Spring is Here (1938)

The first chart hit version of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's 1938 composition "Spring is Here", as adapted from the Broadway production of I Married an Angel. Reisman was an extremely popular bandleader during the 1930s who enjoyed success with his recordings of several songs that were to become jazz standards including "Yesterdays" and "Alone Together". The vocal refrain on his version of "Spring is Here" was by Felix Knight, known by most Statesiders of a certain age and older as Tom-Tom in Laurel and Hardy's Babes in Toyland.

4 years later, the song reached a wider audience courtesy of Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy's performance of the song in the drastically tamer film version of I Married an Angel. The movie was a box-office and critical failure, known in the history books more for what it might have been rather than what audiences saw in the theaters. One can thank the Hays Code and its neutering effect on a lot of film adaptations of contemporaneous Broadway source material.

The first jazz version of song is a matter that is in dispute. The 1954 10" LP (and 7" EP) Interpretations by the Stan Getz Quintet featured a stand-out early adoption of the tune by younger modernists. Recorded in the Summer of 1953 in Los Angeles for Norman Granz's Norgran label, Getz was joined by Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone, Johnny Williams (as in, yes, that John Williams) at the piano, Teddy Kotick playing the bass, and Frank Isola behind the drums.

For more details about this composition and its history, I heartily recommend the JazzStandards.com entry here.

San Francisco (1957)

Market Street, October 1957, photographer unknown

This 1957 photo is just one of many wonderful found images that will be on display today through Tuesday, January 6, 2015 at Glass Key Photo, 442 Haight Street, San Francisco. The owners are avid collectors of vintage slides and this exhibit just represents the tip of their proverbial iceberg. They were kind enough to engage me to partner in this year's selection of the images under my Vintage San Francisco guise. There is also a book available of all of the images (and more) available here via Blurb.

What sets this exhibit apart? Well San Francisco Found is about exactly that, found images shot by amateurs with varying degrees of interest and skill. At times one feels like they are a voyeur, sneaking glimpses of other people's lives. At other times, it is as if you have stumbled upon a long lost Lee Friedlander or Weegee photo. 

If you are in San Francisco this evening. Please join us for the opening. 

Reid Miles (1956)

Patterns in Jazz by Gil Melle, Blue Note 12" LP 1517, 1956, cover design by Reid Miles

I know. I can hear it now. The last thing the internet needs is another blog post singing the praises of Reid Miles and his 12-year stint (1955 through 1967) as the principle LP artwork designer for Blue Note Records! Right? Well, of course one cannot laud Miles enough: his work for the New York jazz label was a masterful high-water mark of mid-century modernist design. But there was certainly more to  this well-known figure whose full story has remained remarkably illusive.

Mobley's Message by Hank Mobley, Prestige 12" LP 7061, 1956, cover design by Reid Miles

Born in Chicago on the 4th of July in 1927, Miles actually grew up on the West Coast of California. After the stock market crash of '29, his family moved out west as so many other families did during the Great Depression and ended up in Long Beach. A marital split left Miles in the care of his mother who supported he and his younger sister by working in a cannery in San Pedro. Most of his youth is undocumented, although it is known that Miles joined the U.S. Navy near the end of the Second World War, serving as a chauffeur. Upon his discharge he returned to Los Angeles and, according to Wayne Adams who would later assist Miles in the 1980s, chased after a girl and wound up enrolled in the Chouinard Art Institute. Chouinard was then located in MacArthur Park and would merge with the LA Conservatory of Music to form CalArts in 1961. Other Chouinard alumni, whose names will be familiar to regular readers of this blog, include graphic designer S. Neil Fujita and pop artist Ed Ruscha. Rushca and Miles almost certainly never crossed paths that the school as the former did not enroll until the mid-1950s. However, it is very likely that Fujita and Miles met at Chouinard as both attended the school around the same time - a very interesting idea considering how Fujita would later find him on the East Coast designing LP covers for Columbia Records a few years after studying in LA.

Herbie Nichols Trio by Herbie Nichols, Blue Note 12" LP 1519, 1956, cover design by Reid Miles

The person at Chouinard with whom Miles most definitely came into contact was the eventual head of the basic design program, Bill Moore. Moore is something of a West Coast design/art/animation legend who influenced generations of students over the course of nearly 40 years at Chouinard and CalArts. He is the thread the ties together such disparate names as Reid Miles, Ed Ruscha, Tim Burton, and Brad Bird - all of whom studied with Moore. Miles apparently had very little influences in his design life, but Moore was one of them and an early one at that.

Olio by Thad Jones, Prestige 12" LP 7084, 1956, cover design by Reid Miles

Leaving Chouinard before completing the courses required for graduation, Reid Miles made a bee line for New York City, scoring a job with designer John Hermansader. The timing was certainly right as Hermansader, through his friend and fellow designer Paul Bacon, began working with Blue Note Records in 1953 not too long after Miles arrived on the scene. Here is where the story gets a little hazy. While it is known that Miles worked on the Blue Note account, it is not known how much of the early (1953-1955) work was done by Hermansader, how much was done by Miles, and how much was a collaboration. May we indulge in some speculation? Based on the collective body of work Hermansader provided for Blue Note, he quite feasibly could have been another big influence on Miles.
Blue Note historians tend to downplay Hermansader's contributions, but his other surviving examples of visual art clearly indicate a notable talent. The raw materials are there in the work which Miles would develop into an art by the end of the decade, but the question remains just how much input Miles had into the Blue Note designs early on. Unfortunately, neither man is alive today to discuss and the period is poorly documented. At any rate, Miles - who would develop a history of transience - left Hermansader in 1955 for a job with Esquire magazine doing the layout and paste-up work. However, whatever his contributions were to Hermansader's Blue Note account, they were significant enough to catch the attention of the label's owners Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff who asked him to take a lead role in the design of 12-inch Long Playing records, the format that by mid-decade had emerged as the preferred format of most jazz releases industry-wide. Esquire was apparently well-aware of this arrangement and allowed Miles to moonlight - which usually meant working on 3 or so Blue Note LP covers on his Saturday off from the magazine, being paid $50 a job/cover. Later interviews would reveal Miles to be would could be termed a workaholic, in that to him his work was his life and the absence of former made the latter unbearable at times.

J.R. Monterose, Blue Note 12" LP 1536, 1956, cover design by Reid Miles

Contributing to an even more hazy story is the fact that a year after this transition and for a time space of nearly 2 years, Miles was also contributing 12" LP jacket designs to Blue Note's de facto, if not friendly rival Prestige Records. From 1956 until 1957, his name graced the jackets of nearly a dozen discs. Interestingly, this work is seldom cited by design aficionados, although there are some excellent covers that easily rival his contemporaneous work for Blue Note. There are definitely some similarities between the covers and one can see his style developing which each subsequent release. So here is one artist, simultaneously providing the visuals for some of the important modern jazz music recorded of its time (or any time for that matter). And, of course, Miles was famously not a fan of jazz, preferring classical. But this period is interesting, mainly as it is of such high quality and yet overlooked by most design fans.

Quadrama by the Gil Melle Quartet, Prestige 12" LP 7097, 1956, cover design by Reid Miles

A third influence should be mentioned at this time. After Moore and possibly Hermansader, Miles other major influence of the time was known to be Saul Bass. Bass needs no significant introduction to readers of this weblog, but it is perhaps helpful to put him into historical perspective. At the time that Miles was accepting a job with Esquire and getting down to business in earnest with Blue Note and Prestige, Bass was gaining widespread notoriety first for his work on the posters and titles for Carmen Jones (1954) and even more so for The Man With The Golden Arm (1955). His greatest innovation was perhaps the liberation of type from the galley, finding new ways to communicate the written word that flew (sometimes, literally) in the face of convention. Of course, in the design world Bass is a true legend and this history books have been kind to the legacy he has left behind.

6 Pieces of Silver by the Horace Silver Quintet, Blue Note 12" LP 1539, 1956, cover design by Reid Miles

Reid Miles perhaps enjoyed his most lucrative years well after his run with Blue Note. Some time in the early-1960s he started focusing on photography. By mid-decade it was his main focus. Miles returned to Los Angeles in 1971 and within a few years established a style and clientele that made him quite successful by anyone's terms - although he retained a drive and passion for his work which lasted until his death in 1993. Miles occasionally returned to album covers during the second act of his career, but his style by then had changed so significantly that few people made the connection. Fortunately, his mid-'50s experiments are well documented and, hopefully, well preserved for the ages.

Portrait of a Spanish Poet (1959)

Portrait of a Spanish Poet by John Altoon, completed 1959

Los Angeles born artist John Altoon, spent nearly 5 years working on the painting he titled Portrait of a Spanish Poet. Often subtitled (Lorca), the piece is ostensibly a portrait of Spanish writer Federico García Lorca. It was completed in 1959 (the same year Altoon married B movie and television actress Fay Spain) and was included in Altoon's second solo show at the Ferus Gallery in 1961. By the time of that show Ferus had moved to its second location at 723 North La Cienega in West Los Angeles and had been under the direction of Irvin Blum for 3 years. Altoon's relationship with the gallery was firmly established by the late-'50s, being represented by Ferus. The painter had yet to fully transition to the more figurative approach he adopted in the 1960s, with the work being very much a product of his exposure to Abstract Expressionism due to his time spent in New York City as well as the Bay Area  School with exerted a strong influence on the LA art scene during the 1950s. 

John Altoon, Tony Lanreau, and Maggie Ryan, Venice, California, photo by William Claxton, 1959

The painting and Altoon made a cameo appearance on the dust jacket of the original 1959 edition of Laurence Lipton's The Holy Barbarians, the writer's survey of Beat Culture at the turn of the decade. Many (most?) had no idea that that giddy, shirtless beatnik in William Claxton's photo had painted the work of art hanging on the wall behind him, much less that he was the heart and soul of the burgeoning Ferus Gallery scene in West Los Angeles and Venice Beach. The connection was likely more due to Claxton, rather than Altoon laying any Beat Generation claims as the modern art circles on both Coasts tended to distance themselves from the Beat poets in spite of any lifestyle similarities.

Jazz Guitar: Jim Hall, Pacific Jazz 1227 12" LP, 1957, cover photo by William Claxton featuring John Altoon

Clax also played a role in Altoon's slightly earlier entree to mainstream exposure. As the staff photographer and cover art director for Dick Bock's Pacific Jazz Records, Claxton played a major role in the label's West Coast Artist Series that was begun some time in early 1956 as this excellent, highly recommended article outlines in detail. By the time it came to release guitarist Jim Hall's debut LP on the label, Bock and Claxton took a slightly different approach to the series by not only featuring the work or an emerging West Coast artist, but also by including a photo of the artist at work. The artist in question was John Altoon who was featured in the shot (albeit with his back to the camera). The device had already been used once the previously year for a Chico Hamilton Quintet release (also featuring Hall), but the Jim Hall/John Altoon/William Claxton image seems to capture the zeitgeist with slightly more authenticity. 

 Dick Bock, Jim Hall, John Altoon, and William Claxton, 1957

Altoon's career - and life - was short. He battled what some called true demons throughout his lifetime - but, in spite of his concerted efforts to manage his struggles, he died of a heart attack at the age of 44 in 1969. 

For more information about Altoon and the Ferus Gallery scene, I highly recommend Morgan Neville's 2008 documentary film The Cool School. 

If you live in or are going to be in the Los Angeles area before September 14, 2014, I strongly encourage you to visit the first major John Altoon retrospective, currently on exhibit at LACMA.

TK Smith (2014)

Desert Oasis: The Midcentury Modern Guitars of TK Smith by Nick Rossi, photos by Jacqueline Di Milia, courtesy of the Fretboard Journal

Issue number 32 of the Fretboard Journal is now available at newsstands everywhere. I am very pleased to announce that it includes an article penned by yours truly profiling guitarist and guitar-maker TK Smith. I first heard about TK in 1990 when Big Sandy & The Fly-Rite Trio released their debut LP on Dionysus Records and played in San Francisco to support the disc. I've been a fan of Smith's playing ever since. The path his life has taken is a very interesting one and it intersects with a lot of the topics covered on the pages of this weblog. I find his work to be beautiful, not only from the aesthetic perspective of someone who appreciates modernism, but also as someone who respects true craftsmanship. I also like that TK is part of a Southern California tradition - not in a convoluted way, but simple because he is both creative and curious. Plus he has great taste!

Fretboard Journal 32, Ry Cooder cover story, out now

TK Smith may be found online and you may also follow him on Instagram. And here's just a snippet of why he is one of the most interesting guitar players around…

Nicholas Ray (1932)

A full two decades before film director Nicholas Ray was in his celluloid ascent - reaching a peak with 1955's Rebel Without a Cause - and long before Jean-Luc Godard declared that Ray indeed was cinema, the latter-day legend was just embarking on an artistic journey that eventually would lead him to the modern medium of film. This journey had some unlikely twists and turns, not the least of which was a year spent as an apprentice to famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

James Dean and Nicholas Ray, Los Angeles, California, 1955

Ray, later known as Nick to most of his West Coast friends and acquaintances, was born on August 7, 1911 in Galesville, Wisconsin with the given name of Raymond Nicholas Kienzle. 3 months earlier in Spring Green, 100 miles southwest of Ray's birthplace, the maestro Frank Lloyd Wright began work on his own personal residence and workplace. This came to be known as Taliesin, a Welsh word which in rough translation means shining brow and refers to Wright placing the structure on the top or brow of a hill. Wright was in transition, having recently returned from nearly a year in Europe which had marked the end of what was later called his Prairie Period.

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1930, around the time he first met Ray, photo by Price Studios

As a youth, Ray was an uneven student seemingly distracted by the big city delights of Chicago, where he spent much of his formative years. He returned to Wisconsin for his senior year in high school and showed a strong affinity for and ability in public speaking, English, and drama. Two years in a state college was followed by a tumultuous semester at the University of Chicago in the fall of 1931, after which he left for New York City to study theater. However the connections made in Chicago precipitated Ray joining the inaugural fellowship of Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin in 1932, some time after the two crossed paths again during an event at Columbia University.

Design Sketch, Capital Journal Building, Salem, Oregon by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1931-1932

Contrary to many claims and by his own account, Ray spent a year under Wright's tutelage. The concept of the Fellowship was that Wright felt only by living and working with apprentices around the clock could the understand his concepts and ideas. As a social experiment, it was quite interesting. Members of the Fellowship not only actively executed ideas on Taliesin itself (the buildings there in a state of constant change), but worked as draughtsmen, farmhands, and domestics on the property. Living was for the most part communal. One suspects that the strict rigors of life at Taliesin did not sit well with the restless Ray, but many have commented that a political rift between Wright, a strong believer in the power of democracy, and his more radical-leaning protege was the cause of the latter's return to New York, which would eventually lead him to Hollywood and the world of film-making.

Nicholas Ray, Hollywood, c.1945

However, the year spent with Frank Lloyd Wright would prove to have a tremendous impact on the artistic eye of Nicholas Ray. 34 years after his death, Ray's widow Susan stressed the importance of the period in an interview, citing the nature of the Fellowship as shaping Ray's ideal work methods, as well as the very idea that architecture (and film in Ray's) provided a framework for the arts. Ray himself professed that his love of what he called the vertical line was due to his time with Wright and attributed his fondness for Cinescope to an extension of that love.

Storyboard, Rebel Without a Cause, Nicholas Ray, 1955

An interesting footnote: the 2003 DVD release of Ray's masterful In a Lonely Place, made for Humphrey Bogart's Santana Productions, features a short film extra in which director Curtis Hanson sings Ray's praises and calls out some of the architectural elements in the film - citing the Frank Lloyd Wright period. Hanson, of course, directed 1997's L.A. Confidential a neo-noir film based on James Ellroy's novel. One of the buildings prominently featured in the film is the Lovell House designed around 1927 by Richard Neutra. Neutra had only recently moved the United States and one of his first employers before moving to California was Frank Lloyd Wright. The Lovell House is just 2 miles down the hill from the Griffith Park Observatory which is perhaps the most well-know location used in Ray's Rebel Without a Cause.

Chico Hamilton (1921-2013)

Blue Sands by The Chico Hamilton Quintet from Bert Stern's Jazz on a Summer's Day, 1958

Social media delivered the news that Forestorn "Chico" Hamilton passed away at the age of 92. The words legend and great are far too often abused these days, but Hamilton was both. As an innovative percussionist and bandleader, he was a somewhat singular modern American musician. I know people that have both studied and worked with him, so I can comfortably claim that he was also a true personality. For those interested in digging deep, I highly recommend listening to and reading his contribution to the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Project here.

Print ad, Down Beat magazine, 1962

Regular readers will no doubt be well aware of my love of (and possible obsession with) Bert Stern's 1958 film Jazz on a Summer's Day. It has managed to work it's way onto these pages several times, but most notably here and here. Bassist Bill Crow also was kind enough to answer some of my related questions here.

Down Beat magazine, August 8, 1957

I have never really tackled the Quintet's performance of Buddy Collette's Blue Sands in print, mainly because - to me - it comes close to what many people call sacred music. More so than Mahalia Jackson's unquestionably moving spiritual in the film, Chico's appearance possesses a quality that transcends both genre and time. Deeply influential upon me too was the visual impact to the impeccably dressed quintet -which also featured at the time Collette's protege Eric Dolphy on flute and Italian-American guitarist John(ny) Pisano. To find out years later that the performance was filmed in front of an empty venue after the festival had completed for the evening due to a technical issue with the shoot made the power of the music all that more miraculous. Add to this his contributions to one of my other favorite films of all time (and something that I need to devote some more virtual ink to very soon), 1957's Sweet Smell of Success, and…well…almost needless to say, I am more than a little saddened to read of his passing in spite of his living a long, rich life.

Rest in Peace, Chico.

The Tune is Red (1960)

The Tune is Red, oil on canvas, Hassel Smith, 1960 (full painting) 

I have often been asked why I like 20th Century abstract art. The phrasing of the questions have ranged from speculation on whether or not the questioner's child or grandchild could have easily done the same thing to something along the lines of I just don't get it. In truth, I cannot simply explain my attraction to abstract art both of and influenced by this period, so I thought I would muse on that notion a bit. 

My first art appreciation course was not until my second or third semester of college here in San Francisco. It was a fairly pedestrian course, one which covered all of the hits and a handful of misses. As a side note: I recall the end of term project that I created for this class: a piece of assemblage, which I white-washed with tempura paint, so I was already showing my colors so to speak. By this time, I had already been exposed to a few minor abstract works via 12-inch LP covers, having got hip to jazz records in high school. Another influence, no doubt, was psychedelic art of the 1960s, something that I spent no meager amount of time digging deep into during my high school and college years. The sum total was that abstract works just captured my interest and imagination more than any other form of visual art - save perhaps architecture and design. So I did which I so often do when something piques my interest, I dug deeper and deeper until I found the good stuff. 

The Tune is Red, oil on canvas, Hassel Smith, 1960 (detail 1)

Of course, no exploration of abstract art tunnels too far away from the New York School of the 1940s and 1950s, but living here in San Francisco, I am fortunate to have access to many of the fruits of the Bay Area School from roughly the same time period. Between the local works and visit to the Guggenheim and MOMA on East Coast trips, I have managed to see a fairly broad survey of modernist art from the last Century. I have my favorites, such as Franz Kline, but it's always exciting to be exposed to an exhibition such as the recent Richard Diebenkorn exhibit that I mentioned a few weeks ago.

The Tune is Red, oil on canvas, Hassel Smith, 1960 (detail 2) 

Back to the question of why. From an intellectual point of view, I have come to the opinion that figurative painting - for the most part - became less and less relevant as media such as photography, film, and video gained more and more traction. Surely the skill of the great masters is something to still admire, but I think it is important to note that those paintings are often the only visual records of those times. As the means to visually document the world around us have become more and more accessible and prevalent, it seems only natural to me that and older medium such as painting be used in a different manner. Of course that I have long been interested in some many other aspects of post-World War II culture certainly has resulted in a certain predisposition. Most certainly. But I think this has been a case where bias has been a virtue, in that I don't seem to have the aversion to this style of art that a lot of people exhibit.

The Tune is Red, oil on canvas, Hassel Smith, 1960 (detail 3) 

From a emotional point of view, I find abstract art captivating on a many levels - particularly when I am able to see a painting in person. In the works that have captivated me most, I have typically found a depth - in the colors, in the textures, in the movement - that just stimulates something in my brain and emotions. I don't look at them as Rorschach tests. I've ceased to look at them for meaning. But rather I have come to just experience them for what they are. And, yes, a good abstract painting can be similar in some ways to a good jazz performance in that it is a mix of skilled tradition and personal improvisation. So as my life as a jazz musician has been become more and more important, perhaps my affinity to abstract art and abstract expressionism in particular has achieved parallel importance.

Note: the painting featured on this page is currently residing at the Cantor Arts Center on the Stanford University campus. Admission is free, so all you need to do it get your self there to see this one. The artist, Hassel Smith, is one of the many of that era whose love for jazz music was reflected in his work. Smith spent a significant amount of time in the San Francisco-Bay Area and was also an important early part of the Ferus Gallery scene in Los Angeles. His remarkable timeline can be found here.

Walk, Don't Run! (1954)

In a Sentimental Mood, Johnny Smith, Roost LP 424, 1954, photo/design by Burt Goldblatt

A few days shy of his 91st birthday, master guitarist Johnny Smith died on June 12, 2013 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1922 and made his fame (if not his fortune) in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. In spite of well-publicized endorsements of namesake guitars made by both Gibson and Guild, he died something of an obscure figure as far as the general public is concerned. But he was a true musician's musician and remains an absolute legend among guitarists. Not surprisingly, nearly every online obituary gives prominence to Smith's biggest claim to popular fame: Walk, Don't Run! Written and recorded by Smith in 1954, the song was taken to number 2 in the pop charts in 1960 by The Ventures from Tacoma, Washington giving them their first hit and launching their long career. But as one might expect, there is a little more to the story.

The New Moon at The Imperial Theater, New York, advertising postcard, 1929

Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein wrote the music and words (respectively) to the 1929 operetta New Moon. Two of the songs written were later to become jazz standards: Lover, Come Back to Me and Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise. The former was immediately the more popular tune with 3 recordings charting in 1929 alone. The latter had to wait a full decade before seeing any success, thanks to Artie Shaw's 1938 revival of the song. On the jazz scene, the tune really got legs in the 1950s - for example the Modern Jazz Quartet featured it as a regular part of their repertoire as early as 1952. Arguably, Sonny Rollins recorded the definitive version of the song in 1957 at the Village Vanguard for Blue Note Records during the peak of the song's popularity among modern jazz musicians. But, as usual, I digress.

Johnny Smith Quintet featuring Stan Getz, Royal Roost 78 1152, 1952

Johnny Smith was well aware of the song in the early 1950s. By day he earning a living as a staff musician at NBC in New York City and by night he was often leading his own combos in jazz clubs such as Birdland. Smith was to later claim that he came to appreciate songs such as Softly... due to his day job, were he was often called upon to back light-opera and pop singers. A few items from these singers repertoire worked themselves into Johnny's own massive library of songs and due to an association with Teddy Reig's Roost Records that began in 1952 and lasted until 1960, thanks in no part to his initial hit record of Moonlight in Vermont featuring Stan Getz.

Johnny Smith, circa 1954, photo by William "PoPsie" Randolf

Smith had over half a dozen sessions for Roost under his belt by the time he entered the recording studio in late September 1954. The additional musicians on the session consisted of guitarist Perry Lopez, who had backed Smith before and whose other most well known sessions were conducted earlier in the month with Julius Watkins for Blue Note Records and the following March with Benny Goodman at Basin Street; bassist Arnold Fishkind, who was in between his long association with Lennie Tristano and his second act as a studio musician; and Don Lamond, most famous at that time for his drumming with Woody Herman's orchestra. All had recorded with Smith previously and Lopez in particular had a certainly level of musical empathy that only comes from playing together. One of the songs the bandleader brought to the session was a contrafact he had written over the chord changes of Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise. In jazz-speak, a contrafact is new melody line played over a standard set of chords, although these are often re-harmonized. This practice was particularly popular during the 1940s and 1950s as modern jazz was pushing the boundaries of tradition. A fringe benefit for record label owners is that they did not need to pay publishing royalties on the source material. Smith's line on Softly... was transposed up a whole step from the original and titled Opus by the composer. The title didn't stick as producer and label boss renamed it Walk, Don't Run! by the time it was released on Roost's 10-inch LP disc, In a Sentimental Mood, later that same year.

Walk, Don't Run!, Johnny Smith, 1954

Unlike Moonlight in Vermont, Walk, Don't Run! was neither a critical nor popular success for Johnny. But as mentioned, Smith was a musician's musician and his 1950s releases were ardently admired by guitarists everywhere. One avowed fan was the ultimate Tennessee guitar picker: Chet Atkins. Atkins own recording career for RCA Victor was well underway by the time he got his hands on Smith's '54 Roost release. And due to his A&R position with his record label, by the mid-1950s he was making regular business trips to New York City where he check out Johnny Smith if he was gigging. One such night Atkins approached Smith at the bar at Birdland and asked Johnny's permission to record one his tunes. The story goes that Chet insisted on playing his arrangement for Johnny on the spot and if there was ever a fly-on-the-wall moment of choice for guitar geeks, this certainly has to be a top contender.

Walk, Don't Run, Chet Atkins, 1957

The Chet Atkins recording of Walk, Don't Run (note the dropped exclamation point) was released in October 1957 on RCA Victor LP Hi-Fi in Focus. How this release fits within the context of Chet's full discography is not for this entry to tackle, but it is interesting to take note of the LP sleeve. Although very much a countrypolitan recording that the record buying public had come to expect from Atkins, RCA Victor obviously aimed this particular disc at the burgeoning HiFi market. The music (and recording artist for that matter) is given only a paragraph's worth of ink on back cover, while the remainder of the 12-inches is given to the details of the RCA Victor/Canon Camera album contest. The winning image by A.M Baunach of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is a great exercise in modernist photography, predating a the strikingly similar John Whitney/Saul Bass collaboration on the title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo by nearly 9 months. From where did Baunach draw his inspiration? I fear this is lost to the ages, for Baunach (later known as Barney and who had a long career as a corporate photographer for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation) passed away in 1991 and this will most likely remain a footnote.

Hi-Fi in Focus, Chet Atkins, RCA Victor LPM-1577, 1957, cover photo by A.M. Baunach

What is known, is that guitarist Bob Bogle was hip to the Atkins disc and the song entered the repertoire of the nascent Ventures, who began plying their instrumental trade throughout the Pacific Northwest in 1958. As guitarist, writer, and fellow guitar geek Deke Dickerson explained to the Washington Post's Matt Schudel in this interview, the success of Walk-Don't Run and The Ventures signaled a very significant shift in popular music prefiguring the California surf music, Pacific-Northwest frat rock, and British beat group phenomenas of the 1960s. But theirs is a story that has been much better tackled elsewhere than here on these pages.

Walk-Don't Run, The Ventures, Blue Horizon 45 101-1, 1959

By the time The Ventures were hitting the charts with his song, Johnny Smith had left New York for Colorado to raise his daughter after the death of his wife. He occasionally returned to the East Coast for recording sessions and live appearances, but increasingly he spent more time focused on his family, his music store, and mentoring a younger generation of guitarists. When the royalty checks started appearing for Walk, Don't Run! he was unaware of The Ventures and their success. But it turned out to be a fortunate turn of events that would help Johnny through some of the leaner times in his life. The few words on this page only begin to hint at how important Smith was to 20th Century American guitar playing. He has been called everything from the "greatest plectrum guitarist" to "America's own Django". His humility was almost as legendary as his technical facility on the fretboard. His strong, but articulate opinions on everything from guitar-making to amplifier electronics both challenged and inspired some of the greatest musical instrument companies in the United States. He will be missed, not only by those who were fortunate to know him during his lifetime, but by those like myself who have simply known him through his music. May he rest in peace.

Further reading: I highly recommend this excellent interview that fellow jazz guitarist Bart Stringham conducted with Smith on the topic. Many of the details of this saga were drawn from this particular interview. The more musicianly-minded (and you gearheads) are well advised to check out Chip Stern's  in-depth homage here.

Richard Diebenkorn (1953)

Berkeley #3 by Richard Diebenkorn, 1953

I was fortunate to see a preview last week of the new Richard Diebenkorn exhibit being held now through September 29, 2013 at the de Young Museum here in San Francisco. The exhibit focuses on what they term his Berkeley Years, namely 1953 through 1966 when the Portland, Oregon born artist returned to the Bay Area (he had grown up in in San Francisco) when he moved his family from Albuquerque, New Mexico to 2837 Webster Street in Southeast Berkeley, California. It was a period during which he created a remarkable number of works, especially considering the amount of time he spent teaching during much of this era. Additionally, he had almost yearly gallery shows and Life magazine profiled him both in 1954 and 1957.

Berkeley #22 by Richard Diebenkorn, 1954

What I found most remarkable about this show, in addition to the sheer volume of works collected and put on display, were his earlier paintings which represented his reaction to the New York school of abstract expressionism. Diebenkorn is most well known for his figurative work, a style he transitioned to during his years in Berkeley. But a solid third of what is on display could be termed abstract expressionist and most folks would not challenge such a claim.

Berkeley #44 by Richard Diebenkorn, 1955

Diebenkorn certainly was influenced by the 10th Street crowd for sure, particularly Rothko and de Kooning both of whom share a similar color palette with the younger West Coaster - and he had met and befriended Kline some time near the beginning of this period - but a strong argument has long been made by art critics that his greatest influence even at this stage were the landscapes that surrounded him be it in Albuquerque or Berkeley. 

Richard Diebenkorn, c.1952

It is always exciting to see an artist in transition which is a big part of the appeal of what the de Young has put together. There are also other connections for me as well. When I first moved to San Francisco in the 1989, I spent a considerable amount of my first 3 years across the Bay in Berkeley and do feel that the colors of the area had to have some influence on his work. Diebenkorn was also a dyed-in-the-wool jazz fan, albeit of the traditional New Orleans variety that had begun experiencing a revival as the unfortunately named Dixieland, parallel to the ascension of modern jazz. Almost needless to say, I highly recommend a visit to the de Young if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area or plan to be some time in the coming months.

Harry Babasin & The Jazzpickers (1958)

I thought that I would put up a quick post this afternoon. Truth be told, I have a bit of a backlog of entries at the moment. There are quite a few in the hopper, but I've been sidelined with some minor health issues and I should really be staying away from the computer. But I hate seeing the weeks fly-by without new posts, so here is most of the February 3, 1958 episode of ABC-TV's Stars of Jazz television program hosted by singer, pianist, and songwriter Bobby Troup (yes, he of Route 66 song and Emergency TV fame). Bobby's guests that week included bandleader turned manager Charlie Barnet, vocalist Pat Morrissey, and Harry Babasin. I believe I have mentioned this TV show before, but I will take this opportunity to point the curious reader to this wonderful blog which tackles the show in great detail.

Babasin, an unsung hero of jazz music on the West Coast of California, was initially a bassist who played with everyone from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker. He was also one of the first experimenters with the cello in jazz music. Of course my short shrift is not doing Harry justice and for a wealth of excellent information on Babasin and some of his more interesting musical activities of note, I highly recommend this page created by his son Von.

A final note. The guitarist in these clips is another talented obscurity by the name of Dempsey Wright, a fellow whose playing I have only recently been digging into. With 2 LPs of his own to his discographical credit, plus 3 appearances as a sideman, his recorded legacy is certainly less than proportionate to his chops. It's a shame, but thankfully we have these few more minutes of music to enjoy from someone else that may have been forever lost in the cracks of time. A special thank you to Babasin's son, Pierre, for making these clips available.

Sir Pendleton (1956)

1956 print ad

Four years after Pendleton Woolen Mills introduced their iconic Sport Shirt to the American male, the Sir Pendleton made it's debut. And while lesser known, it is an important part of the clothier's canon. Like it's predecessor it was made of virgin wool, but new addition was of an extremely lightweight worsted variety intended for yearlong use.

1959 print ad

The expansion of the garment line had deep roots. In 1912, the Pendleton company acquired additional woolen mills in Washougal, Washington nearly 200 miles West of it's Pendleton, Oregon location. Washougal sits on the Columbia River, just a few miles and across the border from Portland. The facilities allowed production of lighter-weight woolens, such as those used in men's suiting. Worsted wool, while stretching back several hundred years, made tremendous advances in the late-1800s due to industrialization in both England and the United States. By the early 20th Century it had started to gain the upper hand in men's suiting.

1961 print ad

Much like the Sport Shirt, the Sir Pendleton had a distinctive style that changed very little for quite a few years perhaps most notably it's classic open collar with a loop for the top button and a single breast pocket with a button rather than a flap. And like the Sport Shirt it was available in a variety of colors and plaids.

By the early-1960s the Sir Pendleton shirt gave way to an expanded Sir Pendleton full line which included everything from button-down collar shirts to blazers and jackets. And again like the Sport Shirt (nee Board Shirt), it has a presence in the current Pendleton clothing line. And the Washougal mill? It recently celebrated 100 years of operations and can be visited most days of the week.

The Street Swingers (1958)

The Street Swingers, Brookmeyer/Hall/Raney, World Pacific Records 1239, 1958

A true anomaly in both image and recording locale of the Pacific Jazz/World Pacific record catalogue is 1958's The Street Swingers LP. Credited to Brookmeyer/Hall/Raney with Osie Johnson and Bill Crow, it is a session nominally led by valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer (who also provided the liner notes), but featuring compositions by all 3 of the principles - the other 2 being Jim Hall and Jimmy Raney. It was recorded in New York City on December 13 and 16, 1957 at Coastal Studios with production credited to label-owner Richard Bock. The cover photo was shot by Lee Friedlander. It's all very interesting enough, but is why does this warrant our time today?

Jazz on a Summer's Day opening sequence, filmed July 3, 1958, directed by Bert Stern

For me, the image Bob Brookmeyer is a very primary jazz image. Any time I see a photograph of him or hear his name, something in me recalls seeing him in the opening minutes of Bert Stern's beautiful color celluloid document of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. Even if for a moment, I remember being an impressionable 19 or 20 year old kid, eager to learn more about jazz and being captivated and confused by Jimmy Giuffre's trio - which seemed to be both hip and square at the same time. Brookmeyer looked more like a U.S. Naval officer with his cropped haircut and aviator glasses - but filtered through an Ivy League lens and playing challenging but funky (yeah that's right, I called him funky) modern jazz. At the time my modest jazz record collection consisted of the basics - Miles, Monk, Coltrane, and a smattering of organ-centric Blue Notes - but here was this lanky, kind-of-goofy-looking white cat ushering me down a whole new path.

Bob Brookmeyer, unknown (possibly Lee Konitz), Bill Crow, Jim Hall, Jimmy Raney, c.1957, photo by W. Eugene Smith

So needless to say, when I spied Brookmeyer in the corner of a W. Eugene Smith photo featured in Sam Stephenson's The Jazz Loft Project book (which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago), it resonated in some subtle way. And of course, seeing Bob engaged in a jam session with two guitarists that I have been paying more and more attention to over the past year and a legendary bass player with whom I have had the pleasure to exchange a few emails, I became more and more intrigued by the candid photograph. There is certainly a feel to The Street Swingers that could only come about due to the collaborative musical experimentation that can result in the best of casual jam sessions. The LP doesn't feel like a Prestige-styled blowing session or a over-formal presentation of compositions that one might find on a Capitol Records disc. The music exists somewhere between those extremes. I began to suspect that the two recording sessions perhaps may have come as a result of the Sixth Avenue sessions.

Brookmeyer, Hall, Raney, 1957, photo by Lee Friedlander taken from the rear of the LP sleeve 

After doing my basic due diligence and re-aquainting myself with the LP, I reached out to bass player Bill Crow. Bill is not only featured in the Smith photo but also on the World Pacific LP. As I did not know the exact date of the photo, I was curious how the Sixth Avenue loft fit into the story. Crow was kind enough to respond to me:

Raney and Hall played together at the loft several times, and Brookmeyer and I were there a lot, too. The two Jims would often be plugged into the same amplifier, since there was only one at the loft. Jim Hall had come to NYC with the Giuffre trio, with Jim Atlas on bass. When Giuffre found that Bob was available, he replaced Atlas with Brookmeyer.

Bill went on to tell me, "We were all living in Greenwich Village at the time, and hung out a lot together. The album was probably Bob's idea." Brookmeyer had an existing relationship with label-owner Dick Bock having had appeared on a number of Pacific Jazz sessions as both a sideman and leader before December 1957. Hall, too, had done a similar number of sessions for Bock in both roles, perhaps most notably the first Chico Hamilton Quintet LPs as well as Hall's debut disc under his own name. Brookmeyer and Raney had a history of collaboration stretching back over several years and several sessions. And Crow, of course, was a big part of the New York scene at the time. 

Lee Friedlander, 1960, photo by William Claxton

One final curious detail is that of the cover photograph. I suspect most who are in interested in 20th Century photography are familiar with Lee Friedlander. And while the cover has a great Winter in New York City feel, it is far from typical Friedlander, as it is not only in color but very much a posed portrait. At the time he was still 6 years away from his first solo museum show and the notoriety that came with it. At the time, he was a commercial photographer who shot a fair number of musicians particularly due to his association with New York's Atlantic Records as a house photographer starting in 1956. The World Pacific one-off gig very likely came about as the result of his friendship with Bock's main-man behind the camera William Claxton. Clax and Lee were good friends, the latter even served as the former's best man at his 1959 wedding to Peggy Moffitt that took place in NYC. As a footnote, when I mentioned how evocative the "street scene" of the cover photo was, Bill Crow corrected me, "Actually, the photo was taken on the roof of the recording studio. Lee wanted more light."

Editor's Note: if anyone knows where Coastal Studios was/is located, drop me a line. I could find only passing references to the facility.

The Twilight Zone (1959)

One of my lasting childhood memories, is that of staying home from school when I was sick. I would typically stay in bed through the morning, sleeping off whatever bug I had. Some time close to Noon, I would gather my blankets and migrate to the couch. It was there I would spend the next few hours, sipping 7 UP, eating soup, and watching The Twilight Zone. The television station was KTLA, a local Los Angeles area station owned by the singing cowboy Gene Autry from 1964 through 1995 (the station was also home to Autry's professional baseball team the California Angels, who were our team in those suburban days). If memory serves me correct, The Twilight Zone was aired weekdays at Noon - possibly with 2 episodes back-to-back, obviously well into syndication as this was the late-1970s and early-1980s. Between this and KTLA's annual Fourth of July Twilight Zone marathon, it was ensured that I saw nearly all 156 of the original episodes at least a couple of times. So it was with these memories at the back of my mind that I embarked upon the first season of The Twilight Zone last month when I had the flu.

Rod Serling, CBS Television Studios, New York, 1955, photo by Loomis Dean

The first season of the original series ran from October 1959 through July 1960 on CBS in the USA. It was shown on Fridays at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. All of the episodes of the first season had a running time of just under 30 minutes. According to this exhaustive listing, the first 36 episodes were pre-empted 3 times and 2 reruns were shown before its inaugural run was complete. It was, of course, the brainchild of a very peculiar figure in television history: Rod Serling. Serling, who turned 35 during the first season, had already won 3 Emmy awards for his screenwriting efforts before the series debuted. The series would earn him his fourth. Serling, who had fought for the U.S. Army and earned a Purple Heart during the Second World War in the Philippines, had his fair share of conflict with both sponsors and censors in his early television career as he was not shy about tackling controversial social and political issues. At the time in a televised interview with Mike Wallace, he called The Twilight Zone the culmination of 12 years work. Perhaps most important was Serling's attitude towards the serial. In the same interview with Wallace he referred to the episodes as "adult...extremely polished films." He was also quick to categorize them as a mix of fantasy, imagination, and science fiction. In short, it was a very serious view of the burgeoning entertainment medium and one that set him apart from many of his contemporaries.

The Twilight Zone, Season One introduction, second variation

Seeing these early episodes again, thirty years since I first experienced them, I was not only pleasantly surprised by the longevity of writing but enjoyed discovering the many Mid-century modern Easter eggs that I know understand helped shaped my young consciousness. The overall mood and style is still arresting. If modern jazz captured the psychosis of post-war years in sound (as has often been argued), I can think of no single television program that managed to do the same on dramatic terms. There is an over-arching anxiety the permeates every episode. Not the manufactured fright of the Red Scare, but the rather palatable fear of modern life in the shadow of the mushroom cloud. There is the anxiety that society is not what it thought it was. And there is the dissolution of the American Dream, an idea upon which the counterculture of the late-1960s would hinge itself. Sure, not every episode hits the mark, particularly over the course of the first few months over which principle writer Serling finds his footing. But when it is good it is good in a way the resonates in a manner of the some of the best art of our time. Did television ever really get any better?

Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Hermann on the set of Psycho, c.1959-1960

For us Moderns, there are treats at every turn. The original theme music, used throughout the first season, was composed by no less than the maestro of suspense himself Bernard Hermann. Hermann was quite well known by this time having recently scored Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. In fact, he was working concurrently on the score for Psycho at the same time as he scored some of The Twilight Zone  episodes (which he did in addition to the main title) and there are some stylistic similarities between the two ventures at times. It's a moody piece, not quite as aggressively avant garde as the theme written by Marius Constant for the second season (widely known to most as the theme to the series) and played by jazz great Howard Roberts on his Fender Telecaster electric guitar. The opening titles to the first season were created by the mad genius animators over at UPA and clearly echo the abstract feel of some of their more well-known work, particularly in the realm of children's animations. In fact, one of the cool things about the show is it's clear New York - Los Angeles axis, something not always evident in productions during this era. There is a definite New York feel to much of the show's content and story lines. But much of the production was done in and around Los Angeles (Serling himself remained a New York resident for quite some time). And of course, there are the many wonderful actors and directors who make their appearances at all points of their career junctures. It is simply amazing how many familiar faces grace the small screen over the course of the 18 hours of footage from the first season alone. But rather than bore you with a laundry list of names, I will just remark how surprised and pleased I was to see jazz and fashion photographer William Claxton's name appear onscreen as the director of The Last Flight (episode 18, February 5, 1960).

In parting, above is the Mike Wallace September 22, 1959 television interview that I referenced earlier in today's weblog. Clocking in at just over 20 minutes, it provides great context to this cornerstone of popular American culture at it's birth.