Roy Eldridge ("Little Jazz")

[Milestones]

Roy Eldridge (Little Jazz), my god, what a great player. I’ve always had some appreciation of the man, but I’ve come to realize he’s one of the greatest and most vital figures in jazz history. While not such a pioneering figure as Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, or Dizzy (the man he inspired most directly)—he is nonetheless right up there. I had mainly heard Eldridge with Dizzy and in a variety of sometimes interesting and (even add combos, such as with Mingus and Dolphy.

More recently I’ve heard him on a Herb Ellis record and also the meeting with Art Tatum. I was looking through one of my old jazz references books, and they called the record with Tatum a failure. WTF! It’s great stuff. I can hear a tune like “I Won’t Dance” in my head all day long…so mellow and melodious.

I grabbed a 4-CD set out of the library, covering 1930s through mid-1950s. It’s a lot to digest, but certainly plenty of jewels. I have to say, though, I’m not a big fan of Roy’s singing.

I’ve also checked a bit into Swing Goes Dixie. I guess it is what the title suggests: stomping New Orleans music featuring the pulse of Walter Pages and Jo Jones.

While my tastes have always run toward post-bebop, I have made a place for the older music. I think we all must do it; otherwise we are missing great treasures. I can now even see the point-of-view those who really don’t care much for jazz after the bebop revolution. I will always love most types of jazz from every era. And more than three decades into being an obsessive fan of jazz, I will keep searching for jazz greats that I have under-valued. Roy Eldridge is a big one.

I once heard him described as the greatest trumpeter between Louis and Dizzy. Easy enough to accept, especially once you do some serious listening. But let’s just call him one of the greatest trumpeters the music has ever known.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Milestones

[BillF]

Fully agree - passionate, exciting player. It's Roy in the 50s that I particularly like - the stuff with Krupa is a bit early for my taste and as we head into the 70s Roy is past his best. You mention Mingus and Dolphy - Roy is fantastic on the Newport Rebels session. Again, there's Herb Ellis's Only the Blues and Roy and Diz is another that comes to mind, as well as Hodges-led sessions like Kinda Dukish. Then there's his influence - Howard McGhee takes Roy and makes it a bop style. I even hear a hint of Roy in Kenny Dorham's "wheeze".

[Chuck Nessa]

The early Verve sessions with OP are wonderful. The Mosaic box contains them. I had an occasional personal/professional relationship with him during his last 15 years . What a great spirit. I am wearing a belt buckle right now he secured for me. Love Roy.

[Larry Kart]

The early Verve sessions with OP are wonderful. The Mosaic box contains them. I had an occasional personal/professional relationship with him during his last 15 years . What a great spirit. I am wearing a belt buckle right now he secured for me. Love Roy.

Oh, yeah. The Clef quartet album "Little Jazz" with OP, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich has a fantastically passionate "Stormy Weather," an excellent "Sweethearts on Parade," and a way up "Sweet Georgia Brown" on whose back Roy pounces on like panther. One of the first records I bought; great close-up cover photo of Roy, too, probably taken by Herman Leonard. He was the first musician who made me feel that I knew what every note he played meant.

[Larry Kart]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTKMw_ZtMew

[jazzbo]

Such a stylist, he had a sound and way of playing all his own, so recognizable. We were blessed with so much from him.

[Peter Friedman]

A great jazz musician. Hearing his trumpet at it's best can raise goosebumps on the back of your neck.

Though I have to disagree with Milestones post on Roy's vocals. I love them. He recorded a vocal album on Pablo

after he was told by his doctors not to play the trumpet any more. It is a session that never fails to bring a wide smile

to my face.

[Milestones]

I'll keep checking out some vocals and see if I come around.

[mjzee]

I really like these sessions, included in the Jazz On Vogue box:

[JSngry]

I know that historically there have been some who were made uncomfortable by Eldridge's "exhibitionist tendencies", but ok, like Dizzy Dean said, it ain't braggin' if you can back it up, and when did Roy Eldridge make a promise he didn't keep? That's not about "good taste", that's about personal honor.

I mean, c'mon, Roy on this is like Popeye delivering the final knockout punches to Bluto or Hitler or Bull Connor, only Popeye never battled Bull Connor, but that's ok, hey, Roy Eldridge, right? Right! On! Not a cartoon.

[Milestones]

I'm surprised Roy was never a member of the Ellington or Basie Orchestras. He would have been a great contributor in both.

[JSngry]

Oh, Roy was with Basie, somewhere in the mid-late 1960s. He's on Broadway Basie's Way.

It is what it is.

Not sure how long the gig lasted, but he did The Nifty Cat Strikes West with a contingent from the Basie band.

http://www.northsidesf.com/feb11/op_appetitesandafterthoughts.html

[Milestones]

He had several connections to Basie over a long period of time, but never an actual member of the orchestra.

[JSngry]

Pretty sure he was on the road band when he made those 60s records. No?

I can only quote this: http://www.northsidesf.com/feb11/op_appetitesandafterthoughts.html

Roy Eldridge and Count Basie
Fast forward to 1966: By now I have become publicist for the Monterey Jazz Festival. I still have that jazz itch, and I am itching to scratch it, to become even more involved. One day Dr. Herb Wong, then a disk jockey for KJAZ-FM (88.1) in Alameda, called me. “Is Roy Eldridge still your main man?” Indeed he was.

At the time, Eldridge was playing with Count Basie and his Orchestra, touring the West Coast. After a week at Basin Street West in North Beach, Basie himself had taken off for the East, and a few of his key sidemen were hanging around San Francisco.

What I don't know is if he was playing in the section too or just appearing as "featured soloist". Either way, I don't think it was a prolonged association. But it did happen.

[gmonahan]

A truly great, exciting player, and notable too for breaking the color barrier at great personal cost with the big bands of Krupa and Shaw in the 40s.

gregmo

[king ubu]

I think I first heard him on a compilation of some of Mingus' Candid sides, "Mysterious Blues" and several more from that session were on it (the infectuous "Wrap Your Troubles in Dream", "R & R" and "Body and Soul", too, I think) - he immediately fascinated me with his intense, honest playing that seemed to fit very well next to those other tracks with Eric Dolphy! Back then I was clueless about anything pre Bird, so it took me a while to catch up.

The Vogue recordings were among the next ones I heard, I think ... then some of the Verve material, leader and sideman w/Pres.

One of his finest from later on, recommended by some of the good folks here when I looked into Master Jazz Recordgins a bit:

Fine band with Budd Johnson on tenor

As for Vogue, there are two discs around - I think just one is in the little box:

Vol. 1: http://www.allmusic.com/album/roy-eldridge-his-little-jazz-vol-1-mw0000065062

Vol. 2: http://www.allmusic.com/album/roy-eldridge-his-little-jazz-vol-2-mw0000346589

[jazztrain]

Here's some information on Eldridge with Count Basie and his Orchestra, courtesy of Chris Sheridan's biodiscography:

• He frequently sat in with Basie during a an engagement by Basie at the Famous Door in 1936. There were broadcasts by CBS, but no known acetates survive.
• An appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1957
• An appearance at Birdland, aired on the WOR-Mutual Network "Bandstand USA" broadcast on December 7, 1957
• Eldridge joined the orchestra full time at the beginning of July 1966
• Eldridge played fifth trumpet on a cross-country tour that included engagements in San Francisco and Lake Tahoe.
• Appearance at Newport Jazz Festival on July 4, 1966
• Recording session on August 18, 1966 for ABC/Command
• Recording session on August 28, 1966
• September 6, 1966 Medicare "Bring Back The Bands" transcription session
• September 7 and 8, 1966 recording sessions for ABC/Command
• September 12, 1966 appearance on the "Jackie Gleason Show"
• September 16, 1966 appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival (VOA broadcast)
• Eldridge left the next day and opened at Embers West in New York leading a quartet ten days later; Basie hired Harry Edison as a replacement

There are also appearances of Eldridge and Basie together (but not with the orchestra). These include:

• A WNEW "Make Believe Ballroom Jam Session" from June 14, 1940
• Metronome All-Star Band, from December 31, 1941
• An appearance with the New York Stars on a WNEW "Saturday Swing Show" broadcast on April 5, 1947
• Count Basie All-Stars from the rehearsal for "The Sound of Jazz" on December 5, 1957
• Count Basie All-Stars from the WCBS-TV broadcast of "The Sound of Jazz" on December 8, 1957
• June 21 and 22, 1966 recording sessions by Count Basie & The Alan Copeland Singers
• JATP All-Stars session on June 2, 1972
• Count Basie Jam recording on July 19, 1975 for Pablo
• Count Basie Jam recording on July 14, 1977 for Pablo

He had several connections to Basie over a long period of time, but never an actual member of the orchestra.

[Peter Friedman]

Way back in the early to mid-1950's I went to a JATP concert in Detroit. One set featured a trumpet battle between Roy Eldridge and Charlie Shavers.

Though this was when I was just in the early stages of becoming a jazz fan, my preference , by a slight margin was for Roy.

Shavers demonstrated a lot of technical skill and played very well, but Roy had the special jazz feeling that moved him into the winners circle for me.

[Chuck Nessa]

I think this might have been my intro to Roy:

[Larry Kart]

Way back in the early to mid-1950's I went to a JATP concert in Detroit. One set featured a trumpet battle between Roy Eldridge and Charlie Shavers.

Though this was when I was just in the early stages of becoming a jazz fan, my preference , by a slight margin was for Roy.

Shavers demonstrated a lot of technical skill and played very well, but Roy had the special jazz feeling that moved him into the winners circle for me.

Probably was this tour:

http://www.amazon.com/Norman-Granz-Presents-Philharmonic-September/dp/B0042A3SA8

I have the single LP, issued in the '80s under Bob Porter's aegis, from this tour called "The Trumpet Battle." It was a high-quality JATP ensemble, with Roy, Shavers, Benny Carter, a quite alert Lester Young, Flip Phillips, and the usual OP-led rhythm section with Buddy Rich. Roy and Shavers are on fire.

[Peter Friedman]

Way back in the early to mid-1950's I went to a JATP concert in Detroit. One set featured a trumpet battle between Roy Eldridge and Charlie Shavers.

Though this was when I was just in the early stages of becoming a jazz fan, my preference , by a slight margin was for Roy.

Shavers demonstrated a lot of technical skill and played very well, but Roy had the special jazz feeling that moved him into the winners circle for me.

Probably was this tour:

http://www.amazon.com/Norman-Granz-Presents-Philharmonic-September/dp/B0042A3SA8

I have the single LP, issued in the '80s under Bob Porter's aegis, from this tour called "The Trumpet Battle." It was a high-quality JATP ensemble, with Roy, Shavers, Benny Carter, a quite alert Lester Young, Flip Phillips, and the usual OP-led rhythm section with Buddy Rich. Roy and Shavers are on fire.

It suspect it may have been a year or two later. Don't recall Billie Holiday at that concert. Do recall a tenor battle between Illinois Jacquet and Flip Philips, a ballad medley that the audience did not want, bringing Norman Granz out to give the audience hell.

Also a drum battle between Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich, with Buddy the clear winner.