Hindall Butts

[adh1907]

According to Byrd’s Eye View, Hindall Butts was under exclusive contract to Transition Records. As was Tommy Ball. There’s a long list in the booklet, but I have never heard of these two and nothing much turns up on the Internet. Intrigued. Anyone know anything about these two? 

Edited August 14 by adh1907

[jazzbo]

Perhaps they were signed to Transition by Wilson and the label went out of business before any recordings were made. Drummer Butts released singles in '68 and '70 on other labels.

Edited August 14 by jazzbo

[adh1907]

22 hours ago, jazzbo said:

Perhaps they were signed to Transition by Wilson and the label went out of business before any recordings were made. Drummer Butts released singles in '68 and '70 on other labels.

Thanks.

[Peter Friedman]

I saw drummer Hindall Butts play many many times back in the 1950's when I was living in Detroit. He played around town with a variety of musicians. He was certainly one of my favorite Detroit drummers at that time.

My recollection is that he was a tall lanky guy who played with power. A lot of accents and a hard swinger.

Never knew what happened to him as I considered his playing  equal in quality to  the other Detroit drummers who moved on to play and record on the New York and Chicago scene.

[jazzbo]

18 minutes ago, Peter Friedman said:

I saw drummer Hindall Butts play many many times back in the 1950's when I was living in Detroit. He played around town with a variety of musicians. He was certainly one of my favorite Detroit drummers at that time.

My recollection is that he was a tall lanky guy who played with power. A lot of accents and a hard swinger.

Never knew what happened to him as I considered his playing  equal in quality to  the other Detroit drummers who moved on to play and record on the New York and Chicago scene.

Possibly what happened is he did not (wish to?) leave Detroit. . . and had only a local career for a spell.

[Mark Stryker]

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.

 

Edited August 16 by Mark Stryker

[mikeweil]

That's more information than one would expect.  Much thanks!

The Tom Lord Disco misspells his first name Hindai, btw, probably a typo in the database.