Jesse Stone

The title of this article is ambiguous. See Jesse Stone (disambiguation) for additional meanings .

Jesse Albert Stone (pseudonym: Charles E. Calhoun ; born November 16, 1901 in Atchison , Kansas ; † April 1, 1999 in Altamonte Springs , Florida ), initially head of a Territory Band and involved in the development of Kansas City Jazz , was later one of the key figures of rhythm & blues and early rock & roll who, as a band leader, composer and arranger, has made a significant contribution to the development of these musical genres.

Beginnings and Kansas City Swing

Jesse Stone - Starvation Blues

Stone comes from a musical family; the mother sang and the father produced minstrel shows that also included playing the drum. As a child, he first toured his uncle 's minstrel show, Brown's Tennessee Minstrels . When he started school he moved to Kansas City , where he lived with his grandmother. He had organized his first band while he was in high school. As early as 1922, Stone put together a band that he initially named Sepia Serenaders . A member of this was saxophonist Coleman Hawkins , who was lured away by Mamie Smith to their Jazz Hounds in the same year . Band members in those years were next to Stone (piano, bandleader and arranger) Albert Hinton and Slick Jackson (trumpet), Druie Bess (trombone), Glenn Hughes (alto saxophone), Jack Washington (alto and baritone saxophone), Elmer Burch (tenor saxophone), Silas Cluke (banjo), Pete Hassel (tuba) and Max Wilkinson (drums). With this brass section, Stone owned one of the best bands in the whole southwest. On April 27, 1927, with this band, now called Blues Serenaders , he recorded the original compositions Starvation Blues / Boot to Boot (with a 32-bar riff) for Okeh Records , which appeared as Okeh # 8471 in June 1927. At that time, his band was one of the few jazz bands from the southwest of the USA, such as Bennie Moten . In 1929 he briefly led a band with Terrence Holder called Eleven Clouds of Joy , which went on tour from May 1929.

Alvino Rey - Idaho

In 1929 he joined the George E. Lee & His Novelty Singing Orchestra of Julia and George E. Lee, who recorded four tracks with him on November 6, 1929 at Brunswick Records, including Paseo Strut and Ruff Scufflin, composed by Stone ' . Together with other musician colleagues Stone left the band in February 1932. Stone was then co-leader of the Thamon Hayes band, which took part in May 1932 after exhausting rehearsals in the Battle of Bands in Kansas City and defeated the Benny Moten band; he left the band in 1934. It wasn't until 1935 that he was band leader again for the likes of Budd Johnson and trumpeter Jabbo Smith . With the help of Duke Ellington , Stone managed to appear in the famous New York Cotton Club in 1936 . Stone then got a job as an arranger at the Apollo Club .

On February 26, 1937 he took on the title Snaky Feeling / Wind Storm for Variety . His first major composition was Idaho in 1941 , the original of which was recorded by Alvino Rey on September 19, 1941, came onto the market in June 1942 and was able to reach third place in the pop hit parade . Cover versions of Guy Lombardo's version and Benny Goodman were also very successful. On September 24, 1945 Goodman played the Stone composition Symphony (with Lisa Morrow).

Atlantic Records

That same year, Jesse Stone saw his friend Herb Abramson prepare to start a new record company. With financial support from Ahmet Ertegün , the label Atlantic Records was finally created , to which Stone was a creative part from the start. In search of danceable music, Stone developed a bass structure that was to form the origin of the later Rock & Roll. The first song with this format was Cole Slaw by alto saxophone player Frank Culley, recorded on January 17, 1949. The mixture between swing and rhythm & blues came on the market in March 1949 and made it to eleventh place on the R&B charts. The song was originally composed by Stone under the title Sorghum Switch in 1942 for Jimmy Dorsey and recorded by him on February 6, 1942, but only reached number 21 on the pop charts. Louis Jordan picked up the title on April 12, 1949, and after it was published in May 1949, it reached number seven on the R&B charts.

During his time at Atlantic Records, Jesse Stone made frequent appearances as arranger and played piano in a variety of recording sessions. Mention should be made of the recording sessions with the Clovers (on February 22, 1952: Don't You Know I Love You / Skylark ), Ray Charles (from September 11, 1952: The Sun's Gonna Shine Again , Roll With The Baby , The Midnight Hour , Jumpin 'In The Mornin' ; on May 17, 1953: Losing Hand , It Should Have Been Me , February 4, 1954: Honey Love , November 18, 1954: I've Got A Woman ), with the Drifters (including 9 August 1953: Watcha Gonna Do , Money Honey , November 12, 1953: Bip Bam ), Big Joe Turner (February 15, 1954: Shake, Rattle and Roll and Well All Right ); the Jesse Stone Band recorded Oh That'll Be Joyful / Runaway (Atlantic # 1028) on March 21, 1954 , and his orchestra accompanied LaVern Baker on four tracks (including I Can't Hold Out Any Longer ) on March 25, 1954 .

On January 28, 1955, Stone's orchestra again accompanied Joe Turner on Flip, Flop And Fly ; Ruth Brown on March 1, 1955 for As Long As I'm Moving , Jesse Stone & His Houserockers (as Chuck Calhoun & His Atlantic All Stars ) on June 24, 1955 Hey Tiger / Barrelhouse (# 1120) and Night Life / The Rocket (Atco # 6051), on October 2, 1957, his band again accompanied Joe Turner at Teenage Letter / Wee Baby Blues with composer Mike Stoller on piano. The Clovers took over his Down in The Alley (recorded on December 15, 1953 but not published at the time; the version of July 26, 1957 was released in August 1957) and Your Cash Ain't Nothing But Trash (recorded on April 16, 1954). He practiced with the Clovers and Cardinals before they were allowed to use the microphone.

Drifters - Money Honey

Much more significant, however, were some of his compositions, the clear blues patterns of which later served as a template for Rock & Roll. Since Stone was a member of the music collecting society ASCAP , the label owner Ertegün recommended that he use a pseudonym for his Atlantic compositions; Stone chose Charles E. Calhoun or Chuck Calhoun . In this way he could also become a member of BMI , where the Atlantic compositions were registered, and in this way could cover up his simultaneous membership in the competing ASCAP. He used these pseudonyms in his compositions Losing Hand and It Should Have Been Me (Ray Charles), Money Honey and Bip Bam (Drifters), Shake, Rattle And Roll and Well All Right (Joe Turner), I Can't Hold Out Any Longer (LaVern Baker), As Long As I'm Moving (Ruth Brown) or Don't You Know I Love You (Clovers).

The first million seller for him at Atlantic as a composer was the situation blues Money Honey , the Drifters' debut single, which topped the R&B charts for eleven weeks after its release in September 1953 and sold two million times. Here he humorously used the topic of tight money, which is often occupied by the blues and rock & roll.

Joe Turner - Shake, Rattle And Roll

One of the pioneers of early rock & roll was Stone's 12-bar blues composition Shake, Rattle And Roll , which was recorded on February 15, 1954 and in the original version by Joe Turner was in the R&B charts for three weeks. Stone had heard the phrase during a craps game and composed a lascivious song from it. Bill Haley & His Comets took up the prototype of a blues song on June 7, 1954, eliminated risky text passages and brought it to the market on July 10, 1954. The pop charts ranked him at number seven, in record stores he became the band's first million seller even before Rock Around the Clock . Numerous other cover versions followed, such as Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly . On June 25, 1955, Haley recorded an original Stone composition, Razzle Dazzle , which only reached number 15 on the pop charts.

Stone wrote a few less important titles in 1955, such as The Kissing Song (March 1955), (I Don't Know) Why The Car Won't Go (June 1955), The Rocket (July 1955) and Lipstick, Powder And Paint (July 1956). As Charlie Calhoun, he released the standard Smack Dab in The Middle in May 1955 , released by Ray Charles in June 1964 on the LP Have A Smile With Me .

Jesse Stone concentrated on songs that were danceable and acceptable to white buyers, with commercial R&B arrangements that systematically smoothed out the usual harshness of black music. He brought the cookies as a backing choir to Ray Charles, where they became famous as Raelettes . As an arranger, he ensured the best interpretations of the selected songs. Ahmet: "Jesse Stone did more to develop the basic rock and roll sound than anyone else". Stone discovered the alto and tenor saxophone virtuoso King Curtis in 1954 , who was in great demand as a session musician at Atlantic Records alongside Sam 'The Man' Taylor and who subsequently released his own successful instrumental records from 1958 onwards. Between 1958 and 1959 Curtis recorded the most appearances for Atlantic Records. His last assignment was for Solomon Burke's debut single , Down in The Valley , recorded on April 4, 1962 .

Music publisher

Stone left Atlantic Records in 1956 , for which he occasionally continued to work. Together with Hal Fein and Charles Singleton, he founded the music publisher Roosevelt Music Company Inc. in 1956 , where the compositions by Otis Blackwell , Bob Feldman / Richard Gottehrer / Jerry Goldstein and Don Covay were particularly successful. The first, later successful writer was Winfield Scott, while Otis Blackwell and Lincoln Chase joined Roosevelt Music in September 1957 . Charles Singleton was himself a composer ( Do't Forbid Me January 1961, Take Out Some Insurance on Me, Baby from June 1964), Bert Kaempfert was available as a composer upon request from 1962. The main repertoire of the music publisher, which has settled in New York's famous Brill Building , included compositions from rhythm and blues in particular.

Elvis Presley does cover versions

Elvis Presley has recorded a variety of cover versions from the pen of Jesse Stone. During his first recording session for RCA on January 10, 1956, he recorded the original Money Honey from the Drifters , the slow blues Like a Baby was recorded for the first time by Vikki Nelson With The Sounds in February 1957, Elvis immortalized it on January 3, 1957. April 1960. Down in the Alley was originally from the Clovers (recorded on July 26, 1957), the Elvis cover from May 26, 1966.

retirement

Jesse Stone, now sixty, helped found Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records in 1961, after which he worked for Randy Records . In 1966 he married Evelyn McGee of the Sweethearts of Rhythm vocal group and sang with her as the Stone Duo in the New York area until they retired in 1985 in Winter Springs, Florida. Evelyn McGee Stone died there on May 27, 2011.

Statistics and awards

Stone was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010 . At BMI, 231 compositions are copyrighted under the pseudonym Charles E. Calhoun, four of which received a BMI award.

Web links

• Jesse Stone And His Blues Serenaders

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Ross Russell, Jazz Style in Kansas City And The Southwest , 1983, pp. 117 f.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Frank Driggs / Chuck Haddix, Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop , 2005, pp. 70-73.
3. ^ Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz: Its Roots And Musical Development , 1986, p. 281.
4. ↑ Jesse Stone, R&B Songwriter Dies After Long Illness , Jet No. 21, Vol. 95, April 26, 1999, p. 61.
5. ↑ Nick Tosche, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n Roll , 1991, p. 16
6. ↑ Billboard Magazine, July 18, 1942, p. 66
7. ^ Charlie Gillett, Making Tracks: The Story of Atlantic Records , 1988, p. 53
8. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 78
9. ↑ In doing so, for lack of knowledge, he overlooked the offensive passage “Like a one eyed cat peeping in a seafood store”: one eyed cat is the penis in slang , the seafood store is the vagina
10. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 83.
11. ^ Charlie Gillett, Making Tracks: The Story of Atlantic Records , 1988, p. 97.
12. ^ Charlie Gillett, Making Tracks: The Story of Atlantic Records , 1988, p. 51.
13. ↑ his characteristic “stuttering” saxophone can be heard by Yakety Yak and Charlie Brown of the Coasters ; he accompanied LaVern Baker, Joe Turner and Chuck Willis
14. ↑ Billboard Magazine, September 2, 1957, p. 12
15. ↑ BMI entry about Charles E. Calhoun ( memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.