Entertainment For Lively Minds
Jazzers outdoing Rock'n'rollers
Posted by TreyRoque on 18 December 2011 - 5:00pm.
Rereading Miles Davis' autobiography, and I'm reminded again of the prodigious amounts of drugs and shagging the chin-stroking fraternity have got up to.
Arguably, and I will argue it, demonstrating heftier appetites and Olympian staying-power over their rock'n'roll counterparts.
Meanwhile, they also managed to perform – between 'nodding off on the bandstand' – pretty well in a demanding musical idiom.
Not that I'm recommending it. The drugs that is. As a gateway to jazz.
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Orchestral players are the worst of the lot!
True but Charlie Parker, dead at 34
probably isn't the best example.
On the other hand, listening to interviews with British musicians like Stan Tracey or Bobby Wellins on Radio 3's Jazz library series, their careers seem to have developed in a steady progression. Dance bands in their teens; improving their skills in military bands during national service; big bands and forming their own groups in their twenties; gaining recognition in their thirties, and now elder statesmen getting commissions for the Dutch National Jazz Orchestra.
Oh yes, and about twenty years of heroin addiction somewhere in there.
Am I right in thinking Tubby Hayes...
...one of the biggest talents in British 50s/60s jazz, succumbed to the 'lifestyle', or was it natural causes?
Davy Graham - a 'folk-blues' guy, whether he liked the pigeonholing or not, who thought of his natural peers as jazz men - became a heroin addict deliberately during the middle years of the 60s specifically to acquire what he heard in his jazz heroes (all addicts themselves). Crazy.
Heart
Tubby actually died during a heart operation ( he had earlier had open heart surgery ), but this was probably brought about by his, er, lifestyle.
The other great British jazzman who led an even more colourful life was drummer Phil Seamen, mentor and bad influence on Ginger Baker.
http://vzone.virgin.net/davidh.taylor/seamen.htm
Phil was the subject of numerous stories, some of which are covered here including the time he was in the pit orchestra for 'West Side Story', woke up at the wrong point, banged the gong and announced 'Dinner is served.'
http://www.jazzprofessional.com/profiles/Phil%20Seamen.htm
Thanks for that, jazzmeister...
...I had indeed heard heard that Phil Seamen was the Morgoth to Ginger's Sauron.
What about Binky McKenzie, the 60s bass maestro? John McLaughlin namechecked him on his debut LP in 1968 with 'Binky's Beam' - intending it affectionately, but Bink apparently thought it was a racist dig and wasn't impressed. I understand he went to prison for murder around that time though John said in at least one 70s interview that he thought he was innocent. Know any more, jazzer?
Binky
I don't know much more than you about Binky McKenzie except that John McLaughlin, in his dedication on 'Extrapolation' wrote 'This is dedicated to Binky McKenzie, one of the greatest bass players, unjustly jailed with his brother Bunny'. According to Victor Brox, who replaced him in Alexis Korner's band, Binky was jailed for chopping his mother and father into pieces.
From a very quick glance...
...around the net it seems he was an idol of Free's Andy Fraser (and was involved with fraser's sister). Duffy Power told me 10+ years ago that Binky was, then, still inside. He played fabulously on Duffy's c1967 track 'Just Stay Blue'. Seamen also played on some great mid 60s Duffy recordings (as did Ginger B and Terry Cox and, of course, McLaughlin). With players and performances like those it's staggering that Duffy wasn't more successful at the time.
Edit: I suppose I ought to mention here that JM's 'Binky's Beam' later transformed into the Mahavishnu Orchestra's 'Celestial Terrestrial Commuters'. Though they still always scribbled it on setlists as 'Binky's'...
Duffy
One of the greatest might-have-beens. There's an excellent compilation with lots of the Ginger Baker, John McLaughlin etc material, called 'Leapers and Sleepers'. There's a later compilation called 'Vampers and Champers' also available.
I know...
...I did the sleevenotes! :-)
Really?
A very good job you did too, if I may say so.
thank you...
...well, to clarify, I did the notes for V&C and the BBC sessions CD Sky Blues. But, anyway, I agree entirely: Duffy's brilliant. Hopefully his new/final(?) album 'True' will be out soon on Market Square...
This would all explain...
...a great deal.
Jazzers have a head start over Rock 'n' Rollers
due to the fact that you have to take a bucket full of drugs to listen to it in the first place. Along with a few bottles of grog and some drain cleaner. Extra amounts must be required when playing/poking/shouting/blowing whatever you have in your shed in order to achieve that bloody awful sound. I bet Cleo Laine's chemical capacity would make Keef Richards look like an amateur.
IMHO of course. ;-)
The REAL wild things
used to be The Krankies.
At least according to this story in today's Telegraph -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8965006/The-Krankies-We-us...
Pass the Saxo, please.
The Real Wild One
I was astonished when I read Art Pepper's autobiography, Straight Life.
A real journey through the dark side of drugs. I had foolishly thought because his music was pretty light and airy he wouldn't have been a drug fiend.
yeah
That one was seriously peppered with skag:
"I got out of prison after 10 years for heroin abuse, then scored".
But I take his sexual escaped with a pinch of sodium chloride...*
*Nothing addictive. I've got a cold today.
He really was a horrible
He really was a horrible man. I found the book quite hard to take a times.
Trane.
Once read that John Coltrane succumbed to the lifestyle a full 8 years after stopping using junk. His death was in 1967.
This means that his wild, spiritual, brilliant albums of the 1960s were created in a clean state, whereas his rather conventional 1950s output was the work of a raging dope fiend.
Any more information?
Coltrane died of cancer.
Can happen to anyone, that, and often does.