The 1961 Playboy All-Stars

Nineteen sixty in the world of jazz, as the newspapers saw it, was the Year of Contention, with riots at Newport and other bashes. Jazz fans could see beyond that. More concerned with new chords than with discord, they saw it as the Year of Invention.

There were new uses of jazz. John Lewis' The Comedy, described as "a jazz entertainment" integrating the Modern Jazz Quartet and a group of ballet dancers, was premiered in Paris. Gunther Schuller, eloquent spokesman for a "third music," was active as composer and conductor from Manhattan to Monterey. Duke Elling (text continued on page 81) ton huddled with Tchaikovsky and came up with the nuttiest of Nutcracker Suites, then, comparably inspired by Steinbeck, gave Suite Thursday a Monterey festival premiere. Count Basie, celebrating his silver jubilee as a leader, tried something new in the form of a Kansas City Suite penned for him by Benny Carter.

There were new ways of playing jazz and oddball instruments on which to play it. Ornette Coleman and his plastic alto saxophone with partner Don Cherry blowing sawed-off trumpet, after making a stormy landing on the jazz runway late in '59, produced the most argued-about sounds since Dizzy and Bird invaded 52nd Street and added the word "bebop" to hip parlance in 1944. In Chicago, a saxophonist named Roland Kirk found he could play three coincident solos – one line in three-part harmony – by blowing simultaneously on a tenor sax, a manzello (an ancient Italian instrument related to the soprano saxophone) and a strich (related to an alto saxophone, but straight rather than curved), thus automatically electing himself Mr. Miscellaneous Instrument of the Year.

There were also new places to play jazz: Madison Square Garden drew 29,135 fans in two nights for its first jazz festival, sponsored by the New York Daily News. And there was the cafe-espresso-with-jazz boom that is still building.

The intercontinental peregrinations continued. Eastbound, flutist Herbie Mann and his Dixieland-cum-Afro-Cu-ban combo went through the jungles by bus and rail, concertizing in behalf of the State Department in sixteen African countries. (As we went to press, Louis Armstrong was garnering wild approval on a State Department in sixteen African countries. (As we went to press, Louis Armstrong was garnering wild approval on a State Department tour through the Congo.) Among the westward trekkers: King Rama IX of Thailand (born, like his idol Johnny Hodges, in Cambridge, Massachusetts) made a state visit to the U.S. and waged a two-clarinet battle with Benny Goodman at Governor Nelson Rockefeller's estate. Guitarist Attila Zoller, from Visegrad, Hungary, cooked in Los Angeles as a member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet, while Joe Zawinul, a fine modern pianist from Vienna, a fine modern pianist from Vienna, spent the year as Dinah Washington's accompanist.

Along with the new sounds and new sites, a heavy air of verbal and physical strife battered the global jazz scene. First, there was the unforgettable fracas at Newport, where a group of far-outsters (one observer called them "the dissident dissonants") attempted to compete with the original festival. A second festival was wrecked when a bunch of British hooligans gave a crash course in piano-smashing, scaffolding-demolition and incendiarism on the estate of Lord Montague during his Beaulieu festival. Only a month later the statistics showed a hundred and one policemen, twenty-eight firemen and one policmen, twenty eight firemen and seventeen arrests when Ray Charles's no-show at a Portland, Oregon, ballroom induced a new brouhaha.

These incidents may not kill the festivals, but they've done a good deal to de-bloom the rose for many potential jazz promoters. Properly policed, jazz festivals can create new interest in the music. But it's more than a matter of law. Many towns can't accommodate the jazz festival throngs. Newport couldn't. And French Lick. Indiana, canceled its festival rather than risk another Newport rebellion (fortunately for jazz, an Indianapolis promoter picked up the talent tab, tossed the affair in his town and, without a single brawl, did well). More festivals in major cities, a la Playboy's Chicago Stadium wingding a year ago, is one answer; with plenty of room in which to roam, crowds don't get unruly. The New York Daily News festival in Madison Square Garden, incorporating some of Playboy's innovations (including the revolving stage), was a happy scene. A jazz festival may now be too much for Newport to handle, but, obviously, it's not a strain for New York or Chicago. The urban answer may be the best.

Thanks to the presence of Ornette Coleman, festival furor wasn't the only sign of conflict in jazz. Coleman's brave new sound fascinated some hippies and frightened others. But this much seemed sure: Coleman has found a new road to travel, is not just another Charlie Parker ventriloquist's dummy, and seems to be a composer of some skill and originality. Beyond these points there were violently partisan views.

Other new stars of the year were less controversial but no less welcome on the scene. When the Mastersounds quintet broke up, Monk (bass) and Buddy (vibes-piano) Montgomery joined forces with guitarist-brother Wes in a new combo that soon became the critics' darling. Art Farmer and Benny Golson formed their Jazztet and made rapid headway; pianist Ray Bryant, under John Hammond's wing at Columbia Records, was surprised to find himself on the bestseller lists with his Little Susie single. Cannonball Adderley's newly formed quintet made strides, musically and commercially. The "Nutty Squirrels" (Sascha Burland and Don Elliott), with their chipmunkish souped-up voices, proved that jazz-plus-humor can sell.

"Funk" and "soul" were the passwords of the year. Horace Silver had started the roots revival back in 1953, with The Preacher (based on Show Me the Way to Go Home) – a reversion to basic, gospel-influenced themes played with a neo-bop jazz feel. By 1960 funk had become fad, and record companies out-souled one another proclaiming that their products had soul. Even the West Coast veered away from the cool school toward a more aggressive, earthier sound.

On the big-band scene the excitement whirled around arranger Quincy Jones, who spent the first nine months of the year in Europe, where he played concerts (including Continental tours with Nat Cole and the Platters), cut some LPs for Mercury and finally got the crew back to the U.S. intact in September, ready to gas Manhattan's Basin Street East set – which it did.

Gerry Mulligan completed a long tour of duty as an actor in Hollywood, a small role in The Rat Race, a bigger one in The Subterraneans, and a better part, revealing him as an admirable actor, in Bells Are Ringing opposite his inamorata, Judy Holliday. Films finished, he winged East, formed a romping thirteen-piece band and toured the U.S. and Europe under the Norman Granz banner, and recorded for Verve.

Speaking of The Subterraneans reminds us that one of jazzdom's most ambitious artists in 1960 was another musician seen and heard in that picture, Andre Previn. During the year this young genius won his second consecutive Oscar, for Porgy and Bess – the year before it was for Gigi; gassed English and Continental listeners during a combined honeymoon and business trip and continued to build his dual reputation as a top-selling jazz and pop recording artist.

One of the bluer notes of the year was tolled on the nightclub circuit. The final curtain at Chicago's Blue Note, the padlocking of Fack's in San Francisco and the destruction by fire of the Colonial Tavern in Toronto left precious few spots outside New York City where a big-name, big-money group could get a gig. Some small compensation could be found in the growth of the coffeehouses. Flourishing from Cum-mington Street in Boston to Sunset Boulevard in Flick City, they made extensive use of jazzmen, although the bread was thin. On a much more luxuriant level, the launching of the International Playboy Clubs augured well for the placing of intimate jazz in appropriate surroundings.

A number of casualties made news. Oscar Pettiford, perennial runner-up to Ray Brown in our annual poll, died at the age of thirty-seven in Copenhagen, where he had been working with Stan Getz. The name of venerable trumpeter Lee Collins was added to the list of lost New Orleans pioneers. Other departures from the jazz scene: early Chicago-style clarinetist Bud Jacobson, New York clarinetist Prince Robinson and, in Mexico City, composer Fabian Andre.

On the celluloid side of the street one event had all the others walking in the shade. Jazz on a Summer's Day, filmed at the 1958 Newport fiesta but not released until 1960, finally showed how a jazz film can and should be made – the way Hollywood has never done it, without hip jargon, boy-digs-girl plots or any of the previously inevitable trappings.

Perhaps the most important trend of the year was the move toward good programming on FM radio. In San Francisco, two all-jazz FM stations, aptly dubbed KJAZ and KHIP, are on the air about eighteen hours a day. The latter also does live-jazz remotes from the Black Hawk, Jazz Workshop and other area spots. Two other local FM stations have several hours of jazz a week. In New York, WNCN last spring started a policy of thirty-five hours a week, the regular jocks including Cannonball Ad-derley and a posse of critics, this writer among them. Sleepy Stein's all-jazz KNOB in Los Angeles is in its third year; other FM outlets like WHAT in Philadelphia and WNIB, WCLM and WXFM in Chicago have found audiences for jazz time-slots.

AM radio came to life, shocked out of its rock-'n'-roll complacency early in the year by the payola scandal. If they didn't go overboard for Mingus or (continued on page 129)Playboy all-stars(continued from page 84) Monk, at least the d.j.s seemed to be scheduling more Ella and less Fabian.

Television, except for a couple of fine shows on CBS' Robert Herridge Theatre (one with Miles and Gil Evans, another with Ben Webster and Ahmad Jamal), was quiescent. The use of semi-jazz scores on cops-'n'-robbers stanzas continued, but jazz spectaculars and bigloot sponsors just couldn't see each other. Happily, such acts as Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, rarely seen on TV, could still be dug on Playboy's Penthouse.

A more durable form of jazz subsidy appeared on the academic level. By late 1960 it had become clear that the tendency to treat jazz as a subject for study was no passing fad. The jazz clinic at the University of Indiana expanded its courses from one to two weeks, with Stan Kenton, Russ Garcia, Conte Candoli et al. on the faculty. Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Ed Thigpen and some academically-minded cronies in Toronto started a series of four-month courses in jazz playing and writing at their Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto. Twenty-six groups competed at Notre Dame in the second annual Collegiate Jazz Festival. Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond were among the judges at an Intercollegiate Jazz Festival held at Georgetown U. in Washington, D.C. Iowa State Teachers College held its twelfth annual Dimensions in Jazz concerts.

Having perused Billboard's files and checked these findings with other reliable sources, we've come up with six of the top jazz sellers of the year. Alphabetically, they are: Cannonball Adderley with Quintet in San Francisco on Riverside; Miles Davis with Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain on Columbia; Pete Fountain's New Orleans on Coral; Ahmad Jamal with the continued success of At the Pershing as well as At the Penthouse on Argo; Henry Mancini with the deathless Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky of TV on RCA Victor; George Shearing with White Satin on Capitol. Playboy's own third LP package, The Playboy Jazz All-Stars, Volume Three, featuring three 12" discs, with sounds by all the winners of the previous poll, including recorded highlights from The Playboy Jazz Festival, sold more copies than the first two Playboy jazz volumes combined.

As the year drew to a close, jazz stars and Playboy-reading jazz buffs alike were again asked to name the artists who had impressed them most during the previous twelve months. The winners of the Playboy readers' poll, the biggest popularity contest in jazzdom – and bigger this year than ever before – each took a place of honor on the magazine's dream aggregation: the 1961 Playboy All-Star Jazz Band. The jazz stars themselves, winners in last year's poll, were asked to choose their own favorite in each category for our Playboy All-Stars honors. In some cases the musicians' and the readers' choices were identical: in other cases, they differed radically. All the winners will receive the coveted sterling silver Playboy Jazz Medal.

The jazz artists who won medals in last year's contest and were thus eligible to vote in this year's All-Stars' All-Stars balloting were: Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Earl Bostic, Bob Brookmeyer, Ray Brown, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Buddy DeFranco, Paul Desmond, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, the Four Freshmen, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Coleman Hawkins, Milt Jackson, J.J. Johnson, Stan Kenton, Barney Kessel, Shelly Manne, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Gerry Mulligan, Frank Sinatra, Jack Teagarden and Kai Winding.

All-Stars' All-Star leader: A Duke still outranks a Count among jazz royalty. Ellington placed ahead of Basie for the musicians' own choice of the outstanding bandleader of the year the second time in a row; together Ellington and Basie earned a majority of their fellow musicians' votes. Maynard Ferguson replaced his quondam boss, Stan Kenton, in third position. An odd trick of fate tied two veterans, Evans and Kenton (both born in 1912), for fourth place, while similarly linking two youngsters right after them, Jones (1933) and Mulligan (1927), in sixth place. 1. Duke Ellington; 2. Count Basie; 3. Maynard Ferguson; 4. Gil Evans, Stan Kenton; 6. Quincy Jones, Gerry Mulligan.

All-Stars' All-Star trumpet: A 1960 LP by Dizzy Gillespie, titled The Greatest Trumpet of Them All, proved a truism as Dizzy took this crown for the second time. Miles Davis was a close second again as a favorite with his fellow jazzmen, and, interesting to note, Davis' original idol, Clark Terry, was a finalist this year, Placing in fourth position after Art Farmer, which dropped Satchmo down a position. 1. Dizzy Gillespie; 2. Miles Davis; 3. Art Farmer; 4. Clark Terry; 5. Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge.

All-Stars' All-Star trombone: The first three musicians' choices – J.J., Brookmeyer and Teagarden – are also members of the readers' All-Star Band, but Kai Winding, who has managed to win a place of honor five times in a row in the reader balloting, didn't place with the musicians this year. Curtis Fuller, a youngster heard in early 1960 with the Jazztet, moved up into fourth place, however. 1. J.J. Johnson; 2. Bob Brookmeyer; 3. Jack Teagarden; 4. Curtis Fuller; 5. Urbie Green, Bill Harris.

All-Stars' All-Star alto sax: The candid Cannonball calls won out over the delicate Desmond tones that earned Paul first place in last year's poll, as well as both years' readers' polls. The controversial Ornette Coleman found himself in fourth place, a possible prelude to still stronger showings in the future. 1. Cannonball Adderley; 2. Sonny Stitt; 3. Paul Desmond; 4. Ornette Coleman; 5. Lee Konitz.

All-Stars' All-Star tenor sax: A victory in absentia (he spent the entire year in Europe) showed the firmness of the Getz grip as Stan won a silver medal from fellow musicians for the second year. On the other hand, Sonny Rollins' year in complete retirement toppled him from the top five. Zoot Sims' felicitous teamwork with Al Cohn and later with Mulligan lifted him from fifth to second place. 1. Stan Getz; 2. Zoot Sims; 3. John Coltrane; 4. Ben Webster; 5. Coleman Hawkins.

All-Stars' All-Star Baritone sax: This category, for readers and musicians alike, remains Gerry's private bailiwick, with only two other baritone men in existence as far as musicians are concerned; the fourth and fifth spots remain blank. 1. Gerry Mulligan; 2. Harry Carney; 3. Pepper Adams.

All-Stars' All-Star clarinet: Benny Goodman returned to full-scale activity in 1960, jumped up from the fourth spot and almost took the silver medallion away from DeFranco. Buddy, however, wound up with his second medal, while Tony Scott replaced Peanuts Hucko as a finalist in the top five. 1. Buddy DeFranco; 2. Benny Goodman; 3. Jimmy Giuffre; 4. Jimmy Hamilton; 5. Tony Scott.

All-Stars' All-Star plano: Out of the LP limelight, due to his running legal battle with Columbia Records, Erroll Garner fell from first to third place with his fellow jazz artists, while Peterson scored resoundingly, earning more points than Garner and second-place Evans combined. 1. Oscar Peterson; 2. Bill Evans; 3. Erroll Garner; 4. Dave Brubeck; 5. Horace Silver.

All-Stars' All-Star guitar: The immovable Barney Kessel was again followed by Jim Hall, but Tal Farlow, now in retirement, dropped out, while Wes Montgomery, who did not place last year, finished third. 1. Barney Kessel; 2. Jim Hall; 3. Wes Montgomery; 4. Kenny Burrell; B. Herb Ellis.

All-Stars' All-Star bass: No problem at all for Ray Brown. The Peterson Trio's magnificent string man has now won himself eight Playboy victories – five from the readers, three from musicians – which means that he has picked up all the marbles in every Playboy Poll. This year, the All-Star musicians gave him more points than the other four finalists combined. 1. Ray Brown; 2. Paul Chambers; 3. George Duvivier; 4. Milt Hinton; 5. Red Mitchell.

All-Stars' All-Star drums: Philly Joe, who almost edged out Shelly Manne last year, finally made it this time in a tough two-way contest with Art Blakey. Mulligan's West Coast stick expert. Mel Lewis, was a surprise recipient of the third spot as Shelly slipped to fourth, while Buddy Rich and Max Roach disappeared entirely from the top five listings, leaving fifth place to Brubeck's Joe Morello. 1. Philly Joe Jones; 2. Art Blakey; 3. Mel Lewis; 4. Shelly Manne; 5. Joe Morello.

All-Stars' All-Star miscellaneous instrument: This year, Milt Jackson received more votes from his fellow musicians than almost anyone else nominated in their balloting. Don Elliott remained in second place. Victor Feldman, who tied him last year, slipped to fifth. Gibbs, Hampton and Stuff Smith are all newcomers to this category. 1. Milt Jackson, Vibes; 2. Don Elliott, vibes and mellophone; 3. Terry Gibbs, vibes; 4. Lionel Hampton, vibes; 5. Vic Feldman, vibes, Stuff Smith, violin.

All-Stars' All-Star male vocalist: No significant changes here. Sinatra's ninety-nine-year lease on Playboy's vocal penthouse seems unlikely to be broken in the foreseeable future. 1. Frank Sinatra; 2. Joe Williams; 3. Nat "King" Cole; 4. Ray Charles; 5. David Allen.

All-Stars' All-Star female vocalist: Ella Mack-the-Knifed her way to the top by a fantastic margin, earning more musicians' votes than anyone else in any category. Though the divine Sarah took second place once again, the rest of the votes were scattered, with a four-way tie for fifth place. 1. Ella Fitzgerald; 2. Sarah Vaughan; 3. Dinah Washington; 4. Peggy Lee; 5. Helen Humes, Lurlean Hunter, Mahalia Jackson, Teddi King.

All-Stars' All-Star instrumental combo: Miles Davis moved from second to first place, easing John Lewis' MJQ down to second. Brubeck and Peterson held onto their 1960 slots, while Cannonball, whose quintet was newly formed at the time of last year's poll, appeared in the top five for the first time. 1. Miles Davis Quintet; 2. Modern Jazz Quartet; 3. Dave Brubeck Quartet; 4. Oscar Peterson Trio; 5. Cannonball Adderley Quintet.

All-Stars' All-Star vocal group: Though they took it from the Hi-Lo's by little more than a quarter-note, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross managed to win the musicians' balloting for the second straight year. Except for the Four Freshmen, the other vocal groups who placed are newcomers to the top five in this category. 1. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross; 2. Hi-Lo's; 3. Four Freshmen; 4. KingSisters, Mills Brothers; 6. Andy and the Bey Sisters, Jackie Cain and Roy Kral.

More readers cast their ballots in the fifth annual Playboy Jazz Poll than in any since its inception, but the 1961 Playboy All-Star Jazz Band was little changed from last year's mythical aggregation. A place in this utopian jazz ensemble, once won, is given up about as readily as a seat on the Stock Exchange. Loyal readers and new-found fans joined forces to keep almost all the members in their 1960 places. However, there were some changes at the top of the various sections, some positions were held only after a real struggle, and there was considerable moving about in the positions directly below the winners' circle.

Stan Kenton, all dynamic six-feet-four-inches of him, towered over the competition to remain chosen leader of the All-Stars for the fifth straight year. Count Basic managed to move up from third place into second place, dropping Duke Ellington down to third. Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie again appeared in that order as the triumphant triumvirate of trumpets, but the fourth winning chair found a "new" man playing in the Playboy All-Star brass section, as swing-era stylist Jonah Jones, in his fiftieth year, captured the honors. Italy-based Chet Baker lost his place among the Playboy All-Stars for the first time in the five years the poll has been in existence, dropping all the way to sixth place, while Maynard Ferguson moved up from seventh to fifth, and Art Farmer, in his first flush of fame as a leader, climbed from ninth to seventh. Filling out the brass section was the same firmly-set trombone foursome that has now won five years in a row: J. J., Kai Winding, Brookmeyer and Teagarden.

Bossmanship paid off, too. for Cannon-ball Adderley, who moved up from fourth to second place, and a silver medal, just behind top man, Paul Desmond, of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Cannonball's shot dropped Earl Bostic out of the winners' circle, to third. Or-nette Coleman, plastic saxophone in hand, blew his way from twenty-fifth place in last year's poll to sixth in '61.

What they heard on LPs was enough to convince readers that Danish resident Stan Getz still belongs in the winning sax section, with Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan and Benny Goodman still seated by his side as members of the reed dream team. On tenor, John Coltrane moved up from sixth to third place, just outside the chosen few, and on clarinet, Pete Fountain moved from fifth to second.

The piano bench, always one of the hotly-contested seats in the playboy reader poll, turned out to be in doubt until the very end of the balloting. But by the November 1 cut-off date, Dave Brubeck had moved into the top position, recapturing the spot he lost to Erroll two years ago, and Garner had collected enough votes to hold onto second place; Ahmad Jamal was third, but with very few votes separating the top three.

Barney Kessel, the annual guitar winner, had a surprise runner-up in Chet Atkins, a part-time jazzman, whose Nashville All-Stars have had quite a bit of air play lately. Chet did no better than a tie for twenty-fifth place last year. The excellent Charlie Byrd, seventh in 1960, rose to fourth place in the readers' popularity poll. Ray Brown was the first bass man, as usual, but Charlie Mingus surprised us by leaping from tenth to second position, while Paul Chambers amassed enough additional votes to move up from sixth place to third. If Oscar Pettiford had lived, his votes would have placed him in fourth position. (Artists deceased before our publication date are not shown in the results.)

Shelly Manne, the West Coast ace, missed taking top honors in this year's musicians' poll, but had no difficulty beating out the opposition for the fifth time in a row when the readers cast their votes for skin man of the 1961 Playboy All-Star Jazz Band. Long-time favorite Gene Krupa remained in second place, and Brubeck's brilliant Joe Mo-rello moved up from fourth to third. Art Blakey moved up from eighth position to fourth, and Philly Joe Jones, the musicians' choice as outstanding drummer of the year, placed ninth with readers. Lionel Hampton hammered out a victory on his vibes for the fifth year in a row under the Miscellaneous Instrument category, followed again by the musicians' favorite, Milt Jackson. Miles Davis' popularity on any sort of horn gave him sixth place fosr his Flügelhorn, an instrument for which he was not even nominated a year ago.

Until "The Voice" decides to retire or stick strictly to acting, there seems to be little chance of his being displaced in the Male Vocalist department, but a number of relative newcomers were scrambling for the positions just below Sinatra. Johnny Mathis, with song stylings that become more sweet and gooey with each new best-selling LP release, held onto the second-place position he moved into two years ago. An extremely popular r & b singer for the last half-dozen years, Ray Charles moved from eighth position a year ago into third place (two years ago he could not gather enough votes to even find a place in the 1959 listings). Bobby Darin, fresh out of his teens and his dedication to rock-'n'-roll, is after bigger game now with (like Charles) a smash nightclub show and best-selling LPs, such as Darin at the Copa: he's moved up from sixth place a year ago into fourth. Bobby, too, was nowhere to be found in the final listings two years ago. With all this scrambling for attention going on among the relatively new vocalists, Nat "King" Cole has dropped in position from fourth to eighth, while actually receiving a larger number of votes than a year ago. Jon Hendricks, of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, moved up impressively to tenth position, following his first nomination in the Male Vocalist category. Frank D'Rone, still one of the best new vocalists around, although relatively unknown, rated nearly the same as last year, while amassing nearly one third more votes. Bill Henderson, who recently triumphed at The Playboy Club in Chicago, is another up-coming jazz vocalist to keep an eye on: he copped this year's Down Beat jazz poll award as an outstanding new vocal talent.

Ella Fitzgerald is, of course, as irreplaceable in her top spot as Frank is in his; but directly and distantly below the First Lady of Song are a number of talented chirpers who are very close together in the ratings. June Christy still has second place, a spot she's held since the beginning of the playboy poll five years ago. Right behind her this year, and just a handful of votes off the pace, is Julie London, replacing Dakota Staton in the third-place spot. Peggy Lee has moved up from eighth position to fourth. Nina Simone, almost entirely unknown until less than two years ago, moved from ninth up to fifth, trading places with Keely Smith.

Dave Brubeck won top Instrumental Combo honors in the readers' poll for the fifth year in a row. Despite Ahmad Jamal's strong showing on piano, he was unable to hold onto the second spot: the MJQ recaptured it, dropping the Jamal Trio into third, and the Miles Davis Quintet moved up from fifth to fourth.

The voting for Vocal Group provided something of an upset: a rousing victory for the sensational Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, who put their own words to the big-band arrangements of Basie and others. Though L, H & R's appeal to fellow-musicians earned them a victory in the All-Stars' All-Stars segment a year ago, and again (but by a narrower margin) in 1961, their first victory in the readers' balloting was especially impressive when you consider that they relegated to supporting positions such firm popular favorites as The Kingston Trio (second again), the Four Freshmen (down from first to third) and the Hi-Lo's (down from third to fourth).

Following is a tabulation of the hundreds of thousands of votes cast in this biggest of all jazz polls, with the names of the jazzmen who won a place on the 1961 Playboy All-Star Jazz Band set in boldface. In some categories, there are two or more winners to make up the complement of a full-scale jazz orchestra. Artists receiving less than one hundred votes are not listed; in categories where two choices were allowed, those receiving less than two hundred votes are not listed; in categories where four votes were allowed, no one with under four hundred votes is listed.changed from last year's mythical aggregation. A place in this utopian jazz ensemble, once won, is given up about as readily as a seat on the Stock Exchange. Loyal readers and new-found fans joined forces to keep almost all the members in their 1960 places. However, there were some changes at the top of the various sections, some positions were held only after a real struggle, and there was considerable moving about in the positions directly below the winners' circle.

Stan Kenton, all dynamic six-feet-four-inches of him, towered over the competition to remain chosen leader of the All-Stars for the fifth straight year. Count Basic managed to move up from third place into second place, dropping Duke Ellington down to third. Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie again appeared in that order as the triumphant triumvirate of trumpets, but the fourth winning chair found a "new" man playing in the Playboy All-Star brass section, as swing-era stylist Jonah Jones, in his fiftieth year, captured the honors. Italy-based Chet Baker lost his place among the Playboy All-Stars for the first time in the five years the poll has been in existence, dropping all the way to sixth place, while Maynard Ferguson moved up from seventh to fifth, and Art Farmer, in his first flush of fame as a leader, climbed from ninth to seventh. Filling out the brass section was the same firmly-set trombone foursome that has now won five years in a row: J. J., Kai Winding, Brookmeyer and Teagarden.

Bossmanship paid off, too. for Cannon-ball Adderley, who moved up from fourth to second place, and a silver medal, just behind top man, Paul Desmond, of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Cannonball's shot dropped Earl Bostic out of the winners' circle, to third. Or-nette Coleman, plastic saxophone in hand, blew his way from twenty-fifth place in last year's poll to sixth in '61.

What they heard on LPs was enough to convince readers that Danish resident Stan Getz still belongs in the winning sax section, with Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan and Benny Goodman still seated by his side as members of the reed dream team. On tenor, John Coltrane moved up from sixth to third place, just outside the chosen few, and on clarinet, Pete Fountain moved from fifth to second.

The piano bench, always one of the hotly-contested seats in the playboy reader poll, turned out to be in doubt until the very end of the balloting. But by the November 1 cut-off date, Dave Brubeck had moved into the top position, recapturing the spot he lost to Erroll two years ago, and Garner had collected enough votes to hold onto second place; Ahmad Jamal was third, but with very few votes separating the top three.

Barney Kessel, the annual guitar winner, had a surprise runner-up in Chet Atkins, a part-time jazzman, whose Nashville All-Stars have had quite a bit of air play lately. Chet did no better than a tie for twenty-fifth place last year. The excellent Charlie Byrd, seventh in 1960, rose to fourth place in the readers' popularity poll. Ray Brown was the first bass man, as usual, but Charlie Mingus surprised us by leaping from tenth to second position, while Paul Chambers amassed enough additional votes to move up from sixth place to third. If Oscar Pettiford had lived, his votes would have placed him in fourth position. (Artists deceased before our publication date are not shown in the results.)

Shelly Manne, the West Coast ace, missed taking top honors in this year's musicians' poll, but had no difficulty beating out the opposition for the fifth time in a row when the readers cast their votes for skin man of the 1961 Playboy All-Star Jazz Band. Long-time favorite Gene Krupa remained in second place, and Brubeck's brilliant Joe Mo-rello moved up from fourth to third. Art Blakey moved up from eighth position to fourth, and Philly Joe Jones, the musicians' choice as outstanding drummer of the year, placed ninth with readers. Lionel Hampton hammered out a victory on his vibes for the fifth year in a row under the Miscellaneous Instrument category, followed again by the musicians' favorite, Milt Jackson. Miles Davis' popularity on any sort of horn gave him sixth place fosr his Flügelhorn, an instrument for which he was not even nominated a year ago.

Until "The Voice" decides to retire or stick strictly to acting, there seems to be little chance of his being displaced in the Male Vocalist department, but a number of relative newcomers were scrambling for the positions just below Sinatra. Johnny Mathis, with song stylings that become more sweet and gooey with each new best-selling LP release, held onto the second-place position he moved into two years ago. An extremely popular r & b singer for the last half-dozen years, Ray Charles moved from eighth position a year ago into third place (two years ago he could not gather enough votes to even find a place in the 1959 listings). Bobby Darin, fresh out of his teens and his dedication to rock-'n'-roll, is after bigger game now with (like Charles) a smash nightclub show and best-selling LPs, such as Darin at the Copa: he's moved up from sixth place a year ago into fourth. Bobby, too, was nowhere to be found in the final listings two years ago. With all this scrambling for attention going on among the relatively new vocalists, Nat "King" Cole has dropped in position from fourth to eighth, while actually receiving a larger number of votes than a year ago. Jon Hendricks, of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, moved up impressively to tenth position, following his first nomination in the Male Vocalist category. Frank D'Rone, still one of the best new vocalists around, although relatively unknown, rated nearly the same as last year, while amassing nearly one third more votes. Bill Henderson, who recently triumphed at The Playboy Club in Chicago, is another up-coming jazz vocalist to keep an eye on: he copped this year's Down Beat jazz poll award as an outstanding new vocal talent.

Ella Fitzgerald is, of course, as irreplaceable in her top spot as Frank is in his; but directly and distantly below the First Lady of Song are a number of talented chirpers who are very close together in the ratings. June Christy still has second place, a spot she's held since the beginning of the playboy poll five years ago. Right behind her this year, and just a handful of votes off the pace, is Julie London, replacing Dakota Staton in the third-place spot. Peggy Lee has moved up from eighth position to fourth. Nina Simone, almost entirely unknown until less than two years ago, moved from ninth up to fifth, trading places with Keely Smith.

Dave Brubeck won top Instrumental Combo honors in the readers' poll for the fifth year in a row. Despite Ahmad Jamal's strong showing on piano, he was unable to hold onto the second spot: the MJQ recaptured it, dropping the Jamal Trio into third, and the Miles Davis Quintet moved up from fifth to fourth.

The voting for Vocal Group provided something of an upset: a rousing victory for the sensational Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, who put their own words to the big-band arrangements of Basie and others. Though L, H & R's appeal to fellow-musicians earned them a victory in the All-Stars' All-Stars segment a year ago, and again (but by a narrower margin) in 1961, their first victory in the readers' balloting was especially impressive when you consider that they relegated to supporting positions such firm popular favorites as The Kingston Trio (second again), the Four Freshmen (down from first to third) and the Hi-Lo's (down from third to fourth).

Following is a tabulation of the hundreds of thousands of votes cast in this biggest of all jazz polls, with the names of the jazzmen who won a place on the 1961 Playboy All-Star Jazz Band set in boldface. In some categories, there are two or more winners to make up the complement of a full-scale jazz orchestra. Artists receiving less than one hundred votes are not listed; in categories where two choices were allowed, those receiving less than two hundred votes are not listed; in categories where four votes were allowed, no one with under four hundred votes is listed.

Leader

Trumpet

Alto Sax

Baritone Sax

Clarinet

Piano

Guitar

Bass

Drums

Miscellaneous Instrument

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Instrumental Combo

Vocal Group