Pee Wee Russell

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Pee Wee Russell
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",

traditional jazz, but throughout his career incorporated elements of newer developments such as swing, bebop, and free jazz. Writing in 1961, the poet Philip Larkin commented: "No one familiar with the characteristic excitement of his solos, their lurid, snuffling, asthmatic voicelessness, notes leant on till they split, and sudden passionate intensities, could deny the uniqueness of his contribution to jazz."[3]

Early life

Pee Wee Russell was born in

Alcide "Yellow" Nunez. Russell was amazed by Nunez's improvisations: "[He] played the melody, then got hot and played jazz. That was something. How did he know where he was or where he was going?" Pee Wee now decided that his primary instrument would be the clarinet, and the type of music he would play would be jazz. He approached the clarinettist in the pit band at the local theatre for lessons, and bought an Albert-system instrument. His teacher was named Charlie Merrill, and used to pop out for shots of corn whiskey during lessons.[5]

His family moved to

recording
debut was in 1924 with Herb Berger's Band in St. Louis on "Fuzzy Wuzzy Bird.".

Career

Pee Wee Russell, Muggsy Spanier, Miff Mole and Joe Grauso, Nick's (Tavern), New York, ca. June 1946

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

Dixieland musician by virtue of the company he kept, he tended to reject any label. Russell's unique and sometimes derided approach was praised as ahead of its time and cited by some as an early example of free jazz. At the time of their 1961 recording Jazz Reunion (Candid), Coleman Hawkins (who had originally recorded with Russell in 1929 and considered him to be color-blind) observed that '"For thirty years, I’ve been listening to him play those funny notes. He used to think they were wrong, but they weren't. He’s always been way out, but they didn't have a name for it then."[11] George Wein's Newport All-Stars album includes a slow blues
called "Pee Wee Russell's Unique Sound".

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

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

As sideman

With Bix Beiderbecke

  • Bix Beiderbecke, Vol. 2: At The Jazz Band Ball 1927–1928 (Columbia, 1990)

With Ruby Braff

With Thelonious Monk

With Al Sears

With George Wein

Notes

  1. ^ .
  2. ^ a b "Pee Wee Russell Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic. Retrieved October 9, 2021.
  3. ^ Larkin, All What Jazz, p. 47 (October 14, 1961).
  4. ^ Shapiro, Nat; Hentoff, Nat (1979). The Jazz Makers. Hachette Books. p. 106.
  5. ^ 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).
  6. ^ Balliett, "Even his Feet Look Sad", pp. 133–4.
  7. ^ Balliett, "Even his Feet Look Sad", p. 131.
  8. ^ Larkin, All What Jazz, p. 114 (June 10, 1964).
  9. ^ 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