I don't seem to muse so much in summer, which means that The Bright Stars of Jazz have been prominent on this site for some time. Never mind, they're worth it.
I've recently been thinking about the recognised superstars
in the jazz pantheon and reckon that probably more of them played trumpet
than any other instrument. Just consider Wynton Marsalis, Miles Davis, Dizzy
Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Harry James, and towering over them all, Louis
Armstrong. So…. pretty hard to get noticed as a trumpeter then. And even
harder if you happened to be a young man reaching your maturity at the same
time as Armstrong was dominating the scene. Henry 'Red' Allen was one such
musician. He made his first recordings around the time that Louis was recording
West End Blues, and in a number of ways their careers ran parallel. Both
were born in New Orleans, where the young Red Allen received tuition from
his father, a celebrated brass band leader in the city. Like Louis, he played
in local parade and dance bands before joining Fate Marable's band on the
Mississippi riverboats. He joined Luis Russell's magnificent band in the
summer of 1929, at the age of 21, a few months after Louis Armstrong had
recorded Mahogany Hall Stomp and other titles with the same band. Later in
the 1930s the Luis Russell Orchestra became effectively Louis' backing band,
and Red Allen seemed content to sit in the trumpet section until 1938. So,
all in all, the two trumpet men were thrown together quite a lot. It is
interesting to note then that, unlike the majority of trumpeters who had less
direct contact with him, Red Allen's style showed few traces of Satchmo's
influence.
Whitney Balliett called jazz "the sound of surprise", and I can't think of a better description of the music. In my opinion, few jazzmen illustrate the surprising and unexpected aspects of jazz better than Red Allen. His solos always remain cohesive and, in Lester Young's terms, he "tells a story". But it is rarely a dull predictable narrative. There are unexpected twists, and cadences that evoke a smile of delighted surprise. Sample Biffly Blues which he recorded under his own name with Russell's band in 1929. His solo on this is languid and blues-drenched but full of intriguing rhythmic and harmonic ideas. Or listen to the two final solo choruses of Stingaree Bluesrecorded a year later with King Oliver. Allen, at 22, takes over with authority from the legendary New Orleans trumpet player with what must at the time have been a very modern solo.
During the 1930s Red Allen developed his other great talent, for singing; always in excellent musical company, including that of tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. It would be hard for any trumpeter-vocalist in the 30s not to be compared to Louis Armstrong. But, again, Red Allen managed to be a distinctive voice.
In the
post-war years, until his death in 1967, Red Allen's style developed more
than almost any other jazz musician's with the possible exception of Pee
Wee Russell. While he could never be described as a modernist, his playing
took on a harmonic and rhythmic looseness which took him a long way from his
New Orleans roots. In some ways he seemed to graduate straight into the
avant-garde. He was described by trumpeter Don Ellis in a Downbeat article
as "the most creative and avant-garde trumpet player in New York. He is one
of the major jazz improvisers, in the truest sense of the word."
The popular and long-running BBC radio programme, Desert Island Disks, asks the interviewee to select a miserable eight recordings to take to a fictitious desert island. I can't imagine limiting myself to only eight tracks but, if forced, I am sure that I would want to include something featuring Red Allen's trumpet. Jersey lightning perhaps or Saratoga Shout. No, I'll take Doctor Blues. I can't do without Swing Out. Oh no, that leaves out Roamin' and Feelin' the Spirit from 1929 and Spider Crawl and Yellow Dog Blues from the Rhythmakers sessions of 1932. Oh well, there's my eight tracks gone and I haven't even started on the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Who wants to live on a desert island anyway?
Yarl River Jazz Band
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