Living with Jazz by Dan Morgenstern

Author:Dan Morgenstern [Morgenstern, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48760-5
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2004-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Pee Wee Russell

In the early evening of March 29, 1960, I walked into Beefsteak Charlie’s, a midtown Manhattan bar frequented by jazz musicians. With some surprise, I spotted a familiar figure at the bar—familiar, but not at Beefsteak’s.

Pee Wee Russell, who’d turned fifty-four two days before, didn’t hang out there—or in any other bar, for that matter. He’d done his share of that sort of thing—more than his share—but after his miraculous recovery from a near-fatal illness some years before, he had stopped.

But here he was, by himself, having a quiet drink. I didn’t yet know Pee Wee well in those days, though I’d been enthralled by him for years, and Pee Wee was shy with people he wasn’t familiar with. But I sidled up to him and ventured a greeting.

“How do you feel, chum” he acknowledged in that unforgettable sotto voce way of his. “Have a drink.” Pee Wee was in a mellow mood, and it soon became apparent why. “We just made a record,” he told me, “and it was a good one—I think.”

That was almost as surprising as finding him there. Pee Wee was not as self-effacing as some people think, but he was his own severest critic, prone to shaking his head and waving a hand “no” when his solos were applauded, and only very rarely satisfied with his recorded efforts.

But about this session, he was not at all apologetic. In particular, he was pleased with the rhythm section. “It was modern,” he pointed out. “And the piano player is one of the best I’ve ever played with.” Pee Wee was particular about piano players. He was, in fact, particular about everything concerning music, but years of enforced association with contemporaries he’d outgrown decades ago had made him adaptable. He had learned to endure, and hold his head above the water.

No such problems this time out, though. No liabilities in this band. And no Dixieland chestnuts on the program, either. Not even a traditional front line. It had been more than a year since his last date as a leader, and in this kind of setting, Pee Wee was ready to do some serious playing.

As for most of the great jazzmen we call, for lack of a better term, main-streamers, the ’50s and early ’60s were problematic for Pee Wee. As often as not, he had to play in settings far from perfect. Buck Clayton, that sensitive and elegant stylist of classic swing trumpet, was making a living playing at Eddie Condon’s, where the staples on the musical menu were “That’s A Plenty” and “Muskrat Ramble,” with an occasional ballad medley for respite. Oh, there was some good music made there, to be sure, and I wish the club were still around, but Buck deserved a less restricting framework. He had it here.

Pee Wee had given up the Condon routine years before, and led some good bands of his own, but the tribulations of leadership soon became more than he was willing to cope with, and so the gigs were infrequent and often less than congenial.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.