“Oh, Lady Be Good” (1939) Count Basie with Chu Berry, Shad Collins, Lester Young and Dicky Wells

“Oh, Lady Be Good”

Composed by George Gershwin; head arrangement.

Recorded by Count Basie and His Orchestra for Decca on February 4, 1939 in New York.

William J. “Count” Basie, piano, directing: Ed Lewis, first trumpet; Wilbur “Buck” Clayton, Lester “Shad” Collins, Harry “Sweets” Edison, trumpets; Henry “Benny” Morton, William “Dicky” Wells and Dan Minor, trombones; Earle Warren, first alto saxophone; Ronald “Jack” Washington, alto saxophone; Leon “Chu” Berry and Lester Young, tenor saxophones; Freddie Green, guitar; Walter Page, bass; Jonathan “Jo” Jones, drums.

The story:

As January of 1939 ended, Count Basie was busy making recordings to complete his two-year contract with Decca Records. Basie did this with back-to-back-to-back recording sessions on February 2,3 and 4, 1939. After that, he was finally freed from that financially oppressive contract, and had a new contract to make records with Columbia (courtesy of John Hammond), which at least paid him a fair sum of money.

But just as Basie worked his way out of some old problems, a new one presented itself. Herschel Evans, one of Basie’s featured tenor saxophone soloists, became seriously ill in late January/early February. He required hospitalization. It is not clear when Evans entered the hospital, but we know that he was not present on any of the recording sessions cited above, or indeed on one Basie had on January 26.(1) For the February 3 and 4 sessions, Basie secured the services of tenor saxophone titan Chu Berry to substitute for Evans on those recording dates.

The story of the last days of the life of Herschel Evans is told in the post here at swingandbeyond.com on his recording with Count Basie’s band of “Blue and Sentimental.” (It can be accessed at endnote 1.) Due to what turned out to be a fatal illness, Evans was in the hospital (or at home, resting) when this recording of “Oh, Lady Be Good” was made. By February 9, he would be dead, a month before his thirtieth birthday. This tragic event shook the Basie band musically and personally. (Above right: Count Basie: His benign smile and ultra-cool demeanor masked his iron will and ambition to succeed as a bandleader.)

Leon Brown “Chu” Berry was born in Wheeling, West Virginia on September 13, 1908, the son of Brown Berry and Maggie Glasgow Berry. The Berry family, despite the endemic racial discrimination of that time and place, lived in fairly comfortable circumstances. Leon’s brother Nelson played tenor saxophone, and his half-sister Anne played piano. She apparently worked as a musician in Wheeling as a semi-pro while Leon was growing up. By the time he was in Lincoln High School in Wheeling, he was playing the alto saxophone. He sometimes went on gigs with Anne. He joined a 15-piece band in Wheeling, then in 1926, at West Virginia State College in Bluefield (2), West Virginia, he joined a band called Edwards’s Collegians. He was in that band intermittently for three years. During that time, he also worked with territory bands led by Fleming Huff and Perry Smith in Ohio. Smith’s band may also have been known as Perry’s Broadway Buddies. That band often played at the old West Virginia state fairgrounds on Wheeling Island in the Ohio River, and at the old Henry Clay Tavern beyond West Alexander.

Inspired by Coleman Hawkins, whom he heard in the late 1920s with the touring Fletcher Henderson band, Berry took up the tenor saxophone, though he still also continued playing alto and sometimes the baritone saxophone.

In 1929, he was sent-for by pianist Sammy Stewart, who led a band out of Columbus, Ohio. At the time, Leon was sporting a goatee and moustache, and was dubbed Chu-Chin-Chow, which apparently was a musical play or revue with a Chinese theme that the Stewart band members knew about where some characters also had goatees. Soon this appellation was shortened simply to Chu.

It was with the Stewart band that Chu Berry first came to New York to play a residency at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, which ran from February to April of 1930. After that job ended, the Stewart band played for awhile at the Arcadia Ballroom in Harlem. Berry, by then well-known to young musicians and bandleaders in Harlem, left the Stewart band in mid-1930 and began working with various bands in New York. Over the next few years he worked with bands led by Cecil Scott, where he began playing the tenor saxophone exclusively, Otto Hardwick, Kaiser Marshall, Walter Pichon, Earl Jackson, Charlie Johnson and Benny Carter. He made his first recordings in 1932 with Carter.

Berry was fairly busy making recordings in Manhattan in 1933 as a sideman. In that year, he worked on record with Benny Carter, Spike Hughes, The Chocolate Dandies (under the direction of Benny Carter), with pianist Buck Washington in a band backing Bessie Smith, and with Buck and Bubbles. The year 1934, the nadir of the Great Depression, was a lean one for many musicians. Berry made no recordings in that year. However, he probably joined the band led by tenor saxophonist Teddy Hill either in late 1934 or in early 1935. It was in that band that he began a musical association with the trumpeter Roy Eldridge.

During 1935, Berry resumed his busy schedule as a sideman in many different bands on record, while maintaining his regular job as a member of Teddy Hill’s band. During that year he made records with Red Norvo (in a band that included Bunny Berigan), Henry “Red” Allen, Putney Dandridge, Mildred Bailey, and Teddy Wilson (with Billie Holiday). He had worked his way up to the big leagues.(3)

The Fletcher Henderson band of 1936. L-R back: Chu Berry, Joe Thomas, Horace Henderson, Sid Catlett, Dick Vance, Teddy Lewis, Ed Cuffee, Fernando Arbello, Bob Lessey; front: Fletcher Henderson, Buster Bailey, Elmer Williams, Roy Eldridge, Israel Crosby, Don Pasquall.

In late 1935, Berry, along with Roy Eldridge, joined the new band Fletcher Henderson had assembled in Chicago. He recorded with Henderson through 1936 and into 1937, also making a few outside record dates with Eldridge, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson and Lil Armstrong. Berry led his first date on record on March 23, 1937, making four sides for Irving Mills’s Variety label. In 1936, he contributed his original “Christopher Columbus” to the Henderson band book.(4) He remained with Fletcher Henderson through June of 1937.

In July of 1937, Chu Berry joined Cab Calloway, who led the best paid black band of the 1930s. This was due in large measure to Calloway’s dynamic showmanship, which was very popular with audiences. Berry would remain with Calloway for the next four-plus years. Indeed, he was still a member of that band when he died on October 31, 1941 as the result of injuries he sustained in an automobile crash.

The Calloway band of the late 1930s was comprised of excellent musicians: Among them were trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, bassist Milt Hinton and drummer Cozy Cole. By 1940, that band was among the better swing bands in the nation, but understandably, they were still used largely to showcase Cab’s singing. However, the money they made was good, and the band worked constantly. (See note 5 for a link to a typical Cab Calloway recording that featured Chu Berry.)

Although Berry was kept quite busy with his work playing, touring and recording with Cab Calloway’s band from mid-1937, his reputation as a flexible musician and jazz soloist was such that whenever he was in New York, even if it was only for a few days, he would be sought out by others to make records or appear on radio. Among those he recorded with in the late 1930s were: Teddy Wilson, Mildred Bailey, Roy Eldridge, Wingy Manone, Billie Holiday, and Lionel Hampton. He also made some records as a leader. He was also tapped to perform on radio, often to spice up jam sessions. Recordings of him doing that with musicians such as Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Yank Lawson, Jack and Charlie Teagarden and Harry James are extant. (Below right: at a Lionel Hampton recording session on September 11, 1939 – L-R: Ben Webster, Benny Carter, Chu Berry and Coleman Hawkins. In the background is pianist Clyde Hart)

Although Chu Berry, like many young saxophonists in the late 1920s and early 1930s, was initially influenced by Coleman Hawkins, he soon developed his own approach to playing the tenor saxophone. Essential elements in Berry’s playing were his rhythmic propulsion, sense of swing, use of chromaticism and his quicksilver technique. He also had a unique sound, which jazz historian Leonard Feather described as: “…(A) soft sound with a lush, mellow tone.”(6)  Toward the end of his life, Berry, along with his bandmate from the Calloway orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie, sat-in at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem with various young musicians, and engaged in musical explorations that eventually led to the development of bebop.

Chu Berry died on October 31, 1941 in Conneaut, Ohio, as the result of injuries he received in an auto collision three days earlier while a passenger in an auto taking members of the Cab Calloway band from a dance gig north of Youngstown, Ohio to Toronto, Canada for their next job.

A photo taken by Chu Berry’s fellow sideman in the Cab Calloway band, Milt Hinton. Milt identified the picture only as “Alabama 1939.” I think that the beautiful woman is Chu’s wife, Jeraldyne, and the child is their daughter or son.

The music:

The Count Basie recording of “Oh, Lady Be Good” is a head arrangement designed to allow the soloists freedom to play jazz. Basie plays first, his aphoristic approach to the piano much in evidence. His full chorus solo is paraphrase of Gershwin’s melody, and it orients the listener. He is followed by Chu Berry who plays a flowing chorus of jazz that is an excellent example of his almost compositional way of improvising on the chord changes. His command of his instrument at this brisk tempo and his capacious tenor saxophone sound are also notable. Berry was undoubtedly aware of Lester Young’s superb solo on this tune on the 1936 Jones-Smith, Inc. Basie recording. But here his interpretation is all his own, and it is first-class jazz.

Trumpeter Lester “Shad” Collins plays next. He was by 1939 a veteran of many of the same bands that Chu Berry had matriculated through, starting in 1932 with Benny Carter. Then he worked with Tiny Bradshaw, Teddy Hill, Cab Calloway, finally arriving in the Basie band in November of 1938. In addition, he had made records with Spike Hughes and Dicky Wells. He remained with Basie into early 1940. His playing here, with his trumpet sound softened by a cup-mute, is acrid and intense. He was in very fast company and he succeeded in keeping up with them. (Below right: Shad Collins and Lester Young.)

By the time this recording was made, Lester Young’s solo on “Oh, Lady Be Good” on the 1936 Jones-Smith, Inc. recording with a small group led by Count Basie (which can be accessed at endnote 7) had already become something of a holy relic for jazz musicians. In addition, the full Basie band had played this tune many times since that recording was made. Lester, always one who strove to express himself in original ways, most certainly does so here. With the exception of his final burst of notes, his solo is also completely different from what he had played on the Jones-Smith recording. Jazz historian and Lester Young expert Loren Schoenberg explained well what Lester did in this solo: “There is probably not a more controversial (in the sense of what has been written about it) Young solo than this one. It is eccentric in the extreme and it’s not surprising that it would catch many non-musicians off guard. One of Young’s trademarks was starting a solo off with a simple motif on which he would then gradually elaborate as the solo progressed. This one starts in media res, and is followed by a series of phrases that are oddly shaped in a variety of ways, but somehow hang together, like the skyline of New York. The odd low notes of the second eight bars imply a different time signature, and the harmonies that start the bridge contradict the song itself. And as if to put his signature on this one-off oddity, Young concludes with a trilling figure taken right from the 1936 Jones-Smith, Inc. version of the same tune. That’s a lot to pack into thirty seconds.” (8)

Basie returns for a bit of melodic paraphrase, then the final jazz solo is played by trombonist Dicky Wells. Any soloist who had to follow Lester Young had a formidable challenge in coming up with something that would not seem musically irrelevant. In this case, through some trombone section ingenuity and an inspired use of rhythm by Mr. Wells, that feat is accomplished. The three trombones pipe-up with a smooth melodic fragment out of which Wells emerges, playing an improvised solo that slip-slides along via intensified rhythm. It is brief but brilliant and it fits perfectly at this particular place in this performance. (Above left: Dicky Wells.)

From here on out, Basie plays hide and seek with the ensemble, to the concluding full band chord.

This recording is a wonderful example of the art of swinging highlighted by provocative jazz solos. It is at the acme of the swing idiom.

The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.

Notes and links:

(1) Basie himself stated that Evans entered the hospital before the early February recording sessions, then rejoined the band for a gig in Hartford, Connecticut, then returned to the hospital where he died on February 9, 1939. See: Good Morning Blues …The Autobiography of Count Basie, as told to Albert Murray (1985), 223.

Here is the link to the Count Basie recording of “Blue and Sentimental.” It contains more information about Herschel Evans’s last days: https://swingandbeyond.com/2020/01/04/blue-and-sentimental-1938-count-basie-with-herschel-evans-and-lester-young-and-1969/

(2) What is known today as Bluefield State University in West Virginia was known in the late 1920s as The Bluefield Colored Institute.

(3) The information about Chu Berry’s early life and career as a musician was extracted from a number of sources including: the Ohio County (Wheeling) Public Library post on the death of Chu Berry; the Wikipedia post on him; the book Who’s Who of Jazz by John Chilton; and the information contained in the online Tom Lord Chu Berry discography.

(4) Here is a link to yet another fine performance by Chu Berry, this time with Fletcher Henderson’s band in 1936: https://swingandbeyond.com/2018/03/26/for-dancers-only-1937-jimmie-lunceford-sy-oliver-christopher-columbus-1936-fletcher-henderson/

(5) Here is a great example of Chu Berry playing with Cab Calloway: https://swingandbeyond.com/2016/07/12/boo-wah-boo-wah-cab-calloway-1940-with-chu-berry-and-dizzy-gillespie/

(6) The Encyclopedia of Jazz, by Leonard Feather (1960), 135.

(7) Here is a link to the 1936 Lester Young masterpiece solo on “Oh, Lady Be Good”: https://swingandbeyond.com/2017/02/17/lady-be-good-1936-lester-young-and-count-basie/

(8) Classic 1936-1947 Count Basie and Lester Young Studio Recordings (Mosaic Records 2016), notes by Loren Schoenberg, 22.