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Preferred Citation:
[Resource Title], Phil Schaap Jazz Collection, Special Collections Library, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Date:
broadcast2009-08-18
Type:
Radio programs
Agent:
hostSchaap, Phil
Format:
MP3
Source:
CD-R
Keyword:
Provisional record
Subject:
Jazz
Lucie, Lawrence
Duration:
06:22:08
Language:
English
delete Delete Are you sure?
me. It's so divine as you are. It's like flying without wings, playing fiddle without strings.
And a million other things no one can lose.
Though my hopes are slender, in my sacred heart I pray you surrender soon.
Though it's like reaching for the moon.
[Music]
Well, that was the swing song tradition at its absolute optimum, a perfect record in a pioneering moment.
These were Teddy Wilson records initially.
It's been a long time since they've been issued under his name.
They featured a swing era combo, turning tunes of the day into rollicking jam miniatures,
with one of the soloists taking a turn being the singer.
And of course, it was the jazz singer, Billy Holiday.
Our focus, Lawrence Lucy, was the guitarist on this record date.
He was the last person alive from the swing song tradition originals.
And he was there for the biggest hit, "I Cried for You."
I mean, Billy Holiday would subsequently have bigger hits.
"Loverman," for instance, in 1944, was her hugest single.
But this is the record that turned things around.
She was a side person.
But after "I Cried for You," she got her own record contract.
Jonah Jones on trumpet from the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Johnny Hodges on alto,
Harry Carney played baritone largely.
You're quite a bit of clarinet on "Guess Who," though, the third title of our listen.
The bass player, John Kirby, the drummer, was Cozy Cole.
Billy Holiday sang, the leader, pianist Teddy Wilson.
The guitarist was Lawrence Lucy.
We heard in this sequence, "It's like reaching for the moon.
These foolish things, guess who?"
And I cried for you.
It's nine minutes past eight, and I certainly cried today for the loss of Larry Lucy,
who died last Thursday.
He was 101.
His funeral was earlier today.
This is the Lawrence Lucy Memorial broadcast.
But rather than go back to the morning M-O-R-N-I-N-G blubbering in morning,
M-O-U-R-N-I-G, I like to keep telling you that this guy, Lawrence Lucy,
isn't just some Zellig character who's there.
He's more than a participant.
He's making this stuff gel as a person in the rhythm section.
So I've been itemizing some things.
First of all, you've got to swing.
He's on the highest rung.
And if you need somebody to back me up, how about Louis Armstrong?
Okay.
Now I've brought forward this swing song tradition,
and I'd like to just spend a moment on background.
One of the things that is hard for people to figure out in 2009
is the absence of much jazz singing in the early orchestras.
Now, of course, there were marching bands,
and that doesn't really lend itself to singing.
But in the early days of recording -- well, let me go further --
the ballrooms were the backbone of the gig.
And, you know, people are talking, people are drinking,
some are eating, and most are dancing, and there's a lot of noise.
You need a big band, not a small band,
and you can't hear the singer because it hears the thing that's hard to grasp in 2009.
There was no amplification.
The first six, seven thousand years of making music has been entirely acoustic,
and it still was so within the memory of humankind,
even with the loss of Larry Lucy.
So big bands -- Fletcher Henderson didn't have a singer.
Chick Webb didn't hire Ella Fitzgerald
until they put in a sound system at the Savoy Ballroom.
But on records, the difficulty in hearing the singer
and the disinclination, therefore, to have one
could be compensated for by balance and, of course, the quiet of the studio.
And so this absolute hybrid situation, some regarded it as schizophrenic, occurs.
The record company would hire a singer to sing the song in tune with clear addiction,
and so everyone would be happy in terms of the writing of the lyric and the publication.
The instrumentalists, who were the reason why the record might be being made,
they would provide the heat, the jazz.
And these records are bipolar.
Or at least they are dipole, is actually what I really should be saying.
And the jazz goes away when the singing comes on.
And then all of the records went away.
We had the Great Depression.
And oddly enough, jazz, an economically challenged music,
bounces back before the rest of the economy and has its prime time in the pop market
and makes money the swing era.
Talent scout and record producer John Hammond realized
that they were going to start making records again
where jazz instrumentalists would put on the heat
and someone would have to sing the song.
He said, "No, we're not going to go back to that old system."
And he led a charge in the record industry.
He was also gaining a great deal of insight from early 52nd Street performances.
Billie Holiday was there, among others.
And he came up with this idea, the swing song tradition,
that allows us to hear a singing of the lyric integrated
into a sequence of jazz improvisations, including that vocal.
And that's the swing song tradition.
That the introduction of the way you usually hear a vocal in a jazz setting,
was once absent or near absent,
or only allowed when the instrumentalists could also double as a singer,
like Louis Armstrong.
It must seem strange to today's perusal of the recorded legacy
of the art form in the performance scene.
But it's the way it was, and this is the breakthrough.
Billie Holiday was perfect.
The musicians who accompanied her, the instrumentalists who accompanied her,
they were perfect too.
Lawrence Lucy was part of this.
And here comes the second accolade.
He's not just there when the swing song tradition dawned.
He's not just a cog in the wheel of the perfection of it in a pioneering moment.
He is a driving force of the vehicle that gets us there,
because he provides the swing, the brethren of the rhythm section.
Four is one.
And he also plays the chords, and he reflects upon the singer,
and what he does reflects and helps her.
So this is big time stuff.
And another accolade for our dear friend, Lawrence Lucy.
Those of you finding me on the dial here at 814 on a Tuesday evening,
first of all, I'd like to acknowledge Paul Berkey of WKCR,
an excellent bass player and a genuine good person.
And his input on this evening's portion of the Lawrence Lucy Memorial broadcast.
I would also say that our jazz department co-head,
Michael Zakin, is probably unacknowledged for being pivotal
in our getting the time to do this,
and I'd like to acknowledge him at this time.
Those of you tuning in at 815,
there are 45 minutes left of this Lawrence Lucy Memorial broadcast.
This is the program's second day.
He died last Thursday.
He was born December 18th of 1907 when Teddy Roosevelt was president.
Not Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but Teddy Roosevelt, actually.
I should say that president pronounced it Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt.
It's FDR who pronounced it Roosevelt.
So that's why it's Roosevelt Avenue in Queens.
But it's the FDR drive, Franklin Delano Roosevelt drive in Manhattan,
which I understand is having a supreme construction problem of late.
Anyway, Lawrence Lucy was born when Teddy Roosevelt was in his administration.
He died when Obama was president.
Lawrence Lucy was African American.
I spent the day after election night with Lawrence Lucy.
He was the right person to spend it with.
So he lived a long time.
During that time, he was as primary a driving force of jazz rhythm
and harmonic display as anyone who's ever lived.
He did it all but exclusively with the greatest names,
helping them sound better and being great himself.
I'm itemizing these elements of greatness,
as well as these moments of breakthrough that are now hard to observe
from a firsthand account,
at least in the present tense with an actual person in front of you,
because Larry was the last one,
the last of the swing song tradition originals,
the last of the 1933 big band participants
who came up with a new orchestral concept and instrumental size
for the way the orchestra would be.
And that's the way it was in the swing era,
and to some extent the way it remains.
I'd like to document this with two tracks
from Larry Lucy's first record date, March 14, 1933,
as a member of the Benny Carter Orchestra, not yet fully formed.
There are three trumpets and two trombones.
He's using the Henderson configuration,
and three saxophones.
He's using the Henderson configuration.
The rhythm section has Nicholas Rodriguez on piano,
C.R. Mann on guitar, Ernest Hill on bass, and Big C. Catlin on drums.
We'll hear at the outset six bells stampede,
and at the end of the sequence we will hear "Swing It"
where Benny Carter sings.
In between, a half year later, October 16 of 1933,
we'll hear the Benny Carter Orchestra with three trumpets.
Okay, that's the same three trombone.
Wait a second, that's different. Four saxophones, wait a second.
Two altos, two tenors, hey, that's even different,
or at least a return to the McKinney's concept,
via Don Redmond.
I don't know if you'll hear the difference
between the first and last in the middle four,
but this is the real breadstick.
My next accolade is that Lawrence Lucy was a driving force
in the rhythm that made the music sound good in the first place.
As the prototype for the "Swing It" was mapped out
in this instance by Benny Carter,
who probably is the most important person
to deliver this information.
And it's 1933.
They include Lawrence Lucy's very first records.
He was 25 at the time.
And they map this out,
and this is the road that everyone followed.
[music]
Well, I try to map out a whole lot of concept in the breakthroughs of the orchestra that occur before the swing era but then dominate during it.
And it is an illustration of Lawrence Lucy's key role as a rhythm guitarist in the pivotal events in the greatest of the big bands that usher in this new era.
What I wanted you to hear that was most difficult was the transition from the first track, "Six Bells Stampede" to the next four and then the reverse of that contrast going from those four ending with "Symphony and Riffs" to "Swing It."
An earlier big band instrumentation, although an expansion of the jazz age concept, is on the first and last tracks.
But the delivery of the swing era big band is present two years earlier in the middle four.
Lawrence Lucy, of course, played guitar on all six. They were Benny Carter's records.
The first and sixth of the listen were Lawrence Lucy's first records. He was 25 at the time.
So "Six Bells Stampede," and just to try to map this out, so what is trying to be pointed out?
The guitarist on these records, Lawrence Lucy, was alive at the age of 101 and still lucid about these matters a few short days ago.
He's since died and today was his funeral. This is the second and final day of our memorial broadcast to him.
Among the absolutely essential deliveries of music and new concept in jazz lore that he participated in as a prize member of the ensemble
is the glorious expansion of the orchestra that occurs veiled by the Great Depression, which limits the number of records we heard.
The pivotal essential events was the creation of a unique band by the king, Benny Carter.
His band being utilized by a rather remarkable United Kingdom composer, a ranger named Spike Hughes,
and that the records that they made together, Benny Carter and Lawrence Lucy, sometimes with Spike Hughes,
bridge the exit of the earlier jazz orchestra and the coming of the future.
And that Lawrence Lucy is there and you heard the records that mapped it out.
"Six Bells Stampede" was the Spike Hughes composition. He's not present on this record. It's an earlier arrangement.
Then we heard "The Big Four," "Devil's Holiday," "Lonesome Nights," "Blue Lou," and "Symphony and Riffs,"
with three trumpets, Bill Dillard, Eddie Mallory, and Dick Clark.
Three trombones, "Kake Johnson," with Fred Robinson and J.C. Higginbotham.
Four saxes, the reeds led by Benny Carter, featuring some occasional flute work by Waymon Garber,
tough tenor work from Johnny Russell, and Glenn Pack played third alto.
In the rhythm section was Teddy Wilson on piano, Ernest Hill on bass, Big Sid Catlin on drums,
and what about Lawrence Lucy on guitar?
So this was our storyline.
The story, given more of a contemporary flavor and sound bite thing,
is that the guy who let us be connected to these events of over 75 years ago and more,
the opening of the Apollo, the first note ever played there, Lawrence Lucy,
the breakthrough of orchestral jazz in 1933 with the Spike Hughes and Benny Carter,
and eventually in '34 the Fletcher Anderson records, Lawrence Lucy.
And he was with us, and with his death Thursday at the age of 101,
no other person can help us make that connection.
And so we're marking this transition in the continuum of this jazz magic,
but noting that the first-hand accounts have ceased.
But we'll let the music continue.
And Lawrence Lucy played with the absolute pioneer of big band jazz, Fletcher Henderson,
and when they played together they discovered that they shared the 18th of December as a birthday.
It took them a while to find that out.
The boss may not know your birthday, you may not know how old the boss is.
When you find out it's the same day and the boss likes you and you like the boss,
well now you can have a party.
And the birthday parties for Lawrence Lucy and Fletcher Henderson,
the great pioneer of big band jazz, while limited in attendance,
they were insiders events, were remembered when the participants were still alive,
as glorious times in music.
So to illustrate the Fletcher Henderson Association,
the absolute dawn of big band jazz,
I'd like to let you hear "Wild Party" that the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra recorded
in September, the 25th of September 1934 with Larry Lucy on guitar.
This is the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra with Fletcher on piano.
His trumpet section is Pop Smith, Mouse Randolph, and Red Allen, they like nicknames.
Claude Jones and Kate Johnson, two trombones, it's a different brass concept.
The reeds of Russell Prokope, Hilton Jefferson, Buster Bailey, and Ben Webster.
Elmer James is on bass, Walter Johnson is on drums.
And we'll get to hear "Wild Party."
[music]
Happy birthday, Fletcher Henderson. Happy birthday, Lawrence Lucy.
I had some wild parties on the 18th of December. Fletcher was born in 1897. Lawrence Lucy, his guitarist. The guitarist on this record, "Wild Party," was born December 18th in 1907 during the Roosevelt Administration, as I've remarked off, and I mean Teddy Roosevelt.
And they did this on September 25th of 1934, a couple of months before Fletcher Henderson turned 37 and Lawrence Lucy turned 27.
You had Fletcher Henderson on piano, and you had some wonderful musicians. I gave the personnel earlier.
So, we're now in the final quarter hour of our two-day broadcast, the Lawrence Lucy Memorial broadcast. You may never have heard of his name until he's been gone.
In his last years, and by this, I mean quite a number of years, he has been our in-person direct connection to the dawn, the creation of jazz, and the creativity of the creation of jazz.
He was a great musician. He played something that we don't really have that commonly anymore, rhythm guitar and a jazz rhythm section, four-piece rhythm sections, that and his subsuming his own ego as an individual to become part of the "four is one" of the teamwork that a rhythm section requires.
And perhaps a little bit of the dimness of that rhythm section on these older recordings masks exactly how great he was and how vital the part he played in that ever-vital rhythm section was.
So, I've been mapping out these glories, and here's the rhythm section, Gloria. The four-piece rhythm section has this seesaw-like effect to push the band.
It's sort of like the difference between, I guess, AC current and DC current.
You know, it's alternating. You push the back and forth, seesaw, you get it, and it's springiness, and it gives you that bounce.
And the way it's done, and this is Mr. Lucy's lesson, this music's in 4/4, 1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, 3-2-3-4, 4-2-3-4, it just gave you four bars for nothing.
One bar now, 1-2-3-4.
Well, the bass player puts a hit on 1 and 3, 1-3-1-3, and the guitar player puts a hit on 2-4-2-4.
And that's their thing.
The drummer is letting it all hang out, because everybody can hear the cat with the sticks, and they're hearing him, and he's driving them to swing harder.
But this is music, and you're not supposed to, in jazz, rush, or drag.
The bass player and the guitar player, combined, are trying to make sure the drummer doesn't rush.
And the piano player, he's making sure that the written music gets played right, and does it himself, of course.
Now, there are a lot of specifics.
The rhythm guitar plays 1-2-3-4, but 2-4 pronounced.
How do you want to season that?
That's a lot of what's going on in this key role, in these earlier rhythm sections, with their springy seesaw effect to propel you.
And, you know, Lawrence Lucy, he had a not exactly subtle sting on 2-4, a little less pronounced than most, but much more overt than the more even feel that Freddie Green, probably the only rhythm guitarist who's still really well known.
Of course, they're all since deceased, at least the ones I'm speaking about.
But Lawrence Lucy was first. He was great. And if Count Basie preferred Freddie Green, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington preferred Lawrence Lucy, and they both are up there in the stratosphere.
When you get into the Pantheon, who exactly is going to give the number of your place? You're there. Who else can be there? Let them sort it out. They're all together again.
Lawrence Lucy is a rhythm guitarist of the greatest stature, propelling rhythm, the most important ingredient of jazz, in a configuration where four people try to act as one, and it is the early illustration of the rhythm section.
It is this great feat that he is as great as anyone in ever doing, or at least participating with the other three who did it, as ever has been done, that makes him the giant that he will always be.
That he did it for giants, and that they wanted him. He's there because he's great.
Brought him a string of gigs that are his only gigs, that are on the highest level.
And allow me, probably for the last time in this memorial, to recite a litany of landmark events that he is not only there for, but a very vital participant who makes it sound as good as it does.
Lawrence Lucy played the Cotton Club uptown with Duke Ellington. No one on earth can any longer say that. It will never be said again.
Lawrence Lucy is involved in the pivotal events of the expansion and finalization of the orchestra for the swing era and beyond, with his work with Duke Ellington, his participation in the landmark Spike Hughes recordings, his breakthrough with Benny Carter,
and his final innings with Fletcher Henderson, the final innings of the Henderson experiment in '34.
That, in fact, is the blueprint for Benny Goodman's "Kingdom of Swing."
And when Benny was first starting, he wanted to have an integrated band. He eventually got one, and he hired Lawrence Lucy.
And there is another important element of the storyline, playing with Benny Goodman, playing in an integrated orchestra, 20 years before Brown vs. Board of Education, 13 years before Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers, 31 years before the civil rights legislation.
And indeed, 33 years before the poll tax was outlawed by the Constitution. There's Larry Lucy, African American with the Jewish American Caucasian, Benny Goodman. Teddy Wilson was there too. It was a great band.
No one would hire them in the States, and I had to look to Europe, but they were there.
And among the theirs that you could play with an integrated band in 1934, and Lawrence Lucy was there, was the Apollo Theater.
It's opening day, January 26, 1934. Lawrence Lucy played the first note.
The song was "I May Be Wrong," and "I Think You're Wonderful." And no one will ever be able to play it again. Say that again.
And then there's, of course, the swing song tradition, which I spent most of the evening hours playing for you and showing you why Billie Holiday is divine to the concept.
Lawrence Lucy helped her sound better and made it all groove. He was the last of the original swing song tradition musicians.
He played with Coleman Hawkins. He played at the Savoy Ballroom. He was the last man alive to record with Jelly Roll Morton.
And he played with Louis Armstrong for four years, during which their friendship grew while he was an employee to the employer Armstrong.
Their pals and their music were the real growing events.
And when it was time for Louis Armstrong to marry, he asked Lawrence Lucy to be his best man.
He was the best man, and that man is now gone. I attended his funeral this morning, and now I'm ending his memorial broadcast.
And it's an incredibly difficult event for me because Lawrence Lucy was my buddy and my teacher, and I spent 52 years learning the stuff I tried in part to you from him.
And I'm going to have to wing it from now on, but we still got the records.
I'd like to play you the New Orleans funeral, which, you know, Louis Armstrong is famous for this New Orleans function, but Jelly Roll Morton had it first, and when he did it, he did it with Lawrence Lucy.
The combination of "Flee is a Bird" and "Didn't He Ramble?" And then if I'm allowed to, I like to play "When It's Sleepy Time Down South," the instrumental version that Lucy is on with Louis Armstrong, to put him to that everlasting rest in peace.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if the women don't get you the whiskey must.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Oh, you're a good man.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
He rambled, he rambled, he rambled, but the butchers cut him down.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Lawrence Lucy was not only a good man, he was a great musician. He was born December 18th of 1907, and he died August 13th of 2009.
He lives forever. His immortality has been demonstrated by music and memories for two days on the Lawrence Lucy Memorial broadcast.
He is with Pops, the one and only Satchmo, in the 1941 classic of "When It's Sleepy Time Down South."
Goodnight, sweet rhythm guitars.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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01-05-2025 00:00 - 01-05-2025 23:59