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Platter Chatter• irog miller►Well, it happened. Jazz at the Philharmonic has touchedBloomihgton. However, the effects of this “touch” is very debatable.The first show saw a very sad turn-out. Not over twenty-five or thirty rows were filled. The last episode was greeted by a fullhouse and was enthusiastically*received (?). The personnel was as previously announced with theexception of J. C. Heard, who did the drumming with the outfit.f .They led off with an old favorite entitled Perdida. The great “Flip” took the first chorus and showed very little interest as far as pleasing his audience was concerned. McGhee then took over.and cut loose with some fine ideas and brilliant upper register work.Harris gave it a fling on the next one but didn’t seem to have his heart in it..Next came the old favoriteFling Home. A unison riff started the ball and Harris brought out his best of the evening. Then our boy McGhee really brought thehouse down with a show of un-believable range and technique.* *You’d / never begin to take my word as to how fine it was un-i- * less you heard him yourself. Afterthis came one of the biggestgripes of the evening as far as Iam concerned. Flip played someof the most marvelous stuff thatI know has ever been heard»iaround here, but the crowd didn’tlike it because it wasn’t loud. Directly he growled on a single high note and the majority of the audience went wild. What I wantito know is who started the idea that jazz has to be loud and dirty to be fine. In his single note “crowd-pleaser” rides there were no great ideas and chances for originality. Why don’t some of the so called cats try to enj oy creativity and soft jazz instead of just wanting to see how loudsand dirty a man can play?.After intermission ColemanHawkins came out and treated us with some tasty tenor. He didn’treally get going until his “Cock-.tails For Two,” and then that1 rbreathy tone of the Hawks reallygave atmosphere to the auditorium. What knocked me out was Hank Jones catching the Hawks’ licks on the piano. “Stuffy” wasgreat and would have been even\ •greater if it hadn’t have been for some people who persisted on clapping all through the num-ber. Especially liked the “Blue-tail Fly” lick the Hawk put in.One of the finest of the eve-ning was Helen Humes. Just how fine and expressive can one woman sing? Whoops, my spade is up for this week, but don’t worry, I’ll be back with more praise and dirt next Wednesday.
Newspaper Details
The Argus
Bloomington, Illinois, US
Wed, Nov 12, 1947
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
NL 27 Oct 2022
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