Ironic Iconic Hits

So how do you write a hit song? You can find books and blogs that profess to have the secret. There have been songwriting teams called “hit makers,” and it’s safe to say there are certain formulas that increase the chance of a song becoming a hit. In the jazz world some of the most successful recordings have come about through a combination of serendipity and a large dose of irony. One reason I call them “ironic hits” is that the musicians who made them famous were not the writers of the tune, although they were composers themselves. Let’s take a look at three.

Duke Ellington, arguably America’s greatest composer, was a well-established bandleader and hit maker in 1940. Ellington was a member of ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and when the organization raised its licensing fees, Duke found he could no longer perform his own compositions during live radio broadcasts. This happened shortly after he had hired composer and pianist Billy Strayhorn. Strayhorn brought an arrangement to the band called “Take the A Train.” Jazz lore has it that the title came from the first line of Ellington’s directions that would lead Strayhorn from his Pittsburgh home to Ellington’s apartment in Harlem. Take the A Train. Duke’s son Mercer Ellington, also an arranger, stated that he found Strayhorn’s original draft for the song in the trash. Strayhorn stated that it was too similar to a Fletcher Henderson arrangement, and so had discarded it. Whether or not that is true, it’s fascinating to realize that one of Ellington’s most enduring songs was not his composition at all. Ellington had the good sense to embrace talent when he found it, and he replaced his then current band theme, “Sepia Panorama” with Strayhorn’s first effort. The fact that Duke’s new collaborator was not an ASCAP member solved the licensing issue for a time.

A measure of a hit is not only the impact it first makes, but how long it lasts. “Take the A Train” is now a standard at jam sessions and any swing affair. Like most instrumental hits, lyrics were added later, in this case by vocalist Joya Sherrill, who later became a singer with Ellington. Joya’s lyrics hold up fairly well and are essentially an early Google Map: “You must take the A train/To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem.”

Amongst Ellington’s most ardent admirers was composer and pianist Dave Brubeck. When Brubeck was chosen to be on the cover of Time magazine, he unequivocally stated “it should have been Ellington.” The song “Take Five” has somehow entered the consciousness of the general population and provides another fascinating story of odd circumstances and irony. One of the first things I noticed after being hooked on the song and purchasing the LP was that the composer was the group’s saxophonist, Paul Desmond. As a devourer of liner notes and music trivia, this fact was not lost on me. Brubeck, whose success was tied to his writing, was not credited for what became the band’s biggest hit, and indeed went on to become the largest selling jazz single in history. The story is slightly more complicated. Apparently drummer Joe Morello was often given an extended solo feature at the end of their concerts in the early sixties. Often he would transition into the rarely-played time signature of 5/4, and eventually suggested to Dave that perhaps a song should be written over this groove. Paul Desmond stepped up and said “I’ll write something.” According to an NPR interview, Brubeck stated that Paul came back with two seemingly unrelated saxophone melodies to fit over the 5/4 time signature. Brubeck formed them into an A-A-B-A structure and provided the ear-catching vamp. The irony continues. It is a Brubeck hit without a hint of a piano solo, and features two other members of the group. Desmond thought the song was a throwaway and joked that his royalties would allow him to buy a new electric shaver. He also didn’t like the title “Take Five” suggested by Brubeck. In addition, Columbia Records was not pleased with the album as a whole. In her interview in 2011, Iola Brubeck reminisced about the attitude of the record company:

MR:    Were you surprised at the success of “Time Out?”

IB:     Of “Time Out?” Well yes. There was no anticipation that it was going to be a hit of any kind. And in fact, it’s an old story now that Dave has often told of having to fight at Columbia to even have it released and Goddard Lieberson liked the concept and he said he thought he could sell it to the people on the west coast maybe, and he took “Take Five” and went out to sales meeting on the west coast, saying this is something new and I think we can really push this, and the sales people saying “no way.” So it really was a result of — God bless ‘em — disc jockeys who were looking for something different to play and saying well this sounds different and then putting it on and then it got a public reaction, and then it started taking off. So it was really the public deciding that this is what they wanted to hear. It broke the mold and that’s always a little challenging to a lot of people who don’t know how to handle it. And of course by this time — it’s notorious in jazz history lore — that terrible review that Downbeat gave “Time Out.” I think it got a star and a half or something.

Thanks to the unique quirkiness of the song and those DJ’s, “Take Five” took its place in music history. The record company put out a 45 RPM single which required some snipping of the drum solo to fit into the three minute format. “Take Five,” has certainly stood the test of time and has since been lyricized by Al Jarreau, “Won’t you stop and take a little time out with me/Just take five, just take five.”

When Billboard released their 1961 Top 100 chart, “Take Five” stood at #95, preceded at #94 by Chubby Checker’s “Let’s Twist Again,” and followed by Elvis Pressley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight” at #96. You’ll never see that in this day and age. Imagine a Wynton Marsalis recording on the charts, sandwiched between Justin Bieber and Adele.

I’ve stated numerous times that Cannonball Adderley was my musical hero. Not only was he the quintessential alto saxophonist, but also a savvy bandleader and major contributor to the soul jazz movement. In February of 1967, the Cannonball Adderley Quintet landed at #11 on the Billboard charts with the song “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.” Cannonball wrote the occasional tune, but it was brother Nat who had penned some of the previous successes. In this case the liner notes conveyed that this Gospel-tinged song, steeped in American soul, was written by an Austrian. Pianist Joe Zawinul was born in Vienna and spent ten years as a member of Adderley’s quintet, contributing many compositions to the band’s repertoire, none bigger than “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”

Musicians don’t usually know when they have a hit on their hands, but Cannonball’s drummer Roy McCurdy stated in his interview that they thought they had something with potential.

MR:    With tunes like “Mercy, Mercy” and stuff, when you read them in rehearsal, did you get a sense that this tune is going to sell a lot of records?

RM:    Yeah. You know we were hoping, we were always experimenting. That band was experimenting all the time. And we played straight ahead jazz, we played all kinds of stuff. So when Joe [Zawinul] brought that tune in I think we were rehearsing in Teaneck, New Jersey. We rehearsed in Nat Adderley’s basement out there. When he brought that tune in he says “listen to this,” and he started playing it. And we were just starting to get into the electronics you know, where we were using electric piano. And we had a Wurlitzer that we wanted to use. And he played this tune and we says, “yeah, let’s try it.” We rehearsed it and got it together. We went and tried it and people loved it.

Perhaps the atypical characteristics of “Mercy, Mercy” are what propelled it to that unlikely spot on the charts. The song is unlike a hard-swinging Adderley performance. The slow groove is intimate but not overwhelming. The melody is simple but builds powerfully to its climax. There are no solos by Cannonball on saxophone nor brother Nat on cornet anywhere in the song. The only improvising was provided by Joe Zawinul on the Wurlitzer, and even this solo relies mostly on spare Gospel-flavored fills, as if to say the groove is sufficient. The song clocked in at close to five minutes, but as they did in “Take Five,” the record company needed to edit it for the 45 RPM. The engaging verbal introduction offered by Cannonball (“sometimes we’re not prepared for adversity”) was snipped out for the short version. Listen to the LP version to enjoy Cannonball’s eloquence.

Even the recording of the song had some jazz lore to it. The album is titled “Live at ‘The Club,’” when in reality “the club” was actually a recording studio. Invited guests sat at tables around the band recreating the atmosphere of a live performance. You can hear it and feel it on the record.

“Mercy, Mercy” lives on, although not as “Take Five” or “Take the A Train” did. The song was recorded by various artists in a number of settings, including the Buddy Rich Big Band. Somehow “Mercy” did not lend itself to memorable lyrics. The pop group The Buckinghams put out a cover version almost immediately, singing, “My baby she’s made out of love/Like one of the those bunnies in a Playboy Club.” Years later a set of lyrics that was only slightly better was penned, oddly credited to both Curtis Mayfield and songwriters Gail and Vincent Levy, “My love has turned her back on me/Heartache, why won’t you let me be?” Personally, I’ll stick with the instrumental version.

Joe Zawinul’s hit writing was not a onetime event. He penned memorable follow-ups for the Adderley band with “Walk Tall” and “Country Preacher,” and years later wrote the marvelous ear-catching composition “Birdland” as leader of the band Weather Report.

Regarding hit songs, Fats Waller’s famous phrase applies: “One never knows, do one.”

Ed Shaughnessy: Performing a Rhythmic Service

Ed Shaughnessy, in 1995

It’s human nature to attempt to identify “the best” in every possible category. Buddy Rich was called the world’s fastest drummer. Now there’s actually a well-known contest for the world’s fastest drummer. The “Guinness Book of Records” has a category for the world’s loudest drummer. Both of these records are surely debatable and constantly challenged. One thing we can safely say is the world’s most frequently heard drummer was Ed Shaughnessy. Mr. Shaughnessy, who passed away on Friday, May 24, 2013, spent 29 years behind the drum set with “The Tonight Show” starring Johnny Carson, and in his own estimation that equaled some 5,000 appearances on national television. I can’t imagine that any other drummer was heard as often, and his trademark intro for “The Tonight Show” theme became its own musical signature. It’s no coincidence that he was also one of the best at his profession.

Ed Shaughnessy was born in New Jersey in 1929, and his first experience in music was with piano lessons, which he didn’t embrace. His life was changed in true storybook fashion due to a man who owed money to his father. In my first interview with Ed, he related the story:

MR:    Let me take you back. The story is about your first drum set.

ES:     Oh, my first drum set? Yeah I guess you know the story. My dad, who was a Teamster, he worked on the docks, he had loaned $20 to somebody, and the fellow was up against it, he couldn’t give him the $20, and he said to my dad, “doesn’t your son like music?” Because at the time I was playing piano. I played piano for like three or four years before drums. And he said “oh yeah, my kid, he just loves his music, he loves everything about music.” And he was a mellow guy, my dad. So the guy said “well look, I can’t give you the $20, but I’ve got these two drums, a bass drum and a snare drum with a stand and a little pedal” and I think a beat up old cymbal, and “would you take that in place of the 20 bucks.” And like I said my dad being a mellow dude, he said, “yeah, if you’re broke, my kid will probably have fun with these things.” So we never had a car. He brought them home from New York on the subway that went from New York to New Jersey. And you know I appreciated how he did that, he brought them home and on the bus, from the subway to home. That’s the way you did it in those days. You didn’t think twice about it. I guess they let you on with crazy things like that. And so he, to make a long story short, I’m 14, he brings these old beat up drums in, I mean really beat up, old, like from the 30’s or 20’s or something. And I can’t explain it to you, but something fascinating happened when I opened them up. It took me half a day to set the snare drum up on the stand right I think, and put the pedal on. You know I didn’t know anything about drums.

It didn’t take long before Ed became completely enamored with the drums and in his own words, “began to practice like a madman, four to six hours a day.” His practice paid off and led to his first break in the business:

ES:     Three years later I was on the road playing with professional bands. That’s a true story. George Shearing gave me my first job in New York when I was about 18. I was sitting in with Bud Powell and he played “Cherokee” for 25 minutes, and I stayed with it. And George Shearing said anyone that could play “Cherokee” at that tempo for twenty-five minutes, I’m going to give a gig to. This is just what he said. And his manager came over and said, “Mr. Shearing wants to talk to you.” And he says, “young man, anybody that can play ‘Cherokee’ for 25 minutes with Bud Powell, I’ve got to give a job to.” I thought it was so sweet the way he did it. And he says, “besides, my drummer is a little hung up” he said later. So he gave me two nights.

He continued to pay his dues with Jack Teagarden and Charlie Ventura, and in time he landed a studio job with CBS Television. His involvement in that world eventually led to his gig with “The Tonight Show.”

While Ed’s career blossomed after the big band era, he did get in some significant playing time with the legends of that time. His story about playing with Benny Goodman is classic. Ed was with Benny’s band for a 1950 European tour and fortunately he had been given some information about how to deal with the inevitable encounter with Benny’s irascible personality.

ES:     I liked working with Benny a lot because he was playing great at that time and I got along with Benny, who was hard to get along with, everybody knows that. Most people know that and don’t know what instrument he played. But when I used to sit in with Lionel Hampton’s band, he said to me one night “I hear you’re going with the old man.” I said, “yeah I’m going to go to Europe with Benny.” I was 21. And here’s what he said to me. He said, “now if he gets weird on you, get weirder.” I said, “this is the key?” He said, “this is the key.” He said, “didn’t I get along great with him?” I said, “yeah, you seemed to have a good relationship with him.” He said, “well if he gets a little out, go a little outer.” So when this happened and I was late at a rehearsal, and I walked through the thing and he looked at me and he put the glasses down with the famous ray, and he started in, I said, “Jesus, Benny, are we just here to jerk around or are we going to rehearse?” May God be my judge, that’s what I said. I tried to go as far out as I could. And he said, here’s what he said. He said “the kid’s right. Let’s play.” And he never said a word. And I was over 35, 40 minutes late. And this was Paris, his biggest concert. So you know he was going to chew my thing out real good, and I did a Hamp, and I went out on him. And I’ll tell you, I did it one other time in a lesser way, and he never bothered me. I think he thought the kid is definitely crazy but he’s a nice little drummer, leave him alone. But he picked on everybody else, see. He cut out Roy Eldridge’s solos in certain places because he was getting too much applause. He cut out Zoot Sims’ solos all through Scandinavia because Zoot was more popular than he was. And may God be my judge, this is the truth I’m telling you. You know he was a very strange man. But thank God for Hamp — Hamp straightened me out, just go a little further baby and it worked like a charm.

Ed Shaughnessy, in 1998

Among Ed’s fondest memories is Count Basie telling him that he “fit the band like a glove.” Ed appeared on five Basie LP’s in the 1960’s, an opportunity that occurred for the oddest reason. Ed stated:

ES:     Thank God for Sonny Payne’s marital problems, because when Sonny Payne (his regular drummer) couldn’t come into New York because his wife would throw him in jail, Basie would call me up.

In addition to the thrill of recording with Basie, he also got to witness one of the very few moments of the Count’s temper:

ES:     We come to this studio to make the first album, and we sit down and we had no dividers between any of the band. Basie did not like to record that way. Therefore he set the band up almost like real life. Almost the same as you would on a stage, almost. And we start running the first tune down and play it. Kind of a medium tempo tune, nothing real hot. And I’m playing and filling and doing the stuff that I normally would do. And we stop, and the engineer says over the thing “well, the producer wants to talk to you, Count.” So Count says, “well talk on the thing.” He says, “well do you want to talk over the mics?” Count says “yeah, what is it? Come on, let’s get going.” So the producer leans over the mic, he says, “we think the drums should probably be about half as loud as they are and we think that that would be a lot better for this recording.” And Basie, who very seldom does this, went [screams] “rahhhhhh,” and hit his fist on the piano. And all the band went like [screams] “rahhhhh” I swear to God, including me. It scared the crap out of us. Now after he does this, now he’s Mister Cool and he says “Mr. Shaughnessy’s here because I like the way he plays in a big band. Your job is to get it all down on record.” And he looked at me and he says “play your way.” And that was the last time we got a word about, in five record dates, never a word came from the booth. And you know something? They got it all down okay. I didn’t modify anything. But man, that scared the crap out of all of us. It was like, well, you know he made the point because we were going to make a couple of albums for this company. He made the point that this band is going to play the way it plays. We’re not going to play studio style, where we kind of don’t play or we modify everything. He wants the fire. The main thing is he wants the fire, and you need a certain amount of drumming intensity and energy for that, don’t you? You can’t lighten up and play, let the band play and you play like Mr. Wimpy, it’s going to sound awful, see? But boy he sure took care of it. But I’m telling you he scared the hell out of everybody. And the main thing I remember was the roar, like a lion [quiet roar] and everybody just froze, you know, just like this. Because you know he never did stuff like that. You know this was Mr. Quiet. It was a great experience.

Ed Shaughnessy was one of the first jazz musicians to sense the potential and worth of interacting with high school and college students. He stopped counting his appearances at 600. During the early years of the Jazz Archive I was able to bring Ed to Hamilton, where I witnessed his interaction with high school musicians. He had just the right amount of intensity, inspiring but not intimidating, and he had an answer for young drummers who didn’t feel the necessity of being able to read charts:

MR:    That’s a pretty old fashioned thing, like if I learn to read I’m going to lose my spontaneity.

ES:     Yes or will it hurt my jazz is the old line. I don’t want reading to hurt my jazz. But you’d be surprised, some kids love to catch on to that because they don’t want to have to want to bother. So you know what I say? ‘Cause the example that was given for years was Buddy Rich see. So I would go at clinics “well Buddy Rich doesn’t read, why should I read?” And my rejoinder is: “do you think you’re as talented as Buddy Rich? If you are, you shouldn’t be here you should be out earning like he did, at the age of four years of age.” A thousand dollars a week in 1921. You think you’re that talented? The second highest paid child star in the world? Do you think that you’re as talented as he was? He could get by without reading because he had way more talent than most of us. And I of course say “most of us” because I mean it. Natural gift. He was the second highest paid child star to Shirley Temple I think.

Ed not only affected youthful musicians, he stayed hip and current himself, embracing jazz/rock and African and Indian drum styles in his playing. And for all his technique and solo ability, he kept in mind a phrase that he attributed to the late, great bassist Milt Hinton: “the players in the rhythm section are providing a rhythmic service, and don’t ever forget it.”

You can check out Ed’s take on the meaning of swing in a previous blog. You may also read the full transcripts of Ed Shaughnessy archived at Hamilton College. Part I was conducted on 9/1/95 in Los Angeles; and Part II was conducted at Hamilton on 4/25/98.

Unsquare Dance

Dave Brubeck, in 2001

I enjoy arranging music, and the group I’ve currently been writing for is my nine piece saxophone ensemble at Hamilton College. Last fall when I was searching for an appropriate song to arrange I thought of Dave Brubeck and his catalogue of stimulating compositions. I considered “Take Five” and decided it was too obvious a choice. I then settled on one of his lesser known but equally catchy songs, entitled “Unsquare Dance.” As it turns out, I was timely without realizing it. If I had been more informed about Hollywood releases I would have known that “Unsquare Dance” was used in the hit movie “Silver Linings Playbook,” released in November of 2012, at the same time my arranging effort occurred.

“Unsquare Dance” was included on the 1961 LP entitled “Time Further Out,” a jazz interpretation of Joan Miró’s work of art entitled “Painting #25.” This work was used as cover art, and Brubeck chose the 12-bar blues as his basic format for his compositions. In his own words, he called it “a search for something new within old forms.” “Unsquare Dance,” much like “Take Five,” has a very distinctive sound to it which appeals to the average listener, whether they are jazz fans or not. The song reportedly was written hastily on the way to the recording studio, and Brubeck managed to take a piece of classic Americana (the square dance) and add a unique twist to it.

I’d like to take a look at the elements that make it so distinctive. Let’s start with a little rhythmic primer. The majority of music we hear on a day-to-day basis is based on the number 4. We call beats 1 and 3 the downbeats; and 2 and 4 the upbeats, or more appropriately the “backbeats.” Let’s take two groups of 4. To feel the basic groove we all know, tap your foot on the odd numbers, 1, 3, 5 and 7 (downbeats); and clap your hands on the even numbers, 2, 4, 6 and 8 (the backbeats).

The first thing we notice about “Unsquare Dance” is that its time signature is 7/4. Instead of a repeated pattern of 4 or 8 beats, we have a 7 beat looping phrase. One beat missing shouldn’t be that big a deal, but the effect in this music is extraordinary. This time try tapping your foot on 1, 3 and 5; and clapping your hands on 2, 4, 6 and 7, and make sure you don’t pause after 7, go directly back to 1. This repetitive seven beat phrase is the groove throughout “Unsquare Dance,” and definitely makes it “unsquare.”

Brubeck takes this groove and lays it over our old friend the 12-bar blues. In this case he both adds to and subtracts from the form. Instead of 4 beats per measure we have 7. Instead of 12 measures in the 12-bar blues, we have 6. He follows the basic I-IV-V pattern. See my blog entry on Why I Love the Blues from March 30, 2009. If we refer to one time around the 6-bar blues as a chorus, our map of “Unsquare Dance” reads as follows:

The first chorus starts out with bassist Eugene Wright playing quarter notes where we were tapping our feet on 1, 3 and 5 in conjunction with clapping on 2, 4, 6 and 7. Brubeck comes in with a very simple melodic phrase on the second chorus and it becomes more complex during the third chorus. We hear a country-sounding phrase complete with Floyd Cramer-sounding grace notes, representative of country & western piano playing. It also foreshadows the melody Brubeck will use at the end of the song. It’s worth noting that this particular piece is really the Dave Brubeck Trio. Paul Desmond’s sax was deemed unnecessary, perhaps he was one of the clappers.

After these three choruses Brubeck drops out and we have seven more devoted to the rhythmic explorations of drummer Joe Morello. Much like the previous hit “Take Five,” a steady vamps ensues while Morello explores the space in between the beats, mostly on the rims of his snare drum. Morello seems to be doing his best to make the clappers and listeners lose track of the 7-beat pattern. Brubeck called the piece “a lesson in concentration.”

After a lengthy drum solo (where I found myself saying one more chorus? One more chorus!) eventually it’s time to move on, and they do so on the eleventh chorus with a much-needed release from Eugene Wright who climbs up the minor scales of the 1, 4 and 5 chords. The twelfth chorus of the song features Brubeck paraphrasing the song “Turkey in the Straw,” an appropriate square dance tune that he fits into the 7/4 groove — this cliché is then topped by another cliché. The last two measures end with the familiar “shave and a haircut, two bits” lick, and I’m guessing this was added on the fly.

Musicians who record when microphones are employed know it is S.O.P. to remain silent at the end of a take, allowing the engineer to draw down the faders. If you listen to the original recording and turn up the volume at the end you’ll hear someone chuckling and saying “yeah.” Brubeck attributes this to Joe Morello’s expression of surprise and relief that they had managed to get through the difficult last chorus.

It is fascinating to speculate on the choices made by Hollywood music directors. We could surmise that the quirkiness of “Unsquare Dance” fits the scene where the two main characters, with more than their share of personality issues, are coming to terms with one another. Perhaps the instrumental nature of the song was a plus — no words to skew the mood. Or maybe the director just liked it and the fee for licensing was acceptable to the bean counters.

The production team on “Silver Linings Playbook” were not the only ones who found a relevant use for “Unsquare Dance.” The San Francisco Ballet choreographed movement to it, as did a duo on a “Judy Garland Variety Show.” Google recently used “Unsquare Dance” in a Google Doodle to accompany graphics paying tribute to designer Saul Bass. I did my part with the nine piece sax ensemble and was quite pleased with the results.

Try the tapping and clapping and see if you can concentrate all the way through the tune. Set aside your 4/4 routine and give it a shot.