An early article on T Monk, "Jazz Milieu" (1944)

[Guy Berger]

You can read this extremely interesting article here.

The depression of Dante’s Inferno continues even unto today as piano players are concerned.  Just imagine, hornblowers playing on an instrument with a faulty lower and upper register.  Just imagine, violinists playing on an instrument that has just been painted over with white enamel paint.  Just imagine, drummers playing on an instrument with a faulty pedal.  Thelonious Monk of the “Downbeat Club” would probably lose his mind if he suddenly came to work one night and discovered an unpainted Baldwin Concert Grand on the bandstand.

...

Thelonious Monk is an oddity among piano players.  This particular fellow is the author of the weirdest rhythmical melodies I’ve ever heard.  They are very great too.  (Don’t ever praise Monk too much or he’ll let you down.)  But I will say that I’d rather hear him play a ‘boston’ than any other pianist.  His sense of fitness is uncanny.  However, when Monk takes a solo, he seems to be partial to certain limited harmonies which prevent him from taking a place beside Art [Tatum] and Teddy [Wilson].  He seems to be in a vise as far as that goes and never shows any signs of being able to extricate himself.

[Chuck Nessa]

Many thanks. I've wanted to read that piece for 40 years.

[Leeway]

Has anyone ever seen a copy of "Music Dial"? How long was the magazine in operation, and how many issues did it publish? ?

[jazzbo]

Guy, thanks for posting that!

[ghost of miles]

Did this get re-printed in the Monk reader that came out several years ago? I've read it in an anthology somewhere...

[couw]

never seen this either. when was this posted on the monkzone?

[JSngry]

Who's this Johnny Hartzfield, and did he record?

[Guy Berger]

Alright, I've kept this a secret for long enough but it's time for the truth to come out.

I'm Johnny Hartzfield.

Guy

[Brad]

Thank you for posting that. Wonder how you came across it.

[JSngry]

Alright, I've kept this a secret for long enough but it's time for the truth to come out.

I'm Johnny Hartzfield.

Guy

Tell me a story!

[Chuck Nessa]

Who's this Johnny Hartzfield, and did he record?

He later recorded under the name Boots Randolph.

[J.A.W.]

Who's this Johnny Hartzfield, and did he record?

He later recorded under the name Boots Randolph.

...of Yakety Sax fame

[jazzbo]

Oh no! Computer screen splatter again!

[JSngry]

I've got a bootleg of Boots playing "Introspection", and it KICKS ASS!!!!

Another mystery solved!

[Larry Kart]

On AAJ in 2003, our old friend Deep identified Hartzfield as a member of Floyd Horsecollar Williams's band:

Jesse Drakes (tp) Joe Evans, Floyd Horsecollar Williams (as) Johnny Hartzfield (ts) Duke Jordan (p) Gene Ramey (b) J.C. Heard (d) Etta Jones

He also seemed to suggest -- though with Deep it's hard to tell -- that he was familiar with Hartzfield's music to some extent and though well of it.

Horsecollar Williams, BTW, was someone Nichols played with too.

[Larry Kart]

From an online D. Jordan discography:

Horsecollar Williams / Floyd Horsecollar Williams  (Chicago 102)

Jesse Drakes (tp) Joe Evans, Floyd Horsecollar Williams (as) Johnny Hartzfield (ts) Duke Jordan (p) Gene Ramey (b) J.C. Heard (d) Etta Jones (vo -2)

Chicago, IL, February, 1945

1. How You Like That

2. You Ain't Nothing Daddy

P.S. In the prior post, "though" should be "thought."

[Larry Kart]

"You Ain't Nothing Daddy" is on a Chronological Classics Etta Jones compilation.

[bertrand]

Is this the Horse from 'Orse At Safari'?

Bertrand.

[Larry Kart]

From the Chccago Report in the 1/26/40 issue of the magazine Jazz Information:

"John Levy's band, at the Club 65, is a fair outfit. The pianist, Jimmy Wood, plays a lot of piano; Russ Gillam, trumpet, and John Hartzfield, tenor, play very well on occasion, and Hilliard Brown, Kolax's old drummer, is steady."

In the 1970s, I heard Hilliard Brown (very tasty player), along with the mighty Truck Parham, in Art Hodes' rhythm section.

[Larry Kart]

"Is this the Horse from 'Orse At Safari'?"

Yes.

Author of that Jazz Information column was one Donel O'Brien.

[JSngry]

And wasn't Horsecollar the guy who Dizzy referred to as an original avant-gardist (or some such) in his autobiography for hiw tendency to play whatever he felt like anywhere in the tune?

[Larry Kart]

Yes, I recall that's what Dizzy said.

Also, isn't Johnny Hartzfield a good name for tenor saxophonist of that vintage? I imagine a guy with a big, edgy sound and lot of semi-hairy, harmonic ideas -- like he was Mark Shim's grandad.

[Brad]

I'm going to ask a dumb question but what's a "boston" as in "But I will say that I’d rather hear him play a ‘boston’ than any other pianist."

[Larry Kart]

A "boston" is an old-timey word for "solo chorus" or "solo" -- Twenties Harlem useage, I think. Thus, to plat or take a 'boston"...

[Larry Kart]

Sorry, "plat" should be "play."

Also, if I'm right about the vintage of "boston," Nichols' use of it here may be consciously, wryly archaic/ironic. As I recall, in the liner notes to his Blue Note 12 incher, he uses the early '40s term "vonce" (i.e. "musically advanced") in a similiarly sly fashion -- fondling a piece of slang that by that time no one used anymore. Nichols was a deep soul.