Aretha on Columbia

[jazzbo]

I have been enjoying listening to all the Columbia Records material by Aretha Franklin that I've found on cd. The entire work is not available as far as I can tell, there are compilations from the American label, and one now out of print Legacy cd of the "Unforgettable" album, and there are four English "twofers" that I am aware of, one from Edsel and three from American Beat (these are all very nice).

This material is sort of all over the map but. . .fun. I really love Aretha on Atlantic of course, but there is no reason to ignore the Columbia material. The woman was. . a force of nature almost. She could do it all!

I made a suggestion to Mosaic about a complete box. . . but think that they'll feel it is out of their scope. . . (though in my opinion it's not that much different than the Washington Roulette in many ways). If they were to undertake this it would be a wonderful wonderful set.

[Christiern]

I, too, love Aretha on Columbia. Perhaps Mosaic ought to move the bar just a tad and let the lady in. When tight categorizing gets in the way of glorious experiences, it is time to rethink self-imposed limits.

[Van Basten II]

I second this motion.

[jazzbo]

I, too, love Aretha on Columbia. Perhaps Mosaic ought to move the bar just a tad and let the lady in. When tight categorizing gets in the way of glorious experiences, it is time to rethink self-imposed limits.

Thanks for weighing in Chris, I was interested in your opinion of this group of recordings.

To be clear, Mosaic has not replied, yet. So maybe they'll say "Wow, we never thought of that, we're on it!"

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Yes, I agree. I don't have any of her Columbia material.

Mosaic produced R&B sets by Amos Milburn (I should have got that one) & T-Bone Walker; perhaps others, I'm not sure. So Aretha's not a million miles from them.

MG

[AllenLowe]

it's been a while since I listened to the Columbias, many of which are excellent - most notable thing for me, and I kid you not, was a noticeable Al Jolson influence on more than one ballad, most particularly a rendition she did of Swanee - speaks volumes (literally and figuratively) about musical influence here in the good old US of A -

Edited August 21, 2008 by AllenLowe

[Teasing the Korean]

The original LPs don't pop up very often, in my experience.

[Christiern]

it's been a while since I listened to the Columbias, many of which are excellent - most notable thing for me, and I kid you not, was a noticeable Al Jolson influence on more than one ballad, most particularly a rendition she did of Swanee - speaks volumes (literally and figuratively) about musical influence here in the good old US of A -

That wasn't burnt cork, Allen.

[jazzbo]

Oh I failed to report back earlier, Mosaic has said Aretha's Columbia work was too "all over the map" for them.

I disagree. Too bad.

Hopefully American Beat will continue their reissue of these lps. . . They've done three twofers so far.

[Christiern]

"All over the map" is a cop-out. The problem, I think, is a juke box mentality. They obviously have placed (imprisoned?) Aretha (and Mosaic, for that matter) in a constricted category. They should listen to the quality of her voice and what she does with it. Like they say, Aretha could sing the phone book...

The pre-fame recordings she made in her father's church (issued by Riverside on the Battle label) would round such a box release out rather nicely.

What, after all, is a mosaic?

Edited February 3, 2009 by Christiern

[JSngry]

The pre-fame recordings she made in her father's church (issued by Riverside on the Battle label) would round such a box release out rather nicely.

I only know of the material released by Chess. What are the details of this material?

[Harold_Z]

I must have missed this thread when it first came out, but just for the record, I love Aretha's Columbia recordings. I bought many of the lps as they came out - so Aretha was no stranger to me when she went to Atlantic. I think the Columbias got a bad rap that was undeserved and at this point I listen to the Columbia's more often than I listen to the Atlantics- although that may be due to serious od'ing on the Atlantics.

Don't know of any Aretha on Battle. I know Mavis Staples was on Battle way back. "Uncloudy Day" - which is a total gas!

[mjzee]

I only know one song, "Sweet Bitter Love," that I heard on a Columbia sampler in the mid-60's. Stayed with me all these years. Killer track. I'd buy a Mosaic (but leave off the gospel).

[jazzbo]

MJ,

There are two really good two cd sets from Columbia, 'Jazz to Soul" and "The Queen in Waiting." Both are great; there's overlap so getting both will lead to a number of track duplications. That said. . . I have both.

[Guest youmustbe]

I heard her do the Columbia material live in a club in Seattle in 1966. The audience, almost all white and smartly dressed, loved her and wanted an encore.

She obliged by telling her pianist to get up, sat down at the piano and sang 'Hold On, I'm Coming' while stomping the rhythm with her feet.

The audience was aghast at the real Aretha Franklin.

I went to Nam shortly after that and when I heard on the radio 'Never Loved A Man The Way i loved You' I realized that I had gotten a preview of that real Aretha that day in Seattle.

[Mark Stryker]

Columbia and John Hammond have taken it on the chin over the years for trying to force Aretha into a jazz-supper club mold to which she was ill-suited, and the records are certainly an inconsistent lot. But there's some great stuff there -- the "Jazz to Soul" sampler mentioned earlier is a particularly good collection. I also wonder if it's not misleading to think of the Atlantics exclusively as the "real" Aretha. No doubt the Atlantics mark the beginning of the mature Aretha and they remain the defining Aretha, but the earlier records are no-less real for documenting her formative years. She was just 18 when signed with Columbia and it took her years to hone the ideas, assimilate the influences and weed out the things she didn't need, before she was capable of making the records she made for Atlantic.

Her relationship with jazz and pop is really interesting. When she was coming up, the divisions between jazz, adult pop, blues, R&B and nascent gospel-influenced soul were considerably more porous than they would become in the '60s. She isn't a jazz singer, of course -- she never really phrased like a horn and her improvising was always rooted in gospel or blues traditions rather than jazz -- but she could always swing and jazz is somewhere in her DNA. It's interesting that she played jazz clubs in the early '60s, including the Village Vanguard, appeared on bills opposite Horace Silver and Art Blakey and won the Down Beat critics' poll New Star Award in 1961. In her autobiography, she wrote, "For a long while I had a trio and sang jazz-tinged standards, covered some hit songs of the day, and interpreted bluesy ballads. ... During my early trio days, modern jazz was going through a soul period, rediscovering its funky and church roots. I was part of that mix."

Beyond her gospel roots, she says she listend to everyone from LaVern Baker to Doris Day and paid close attention to singers who jumped stylistic fences like Dinah Washington, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Ruth Brown. I love the spellbinding version of "Over the Rainbow" from her first Columbia date, accompanied by the Ray Bryant Trio, in which she phrases not with the smooth legato of jazz but the speech rhythms of a sermon. "Today I Sing the Blues" sends shivers down the spine with the stinging intensity of her limber young voice and some melismatic flourishes and moans that foreshadow her later style. And near the end of her tenure with Columbia there's a racehorse version of "This Could Be The Start of Something" that swings with joyous abandon and features pinpoint diction and a precision so different from her later work. Still, she clearly had mixed emotions as her career progressed. She once said, "I was being classified as a jazz singer, and I never, ever felt I was a jazz singer. I can sing jazz, but that was not my format to begin with."

It's usually said that at Atlantic Jerrry Wexler took Aretha down to Muscle Shoals and put the church back into her music. Presto, Queen of Soul. True enough. But those Columbias really did represent her wide-ranging tastes, and I read an interesting cultural history of soul music by Craig Werner in which he argues that her repertory represented a crossover strategy that mirrored the early civil rights movement's commitment to desegregation. I've often thought that the Atlantics didn't so much put the church back into Franklin's music as take out all the confounding elements of jazz and pop, which by then were masking the truest expression of her musical personality as it had evolved.

One other thought: While Aretha's Atlantic recordings comprise one of the great leaps forward in popular music, they surrender something, too. There's an attention to detail and expressive restraint in her Columbia work that she rarely equaled. I wouldn't trade the Atlantics for the Columbias, of course, but I'm glad to have both, and I especially miss some of those early qualities when I hear some of her more recent work in which her style atrophies into mannerism.

Edited February 5, 2009 by Mark Stryker

[jazzbo]

Thanks for the very informative post Mark!

[Guest youmustbe]

'Real' was probably the wrong word. But by mid=sixties the supper club 'jazz' singer was passe. If not downright silly. I remember she sang Walk On By' on that gig that I heard, with a jazz trio. Who cared compared with Warwick's recording.

Just like hearing Carmen McRae sing standards on a double bill opening for Trane's band with Pharoah, Archie etc.

Whatever the reason for the switch, the Atlantic records caught a new era musical and cultural at its beginning. That's why they wipe out the Columbia period, rightly or wrongly.

[Christiern]

Ditto thanks from me, Mark.

[seeline]

Mark, thanks for the great post.

This is interesting to me

Her relationship with jazz and pop is really interesting. When she was coming up, the divisions between jazz, adult pop, blues, R&B and nascent gospel-influenced soul were considerably more porous than they would become in the '60s. She isn't a jazz singer, of course -- she never really phrased like a horn and her improvising was always rooted in gospel or blues traditions rather than jazz -- but she could always swing and jazz is somewhere in her DNA. It's interesting that she played jazz clubs in the early '60s, including the Village Vanguard, appeared on bills opposite Horace Silver and Art Blakey and won the Down Beat critics' poll New Star Award in 1961. In her autobiography, she wrote, "For a long while I had a trio and sang jazz-tinged standards, covered some hit songs of the day, and interpreted bluesy ballads. ... During my early trio days, modern jazz was going through a soul period, rediscovering its funky and church roots. I was part of that mix."

partly because I can recall (a bit) this kind of eclecticism in pop music; also because the "considerably more porous" thing is still true in, say, Brazil. My thought is that we N. Americans are pretty intent on categorizing music and artists, while a lot of Latin Americans are far less interested in that than we are - "popular" in Brazil means something very different than it does here. (Lots of Brazilian "popular" music would be labeled as folk, traditional, "roots music" - or whatever - up here.)

My guess is that a lot of Aretha's contemporaries thought very much as she does - Marvin Gaye comes to mind, for one.

[mjzee]

My guess is that a lot of Aretha's contemporaries thought very much as she does - Marvin Gaye comes to mind, for one.

It's interesting you say that. I recently bought the great box set "Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection 1959 - 1971." In the booklet, it said this about Marvin Gaye: "In his artistic heart of hearts, Gaye longed to be a troubadour, the next Nat King Cole or Perry Como, singing standards by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Brecht and Weill. He even told confidant and biographer David Ritz at one point, 'I never wanted to shake my ass... I wanted to sit on a stool and sing soft love songs.'"

[jazzbo]

My guess is that a lot of Aretha's contemporaries thought very much as she does - Marvin Gaye comes to mind, for one.

It's interesting you say that. I recently bought the great box set "Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection 1959 - 1971." In the booklet, it said this about Marvin Gaye: "In his artistic heart of hearts, Gaye longed to be a troubadour, the next Nat King Cole or Perry Como, singing standards by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Brecht and Weill. He even told confidant and biographer David Ritz at one point, 'I never wanted to shake my ass... I wanted to sit on a stool and sing soft love songs.'"

Marvin did an album as a tribute to Cole, it's on cd. Better was "Vulnerable", a later album where he was more himself trying to be that crooner. . . .

[Guest youmustbe]

Who else could they try to imitate when they were young? Sting?

It doesn't mean anything. 'Respect' Lets' Get It On' were what they were all about.

After all, I wanted to be the left fielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers.....look what I turned out to be....a jazz booking agent!

[Mark Stryker]

Mark, thanks for the great post.

This is interesting to me

Her relationship with jazz and pop is really interesting. When she was coming up, the divisions between jazz, adult pop, blues, R&B and nascent gospel-influenced soul were considerably more porous than they would become in the '60s. She isn't a jazz singer, of course -- she never really phrased like a horn and her improvising was always rooted in gospel or blues traditions rather than jazz -- but she could always swing and jazz is somewhere in her DNA. It's interesting that she played jazz clubs in the early '60s, including the Village Vanguard, appeared on bills opposite Horace Silver and Art Blakey and won the Down Beat critics' poll New Star Award in 1961. In her autobiography, she wrote, "For a long while I had a trio and sang jazz-tinged standards, covered some hit songs of the day, and interpreted bluesy ballads. ... During my early trio days, modern jazz was going through a soul period, rediscovering its funky and church roots. I was part of that mix."

partly because I can recall (a bit) this kind of eclecticism in pop music; also because the "considerably more porous" thing is still true in, say, Brazil. My thought is that we N. Americans are pretty intent on categorizing music and artists, while a lot of Latin Americans are far less interested in that than we are - "popular" in Brazil means something very different than it does here. (Lots of Brazilian "popular" music would be labeled as folk, traditional, "roots music" - or whatever - up here.)

My guess is that a lot of Aretha's contemporaries thought very much as she does - Marvin Gaye comes to mind, for one.

Your point re: Brazilian music is interesting. I was not aware of that that lack of categorization in that music. Re: YMB's last point about "Respect" and "What's Goin' On" being what Franklin and Gaye are about: I don't think anyone's arguing the point, at least I'm not to the extent that these represent the definitive statements of those artist's mature aesthetic. But the journey they took to get there is interesting and may have more lasting value than merely being a stepping stone to something else (though in some cases it might only be a stepping stone or, in fact, something less).

On another Aretha topic unrelated to music, my paper ran an interesting story two days after the inauguration about the hat she wore at the ceremony and the Detroit milliner who created it. http://www.freep.com/article/20090122/COL27/901220379?imw=Y

[seeline]

Oh, they categorize music in Brazil; it's just done differently than here. And truly, there's still a sense of "porousness" about many things, including the boundaries between popular and classical - refreshingly so, I think. It's something that seems to be difficult for us to "get," in some respects, anyway. (Luciana Souza, a Brazilian singer who now lives here, has been highly praised for her recordings of Brazilian standards but faulted heavily for doing a similar project with contemporary American songs - the verdict was that it was much too "pop-oriented.")

Thanks for the story on the milliner; black women have kept the profession alive! (See Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats.)

My guess is that a lot of Aretha's contemporaries thought very much as she does - Marvin Gaye comes to mind, for one.

It's interesting you say that. I recently bought the great box set "Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection 1959 - 1971." In the booklet, it said this about Marvin Gaye: "In his artistic heart of hearts, Gaye longed to be a troubadour, the next Nat King Cole or Perry Como, singing standards by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Brecht and Weill. He even told confidant and biographer David Ritz at one point, 'I never wanted to shake my ass... I wanted to sit on a stool and sing soft love songs.'"

He did make at least one crooner-type, standards album - IIRC, his wanting to do these kinds of albums was mentioned a lot after he died.

Edited February 5, 2009 by seeline