Classic Chu Berry Columbia and Victor Sessions (#236)

To hear “the sound of surprise” you need go no further than this recording session held in Chicago on February 29 during the Leap Year 1936. Benny Goodman’s band was in the middle of a tremendously successful engagement at the Congress Hotel, and Goodman had helped Henderson land a plumb gig at the Grand Terrace, replacing Earl Hines, whose band was vacating its home base for a tour. There had been a wonderful opening night party, with the entire Goodman and Hines bands in attendance, along with actress Louise Beavers, English band leader Jack Hylton and Art Tatum. Berry’s little closing riff heard on Yankee Doodle Never Went To Town had morphed into Christopher Columbus and was starting a groundswell of popularity for the Henderson band. Gene Krupa’s eye-catching showmanship and swinging style was making him a star sideman with the Goodman band, and during the winter of 1935-36 he began recording as a leader. The first session was done in November 1935 with a Dixielandish slant and featured Israel Crosby on bass, a 16 year old already gaining attention on an instrument which had very little if any presence in the minds of most music fans. This session was decidedly modern, and Krupa called in not only Crosby but Eldridge and Berry, now in town with Henderson. Both pianist Jess Stacy and guitarist Allan Reuss were in the Goodman band, and the latter’s work in tandem with Crosby is a revelation. Too many times the evolution of the jazz rhythm section is reduced to Basie to Blanton to bebop (if you’ll excuse the term). The high level of blend and spontaneity that the guitar and bass achieve on these sides is a landmark in jazz – they make it sound like one instrument is playing. The mastery of definition, length and choice of notes that Crosby brings to bear was unheard of in 1936. What sounds commonplace now was anything but. You can hear the musicians think all throughout this session, which only happens when the music is truly spontaneous. Small wonder that Berry told Duane Woodruff in the May 1941 issue of Music and Rhythm, “It’s the greatest record date on which I ever played. It was great too to perform with men like Krupa, Benny Goodman and Roy Eldridge.”

I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music is taken at a good clip, and it’s a treat to hear the soloists deal with its odd form, the last eight bars being extended to twelve. There is also a lovely thing effect during each bridge where we hear the soloist create patterns meant to contrast with what they have been doing during the preceding 16 bars, buoyed by the rhythm section. Then there is the headlong assault into the aforementioned extended last A section. Krupa’s restraint is pleasing as is his exciting switch back to the hi-hat cymbals for the last ensemble chorus. Goodman also was on his best behavior. Like Sidney Bechet, he was used to playing the lead and could make life hell for a trumpeter. Here he subjugates himself to Eldridge and the results are electric.

Berry starts Mutiny In The Parlor with a lovely four-bar intro, making way for Eldridge’s melody statement, and then falls into an easy repartee with Goodman, who also excelled at ensemble playing. Most composers would be hard put to come up with something as perfect as these three create during the opening chorus. The magic continues during the fifth measure of the bridge when Goodman and Berry wind up playing the same phrase in the same register, only to be followed a split second later by Eldridge’s echo – this must have brought huge grins and that rare feeling when an artist knows that the stars are perfectly aligned. They also glide right into a modulation for vocalist Helen Ward’s chorus. She was one of the most relaxed singers of the era and is right at home with the heavy jazz feeling of this session. As on the Holiday session, there is a lot going on behind the vocal (Stacy, Eldridge and Berry all playing) but somehow it doesn’t feel cramped. The Eldridge solo that follows is unique in his canon with its Rex Stewart-esque (an early favorite of his) half-valves and eccentric buzz mute sound. Equally thrilling is Berry’s ultra-relaxed bridge. He has come out the other end of the Hawkins influence and become truly his own man. Berry has now arrived as one of the best tenor men in the world and he can trumpet it with a whisper. The last eight bars is nailed perfectly by Krupa’s crashing after-beat cymbals and Goodman’s totally unexpected little fill, answered by a perfectly in tune low Db (a notoriously hard note to play in tune on the bass, especially back then) from Crosby.

Armstrong’s Savoy Blues provided the introduction to I’m Gonna Clap My Hands, after all it was recorded in the same town only nine years earlier. It gets a jammed opening chorus before another sudden modulation to Ward’s key, backed this time only (!) by Stacy and Berry, though bassist Crosby also attracts attention with some wonderful pedal point during the bridge and some accented notes. Eldridge’s solo is delivered in the same vein as the previous tune, but this time there is a call and response with Berry and Goodman that really puts them on their mettle to match his phrases note for note; they make it through with only a few scrapes. It’s during the Goodman solo that follows that the beautiful work of Reuss and Crosby can be heard (again, credit to Krupa for not only staying out of the way, but changing to a cymbal to highlight the strings), replete with little special pops and strums that would be lost if the transfers were not so transparent. Eldridge picks up on Goodman’s last note and they’re off to the races with a closing ensemble that is as perfect as any jammed jazz has ever been.