CHAPTER 16

Fusion I: R&B, Singers, and Latin Jazz

1) New Idioms
a) The late 1960s saw the rise of a fusion between jazz and the rhythms,
instrumentation, and repertory of rock. But fusions have always played a role in jazz
history (e.g., among African, European, and Latin American musics).
b) All musics take from other genres and styles, and jazz is no exception. Third
Stream, discussed earlier, was one example. In the next two chapters, different kinds of
fusions of jazz and popular music are explored, beginning in this chapter with the 1940s.
c) Up to this point the authors have discussed jazz as a series of chronologically
ordered creative leaps that are born out of the previous style and reflect their own times.
d) A “fusion” approach provides an alternative approach to the history of jazz in that
it looks beyond jazz at the parallel changes in pop culture, including dance styles and the
uses of technology, and their interactions with jazz.
e) Early jazz musicians played music and entertained audiences and employers in
various kinds of commercial venues.
f) Although jazz was always played for dancers, a gap grew between those who
wanted to play jazz for its own sake and those who focused on prevailing public tastes, so
that by the 1930s jazz (solos and hot rhythms) was part of a broader pop music
phenomenon of ballroom dance bands.
g) By the 1930s, perceived dichotomies of hot versus sweet and art versus commerce
were in place, and yet bands on each side borrowed from each other (sweet bands played
some jazz; hot bands hired pop singers and played ballads and novelty tunes).
h) Earlier chapters have detailed the ways in which bebop prevailed as post-swing
jazz, but as it fractured the pop-jazz connection, other, more accessible musics became
increasingly popular. As swing faded, it became clear that there were three additional
stylistic successors aside from bebop:
i) rhythm and blues (R&B)
ii) mainstream pop vocals
iii) Latin jazz
i) The R&B Connection
i) 1940s: An offshoot of swing called “jump” focused on blues, fast tempos, brash,
humorous lyrics, and ensemble riffs. This music eventually came to be known as
rhythm and blues (R&B), as the former term for this market—“race records,” popular
music by black artists intended for black audiences—began to lose cachet in popular
trade magazines such as Billboard.
ii) Jazzers, including beboppers, played some of this music alongside R&B
musicians. Numerous big-band leaders put it into the repertoire. It reached the white
mainstream through Louis Jordan.
j) Louis Jordan (1908–1975)
i) Alto saxophonist, singer, songwriter, bandleader. He had 60 hits on both the R&B
charts and the predominantly white, mainstream pop charts.
ii) In 1936, he joined Chick Webb in New York. By 1938, he had formed his own
band, Louis Jordan and His Tympani Five. Sounding like a big band, it proved that a
 small ensemble could be successful; as a result, small bands became popular in jazz
and pop after World War II.
iii) Much of Jordan’s success was due to his use of a southern black cultural humor
that blacks related to and whites could decode well enough. He emphasized the
humanity of being black (a lesson learned from his early experience in minstrelsy),
creating new black archetypes.
k) Ray Charles (1930–2004)
i) Ray Charles was born poor in Georgia and raised in Florida. He represented a
fusion of swing, bop, R&B, gospel, and rock, using gospel techniques in secular
music. African American church music had always been connected to jazz, and
complaints about using church music in a secular setting were not new. However,
Charles took it much further in terms of his singing and piano style and use of a choir
of women singers, the Raelettes.
ii) He had an R&B hit in 1954 (“I Got A Woman”). In 1959, he grabbed the white
audience with “What I Say.” Later he had a huge hit with “Georgia on My Mind” and
sang country and western songs.
iii) Charles and other vocalists reached a larger audience than jazz musicians leading
their own groups. For jazz musicians wanting to reach a mainstream audience, the
way to go was through soul jazz.
iv) Soul jazz is based on the hard bop of Blakey, Silver, and Adderley, with a strong
backbeat, an aggressive urban sound, gospel-style chords, simplified basic harmonies
(compared to bop), short solos, clear dance rhythms, an emphasis on ethnic language,
and cultural references such as food, church, and parties.
v) 1960s: The venerable jazz label Blue Note had a series of hard bop hits. Soul jazz
musicians made their own three-minute singles suitable for pop radio.
l) Jimmy Smith (1925–2005)
i) Popular and influential as a jazz and R&B fusion artist in the black community
during the 1950s and 1960s, usually in the context of a trio that included a Hammond
B3 organ with drums and guitar or saxophone.
ii) Born in Pennsylvania, he studied piano with his parents and with pointers from
Bud Powell. After playing piano for years in local R&B bands, he heard Wild Bill
Davis on organ in 1953 and decided to switch.
iii) The Hammond B3
(1) Smith’s interest in the organ coincided with the development of the
Hammond B3 organ in 1955. This was a tidier version of the A model from 1935,
which never caught on.
(2) Smith’s knowledge of bass and mastery of the B3’s foot pedals allowed
him to play complete bass lines, setting a precedent for jazz organists. He also
combined the virtuosity of bop, R&B rhythms, and gospel, which was commonly
played on the organ.
iv) Smith introduced the trio in 1955 in Atlantic City. He recorded prolifically,
emphasizing the same themes as Louis Jordan: leisure time, church, and food.
m) “O.G.D.”
i) Few record-producer-encouraged pairings worked as well as this 1966 session by
Smith and Wes Montgomery.
 ii) This version is the alternate take; the original album has a longer, less compelling
performance. Many of the details that make this one so absorbing, including Smith’s
piercing chords in the second A section, Montgomery’s elegant triplets, and much of
the interaction, came to fruition in this take, which was released a few years later on
an anthology.
2) Singers in the Mainstream
a) The 1950s are often referred to as the golden age for singers of the American
songbook. Four factors account for this:
i) Returning soldiers were used to singers with big bands, which made for a built-in
audience for the large number of vocalists who had graduated from big bands and
were looking for solo careers.
ii) Many songs from theater, movies, and record sessions were still being written, in
addition to the standard repertory from the 1920s–1950s, with many of the composers
still alive and promoting their catalogs.
iii) The 45-rpm record (introduced in the 1940s) was good for single hits while the
33-rpm LP attracted more mature audiences for singers.
iv) The rise of television during the 1950s provided exposure for famous wartime
singers on variety shows, which were a staple of early television.
b) Singers from this period grew up with swing and maintained this connection.
c) Rosemary Clooney’s novelty hit of the early 1950s, “Come On-a My House,”
allowed her to record LPs with Ellington and other jazz musicians for much of the rest of
her career.
d) Nat King Cole was a good jazz pianist who became a very successful pop singer.
He had a hit with a novelty song in 1943 but still was known as a pianist who
occasionally sang R&B.
e) After the war Cole became wildly popular with songs like “Mona Lisa.” He was
the first African American to be offered his own TV show, but it was canceled because of
lack of advertising support.
f) Frank Sinatra (1915–1998)
i) Respected by jazz musicians old and new, Sinatra started out imitating his idol,
Bing Crosby, but developed his own style by listening to singers like Billie Holiday.
ii) Sinatra believed that phrasing should emphasize the lyric. Between 1939 and
1942, he became popular as a big-band singer under Harry James and Tommy
Dorsey. Female fans screamed and fainted at his live performances.
iii) In the 1940s, he earned his own radio show and started a film career. After the
war, his career fell apart because of resentment on the part of returning servicemen
for Sinatra’s lack of contribution to the war effort and the popularity of newer singers
such as Clooney and Cole. His personal life started to fall apart.
iv) Soon afterward, Sinatra reinvented himself as a hipster, restarted his film career
with award-winning performances, and started to focus more on up-tempo swing
numbers accompanied by large ensembles arranged by well-respected arrangers such
as Nelson Riddle.
v) He did not improvise but rather phrased well and embellished melodies, all with a
rhythmic “businessman’s bounce.” Ellington admired him for making songs
believable.
 vi) Sinatra was one of the first artists to think of an LP as a nontheatrical opera
wherein all the songs reflect a theme—otherwise known as a “concept album.” He
was also known as the anti-Presley during Elvis Presley’s rise to fame on 45s.
g) Sarah Vaughan (1924–1990)
i) Sinatra emerged from Tin Pan Alley and swing; Vaughan came from the heart of
jazz: bop harmonies, rhythms, and improvisation. She made jazz accessible as no
other singer did, although many tried.
ii) Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, and learned piano from her church
organist mother. She won the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night when she was
eighteen. Earl Hines heard her there and offered her a job in his band, sharing piano
and singing duties with Billy Eckstine.
iii) In 1946, she headlined New York’s Café Society. She was signed by Columbia
Records in 1949.
iv) Vaughan explored harmony through her piano and applied this to her singing. She
had a range exceeding four octaves and precise intonation, a feeling for the blues
from her gospel roots, and an excellent sense of swing, all of which allowed her to
explore a tune like an instrumentalist.
v) Columbia wanted her to sing with a less creative touch, but, even accompanied by
a large orchestra, she still played with the melody.
vi) By the time she signed with Mercury Records in 1954, she was recording both
pop hits like “Make Yourself Comfortable” and jazz classics with Clifford Brown.
vii) Like Fitzgerald, who was singing American songbook classics and scatting,
Vaughn fused pop and jazz. She was happy to work in both fields as long as the
music was good.
viii) During the 1960s, a new crop of recording executives tried to rein in her
improvisatory approach to singing. By 1967, she had had enough and quit singing for
four years, after which she reinvented herself by working major concert venues with
just a trio and occasionally a big band with the occasional guest star. Only then did
she return to recording, this time on her own terms.
ix) “All of Me”
(1) A casual listener is likely to get caught up in Vaughan’s virtuosity, humor,
inventiveness, and rhythmic aplomb. She lets you hear the song pretty much as
written, in the first and third choruses, anyway—although even in them, she alters
every phrase and, in some passages, every syllable. The more closely you listen,
the more rewarding her alchemy becomes. She changes her vocal mask from
bluesy to operatic, with several variations in between; revises the chords and
melody; and adds intervals of an octave or more that the songwriters never
imagined.
3) Latin Jazz: Cuba
a) Dance beats from the Caribbean have had a long relationship with jazz (Morton’s
“Spanish tinge”). Postwar jazz was especially influenced by Cuban music (salsa) and
Brazilian music (bossa nova).
b) Cuban influence includes the rumba of the 1930s, the mambo of the 1940s, and
the cha-cha-cha of the 1950s. Cuban bands in the United States offered little jazz but
considerable rhythmic vitality and great showmanship—a taste of what American tourists
found in Cuba.
c) Violinist, and Latin music’s most famous bandleader, Xavier Cugat grew up in
Cuba. His fame peaked in 1940 with hit records and frequent appearances in movies. He
did not play jazz as such but furthered the vogue for Latin music.
d) The United States’ Good Neighbor Policy with Latin America helped promote his
success during the 1930s.
i) Latin leading men started to appear in films, but the most prominent Latin artist
featured in Hollywood films was singer Carmen Miranda, who popularized samba in
her own country (Brazil).
e) Mario Bauzá (1911–1993), Machito (1908–1984), and the Dizzy Factor
i) Jazz and Cuban music started to develop a close relationship during the war, a
relationship that became visible only in the late 1940s. The emergence of Cubop, an
Afro-Cuban style of jazz, was instigated by big-band trumpeter and arranger Mario
Bauzá, who, in 1939, started an Afro-Cuban band with bandleader, singer, and
maracas player Machito (Frank Grillo).
ii) Machito was raised in Havana and moved to the United States in 1937, where he
worked in a number of Latin bands before joining Bauzá in 1939. This band folded
for lack of work. Bauzá joined Cab Calloway, and Machito joined Cugat before
forming his own Afro-Cuban band in 1940 and hiring Bauzá as director. Bauzá, in
turn, hired young arrangers to achieve the jazz sound.
iii) After Machito returned from the army, the ensemble created significant interest
among modern jazz musicians—Stan Kenton even recorded a tribute to Machito.
iv) The basis of Cuban music and Cubop is the underlying rhythmic ostinato, which
is quite different from the backbeat-accented forward momentum of swing rhythm.
The rhythm section also has more percussion instruments, including timbales, congas,
bongos, maracas, claves, and guiros.
v) The real breakthrough for Afro-Cuban jazz came when Dizzy Gillespie started
working toward a Latin jazz fusion with his 1946 big band. He hired conga player
Chano Pozo and bongo player Chiquitico for a concert at Carnegie Hall. Dizzy
learned about this music from Bauzá when they were both in the Calloway band.
vi) Although Gillespie had already shown interest in Afro rhythms (e.g., “A Night in
Tunisia”), he knew little about Cuban music until Bauzá started teaching him. He
gave Pozo free rein in the band from 1947 to the end of 1948. During this time the
band recorded “Cubana Be / Cubana Bop” (an early example of modal jazz arranged
by George Russell), and the highly influential “Manteca.”
f) “Manteca”
i) Manteca means “lard” or “grease,” and is also slang for marijuana. The piece was
Pozo’s idea and starts with interlocking congas and a bass ostinato much different
from the usual walking bass. The piece is built up from staggered riff entries.
ii) Pozo originally wanted to keep the music completely Afro-Cuban by stretching
out the groove, but Gillespie added some jazz content through a written, harmonically
hip bridge underpinned by a walking-bass line.
g) Bossa Nova: Jobim, Gilberto, and Getz
i) Samba originated in nineteenth-century Brazil as an amalgam of march rhythms
and African dance music. It does not use clave but rather is characterized by two
beats per measure with an accent on the second beat. There were a number of samba
 hits during the 1930s and 1940s, which is also when Carmen Miranda was a hit in
Hollywood.
ii) In 1958, Brazilian singer and actress Elizete Cardoso released an album based on
the songwriting of Antônio Carlos Jobim. Cardoso is accompanied on several tracks
by guitarist João Gilberto. The music was known as bossa nova (“new flair”).
iii) Jobim insisted that bossa nova was not just another form of samba but a radical
break from it. Like bop, bossa nova broke with the past in terms of melodic and
lyrical sophistication. It represented a young, new attitude.
iv) Before 1960, bossa nova was mainly a Brazilian phenomenon, but with the Cuban
revolution (1959) cutting Cuba off from the mainland and the discovery of Jobim by
touring jazz musicians, bossa nova became known in the United States.
v) Dizzy Gillespie was the first off the mark in 1961 when he added some bossa
standards to his repertoire, recording them shortly thereafter.
vi) Additionally, acoustic guitarist Charlie Byrd recruited “Four Brothers” reed
player Stan Getz to record. Getz ranked with Gordon, Rollins, and Coltrane as one of
the most influential tenor saxophonists of the 1950s.
vii) The Getz-Byrd collaboration interested American labels in bossa nova. They
released the album Jazz Samba in 1962, and an edited version of “Desafinado”
featuring Getz from that album became a number one hit. Other jazzers jumped on
the bandwagon.
viii) In 1963, Getz recorded Getz/Gilberto with the Brazilian originators of the music.
Gilberto’s wife, Astrud, who had never sung professionally before, sang the
worldwide hit “The Girl from Ipanema” at Getz’s request.
ix) “Só danço Samba”
(1) Although Getz was an inspired accompanist, the performance is
essentially bifurcated between Gilberto’s presentation of the song and Getz’s
longer improvisation, with little if any interaction between them.
(2) One of Jobim’s lighter compositions, “Só danço Samba” comments on
bossa nova’s position within the latest dance crazes. His Portuguese is colloquial
and elliptical, and thus sometimes hard to translate. Few musicians understood the
songs of Jobim better than Getz, who realized that their music gave new life to
melody at a time when hard bop and avant-gardism favored jazz’s rougher edges.
h) Salsa
i) Latin influence on jazz was widespread by 1950. Parker recorded with Machito, Bud
Powell used clave in “Un Poco Loco.” Cuban style became part of a broader Latin
scene that included the Brazilian bossa nova, the Argentine tango, and the Mexican
mariachi.
ii) Still, dance music in New York was governed by the basic Cuban song structure,
the son, which consists of two sections: the canta, with a melody sung by the vocalist,
followed by the montuno, named for a short repeating passage.
iii) Afro-Cuban musics fused with those of other Caribbean areas such as Puerto Rico
to produce salsa, a major urban music by the 1970s.
iv) Eddie Palmieri (b. 1936), pianist and leader of the group La Perfecta, took his
musical direction not only from Latin music but also from a panoply of jazz greats,
including Horace Silver, Bud Powell, and McCoy Tyner.
v) La Perfecta also featured a jazz-savvy trombonist named Barry Rogers.
vi) “Un día bonito”
(1) Like most of salsa, this tune is in the form of a Cuban son: the canta, or
basic melody, alternates with intense montunos that give ample solo space to
the singer—Palmieri’s sixteen-year-old discovery Lalo Rodriguez—who
improvises both words and music in a practice known as soneo.
(2) The album The Sun of Latin Music, mixing elements from jazz and salsa,
spurred the Grammy Award committee, which had never recognized Latin
music, to create a new category to honor it—Best Latin Performance.
4) Mass Media Jazz
a) As jazz grew farther from the mainstream public, it began to embody four basic
cultural clichés. Jazz on 1950s and early-1960s television tells the story.
i) Cliché 1: jazzers as urban, slow-witted outsiders and jive-talking beatniks with
“crazy” head and facial hair, singing aimless scat. They were treated with comical
disdain.
ii) Cliché 2: the sound of jazz, especially the saxophone, associated with easy
women or a bad part of town. Many detective shows and films featured jazz scores,
some by jazz musicians such as Count Basie and Benny Carter.
iii) Cliché 3: jazz as adult, sexy, super-hip, and not for squares. Hip comedians such
as Lenny Bruce and writers such as Norman Mailer pondered jazz. This positive but
tiresome image disappeared in the 1960s as rock grew up.
iv) Cliché 4: jazz musicians on variety, talk, and educational shows, and specials on
jazz (e.g., The Sound of Jazz). Although jazz was featured on television at this time
more often than in the 40 years since, the representation of jazz was circumscribed by
public taste (singers were favored and modernists were rarely invited) and ideas about
race (African American appearances were limited).