Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet - February 5 1941
Dan Morgenstern - Profoundly Blue
Before Blue Note gave Hall his first dates as leader, he'd done considerable recording but was hardly a household name. Born in 1901 into a musical family (his father and three brothers all played at least semi-professionally, and Herb Hall, six years younger, also took up the clarinet.)/ Edmond left his home town with a band in 1923, settled in Florida, and made his first records with Alonzo Ross's De Luxe Syncopators in 1 927, soloing on soprano sax. Ross tried his luck in New York, but soon had to disband, and Edmond and his friend Cootie Williams decided to stick around.
He was with [Henry “Red”] Allen when making his Blue Note debut, but while he was billed as leader, we can be certain that Alfred Lion was responsible for the unusual instrumentation, and the personnel. Meade Lux Lewis, who plays celeste, was a Blue Note favorite (he'd also recorded on harpsichord for the label). Hall and Charlie Christian had recorded together before with singers Ida Cox and Eddie Howard. Israel Crosby, at 22 the baby of the band (Christian was all of 24), had worked with Wilson and played at Café Society.
Pete Welding – B-6505 Liner Notes
On the basis of their superlative handling of the form in these five performances, there can be little doubt that Hall, Lewis, Christian and Crosby were perfectly at home with the blues. From the opening phrases of "Jammin' In Four," right on through to the final measures of the lovely "Celestial Express" (what an apt title that is!), the four men treat the blues with thoroughgoing familiarity; the totally relaxed character of their playing is the best proof of this. At the same time, however. their approach to the form is never jaded or stylized but is, on the contrary, always fresh and exploratory. That they could and did find so many new expressive facets to the blues in their playing of these casually organized pieces is the chief reason the legacy of The Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet has been so enduring. These four men speak to us as directly and as movingly now as they did more than a quarter-century ago when they first committed their thoughts on the blues to record in Blue Note's studios.
Max Margulis - Blue Note 17/18 Brochure
BLUE NOTE's latest 12-inch releases introduce the celeste. a keyboard instrument which has been used with gratifying effect in symphonic scores during the past half century. Its occasional use in jazz ensembles, however, has not been successful, simply because performers play it as if were a piano. Meade “Lux” Lewis, who has no peer among creative keyboard artists, again demonstrates his unerring musicianship by establishing a technique cannily equivalent to the celeste's resources. In the present records, the instrument’s peculiar qualities of timbre and sustentation have prompted the soloists fathom hitherto unexplored feelings and modes of expression.
Within traditional improvisation-forms, the selections are full of fresh surprises and delights. All four musicians have essential roles of equal independence, and thus renew the literal sense of “collective improvisation." Their methods are varied: "Jamming in Four" and "Celestial Express" are rapid – the one, informal and ebullient, the other, truly boogie-woogie. “Profoundly Blue” is concentrated and perverse, and highlights Benny Goodman's guitarist in basic, unadorned achievement on regular non-electric guitar. "Edmond Hall Blues," conceived in honor of the great New Orleans clarinettist, features him in beautifully contoured and intense solo improvisation. As for Israel Crosby, BLUE NOTE pays tribute to a rare musician who thinks inspiredly in terms of an instrument limited in scope and range by conventional usage.
MAX MARGULIS
DM
As was Blue Note's custom, the menu for the session was strictly blues, in a variety of tempos. The texture is quite transparent, what with the shimmering sounds of the celeste (or celesta—a five-octave range keyboard instrument of steel plates, suspended in a resonating box and struck by hammers), the quiet acoustic guitar of Christian (the only time he recorded on an unamplified instrument), and acoustic bass, a setting in which Hall's acerbic clarinet inevitably dominates — which is fine since he's in superb form and a past master of the blues idiom.
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| Charlie Christian |
Two fast pieces bookend three slows, with the "Profoundly Blue" takes the standouts. Christian's opening solos are both masterful, as are his five choruses on "Jammin/ In Four'/ (where Hall hints at "St. Louis Blues"). The celeste is better suited for slow tempos (as Tchaikovsky so well knew when he used it in the "Nutcracker" ballet score), but Lewis certainly builds a nice head of steam on "Celestial Express," a kind of transposition of his famous "Honky Tonk Train" boogie woogie piano piece. Let’s not forget Crosby, who, while loess celebrated than his contemporary, the three months older Jimmy Blanton, was quietly contributing much to the rise of his instrument within jazz.
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| Downbeat - April 1941 |
Eric Thacker – MR6-109 The Complete Edmond Hall / James P. Johnson / Sidney DeParis / Vic Dickenson Blue Note Sessions
Few would suspect a blues pianist of hankering after 'exquisite purity', but Meade Lus Lewis discovered a celeste in a Chicago studio in 1936 and waxed a couple of numbers with it, of which CELESTE BLUFS caught many appreciative ears. He was to use the instrument to record again in the early sixties, and, incidentally used a harpsichord two months after the present session.
Combined with clarinet, guitar, and bass, the celeste gives a unique sound character to these specially composed routines. Being, at the time, one of the more sensitive boogie pianists, Lewis adapts to different tactual requirements. There are times, as in CELESTIAL EXPRESS (the inevitable pun), when the instrument sounds very much like a vibraharp. The Express is small band boogie, but Invis extends his expressive range elsewhere (hear the sparkling figures in JAMMIN' IN FOUR) even though every number is 12-bar blues-based; and he is freed somewhat by the bass support which Crosby, readily identified as a fine blues bassist, lends in consideration of the celeste's nether blankness.
Hall, with his penetrating 'buzz-tone', fashions several blues choruses of classic shape, squealing his blue notes with lightly-reined passion. This was Hall's first "name" recording date, and he clearly revels in the bright, light colors of this strange ensemble. His three linked sequences in JAMMIN; and his featured work in the moderately slow EDMOND HALL BLUES demonstrate his favored method of developing from early symmetries towards an animation which is peculiarly vocal in its intensity.
The intermittent trebling of the basic measure which Crosby employs in that blues is heard again in the two versions (not simply alternative takes) of PROFOUNDLY BLUE which together constitute the highlight of a fine session. Christian's figures seem more loosely controlled than, for example, his tough running blues lines in five choruses of JAMMIN. One hears Django-like stresses here and there, and his solos in each version are intriguingly constructed, mixing typical swing phraseology in a manner which appears as easily reconcilable with older blues insights. The interplay of all these performances is typified by the way in which takes his solo mood of meaning from Hall in PROFOUNDLY BLUE.
The American Record Guide March 1941: Volume 7 Issue 7
On February 6, Blue Note had another recording session – this time with a quartet consisting of Edmond Hall, Meade Lux Lewis, Israel Crosby, and Charlie Christian. One of the sides is a four-minute blues, a clarinet solo by Hall. The records are scheduled for release in the early part of March. They are being awaited with unusual interest.
The American Record Guide May 1941: Volume 7 Issue 9
Celestial Express; and Profoundly Blue, Blue Note Disc No. 17, price $1.50
Edmond Hall Blues; and Jamming in Four, Blue Note disc No. 18, price $1.50
Both played by the Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet. personnel: Edmond Hall, clarinet; Charles Christian, guitar; Meade '"Lux" Lewis, celeste; Israel Crosby, bass.
All four works are listed as improvisations and all four are splendid tributes to the fertility and resourcefulness of the Negro mind. Words to describe them are hard to find without running risk of sounding extravagant.
Meade "Lux" Lewis is outstanding on all four sides. but he is not the whole show even though he has succeeded in translating his unique piano style to the celeste - much simplified, of course, but just as fascinating, individual, and moving. Each of the other players shares the honors for musicianship. Israel Crosby is exceptionally impressive. Edmond Hall lives up to his reputation as great New Orleans clarinetist with some remarkably moving work.
Charles Christian is the least impressive of the four players. Not that his work is not good. but the others are so much more impressive! Yet he. too, some splendid work in the Blues.
These are two of the finest records that Blue Note has made to date.
Down Beat 1 April 1941: Volume 8 Issue 7
Although by no means the best of the biscuits Blue Note has devoted to hot jazz, four 12-inch sides by Edmond Hall’s quartet contain enough of interest to warrant a hearing. Meade Lux Lewis is at the celeste, Charlie Christian on guitar, Israel Crosby on bass and the leader, with stick. play Celestial Express, Profoundly Blue, Edmond Hall Blues and Jamming in Four, the title sounding best to these ears despite annoying overtones from the celeste.
Perhaps 10-inch sides would have been more palatable with this unusual combination. At least the performances are pure and not contaminated by commercial, trite individual exhibitions and ensembles by those taking part. The address is 10 West 47th street, New York City.
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Session Information
Reeves Sound Studios, NYC, February 5, 1941
Edmond Hall, clarinet; Meade "Lux" Lewis, celeste; Charlie Christian, acoustic guitar; Israel Crosby, bass.
Sources and Attribution:
Dan Morgenstern – Edmond Hall – Profoundly Blue 8-21260-2 Liner Notes
Eric Thacker – MR6-109 The Complete Edmond Hall / James P. Johnson / Sidney DeParis / Vic Dickenson Blue Note Sessions
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