“It’s Time to Jump and Shout”
Composed and arranged by Eddie Durham.
Recorded by Jimmie Lunceford and His Orchestra for Vocalion on January 5, 1940 in New York.
Jimmie Lunceford, directing: Eugene “Snooky” Young, first trumpet; Gerald Wilson and Paul Webster, trumpets; Elmer Crumbley, Russell Bowles and Trummy Young, trombones; Willie Smith, first alto saxophone; Dan Grissom, Teddy Buckner alto saxophones; Joe Thomas, tenor saxophone; Earl “Jock” Carruthers, baritone saxophone; Edwin Wilcox, piano; Al Norris, guitar Moses Allen, bass; Jimmy “Craw” Crawford, drums.
The story:
The development of the early musical career of Eddie Durham (1906-1987) is traced in the post here at swingandbeyond.com on “Countless Blues.” (A link to that post can be found at endnote 1.) Durham was formed in the same musical crucible as Count Basie – Kansas City, in the period of the late 1920s and early 1930s, in the bands led by Walter Page and Bennie Moten. By the mid-1930s, Durham was perfecting his skills as a trombonist, guitarist, and perhaps most notably, as an arranger, in the Jimmie Lunceford band. The Lunceford band was noted for its exuberance as a performing unit, and for the discipline and precision its leader instilled in his musicians. (At right: Eddie Durham in 1941.)
As the Great Depression deepened through 1934, there was a definite drop-off of business among dance bands in the USA, especially among Afro-American bands. We must remember that the great Fletcher Henderson band broke up for lack of work toward the end of 1934, and that Fletcher’s long-time star soloist, tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, seeking new opportunities as a jazz soloist, moved to Europe then for what turned out to be five years. Others, including saxophonist Benny Carter, followed. The strongest black bands of the day, including those led by Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington – who had top-grade management (Irving Mills), continued working, but found that competition for fewer gigs was increasing. Top sidemen, both black and white, were constantly looking for opportunities to work in a band that was popular enough to continue to work through those challenging times. Salaries for sidemen in those Depression years, were greatly reduced from the heady years of the Roaring Twenties. It was not unusual for a sideman in a band in the mid-1930s to make between $30 to $50 a week as a base salary, even with a top-rated band. Of course, prices were correspondingly at low Depression levels. A pound of sliced bacon cost 39 cents; a dozen eggs, 33 cents; a loaf of bread, 8 cents.(1)
By 1935, Eddie Durham was an experienced dance band musician who was a capable trombonist and guitarist who read music fluently and could fit-in with any dance band. But in addition, he had been perfecting his ability to compose and arrange music in a way that reflected the ongoing development of that mysterious musical quality called swing. The evolution of swing had begun in the 1920s, with the trumpet-playing and singing of Louis Armstrong being a fountainhead, and continued in both black and white bands from the mid-1920s through the 1930s. Durham was among the relatively few arrangers of the mid-1930s who truly understood swing, and had the ability to create music that if played by musicians who were capable, would swing. Any dance band that wanted to stay relevant in the mid-1930s had to have some ability to swing. (Above right: Eddie Durham in 1941.)
After many years of scuffling, the band led by Jimmie Lunceford in 1935 was finally operating at a modest profit for its leader, though the profits reaped by its manager, Harold Oxley, were much greater. Salaries for Lunceford’s sidemen were at low Depression era levels, but his young, talented and eager sidemen were thrilled to be a part of the Lunceford band because it worked most days of the week, and had terrific esprit de corps. Musically, the Lunceford band was solid, as Lunceford was a master at rehearsal. He insisted on musical precision, but was somehow able to balanced that with an almost unreal level of exuberance in performance.
Most of Lunceford’s music then was arranged then by Sy Oliver, a 25 year old trumpet-player and singer, whose charts, in a remarkable way, carried-out Lunceford’s musical ideas. The charmed musical collaboration between Jimmie Lunceford and Sy Oliver, which had begun in 1933, ranks as one of the most successful of the swing era, on a level with those of Benny Goodman with Fletcher Henderson, Artie Shaw with Jerry Gray, Glenn Miller with Gray and Bill Finegan, Duke Ellington with Billy Strayhorn, Claude Thornhill with Gil Evans and Stan Kenton with Pete Rugolo. It was into this situation that Eddie Durham involved himself when he joined the Lunceford band on February 5, 1935. (Above left: Jimmie Lunceford in 1940.)
During the time Durham was a member of the Lunceford band (he would depart in the first week of August 1937 to join Count Basie), his work as an arranger for that band was rather minimal. Only nine Durham arrangements were recorded by the Lunceford band in the period 1935 through 1937.(2) Lunceford was seemingly much more interested in Durham’s various experiments with trying to electrify his guitar than he was with his arrangements.
Following his two and a half years with Lunceford, Durham in a sense returned to his roots by joining Count Basie’s relatively new big band in New York. He signed a one-year contract with Basie that ran from August 1937 through July 1938. The Basie band of that time included such Kansas City-influenced musicians as bassist Walter Page, lead trumpeter Ed Lewis, singer Jimmy Rushing, saxophonist Jack Washington, Durham’s cousin, saxophonist Herschel Evans, bassist Walter Page, and of course, pianist Count Basie. Perhaps most importantly, that early Basie band also included tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Young’s smooth, linear approach to improvisation was a key element in refining the rhythm of swing through the late 1930s. The Basie band of 1937 knew how to swing, but they lacked an overall musical approach and sense of style that reflected the evolving sophistication that was present in the top ensembles of the day, like those led by Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Goodman, and a few others who were in the process of codifying swing as a musical idiom. Eddie Durham helped Basie and his band with those things, yet he did it with a Kansas City approach that the Basie band felt very comfortable with.
John Hammond was directly involved in getting Durham to move from Lunceford to Basie. He and Basie had numerous discussions about what the Basie band needed to become a more effective swing ensemble.(3) Those discussions led directly to Eddie Durham.
Durham’s contribution to both the music and the approach to the music by the Basie ensemble was considerable. Unlike his experience with Lunceford, the Basie band embraced his work as an arranger. On his first recording session with the Basie band (August 9, 1937), of the four tunes recorded, three were Durham arrangements, and two of those three were original Durham compositions – “Time Out” and “Topsy.” Durham’s arrangements and compositions continued to flow into the book of arrangements Count Basie played. In Durham’s one-year association with the Basie band, their popularity began to increase. Simultaneously, Durham’s reputation as an arranger began to increase among bandleaders. His association with Basie and John Hammond, a man who had contacts in the world of swing, opened doors of opportunity for Durham beyond the limited (because of Jim Crow) world of black bands. Those contacts led to white bandleaders, most notably Benny Goodman, commercial radio and the recording industry.
The music:
Our swing and swing redux in this post presents a fascinating glimpse into the workings of the brilliant musical mind of Eddie Durham. His original composition/arrangement “It’s Time to Jump and Shout” was undoubtedly written before 1940, when it was first recorded by Jimmie Lunceford and His Orchestra. Exactly how much before 1940 is unclear. It is my informed speculation that it was written either in 1937, shortly before Durham left the Lunceford band, or after Durham left Basie in the summer of 1938. This music was played by the Lunceford band on gigs, but for whatever reason, was not recorded until January of 1940.
It begins with a short trumpet fanfare, then the full Lunceford ensemble comes in to complete a sixteen-bar introduction. The soulful tenor saxophone at the end of this passage is played by Joe Thomas, a major soloist in the Lunceford band.
The first chorus has the saxophones playing the main melody, with oo-ah asides played by the brass. The secondary bridge melody is played by the saxophones, with lead alto Willie Smith’s sound prominent. The final eight bars of chorus one are filled by Joe Thomas returning to improvise on the main melody.
A sequence of antiphonal playing follows, reeds against brass. Out of this emerges a high-register trumpet solo played by Paul Webster. Notice the background he plays against: churning, rhythmically intense saxophones in a lower register, and rocking back-beats provided by drummer Jimmy Crawford. This sixteen-bar solo is followed by an eight-bar alto saxophone improvisation played by Willie Smith, and then a modulation that includes a brisk drum-roll by Mr. Crawford.
The entire ensemble is now at work, with the saxophone quintet out front, oo-ah brass behind. This sequence of melodic paraphrase of the main melody evolves into an explicit presentation of the secondary bridge melody by the massed ensemble.
The finale starts with a three-way exchange between the pull-up trombones, the oo-ah trumpets and the riffing saxophones. This is played for eight bars at a medium dynamic, then repeated louder. The next eight bars are more rhythmically intense. Paul Webster returns to play the high-note ending.
This Eddie Durham arrangement is played beautifully by the Lunceford band, and likely was used by Lunceford on theater dates to show-off his band’s virtuosity musically, and display the plunger-wielding of the trumpets and pull-ups of the trombones visually. However, its complexity and perhaps too-frequent changes in ensemble sounds sometimes weigh down the band’s ability to swing. This would seem a curious and inexplicable musical approach for Eddie Durham in 1939, after his one-year immersion in the music of the Basie band, which included the joy of listening to Lester Young night after night. Durham undoubtedly had absorbed a good deal of Young’s (and Basie’s) lean and flowing approach to rhythm and swing which is rarely on display here. But then, Durham may have given Lunceford exactly the kind of arrangement he wanted with this version of “It’s Time to Jump and Shout.”
A bit more story:
After he left the Basie band at the end of July 1938, Durham, probably with John Hammond’s intervention, placed his original composition/arrangement “Topsy” with Benny Goodman. BG recorded it for Victor on November 10, 1938. (That recording can be accessed here at swingandbeyond by clicking on the link at endnote 4.) As that recording, and Durham’s many arrangements and/or compositions that had been recorded by Count Basie began to percolate into the consciousness of the musicians who made up the best bands in the world of swing in the period 1938-1939, Durham, following the trail blazed by Fletcher and Horace Henderson, Jimmy Mundy, Mary Lou Williams, Edgar Sampson, Fred Norman and others, began to approach white bandleaders with arrangements of his original compositions. The product he was selling was music that if played with proper skill and rhythmic understanding, would swing. Among his clients in 1939 were Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw (4A) and Jan Savitt. (The story of Eddie Durham’s collaboration with Glenn Miller can be accessed at endnote 5.)
“It’s Time to Jump and Shout”
Composed and arranged by Eddie Durham.
Recorded by Jan Savitt and His Top Hatters for Decca on February 3, 1940 in New York.
Jan Savitt, directing: Jack Hanson, first trumpet; Jimmy Campbell and Johnny (Augustino) Austin, trumpets; Al Leopold, first trombone; Robert “Cutty” Cutshall and Ben Pickering, trombones; George “Gigi” Bohn, first alto saxophone; George Siravo, alto saxophone; Eddie Clausen and Fran Ludwig, tenor saxophones; Ray Tucci, baritone saxophone; Jack Pleis, piano; Guy Smith, guitar; Morris Rayman, bass; Arthur Herbert, drums.
The story:
After spending from February into November of 1939 as the featured band in the Blue Room of Hotel Lincoln in Manhattan, Jan Savitt and His Top Hatters were ready to hit the road. While they were in the Blue Room, they were presented often in sustaining radio broadcasts over the NBC radio network. This enabled their name and music to become well-known to the young people who made up the audiences for the bands in the world of swing then. It also kept them off the road, where they could meet their young fans in ballrooms and theaters. The band needed to begin to meet their audiences in-person. (At right: Jan Savitt in 1939.)
Musically, the Savitt band of late 1939 was one of the most polished ensembles then on the scene. Their leader, a superbly trained musician, had the ability to rehearse them to a point of remarkable ensemble togetherness. He also was able to infuse into their performances great enthusiasm. The band’s personnel was solid. Each of the section leaders was a top-notch musician: George “Gigi” Bohn on first alto saxophone; Al Leopold on first trombone, and Jack Hanson on first trumpet. Bohn and Leopold were also capable jazz soloists, with Leopold being capable of rather spectacular feats on his trombone, when that was called for. Hanson, though not a jazz player, excelled in playing the melodic solos called for on that chair. Young tenor saxophone soloist Eddie Clausen was learning his craft as a jazz player. He would be assisted in this band by the very capable Fran Ludwig, and a bit later by the exceptional jazz soloist Georgie Auld. The band’s rhythm section, led by drummer Russ Isaacs (temporarily away from the band in this performance), swung smoothly.
The jazz trumpeter in the band was Johnny “Zulu” Austin. He acquired his nickname because of his playing style, which often seemed to be savage. It was most definitely idiosyncratic. It is not easy to describe Austin’s playing. Here is my try: think of the density of sound achieved by trumpeters Cootie Williams and Yank Lawson. Then mix in the brashness of Ziggy Elman, and the technical flash and rhythmic intensity of Harry James. Jazz historian Gunther Schuller said this about Austin: “…(He) did his most brilliant work with (Jan) Savitt. His intense, hard-swinging, brash style – a kind of wild Harry James – not without a touch of the vulgar, made him the band’s most compelling soloist.”(6) (At left: Johnny Austin in 1940.) Although I will agree that Austin’s bold trumpet stylings could be exciting, so could the solos of trombonist Al Leopold, tenor saxophonist Eddie Clausen, and alto saxophonist Gigi Bohn.
Eddie Durham came into the world of Jan Savitt and His Top Hatters as 1939 ended and 1940 began. Although Savitt’s chief arranger Johnny Watson had performed admirably through 1939, providing many fine arrangements for the Savitt band, Jan was looking to broaden the scope of his band’s music. I suspect that Durham, who had recently contributed a number of very effective and swinging arrangements to Glenn Miller (several had been recorded), may have met with Savitt in the last days of 1939 and brought with him some of the Miller recordings of his arrangements, and said to Savitt: “Listen to these. I can do the same thing for your band.” Savitt fairly quickly agreed to let Durham submit some arrangements to him.
Through January of 1940, a number of arrangements written by Eddie Durham became a part of the Savitt band book. These included: “Tuxedo Junction,”(7) “Kansas City Moods,” “Turkey in the Straw,” “Blues in the Groove,” and “It’s Time to Jump and Shout.”
The Savitt version of “It’s Time to Jump and Shout” is a substantial reworking of the arrangement that Durham had sold to Jimmie Lunceford. As you will hear, this arrangement reflects a very strong Count Basie influence, and has very little in common with the Lunceford chart.
The music:
This streamlined performance starts with a cleverly constructed introduction that gives each section of horns, trumpets, saxophones, trombones a bit to play discretely. Then the main action begins. The first chorus has the saxophone quintet stating the minimal main melody for sixteen bars backed by open trombones, and oo-ah trumpets that also get to play a marvelous buzz/growl toward the end of each eight-bar segment. The brass sextet moves out front in the bridge with high saxophone sighs behind them. The three trombones finish the chorus backed by the robust, ascending saxophones.
Trumpeter Johnny Austin plays a typically brash sixteen-bar solo on open trumpet. Behind him we hear the open trombones and the surging saxophones. This is well-supported by the rocking back-beats laid down by drummer Arthur Herbert (8), a ringer brought to the recording session by Durham to sub for the ailing Russ Isaacs. Tenor saxophonist Eddie Clausen plays next against a cushion of open trombone chords.
The next chorus spots the ensemble playing as a unit, leading to a descending Al Leopold trombone solo, which he handles with his usual panache. Then a real treat: an ascending modulation, brass answered by saxophones. This sets up a brief saxophone section passage melody that is as delightfully hip today as it was in 1940 as a springboard into the sax section riffs atop the oo-ah brass and Mr. Herbert’s back-beats.
This is a terrific recording that shows what could happen when a virtuoso swing arranger meets up with a virtuoso swing band.
The recordings presented with this post were digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1)https://www.everybodylovesyourmoney.com/2024/04/10/what-was-the-cost-of-living-in-1935.html
(2) The Durham arrangements recorded by the Lunceford band in the period 1935-1937 are: “Bird of Paradise,” “Rhapsody Junior,” “Oh Boy,” “Avalon,” “Hittin’ the Bottle,” “Harlem Shout,” Honey, Keep Your Mind on Me,” “Count Me Out,” and Pigeon Walk.”
(3) John Hammond’s role in helping Count Basie to build a first-rate swing band was a large one. Through 1937, Hammond was responsible for Basie hiring guitarist Freddie Green, who added greatly to that band’s swing. He was directly responsible for Basie hiring the incomparable songstress Billie Holiday. Hammond was the intermediary in negotiating with Eddie Durham to get him into Basie’s band. In addition, Hammond was directly or indirectly involved in many more personnel moves that were directed in strengthening the early Basie band. Hammond was never Basie’s personal manager. As a man of considerable wealth, he was more of a patron, motivated by a desire for Basie to have the best swing band of the late 1930s.
(4) Here is a link to Benny Goodman’s recording of Eddie Durham’s “Topsy”: https://swingandbeyond.com/2016/09/28/bud-benny-and-the-high-holidays/
(4A) “It’s Time to Jump and Shout” was one of the arrangements Eddie Durham sold to Artie Shaw in the October-November 1939 time period. The Shaw band broadcast it on November 9, 1939 from the Cafe’ Rouge of Hotel Pennsylvania in New York.
(5) The story of Eddie Durham’s collaboration with Glenn Miller can be accessed here: https://swingandbeyond.com/2024/06/13/slip-horn-jive-1939-glenn-miller-eddie-durham/
(6) The Swing Era …The Development of Jazz – 1930-1945 (1989), by Gunther Schuller, 765.
(7) Eddie Durham’s arrangement on the Erskine Hawkins/Bill Johnson/Julian Dash composition “Tuxedo Junction” was written for and recorded by the Jan Savitt band (on January 24, 1940) before Glenn Miller’s hit version was recorded (on February 5, 1940). Interestingly, after the Miller record hit, Savitt recorded “Tuxedo Junction” again, at a slower tempo, with heartfelt solos from Johnny Austin, Al Leopold, and especially Gerogie Auld. It is one of the Savitt band’s finest recordings.
(8) Arthur Herbert was Coleman Hawkins’s regular drummer in the period 1939-1940. He played on Hawk’s great recording of “Body and Soul.”
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