1944 - December 11

Art Hodes' Blue Five – December 11 1944

 

Art Hodes- B-6508 Liner Notes 

Apex Blues. Shades of Jimmy Ryan's 52nd Street 'joint'. I'd had several trios there from time to time. One had 'the' Mezzrow (clarinet), and Alvin. For this date, Pops Foster sits in on bass and Maxie remains. There's a feel to this tune; and you've got to like Mezzrow's contribution. He had long before anyone dug the term. This is a real fine track. 

Shake That Thing, is another unissued master (ditto Jug Head and Eccentric). There's a intro. It's Alvin saying, "Taffy Boy", and Mezz, not to be outdone, calling "hey Maxie, let's get some of this." Very interesting how Alvin and Pops find a blend. At times we've got a boogie going. I like this side. 

Dan Morgenstern – the Complete Art Hodes Blue Note Sessions 

In his famous and controversial autobiography, REALLY THE BLUES, Mezz Mezzrow doesn’t mention Art Hodes, perhaps because it was too hard for him to come to terms with a fellow white musician (of origins and background similar to his own) had completely absorbed the black idiom. (Mezz did speak well of Max Kaminsky. however.) In any case, the book yet been published when this session took place. And—perhaps Mezz didn’t write about him—he and Art remained friends.  

Art, Mezz and Danny Alvin were a working trio, at Jimmy Ryan's around this time: as such. they recorded for World Transcriptions the next day. Max and Mezz had worked together as early as 1929. in what must have been the hottest band Red Nichols ever led; it also included Pee Wee Russell. Bud Freeman, Joe Sullivan, Eddie Condon and Dave Tough. Pops Foster was in the big band Mezz put together for a 1933 record date, and no stranger to Art or Blue Note. Generationally speaking, in this group Art and  

Max are the kiddies: Foster was born in 1892, Mezz in 1899. and Alvin was two years older than Art. All hands were already pros when GUT BUCKET BLUES, the very first record by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, came out in early 1926. and all of them (except Foster, who went from St. Louis straight to New York and didn't work in Chicago in the ‘20s heard Jimmie Noone's band with Earl Hines at the Apex Club.  

 

Dan Morgenstern - Hot Jazz at Blue Note CD Liner Notes 

Apex Blues was named for the Chicago club where Jimmy Noone’s special little band held forth, with that two-reed front line and Earl Hines at the piano. Mezz Mezzrow was a regular customer, and Art dropped by as well. The two-horn lineup is retained here, but it’s trumpet and clarinet, Maxie K. partnering Mezz with a mute in his bell. They get a feeling that recalls the 1928 Noone recording, and the oft-maligned Mezz sounds good in the ensembles. Art teams up with him in the second exposition of the theme and takes one of his customary good blues solos, and then Max and Mexx, in harmony, play Noone’s catchy, rocking riff before restating the theme. 

The Jazz Record December 1945 – Carlton Brown 

Shake opens with some bass rumbling by Art's solid left, quickly joined by his right doing trills that have the abandoned, carried-away quality, the exultant sadness, of James P. Johnson's accompaniment to Bessie Smith's Backwater Blues. In less feelingful hands, it might be a mere device, but in Art's as in James P.'s, the treble comes as a joyful release springing out of the deep blues mood established simultaneously by the bass. It will sound pretentious to some to say that Art's left hand delivers the tragic, beaten-down message of the blues while his right expresses triumph over that same despair. Of course the division needn't be as sharp as that, between one hand and the other, but it may strike some ears, as it does mine, that Hodes' playing has the blend of sadness and joy that is characteristic of the most moving blues music.  

This is an ensemble side, but the piano plays such a fundamental and continuing part in what goes on that it deserves emphasis. When someone—Mezz ?—shouts, "Hey, Maxie. let's get some of this," during Art's twelve-bar intro, what Max comes in to get has already been defined by piano, and is waiting for him to enlarge upon. He carries the theme forward in his dynamic, pushing style. socking it out cleanly and driving it down straight for two choruses. with Mezzrow doing some quiet, well-placed urging in the background, and the rhythm tending strictly to its business. Mezzrow's filling-in may be more harmonic than contrapuntal. but as in a good deal of clarinet accompaniment, it tends to shift from one to the other. This sort of hairsplitting, which has been indulged in certain deep-dish jazzicologists to the point of impending baldness on top, has little real bearing on a record like this, however. Let's knock it off.  

Art takes another chorus, then Mezz takes over for one that's low-down. unpretentious and right to the heart of the tune, with none of the see-sawing that I've found boring in work of Mezz’s depending less on group coordination than this. When Max takes over again, he demonstrates that the idea of a reiterated phrase has a valid place in jazz, when, as with him, it's used with mounting tension and a hammering-it-into-the-wall impact, rather than as the mechanical riffing too often used nowadays to fill in for faltering drive and inspiration. Maxie's twelve bars of repetition have meaning; he's testing the springboard for the twelve-bar sail he takes directly after, as strictly and gracefully executed as a jackknife, but with all the time in the world to work out new twists before hitting the lake. Art's piano has been rippling below him and Mezz's clarinet has been calling him home all along, and when Max rejoins the group, it's with a real fusion of purpose. Listen repeatedly to the way Mezzrow's clarinet wails up to take dominance and then weaves in and around May's insistent horn as it takes over, and you will have, I believe, the essence of good jazz as played by two evently-matched melody voices with rhythm support. The struggle is purely play, each man making his own bid for attention without any desire to out-shout me other. Art arbitrates it with eight bars that refer back to his opening, and they're all out together.  

Pops Foster's presence on the date must be taken on faith; the recording balance renders him inaudible, but if he was there, as the label states, the guys in the band certainly on his throbbing beat, one of the best going. Danny Alvin, whose beat is ditto, comes through clearly, and if he hasn't come in for any special citation here, it's because he understands the drummer's place in a jazz band so well—no solos, no pyrotechnics that intrude into the main business at hand, just a steady, accurate, varied whack that almost invariably gives equal emphasis to all four beats.  

Apex Blues is quite different from Shake in structure, but is satisfying in its way. It's taken, in the Noone tradition. as a showpiece for clarinet, and I'm surprised to find that, after several comparative listens, I like this version better than the original - I think that "I like" is about all a reviewer, no matter what array of theory he calls into play, can pronounce in the way of esthetic judgment. This judgment will be rank heresy to the master-number boys, and in extenuation I only say that I arrived at it the hard way. Having developed a pronounced case of Mezzrophobia in the last couple of years, I am happy to report that these two sides go far toward clearing up the condition. Mezz can play, when not engaged in showing how often and shrilly he can repeat a phrase that wasn't such a hot idea to begin with. On these he plays, and if his name had never up in any other connection, he would seem to me to be bringing what Noone helped to pioneer a little closer to contemporary cars—and I don't mean the tin ones of the self-styled "modernists."  

P.S. —On the couple of occasions when I've had the pleasure of filling this spot, it's given me an added kick to think that I'm helping to keep the seat warm for Lt. George Avakian, one of the rightest guys who ever wrote about jazz, now less pleasantly occupied in Japan. It might be fitting to tell George here that I saw Kaminsky in Boston recently, where he's packing 'em in at the Copley Terrace. I was going to ask Max what he really thought of this Dixieland music, or whatever he wanted to call it, that he had been quoted as despising. But it seemed too happy an occasion to haul out that dead canard and kick it around any more. The good old trumpet-trombone-clarinet triumvirate was collaborating and taking turns at things like Sensation, Dippermouth, and Sweet Georgia' Brown, all on their own incentive, and I didn't see the manager standing over the rhythm section with a black whip to enforce two to the bar. Everyone on and off the stand seemed to be enjoying it hugely, including Bill Davison, who drove up for a session at the Savoy and sat in with Max later for kicks. Sounded wonderful together no cutting contest, each taking his turn at backing up the other, just jazz for fun, a happy time on some happy tunes. Remember, Grandpa Avak, when almost everybody took it that way, or if they didn't, could always go out in the alley and sulk? Don't worry. When you and the rest of the good guys get back, there'll be a majority again. 

The Record Changer November 1945 

Apex Blues is a very quiet record, in fact a little too quiet. The duet of Kaminsky and Mezzrow is straight  
but nice. After this Mezzrow takes two very simple but gratifying choruses. The music in the ninth  
bar has exceptional blues quality. Hodes takes the next chorus holding our attention more in the beginning than at the end. There is another duet section and a return to the first theme for a final. The record is nice but too repetitive. Everything is repeated 'as is' which makes it drag in places.  

Shake That Thing is an excellent record. The choruses are well planned, Hodes taking the first, last  
and one in the middle. It gives good balance. Max leads the second chorus while in the next Mezzrow  
becomes more pronounced. Max has a sharp way of playing the tune that gives it a pronounced down 
beat. Mezz's chorus is mellow and low, and I wish he had gone on up into the high register for a second chorus. There is a simple one-bar riff chorus. Hodes plays against this riff which is very effective. Riffs have their place in jazz if done simply. Riffs are about the easiest type of music to assimilate and for this very reason become obnoxious when they are "overloaded." After this chorus Kaminsky plays still sharper and more pointedly. This is a very fine chorus of his. One of the best I have ever heard him take in this sharply attacking vein. In the ensemble chorus Mezz plays very beautifully. His tone is warm and clear. 

I like Hodes' blues playing and although I like his delicate trill tracery I believe he is beginning to rely on it too much. Once accepted, it does not have great interest in itself. I feel he goes into a chorus waiting for inspiration and when it does not come he substitutes the device of trill tracery. Today, in the recording studio, a player need not be always ready with a spot improvisation. If he is ready, that is fine and good, but if he is not, then he can always borrow some successful device out of his past playing. What comes out on a record is what we judge by, not how it came about. The prolific Mead remembers a great deal but on a record we are little concerned with whether he remembered or someone was whispering in his ear.  

These comments about Hodes' playing are not specifically directed towards Shake That Thing but are general in nature. As a matter of fact Shake That Thing is played just right .and is on the whole finely conceived. 

The Record Changer November 1949 

Maybe the past few months' pickings have been so lean that this sounds better than usual to these tired ears but it seems to me like a pretty fair record. Not that I'd want to compare the top side to the original by Louis and the Hot Five, yet Hodes seems to have captured some of the same excitement without in any sense copying it. His opening and closing piano work, for example, is an elaboration of the St. Cyr guitar opening and he works it up into something that sets the whole tone of the record and helps things along considerably because it is as haunting as hell and so catchy you find yourself humming it. The other side is a little more the standard fare, but a pretty rollicking performance nonetheless.  

Among the personnel is Hodes, of course, and Maxie Kaminsky, the mite from Beantown who supposedly cut his teeth on Louie's backing up of Maggie Jones on Good Time Flat Blues. Mezz has always been close to Louie, as has Pops Foster, which leaves Danny Alvin about the only one on the date who wasn't. All things considered I'd call this a pretty successful item and it's good to hear Mezz again with that harsh, gritty tone. I'd say he was more than a little rusty and though he was never of more than limited technique he feels things in a way that is wholly his own. This is not the best in the world but coming at such a time it is more than welcome on my record shelves. (B.M) 

Consumer Reports November 1946 

Blue Note Records (767 Lexington Ave., NYC 21). This producer continues to ring the bell with the best in strictly purist jazz, though its output has been reduced somewhat by shellac short- ages. Recommended: “Winin’ Boy Blues,” by Baby Dodds Jazz Four; “How Long, How Long Blues,” by Pigmeat Markham; “Apex Blues” by Art Hodes Blue Five; “It’s Been So Long,” by Edmond Hall’s Swingtet. Blue Note attempts to keep its entire list, comprising an excellent collection of records, in stock. A Blue Note catalog is worth writing for. 

Pic Magazine January 1946 Volume 18 Issue 1 

A NEW DISC which may well make jazz history before your very ears is Shake That Thing—Apex  
Blues, by Art Hodes' Blue Five (Blue Note #45: 12-in.). Art's bright, boogie-ish piano introduces Shake. and then Mezz Mezzrow calls, "Come on, Maxie, let's get some of this!" Kaminsky really gets it with a horn that's low-down, mean and growling, then clear and soaring, complemented by the finest, mellowest clarinet I've ever heard from Mezz, and backed up by Danny Alvin's sharp, steady drums and Pops Foster's deep. sure bass. Everyone's feeling so right that there's not a strained note or a touch of over-assertiveness on either side—just pure jazz of great feeling and skill. 

 

Session Information 

Max Kaminsky, trumpet; Mezz Mezzrow, clarinet; Art Hodes, piano; George "Pops" Foster, bass; Danny Alvin, drums. 

WOR Studios, NYC, December 11, 1944 

BN200-0, Gut Bucket Blues, Blue Note 528, BLP 7023 

BN201-1, Apex Blues, Blue Note 45, BLP 7006, B-6508 

BN202-0, Shake That Thing (alternate take), Blue Note B-6502, B-6508 

BN202-1, Shake That Thing, Blue Note 45, BLP 7006 

BN203-0, (Back Home Again In) Indiana 

BN204-0, Nobody's Sweetheart, Blue Note 528, BLP 7023 

BN204-1, Nobody's Sweetheart (alternate take)