St. Louis Jazz by Owsley Dennis C.;

Author:Owsley, Dennis C.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2019-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Upstream Lounge opened at Seventh and Pine in 1964. Pianist Gayle Bell worked there initially and was succeeded by the Eddie Fritz Quartet, which played there for seven years [Fritz Interview]. Over the years, including a move to 903 West Pine, the Upstream hosted the Gordon Lawrence Latin Jazz group, the Bernard Hutcherson Quartet, the Kennedy Brothers and Stablemates with organist Benny Wilson and saxophonist Bob Gibson. Stablemates were documented in the Post-Dispatch. By 1978, the Upstream was out of the jazz business.

Trumpeter Webster Young was in St. Louis at Nero’s on the DeBaliviere Strip in the summer of 1965. VGM Records released three LPs under his name [Discography]. A number of local musicians, including pianists John Hicks and John “Albino Red” Chapman and saxophonist Freddie Washington, took part in what appear to be jam sessions. The personnel on each tune is unknown. The Lord Discography gives personnel, but to the author, it is suspect, because the date is listed as 1961.

Born in St. Louis, Freddie Washington (born 1937) heard music around his house—his mother played piano by ear. Taken with the sound of the alto sax, he started taking lessons from Theron Slaughter, a musician who played with Eddie Randle. By the time he was sixteen, Washington was playing with Jimmy Houston’s band and later with George Hudson’s orchestra. He graduated from Sumner High School and joined the navy in 1956 as a musician, stationed in Washington, D.C., with the navy band. He returned to St. Louis in 1959 and began working in a quintet with Bobby Danzig, John Chapman, John Mixon and the legendary drummer Joe Charles. Freddie was also invited to audition for John Coltrane’s place in the Miles Davis Quintet but turned the invitation down because he felt he wasn’t ready [Washington Interview]. The author remembers Freddie with Mongo Santamaria in Los Angeles around 1965. Washington’s influences as a saxophone player are Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. Freddie’s first recordings were for the VGM label in 1965, with Webster Young (see above). The rest of his long St. Louis career will be detailed in subsequent chapters.

Another of St. Louis’s great musicians, pianist John Hicks, was born in Atlanta and moved to St. Louis in 1955 when his father became the pastor of Union Memorial Methodist Church. Hicks attended Sumner High and went to Lincoln University in 1958 for one year. He then went to New York, working with many well-known players. He attended Berklee College of Music at this time. In 1964, he joined Art Blakey. Hicks was in and out of St. Louis in the mid-1960s and eventually joined Woody Herman in 1968 [Hicks Interview]. One of the most in-demand pianists in jazz, Hicks’s career away from St. Louis is beyond the scope of this book.

Piano legend John “Albino Red” Chapman went to Sumner High School and was in demand when he was very young. Hicks met Chapman when he tuned the Hicks family piano. The two pianists hung out a lot in the late 1950s.

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