Groovin' High
Encyclopedia
"Groovin' High" is an influential 1945 song by jazz
composer
and trumpet
er Dizzy Gillespie
. The song was a bebop
mainstay that became a jazz standard
, one of Gillespie's best known hits, and, according to Bebop: The Music and Its Players author Thomas Owens, "the first famous bebop recording". The song is a complex musical arrangement based on the chord structure of the 1920 standard originally recorded by Paul Whiteman
, "Whispering
", with lyrics by John Schonberger and Richard Coburn and music by Vincent Rose
. The biography Dizzy characterizes the song as "a pleasant medium-tempo tune" that "demonstrates...[Gillespie's] skill in fashioning interesting textures using only six instruments".
The song has been used to title many compilation albums and also the 2001 biography Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie.
, "shocked" Gillespie's contemporaries, contributing to that album's "permanently [changing]...jazz and (indirectly) the entire music world". In Jazz: A Regional Exploration, Yanow explained that at the time such songs "were unprecedented...displaying a radically different language" from contemporary swing. But though fans and fellow musicians found the material "very strange and difficult", The Sax & Brass Book notes, they were quickly adopted as classics. According to Yanow, "Parker and Gillespie's solos seemed to have little relation to the melody, but they were connected. It was a giant step forward for jazz".
Thomas Owens highlights the innovative use of source material, pointing out that while it was not uncommon for jazz musicians to utilize existing chord structures in their compositions in 1945, Gillespie's "melodic contrafact was the most complex jazz melody superimposed on a pre-existing chordal scheme", "atypically elaborate".
by guitarist
Remo Palmier
, and it this reworking that became so well-known.
In the book Yardbird Suite, music historian Lawrence O. Koch sets forth in detail the structure of the song as performed on December 29, 1945 and preserved by Armed Forces Radio Service, from the two-bar
unison
figure by Gillespie and Charlie Parker
that open the song to the Gillespie coda
at the end. Not having to conform to 78 rpm technology, Gillespie and his band were able to add several minutes to the song during that performance. The author praises the "lovely, logical, melodic construction" of Parker's 16-bar solo as well as singling out performances by Gillespie ("excellent"), Slam Stewart
("inimitable") and Palmieri ("adequate"). Noting that the coda "has become a jazz cliché, both in its melody and the chord pattern from which the melody was derived", they also draw attention to Gillespie's "prima donna breath control" on the final E-flat, with only a "slight loss in intonation" in spite of the difficulty of the phrase. The book Charlie Parker: His Music and Life describes this performance, along with the three other songs played in that session, as capturing "much of the vitality of the early Gillespie-Parker partnership.
Other notable performances of the song took place on September 29, 1947, when Parker and Gillespie reunited in concert at Carnegie Hall
, and during a 1956 tour sponsored by the US State Department
. Owens describes the 1947 recording as among the finest of Parker's career. During the 1956 tour, Gillespie simultaneously performed "Groovin' High" and "Whispering" to demonstrate the way jazz musicians build on the bones of earlier compositions.
, Gillespie once recounted that he believed the song had been inspired by a film serial
he saw at a matinée when he was a child that used the song "Whispering" as its theme. Gillespie offered no details about the serial, except that he believed it might have starred stuntman
and rodeo rider
Yakima Canutt
.
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
er Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
. The song was a bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
mainstay that became a jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
, one of Gillespie's best known hits, and, according to Bebop: The Music and Its Players author Thomas Owens, "the first famous bebop recording". The song is a complex musical arrangement based on the chord structure of the 1920 standard originally recorded by Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
, "Whispering
Whispering (song)
"Whispering" is a popular song with lyrics by John Schoenberger and Richard Coburn, and music by Vincent Rose. It was originally recorded on August 23, 1920 by Paul Whiteman and his Ambassador Orchestra for Victor as 18690-A...
", with lyrics by John Schonberger and Richard Coburn and music by Vincent Rose
Vincent Rose
Vincent Rose was a musician and band leader.Vincent Rose has one of the longest histories as a band leader. He achieved much popularity with his Montmartre Orchestra in the 1920s, and recorded with the group for RCA...
. The biography Dizzy characterizes the song as "a pleasant medium-tempo tune" that "demonstrates...
The song has been used to title many compilation albums and also the 2001 biography Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie.
Impact
First published on the 1945 album Shaw 'Nuff, the song is one of seven on that album that, according to jazz critic Scott YanowScott Yanow
Scott Yanow is an American jazz commentator, known for many contributions to the Allmusic website, for writing ten books on jazz and for reviewing jazz recordings for over 30 years.-Biography:...
, "shocked" Gillespie's contemporaries, contributing to that album's "permanently [changing]...jazz and (indirectly) the entire music world". In Jazz: A Regional Exploration, Yanow explained that at the time such songs "were unprecedented...displaying a radically different language" from contemporary swing. But though fans and fellow musicians found the material "very strange and difficult", The Sax & Brass Book notes, they were quickly adopted as classics. According to Yanow, "Parker and Gillespie's solos seemed to have little relation to the melody, but they were connected. It was a giant step forward for jazz".
Thomas Owens highlights the innovative use of source material, pointing out that while it was not uncommon for jazz musicians to utilize existing chord structures in their compositions in 1945, Gillespie's "melodic contrafact was the most complex jazz melody superimposed on a pre-existing chordal scheme", "atypically elaborate".
Performance history
First performed on February 9, 1945, Gillespie reworked the arrangement for a February 28th performance to allow an improvisationJazz improvisation
Jazz improvisation is an important aspect of jazz. Basically, improvisation is composing on the spot and coming up with melodies off the top of one's head. Traditionally, jazz improvisation was distinguished from other forms of music improvisation by its chordal complexity, often exhibiting ii V...
by guitarist
Jazz guitar
The term jazz guitar may refer to either a type of guitar or to the variety of guitar playing styles used in the various genres which are commonly termed "jazz"...
Remo Palmier
Remo Palmier
Remo Paul Palmieri was an American jazz guitarist.He played with Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Red Norvo, and Sarah Vaughan, and was part of Nat Jaffe's trio....
, and it this reworking that became so well-known.
In the book Yardbird Suite, music historian Lawrence O. Koch sets forth in detail the structure of the song as performed on December 29, 1945 and preserved by Armed Forces Radio Service, from the two-bar
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
unison
Unison
In music, the word unison can be applied in more than one way. In general terms, it may refer to two notes sounding the same pitch, often but not always at the same time; or to the same musical voice being sounded by several voices or instruments together, either at the same pitch or at a distance...
figure by Gillespie and Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
that open the song to the Gillespie coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
at the end. Not having to conform to 78 rpm technology, Gillespie and his band were able to add several minutes to the song during that performance. The author praises the "lovely, logical, melodic construction" of Parker's 16-bar solo as well as singling out performances by Gillespie ("excellent"), Slam Stewart
Slam Stewart
Leroy Eliot "Slam" Stewart was an African American jazz bass player whose trademark style was his ability to bow the bass and simultaneously hum or sing an octave higher. He was originally a violin player before switching to bass at the age of 20.-Biography:Stewart was born in Englewood, New...
("inimitable") and Palmieri ("adequate"). Noting that the coda "has become a jazz cliché, both in its melody and the chord pattern from which the melody was derived", they also draw attention to Gillespie's "prima donna breath control" on the final E-flat, with only a "slight loss in intonation" in spite of the difficulty of the phrase. The book Charlie Parker: His Music and Life describes this performance, along with the three other songs played in that session, as capturing "much of the vitality of the early Gillespie-Parker partnership.
Other notable performances of the song took place on September 29, 1947, when Parker and Gillespie reunited in concert at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, and during a 1956 tour sponsored by the US State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
. Owens describes the 1947 recording as among the finest of Parker's career. During the 1956 tour, Gillespie simultaneously performed "Groovin' High" and "Whispering" to demonstrate the way jazz musicians build on the bones of earlier compositions.
Inspiration
According to the book Visions of Jazz: The First Century by Gary GiddinsGary Giddins
Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic, author, and director, best known for his longtime work with The Village Voice. Born in Brooklyn, and raised on Long Island, Giddins graduated from Grinnell College, Iowa, in 1970...
, Gillespie once recounted that he believed the song had been inspired by a film serial
Serial (film)
Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials, Film serials or Chapter plays, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. They were related to pulp magazine serialized fiction...
he saw at a matinée when he was a child that used the song "Whispering" as its theme. Gillespie offered no details about the serial, except that he believed it might have starred stuntman
Stunt double
A stunt double is a type of body double, specifically a skilled replacement used for dangerous film or video sequences, in movies and television , and for other sophisticated stunts...
and rodeo rider
Rodeo
Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...
Yakima Canutt
Yakima Canutt
Yakima Canutt , also known as Yak Canutt, was an American rodeo rider, actor, stuntman and action director.-Biography:...
.
Albums named for the song
There are at least 11 different albums in the Gillespie discography alone named Groovin' High, compilations that include the song along with other notable tracks that Gillespie performed. In addition, several compilations have been released under this title in Parker's name.Gillespie albums
- Groovin' High (Bandstand): "Although not essential, there are some very interesting performances on this boppish CD." – Scott YanowScott YanowScott Yanow is an American jazz commentator, known for many contributions to the Allmusic website, for writing ten books on jazz and for reviewing jazz recordings for over 30 years.-Biography:...
. - Groovin' High (Collectables): "It all makes for a rather mixed bag and doesn't make a particularly good introduction to Gillespie, although it does jarringly show some of the extremes in the Diz legacy." – Steve Leggett.
- Groovin' High (Drive) (1994): Re-issue of the Collectables releases.
- Groovin' High (Drive) (1999)
- Groovin' High (Eclipse): "As it's a discount album..., it's a wonderful addition to the collection of any Gillespie fan."
- Groovin' High (High Definition Classics)
- Groovin' High (Indigo): "Fans of this style of jazz likely already have all of this classic material, but as a stocking stuffer or birthday present for a fledgling young jazz fan, this would work well." – Michael G. Nastos.
- Groovin' High (Jazz Hour)
- Groovin' High (Living End): "It serves as a fine introduction to one of jazz's great innovators." – Thom Jurek.
- Groovin' High (Naxos): "[T]his Naxos historical jazz collection fulfills a crying need, succinctly summing up a critical slice of time where bebop is concerned." – Richard S. Ginell.
- Groovin' High (Prism Records, 1999, ISBN 5014293651424) 25 tracks, 74 minutes
- Groovin' High (Savoy): "[C]ertainly filled with classic music, but this is a so-so, lightweight reissue...because there are only 13 selections..., the liner notes are dated and breezy, and the complete sessions are not included." – Scott Yanow.
Parker albums
- Groovin' High (BCI)
- Groovin' High (Fabulous)
- Groovin' High (Jazz Time)
- Groovin' High (K-Tel)
- Groovin' High (Total Recording)
Other albums
- Dancing Mood - Groovin' High (Sonopress)
- Booker ErvinBooker ErvinBooker Telleferro Ervin II was an American tenor saxophone player. He was perhaps best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus....
- Groovin' HighGroovin' High (Booker Ervin album)Groovin' High is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1963 and 1964 for the Prestige label.-Reception:...
(Prestige, 1966)