soulpope "Ever Since The World Ended, I Don`t Get Out As Much"
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Carol Kaye on Red Mitchell, Scot LaFaro
A little of the real jazz scenes here in LA area.
Jimmy Madden had a great jazz club at the east end of Hollywood Blvd. in the late 50s and the Sunday afternoon jam sessions were jam-packed with jazz fans and local musicians. You got to sit in and play only by personal invitation.
About the time I was starting to work with Red Mitchell (I was a jazz guitarist then) was around 1956-57 and that’s probably the time I started going over there too to play a few times. And everyone was talking about the „kid“, Scot LaFaro. I remember the first time I went there to play, it was Frank Butler on the drums and Red on bass.
Then Scot got up to play — well, it was like a whirlwind on the string bass as he’d play solo after solo with speed and great sub-chordal ideas. I remember him as a nice guy, kind of quiet but when he got on that bass, it was a different story. Then a Japanese fellow got up to play some drums (think he’s the one who became a movie actor later-on), and that’s about all I can remember about sitting in to play on that smoke-filled Sun. afternoon. The feelings were great for the music tho‘, the club like the rest of the jazz clubs of that time period around LA county was packed with musicians, jazz-fans who came to hear the sounds.
There was another after-hours club in El Monte also where we’d all go to jam at after our gigs, until 8AM sometimes on Sat. night. Don Randi used to love to play piano there and I think this is the first time we had played together also. Then Don hired me on guitar, string bassist Bob West, and a drummer (believe it was Phil Wood’s drummer, Bill Goodwin). We opened the very first „Troubadour“ which originally was a jazz club Doug Weston opened in back of a restaurant on La Cienega in Hollywood which also quickly became a „place“ to play some good jazz there also. Later Doug changed the venue during the 60s and opened his now-famous Troubadour on Santa Monica Blvd.
And after many years of intense studio work (we worked together quite a bit on many a recording date), Don opened his now-famous Baked Potato around 1971 with our trio of Joe Pass, Paul Humprey and myself on elec. bass as opening act to Don’s group.
Red, like the rest of us, did his share of studio work on string bass, and even played on the hit „Ode To Billy Jo“ — and you notice there are no drums on that record, that’s how good his groove was. About the fall of 1968, Red, Ralph Pena and myself had dinner together — Red was increasingly disenchanted about politics, was getting a divorce, and was leaving for Sweden the next day. We had a nice dinner together and spoke of leaving Hollywood, Ralph was going to try his hand at film scoring down in Mexico City (and I went with him, leaving for a couple of months).
It was sad to see the great Red Mitchell leave town as he was a beautiful person who cared about fellow musicians – he was a loyal friend. We had lost so many good jazz players over the years: Curtis Counce (heart attack), Joe Maini (russian roulette accident with a gun), Scot (car accident), LeRoy Vinnegar moved to Portland, etc. so it really hit home when Red also left. I got some letters from Red after that – we kept in touch a little bit.
He was happy in Europe where he was treated with a lot of respect and honor and he locked into a lot of work in Sweden, on-tour in Europe, and really enjoyed his new life there. But finally a few years ago, moved with his wife to Oregon where he had both a stroke and heart attack and passed on sadly. Jazzman John Heard bought his famous great bass btw.
Many of the fine jazz musicians of that time went into studio work and if we didn’t show much emotion as players before, we sure had to have „stone“ faces with the introduction of many of the younger producers who were a little edgy about hiring older musicians. We didn’t let on about our Jazz backgrounds, that would really have made them nervous. One smile at the wrong time, and you didn’t work for them again so we were careful and took care of business in spite of the fact that sometimes they had little idea of what to tell us to do, we knew by what to do anyway and helped them learn their craft of being a producer.
The earlier producers knew what they were doing – they were mostly jazzmen and would treat us with the utmost respect, as did the later younger group of producers, but among them, there were a couple or so who were kind of rough to work for. We used to say „we got them a hit in spite of themselves.“ Most of them shaped up and became very good producers and were nice to us (after they saw how good we created and played so they’d have some great hits). And we all had a good relationship with the younger producers too, working on many a hit record together.
LeRoy Vinnegar was another fine bassist (finally lived in Portland until his passing) around in the 1950s and early 1960s too as was Red Callendar, teacher of Charles Mingus who had already left for NY. LeRoy was a gentleman, a great pro also.
The Jazz Great, Harold Land, fine jazz saxman, also had his group around LA in the 1950s but wasn’t into doing studio work, Harold stayed in the Jazz world tho‘ it was rough going in the 1960s….I think he did well on his European and Asian tours, was a very refined person, great family man and his son, Harold Land Jr. is now out there playing fine jazz also around LA. Harold Sr. was a close friend of Hampton Hawes too as was Dexter Gordon who left early for NYC…..so did Mingus.
Other local (jazz) bassists included Buddy Clarke (see pic in Library), Joe Comfort, Adolphis Hasbrook, Jimmy Bond (double 007 we’d call him), Don Bagley, Cliff Hils, Joe Mondragon, Mel Pollan, Lyle Ritz, many others. Ray Brown came out to LA mid 60s, as did Al McKibbon and others. Cliff Hils, while working a few of the 60s record dates at first, when it turned out to be 99% Fender Bass, he left town for Lake Tahoe where he had some great steady long-time jazz gigs.
Jazz was big in Wes Montgomery’s home-town in Indiana, and then in Columbus, Ohio too, smaller metro areas like that and in Pittsburgh even Phoenix where I was – jazz was big with many many jazz clubs everywhere even in Louisville KY and of course in Kansas City MO, Birmingham AL, and New Orleans, not just NYC, Chicago, and LA.
I played guitar with mainly the finest in jazz around the LA/Hollywood/Beach Towns areas during the heavy music years of 1956 through 1964. And originally started playing jazz gigs, just the Goodman Sextet type of jazz in 1949 at age 14 working my late teens through about age 29 when I played in the jazz clubs here, and the period I’m speaking of with Scot had to be about 1957….when I was 22. Jazz died here starting about 1961 but I know it continued a little bit elsewhere in the USA and Canada tho‘ in a diminished way (not as big as in the 1950s)
Actually, Jimmie Madden’s club in Hollywood was really just one of about 100 jazz clubs around LA – they had jazz rooms in bowling alleys even, it was that popular. Real Jazz was practically the „pop“ music boom of the 1950s – easy to play since everyone had the then-popular chordal education, playing standards (which jazz emanates from) commonly. Not just scores of clubs but literally 100s. There were places all over the Beach Towns, south LA of course, Hollywood, East of LA, South LA, all over the place. Hampton Hawes usually played at the Intermission Room, across from where Marty’s on The Hill was later built…Nite Life on so. Western was a beautiful club, very popular, and some clubs downtown too as well as Washington Blvd. Beverly Caverns on Beverly etc…many clubs Panchos in Manhattan Beach…also.
There were even 4-5 on the short Sunset Strip – 2 eventually turned into strip houses….one (used to be called the Renaissance) turned into the House of Blues, and another one into a famous club that is a rock club, Roxy’s (?), and of course all the LA areas in-between too…..but I happened to remember Scot in that one club as he wasn’t in-town long, but always on the road after that. Sadly he died very young in a car accident on the road
Doug Weston had a going-jazz club in the back of a restaurant on La Cienega that Don Randi and I (and Bob West on bass, who on drums I forget), and Doug closed that when rock hit and opened his new club on Santa Monica with folk songs then, eventually turning it into a famous rock club. The Comedy Club on Santa Monica Blvd. was once a great jazz club too, the name will be in my book, I forget what it was now but we all played there a lot too, also a big jazz club was on Melrose
Scot LaFaro played jazz solos like everyone eventually played on bass, like sax solos – that’s all — wasn’t anything special except for his speed and quick ideas, something bass players weren’t used to doing at that time. That type of bass soloing was new at that time for bass players. He did it at a time when no-one else, not even Ray Brown, was doing the chordal sub patterns at that time like sax players (and only a few guitar players were doing that too, Barney Kessel, Howard Roberts, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass etc..I had a little of that down too and was making a good name for myself, but no , not like the above were)…
Bassist Ralph Pena was doing that a short time later in 1959 etc., and eventually everyone learned the art of soloing (which I now teach) like sax players….it’s not hard but is another way of learning real jazz especially for the limited range of bass (4 strings) – you had to have your fingering and technique together as well as your substitute chordal approaches.
Dontes was one of the ONLY real jazz clubs where we’d hang at (and only one in the Valley) throughout the late 1960s and beyond due to all the studio musicians supporting it, populating it after our record dates – Marty’s on the Hill had been built during the 1960s (wasn’t there in the 1950s, was just a hill then) a few others, but Dontes was the FAV…..we’d go there trying to get „rock and roll out of our ears“….we all loved Dontes and the finest jazz that was played there. It was in North Hollywood near Universal Studios on Lankershim Blvd, just north of Moorpark where the church is on the west side of the street. There were a few clubs still going in South LA, but only for a few years into the 1970s-80s.
No other club ever took the place of Dontes where everyone came…. it was THE club but torn down. The former owner, Cary (originally it a partnership of 3 people), who we all had worked for with our gigs at Dontes, had just sold it, went into his small office after signing the final papers on the place….he just sat down, probably just fell asleep on his desk. He was found dead from natural causes….he had seen the finest years of great jazz there, knew everyone, and as a fixture of Dontes, and everyone felt like it was the close of the era when he passed on, dying after selling the club….sad but sort of a natural ending in a way we all tho’t at that time as we all knew Cary and how much that club with all its great music was a part of him personally. That was it for the 1980s.
The new owner(s) were from outside the USA sort of freaked about his death and so they leveled it and turned it into an auto lot it’s been to this day.
I think Marty’s on the Hill (a little south of Wash. Blvd.) was still going but featuring jazz only on the weekends – they had some great groups in there, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown etc. 7 nights a week for awhile. You did have that big jazz club still going on Santa Barbara Ave. (later re-named Martin Luther King Blvd.) – called the Santa Barbara Club – later „Memory Lane“ (it was „Marlas“ finally when the TV star bought it), but it too only became an occasional place for real jazz eventually. Dontes‘ tho‘ was packed every night, everyone frequented it all throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
I played at the last of the Sunset Strip jazz clubs in 1963 with Monk Montgomery on string bass, the place almost on the corner on north side of the street……“Roxy“ I believe, is the name of it now and the House of Blues is the old beautiful Renaissance Room a great jazz restaurant which featured the finest in jazz, oh well…it used to be a beautiful club (was just the upstairs) but now it’s known as the House of Blues.
When Monk and I played at the club on north side of the st., the stage for it, as a jazz club, was on your left as you walked in the room and was always filled with lingering jazz fans late in ’63 but gone by ’64. I was pregnant with Gwyn (and still a guitarist not a bassist yet) and you won’t believe the guys hitting on me even being 7-8 months along, it was packed every night in that summer, and fun gig for about 2 weeks.
In 1962 (and early 1963), I also played at the last of the Blue Angel West with Page Cavenaugh’s hot 8-piece band too (Jack Sperling on drums, Don (Bags) Bagley bass, Bob Jung sax, Lew McCreary on trombone (great!), and Dave Wells also trombone, yours truly guitar, and Page on piano and sometimes vocals too. It was a HOT great jazz group, fun too, and was very jam-packed every night with movie stars (Rita Hayworth Jack Webb etc.), Mayor Yorty, Pete Pitchess the Sheriff, other vips…this club was where George Shearing used to come all the time (and when he asked me to join his group, darn it, I had to say „no“, I couldn’t leave my kids and studio work, tho‘ I always felt badly I had to turn him down, his music was sooo great) – that was a fun-gig for quite a few months
Singer Beryl Davis came down to Blue Angel West also and she and George would kibbitz…she said one time „hi George – I didn’t see you, it’s so bloomin‘ dark in here“ and he replied „I’m hip!“ lol. – they were great interesting people and it was a great hip place to play in Studio City. Gone soon after that tho‘. But I just checked out that location and there’s still a restaurant there, a popular one too next to the bank
Ram’s Horn was another place and from time to time, they’d occasionally have jazz (with the great Pete Jolly Trio)….I remember the Ram’s Horn as at the end of a dirt road (Ventura Blvd.) back in the late 1950s….seemed like the end of the earth to drive way out there (Encino). It was owned by the LA Rams Football Team.
Ram’s Horn featuring Jazz 7 nights a week became rarer and rarer, and they were mostly known for their great food. Many a place tried after that but didn’t last long as a „jazz club“ in the 1960s….tho‘ it was surely better than now. At least you’d have a jazz club for awhile here and there, but none could rival Dontes‘ for being „the place“….
Jazz is very much alive but usually only in private gigs, and commercially as backup groups playing for the diners in restaurants, with dining „background“ music….still that’s pretty good and there’s plenty of those around paying pretty well for good jazz gigs everywhere.&
Jazz today is much different as I suspect audiences go for the background jazz while eating (which is fine – I’d hate to play for a completely dead-quiet audience), or if they come for the music, the audience I think expects more of a visual experience….different than our time back then, when it was to „hear“ (not to „see“) jazz.
The 1950s crowd was more of a former „radio“ crowd, now we have TV people as an audience, it’s just different…..and of course it’s usually a mixture of jazz too. I get a kick out of today’s „Jazz Festivals“ most of which don’t feature anything near real jazz, but blues, fusion bordering on rock and roll etc…..it’s very different these days – you sure didn’t see any ego in the music of the 1950s like today).
Jazz is alive and doing very well tho‘ in private gigs, which still flourish today and pay extremely well….even big bands are doing private gigs and doing well. It’s people with money who are keeping the tradition going in a good way.
Musicians back then were very sensitive to the fact that they weren’t in that league yet and didn’t try to „sit in“ at all….Jazz being one of the most-complex inventive music to play and totally dependent on each other for the inventive-creation, unlike other forms of music. Any weak link (lesser musician) meant you had to overcome „that person“ and make up for their playing, hence the „look“ if anyone who was naive tried.
All this improvising was something that the producers of the hit recordings of the late 1950s and early 1960s had to have in studio work. Jazz musicians invented every note they played….that’s why producers (called A&R men back then) sought out the top jazz players with their inventiveness, their experience, and fine recordable technique especially wanting to hire jazz musicians who were not fouled up on drugs or booze to go to work in the lucrative recording studios back then. You didn’t have to read well back in the early days, but increasingly yes you not only had to sightread music mainly as the 1960s rolled on, but you had to create your own parts on *top* of what was written to get someone a hit recording, that’s mainly why the #1 call musicians did.
Sometimes, live jazz musicians would put up with ones not as good as they if that person had the right dedication and proper respect for the *music* and of course respect the musicians who could play it well. It was all very sensitive and subtle not like the later rock times.
But that’s not the case with studio work. Either you did it well, were very professional or you were *gone*….that’s a lot of money riding on musicians.
60s was a really bad time, druggies much worse and dying yes. But we also had some of the greatest Jazz musicians with no problems of drugs who worked Studio Work in the 1960s……Trumpeter Great Al Porcino worked some Studio work here, terrific to work with him, tho‘ he did talk slow……he sent us overtime asking questions of Shorty Rogers…both of them with their snail-speed talking (Capitol Rec’s)
Uh Shorty……. Yes….Al…..what ….note ….should …it ….be in …uh….let’s see….uh …bar 49 …for ….me?…..“OK…let …me look……I think….it should….be….a ….Db….is that…what …you …have …Al?……….Shorty….no…..I’ll…make….it….a …Db…..“OK….Al…..let’s…..try ….another…take….“ RIGHT into OVERTIME! We had another paid 1/2 hour then, double-pay!…………we always missed Al after he moved to Germany. Don Ellis (12-12-123-12-123-12 he wrote some great 35/8 time charts!)….was cool to work for, did part of an album with him, too bad he contracted that virus in So. America that eventually killed his heart. I worked local LA Jazz gigs some after being locked into studio work, only thing I regretted was turning George Shearing down 1963 (wasn’t into bass yet, but was playing every week with Page Cavenaugh’s group guitar, and he asked me, but just couldn’t see traveling anymore and leaving studio work losing so much money (Studio work PAID!)…leaving my kids anymore like I did 1954-55 big-band tour, yes cars then too, no drugs tho‘! just occasional booze and my 1st husband was sometimes indulging too much too)…
………. it died out by 1963-64 with most of the former 100 or so Jazz clubs of L.A. gone and changed into rock clubs. Even the later Comedy clubs were all great Jazz clubs even including the once-great Jazz Clubs of south LA……..leaving us with only 5-6 real Jazz clubs – now probably only 2 tho‘ a couple of others has Jazz sometimes……..Baked Potato started off with real Jazz but quickly changed to mostly fusion from mid 1970s on
Hampton Hawes, was Miles‘ fav pianist, the innovator of the sub-chords ii-V7s….and he too was a genius musician but his whole life ruined by drugs and prison unfortunately and going back to occasional cocaine was not good, he died of a stroke in his 40s….he had a very huge funeral. – was very beloved……Joe Pass was lucky, he cleaned up early in the 1960s at Synanon. Billy Higgins opted for NYC when rock started taking over Jazz clubs, left with Ornette Coleman who was sitting in with us (had a funny-looking white sax) all the time…..but Billy got into heavy drugs in NYC (so did others who left LA for NYC, Hamp never wanted to leave LA)…..and it affected his liver he told me in 1980s when I saw him last….but was able to play quite a few years then with a transplant….it was so sad to lose him years ago. Billy, probably the most-recorded Jazz drummer, was a nice person, great drummer, the best!
I had known Pete Jolly since his great Phoenix Jazz combo gigs with Howard Heitmeyer 1952…..easily one of the greats in real Jazz ….
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