Pee Wee Russell
Pee Wee Russell | |
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Clarinetist, saxophonist, composer | |
Instrument(s) | Clarinet, saxophone |
Charles Ellsworth "Pee Wee" Russell (March 27, 1906 – February 15, 1969[1]) was an American jazz musician.[2] Early in his career he played clarinet and saxophones, but he eventually focused solely on clarinet.
With a highly individualistic and spontaneous clarinet style that "defied classification",
Early life
Pee Wee Russell was born in
His family moved to
Career
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Pee_Wee_Russell%2C_Muggsy_Spanier%2C_Miff_Mole%2C_and_Joe_Grauso%2C_Nick%27s_%28Tavern%29%2C_New_York%2C_N.Y.%2C_ca._June_1946_%28William_P._Gottlieb_06581%29.jpg/250px-Pee_Wee_Russell%2C_Muggsy_Spanier%2C_Miff_Mole%2C_and_Joe_Grauso%2C_Nick%27s_%28Tavern%29%2C_New_York%2C_N.Y.%2C_ca._June_1946_%28William_P._Gottlieb_06581%29.jpg)
From his earliest career, Russell's style was distinctive. The notes he played were somewhat unorthodox when compared to his contemporaries, and he was sometimes accused of playing out of tune. By the mid-1920s, Russell was a sought-after jazz clarinetist and worked with Jack Teagarden in pianist Peck Kelly's band in Texas.[1] Back in St. Louis, Russell played with Frankie Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke at the Arcadia Ballroom,[1] which had hired Trumbauer as bandleader for the season spanning September 1925 and May 1926. For a short while, Jack Teagarden also played at the Arcadia, and Russell claimed that this was the greatest band he had ever played in.[7] In 1926, he joined Jean Goldkette's band, and the following year he left for New York City to join Red Nichols. While with Nichols's band, Russell did frequent freelance recording studio work, on clarinet, soprano, alto and tenor sax, and bass clarinet. In 1932 he recorded with the Rhythmakers in New York City. He worked with various bandleaders (including Louis Prima) before beginning a series of residences at the jazz club "Nick's" in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, in 1937. He played with Bobby Hackett's big band, and began playing with Eddie Condon, with whom he would continue to work, off and on, for much of the rest of his life[1] – though he complained, "Those guys [at Nick's and Condon's] made a joke, of me, a clown, and I let myself be treated that way because I was afraid. I didn't know where else to go, where to take refuge".[8]
From the 1940s onwards, Russell's health was often poor, exacerbated by alcoholism[1] – "I lived on brandy milkshakes and scrambled-egg sandwiches. And on whiskey ... I had to drink half a pint of whiskey in the morning before I could get out of bed"[9] – which led to a major medical breakdown in 1951. He had periods when he could not play. Some people considered that his style was different after his breakdown: Larkin characterized it as "a hollow feathery tone framing phrases of an almost Chinese introspection with a tendency to inconclusive garrulity that would have been unheard of in the days when Pee Wee could pack more into a middle eight than any other thirties pick-up player".[10]
During World War II, he recorded V-Disc sides with Muggsy Spanier and the V-Disc All Stars. His composition "Pee Wee Speaks" with Spanier was released as a V-Disc, as Navy V-Disc 135 and as Army V-Disc 344 in January, 1945.
He played with
By this time, encouraged by Mary, his wife, Russell had taken up painting abstract art as a hobby. Mary's death in the spring of 1967 had a severe effect on him. His last gig was with Wein at the inaugural ball for President Richard Nixon on January 21, 1969. Russell died in a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, less than three weeks later.[1]
Awards and honors
- In 1987, Pee Wee Russell was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
Compositions
Pee Wee Russell wrote or co-wrote the following songs: "Pee Wee's Blues", "Pee Wee Speaks", "Oh! No", "Muskeegie Blues", "Three-Two-One Blues", "Stuyvesant Blues", "Pee Wee's Song", "The Bends Blues", "Midnight Blue", "Englewood", "Cutie Pie", "What's the Pitch", "Missy", "This Is It", "Pee Wee's Tune", and "But Why".
Discography
As leader/co-leader
- 1952: Clarinet Strut
- 1952: The Individualism of Pee Wee Russell (Savoy Jazz)
- 1952: Pee Wee Russell All Stars (Atlantic)
- 1953: Salute To Newport
- 1953: We're In the Money (Black Lion)
- 1955: Jazz at Storyville, Vol. 1 and 2 (Savoy) with Ruby Braff
- 1958: Portrait of Pee Wee (Counterpoint)
- 1958: Over the Rainbow (Xanadu)
- 1959: Pee Wee Russell Plays (Dot; reissued as Salute to Newport Impulse!, 1978)
- 1959: Newport Jazz Festival All Stars (Atlantic, 1959 [1960]) with George Wein, Buck Clayton, Bud Freeman, Vic Dickenson, Champ Jones and Jake Hanna
- 1960: Swingin' with Pee Wee (Swingville) with Buck Clayton; reissued as Prestige CD in 1999 under this title with Portrait of Pee Wee
- 1961: Jazz Reunion (Candid) with Coleman Hawkins
- 1962: New Groove (Columbia)
- 1964: Hot Licorice
- 1964: Gumbo
- 1965: Ask Me Now! (Impulse!)
- 1966: The College Concert (Impulse!)
- 1967: The Spirit of '67 with Oliver Nelson (Impulse!)
As sideman
With Bix Beiderbecke
- Bix Beiderbecke, Vol. 2: At The Jazz Band Ball 1927–1928 (Columbia, 1990)
With Ruby Braff
With Thelonious Monk
- Miles & Monk at Newport (Columbia, 1963)
With Al Sears
- Things Ain't What They Used to Be (Swingville, 1961) as part of the Prestige Swing Festival
With George Wein
- George Wein & the Newport All-Stars (Impulse!, 1962)
Notes
- ^ ISBN 0-85112-939-0.
- ^ a b "Pee Wee Russell Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic. Retrieved October 9, 2021.
- ^ Larkin, All What Jazz, p. 47 (October 14, 1961).
- ^ Shapiro, Nat; Hentoff, Nat (1979). The Jazz Makers. Hachette Books. p. 106.
- ^ Smith, "Pee Wee Russell", pp. 104, 106–7. In a later profile, Russell said that he took up piano, drums and violin "in roughly that order". Then, after playing in a school recital, one day he put his violin on the back seat of the family car and his mother got in and sat on it. "That was the end of my violin career. 'Thank God that's over,' I said to myself." (Balliett, "Even his Feet Look Sad", p. 129).
- ISBN 978-1933370040
- ISBN 978-0826427540
- ^ Balliett, "Even his Feet Look Sad", pp. 133–4.
- ^ Balliett, "Even his Feet Look Sad", p. 131.
- ^ Larkin, All What Jazz, p. 114 (June 10, 1964).
- ^ Quoted in the sleeve notes for Pee Wee Russell / Coleman Hawkins, Jazz Reunion (Candid 9020)
References
- Balliett, Whitney, "Even his Feet Look Sad", New Yorker, August 11, 1962; reprinted in Balliett, American Musicians: Fifty-Six Portraits in Jazz (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 127–35 (also reprinted in Robert Gottlieb (ed.), Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage and Criticism from 1919 to Now (New York: Pantheon, 1996), pp. 377–86)
- Larkin, Philip, All What Jazz: A Record Diary (record reviews for the Daily Telegraph, 1961–71) (London: Faber, rev. edn 1985)
- Smith, Charles Edward, "Pee Wee Russell", in Nat Shapiro & Nat Hentoff (eds.), The Jazz Makers (London: Peter Davies, 1958), pp. 103–27
- The standard discography is Robert Hilbert and David Niven, Pee Wee Speaks: A Discography of Pee Wee Russell, Studies in Jazz no. 13 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1992).
External links
- All Music
- Charles "Pee Wee" Russell (1906-1969) Red Hot Jazz Archive