Johnny Guarnieri Trio - Hot Piano (1945)

Hot Piano by Johnny Guarnieri Trio

Johnny Guarnieri led the last of the Tonight! America After Dark bands. Enjoying his tenure under Jazzbo Collins for the freedom he was allowed in performing on TV, Tonight! was a highlight of Guarnieri's second "career" as a staff musician. The first stage of Johnny Guarnieri's career was as a Swing pianist during the peak of the Big Band era with two of the era's most popular bandleaders: Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman. Despite Goodman's proclamation that Guarnieri was one of the worst pianists he'd ever employed, he earned a reputation as a swinger and held court with a number of small combos including his own Johnny Guarnieri Trio which released its only album Hot Piano in 1945 on Savoy Records.

The trio is Johnny Guarnieri on "hot piano," Slam Stewart on bass and Sammy Weiss on drums. The album starts generically with an approachable interpretation of "I'm in the Mood for Love." That is, until Slam Stewart introduces himself fully. As he will throughout the record, Slam's plucked bass becomes a bowed bass for his solos—and every song features a Slam solo—to which he hums along. His novel, nearly novelty, elastic bass style highlights Guarnieri's original compositions best and is a playful contrast to Guarnieri's own punchy wit on the piano.

Guarnieri's clear articulation on the piano begets a strange marriage of two contrasting styles: the minimal and fractured solos of Count Basie with the full and fluid Stride of Fats Waller. Guarnieri somehow makes the oxymoronic fusion work. Sometimes a song might bring out the Basie or the Fats more from Guarnieri, but he manages to find that balance through his minimalist approach to soloing, relying on repetition and slight variations that make witty the occasionally florid.

With Slam Stewart bringing in a humanly absurdist sense of humor alongside Guarnieri's more structured, punchline oriented wit (said three times so you know I mean it,) Sammy Weiss plays the straight man of the group: keeping the act together and on time, setting the tone of each "sketch," and occasionally given to fits of high energy surrounded by the madcap of it all. The result is a wonderful album that is contagiously fun, gregarious and surprising at all turns. And occasionally you hear the future, Ahmad Jamal's own landmark trios are a decade away but theoretically might start here.

Here is the discography surrounding the Johnny Guarnieri Trio's debut album:

Basie English (1944 single with his All Star Orchestra)

Salute to Fats (1944 single with his All Star Orchestra)

Bowing Singing Slam (1944 single)

Band Aid (1944 single)

I'm in the Mood for Love (1945 single)

Firebird (1945 single)

My Blue Heaven (1945 single)

Deuces Wild (1945 single)

Hot Piano

"Basie English" by Johnny Guarnieri's All Star Orchestra

"Salute to Fats" by Johnny Guarnieri's All Star Orchestra

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Kid Ory - The Chronological Classics: Kid Ory 1922-1945 (1945)

"Society Blues" by Ory's Sunshine Orchestra


King Oliver came from New Orleans where Jazz (in a style eventually known as Dixieland) formed and fermented the medium and the musicians that invented it.  King Oliver and trombonist Kid Ory co-led the heppest and most talented band of the 1910s.  When they parted ways, Ory moved first to Los Angeles where he was the first black musician from New Orleans to record a jazz side on the West Coast, and then to Chicago where he played in a number of the eras most important bands.  His career was sidelined by the Depression until Dixieland had a popular revival in the 1940s allowing Ory to resume his career leading his Creole Jazz Band.  The Chronological Classics: Kid Ory 1922-1945 compilation album bridges the two eras.

Here is the discography surrounding Kid Ory's first recordings:

The Chronological Classics: Kid Ory 1922-1945

"Creole Song" by Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band


"Oh! Didn't He Ramble" by Kid Ory


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Dizzy Gillespie - The Chronological Classics: Dizzy Gillespie 1945 (1945)

"Dizzy's Fingers" by Dizzy Gillespie Sextet


Continuing our tour of the five players in The Quintet and "the greatest jazz concert ever": Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet.  The Chronological Classics: Dizzy Gillespie 1945 collects Gillespie's earliest recordings.

Here is the discography surrounding Dizzy Gillespie's debut recordings:

Live Sessions at Minton's Playhouse (1941 sessions)
I Can't Get Started (1945 single with his Sextet)
Salted Peanuts (1945 single with his Sextet)
Blue'n Boogie (1945 single with his Sextet)
Groovin' High (1945 single with his Sextet)
Dizzy Atmosphere (1945 single with his Sextet)
The Chronological Classics: Dizzy Gillespie 1945

"Dizzy Atmosphere" by Dizzy Gillespie Sextet


"Blue'n Boogie" by Dizzy Gillespie Sextet


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Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra - The Chronological Classics: Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra 1944-1945 (1945)

"A Cottage for Sale" by Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra


When Miles Davis got his first chance to play with Diz and Bird in St. Louis in 1944, he had the fortune of playing third trumpet in Billy Eckstine's Orchestra.

A win in a talent contest prompted Eckstine's drop from Howard University and early career as a jazz singer.  His first big break came in 1939 when he joined Earl Hines's big band as vocalist and occasional trumpeter.  He sang for Hines and his name grew in popularity with the band's radio performances.  Eckstine (or Mr. B) would leave Hines to form his own big band in 1943 taking many of Hines's young musicians with him including Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, and Charlie Parker.  With Gillespie's early arrangements, Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra became the first bop big band, a risk for all involved due to bebop's critical and commercial unpopularity at the time.  Despite the prejudice against this groundbreaking new jazz, Eckstine's voice carried the Orchestra's singles (like "A Cottage for Sale" and "Prisoner of Love") to be Top Ten hits and helped set the stage for bebop dominance in jazz for the next decade.

Here is the discography surrounding Billy Eckstine's first two years of recording:

A Cottage for Sale (1945 single with His Orchestra)
I'm in the Mood for Love (1945 single with His Orchestra)
Prisoner of Love (1945 single with His Orchestra)
The Chronological Classics: Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra 1944-1945

"I Love the Rhythm in a Riff" by Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra


"Prisoner of Love" by Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra


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