Sax Expat: Don Byas

[nighthawk68]

Coming out April 15th. Here's the blurb:

Don Byas (1913–1972) may be lesser known than the counterparts he played with―Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others―but he was an enigma. He never stayed with a band for long, and eventually went solo partly to make more money and partly due to his inability to work with bandleaders. Often drinking to excess, alcohol fueled his sometimes-erratic behavior on and off the bandstand. He went through at least thirteen different groups in fifteen years of professional play before leaving for Europe in 1946.

Despite his fractious personality, in Europe he found peace and contentment as a family man in the Netherlands, where he lived out his days with his second wife and their four children. He learned at least seven languages during his years in Europe, and on traveling to a new country could pick up a few phrases in short order, soon speaking to the locals and even composing songs in their native tongue.

In Sax Expat: Don Byas, author Con Chapman argues that Byas’s relative obscurity arises from his choice to live in Europe, where he missed out on recording opportunities and exposure in the US that would have made him renowned and wealthier. His numerous achievements, including his solo on Count Basie’s “Harvard Blues,” which is a model of restrained invention; his interpretation of the sentimental movie theme “Laura”; and his duets with bassist Slam Stewart were included in the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz and secured Byas’s place in jazz history. This biography brings to life an amazing jazz story.

[EKE BBB]

Definitely, I'm in!!!

[Dan Gould]

What EKE said.

 

[clifford_thornton]

Awesome!

I've interacted with his daughter Carlotta in Holland -- she's a wonderful ceramist. 

[romualdo]

Yes please, on my list

[Gheorghe]

Big fan of him. Got to hear him the very first time on the Black Lion LP "Anthropology" which became a "hit" when all them folks came to my place to listen to records into the small hours. They all loved that record and often asked me to spin it in the course of a night......

[Ken Dryden]

I just finished the compiling the index for Sax Expat and it is another excellent, well researched book by Con Chapman. 

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Ken Dryden said:

I just finished the compiling the index for Sax Expat and it is another excellent, well researched book by Con Chapman. 

Not asking for a sneak preview, Ken, but to what extent do the "Estrellas de Ritmo y Melodía" as well as Bernard Hilda and Luis Rovira figure in the index?

Edited 22 hours ago by Big Beat Steve

[Ken Dryden]

Since this book is more focused on Don Byas' career as a jazz musician, there is less focus on his non-jazz activities. Each publisher has different standards and the author and index compiler adjust accordingly. 

Bernard Hilda is mentioned in the footnotes, Luis Rovita is mentioned several times on a single page.

There is no mention of "Estrellas de Ritmo y Melodía" after searching the pdf of the draft sent to me.

[Big Beat Steve]

Luis Rovira on one single page is fair enough coverage for Don Byas' involvement with that band in 1947. Anyway .. not wanting to pick nits at all , but these were indeed jazz (or jazzish) recordings (within the admittedly still a bit limited framework of what European jazzmen were able to put on wax in post-1945 Europe, but seminal recordings for the recovering post-1945 scene in Barcelona). The presence of Don Byas (and other "defectors" from the Don Redman band who chose to stay over here) on the post-war European jazz scene was a boon and impetus for many young European jazzers, and no mean achievement of Don Byas. And the Barcelona days were part of the beginning of why he was held in such esteem in Europe.
As for the Estrellas, I'll throw a couple of names at you, then: Josep Puertas, George Johnson (another expat!!) , Josep Ballester, Antonio Bardají "Chispa" (both Ballester and "Chispa" seem to have been jazzmen of almost mythical proportions on the jazz scene in the Catalunya region of Spain during that period).
https://www.discogs.com/de/master/919653-Don-Byas-1947-Those-Barcelona-Days

Just sayin'

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Big Beat Steve

[Ken Dryden]

 just did a quick search of the text and I didn't read it this time like I did when I was indexing, for some reason I was thinking about the Amalia Rodrigues recording. Don Byas performed in both jazz and non-jazz settings while in Europe, though he would turn down jazz record dates if he thought they didn't pay what he merited.

The recordings issued by Black Lion at the Club Montmartre were some of the first 1960s recordings that I heard by him and they tell me he should have been recorded much more.

Pardon me for not remembering Luis Rovira, he was not a major name in the bio.

[Big Beat Steve]

No problem at all, of course Rovira is no major name in a DON BYAS bio. He is just a "marker" of coverage of Byas' stay in Spain.
To tell the truth, the reason for my questions was just to get an inkling of an idea of the degree of depth of coverage of his European days from the early years onwards. His impact must have been particularly strong in (approx.) the first half of his life in Europe when European jazz was still "finding its way" and support and input from "name" jazzmen were absorbed particularly intensely.
In the end it depends on how his life and work in Europe are presented. Coverage of his post-1946 career as seen through a European's (jazzman or jazz listener) eyes at least to me would be what is primarily called for in such a biography (and of course would require exploration of numerous non-English-language source materials. Not that this should present a major obstacle to savvy researchers in today's world 😉) OTOH an excessively US-centric treatment might run the risk of ending up in a "U.S. outsider looking in" stance.

So I'll be looking forward to this book. 😉 Just pre-ordered the paperback edition on Amazon.

Edited 19 hours ago by Big Beat Steve

[Ken Dryden]

Con Chapman used ample resources from European archives in order to write this biography. 

This is not a US-centric biography, at least for the part of Don Byas' life and career in Europe.

I don't really want to talk too much more about the book, buy it and learn about this brilliant jazz musician's life.

[Stompin at the Savoy]

Seems kind of pricey for a 240 page book.  No doubt they will make up for that by having extremely small print.  I hope they put out a kindle version.

[Ken Dryden]

It is published by the University Press of Mississippi and University publishers generally have higher prices on jazz books, but also tend to keep them in print longer.

[Big Beat Steve]

11 hours ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

Seems kind of pricey for a 240 page book.  No doubt they will make up for that by having extremely small print.  I hope they put out a kindle version.

Am not so sure. Amazon here has a paperback version on offer for a tad above 30 EUR guaranteed pre-order price (which I trust they will live up to). Seems reasonable to me.

12 hours ago, Ken Dryden said:

Con Chapman used ample resources from European archives in order to write this biography. ...
I don't really want to talk too much more about the book, buy it and learn about this brilliant jazz musician's life.

No offense meant, really ... I just was sort of taken aback when I read the "blurb" in the opening post. Unknown?  An enigma? (Maybe more of a maverick?) These lines created an impression that is so different from the way Don Byas likely was perceived (or must have been ...) by EUROPEAN jazz listeners and fans passably in the know. "Reception" of an artist and his work can be quite different, depending on where you are coming from, isn't it?

When the book arrives, I'll no doubt pull out that LP with his 1945 version of "Laura" (mentioned in the "blurb") that is on an LP I had bought in my very early collecting days and gave it countless spins in the time after. Wonder if it'll create the same listening impact now (after having bought and listened to numerous other Byas records) that it did then.

[EKE BBB]

17 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

No problem at all, of course Rovira is no major name in a DON BYAS bio. He is just a "marker" of coverage of Byas' stay in Spain.
To tell the truth, the reason for my questions was just to get an inkling of an idea of the degree of depth of coverage of his European days from the early years onwards. His impact must have been particularly strong in (approx.) the first half of his life in Europe when European jazz was still "finding its way" and support and input from "name" jazzmen were absorbed particularly intensely.
(...)

😜

I modestly contributed to Con's research, providing newspaper and magazine clippings from Byas' stay in Spain and Portugal. This period will be adequately covered in the book, although with a modest extension in terms of pages. Editorial constraints, of course.

Edited 2 hours ago by EKE BBB

[Big Beat Steve]

Excellent news! Hats off to you (and the author)
That's the kind of approach I was hoping for in a book like this.

[EKE BBB]

Some memorabilia as well...