The Masters At His Fingertips, Art Hodes Pays Tribute To Bessie Smith
Jazz pianist Art Hodes, born in Russia in 1904, grew up near Chicago. His recording career really took off in the 1940s in New York, where he also hosted a radio show and wrote for the magazine The Jazz Record. Later, he moved back to Chicago and the atmosphere that nurtured him.
Hodes' generation of jazz musicians, the ones born around 1900, held tight to the music that first inspired them. Louis Armstrong, listening to some of his early Chicago classics 25 years later, kept flashing back to even earlier New Orleans days. White Midwesterners like Eddie Condon and Hoagy Carmichael never stopped talking about the effect of hearing Bix Beiderbecke's rapturous cornet. These memories helped fuel whole careers.
For Art Hodes, one formative experience was seeing singer Bessie Smith headline a Chicago theater show. Writing about it for The Jazz Record decades later, he remembered the atmosphere before she came on: "Now comes the big hush. Just the piano goin'. It's the blues. Something tightens up in me."
We think of Bessie Smith as a roof-raising powerhouse who worked without a microphone. But Hodes was struck by the stillness when she performed.
"As she sings, she walks slowly around the stage," Hodes wrote. "On and on, number after number, the same hush, the great performance, the deafening applause."
A half century later, in 1976, Hodes waxed a set of blues and pop tunes Smith had recorded, including "Back Water Blues," "Cake Walking Babies From Home" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band." I Remember Bessie has just been reissued on Delmark Records with a few extra tracks, and it's a gem.
Most of the time, Hodes doesn't try to match Bessie Smith's shouting power; he evokes that reverential hush that got to him way back when. And he has her way of bringing out the blues even in non-blues material like "Baby Won't You Please Come Home."
Art Hodes relished playing the role of the old piano professor. By the 1970s, he was an anachronism, pulling off techniques lost to many younger pianists — like playing those ripples up and down the keyboard in the midst of everything else going on. The effect is like a passing wave while you're standing in water.
Listening to Hodes play Bessie Smith with so much feeling, you can hear that the power of the great masters was still accessible to him. But you also feel his sense of loss, a recognition that giants like Smith won't be coming back. That made it imperative for a conservator of old ways like Hodes to do some roof-raising of his own, while he still could. Art Hodes died in 1993, 17 years and a few dozen recordings later.
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Transcript
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead has a review of a new reissue of jazz pianists Art Hodes' tribute to Bessie Smith. Hodes was born in Russia in 1904, and grew up near Chicago. His recording career really took off in the 1940s in New York, where he also hosted a radio show and wrote for the magazine The Jazz Record. Hodes later moved back to Chicago in the atmosphere that nurtured him. Kevin says Hodes had a long memory.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WAY DOWN UPON THE SWAMI RIVER")
ART HODES: (Instrumental)
KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: The generation of jazz musicians, born around 1900, held tight to the music that first inspired them. Louis Armstrong, listening to some of his early Chicago classics 25 years later, kept flashing back to even earlier New Orleans days. White Midwesterners like Edie Condon and Hoagy Carmichael never stopped talking about the effect of hearing Bix Beiderbecke's rapturous cornet. These memories helped fuel whole careers.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ PIANO)
WHITEHEAD: For Art Hodes, one formative experience was seeing singer Bessie Smith headline a Chicago theater show. Writing about it decades later, he remembered the atmosphere before she came on: Now comes the big hush. Just the piano goin'. It's the blues. Something tightens up in me, is what he wrote.
We think of Bessie Smith as a roof-raising powerhouse who worked without a microphone. But Hodes was struck by the stillness when she performed.
As she sings, she walks slowly around the stage, on and on, number after number, the same hush, the great performance, the deafening applause.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BACKWATER BLUES")
WHITEHEAD: "Back Water Blues," which Bessie Smith recorded in 1927. A half century later, in 1976, Art Hodes waxed a set of blues and pop tunes Smith had recorded, "I Remember Bessie" has just been reissued on Delmark Records with a few extra tracks, and it's a gem.
Most of the time, Hodes doesn't try to match Bessie's shouting power; he evokes that reverential hush that got to him way back when. And he has her way of bringing out the blues even in non-blues material.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BABY WON'T YOU PLEASE COME HOME")
WHITEHEAD: Art Hodes relished playing the role of the old piano professor. By the 1970s, he was an anachronism, pulling off techniques lost to many younger pianists - like playing those ripples up and down the keyboard in the midst of everything else going on. The effect is like a passing wave while you're standing in water.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BABY WON'T YOU PLEASE COME HOME")
WHITEHEAD: Listening to Art Hodes play Bessie Smith with so much feeling, you can hear that the power of the great masters was still accessible to him. But you also feel his sense of loss, a recognition that giants like Smith won't be coming back. That made it imperative for a conservator of old ways like Hodes to do some roof-raising of his own, while he still could. Art Hodes died in 1993, 17 years and a few dozen recordings later.
GROSS: Kevin Whitehead writes for Point of Departure, Downbeat, and eMusic and is the author of "Why Jazz?" He reviewed the reissue, "I Remember Bessie," by Art Hodes on the Delmark label.
(SOUNDBITE OF CREDITS)
GROSS: I'm Terry Gross. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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