Pittsburgh Jazz Network
Eddie Jefferson
106, Male
Pittsburgh
United States
Profile Information:
- Favorite website
- http://myspace.com/eddiejefferson
- Favorite blog
- http://washingtondcjazznetwork.ning.com
- Pittsburgh Connection
- TRIBUTE PAGE TO THE LATE EDDIE JEFFERSON
Born Pittsburgh August 3, 1918 - Favorite Pittsburgh musicians/performers
- Erroll Garner, Billy Ecstine, Tina Pratt, Dakota Staton, Nelson , Earl "Fatha" Hines, Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, Stanley Turrentine, Tommie Turrentine
- About Me:
- Edgar J. "Eddie" Jefferson Born August 3 1918 PITTSBURGH PA - Tragically murdered outside "Baker's Keyboard Lounge, Detroit Michagan. May 9,
1979. CONVERSATION FROM A LIVE EDDIE JEFFERSON INTERVIEW WITH RUSTY HASSAN ON WPFW FM 89.3 WASHINGTON DC IN 1974 . ALS0 RICHIE COLE & GEORGE V JOHNSON JR."NEXT IN LINE" PRESERVED FOR HISTORICAL PURPOSES. FAN SITE ONLY! KEEP THE DREAM ALLIVE!
HOW I GOT INTO VOCALESE was for the love of the music, listening to it. Understanding it and really loving it like I say. I just heard a story. There were so many good horn players out there during the time. I couldnt get into the competition of being a horn player, so I figure Ill sing it. Its the best you can do and no one else was really doing anything along that order so I thought lyrics to be the appropriate for a lot of the solos to keep them alive a little longer. So back in the late 30s I went into this. Like 38 the Nancy Stomp, Taxi War Dance, and later on Blue in Sentimental with Hershal Evans, Lester Young on clarinet. I started doing solos for my own pleasure. I found out other people like to hear them and thats how I started out! Back before that dancing was the main thing. In my tap dancing days I danced with the old stars like the Jackie Gleason, Milton Burrel, the great Irish tenor Lanny Ross, Edith Fellows a young singer and movie star in those days that sing with Benny Goodman. I used to work with the Bob Cats, you know theater dates with Bob Crosby and the Bob Cats. Regular Vaudeville before it went out. The last of it.
Well? Moodys Mood" was an accident. My fiancee and I were around the house and we always liked that solo and I started singing there you go, there you go something and just passing words and she would come up with a word and we had a song with Moodys solo and other people used to come to the house and say will you sing us that song for us . Id go to other towns and do it and King Pleasure heard it, he learned it, recorded it and thats how it came to the publics attention. Thank you King Pleasure! I did my first session in Pittsburgh. A company called HI-LO came from New York to Pittsburgh to record because I couldnt leave Pittsburgh because my dancing business was very heavy. They came and recorded my first one. Two 78s. It was my first album with Bob Weinstock.
My association with Moody was a 17 year association. As a matter of fact Moody talked me into coming out to the public doing this style. I worked with him in the Theater. His band was backing me up as a tap dancer and I use to open with my partner Irv Taylor who incidentally was on Old Shoes. He was my dance partner for years. He could sing this stuff and we could both sing it equally. Wed both do the solos and right now I think he could sing this thing as equally as I can right now or better. Anyway Moody said come on and work with me for a minute. Cause my partner and I were going to have 2 weeks off before we went to the mountains. So I ended up. So a minute ended up 17 years with James Moody. The dancing thing was getting low anyway. Moody was a great, great player. He inspired me completely and showed me how do get deep into the music and climb into it like you put your coat on and live in it. And thats the only way you can make it. He was in Vegas at the time. To be continued... - Website:
- http://myspace.com/eddiejefferson
- Artist or Fan
- artist
Dr. Nelson Harrison
Sep 5, 2017
Dr. Nelson Harrison
August 2017
Hi Friends —
vocalese: a genre of jazz singing in which lyrics are written and sung to
melodies that originally were improvised instrumental jazz solos
Yes, there are a few earlier, one-off instances of vocalese writing
and singing, but Eddie Jefferson is understood to have invented
the genre sometime in the 1940s. (But not the word — he
preferred “vocalmentals.”) Jon Hendricks, largely through his
work with the trio, Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, during the
1950s and ‘60s is the genre’s most prolific exponent. And it is
about time the two of them were included in any serious
discussion of American song’s most important lyricists.*
People always ask, “Which comes first, the words or the
music?” (Sammy Cahn always answered, “The money!”) Well,
Lorenz Hart wrote lyrics to Richard Rodgers’ melodies, but then
Rodgers set melodies to Oscar Hammerstein’s lyrics. Anyway,
few lyricists ever tried to put words to music as complex as solos
by James Moody or Miles Davis, or full performances by the
Duke Ellington Orchestra or the Horace Silver Quintet. But
that’s exactly what Eddie Jefferson and Jon Hendricks did.
Their methods were slightly different, but equally inventive. Eddie
wrote in a decidedly “stream of consciousness” manner, letting
the flow and the contour of a particular solo carry his imagination
to wherever it might take him. Jon generally found his inspiration
in the songs’ titles, often spinning them into clever threecharacter
“plays” for himself, Dave Lambert, and Annie Ross.
“It’s like opera,” he once mused, “except it’s bopera.”
Now add to their creativity, complexity, and immense body of
work one more credential: their connection to music beyond jazz.
If you strip away the melody — but don’t, OK? — you can hear
the roots of rap in Eddie’s lyric to James Moody’s solo on “Lester
Leaps In,” retitled “I Got the Blues.” And Jon’s erudite, upbeat,
life-affirming lyrics, like the one he wrote to Miles Davis’ “Four,”
are echoed in the positive messages of funk hits like Earth, Wind
& Fire’s “Shining Star,” Tower of Power’s “What is Hip?” and Sly
and the Family Stone’s “Everybody Is a Star.”
Poet-historian Hilaire Belloc declared, “It is the best of all trades
to make songs, and the second best to sing them.” And Eddie
Jefferson and Jon Hendricks have done both with as much skill
and artistry as any man or woman who ever put words to music.
Stay cool, and keep list’nin’,
Bob Bernotas - Just Jazz e-Newsletter
Jun 10, 2018
Dr. Nelson Harrison
*I don’t want to overlook Annie Ross’ pioneering vocalese contributions
from the early 1950s, when she crafted original, witty lyrics to Wardell
Gray’s recordings of “Twisted,” “Farmer’s Market,” and “Jackie.”
Bob Bernotas
Jun 10, 2018