Esquire Jazz Award

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The Esquire Jazz Award (also Esquire Jazz Poll ) was an American jazz prize that was awarded in 1944, 1945 and 1946 by Esquire magazine as a critics jazz poll .

background

As early as 1934 it was Esquire that published the first article on jazz music in a popular magazine . The idea for a jazz prize from Esquire came from the two jazz critics Robert Goffin and Leonard Feather , who wanted to promote young jazz talents with the prize; they were able to convince Arnold Gingrich, the editor of Esquire, to sponsor a critics poll. With their own conception of the poll, they consciously tried to create an alternative to the down beat or metronome competitions :

“We didn't want to run our polls like the Down Beat or Metronome polls, with Charlie Barnet or Tex Beneke usually winning in [the category] Hot Tenor , followed by Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster , and Ziggy Elman in Hot Trumpet won and Alvino Rey on guitar; Helen O'Connell or Dinah Shore would have become the number one singers, while Billie Holiday would have gone without an award. The only way to avoid this was to put together a group of experts rather than relying on the readership, ”said Feather.

Among the critics who participated in the poll in addition to the initiators Goffin and Feather, there were also several African-Americans such as the Esquire cartoonist E. Simms Campbell, the author and musician Dan Burley and the singer and author Inez Cavanaugh , as well as the producers George Avakian and John Hammond , the critics and writers Abel Green from Variety , Elliott Grennard from Billboard , Roger Kay, Harry Lim, Paul Eduard Miller, Bucklin Moon, Charles Edward Smith , Frank Stacy (Down Beat), Bob Thiele , Barry Ulanov and Timme Rosenkrantz .

View from the stage of the “old” Metropolitan Opera in 1937

David Smart, the publisher of Esquire magazine, suggested that we hold a concert with the poll winners. This (as well as the sale of Esquire's Jazz Book ) was the same as a fundraiser for the Navy League planned in war bonds were sold for the seats; it was also the first jazz concert to be held at New York's Metropolitan Opera House . After the votes had been evaluated, Leonard Feather organized a recording of the concert. The winners finally appeared on January 18, 1944 as the Esquire All American All Stars (as the winners of the Gold and Silver Awards ); these included Billie Holiday , Roy Eldridge , Jack Teagarden , Barney Bigard , Coleman Hawkins , Art Tatum , Al Casey , Oscar Pettiford and Sidney Catlett . One of the titles that were played on the night of the standard " Tea for Two ", was released by V-Disc .

While African-American magazines such as The Negro Press celebrated the jury's election (e.g. Louis Armstrong and Cootie Williams , who did not take part in the concert), conservative jazz critics (e.g. the author of the Jazz Record ) accused the jurors of reverse discrimination , as in contrast to earlier competitions this time only a small proportion of white musicians (Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw , Jack Teagarden, Dave Tough) were among the winners. Another dispute was led by the critics about the weighting of traditional jazz in the award ceremony. In the following two years u. a. Ella Fitzgerald , Herbie Fields , Woody Herman , Teddy Wilson , Red Norvo , Gene Krupa and Dave Tough were among the winners. There were also Esquire All-Stars formations in the two following years, the one from 1946 appearing on a radio program presented by Orson Welles at the beginning of the year .

Discographic notes

  • Contingent from the Esquire All American Jazz Band (Phoenix). Recordings from 1944, with Roy Eldridge, Jack Teagarden, Barney Bigard, Coleman Hawkins, Frank Froeba , Terry Snyder , Dick Kissinger, Mac Ceppos
  • Esquire All Stars: Esquire Third Annual Jazz Concert - Duke Ellington and Woody Herman Orchestras and the King Cole Trio (Session Disk, recorded January 16, 1946)
  • Esquire's All American Hot Jazz with 22 Esquire Poll Winners ( RCA Victor , 1967)

Individual evidence

  1. The All American Esquire Jazz Band ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2017 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / classic.esquire.com
  2. ^ Esquire: The Magazine for Men , Volume 124, 1995
  3. a b c Information on the Esquire All Stars at leonardfeather.com ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2016 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.leonardfeather.com
  4. Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to now, edited by Robert Gottlieb, 2015.
  5. ^ A b Guthrie P. Ramsey: Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop . 2003, p. 122.
  6. ^ Timme Rosenkrantz: Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron's Memoir, 1934-1969 . 2012, p. 31
  7. ^ Lewis A. Erenberg: Swingin 'the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture . 1999, p. 212
  8. ^ Tom Lord: Jazz discography (online) .
  9. ^ Billboard January 5, 1946