The term Jive has come a long way over the years and has meant a lot of different things to different people. Early on, it was a euphemism for marijuana, as in "You got any o'that jive on you, man?" One who smoked jive was known as a viper, as celebrated in song by Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong and others.  Subsequent meanings for jive included: swinging music of a playful nature or, still later, in the 60s, it meant bull-shit, as in "You're full of jive," which could also be interpreted as "Man, you must be high."  While some of the performers on this set may well have been vipers off-stage, it is their on-stage lives which concern us here and, on-stage, these entertainers were certainly purveyors of playfully swinging music.

While usually thought of as a serious interpreter of romantic ballads, Billy Eckstine also had a lighter side, as revealed on his two cuts here, "(I Love The) Rhythm In A Riff" and "Oop Bop Sh'Bam," the latter of which had been recorded a few months earlier by its co-author, Dizzy Gillespie. Mr. B is featured with his pioneering be-bop big band which, at one time or another, included most of the future stars of modern jazz: Diz, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons, Miles Davis and Art Blakey, to name just a few.

As much as he relished the role of hipster bandleader, 'B' eventually heeded the call of his audience, who demanded a persona which more closely matched his suave good looks. The result was, Eckstine became a huge matinee idol, a 'Bronze Sinatra,' as he was often called, with signature songs like "A Cottage For Sale," "Prisoner Of Love" and "I Apologize."

In a milieu where the off beat was commonplace, Bulee 'Slim' Gaillard was more "off" than most. The singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist recorded some of the wackiest tunes ever, all while inventing his own language, with words like McVouty and word endings like -oroonie. With partners, like bassists Slam Stewart and Barn Brown, Slim raised a lot of hell at Hollywood night clubs.

At a recent L.A. gig, opening for Chris Connor, Jackie Paris looked half his age and was singing as well as ever. As a youngster, so hip was his approach, that he was called on to work with the likes of Lionel Hampton, Charlie Mingus and Charlie Parker.

Jackie's recording career got off to a nice start when his 1947 MGM recording of "Skylark" made more than a little noise. During his tenure with Hamp in 1949, he cut this National session, which included "The Old Master Painter" and Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight," unreleased at the time and later issued on Emarcy. Jackie went on to make some very nice records destined for cool obscurity on Coral/Brunswick, East-West, Time and Impulse.

An often neglected aspect of Dizzy Gillespie is his fondness for the entertainment side of things. Taking a cue from that other trumpet giant, Louis Armstrong, Gillespie figured out that, to make a good living as a jazzman, one had to reach an audience, a mission he did not approach begrudgingly. Like Satchmo, Diz reveled in the approval of the crowd and it did not diminish his art one bit.

In Joe 'Bebop' Carroll, Gillespie found his perfect foil. In an earlier time, they might've made a great vaudeville team, a la Buck & Bubbles or Stump & Stumpy. Joe joined Dizzy in 1949, replacing Kenny Hagood, recording hip sides like "Jump-Did-Le-Ba" and" Honeysuckle Rose." In 1951, Gillespie and Detroit record man Dave Usher formed the Dee Gee label, giving Diz free reign to indulge his show biz side.

The duo performs a pair of Armstrong-associated tunes, "On The Sunny Side Of The Street" and "I'm Confessin'," in homage to the Master, only slightly updating his one-of-a-kind style. On "Confessin'," dig Diz's solo, as he shows how deeply he's absorbed the lessons of Satch.

"Oo-Shoo-Bee-Doo-Bee" hearkens back to the 1947 Gillespie / Hagood take on Babs Gonzales's "Oo Pa Pa Da," one of the very first be-bop vocals. Joe's total reworking of the Gershwins' "Oh! Lady Be Good" is 
what I mean when I say that Diz was a rhythm & blues fan to the core. On piano, Milt Jackson opens with Amos Milburn's famous riff from his hit, "Bad Bad Whiskey," while Joe alludes to the Clovers' current chart item, "Lovey Dovey," turning Gershwin upside down and sideways in the process.

One of the pioneers of the singing style known as vocalese - putting lyrics to famous jazz solos - was Edgar 'Eddie' Jefferson. Eddie was followed by King Pleasure and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. It was Jefferson who wrote the lyric to James Moody's solo on "I'm In The Mood For Love," popularized by Pleasure as "Moody Mood For Love."

During the early 50s, Moody was the favored saxophonist of New York hipsters and subject matter for a number of lyrics set to his solos by Eddie and by Babs Gonzales. Three of Eddie's four sides here, recorded for the short-lived Hi-Lo label, are from Moody solos. "I Got The Blues" is Moody's solo on Lester Young's tune, "Lester Leaps In." Only "Honeysuckle Rose" has no previous soloing pedigree.

A contemporary of Jefferson's, Babs Gonzales aka Babs Brown, formed, with Tadd Dameron, the first bebop vocal group, Three Bips & a Bop. A consummate hustler, Babs was a man in constant motion who could often be found, backstage at theaters and night clubs, selling his self-published autobiographies, Movin On "Down De Line" and "I Paid My Dues."

Whenever he was unable to con record labels into issuing his, usually self-produced, recordings, he'd simply press them up himself on his own labels, like Babs or Crazy. His most famous sides are "Shuckin' And Jivin'," "Be-Bop Santa Claus" and "Manhattan Fable." A Moody fanatic, like Eddie Jefferson, Babs also recorded with James, notably "The James Moody Story," on Mercury. Here we have Babs's shot at Charlie Parker's "Ornithology," retitled "The Boss Is Back."

Detroit's Emitt Slay Trio, featuring Slay on guitar, Bob White on organ and Leonard Jackson on drums, is the kind of lounge act that could be found in small, blue-collar bars in black neighborhoods, supplying entertainment for thirsty customers. Groups like this provided their own musical accompaniment as they performed skits like the ones which bigger acts executed in theaters like the Apollo. "Male Call" tells the tale of G.l.s in Korea reading a very different kind of "Dear John" letter.

Annie Ross is, of course, the distaff third of the ground breaking vocalese trio, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. This is Annie prior to that famous undertaking, on her very first recording date, under the auspices of Dizzy Gillespie. She's singing straighter here than on L, H & R's later masterpieces of hipness.

We hope this album brings back some of what's often been missing in jazz for the past few decades - that sense of humor and lightheartedness which was there before the egg headed intellectuals discovered the music and started taking it - and themselves - way too seriously. Just have a ball and, while you're at it, check out what's being played, too. It'll get you either way.

Billy Vera, 2002