Jimmie Lunceford: Virtuoso Arrangements, 1 of 2 (+Bonus)

(For Paying Subscribers, there are yet more bonuses at the bottom—two band parts showing the lyrics and melody of “Stratosphere,” and an alternate take of “Mood Indigo.”)

Among people, Black and white, who were teenagers and hardcore jazz fans in the 1930s, there was an almost absolute consensus that the best jazz bands were the Black groups led by Ellington, Basie, and Jimmie Lunceford. It was common for them to add, “The most exciting to see in person was Lunceford’s!” That band’s 1936 up-tempo arrangement of “Nagasaki” (a standard song of the day with “joke” lyrics that wouldn’t be acceptable today), from their only film short, gives us a taste of what their show was like, with singing, dancing, tossing percussion mallets around, and more:

Elsewhere, the same short features a singer and a team of male tap dancers. You can see the entire film here. Lunceford and his group also appeared backing up Lena Horne in a short film made for the armed forces in 1945 (the year given at that link is wrong—thanks to film historian Mark Cantor). The band only made one other filmed appearance, a brief spot about 14 minutes into the otherwise somewhat idiotic feature film Blues in the Night (released in November 1941).

But it seems to me that this emphasis on how great Lunceford’s musicians were as entertainers may have, over the years, taken attention away from how innovative the band was musically. In these two essays, my goal is to share with you some recordings of Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra, as they were usually billed, that are quite striking in terms of virtuosity and experimentation. Let’s begin with two productive days of recording for the band, September 4 and 5, 1934:

Lunceford himself was a well-trained alto saxophonist, who was also capable on several other instruments—unlike some bandleaders such as Lucky Millinder who only waved a baton. But he left behind almost no compositions. However, one of the few that has his name listed as composer on the 78 rpm label shows that he was full of surprises. This is “Stratosphere” from September 5, 1934. The original copyright material is not available at the Library of Congress, but Rob DuBoff and Jeff Sultanof, researchers at ejazzlines, the leading site for classic big band scores and parts, kindly shared with me the published 1934 “stock” arrangement. “Stocks,” sold in music shops, were not transcribed from recordings, but were versions of the piece that would be playable by general non-virtuoso bands. So they sometimes differed a bit from the recorded versions, which professional bands played from original handwritten parts.

But stocks are very informative. For example, I did find the copyright renewal from 1961, and it lists songwriter Edward P. Moran (1871-1956) for “w,” meaning “words,” that is, as lyricist. When you hear it below, I believe you’ll find it difficult to imagine words for this wild instrumental piece and its “one note” main theme. But the stock has the words printed, and not only are they as silly as one would imagine, they are described there as an “Aero’nut’ical Rave—that is, the mad raving of a nutty “aeronaut,” or pilot, who is flying into the stratosphere. (For Paying Subscribers, below are two band parts showing the lyrics and melody of “Stratosphere.”) There is also one Ray Bishop, on whom I have no info, named as a coauthor of the “m,” that is, the music. He may have been listed for business reasons—that is, he may have provided some service for the band and his fee may have been a share of the publishing rights. Here is the copyright renewal listing:

(“Orch. pts.” means that parts are available for each instrument in a jazz orchestra.)

Finally, Sy (misspelled “Si”) Oliver is listed for “arr.,” which certainly makes sense because he is a well-respected arranger who joined the band on trumpet in January 1934. However, Eddy Determeyer, in his book on Lunceford, says that Lunceford himself arranged it. And ejazzlines lists Edwin “Eddie” Wilcox as the arranger, which also works, because he was the band’s pianist from the very beginning in the late 1920s, and was an excellent and creative arranger, as we’ll see. I vote for Oliver, because he’s named on both the copyright and the stock arrangement. Lunceford is unlikely, since he was not known to write arrangements. In fact, it’s probable that Lunceford composed the piece as a leadsheet—a melody line and possibly some indications of chords—and that he relied on the arranger to harmonize it and to write out parts for each instrument. It’s even possible that Lunceford simply came up with the idea of the one-note melody, which you’ll hear shortly.

A full score of the piece is available from ejazzlines, a great source for jazz sheet music in general, as I’ve mentioned before. In preparing the score, Sultanof and Duboff determined that the correct key is D by checking the published “stock” arrangement. (Most audio versions online play a bit flat, almost in Db.) At this link for the score, you can also hear a modern band with trumpeter Claudio Roditi playing the complete chart—just click on Audio Sample.

First, let’s check out the “theme”—it’s just the note D repeated over and over! (There’s a bit of percussively slapped bass behind it.) But there’s a trick to that repeated note—see if you hear what’s going on in these excerpts. I’ll explain below:

Could you hear what’s going on? I believe that’s two trumpeters, tightly rehearsed, playing the note D louder and softer, just a fraction of a second apart! The second time it is definitely two trumpets, and they are even closer together, overlapping. This is an example of something that was surely cool to see in performance, but that is also musically provocative. In case you think that’s easy to do, try it with a metronome and another person, even with two people at one piano.

The complete piece has plenty of other creative moments: For example, how about the interlude in the audio excerpt below? It starts with a half-step dissonance, and ends with drummer Jimmy Crawford on timpani. After a pause, I added here another surprise that goes by quickly—a descending D diminished chord, each note harmonized with a major triad, so it’s triads descending by minor thirds! I repeated that audio excerpt slowed down. All three of those short excerpts are in this audio clip:

Here is what that diminished passage looks like on the 1934 published arrangement:

Now, here is the complete performance. That interlude is at 1:08, and the D diminished is at 1:40:

Now let’s go to September 4, 1934, the day before they recorded “Stratosphere.” Ellington’s first recordings of “Mood Indigo,” two in October 1930 and one in December, immediately became popular and the piece was already re-recorded by about a dozen performers before Lunceford got to it. Many of those versions are excellent—in fact, I’m thinking a doing a survey of those recordings in a future essay. But band member Willie Smith—whose amazing alto sax work I highlighted in an earlier essay—boldly reworked this piece in a totally different direction. At the beginning of “Mood Indigo,” he added a kind of pointillistic counterpoint played along with the slower melody. It always reminds me of Mike Abene’s arrangement of “Soft Lights and Sweet Music,” recorded “live” by the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra (as it was then known) in 1988. Here’s a bit of the Lunceford, followed by an excerpt of “Soft Lights,” slowed down for better comparison. Please understand, these do not sound at all alike—they’re different songs and recorded 54 years apart! My point is that both take the approach of adding a new, faster and higher melody over the original, slower and deeper song:

Another fascinating moment in Willie Smith’s version is this stop-and-start rhythmic version of the theme at 1:33:

Here is the complete performance, with a nice muted trumpet solo by Sy Oliver:

There is also a second take which has a different trumpet solo, but is otherwise the same. (That is below for paying subscribers.)

Hearing the precision of the band in playing these difficult arrangements, I can certainly believe something that is said about them—that they were among the first—possibly the first—jazz band to use sectional rehearsals. That is, the saxes would rehearse by themselves, the trumpets, or perhaps trumpets and trombones, would also rehearse separately, and the rhythm section as well. When I was the first jazz band director at both Tufts University and Brandeis during the late 1970s and early 1980s, I relied heavily on this method, because it allows each section to work on small details that are hard to hear when the full band is rehearsing. And there is no need for the other musicians to sit and wait for them.

Next time we’ll hear more fascinating music from the Lunceford band, including the only other known arrangements by Willie Smith!

All the best,

Lewis

P.S. For help with this essay, I owe thanks to Rob DuBoff and Jeff Sultanof at ejazzlines.com, and to Morgan Davis at the Library of Congress.

P.P.S. For Paying Subscribers, below are two band parts showing the lyrics and melody of “Stratosphere,” and the alternate take recording of “Mood Indigo.”