Cootie Williams
trumpet, bandleader
Trumpeter long featured with Duke Ellington, who led his own band in the 1940s with the young Bud Powell at the piano; Barry sends listeners to those records to hear the young Bud.
- mentions
- 2
- recordings
- 1
- Barry speaking
- 2
What Barry says
Asked whether Bud Powell was the piano’s Charlie Parker, Barry sets an assignment: get the Cootie Williams band record with Round Midnight, Cherry Red Blues and Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby. Listen somewhere dark, and under Cleanhead Vinson’s singing you hear a pianist double-timing minor arpeggios. It is Bud.
On the Pace Report he gives the same advice: put on the Cootie Williams sides where Cleanhead Vinson sings, go somewhere quiet, and listen to the piano player; you hear things no pianist had played before.
Barry reckons Cootie must have told the young Bud to do whatever he liked, and Bud did, soloing all through those records. To Andrew Velez he says Cootie must have been a very nice leader to let Bud solo all the way through.
The last train to Monk: an interview19:14Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶9
For Barry, Bud with Cootie Williams and Bird with Jay McShann were each working out their own music, heading separately towards a summit where they met. He does not think either influenced the other much.
The first recording of Monk’s Round Midnight was by Cootie’s band, with Bud on piano. Barry says those first recordings were lovely, and that by way of Bud you gradually grew into Monk.
Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶329Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶331Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶19
In his own words
Cause Cootie Williams must have said to this little young boy, do anything you want to do. That’s what he did.
This is the record you have to get. Cootie Williams. There’s a record of Cootie Williams with his band.
So Bud Powell was with Cootie Williams; Bird was with Jay McShann. To me, they were heading towards a summit.
Cootie Williams must have been a helluva nice leader because he let him, Bud Powell, solo all the way through some of his records.
you heard the most beautiful melodies; his songs you wanted to know, like the first recording of ‘Round Midnight’ when Bud was with Cootie Williams.
Every mention
2 moments in the recordings, 2 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
The last train to Monk: an interview
In the interviews and notes
Barry’s assignment to WKCR listeners: find the Cootie Williams band record with Round Midnight and Cherry Red Blues, play it somewhere dark, and listen under Cleanhead Vinson’s vocal for Bud Powell’s double-time minor arpeggios.
Barry pairs Bud’s time with Cootie Williams with Bird’s time with Jay McShann: two players developing apart who then met, and clashed, and were perhaps not the most compatible pair.
Explaining how Monk’s music seemed complicated at first, Barry points to his beautiful melodies, such as Round Midnight, first recorded by Cootie Williams’s band with Bud on piano.
In the DownBeat feature Barry says he paid little attention to Monk at first, but wanted to know his songs, such as the first Round Midnight, made when Bud was with Cootie Williams. Monk once showed Barry the tune himself.
Barry tells Velez that Cootie let Bud solo all the way through some records, and recalls first hearing the pianist behind Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby, playing all those minor lines, and asking who it was.
Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶9Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶10
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.