Monday, September 03, 2007
(12:20 AM) | Brad:
Weekend Jazz: Not Quite Dueling Banjos
I'll cut to the chase with tonight's introductions. Four duets/duels, each with two masters of his craft.On January 7, 1925, wishes were filled when Clarence Williams put Louis Armstrong & Sidney Bechet together and let them battle for musical supremacy. The result is the Red Onion Jazz Babies' "Cake Walking Babies From Home". It is generally agreed that this is one of the few times that anybody challenged (and perhaps bested) Armstrong in a cutting session. A second version was cut that day, under the band name Clarence Williams' Blue Five. You can listen to this faster version, often considered Armstrong's "revenge," here.
It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that bebop came into its own with our second song. Dizzy & Bird ... "Shaw 'Nuff".
In 1956, John Coltrane wasn't unknown, but he wasn't "John Coltrane" yet. In fact, for many he was that frustrating saxophonist in Miles Davis' Quintet. Fortunately, Sonny Rollins, along with Miles Davis, was always where the rest of the jazz world followed later. How else to explain the tremendous battle that is "Tenor Madness."
And last, the year is 1991. Picture a skinny white high school junior sporting an afro, large-framed glasses, and a "This is your brain ... This is your brain in hell" t-shirt. He is at home alone, listening to his latest prize, A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory. Ever since, he's never forgotten the lyrics to "Check the Rhime." 'Tip & Phife, not so much dueling as fusing. But, all the same, a thing to cherish.
