label, Max Ionata always plays with presence, power and passion.

His sound is robust and yet mellow, his phrasing is long and continuous, and he generates a steady sense of swing.

Max doesn’t overreach the range of the horn to litter his solos with squeaks and squawks nor does he take lengthy solos whose most appealing quality to the exhausted listener is that they have finally come to an end.

When Max is making Jazz, his solos are so artfully constructed that you don’t want them to end, at least, not too soon.

He incorporates just enough harmonic extensions to make his solo melodies interesting, but these never become ends in themselves.

Max doesn’t come to impress, he comes to play.  What you hear in his music is the fun of making Jazz; the music as an expression of a good time being had by all concerned.

Nothing laborious or contorted: nothing elaborately diminished, augmented or raised.  Just a beautifully played and very swinging tenor saxophone.

When a musician like Max comes along, other musicians can’t wait to have the chance to work with him. He brings out the best in them. In his presence, Jazz is once again accessible and yet still an adventure.

To give you an opportunity to sample the characteristics of Max’s music that we have been describing, we have provided two video examples with audio tracks taken from the previously described tenor-trumpet recordings and the Robert Gatto quintet Shelly Manne remembrances.

The first video features Max performing Astrobard from his new Via Veneto CD Dieci with Fabrizio Bosso on trumpet, Luca Mannutza on piano, Nicola Muresu on bass and Nicola Angelucci on drums.

The audio track for the second video is a performance of Russ Freeman's Fan Tan from drummer Roberto Gatto's Remembering Shelly Manne CD with Max taking the lead solo along with Marco Tomburini [tp], Luca Mannutza [p], and Giussepe Bassi [b].

Stefano Di Battista: "Goodbye Mr. P."

Something "easy-on-the-ears" from Stefano. Click the "X" in the upper right hand corner to close out of the ads.


Soprano saxophonist Stephano di Battista performing his original composition "Goodbye Mr. P" with Daniele Scannapieco on tenor saxophone, Flavio Boltro, trumpet, Julian O. Mazzariello, piano, Dario Rosciglione, bass and Andre Ceccarelli, drums.

Tiny Kahn: Over 300 But Less Than 30

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Tiny's ears are what really got to me. I don't know if he had absolute pitch. Very likely he did—or came very close to it. He instinctively knew how to read an arrangement. Right off he would find what to do with a chart. Another thing—Tiny tuned his drums assiduously. He was concerned with the pitch of each drum. And he was very particular about cymbals; each one had to serve a particular purpose. He was like a modern Sid Catlett. He would have had that kind of influence, had he lived.

Tiny was very advanced harmonically. His arrangement of Harold Arlen's "Over the Rainbow" for the Barnet band indicates where he was going. He wrote it in Salt Lake City in two days.

The loss of Tiny Kahn was devastating He meant so much to music and to those who knew him. Everybody learned some­thing from Tiny. If you talked to or hung out with him, played in one of the bands that employed him or analyzed his writing, you came away with something.”

- Manny Albam, composer-arranger

“Tiny was melodic on drums ….. He probably was the most melodic drummer of all time. And the most economic. He made every stroke mean something. A whole school developed around his style.

Tiny could do so many things easily. When I was in the Army, the leader of the dance band at my base in Dallas told me he couldn't buy the "Jump the Blues Away" and "Wiggle Woogie" Basie stocks anywhere. I wrote Tiny about the problem—how all the cats in the band, including me, wanted to play this music. What did he do? He just copied all the music off the record­ings and sent the transcriptions to me. And that was an eighteen-year-old guy who had never taken a lesson.

How about this? When I came home on furlough, as World War II was winding down, Tiny hipped me to what Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were doing and explained their music in detail. He knew every note and what to do with it. He would sit at the piano and play complete tunes for me, in some cases including all the solos. He always knew what was going down before anyone else.”

- Terry Gibbs, vibraphonist and bandleader

“Tiny Kahn was really a gigantic influence to all of us. Es­pecially all the young white players who were in the big bands and still trying to play jazz. He was such a marvelous musician. He was a dy­namic drummer with great time. He didn't have great hands, great feet, he wasn't really a showy drummer. He was just a real father time-type drummer. And he was a self-taught arranger, piano player, ….. Tiny knew how changes went from one to another. He was a tremendous influence on me and many others too.”

- Red Rodney, Jazz trumpet player and bandleader

“He was a very rare talent. Completely natural. He was the most unstudied musician in the whole world. And yet he wrote some excellent charts. He was a swinging drummer. A very unstudied one. But yet a natural swinger. He really wasn't a pi­anist. He would just sit down and kind of noodle away in the most illegitimate, unschooled way. But what came out was beautiful.”

- Frankie Socolow, Jazz saxophonist

“Tiny, believe it or not, was with Kenny Clarke, I believe those were the two distinct changes at that time. Tiny changed it from the Buddy Rich sound, from Gene Krupa, Louis Bellson. He came in with an opposite sound, and Mel [Lewis] came in right on the heels of Tiny, every one of us knew that.”

- Chubby Jackson, Jazz bassist and bandleader

“ Tiny never let anything deter him. He wanted to know! And he wasn't shy about it. He was curious about certain fills that I used when I worked with Parker and Dizzy. He dug their sound and feeling. So he just came up and asked. ‘How do you do those things? Show me how to play them.’

“Tiny was the one who led the way into the soft pulse—not a hard edge to it, [Ed. note — Stan more than suggested this concept in his own work, partic­ularly with small bands.] Drummers changed because of him, making their approach to sound and comment more musical, less percussive. Tiny had a rare understanding of the inner workings of a band because he was a writer. He knew how to control the time feeling, the tempo, how to take hold of the sections, the entire orchestra.

Everyone borrowed or stole from him. For a guy to die at the beginning of a great career is criminal. I know musicians who can't play or write who live into their nineties.”

- Stan Levey, Jazz drummer

[All of the above quotations by musicians and friends of Tiny are excerpted from Ira Gitler, Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s or Burt Korall, Drummin’ Men, The Heartbeat of Jazz: The Bebop Years].

The subtitle in our feature about Tiny Kahn refers to the fact that for much of his brief life, this terrific composer, arranger and drummer weighed over 300 pounds [at one point, he topped out at 415 lbs.!], but didn’t live to reach the age of thirty [30].

Perhaps the two were related?  It would seem so for according to Johnny Mandel: “Tiny had warnings before he passed. He almost died in the late 1940s of a bad blood clot in his leg. Coronary problems, difficulties within the vascular system, were common for several years”.

During his tragically short lifetime, Tiny Kahn influenced and impressed just about everyone he performed with during Bebop’s nascent decade [1943-53].

So much so, that when news of his death reached drummer Stan Levey, a big, brute of a guy whom I never knew to fall prey to easy emotion or sentimentality, it caused this reaction:

“The day he died I was in Europe with Stan Kenton. We were about to begin a concert in Copenhagen for a tremendous audience. Somehow the word got to us that Tiny had died. Well, I just totally broke down. I finally pulled myself together and thought: ‘I'll play this one for Tiny. He gave me and other musicians so much.’”

Other than such references about his reputation from other musicians, I never knew much about Norman “Tiny” Kahn. I had heard him on the 1951 recordings that he made with Stan Getz Jazz impresario George Wein’s Storyville nightclub then located in Boston’s Copley Plaza Hotel and I had even played on a few of his big band arrangements such as T.N.T and Tiny’s Blues.

So when the marvelous Dutch Jazz drummer, Eric Ineke, suggested Tiny for a feature on JazzProfiles, I thought it would be great to do a bit of research into Kahn’s career and to “get to know him better.”

Here are just a few testimonials about how Tiny was universally loved and respected:

Johnny Mandel: “The first time I came across Tiny Kahn was late one night at Child's Paramount, after we had finished the last set. There he was, standing around in an overcoat, indoors. Tiny sat down at the piano and started playing some funny stuff. I said to myself: ‘Oh, what's this?’ Then he got into some good things, and I was really impressed. I remember mumbling: ‘Oh,  my God!’ I didn't know until later that he was a drummer and arranger. I so admired Tiny's ideas and musicality and his qualities as a person that we were pretty much inseparable for eight years—until he passed.

He probably was one of the most honest and humorous people I ever met. Certainly that came out in his playing and writing. He was unlike anyone I've ever met. You can't compare him to anyone else. He was just different.”

Stan Getz: “Tiny was one of my favorite drummers of all time. He was the closest thing to Sid Catlett. He would musically get underneath you and lift you up. Most drummers batten you down from the top. And he wrote as well as he played. He was just the best!”

Elliot Lawrence: “Everyone insisted I hire Tiny. He was a great, ego-free player and a writer who knew how to develop material in the most meaningful I way. His charts almost played themselves. Everything swung.

He and Buddy Jones, our bassist, laid down what felt like a new kind of time. It was light and flew along. It didn't feel like the band touched the ground. The band was marvelous and wanted to make a new statement. Tiny, Al [Cohn], Johnny Mandel, Al Porcino, Nick Travis—a whole bunch of wonderful guys—had so much to say. This was a band that wanted to roar every night.

Tiny and I were together the better part of four years, …. It was going so well for him. And suddenly he was gone.”

[All of the previous quotations excerpted from Burt Korall, Drummin’ Men, The Heartbeat of Jazz: The Bebop Years].

© -  Burt Korall, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Burt goes on to give this overview of the prominent aspects of Tiny’s brief career:

“Norman "Tiny" Kahn, one of Brooklyn's major gifts to jazz, has assumed legendary proportions since his untimely death in 1953, at twenty-nine. The drummer-composer-arranger-pianist-vibraphonist-humorist was a natural— a musician who had great instincts and a well-developed sense of what worked best in every circumstance. Had he lived, he certainly would have had an increasingly meaningful career in jazz and very possibly in other areas of music as well.

His sudden death was most deeply felt in New York, where he did some of his best work. But the impact extended through the country to Europe, where his recordings with George Auld, Stan Getz, Serge Chaloff, Red Rodney, Chubby Jackson, and Charlie Barnet and Lester Young certainly had more than a passing effect.

Kahn is remembered not only for his talent but for his warmth and sensitivity as a person. He was liked by everyone. He didn't have an evil bone in his rather large body.

Music consumed his waking hours. All kinds of music. He listened, then analyzed and evaluated what he heard. He had his own concept when it came to drums. Outside of instruction with drum teachers Freddie Albright and Henry Adler, covering sixteen months in all, at different times, Kahn was self-made—as a drummer, composer and arranger, pianist, and vibraphonist.

His drumming made bands sound better than they ever had before, particularly during his last years when he had all the elements of his style in enviable balance. His time was perfect—right down the center. He wasn't too tense or too laid-back. Kahn had his own sound and techniques on drums and could be quite expressive, using his hands and feet in a manner that was his alone. Certainly not a technical wizard, he transcended his relative lack of technical ability by developing a manner of playing that not only made up for this but raised his and his colleagues' performance level.

His primary contribution as a drummer was the inspiration he provided, motivating musicians to feel good and give the best of themselves. He played a classic supporting role in small and large bands, bringing a small band approach and flexibility to his work. He concerned himself with giving players the security and the wherewithal needed to free them. Kahn had so much going for him that was not immediately apparent. You had to listen and listen some more before it became completely clear what he could do for music. Then the revelation came in a rush.

Kahn the writer gave you much to hear and think about. Often his compositions and arrangements practically played themselves. Musicians remember how easy his charts were to perform; they felt right for all the instruments and never failed to communicate and make a comment. His unpretentious writing mirrored his concern for expressing ideas in an economical, telling, swinging manner.

It was immediately apparent to all who knew him, as a kid in Brooklyn and later on as well, that Kahn had music within him. As he grew older and ad opportunities to share his views and ideas with others, he became a great source to the many musicians drawn to him. He was a leader without ever desiring to be one.

Kahn set an example not only when it came to playing and writing but i how he lived. While others turned to hard drugs, drink, and an underground life, he moved ever more deeply into music. His only harmful habit" was food. A food junkie, he ate often and excessively. His need and great capacity for food could well have been the basis for more than a few sessions with a therapist. Many of his close friends feel he would have lived much longer had he managed to deal more logically with this problem.

Tiny Kahn's life had unusual consistency. He immersed himself in music early and did everything he could to further his knowledge and under­standing of all of it. …

Kahn hung out where the music was happening. He got to know players and writers in all the bands. Many of his friends around town loved Basie, Lester Young, and Jo Jones — the Basie band of the 1930s and early 1940s. A little later, they became fascinated with the innovations of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, and Bud Powell. They sought a rapprochement between the floating rhythm and musicality of Pres and Jo, the economy of the pianist Basie and the relaxed swing of his band, and what the modernists [i.e.: Parker and Gillespie] were doing. …

1949 was a key year for Tiny Kahn. He helped organize and rehearse the Chubby Jackson band, for which he wrote almost the entire library of arrangements. The band lingers in mind, even though it didn't last too long. Kahn played and wrote for the Charlie Barnet modern band that year. He also briefly became involved —because of Gerry Mulligan's strong recommendation — with Benny Goodman's bebop band. But the leader's peculiarities, when it came to drummers and things in general, negated a regular working relationship with the drummer-arranger. …

‘The Chubby Jackson band was the greatest band I ever played with,’ Kahn told Pat Harris. "The records give you a poor idea of how it sounded. Columbia didn't put as much effort into the record date as it could have - poor balance, etc. The idea seemed to be to get the date over as soon as possible. The band did ... the date before it ever had a job… .

The Jackson band had extraordinary impact for its size - fourteen piece - and swung with unusual ferocity. It really communicated! Kahn's charts were among the best examples of bringing together elements of bop and Basie. The soloists - tenorist Ray Turner, altoist Frank Socolow, trumpeter Charlie Walp - were unstintingly pulsating and creative. Kahn brought unusual life to the band from the drums. Jackson was a supportive, enthusiastic leader. He had all that was needed to make it. Unfortunately, poor business practices and the time [late 1940s] - which was notable for the decline of interest in big bands - denied the band the success it deserved. …

Swing Idol Charlie Barnet also hired Kahn in 1949 …. The Kahn-Barnet legacy is small – six Capitol recordings - … - 5 are arrangements by Manny Albam and the sixth is the imaginative ballad treatment by Kahn of “Over the Rainbow.”

All these Albam charts have a number of things in common: modern coloration, warm voicings, unfolding, developmental linear qualities. The rhythmic line provided by Kahn is uncluttered. His comments around the drums provoke yet remain a matter of telling simplicity. He's inspiring without disturbing the balance and forward motion of the band. …

Phil Brown, who replaced Kahn in the Stan Getz group in 1952., has an excellent grasp of what Kahn did as a drummer. He loved his playing back then and remains fascinated by it to this day.

Tiny was the first drummer to play matched grip almost all the time. He deviated only when brushes were called for; then he would revert back to the traditional/French grip in the left hand. Tiny was more comfortable with matched grip because his hands were on the fat side and he couldn't easily accommodate to the traditional grip in the left hand: the stick is lodged a fulcrum between the thumb and index finger and extends through the opening between the second and third finger.

Matched/timpani grip really worked for him. He was able to get around the drums more easily. His solos had their own sound because he used the tympani grip. Many of the guys performing back then didn't get the strokes  [Ed note: —in Tiny's case, mostly singles] to sound as even as Tiny did. He played some unusual things, and they were drummistic to a certain point without being technical.

What made him different? He let the time flow and roll along. He didn't play "four" on the bass drum. He didn't emphasize the "2-and-4" clicking sound of the hi-hat.

I got the best shot at him, in person, at the Showboat in Philadelphia, shortly before I joined Getz's band [Ed. note—Al Haig (piano), Curly Russell (bass), Jimmy Raney (guitar)]. I noticed he left beats out of his right-hand ride rhythm. It made it possible for him to rest, particularly on up-tempos, and add to the fluidity of the pulse. He was a precursor of today's rock drum­mers; they also skip beats in the ride rhythm.

To balance things out, he would comment with his left hand, on the snare or a tom-tom. He divided the ride rhythm while bringing into play other elements of the set. By breaking up the rhythm, he made the time more relaxed, more exciting and provocative. The way he used his left hand on the snare and how he played accents increased the rhythmic interest of his performances.

Some drummers said he played the way he did because he couldn't execute the traditional ride rhythm in fast tempi. But what he did was better, different. He was the first free drummer—in that he didn't strictly stick to playing time. What he thought and how he executed his ideas may have been dictated by lack of technique, but he proved necessity is the mother of unusual invention.

There was great honesty in Tiny's playing. He wasn't trying to copy. He wasn't into commenting on Max Roach or being like him. So many other people did that. He was just pure Tiny Kahn. He was one of truly great drummers. I'm including everyone in this comparison.

Tiny was the embodiment of a very singular time in jazz. He personified a generation of guys who grew up listening to Basic and Pres and then shifted a little bit to Charlie Parker and started to come up in the bebop world.

I was very conscious of the way Tiny sounded in Stan Getz's band and how effective he was. I wanted to see if I could perpetuate that tradition.

Others worked in this tradition. Osie Johnson is frequently mentioned as someone who took this manner of performance and brought to it his own vision. But Mel Lewis was Kahn's most widely listened-to disciple. He found himself within Kahn's style and enhanced and built upon it in a major way, emerging with something that had his stamp on it.

“My relationship with Tiny began when I came to New York from Buffalo with the Lenny Lewis band in the late 1940s. I heard and liked the recordings Tiny had made with Red Rodney for Keynote. We got together frequently. He came to hear me at the Savoy Ballroom. Soon after that I returned the compliment and went to hear him with the Boyd Raeburn band.

We got a chance to really talk during the afternoons we spent drinking egg creams on Broadway. I realized we liked the same drummers and the same sort of music. Apparently we were two of a kind. He even used low-pitched cymbals—same as I did. He tuned his drums in a highly individual way. I came to realize, by hearing Tiny, that I needed nothing larger than a twenty-inch bass drum.

Tiny was an innovator in so many ways. He brought a looseness and the improvisational feeling of small band drumming to the big band. I heard him every time I could. I loved what he did. He played great fills and lead-ins to explosions that kicked a band along. I must admit I even stole a few.”

My thanks to Eric Ineke for without his suggestion, I might never have looked into the creative brilliance of Tiny Kahn.  After reading about his story, is it any wonder that those musicians who knew him during his relatively brief lifetime were crushed by his untimely death?

Here’s a video which was filmed at the Los Angeles Jazz Institute’s 4-day East Coast Sounds May 30, 2010 concert of The Terry Gibbs Big Band Plays the Music of Tiny Kahn. The audio is Tiny’s arrangement of his original composition of Father Knickerbopper.

And this single slide video has an audio track featuring Tiny’s drumming that is taken from Stan Getz’s 1951 Storyville recording. The title of the tune is Signal and in addition to Stan on tenor saxophone and Tiny on drums, it features Al Haig on piano and Teddy Kotick on bass.

Pat Martino: First Impressions

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“The guitar has its own mystique. The most ancient of instruments, it is the most pervasive in contemporary music. Those who mastered its mysteries have discovered unlimited application for the guitar’s acoustic and electric personalities.”

- Gary Giddins

“[Pat Martino]… is a guitarist who can rework simple material into sustained improvisations of elegant and accessible fire; even when he plays licks, they sound plausibly exciting.

Although seldom recognized as an influence, he has been a distinctive and resourceful figure in Jazz guitar for many years, and his fine technique and determination have inspired many players.”

- Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th Ed.

“Pat Martino plays more than just notes. He plays his personality, his insights. Of Pat it can be honestly stated that his style is immediately recognizable.”

- Kent Hazen

There’s a modern adage which states: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

When it came to the impression he made on Les Paul, a superb technical player and one of creators of the modern electric guitar sound, if would seem that Pat Martino didn’t need a second chance:

“Some years ago I was playing an engagement in Atlantic City and a young lad, accompanied by his parents, came backstage to meet me and request my autograph. When the lad said he was learn­ing guitar I handed him mine and asked that he play something. Well, what came out of that guitar was unbelievable. "Learning," he said!!! The thought that entered my mind at the time was that perhaps I should take lessons from him ... his dexterity and cleanliness were amazing and his picking style was absolutely unique. He held his pick as one would hold a demitasse. Pinky extended, very polite.

The politeness disappeared when pick met string as what hap­pened then was not timid but very definite. As is obvious, I was very impressed and the memory of this lad stuck with me. Although I lost track of him I figured that sooner or later I was bound to hear of him again. All that talent was not to be buried in obscurity.

Several years later I began hearing reports of a young guitarist playing in the New York area who was really scaring other musicians with his ability and musicianship. I tracked him down to a club in Harlem, and aside from the fact that the reports of his being a great guitarist were not exaggerated, I found that this was the same lad who had visited me in Atlantic City.

Now grown up, and with the extra years of practice and experience, he had grown into a musical giant. His name was Pat Martino. (As a side-note, a prominent guitarist told me recently that on his first visit to New York he had gone to the Harlem club where Pat was appearing. His thought at the time was that if Pat represented the type of competition he faced — and Pat not even well known — how was he to surpass or even equal that as well as enduring the other obstacles facing a proposed career in music.) …

Listen to … [his] music and be your own judge but it you happen to a guitarist don't be discouraged. Don't slash your wrists and pray for a decent burial; just practice a lot and perhaps someday someone (possibly Pat) will be writing liner notes for you.” [Les Paul, June, 1970, liner notes to Desperado, Prestige PR 7795; OJCCD 397]

Pat made a similar, first impression on Dan Morgenstern, a Jazz literary luminary who just recently retired as the Director of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University:

“Pat Martino is a bad cat. ...

He is an orig­inal, his own man, and his abilities are extraordinary from both a strictly playing and general musical stand­point: great speed; marvelous articulation no matter how fast the fingers fly; an ear for harmony that feeds ideas to those fingers at a speed to match; a sense of form that imposes order on all that facility; a singing tone, and tremendous swing …. [Insert notes to Pat Martino Live, Muse 5026]

Or how about the impression Pat made on the distinguished Jazz author and critic, Gary Giddins.

“[The late Jazz trumpeter and bandleader] Red Rodney once described artistic progress like this: ‘You go along and then all of a sudden, bump, you rise to another plateau, and you work real hard and then, bump, you rise to another one.’

Pat Martino’s talent rises to a new plateau regularly and thanks to his prolific recording career, those bumps have been captured on an imposing series of discs. His records are not only consistent; they evolve one to the next. …

Perhaps the first thing one responds to in Pat’s music is commitment. He plays like he means it.

One aspect of his style consists of multi-noted patterns, plucked with tremendous facility (and time) over the harmonic contour. The notes are never throwaways; the patterns take on their own mesmerizing force, serving to advance the pieces as judiciously as the melodic variations of which Pat is a master. ….

Pat has very clearly honed his immense technique closely to what he most personally wants to express. His music is private, but richly communicative; it commands attention with its integrity – it does not call attention to itself with excessive volume or gimmicks.

Pat Martino doesn’t have time to jive, he’s a musician.” [Liner notes to Pat Martino/Consciousness Muse LP 5039; paragraphing modified]

And Mark Gardner, the accomplished Jazz author and journalist, was also duly impressed by his first experience with Pat when he wrote these comments and observations about he and his music in the liner notes to Pat Martino: Strings! [Prestige 7547]:

“Since Charlie Christian first plugged in his amplifier and revo­lutionized jazz guitar in the late 1930s each subsequent decade has witnessed the emergence of a handful of new string stylists. Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney, Billy Bauer, Chuck Wayne and Oscar Moore were the dominant voices of the 'forties.

And in the 'fifties Tal Farlow really came into his own to be followed by Jim Hall, Kenny Burrell, Johnny Smith and Wes Montgomery. The 'sixties in turn have produced Grant Green, Bola Sete, Gabor Szabo, George Ben­son and now Pat Martino.

To bracket Martino with the foregoing list of great jazz plectrists warrants some weighty evidence in his favor. After all he is only twenty-three years old and the enclosed sides are the first real jazz sides to be released under his leader­ship. Which is precisely where the proof of my assertion lies— within this album.

It is quite plainly demonstrated on all five tracks that Pat Martino has already conceived a style of his own. To ar­rive at a personal mode of expression so young requires more than heavy chops and good taste, it calls for imagination, the sifting of one's emotional and intellectual resources into an abstract form with discipline. The guitarist has passed through this inner process of self-realization which is essential for every artist before he can begin to create works of lasting importance. Pat is not a 'natural talent' because no such thing exists. He has had to work and work hard to get where he is.

As alto saxophonist Sonny Criss remarked recently, 'A lot of people say that Bird was a born genius. That's wrong. He wasn't born with anything except the ability to breathe. Unless you really apply yourself nothing's ever going to happen.'

What has happened to Martino, a young man with an exciting future ahead, is the result of the sort of application Sonny spoke of.”

Here’s a video tribute to Pat on which he plays Benny Golson’s Jazz standard, Along Came Betty, accompanied by Eddie Green on electric piano, Tyrone brown on bass and Sherman Ferguson on drums. If you haven’t heard Pat play guitar before, perhaps your first impression will match that of Les Paul, Gary Giddins, Dan Morgenstern,  and Mark Gardner. If so, you’d be in very good company, indeed.