The Pop Story

June Christy - Something Cool (1954)

This is what is technically known, I believe, as ‘Parky music’. It’s notable that June Christy sang with Stan Kenton’s band, which meant she hung around with Art Pepper and his aforementioned hard-drinkin’, showgirl-bangin’, heroin-sniffin’ crew.

It’s intriguing, the crazy-life-on-the-road back story behind seemingly saccharine ’50s jazz singers like this. It’s probably what contributes to the fact that Christy - ‘cool jazz’-bland though her sound may be - is ultimately a more emotional singer than the gutsy-on-the-surface, clean-living-dull-on-the-inside contemporary likes of Beyonce. This ‘jazz’ side of things has been almost completely excised from the make-up of modern singers, to be replaced with ersatz notions of ‘soul’ or ‘blues’.

Not sure if that’s a bad thing in the end (Christy’s material is so distant from my conception of pop it’s almost like listening to medieval madrigals), but it certainly makes obvious the distinction between what Christy’s doing (singing) compared to what our ‘soulful’, ‘bluesy’ pop divas are doing (bellowing).

Something Cool on Spotify

Stan Kenton - New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm (1952)

Fantastically groovy title aside, Stan Kenton’s New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm (certainly beats ‘Razorlight’) seems to be fairly standard big band jazz. This album is of note, however, because Kenton’s band featured Art Pepper, who wrote one of the great ‘my crazy drug-fuelled life in music’ autobiographies, Straight Life. Here’s Pepper on life on the road with the Kenton Krew:

“Bart was a sex freak, and he had an enormous joint, one of the biggest I’ve ever seen. Occasionally on the road he’d invite some of the guys down to his room, where he’d have some real tall showgirl-hustler. He’d haul out his joint and slam it on the table top, and then he’d have the chick do a backbend or something and give her head while we smoked pot and drank and watched.”

Oh you crazy jazz guys.

New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm on Spotify