GIANT STEPS
EPISODE 6

From Studio C Chicago, it's “Giant Steps,” exploring the brilliant corners of 1950s jazz, Broadway, popular song, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country, folk, film music, doo-wop, mambo, and more. I'm Andy Miles, and this is Lionel Hampton.

Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra “Kingfish” (1951)

Bobby Parker “Blues Get Off My Shoulder” (1957)

Gene Krupa, Anita O’Day & Roy Eldridge “Let Me Off Uptown” (1956)

Jeri Southern “Lazy Bones” (1958)

The singer is Jeri Southern; the song, “Lazy Bones,” composed by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer. Southern’s solo recording career was confined entirely to the ’50s; that song was included on her 1958 release “Southern Breeze.”

Before that it was Gene Krupa, Anita O’Day, and Roy Eldridge teaming up for a ’50s remake of “Let Me Off Uptown,” a song they had first recorded together in 1941 for Krupa’s band. Fifteen years later Krupa brought the singer and the trumpeter back for a Verve Records album called “Drummer Man,” with eight of the album’s 12 songs, including the song we heard, arranged by Quincy Jones, then in his early 20s.

We also heard Bobby Parker’s “Blues Get Off My Shoulder,” the blues guitarist’s first single, released in 1958.

And Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra at the top of the show, “Kingfish” from 1951. That one was also arranged by Quincy Jones, who in 1951 was just 18 years old. He had dropped out of Boston’s Berklee College of Music in order to tour with Hampton. At that early stage in Jones’s career, you can hear a strong influence of Gil Evans and the arranging work he had done a couple years earlier for the Miles Davis sessions that letter became known as “The Birth of the Cool.”

From Studio C Chicago, this is “Giant Steps.” I’m Andy Miles. Thanks for joining me. Lots of good stuff on the way, including Miles Davis, music from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” Frank Sinatra, and this from Milt Buckner.

Milt Buckner “Turquoise” (1957)

Carmen McRae “Skylark” (1958)

Miles Davis “Nuit Sur Les Champs-Élysées” (1958)

Bernard Herrmann “Carlotta’s Portrait” (1958)

That’s music from Bernard Herrmann’s great score to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” “Carlotta’s Portrait.” Mercury Records put the soundtrack out in 1958.

We also heard film music from Miles Davis, released that same year for the French film “Elevator to the Gallows,” directed by Louis Malle. Davis improvised the soundtrack in a Paris recording studio with three French jazz musicians and the American drummer Kenny Clarke. Its first release in the United States was as side one of the 1959 Davis album “Jazz Track.”

Carmen McRae was in that set doing “Skylark,” the second Hoagy Carmichael-Johnny Mercer song we’ve heard in this show. “Skylark” was first popularized during the war and dusted off by McRae as the opening track of her 1958 “Birds of a Feather” album, a collection of 12 songs paying tribute to birds, which also included Carmichael’s “Baltimore Oriole” and Mercer’s “Mister Meadowlark.”

And Milt Buckner’s “Turquoise” got that set started, some late ’50s lounge from the pianist-organist, who helped popularize the Hammond organ earlier in the decade. Buckner recorded in four decades, right up to his 1977 death, right here in Chicago.

And you’re listening to “Giant Steps” from Studio C Chicago. I’m Andy Miles. Next up: Frank Sinatra from his classic Capital Records album “A Swingin’ Affair.” This is “Oh, Look At Me Now.”

Frank Sinatra “Oh, Look At Me Now” (1957)

Thurston Harris “Little Bitty Pretty One” (1957)

Buddy Guy “This Is The End” (1959)

Chris Connor “Everything I Love” (1957)

That’s a Cole Porter song done by Chris Connor, “Everything I Love,” recorded in 1955. It was included on her 1957 album “Chris,” released on Bethlehem Records after she had jumped ship and started recording for Atlantic Records. Connor claimed firsts at each of the labels: She was the first vocalist signed to Bethlehem, where she also put out the label’s first album; at Atlantic, her debut album, simply called “Chris Connor,” was the label’s first-ever jazz vocal LP. Bethlehem Records also launched the recording careers of Julie London, Nina Simone, and, believe it or not, Marilyn Monroe.

We heard Buddy Guy at the beginning of his recording career, “This Is The End” from 1959, the B-side to his second single, a song written by Ike Turner. It was Guy’s second and last single for the Artistic label, which was a subsidiary of Chicago-based Cobra Records, which went out of business that same year of 1959. Things turned out just fine for Guy, though; he signed with Chicago’s Chess Records, where he stayed until 1969, when the label was sold.

Before that, “Little Bitty Pretty One,” a 1957 hit single by Thurston Harris and The Sharps, his backup singers. It went to number two on the R&B chart and later gave The Jackson 5 a top 15 hit in 1972. The song’s composer, Bobby Day, also wrote “Rockin’ Robin,” which was a 1972 hit for 13-year-old Michael Jackson.

And Frank Sinatra at the top of the set, “Oh, Look At Me Now,” a song he first popularized in 1941 with The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and singing group The Pied Pipers. The version we heard came out in 1957 on the Capitol Records release “A Swingin’ Affair.”

From Studio C Chicago, this is "Giant Steps," a show devoted to a great decade in American music: the 1950s. One last full set of music on the show; it starts with The Del-Vikings.

The Del-Vikings “Come Go With Me” (1957)

Shelly Manne & His Friends “Just In Time” (1959)

Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong “Now You Has Jazz” (1956)

Al Smith’s Combo “Fooling Around Slowly” (1953)

That lusty little number is called “Fooling Around Slowly.” It was recorded by Al Smith’s Combo in 1953.

Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong before that, “Now You Has Jazz” from the soundtrack to “High Society,” the Technicolor musical remake of “The Philadelphia Story,” which also starred Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, and Celeste Holm. Cole Porter provided the songs for a cool quarter million dollars, plus the royalties that accrued on several popular songs that came from the film — “True Love,” “You’re Sensational,” and “I Love You, Samantha” among them — which were all included on the film’s best-selling soundtrack album, also released in 1956.

We heard Shelly Manne & His Friends, with pianist André Previn and bassist Red Mitchell, “Just In Time” from their 1959 album “Modern Jazz Performances of Songs from Bells Are Ringing.”

And The Del-Vikings with their big hit “Come Go With Me.” The song went to number two on Billboard’s pop chart in 1957.

And you’ve been listening to “Giant Steps” from Studio C Chicago. I’m Andy Miles. Thanks for listening. This last song spent nine week at number one in the spring of 1951. It’s Les Paul and Mary Ford, “How High The Moon.”

Les Paul and Mary Ford “How High The Moon”

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