Mark Stryker

Thankfully, his full interview with us for The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit is 80 minutes long and will be part of a Jazz from Detroit Oral History Archive that we are creating. Sigh.

Tom Lord Jazz Discography shows only one Bud Powell track appearing on an LP issued on Design. "I've Got You Under My Skin" from the Massey Hall concert in 1953 with Mingus/Roach. This and all other tracks on DLP29 were originally issued on Mingus' Debut label. It's possible that Bob misspoke and meant Debut rather than Design, but Bud on Debut in this time frame only means the Massey Hall quintet performances with Bird/Dizzy/Mingus/Max and the trio portion of the concert with just the rhythm section -- and I would certainly not describe Bud's playing here as erratic.

I think this is a fantastic set -- I absorbed these records in real time in the 1970s and played a good number of these charts along the way. Toshiko's best work is represented here, and I think that's true for Lew too. They hold up really well.

Great record. All-Detroit band too, save Jabali on drums.

The Black working class audience for jazz remained healthy at least until the late '60s, and in some ways into the '70s -- and it still exists here in Detroit, though not to the degree it once did. In any case, here's the great Gerald Early talking about Jimmy Smith et. al. in the '60s in an interview with Ethan Iverson, "You know, when I was growing up, somebody like Jimmy Smith was like God. To black people he was God! It was like a Hammond B-3 was the thing! If Jimmy Smith was God, then he had some acolytes under him, like Richard “Groove” Holmes, and Brother Jack McDuff, and these people. And I didn’t know any white people who really liked this music very much. I’m sure there were some because Jimmy Smith was pretty popular, but by and large this was black music. "At any rate, while they certainly had their detractors and there were some who didn’t like that sound, their importance culturally in the African-American community was quite apart from whatever their worth was as musicians. Those that had this groove style of playing (especially with a Hammond organ) occupied a kind of position that I think was quite apart from how any professional musicians might evaluate them based purely on their abilities as musicians. What they were expressing as musicians was deeply connected to the culture. "And I think that it’s important for any musician that is interested in jazz – or anyone who really wants to understand this music – to understand that aspect of the musicians as well. How the first-generation fans decide how they’re going to translate the music into their cultural lives may have nothing to do with how later listeners see it or what they think it’s about."

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/music/louis-armstrongs-america-by-allen-lowe-review-an-original-tribute-to-a-titan-80c47f92?mod=arts-culture_lead_pos1&fbclid=IwY2xjawFgz6tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRhEKGUvacR4kTqrkaVEXrtamJiCdirElq7eusZlqdWWENOLmlWm9IDWag_aem_C4IwdsUgImOHSmG-XLsgmg

A zillion stars. Desert Island music.

Should be here: https://www.detroitjazzfest.org/live/

Thanks for the heads up. Great stuff.

I just need to co-sign this. Duke was a fucking brilliant and original pianist, both as a soloist and as an accompanist. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either misinformed or hasn't done the listening. And while I'm at it, Basie was a great pianist too. When I think of folks who play "composer's" or "arranger's" piano, I think of people like Tadd Dameron, Gil Evans, and MANY cats I know who play other instruments but can sit down at the keyboard and comp changes in time and perhaps even solo too, some well enough to play gigs, but with limited technique and a narrow expressive range compared to "real" pianists (like Duke and Basie).

Just jumping to say that this is a fantastic set and I listen to it constantly. Truly some of the best Stitt on record -- "Sonny Stitt and the New Yorkers" (1957) might be the greatest single Stitt record of them all --and all the early dates are gems, especially "Plays the Arrangements from the Pen of Quincy Jones" (1955). The early Roost sides are fairly difficult to find. Highly recommended.

Hindal Butts (note first name spelling with one "l" is correct) was on the scene in Detroit for decades. As near as I can tell, he died just a couple of years ago at 91, but I never met him and never heard him play, so I don't know what his scene or health was like in the last 20 years. His heyday was the 1950s and '60s but he was definitely active in the '70s. In the 1950s, he worked extensively with Kenny Burrell in the guitarist's various groups, including Kenny's band The Four Sharps with Harold McKinney on piano and Paul Chambers on bass. and bassist Paul Chambers. At one point, Tommy Flanagan replaced McKinney, who was drafted in 1954, and Elvin Jones eventually succeeded Butts as drummer. There's a 1953 club ad for "Kenny Burrell and his Sharps " reproduced in Bjorn and Gallert's "Before Motown" that lists the personnel as Burrell, Frank Foster, McKinney, Chambers, and Hindel (sic) Butts. Kenny's first record as a leader, a 78 single on the JVB label c. 1954-55 consisting of "My Funny Valentine" (a Burrell vocal) and Kenny's Sound" (the latter is a 32-bar tune based on I Got Rhythm with a Honeysuckle Rose bridge and an A-section melody that's a direct ripoff of "Dexter Digs In." Yusef Lateef play flute and tenor of these sides , Billy Burrell is on electric (!) bass, and the vibraphonist is almost assuredly Abe Woodley (aka Nasir Hafiz). I used to think it was Butts on drums, and that was Kenny Washington's guess when I played him these sides; but I've come to think more recently that it's Elvin on drums based on the beat and the way the player slaps the brushes on "Kenny's Mood." (The Tom Lord discography lists this session as c. 1950 and says Tommy Flanagan is on vibes: That's incorrect.) One of Joe Henderson's first jobs in Detroit was as part of a Butts-led quartet in 1957. In "Before Motown," Butts is quote as saying that it was drummer Johnny Cleaver -- that's Gerald Cleaver's father -- who first told him about Joe. In the '60s during Aretha Franklin's Columbia days, Butts toured and recorded with her. He's the drummer on her jazz-oriented "Yeah" taped in 1965. The rest of the all-Detroit group behind Aretha here is Burrell, Teddy Harris Jr. (piano), and James (Beans) Richardson (bass). A few tracks with Butts are also Franklin's "Take It Like You Give It." The Lord discography lists Butts on a 1956 Louis Jordan session on the Bear Family label taped in New York. He's also listed as the drummer on Betty Lavette single on Atlantic cut in 1962 ("You'll Never Change"/"Hear I Am"). I've seen Detroit newspaper ads where he's listed as working the clubs in Detroit in the early '70s backing up folks like Jimmy Witherspoon. I don't really know much more about his later life and career. I regret that he was not on my radar screen in my early days in Detroit when I might have been able to meet him and forge a relationship.

https://www.arts.gov/news/press-releases/2024/announcing-2025-nea-jazz-masters

All -- thanks for the enlightening responses.

I have always read that Don Pullen played organ/piano with Arthur Prysock and wrote arrangements for him -- but I had never found any recorded examples of this until today, when I found Prysock's 1969 LP "Where the Soul Trees Grow" (King Records) at Peoples' Records in Detroit. Pullen is listed as the arranger in the credits, but no other personnel is given. Of course, the record is on YouTube. Pyrsock sounds great on this record and I dig the soulful vibe of the charts and some surprising repertoire choices. While we're on the subject, does anyone know other recorded examples of Pullen as an soul/R&B sideman?