Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson
alto saxophone, vocals
Blues singer and alto saxophonist who sang with Cootie Williams’s band in the 1940s; for Barry he is the voice on the records where the young Bud Powell plays piano underneath.
- mentions
- 2
- recordings
- 2
- Barry speaking
- 1
What Barry says
Barry sets a listening assignment: find the Cootie Williams band record with ‘Round Midnight’, ‘Cherry Red Blues’ and ‘Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby’. Vinson sings, but what you are listening for is the pianist under him, the young Bud Powell, double-timing and running minor arpeggios.
The last train to Monk: an interview18:3619:14Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶115
He tells listeners to go somewhere quiet, even dark, to hear it, because on an ordinary listen you miss what the piano is doing under the vocal.
The last train to Monk: an interview18:36Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶115
In the Pace Report interview he adds that Cootie Williams must have told the young pianist to do whatever he wanted, so he plays freely all through those cuts, things you never heard from a piano player before.
The last train to Monk: an interview19:14
In his own words
Because underneath that record, while Cleanhead Vinson is singing Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby, you’ll hear this piano player, and all he’s doing is double-timing and running minor arpeggios
Every mention
2 moments in the recordings, 1 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
The last train to Monk: an interview
- 18:36
Vinson sings ‘Cherry Red Blues’ on Cootie Williams records; listen somewhere quiet to the piano under him.
Detroit Jazz: Ancient to the Future
- 1:37
Someone else
A poet’s roll call of jazz names includes ‘clean-head’, possibly Vinson; the caption is unclear.
In the interviews and notes
Barry gives Ted Panken a listening assignment: the Cootie Williams band record with ‘Cherry Red Blues’ and ‘Round Midnight’. Under Vinson’s vocal on ‘Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby’, the young Bud Powell double-times minor arpeggios; listen somewhere dark or you will miss it.
Writing about composers who say Miles Davis took credit for their tunes, Tom Cleary gives Vinson as the claimant for ‘Four’ and ‘Tune Up’, and asks readers to comment for or against such claims.
Tom Cleary (University of Vermont), Charlie Parker and Alan Turing: cracking the bebop code ¶14
Cleary credits ‘Tune Up’ to Miles Davis and Vinson and lists it among tunes built on major ii-V and ii-V-I progressions, which can be outlined with the 7th scale of the V chord over both ii and V (an idea he took from Barry) and the major scale over I.
Tom Cleary (University of Vermont), Root systems ¶6Tom Cleary (University of Vermont), Root systems ¶4
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.