Iowa Public Television

Iowa Jazz By Bob Naujoks

Bix Beiderbecke

To those of us in Iowa the name of Bix Beiderbecke brings to mind the yearly jazz festival on the river in Davenport, or the well-known marathon race in the same city. However, seventy years ago the moniker "Bix" meant only one thing-the jazz cornetist who was a major, but not necessarily well-known figure of the time. Along with young Louis Armstrong, he became a most influencial figure. His personality and music were the opposite of the great Armstrong. Where Louis was outgoing and effervescent, Bix was quiet and introspective. Where Louis' music was hot and sharp, Bix's was cooler and more lyrical. Louis played trumpet; Bix, cornet.

Bix had a bell-like sound as he hit each note perfectly with a sure attack. Bix may have been the first "cool" jazzman. His rhythmic sophistication and subtle phrasing gives musical pleasure even through the primitive recording techniques. Critics and historians acknowledge "Singing the Blues" as his finest recorded solo; "I'm Comin' Virginia" is not far behind. Beiderbecke was also fascinated with the classical impressionist music of Claude Debussy. He wrote several tunes for the piano, carefully notated by arranger Bill Challis, since Bix could not write music. His best known would be "In a Mist."

Dorothy Baker's novel "Young Man with the Horn" began Bix Beiderbecke's popular legend, but he was a legendary figure even before that following Otis Ferguson's 1936 essay and reappraisal in The New Republic magazine. The apogee of his career may have been with the ponderous Paul Whiteman orchestra, but it was also his home away from home. Like many of that "bootleg booze" generation, Bix Beiderbecke had a major alcohol problem, it shortened his career. Whiteman carried him for a long time.

Bix always acknowledged his home town of Davenport, but often was at odds with his upper middle-class family. He died too young from the effects of alcohol, much like rock stars do today on drugs. He was 28 in 1931 when he died, penniless and without a horn. He was a legendary figure and has always been associated with Iowa.

Ellen Rucker

Singer and pianist Ellyn Rucker's great pianistic skills and her sensuous voice belie her late start as a jazz performer. She started playing piano when she was eight; ten years later she was studying classical piano at Drake University. Jazz music was in her life as a teenager, but she did not start performing as a singer-pianist until 1979. In the ensuing time she was an ordinary mother, raising a family, and playing infrequently.

She was born and raised in Des Moines, but calls Denver her musical home. Though she is a fixture in Colorado, and she has made many European tours, played many festivals, and appeared in many clubs across America, her name is not well-known to the general jazz fan. Her bop and Bill Evans influenced piano can stand on its own, and her singing is top rank. Her few recordingsshow her music to be powerful and appealing. Ellyn Rucker is an underrated jazz musician. If she had taken up performing when she left college or lived on one of the coasts, perhaps Ellyn would have been a really big name in jazz music.

Eddie Barefield

Eddie Barefield was born in an obscure place, Scandia, which is not noted on current Iowa maps. His career to us today is also obscure, but in his prime he played with the best. The famous Benny Moten Kansas City Orchestra (the direct predecessor to the Count Basie Orchestra) played Barefield's arrangements regularly. One of his best known is ÒTobyÓ from 1932 and was the saxophone soloist on the famous "Moten Swing" recording.

After the Benny Moten band broke up, Barefield worked with Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman and Coleman Hawkins--all top names in the 1930s. In the 1940s he worked in studios and for Broadway shows as a musical director, as well as in the bands of Benny Carter, Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. He was the famous Cab Calloway's musical director in the 1950s.

Eddie Barefield lived a long and full musical life, producing fine new albums well into the late 1970s including playing with clarinetist Stan Rubin in the late 80s. As with many jazz artists, Barefield deserved to be better known than he was. He died in 1991 leaving a marvelous, if not well-known legacy.

Art Farmer & Addison Farmer

The Farmer twins, Art and Addison, were born in Council Bluffs in 1928. Iowa can claim them as "native sons," even though they were raised in Phoenix, Arizona, and moved to Los Angeles in 1945. They spent a lot of time in the mecca of jazz in the 1950s, New York.

Art Farmer is one of the finest and most individual of the generation of trumpeters who were nurtured in the bop revolution. He never became as famous as Miles Davis or Clifford Brown. They played cooler or hotter than Art. Farmer found his own quiet, lyrical voice at 32 when he made a couple of albums on the Argo label in 1960 and 61. They were, for the most part, intimate conversations with the listener. The second album featured him on the mellower-sounding flugelhorn, an instrument that suited his music. Shortly after his Argo recordings he organized the ultimate lyrical jazz quartet with guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Walter Perkins.

Since the late 1960s Art Farmer made Vienna, Austria, his home town, finding it more condusive and less restricting than his native land. However, before his death in 1999 Art Farmer spent more time in the United States. With his old partner tenorist Benny Golson and the Jazztet he made recordings and appeared in concert, playing a "flumpet"--a cross between a trumpet and a flugelhorn. With this hybrid instrument he was still a strong individual voice in jazz.

Addison Farmer free-lanced with the top players of the time--Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Benny Carter. He was with the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet in 1959 and 1960. He recorded with saxophonists Gene Ammons and Stan Getz, pianist Mal Waldron and, of course, his brother, too. He was the bassist for the unique pianist-singer Mose Allison and recorded with him also. Addison was not to have a long career like his brother. He died in 1963, a life cut much too short. In an age of good young bass players, Addison was one of the best.

Rod Cless

Clarinettist Rod Cless. Cless was born in 1907 in a small out-of-the-way town in southwestern Iowa--Lennox. He had a short and brilliant career, and is largely unknown today except to a few who love the dixieland style.

Cless was a good athlete and played various instruments, finally settling on the clarinet in high school. When the famous Wolverine jazz band from Indiana played a six-week gig at the Riverview Park Ballroom in Des Moines in 1925, Rod Cless was there every night. He was befriended by the great Chicago clarinettist, Frank Teschemacher. Two years later he was in Chicago to start his career.

Some of us are fortunate enought to be at the right place at the right time. Rod Cless was one. He is a part of trumpeter Muggsy Spanier's brilliant late thirties jazz band that made a group of recordings for RCA that are known as "The Great 16." These sixteen tunes are considered one of the great achievements in recorded jazz--high art and high style.

Working with Muggsy Spanier might have been the high point of his recording career. After leaving Spanier, Rod Cless continued to work with the top traditional names in jazz--Wild Bill Davison, Art Hodes, Bobby Hackett and others. However, his divorce and drinking problem tragically caught up with him. He died from a fall while walking home in December 1944. He was 37. He left a very fine legacy of jazz music.

Jack Jenny

The trombone sound of Jack Jenny is a remarkable thing, especially since it was current in the Swing Era where loud big bands ruled. Jack Jenny's reputation and persona rest on several recordings of his his subtle improvisations on the Hoagy Carmichael song, "Stardust."

Jenny was born in Mason City in 1910 and eventually made his way to New York to play with many of the fine orchestras of the 1930s, including those of Isham Jones and vibraphonist Red Norvo. At one point he was a section mate with the great trombonist Jack Teagarden in a New England orchestra.

If one had to characterize Jack Jenny"s contribution to jazz music it would be the lyricism and romaticism that he infused in his music. From his improvisations and musical offerings it would be safe to say that Jenny was introspective and desired to project subtlety, a characteristic not totally appreciated in the heyday of Swing music. His finest hour publicly may be in clarinettist Artie Shaw's 1941 recording of "Stardust." The version is still heard today led by the strong trumpet of Billy Butterfield, but Jack Jenny's half chorus fits in nicely after Shaw's solo.

Jack Jenny was never a great star, but offered, rather, a personal vision in his music. After his stint with Artie Shaw in the early forties, Jenny moved to Los Angeles to work in the music studios. He died in 1945 silencing the quiet beauty of his tone and his sweet, subtle melodic variations.

Marilyn Maye

The voice of Marilyn Maye is not only lovely, but is strong and flexible too. Marilyn started out in Des Moines at Babe's Restaurant, but she and her pianist husband, Sammy Tucker, found a home base in Kansas City. However, she is still remembered in central Iowa and always welcomed back.

In the mid-sixties she got a recording contract with RCA and went national, leaving for a time, the comfort of the Kansas City clubs. But, fame is fleeting, and after several years of hype and hits, and a stressful marriage, she returned to the Midwest.

Aside from the hits like "Sherry" and "Step To The Rear," she made jazz songs out of non-standard material like the tour-de-force, "Night of My Nights," a song from the Broadway show, Kismet. It was on her Grammy-winnining album of 1965. Her version of "Too Late Now" was included on a Smithsonian compilation of great American songs which seleced the best recording of a 100 tunes.

Because Marilyn Maye had popular success does not make her any less a jazz singer. She has warmth and feeling, and an intelligent way of communicating to an audience. Her sound and style are hers alone. She may not be in plain sight now, but she still performs on a limited basis, and reappears in Kansas City frequently. Marilyn is a stunning talent grown from Iowa soil.

Al Jarreau

Al Jarreau was not born in Iowa (Milwaukee, WI), but we can lay some claim to him because he has strong Iowa ties--he attended the University of Iowa and got his career start in eastern Iowa by singing in small clubs in Cedar Rapids, the Quad Cities and Iowa City in the mid 1960s.

Al Jarreau's sound and style that would eventually make him a jazz and pop star were almost totally in place when he made his first recording in Davenport in 1965. The Quad Cities studio was owned by two jazz afficianados who also owned a night club in which he sang. Jarreau's influences were the bop musicians of his youth and the great Jon Hendricks of Hendricks-Lambert-and-Ross, the first great vocalise group. By the end of the 1970s he was hailed in Europe as a major jazz singer.

In the early 1980s he made a career decision and entered the popular market. He became a star there too. Now he is internationally recognized, but is not considered a "jazz" singer now. However, his fans in this state should be pleased to know that Al Jarreau's career was launched in Iowa.

Glenn Miller

The unique sound of the Glenn Miller Orchestra is still a strong link to the Swing Era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. No band was more popular in its time. It's leader was born in Clarinda, Iowa--a student who flunked out of university music school, but became a top arranger and major music personality.

Glenn Miller played the trombone, but his gift was in arranging and organizing. After working with famous Ben Pollack band (with Benny Goodman) and Ray Noble Orchestra, Miller formed his own band in 1937. It was an unsuccessful first attempt. In 1938 a second band with arranger Bill Finegan's aid, became the most successful Swing band of them all.

Glenn Miller was not only commercially successful, but artistically also. He combined a new sound--clarinet lead above the saxophone section--with a mix of both hot swing and sweet arrangements. Showy effects and movie appearances solidified the popular image. At the height of his career duty to his country called and he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. His job was to boost the morale of the troops. He did that by forming a touring band which contained other great jazz instrumentalists.

Captain Glenn Miller apparently died in a plane crash on a foggy night in the English Channel near the end of the Second World War in 1945. The Miller sound is still around with a touring orchestra bearing his name and countless regional bands that emulate the style. Each year Glenn Miller is still celebrated in Iowa as a native son in with a festival in Clarinda.

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