Jul 9, 2024 11:35 AM
Trumpeter, Educator Jim Rotondi Dies at 61
Jim Rotondi, a renowned hard-bop trumpeter, composer and educator, died suddenly on July 7 at a hospital in France. He…
Nat “King” Cole sat at the crossroads of jazz and pop.
(Photo: Capitol Photo Archives)At this point, around 1942–’43, Cole found himself at a career fork between a good jazz life and the less certain prospect of major pop fame. Compromise could not be indefinitely postponed. Ground zero for Cole would be Glenn Wallichs’ shop, Music City, a record-and-music superstore on the corner of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. It was the headquarters and hub of Los Angeles’ music and entertainment scene at the time, across the street from NBC’s West Coast studios and a minute’s walk to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Palladium.
Though Cole had worked mostly in the “Black Broadway” area along L.A.’s Central Avenue before 1940, he was becoming known, particularly at Music City, whose opening he had played that year. It was here that two key figures would converge upon Cole, each a connoisseur of a particular kind of quality. Cole was a unique blend of both. They offered him two very different futures, two very different paths ahead. But he had to make the choice.
One was Carlos Gastel. Several years Cole’s senior, he was a stylish, educated man who had come from Honduras to Los Angeles and learned the business end of the industry working at Music City. The store attracted a lot of aspiring musicians and singers, in part because Wallichs had set up a small recording studio where audition records and private sessions could be done cheaply. These were the sort of people Gastel was eager to meet because some of them might be looking for the kind of promotion and management services he could offer. In September 1941, he had hitched his wagon to Stan Kenton’s rising star and was gaining career altitude himself.
If Gastel was all show business establishment, Cole’s other would-be mentor epitomized the more cultish elitism of the jazz underground. He was Norman Granz, future founder of Jazz at the Philharmonic and Verve Records. “In the beginning of my jazz career,” Granz later wrote, “the man most responsible for my success was Nat Cole. Not only was he inextricably tied to my professional mode, but he became my best friend and mentor into the black musician’s way of life.” As Granz slowly built his irregular network of local jam sessions, Cole became its titular leader and backbone, working them into his schedule as a sidebar to his bread-and-butter trio bookings.
Aside from his first record date in 1936 (as a sideman with his brother Eddie) and two Victor sessions for Hampton in the summer of 1940, virtually all of Cole’s trio work had been done for noncommercial transcription services and were largely heard only on black radio stations. In December 1940, Decca began recording the trio, but its marketing reflected the old-time assumptions that black artists are best marketed primarily to black audiences. So, Cole was confined to the company’s 8000 or “sepia” series, reserved for black performers with some crossover potential. And indeed, Cole did begin to cross over.
Granz was eager to accelerate that success, though he had no record company, no connections and no prospects. He also had little interest in Cole as a singer. Instead, he arranged a few straight jazz dates on his own, not with the trio but with ad-hoc groups of selected musicians. And the cheapest place in town to make a record was none other than Wallichs’ Music City.
Thus converged upon Cole the very different visions of Gastel and Granz, two men who soon would be in undeclared competition over his future career. On July 15, 1942, Granz produced his first record session in the Music City studio as little more than a souvenir of his two favorite musicians—Cole and Lester Young with bassist Red Callender—with the thought of releasing it in the future. But the future was moving fast, and World War II was raging. Within a month, the draft would take Granz out of the picture. During that time, Cole would begin talks with Gastel about a possible management arrangement.
In early 1943, with Granz enlisted in the U.S. Army, Gastel and Cole shook hands—and that was that. Gastel’s one provision was that he would take no commission until Cole’s performance fee hit $800 per week. Cole, who then was pulling in about $200, was soon to learn the first lesson of show business: Never underestimate your value when you have a good agent. Gastel quickly booked him into The Orpheum Theatre at $1,000 per week, and the golden eggs began to hatch.
By the time Granz returned to L.A. as a civilian less than a year later, a lot had changed. In June 1942, that little record studio in Music City had become Capitol Records. The original partners were Wallichs, songwriter Johnny Mercer and Paramount Pictures executive Buddy DeSylva.
With that kind of paternity, a fast breakout seemed a foregone conclusion for the new label. But fate and the American Federation of Musicians would intervene, giving Granz a few months of breathing time. Six weeks after Capitol released its first record, the AFM shut down the entire record industry with a strike that would last into October 1943. Unable to record, Capitol went shopping for neglected masters from small companies. It found a couple of 1942 Cole trio sides at a black-owned label called Excelsior, bought them for $25, and immediately reissued them. “All Of You” was among the first Capitol discs to chart in the top 20. And by the fall of 1943, Gastel signed Cole to a seven-year pact at Capitol.
When Granz returned to L.A. in May 1943, Cole was beginning to taste the big time. But he hadn’t lost his interest in jazz. The two resumed their local road show of jam sessions, using their swelling success to aggressively dismantle decades of encrusted Jim Crow notions that had kept both bandstands and audiences in L.A. largely segregated.
Granz also resumed his recording with Cole, doing combinations that would never happen at Capitol. In November 1943, with the AFM strike over, Cole recorded his first breakout hit at Capitol, “Straighten Up And Fly Right.” In the same month, Granz produced a straight jazz date with Cole and Dexter Gordon, then three months later, another with Illinois Jacquet. But the Granz dates lay unreleased until 1945–’46, which is why they weren’t noticed, while the Capitols kept coming and coming.
By the time Cole did the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert on July 2, 1944, “Straighten Up And Fly Right” was making him a popular star. Capitol was a new company and had no use for any “sepia” or race line; it gave Cole complete promotional support. The final Granz-Cole collaboration came in the spring of 1946—the famous trio date with Lester Young and Buddy Rich. But this was also the year of Capitol releases 304 and 311—“(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons” and “The Christmas Song.” Time would not wait for Granz. By the time the Cole-Young-Rich date came out on Clef/Mercury a year later, Cole’s name had become far too valuable an asset for Capitol to share. It had to be camouflaged behind the pseudonym “Aye Guy.” That session effectively ended his years of moonlighting in the underground of jazz. Granz lost Cole forever at that point, and Gastel had won the big game.
Jim Rotondi was acclaimed for his wide, round trumpet tone, remarkable virtuosity and assured swing.
Jul 9, 2024 11:35 AM
Jim Rotondi, a renowned hard-bop trumpeter, composer and educator, died suddenly on July 7 at a hospital in France. He…
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