A Century of Jazz: The Great and the Good

A few years ago I came across a list of the greatest jazz artists of all time which totally flabbergasted me. After the first five artists, it improves drastically, featuring – in amongst those pesky female singers – my top six in the next eight positions, but its top five - in order - were Art Tatum, Buddy Rich, Joe Pass, Django Reinhardt and Lionel Hampton. Another list I will refer to later has Tatum at 21, Django at 27, Hampton at 37 and, while Rich manages an honorary mention just outside the top hundred, alongside seventeen others, Pass isn’t included at all. Incidentally, my own list of the top hundred may only include Art Tatum from these five.   

At the end of the last century, Channel Four commissioned a national survey to find the Music of the Millennium which, apart from the classical category, became the music of C20th which, without the jazz category, became the music of the previous four decades. Mercifully jazz and classical music were ordained with their own categories so didn’t suffer the indignity of jockeying for position with multi-million selling pop stars and their haircuts. A friend of mine, following the official line, observed that Robbie Williams – popular at the time – had won everything, until I reminded him that (the) Beatles had won best group, best album (Sgt Pepper), second best singer (John Lennon), best and second best songwriter (John Lennon, Paul McCartney), best musician (John Lennon) and best (or was it second best) single Imagine (John Lennon). Just in case anybody still doesn’t think they’re seriously over-rated.  

 

The same friend also claimed that the jazz category was nonsense because Duke Ellington was nowhere. While I don’t remember the exact order (and I’m assured the accompanying magazine will be staying in the attic for the foreseeable), I know Louis Armstrong came in first, with Miles Davis second, followed by Ella and Billie, then Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. Thereafter it’s largely nonsense but take out the ladies and you have very probably the greatest five jazz artists of all time. Not just my opinion and not my own preferences; not quite.

 

The list I mentioned earlier I came across more recently and it eerily mirrors my own view of the greatest jazz artists of all time. The top four are Satchmo, Duke, Miles and Bird, though the order really doesn’t matter. Satchmo came first chronologically but Miles was the most recent and Miles – presumably narked with Satchmo for all that grinning for Whitey – referred to Duke as the King of Jazz. The BSH Editor in Chief would likely argue for Bird, and I wouldn’t recommend you argue with him on points of jazz; not if I were you. The young’uns are by now likely banging their instruments claiming Trane was the greatest of them all and he undoubtedly comes next, followed by Dizzy Gillespie, too often omitted from the very top tier under the shadow of Bird. Once again the ladies become entangled but amongst them we get Thelonious Monk, followed by Charles Mingus, then Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins. Totally uncanny; almost scarily so.

 

Not my opinion; that would be Miles, Trane, Mingus with many others mingling in and dozens ahead of Monk; but I can’t deny his greatness.

 

Of course art is not an exact science and, indeed, science is not an exact science either. Admirers of vocal jazz could justly insist on the reinstatement of the ladies. People who’re big on swing more than I would rightly expect Count Basie to be there or thereabouts (and indeed he falls between Mingus and Lester Young on the list under discussion). Fans of gypsy jazz would want Django and Stephane Grappelli to be placed pretty high and free jazzers might reasonably expect Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. Fusion people would no doubt want John McLaughlin and Joe Zawinul while guitarists would probably argue for Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery.  

 

However, one could not simply claim that random artists are the greatest because that’s their opinion, because they are their favourites.

 

A few years ago somebody told me he likes blues and listed his favourites. He had the full set: Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Rory Gallagher, Johnny Winter, Gary Moore, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Bonamassa and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. I’d hoped for BB, maybe Albert or Freddie; perhaps Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker; maybe even Charley Patton or Leadbelly. I’d have taken one of the Roberts: Johnson or Cray, but he didn’t even have the usual get out of racism free card Hendrix, and subsequently told me he doesn’t judge music by the colour of the skin of the artist who made it.

 

If I tried to say that Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Florence Price and George Bridgetower were the greatest classical composers ever, this would rightly be considered ridiculous, but all the great Back American music forms have suffered an inflation of significance and importance from white influences across mainstream media in recent decades.

 

Clearly this is a problem of language and media representation rather than individual racism and what this chap really likes is blues based rock, which is all rock, and virtually everything else too. After gospel, blues is the ‘blackest’ of all Black American music, even ahead of soul and hip-hop, and certainly ahead of disco, jazz and rock and roll, all of which it could be argued have produced many good and great white artists thank you very much. Jazz certainly has.

 

Returning to the list, the first white artist included is Benny Goodman at 18 (who wouldn’t make my list) followed by Bill Evans at 20 (who would) with a further twenty five white artists spread liberally throughout the rest of the 100. Some readers may not be surprised that  John McLaughlin would top my list of the greatest ever white jazz artists, that would also include Gil Evans. Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Dave Holland, Miroslav Vitous, Bob James, Jaco Pastorius and many others.   

 

However, if anybody tries to tell you the greatest jazz artists were Bix Beiderbecke, Django, Chet Baker and Dave Brubeck you may want to give him or her a wide berth, or sit them in a classroom with Dr Shola Mos-Shogbaminu, so she can ‘educate’ them – in her inimitable way - how all white people (and most ‘people of colour’ apart from her) are racist. Alternatively, you could give them a book about the rich and varied history of jazz, with a bunch of CDs going right back to Bird, Duke and Louis alongside many others, some white but most black, some British and some from other countries, but most American.

 

None of this is very PC in the new twenties, where we’re all supposed to be colour blind, but Bishop Tutu believed in the Rainbow – that we should celebrate difference - and Black America deserves the bulk of the credit for America’s greatest artform; and PC is never helpful.  Steve T