The Teddy Wilson Touch

A Review of the Mosaic Records Release, 2018

By B. A. Nilsson

WE’RE TALKING ABOUT the most poised, the most elegant of jazz pianists. It’s no surprise
that Teddy Wilson trained in classical music at first – the mighty influence of Bach alone has
been acknowledged by keyboard wizards ranging from Fats Waller to Keith Jarrett, with a
significant stop at Bill Evans. The influence shows in Wilson’s technical facility, of course, but
there also is evidence in his harmonic language and in the construction of his solos, which build
with a rare combination of logic, inevitability, and surprise.

You know him as part of Benny Goodman’s breakout trio and quartet configurations in the
1930s, when jazz was given its most visible portrait of racial integration; you also know him as
the leader of Billie Holiday’s favorite recording ensemble. The Wilson recordings you’re missing
are massed in a lavish seven-CD box set from Mosaic Records (which makes the term “lavish”
redundant) that collects his work from 1934 to 1942.

The 21-year-old Wilson hit the recording studio for the first time in October 1933 for a couple of
sessions with Benny Carter; the following May he cut four sides with a Goodman ensemble, and
a week later recorded his first solo sides, which is where the Mosaic collection begins. Although
new to recordings, he’d been performing long enough to have the beginnings of a distinctive
style in place.

As Loren Schoenberg’s excellent session-by-session analysis points out, it’s a showier Wilson at
the keyboard then we soon would come to know, and we can follow the progress of one number,
“Liza,” throughout a couple of subsequent sessions.

Right out of the gate, he gives the bouncy Gershwin tune a solid stride statement, before offering
subtle harmonic shifts in the second chorus. We’re hearing Wilson’s trademark chromatics in
chorus three, before the next one breaks into the virtuosic runs he’ll be known for. His left hand
isn’t straying much from stride at this point, but a year later he re-recorded “Liza” as a solo and
each of his hands has more of a mind of its own, especially in the opening statement. He gets into
an Earl Hines-ish groove by the fourth chorus (Hines was a huge influence), although I’m also
hearing some Jess Stacey here.

When Wilson calls on “Liza” later in this collection – in 1939 – he was leading his own band,
but in this particular cut they give him plenty of room. A propulsive brass intro leaves a light,
fleet, solo first chorus in its wake, and then the band trades fours, each legato band statement
answered by high-energy piano. Two spidery hands explore the keyboard for the fourth, very
chromatic chorus, and they group finishes the piece with spikier traded fours.

But Wilson’s brilliant development as one of the greatest of jazz pianists isn’t really evidenced
here, because he hit the bench pretty fully formed. His progress was more of a taking-away, a
refining of his prodigious technique to create a musical architecture as profound in its simplicity
as it was with all the filagree applied. (I’m impressed and amused that Schoenberg likens
Wilson’s flurry of notes to the compositions of Conlon Nancarrow, who achieved his own
seeming virtuosity by punching holes in player-piano rolls. It’s a good comparison.)

Wilson crafted single-line phrases with the harmonic richness of a Bach statement. Take
“Coquette,” from a 1937 small-group session with Goodman and Gene Krupa and Harry James,
among others. James leads the ensemble in an opening chorus, then delivers it to Wilson, who in
utter contrast sprinkles out a dancing line over the lightest of left-hand accompaniment – which
nicely sets up Goodman’s charming solo. (And there are two takes to compare, showing that this
was no accident.)

It should be no surprise that he backed vocalists other than Holiday with similar dynamicism and
ease. We have as evidence eighteen-year-old Ella Fitzgerald’s second recording session, in 1936,
with a Wilson-fronted band, wherefrom “My Melancholy Baby” and “All My Life” swing with
an assurance reminding us that, like Wilson, Ella arrived on the scene fairly fully formed. And
even lesser-known singers like Midge Williams, Boots Castle, and Frances Hunt get sympathetic
support.

Wilson and Krupa were part of the Benny Goodman Trio, the bandleader’s commendable effort
to break down racial barriers, further enhanced when Lionel Hampton made it a quartet. Their
Victor recordings aren’t hard to find, but the Mosaic set includes an elusive Brunswick session
that adds four more Goodman band members as well as vocalist Helen Ward, who is always a
delight to hear – and who returns for a 1937 session that includes Harry James and Johnny
Hodges and for a couple of 1940 numbers with a group including Jimmy Hamilton.

Hodges and Wilson complement one another superbly on session after session, a reminder that
Hodges had a vital presence even outside of the Ellington orchestra. They backed Billie Holiday
on a few Wilson-led sessions that included instrumental numbers that don’t make it into the
Holiday sets – but here they are (“Sugar Plum,” “Why Do I Lie To Myself About You,” and
“Fine and Dandy”), along with a few other orphaned instrumentals with other players.

While there are plenty of Wilson solo sessions along the way, the set features a kaleidoscope of
top players cycling through the various ensembles that recorded under Wilson’s name. Goodman
appears in a few of the earlier sessions, and there are wonderful quartet sessions with James, Red
Norvo, and John Simmons. As Wilson eased away from the Goodman fold, he fronted his own
big band, and those once hard-to-find sessions feature players like Ben Webster, Doc Cheatham,
and ex-Fats Waller-ites Rudy Powell and Al Casey. Especially significant are the arrangements
by Edgar Sampson and Buster Harding – it doesn’t get much better.

Mosaic strives for completeness within whatever framework they’ve devised, which calls for any
alternate takes that can be found. The more recent sets put those alternates at the end of a CD, but
there’s a pair of solo and trio sessions here, recorded in 1941, engineered by the legendary Bill
Savory, in which we have masters and alternates galore of “Rosetta,” “I Surrender Dear,” “ I
Can’t Get Started,” and others. Quite properly, they’re presented here in sequence for the
fascinating experience of witnessing the development of each of those tunes. (And we’ll be
hearing more of Savory’s work in a forthcoming Mosaic set.)
Wilson is no stranger to the Mosaic vaults, appearing in a couple of mid-30s sessions on the
Classic Columbia and Victor Chu Berry set (MD7-236), two 1950 trio sessions on the Columbia
Jazz Piano Moods Sessions (MD7-199), and, most satisfyingly, on a five-disc set containing all
of his 1952-57 trio sessions (The Complete Verve Recordings of the Teddy Wilson Trio, MD5-
173). But they’re all out of print. This one is new, it’s hot, it fills holes you didn’t even know you
had in your collection. And it’s as enjoyable as they come.

Classic Brunswick and Columbia Teddy Wilson Sessions 1934-42

Mosaic Records MD7-265
mosaicrecords.com