Jazz was the Pop Music of the 1940s and 1950s.

Well maybe not the "pop" music like "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window" (Patti Page hit of the 1950s), no, but it was as widespread as rock is today in the those years.

The bulk of the nightclubs in the LA area, south LA area, even the beach towns and Hollywood areas, were jazz clubs. Then one by one starting about 1959-60, the rock music style took over these nightclubs. Jazz was dying in the LA area.

I know the history of our music business is not well-known out there in the present world of today. The irony is it was mainly jazz musicians who finally did studio work recording rock etc. to make a good living, and they invented instant-arrangements and catching licks for the 1960s hits (see below).

The Producers of recordings in LA 1957-on who really got the business of recordings going for the 1960s were either jazz musicians (Bumps Blackwell, manager of Little Richard, producer of Sam Cooke etc....was a fine jazz vibist, Dave Cavenaugh producer at Capitol was a jazz sax-man, even others like Neely Plumb, most were jazz musicians/or jazz arrangers/producers who started the big sweep of the 1960s hits. Dave Axelrod prides himself as hanging out early-on at the big jazz clubs and producing jazz artists such as Cannonball Adderly (I played guitar on some of that early on, bass later with Cannonball) etc. And even Herb Alpert loved jazz but couldn't play it, yet he admired and used jazz musicians on his Tijuana Brass albums. Ditto with most of the soul groups and their recordings.

You had quality right from the first until the younger surf-rockers who we all influenced by the way with our creative licks etc...which they ALL relied on, for "their arrnagements-productions" and taking the credit for our creativeness too....these young producers started taking over the dates. But even then, the finer producers (called "A & R men" then) were doing great record dates in pop and rock hits and soul hits like Lee Young, former drummer of Nat King Cole, jazzman, brother of Lester Young.

Fine jazz was everywhere in the 1940s and 1950s. My teacher, who taught the finest jazz and studio guitarists here on the west coast like the great legendary jazz guitarist, Howard Roberts, got me into Charlie Christian, Artie Shaw (who yes was a fine jazz clarinetist who used to jam all the time with Lester Young, we've talked on the phone about it all) and in the then-current jazz artists who were on-tour with Ella Fitzgerald - Sonny Stitt, Sonny Kriss etc.

Barney Kessel was "the" jazz guitarist for a long time (west coast) as was Johnny Smith and Mundell Lowe on the east coast, fine jazz guitarists, and Mundell is who you see with the 1950s Miles Davis group on-film.

After many professional years of playing guitar, mostly in jazz groups and big bands, or popular combos, I wound up playing guitar, soloing, comping etc. in the late 1950s with the finest in bebop jazz around LA: Joe Maini, Red Mitchell, Billy Higgins, Jack Sheldon, Don Randi, Frank Butler, Teddy Edwards, Harold Land, and 1-2x with Hampton Hawes who I later enjoyed playing bass with in the 1970s, jazz concerts, seminars, gigs etc.

By earnings standards, Jazz paid actually a little bit more back than the same rate of pay vs. costs of living today, but it still wasn't enough to raise your kids on, which is why I went into studio work (like a lot of our group did then) to make a good living for my family without going on the road. I had enough of the road in the mid 1950s, it's too tough, doesn't pay that much and you're away from your kids when you're on the road.

Coltrane etc. bores me with that exercise-stuff he plays altho' I have great respect for his career, it's emotional yes, interesting? No. Once you've played real jazz you know the modal-thing is a flash in the pan, really a small part of the back-cycles, stacked triad playing etc.....just a small part of the chordal scales and really just exercises.....I admired and respected Mingus, he got his start out here in LA, but he's one like a few others who quickly got into the outside stuff that sounds at times like exercises and nonsense imo. Fine for musicians, but not good to learn from imo.

Hampton Hawes spoke fondly of Red Mitchell, LeRoy Vinnegar (I worked with both of those great bass players in jazz in the 1950s especially with Red a lot), and there's a lot more bass players you don't hear of who were simply great back then playing live jazz: Curtis Counce for one, Buddy Clark, Cliff Hils, Bobbie West, Ralph Pena, Morty Corb, Monty Budwig (his widow is Arlette McCoy, the *only* jazz pianist-teacher I recommend here in LA), Mel Pollan, Joe Comfort, another Nat King Cole alumnis. Joe Pass came out of this era, got waylaid by drugs but finally cleaned up in the mid 1960s.

You have to listen to the real jazz artists, the ones who innovated it from substitute chords early on to really understand where jazz improv came from: Sonny Stitt, Hampton Hawes (from the Bud Powell school, but imo Hampton was *much better* than Powell altho' Powell had chops, he wasn't consistent because of the drugs I guess), Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver, Charlie Parker - Bird, musicians everyone listened to in those years of the 1950s - Miles was also listened to, not especially for his chops but for his *taste* when he was really playing (1950s)...before he changed to more-commercial stuff 1960s on and eventually did his "fusion" years later which was really just shownmanship imo, not real jazz.

I'm west coast so will naturally mention all the players of the west coast first, especially the hot jazz musicians (not "cool jazz"), but there's tons of east coasters of the 1950s to listen to, Art Blakey groups, Red Garland, sooo many on the east coast who were great in the 1950s too, you don't hear of either.

George Shearing was not even on Ken Burns jazz series and he was the most-happening jazz combo back in the 1950s....but yes some of his recordings were soo great, they were almost hits here and there....he was Oscar Peterson before Oscar Peterson tho' not with the great chops that Oscar had.

Shearing asked me to join his fine jazz group (guitar) in 1962 but I had to turn him down as I was escounced doing a lot of studio work on guitar. He had been coming into the Blue Angel West, a jazz club I was working in with the fine Page Cavenaugh 9-piece jazz group, a place that was packed with movie stars, politicians, etc. all the time. I had to turn him down darn it, but I just couldn't leave my kids and studio work.....George used some great jazz musicians in his group - Joe Pass after that, and others like Emil Richards who later became the #1 percussionist in the studios. Shearing has had a long career as a well-loved and admired/respected jazz pianist.

There's more of Sonny Stitt later on in years (he was consistent, he didn't have the drug problems but did drink some from what I hear), as well as Oscar Peterson, tons of great players who did play the fine jazz yes....from 1960s on, but the 1950s is more important for the purity of the great concepts of the interesting chordal playing/development of the substitute chords as they weren't confused then with the later freedom jazz (no chordal structure, just play "anything", and later fusion stuff (with the rock bottom, some jazz licks on top, really non-communicative like real jazz)....and students can hear more of what is going on, rather than be "excited over the chops-exercise issues." Soul Jazz came in pretty well in the 1960s and is more jazz than fusion, and some of the funky stuff that Herbie Hancock later played in the 1970s is OK, but still not the communicative real jazz no.

The names you mention (Coltrane, Miles, Wayne Shorter, Charles Mingus) are sometimes the buzz-words of jazz today - yes, but this history is not "the real history at all" - it is a much-later freedom jazz development, a fusion of sorts, and is only a small part of what is considered real "jazz"... and touted for the re-issue sales.

That was all called "freedom jazz", not the group of the recognized real jazz artists you should learn from who were the leaders in innovation, who the jazz musicians really listened to. These are the ones you hear of today, talked about and advertised for the sales values of re-issues - it's a shame it's like that - jazz names promoted for "sales" by record companies. They miss totally the really great musicians who you should listen to like Hampton Hawes who, imo, is the FINEST ever on piano early-on, the ONLY pianist they all would play with when they come out here to the west coast....

What got me going? A good teacher who was into Goodman style jazz (this was in 1949 pre-bebop days) and a good quick education. Long Beach in those days was a good jazz town, and so at 14 I quickly got gigs after 3-4 months of lessons on guitar. When you're poor, it's heaven to be able to earn real money playing music you like, and being able to buy food for the table. That's a powerful experience.

Just like my group of fellow-musicians I grew up the hard way, and know what it's like to go without food.....when you're able to play fine jazz and feed yourself and your parent, you get hooked very easily. It's interesting music to listen to and play also when you've got developed ears from playing chordal notes, chordal patterns and working with chordal progressions too...the best to play imo.

When I first played that cheapie steel guitar (2-3 lessons just before I met my teacher), I liked country music for just a small time until my teacher Horace Hatchett taught me about the Goodman Sextet stuff in 1949. I quickly got hooked and loved that music. Sometimes I'd take the PE car from Wilmington to downtown LA to sit in the front row to catch the great orchestras of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, etc....you gravitate towards fine music fast when your ears are opened up. I've been teaching and playing jazz professionally (except for the studio years) ever since 1949.

PS. The rock hits of the 1960s were all recorded mostly by former jazz musicians and/or big-band musicians. There were very very few actual rock musicians on those recordings. The bulk of the 350-400 studio musicians who cut ALL those recordings were mainly from the jazz and big-band world. Jazz being the more-complex music we never ever had to play up to our abilities in the studios....