The Quarantined Jazz Voyager

To maintain my health during this variant period of the pandemic I am continuing to listen to great music as I remain socially distant. This week I am pulling out from my shelves the album Easy Like, Volume 1 by guitarist Barney Kessel.

The album was released by Contemporary Records in 1956. Eight songs were released on the 10-inch album Barney Kessel which were recorded on November 14, and December 19, 1953, while other songs were recorded on February 23, 1956. It was recorded at Contemporary Records Studio in Los Angeles, California. The album was produced by Lester Koenig.

All tracks are written by Barney Kessel except where noted.

1. Easy Like ~ 4:04
2. Tenderly (Walter Gross/Jack Lawrence) ~ 4:06
3. Lullaby of Birdland (George Shearing/George David Weiss) ~ 3:16
4. What Is There to Say? (Vernon Duke/Yip Harburg) ~ 3:10
5. Bernardo ~ 3:34
6. Vicky’s Dream ~ 2:37
7. Salute to Charlie Christian ~ 2:52
8. That’s All (Alan Brandt/Bob Haymes) ~ 3:18
9. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart (Duke Ellington/Irving Mills/Henry Nemo/John Redmond) ~ 4:12
10. Just Squeeze Me (But Please Don’t Tease Me) (Ellington/Lee Gaines) ~ 3:41
11. April in Paris (Duke/Harburg) ~ 3:00
12. North of the Border ~ 2:46

• Barney Kessel ~ guitar
• Buddy Collette ~ alto saxophone, flute
• Bud Shank ~ alto saxophone, flute
• Arnold Ross ~ piano
• Claude Williamson ~ piano
• Harry Babasin ~ double bass
• Red Mitchell ~ double bass
• Shelly Manne ~ drums

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William Overton Smith was born on September 22, 1926 in Sacramento, California. He grew up in Oakland, California where he began playing clarinet at the age of ten. At 13 he put together a jazz group to play for dances and at the age of 15 he joined the Oakland Symphony. After high school, a brief cross-country tour with a dance band led to his giving two weeks notice for the best education he could, and he headed to New York City.

Studying at the Juilliard School of Music by day, he played in the city’s jazz clubs at night. The Juilliard faculty doing nothing for him, Bill returned home and attended Mills College in Oakland where he met pianist Dave Brubeck. He went on to study composition with Roger Sessions at the University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree.

A win of the Prix de Paris gave Bill two years of study at the Paris Conservatory, and in 1957, he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome and spent six years in that city. After teaching at the University of Southern California, he then spent thirty years teaching at the University of Washington School of Music in Seattle, Washington, and co-led the Contemporary Group.

Smith investigated and cataloged a wide range of extended techniques on the clarinet, including the use of two clarinets simultaneously by a single performer, and compiled the first comprehensive catalogue of fingerings for clarinet multiphonics. He was among the early composers interested in electronic music, and as a performer he continued to experiment with amplified clarinet and electronic delays.

He remained active nationally, internationally, and on the local Seattle music scene until well into his 90s. Clarinetist and composer Bill Smith, who played in various Brubeck groups and who composed, recorded and premiered his jazz opera Space in the Heart, passed away at age 93 in his home from complications of prostate cancer on February 29, 2020.

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Three Wishes

Duke Jordan was asked by the Baroness, if given three wishes, what he would he wish for and he told her: 

1. 1. “I want to master my instrument.”
   2. “I’d like the world to be happy.”
   3. “I’d like to, some kind of how, come into some money and be happy with it.”

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Herbert Frederick Hunt was born September 21, 1923 in London, England to musician parents. A self taught pianist, he started playing at the age of 13 and played local gigs before joining the Royal Air Force.

After demobilization, he began his musical career playing semi-professionally with Mike Daniels and the Cy Laurie Four in 1951. He then became professional and went on to join the Alex Welsh Band from 1954 to 1962 and again from 1964 to 1974.

As Welsh’s primary pianist and a featured soloist, he became one of Britain’s leading trad jazz musicians. He recorded with Eddie Davis, Bud Freeman, Eddie Miller, and Ben Webster in 1967. His work with Alex Welsh did not stop him from accompanying visiting Americans, including recording with the four-tenor group, Tenor Of Jazz, featuring Ben Webster and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, which toured in the late 60s.

After leaving Welsh in 1974, he played in Copenhagen, Denmark and South Africa, then after 1976 split his time between Britain, Denmark and Germany. He led a trio featuring drummer Lennie Hastings from 1978 although Hastings died that year. In 1979 the German label Erus Records released a live recording titled Yesterdays, featuring the Fred Hunt Trio, with Hunt on piano, bassit Brian Mursell and drummer Roger Nobes.

In the late Seventies Hunt toured with Wild Bill Davison and played with Welsh once more in the early 1980s. He retired due to failing health after being incapacitated and confined to wheelchair, though he worked frequently at London’s PizzaExpress Jazz Club until his death. Pianist Fred Hunt, who played in both modern and trad jazz musical settings, passed away in Weybridge, Surrey, England at the age of 62 on April 25, 1986.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Francis Williams was born September 20, 1910 in McConnell’s Mill, Pennsylvania. His first gigs were with Frank Terry’s Chicago Nightingales in the 1930s.

In 1940 he moved to New York City, and in the first half of the decade played in the bands of Fats Waller, Claude Hopkins, Edgar Hayes, Ella Fitzgerald, Sabby Lewis, and Machito. From 1945 to 1949, and again in 1951, he played and recorded extensively as a member of Duke Ellington’s orchestra.

Williams worked primarily with Latin jazz ensembles and New York theater bands in the 1950s and 1960s, and played with Clyde Bernhardt and the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band. In addition to working with his own quartet, near the end of his life he worked with Panama Francis.

Trumpeter Francis Williams, who was a single father of two, had one son, actor Greg Morris, passed away on October 2, 1983 in Houston, Texas.

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