[Dixielandjazz] "Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl" reviewed - JazzTimes.com, November 6, 2011

[Robert Ringwald]

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'Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl': A Rare Concert Finally Reissued
Norman Granz's 1956 bash featured Armstrong, Ella, Tatum, Oscar and more
by Christopher Loudon
JazzTimes.com, November 6, 2011
In early 1945, impresario Norman Granz, then just 28, was enjoying the first flush
of success with what would become his iconic Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts. But,
as described in Tad Hershorn's insightful new biography "Norman Granz: The Man Who
Used Jazz for Justice," he also faced a challenge. L.A.'s Philharmonic Hall, the
venue that had provided the concert series the name it would keep for decades to
come, refused Granz further access, citing the wildness of the SRO crowds that attended.
Needing a new, ideally bigger showplace, Granz approached the powers-that-be at the
Hollywood Bowl, and was turned down flat. Though the Bowl did, indeed, host popular
music events, gladly welcoming such headliners as Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore,
managing director Dr. Karl Wecker said he didn't want the word "jazz" in any way
associated with the fabled outdoor space, insisting that he was only interested in
music that could be considered "the best of its kind."
It took Granz a full decade to gain entree, but when he did, presenting the Hollywood
Bowl's first full-fledged jazz concert on August 15, 1956, he pulled out all the
stops, attracting a capacity audience of 20,000. Crowding the bill were Ella Fitzgerald,
Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum and the Oscar Peterson Trio. The entire evening was recorded
and released as the double album "Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl" on Granz's Verve label,
though for the final pressing he rearranged the performance order and had to omit
the Armstrong set for contractual reasons. "Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl" went out
of print in the late 1960s, long after Granz had sold Verve to MGM, and drifted into
obscurity. Now, four decades later, the complete recording, in proper sequence, has
been reassembled and issued on CD, as part of Verve's ongoing series of deluxe Hip-O
Select packages.
For the opening jam session (a cornerstone of all his JATP events, which Granz knew
the Bowl audience would expect, even in abbreviated form), Granz plucked two JATP
stalwarts, Roy Eldridge and Illinois Jacquet, augmented by Oscar Peterson and trio
mates Herb Ellis and Ray Brown, plus Harry Edison, Flip Phillips and Buddy Rich.
Compared to most JATP sessions, it is extremely short -- just three numbers. But
the assembled octet serves up a lively "Honeysuckle Rose," followed by a superb ballad
medley of "I Can't Get Started," "If I Had You" and "I've Got the World on a String."
They close with a blistering, 14-minute "Jumpin' at the Woodside," where at last
the players get to stretch out and take their solos.
Tatum, who Granz introduces as "the greatest jazz musician extant," is next, and
is in exquisite form across four numbers, beginning with a jaunty "Someone to Watch
Over Me" and continuing with stellar interpretations of "Begin the Beguine," "Willow
Weep for Me" and "Humoresque." It would prove to be the 46-year-old Tatum's second-to-last
recording. He would make one further album for Granz, with Ben Webster, before his
premature death from uremic poisoning, just three months after the Bowl concert.
Ella concludes the program's first half. It is the dawn of her golden period. Granz
had only recently lured her away from Decca, signing her to his fledgling Verve label
and also assuming responsibility for her personal management. Earlier in 1956, the
first in her legendary songbook series, "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook,"
had become an enormous critical and popular success, far bigger than Granz ever imagined.
Her Bowl sidemen -- drummer Alvin Stoller, guitarist Barney Kessel, bassist Joe Mondragon
and pianist Paul Smith -- are introduced first, and receive hearty applause. Ella's
entrance is, however, greeted with the sort of massively enthusiastic ovation that
would welcome her for the next four decades. She leads off with two selections from
the Porter canon, "Love for Sale" and "Just One of Those Things," segues into a soft
and lovely "Little Girl Blue" (though makes no mention of the fact that she's soon
to head back to the studio to explore the Rodgers and Hart songbook), then eases
into what builds to a hotly swinging "Too Close for Comfort," followed by a breezy
"I Can't Give You Anything but Love," complete with a terrific impersonation of Armstrong
that sends the crowd into a frenzy. She wraps her set with a spectacular, scat-lined
"Airmail Special" that prompts two curtain calls.
The Peterson Trio leads off the second half with just two numbers -- a rousing "9:20
Special" and peppy "How About You" -- covering a scant eight minutes.
Armstrong's set (until now, unreleased) is the evening's longest, extending across
13 tracks. The quintet backing Armstrong includes three players -- trombonist Trummy
Young, clarinetist Ed Hall and pianist Billy Kyle (augmented by bassist Dale Jones
and drummer Barrett Deems) -- with whom he would share screen time that same year
in the Frank Sinatra-Bing Crosby-Grace Kelly musical hit "High Society." But nothing
from that Cole Porter score is included on the Bowl set list. Instead, Armstrong,
provided no introduction by Granz, offers up his standard opener, "When It's Sleepy
Time Down South" followed by "Indiana." After "The Gypsy," the Ink Spots hit covered
by Armstrong in 1953 and thereafter occasionally included in his stage performances,
he returns to his standard repertoire for "Ole Miss Blues" and "The Bucket's Got
a Hole in It." Kyle leads off a sizzling "Perdido," then Hall introduces a sweet,
mid-tempo "You Made Me Love You." Armstrong returns center stage for "Mack the Knife"
(he had made the Kurt Weill composition his own the previous fall, with a recording
that would remain definitive until both Fitzgerald and Bobby Darin eclipsed him with
radically different readings at decade's end). Deems gets the spotlight on "Stompin'
at the Savoy," then it's Young's turn on "You Can Depend on Me." Armstrong and company
sign off with a short (just under two minutes) but intense "Mop Mop."
Armstrong returns with Fitzgerald for two numbers, reaching back to 1946 and their
very first recorded pairing on "You Won't Be Satisfied" and galloping through "Undecided."
Finally, Armstrong leads all the assembled talent in "When the Saints Go Marching
In," with shout outs to Jacquet, Edison, Eldridge, Rich, Brown, Tatum, Peterson and
Fitzgerald, concluding with a blazing trumpet solo. As Ricky Riccardi observes of
the Bowl concert in "What a Wonderful World," his recent chronicle of Armstrong's
later years, "[He] always thrived when competing with other legends, and he responded
that night by blowing with fearsome ferocity." The very next day, Granz ushered Armstrong
and Fitzgerald, along with Peterson, Ellis, Rich and Brown, into the studio for "Ella
and Louis," the first of their three landmark duet albums for Verve.
The two-disc Verve/Hip-O "Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl," produced in a limited edition
of only 5,000 copies, is currently available at Amazon.com or directly through the
Hip-O Select site,
http://www.hip-oselect.com


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
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