1944 - November-December

Erroll Garner – Overture to Dawn – November/December 1944

 

Leonard Feather - BLP 5007/5008 Liner Notes 

In the past few years Erroll Garner has enjoyed international acclaim as one of the truly original stylists in jazz. Many, many records have been released, featuring his puckish piano personality on the fast tunes and his romantic, spread-chord style on the ballads. Almost all these records have been devoted to standard popular songs. 

That is why the two LP discs now being released on Blue Note have a special interest for the jazz lover. They are unlike the flood of Garner sides released on major labels in the past year or two; first, in that they do not suffer from the three-minute time limitation that has often restricted Erroll's imagination, second, in that they were recorded without any planned attempt to please the general public - in fact, without the realization that they would ever be released at all. 

The story of how they were recorded makes them unique in a third respect, for these are the first records Garner ever made. Soon after he came to New York from Pittsburgh in the fall of 1944 to make his living as a denizen of 52nd Street, Erroll started dropping in at the nearby home of Baron Timme Rosenkrantz, the Danish nobleman who has long been know and liked in the jazz world as a fan, writer and promoter. Timme, with Inez Cavanaugh, set up his apartment as a recording studio and often played back the improvisations of visiting musicians for their own amusement. 

When Erroll played Timme's piano and Timme put the cutting needle to work, it was the first time Erroll ever had a chance to hear himself. Night after night he came back, playing long, rambling ad lib concertos. On these discs they have titles - Overture to Dawn, because it was recorded in the small hours; Floating On A Cloud, Autumn Mood, Erroll's Concerto and You Were Born To Be Kissed; but in fact they were being composed while they we played, and the next morning Erroll could not have repeated any of them. They had no titles, no set form, yet they have a greater variety and continuity of mood, a truer ring of artistry, than almost any of the commercially recorded sides of later years. The Overture and Autumn Mood, in particular, show facets of Erroll's style that are rarely heard nowadays. 

Sure, the recording is by no means perfect, and the technical aspects reflect the informality of the conditions under which they were made; but by the same token, they reflect the complete freedom Erroll enjoyed from self-consciousness, from the knowledge that he was playing for an audience. 

Here is a man sitting down at a piano and, to all intents and purposes, playing to and for himself; quietly, contemplatively and with a serene beauty. It is the kind of music that can be captured all too rarely in the extrovert world of jazz. 

Leonard Feather - BLP 5014/5015/5016 Liner Notes 

The success of Blue Note's first Erroll Garner releases (BLP 5007, Vol. 1 and BLP 5008 Vol. 2), has led to the release of a further series of three volumes to swell the anthology of early Garner now in eager demand among collectors. 

The present series was recorded around the same time and under the same conditions as the first set. Heralded only by the occasional and enthusiastic word-of-mouth conmen€ from such fellow Pittsburghers as Billy Strayhorn, Erroll had descended upon the teeming jazz alley of 52nd Street and was working at a small and short-lived boite called Tondelayo's. None of the commercial recording outfits were interested in Garner at the time, but Timme Rosenkrantz had an exceptional supply of nocturnal facilities, and young Mr. Garner was ever ready to avail himself of them - a good piano in a quiet fourth-floor walk-up apartment on West 46th Street, copious libations, and a disc-recording apparatus (tape recording was virtually unknown in 1944 except in the larger studios). It was under these mellow, early-hour conditions that Erroll's first records were made. 

The completely impromptu program in these volumes shows even more flexibility of moods than the first two. There are frequent traces of the characteristics that were later to become Erroll's set personal style. The complete freedom of improvisation, coupled with the unawareness that these ramblings would ever be put to any commercial use, produced some performances as lengthy as they are intriguing. I Got Rhythm and Yesterdays both run over nine minutes; Erroll's Reverie, the Debussy impression later compressed into three-minute format in a more recent version, runs eight minutes. The appropriately titled Clock Stood Still, which has moments of strangely Gershwinesque melodic charm, might well have been the title for thin whole series, for time seems suspended as Erroll weaves his way in and out of subtle harmonic and melodic complexities to convey a mood of buoyant euphoria. 

Most of the music here is original Garner, but when a standard song is taken, it merely serves as a point of departure for a flow of typical Garner music for which Erroll has selected a theme that lends itself ideally, both in melody and chord pattern, to his fantasies. 

The traditional blues gets an effective workout in Fast Company; a humorous; octave-jump theme forms the delightful basis of Opus I, unrelated to any other opus by this title. In Duke For Dinner Erroll slyly interpolates suggestions of various compositions developed in the Ellington orchestra, welding them into a pattern that the Duke himself would certainly find fascinating. 

It would be foolish to attempt a complete analysis of everything that happens on these three discs. Erroll has been dissected many times before, and has never been found wanting in any of the qualities of invention and technique great artist in modern music. 

Down Beat 24 September 1952 Volume 19 Issue 19 

Entitled Overture To Dawn, this is the first of several volumes that should provide Garner collectors with a good conversation piece. They are the first sides he ever cut. Made for his own amusement in 1944 during a party at a friend’s apartment, they are amateurishly recorded, but, because of the long duration of each number and the pleasantly rambling mood established, they offer facets of his style rarely heard on wax. (Blue Note LP 5008.) 

Down Beat November 19 1952 Volume 19 Issue 23 

Same comments apply here that were offered on the last item in this series (Down Beat Sept. 24). Dawn, from which the series derives its title, is also the name of the piece that occupies one entire side of this latest release. (Blue Note LP 5007) 

Down Beat December 31 1952 Volume 19 Issue 26 

This is the third volume of Overture To Dawn, Blue Note’s increasingly massive anthology of 1944 Garner. Rhythm is almost heretical in that Erroll starts out playing the melody; we’d almost forgotten how it went. Street fades out inexplicably on bar 31. Yesterdays, though overlong, is less developed than later recordings of it by EG. Fast is about eight minutes of blues, just some fine, insouciant jumping blues. And oh yes—we dig Paul Bacon’s cover picture of Erroll the most. (Blue Note 5014.) 

Down Beat April 8 1953 Volume 20 Issue 7 More early Garner dubbed from home recordings made by Timme Rosenkrantz. Most interesting passages are in Duke, which quotes literally from various Ellington sources to help build a somewhat ducal atmosphere. Reverie is the quasi-Debussy performance since contracted into three-minute form on Atlantic; eight minutes here. (Blue Note 5015)

Down Beat 15 July 1953 Volume 20 Issue 14 The last of Blue Note's five-volume anthology of Garner is one of the best of the bunch. Cut in 1944 in a private apartment, with no idea that it ever would be used as a commercial record, Gaslight offers a provocative comparison with the later version. Opus 1 has nothing to do with Tommy Dorsey; it's one of those cuts, jumping Garner originals. Clock is a typically romantic, 4 a.m., wandering, melodic excursion, hampered a little by the amateur recording in but still full of charm. (Blue Note 5016)

Session Information 

Erroll Garner, piano. 

Timme Rosenkrantz apartment, NYC, November 16, 1944 

The Clock Stood Still, Blue Note BLP 5016 

The Fighting Cocks 

Memories Of You 

More Than You Know 

Embraceable You 

-, - 

 

November 18, 1944 

Floating On A Cloud, Blue Note BLP 5008 

 

November 22, 1944 

Autumn Mood, Blue Note BLP 5008 

9471, Variations On A Theme Part 1 

9472, Variations On A Theme Part 2 

 

November 24, 1944 

Achin' A Blues 

On The Sunny Side Of The Street, Blue Note BLP 5014 

Drizzly Afternoon 

Erroll Garner and others 

Erroll Garner, piano; others unknown but possibly include Vic Dickenson, Bobby Platt, trombone; Barney Bigard, clarinet; Timme Rosenkrantz, percussion;  

December 10-12, 1944 

Yesterdays, Blue Note BLP 5014 

December 10-12, 1944 

Overture To Dawn, Blue Note BLP 5007 

Erroll's Concerto (To You), Blue Note BLP 5008 

 

Erroll Garner Duo 

Erroll Garner, piano; George Wettling or maybe Doc West, drums; 

December 14, 1944 

It Had To Be You 

I Surrender, Dear, Blue Note BLP 5008 

 

December 14, 1944 

215A 12A, I Hear A Rhapsody Part 1, Blue Note BLP 5007 

215A 12B, I Hear A Rhapsody Part 2, Blue Note BLP 5007 

You Were Born To Be Kissed, Blue Note BLP 5007 

Erroll's Reverie, Blue Note BLP 5015 

EG-185A, All The Things You Are Part 1, Blue Note BLP 5016 

EG-185B, All The Things You Are Part 2, Blue Note BLP 5016 

 

Erroll Garner - Unknown Guitarist Duo 

Erroll Garner, piano; unknown, guitar (possibly John Simmons) 

December 20, 1944 

Fast Company, Blue Note BLP 5014 

 

December 20, 1944 

EG-182-A, The Fighting Cocks, Blue Note BLP 5015 

EG-183-A, A Lick And A Promise, Blue Note BLP 5015 

Opus I, Blue Note BLP 5016 

Gaslight, Blue Note BLP 5016 

10474, Twistin' The Cat's Tail 

 

Erroll Garner - Unknown Bassist Duo - December 23, 1944 

Erroll Garner, piano; possibly John Simmons, bass 

I Got Rhythm, Blue Note BLP 5014 

Duke For Dinner, Blue Note BLP 5015 

233-B-20-A, Just You, Just Me 

233-B-20-B, Yesterdays, 

(DLP-24), Easy To Love 

MS-7005, Love Is The Thing Part 1 

(DLP-24), In The Beginning 

 

December 23-25, 1944 

You're Blase 

More Than You Know 

A Lick And A Promise 

Blue Grass 

Medley: Am I Blue; Holiday For Strings 

Embraceable You 

It's The Talk Of The Town 

Blue Note BLP 5007   Erroll Garner - Overture To Dawn Volume 1 
Blue Note BLP 5008   Erroll Garner - Overture To Dawn Volume 2 

Blue Note BLP 5014   Erroll Garner - Overture To Dawn Volume 3 

Blue Note BLP 5015   Erroll Garner - Overture To Dawn Volume 4 

Blue Note BLP 5016   Erroll Garner - Overture To Dawn Volume 5