Jazz '67

a look at the current jazz scene--plus the winners of the 11th annual playboy poll and readers' choices for the playboy jazz hall of fame and records of the year

What could turn out to have been the most significant trend in the jazz year just past was the increasing use of the music as an organic part of neighborhood and public school activities. In New York City, for example, the traveling Jazzmobile gave more than 40 concerts during the summer in what the sociologists call "disadvantaged" neighborhoods. Such prestigious jazzmen as Dizzy Gillespie, Horace Silver and Coleman Hawkins participated at union scale (about $20 a performance). Pianist Billy Taylor, director of the project, described its appeal to the musicians as well as the listeners: "We're invited in to play by block leaders. We start with a kind of parade and we cruise down the street to a specific area, stop and play for an hour. The faces on those kids made up for the little pay we were getting." The Jazzmobile is supported by Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians and a beer company.

Jazz also became part of a number of antipoverty operations. Harlem's Har-You-Act included a resident jazz orchestra; and in Brooklyn, jazz bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik, music director of Bedford-Stuyvesant's Youth in Action, gave classes in jazz and set up concerts by bands composed of local youngsters and professionals. In California, when community leaders of Watts wanted to mark the anniversary of the 1965 violence in that neighborhood, they decided to hold a three-day Summer Art and Jazz Festival in August. Said one of the organizers: "The revolt of last year marked the end of Watts' passivity. This year's festival is within the new tradition of positive, forceful community action."

On a Federal level, jazz was still beyond the boundaries of official recognition. In May, when the National Council on the Arts decided to allocate $3,000,000 to support theater, literature, music and the graphic arts, there was no mention of jazz. However, there were nascent signs that state cultural establishments were becoming slightly more hip. For the first time, the New York State Council of the Arts acknowledged jazz, sponsoring a week-long tour of colleges and universities by a challengingly avant-garde caravan including Sun Ra, Giuseppi Logan and Burton Greene. And the California Arts Commission, the only such state unit to have a board member from the jazz community--Jimmy Lyons, general manager of the Monterey Festival--began to consider including jazz in its concert plans.

As for the public schools, in the first of what will surely be a series of such attempts throughout the country, the Seattle, Washington, Jazz Society has applied for $160,000 in U. S. Office of Education funds for a jazz-concert and lecture-demonstration series during the school year.

Another strong indication that jazz is achieving a new degree of status among some elements of the establishment was the extraordinary increase in the fusion between jazz and religion. The 20th annual Los Angeles Music Festival in May, for example, featured not only Igor Stravinsky but a performance of Lalo Schifrin's Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts. Throughout the country, from Los Angeles' St. Alban's Episcopal Church to the Presbyterian Chapel of Lake Forest College in Illinois to the United Church of Christ in New York, jazz services abounded.

At the Newport Jazz Festival, the Reverend John Gensel, officially appointed by the Lutheran Church as Pastor to the Jazz Community in New York City, conducted a Jazz Workshop Service on Sunday morning, July 3. Throughout the year, the amiable pastor presided over Sunday jazz vesper services in New York in which many leading jazzmen participated. Also at Newport was the Reverend Malcolm Boyd, whose readings from his book of prayers in the contemporary idiom, Are You Running with Me, Jesus?--with accompaniment by jazz guitar--later were heard on record and in night clubs, most notably during a sizable run at the hungry i in San Francisco.

Dave Brubeck, meanwhile, spent much of the year composing a religious service for the Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut, where he lives. Its theme is the temptation of Christ and the 40 days in the desert, and Brubeck has arranged the work so that it can be performed by any church of any denomination.

The one jazz figure who most benefited from the surge of interest in syncopating religion was Duke Ellington. His program of religious jazz, first performed in the fall of 1965 at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, was in persistent demand throughout 1966. He, his orchestra and often tap dancer Bunny Briggs praised the Lord "with the timbrel and dance" in churches across America, at Coventry Cathedral in England, at several churches in West Germany, and even at such secular refuges as St. John Terrell's Music Circus in Lambertville, New Jersey. Explaining the latter site, Duke observed, "You can pray anywhere you can play."

Ellington's secular year was as crowded as usual. He crisscrossed the United States and Europe, created new pieces, and perpetuated the illusion that he had somehow stopped the aging process. In April, Ellington led the United States contingent to the first World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. "In the Cold War battle for prestige at the festival," The New York Times reported, "Duke Ellington's smash performances clearly established the United States as the festival favorite."

There were other distinctions conferred on the Duke--an honorary doctor of fine arts degree from the California College of Arts and Crafts; an appointment to deliver one of the Corbett Music Lectures sponsored by the University of Cincinnati (Igor Stravinsky had been his predecessor in 1965); and the bestowal on him of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences' Bing Crosby Golden Achievement Award.

As Ellington added to his diadems, two seminal figures returned to the jazz scene after temporary excursions, one into limbo and the other outside America. After an absence of more than six months, part of it in a Los Angeles hospital, a decidedly invigorated Ray Charles was back on the concert circuit while also overseeing his record company and recording more albums to add to his royalty annuities. Ornette Coleman, having exiled himself to Europe, decided to return to his roots and found a growing audience awaiting him at concerts and in night clubs.

Stan Kenton also became more visible and audible than he had been the previous year. The concerts in Los Angeles by his Neophonic Orchestra drew larger crowds, and he also reorganized his summer clinic in modern music at Redlands University, California. There, in addition to a wide-ranging curriculum for the young, Kenton further ensured the extension of his influence by setting up courses for music educators.

The white-maned missionary, having predicted the death of jazz only two years ago, ended 1966 on a buoyant note of prediction that finally the big bands were indeed coming back. Declared Kenton: "I'm fully convinced that in not more than three years, this whole field of big-band music will explode again."

While doubters remained, there were some auguries to bear out Kenton's optimism. In New York, the Mark Twain Riverboat, a spacious restaurant in the Empire State Building, proved that a booking policy based primarily on big bands could be consistently profitable. Among the orchestras: Woody Herman, Count Basie, the Glenn Miller band under its new leader, Buddy DeFranco, Les and Larry Elgart, Lionel Hampton and a Tommy Dorsey orchestra led by Urbie Green. The dancers being insatiable and the supply of big bands occasionally thin, the Riverboat also stimulated the revival of Bob Crosby's Bob Cats and persuaded Benny Goodman to play once more for dancing.

On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Playboy Club spurred hopes of a renaissance of big bands. Among others, the large orchestras of Terry Gibbs and Gerald Wilson found an eager audience there. Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe continued as oases for big bands--from such established enterprises as those of Harry James and Count Basie to the new big band of Buddy Rich. Another new aggregation, the Thad Jones--Mel Lewis orchestra in New York, played a series of tumultuous Monday nights at the Village Vanguard, recorded an album and was featured at the Newport Festival.

By year's end, the climate for big bands seemed so encouraging that even the once-ubiquitous Charlie Barnet roused himself from five years of lotus eating at Palm Springs to form an orchestra that already had bookings at New York's Basin Street East in December and the Tropicana in Las Vegas this month. And Woody Herman, who has survived the leanest of the big-band years, was sanguine about the future as he observed that his unit was increasingly being booked for college concert dates--an area almost monopolized in recent times by folk and rock groups. Furthermore, Herman was encouraged by the persistent growth of stage bands in high schools and colleges. "They play our music," Woody emphasized, "along with Basie's and Ellington's. Whatever future there is for big bands lies with these young people."

Judging by the quality of competition at the various intercollegiate jazz festivals during the year, "these young people" were playing better than ever. There were tournaments at Villanova (Stan Kenton, emcee), Notre Dame, the University of Kansas, the State College of Iowa, Gonzaga University, Olympic College, and other academies. A significant new event was the Mobile Jazz Festival. As John S. Wilson pointed out in The New York Times, "Instead of being student-run, with the consequent changing levels of efficiency caused by the annual turnover in committee members and the limited funds available to student groups, the Mobile Festival gets its financial support from Mobile businessmen."

In addition to making music, college students were an increasingly important source of engagements for professionals and of proselytizing activity for jazz as a whole. Concert series, workshops and symposia were held at Columbia, New York University, Hunter, Wayne State, the University of Chicago, San Francisco State College and the University of California at Berkeley and at Los Angeles. The most ambitious undertaking of all was the final half of the Stanford Jazz Year--the first full-scale program of and about jazz at an American university, encompassing concerts, lectures and exhibits.

There was further evidence that more of a place is being made for jazz in the academy. Rutgers University acquired the archives of Professor Marshall Stearns' Institute of Jazz Studies, the most extensive collection of jazz recordings and writings in existence. The university announced its intention to sponsor seminars in jazz and develop jazz research projects, including an oral history of the music that would involve taping the memoirs of jazz musicians. Rutgers and the Institute also inaugurated a series of jazz concerts to take place at Carnegie Hall and at the university.

Another partnership between jazz and the campus resulted in the University of California and the Monterey Jazz Festival holding a weekend conference in November for high school and junior college educators on "Jazz in the Classroom." Meanwhile, the Manhattan School of Music, long a major training center for classical musicians, elected John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet to its board of trustees and asked him to plan a jazz training program.

For several years, the most successful jazz educator in the Midwest has been Jerry Coker of the University of Indiana. The former Woody Herman sideman has now been recruited by the University of Miami, where he is in charge of a degree-granting jazz curriculum. Taking Coker's place as head of Indiana University's jazz department was jazz cellist Dave Baker.

Continually cognizant of jazz happenings on campus is the U. S. State Department. At the end of January, it sent the Indiana University Jazz Ensemble, trained by Jerry Coker, on a 15-week tour of the Near East and South Asia. In the spring, the Northwestern University Saxophone Quartet journeyed to the Far East.

The State Department also commissioned two groups of professional jazzmen to transmute jazz into diplomacy. From April to June, Woody Herman's band appeared in Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the United Arab Republic, Morocco, Tanzania, the Congo and the Ivory Coast. On his return, Woody had acerbic advice for the State Department: "How many times we just sat on our keisters, waiting, waiting, when we could have been playing. And how many times did we have to play for strictly the VIP element. We wanted to get out and play for the little guys, like the time we played to 7000 in Elisabethville, out in the square. It was great. The State Department is tremendously interested in jazz as a vital commodity, but it needs guys who are interested in showbiz."

In July, an Earl Hines combo began a six-week tour of Russia under the auspices of the State Department. Several musicians in the band shared Woody Herman's dissonant view of State Department acumen in planning a jazz tour, but the major unpleasant surprise during the trip was caused by Russian officialdom. Observing the enthusiasm with which young Russian audiences reacted to Hines' initial concerts, Soviet functionaries canceled the group's concerts in Moscow, Leningrad and Alma-Ata, rerouting the combo to three smaller cities in the Black Sea area. Because of its position on the war in Vietnam, the Soviet government apparently did not want what it considered undue affection given representatives of the American Government. The United States officially protested, but to no avail.

In any case, the reception of Hines by the young, together with growing indigenous jazz activity in the Soviet Union, indicates how strongly rooted the music has become in Russia. No longer attempting to repress jazz as "alien" culture, Komsomolskaya Pravda, policy-making journal of the Young Communist League, proclaimed this year: "It is imperative that we organize regular, specialized jazz training. This is the only way to bolster our successes--yes, our successes!--that have been achieved by the talent and enthusiasm of today's generation of musicians."

The steady evolution of Russian jazz was in crackling evidence at festivals in Moscow, Leningrad and Tallin. And at all three, more tunes by Soviet jazz composers were heard than ever before. Jazz, furthermore, is beginning to be played on Russian radio and television; and this past year, the first album of Soviet jazz--a record of the 1965 Moscow Festival--was released in the U.S.S.R.

The use of jazz by Europeans themselves as a possible political bridge was illustrated by "East Meets West," an unusual three-day session sponsored by the City of Nuremberg, October 21--23. In addition to groups from Russia, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland, a roundtable discussion was held on "The Jazz Situation in East and West" with the best-known critics from both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Another unprecedented European jazz occasion was the International Competition for Modern Jazz 1966, organized by Friedrich Gulda for the city of Vienna and the Vienna Art Fund. Patrons included the Austrian ministers of foreign affairs and education and the mayor of Vienna. From May 17 to May 24, nearly 100 jazz musicians from 15 to 25 were judged by J. J. Johnson, Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, Joe Zawinul, Mel Lewis and Ron Carter. The winners received cash prizes, and there were also six partial scholarships to the Berklee School of Music in Boston.

In October, for the first time anywhere in the world, an international jazz composition competition took place at the Third International Jazz Festival in Prague. The jury for this event resembled a World Court, with representatives from the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the United States, Great Britain, West Germany and Sweden.

Aside from the competitions, the sheer number of jazz festivals in Europe this year was startling--Frankfurt, Bologna, Budapest, Bled (Yugoslavia), Antibes--Juan-les-Pins, Comblain-la-Tour (Belgium), Molde and Kongsberg (Norway), Lugano (Switzerland), Stockholm, Prague, Warsaw, Berlin, Nottingham, Birmingham, Barcelona.

The American jazz-festival rites began much earlier than usual in 1966--Boston's first winter jazz festival January 14 and 15. The producer was, of course, George Wein, who further expanded his entrepreneurial activities during the year. The city of Austin, Texas, and a group of local businessmen called on Wein to produce the First Longhorn Jazz Festival, April 1 and 2. The results were relaxed and well attended, and there will be a second. Wein was also enlisted by the Atlanta Braves baseball club to introduce Atlanta to the jazz-festival fever, and so he did in May.

The capital city of Wein's summer empire remained Newport, and from July 1 to 4, the Newport Jazz Festival celebrated its 13th year, along with the first permanent stage in its history and a new two-story performers' building. There was a record-breaking turnout of 60,000 for the four days.

In further pursuit of the jazz grail, Wein successfully produced the fifth annual Ohio Valley Jazz Festival in Cincinnati on August 5; created the first Cleveland Jazz Festival the following night; and went on to Detroit the next night.

In the West, all previous attendance records were broken at the Monterey Jazz Festival, September 17--19, but Monterey--once considered the model of what a jazz festival should be--was sharply criticized this year for uneven programing, quixotic staging and insufficient rehearsal time. Other American festivals included Kansas City (May 1), Pittsburgh (July 2--4) and the first annual Pacific Jazz Festival in Costa Mesa (October 7--9).

While jazz remained a rarity on television, one major series, The Bell Telephone Hour, announced that it would present during the 1966--1967 season an on-location documentary of this past summer's International Jazz Festival at Comblain-la-Tour, Belgium, with, among others, Benny Goodman, Stan Getz and Anita O'Day.

In the television background, jazzmen were more active than before. Quincy Jones, using an all-jazz combo, wrote the score for the Hey, Landlord series. Lalo Schifrin did the music for T. H. E. Cat as well as for a documentary on Wall Street, and Neal Hefti invented the theme for the TV revival of The Green Hornet. Jazz sounds became increasingly evident in commercials, with Rod Levitt, for example, winning an award for his Chemical New York Bank commercial at the American TV Commercials Festival.

Films were also opening up for the jazz composer. Quincy Jones, now based on the West Coast, scored Walk, Don't Run, Tobruk and Enter Laughing. Lalo Schifrin's assignments included The Venetian Affair, The Doomsday Flight and Murderers' Row, while André Previn wrote the music for Anyone for Venice? Gary McFarland went to London to fulfill his first film commission, Thirteen (starring David Niven and Deborah Kerr), and Sonny Rollins received considerable acclaim for his score for the British movie Alfie. Neal Hefti also won commendation for his tension-building music for Duel at Diablo, and avant-gardist Don Cherry scored the avant-garde film Zero in the Universe.

In opera, an area previously alien to jazz, there was significant work during 1966. Early in the year, Without Memorial Banners, described as "a new American opera in the jazz idiom dedicated to Charlie 'Bird' Parker," was performed for the first time in Kansas City under the sponsorship of the Kansas City Conservatory of Music and the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Herb Six wrote the music and the libretto was by Dan Jaffe. Everyone was enthusiastic about the breakthrough--critics, audiences, even hipsters.

In October, third-stream composer Gunther Schuller's jazz opera, The Visitation, received its world premiere in Hamburg. Based loosely on Franz Kafka's The Trial, the Schuller work has been reset in the United States with a Negro protagonist (sung by McHenry Boatwright). A septet of jazzmen shares the pit with the full symphony orchestra.

On the recording scene, jazzmen riding the hit album charts as the year ended included Ramsey Lewis, organists Jimmy Smith and Richard "Groove" Holmes, and Herbie Mann. This was also the arrival year for "soul singer" Lou Rawls. The annual National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences' Grammy awards included Ellington '66 (best instrumental jazz performance by a large group); Ramsey Lewis' The "In" Crowd (best instrumental jazz performance by a small group); and Lalo Schifrin's Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts (best original jazz composition of the year).

Jazz began to benefit through the rapidly increasing use of stereotape players and cartridges in automobiles. For the young driver, especially, the jazz beat appeared to be a stimulating corollary to the open road. For those who want to read about as well as see and hear jazz, the year included the best single primer on the music, Martin Williams' Where's the Melody?

The obituary list was long. Earl "Bud" Powell died at 41, and 5000 lined the streets for his funeral procession in Harlem. One of the earliest of jazzmen, drummer and bandleader George "Papa Jack" Laine was dead at 92 in New Orleans. Also gone were bandleaders Lucky Millinder and Boyd Raeburn; pianists Billy Kyle and Teddy Roy; drummers Osie Johnson and Charlie Smith; banjoist Johnny St. Cyr; trumpeters Paul Webster, Russell Smith and Kid Howard; clarinetist Darnell Howard; trombonist Fred Assunto; jazz singer Dave Lambert; New York concert promoter Bob Maltz; and booker Milt Shaw.

But young voices and new sounds continued to replenish the jazz reservoir. Gaining wider recognition in the past year were tenor saxophonist--leader Charles Lloyd; Albert and Don Ayler; trombonists Roswell Rudd and Grachan Moncur III; alto saxophonists Marion Brown and Byron Allen; reed men Pharaoh Sanders and Giuseppi Logan; clarinetist Perry Robinson: violinist Jean-Luc Ponty; vibist Bobby Hutcherson; pianists Andrew Hill and Keith Jarrett; bassists Richard Davis, David Izenson, Eddie Gomez and Cecil McBee; drummers Sonny Murray, Milford Graves and Joe Chambers; and singer Betty Carter.

After years of struggle, pianist-composer Cecil Taylor was finally being acknowledged as a pervasive influence on the new jazz, and John Coltrane remained its continually self-renewing patriarch. One indication of what is yet to come was the seizing performance at the Monterey Festival of Don Ellis' 21-piece band with three drummers, three basses, occasional inclusion of prerecorded tapes, and a composition based jointly on an Indian raga and the blues. Another jazzman, guitarist Gabor Szabo, started to double on the Indian sitar. And alto saxophonist Sonny Stitt astonished his colleagues by wailing with new élan on an electronically amplified alto saxophone. Clearly, jazz continues to be "the sound of surprise."

And there are fewer and fewer places where that sound is not being heard. In July, Harrison Salisbury of The New York Times ventured into Ulan Bator in a yak-herding section of Mongolia. There, in the main dining room of the Ulan Bator Hotel, was a combo of young men of the town specializing in modern jazz. The young in the audience wore boxy hip-length sweaters, Oliver Twist caps, skintight trousers and miniskirts. Whatever the political conflicts that continued dangerously to divide the world, more and more of the young were at one in style, in the sounds they liked and in skepticism of their elders.

All-Star Musicians' Poll

The eleventh annual Playboy Jazz Poll balloting for All-Stars' All-Stars was every bit as exciting as in years past. 1966 Playboy Jazz Medal winners eligible to vote were Cannonball Adderley, Louis Armstrong, Bob Brookmeyer, Ray Brown, Dave Brubeck, Charlie Byrd, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Buddy DeFranco, Paul Desmond, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Pete Fountain, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Al Hirt, Milt Jackson, J. J. Johnson, Elvin Jones, John Lewis (Modern Jazz Quartet), Henry Mancini, Charles Mingus, Wes Montgomery, Joe Morello, Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Peterson, Frank Sinatra, N. Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul & Mary), Barbra Streisand, Ward Swingle (Swingle Singers), Kai Winding and Si Zentner.

All-Stars' All-Star Leader: The two highest ranking members of the jazz royalty (and two of this year's trio in the Hall of Fame)--Duke and Count--held the first and second spots, respectively, with Herman returning to third and Dizzy Gillespie moving up into fourth. Fifth place divided between New York's Thad Jones-Mel Lewis duumvirate and the West Coast's Gerald Wilson. 1. Duke Ellington; 2. Count Basie; 3. Woody Herman; 4. Dizzy Gillespie; 5. Thad Jones--Mel Lewis, Gerald Wilson.

All-Stars' All-Star Trumpet: No one retained his previous position, as Miles Davis exchanged second slot for Dizzy Gillespie's place as last year's winner. Freddie Hubbard and Clark Terry exchanged the third and fourth spots, while Nat Adderley moved from fifth to fourth and into a tie with Terry and poll newcomer Doc Severinsen. 1. Miles Davis; 2. Dizzy Gillespie; 3. Freddie Hubbard; 4. Nat Adderley, Doc Severinsen, Clark Terry.

All-Stars' All-Star Trombone: J. J. Johnson and runner-up Bob Brookmeyer had no trouble holding off challengers to their top rankings, but below them the (continued on page 144) Jazz '67 (continued from page 141) activity was feverish, as evidenced by the addition of Carl Fontana and Urbie Green, two bonists not seen last year. 1. J. J. Johnson; 2. Bob Brookmeyer; 3. Kai Winding; 4. Carl Fontana; 5. Urbie Green, Bill Harris.

All-Stars' All-Star Alto Sax: Two years ago Cannonball Adderley knocked long-reigning Paul Desmond from the top spot, only to see Desmond recapture the crown last year; now it's Adderley again in a contest that was hotly contested right down to the wire. And the Rabbit has returned, while Lee Konitz has dropped from sight. 1. Cannonball Adderley; 2. Paul Desmond; 3. Johnny Hodges; 4. Phil Woods; 5. Sonny Stitt.

All-Stars' All-Star Tenor Sax: The tenor competition produced no surprises at the top, but Getz and Trane were the only returnees from last year's first five. 1. Stan Getz; 2. John Coltrane; 3. Zoot Sims; 4. Ben Webster; 5. Paul Gonsalves.

All-Stars' All-Star Baritone Sax: It looks like the whole garden of baritone sax men has become perennial: Everyone's back in the very same spot. 1. Gerry Mulligan; 2. Harry Carney; 3. Pepper Adams; 4. Cecil Payne; 5. Charles Davis.

All-Stars' All-Star Clarinet: Tony Scott's return to America (from several years in the Far East) triggered his return to prominence on the poll. Buddy De-Franco--now leading the Glenn Miller band--took his accustomed place in the first chair. 1. Buddy DeFranco; 2. Benny Goodman; 3. Tony Scott; 4. Jimmy Giuffre; 5. Jimmy Hamilton.

All-Stars' All-Star Piano: Last year's top finishers remained virtually unchanged, with Hank Jones narrowly topping Dave Brubeck for third (they tied last year) and Herbie Hancock pushing out Ahmad Jamal and Thelonious Monk, who were in a fifth-place tie last year. 1. Oscar Peterson; 2. Bill Evans; 3. Hank Jones; 4. Dave Brubeck; 5. Herbie Hancock.

All-Stars' All-Star Guitar: The top two places are status quo, and Kenny Burrell moved from fourth to third, but Grant Green and Charlie Byrd weren't among last year's prime contenders. 1. Wes Montgomery; 2. Jim Hall; 3. Kenny Burrell; 4. Grant Green; 5. Charlie Byrd.

All-Stars' All-Star Bass: Except for Ray Brown securely ensconced on first bass, this is always one of the most volatile categories: Davis finished fifth and Mingus third last year, while Steve Swallow and Ron Carter are newcomers to the first five. 1. Ray Brown; 2. Richard Davis; 3. Steve Swallow; 4. Ron Carter; 5. Charles Mingus.

All-Stars' All-Star Drums: Based perhaps on the big noise being made by his resurgent big band, Buddy Rich moved from nowhere last year to cop top honors this go-round. Everyone else is back except Art Blakey, who was drummed out of fifth place. 1. Buddy Rich; 2. Elvin Jones; 3. Joe Morello; 4. Philly Joe Jones; 5. Shelly Manne.

All-Stars' All-Star Miscellaneous Instrument: The MJQ's masterful mallet man Milt Jackson maintained the mantle of leadership in this category, despite a mighty challenge from widely popular Jimmy Smith. Not seen among the leaders last year: the ever-vibrant Lionel Hampton and multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk. 1. Milt Jackson, vibes; 2. Jimmy Smith, organ; 3. Lionel Hampton, vibes; 4. John Coltrane, soprano sax; 5. Roland Kirk, manzello, stritch.

All-Stars' All-Star Male Vocalist: Frank'sville once more, but Ray Charles dropped to a surprising fourth as Mel Tormé climbed on the list and Arthur Prysock fell off. 1. Frank Sinatra; 2. Joe Williams; 3. Tony Bennett; 4. Ray Charles; 5. Mel Tormé.

All-Stars' All-Star Female Vocalist: Another stable stable: The only changes were Peggy Lee's return to the upper strata (over Barbra Streisand, who squeezed her off last year) and the musical chairs played by Carmen McRae and Nancy Wilson. Queen Ella added another jewel to her crown this year by also entering the Playboy Jazz Hall of Fame. 1. Ella Fitzgerald; 2. Sarah Vaughan; 3. Carmen McRae; 4. Nancy Wilson; 5. Peggy Lee.

All-Stars' All-Star Instrumental Combo: The Brubeck men regain the title after an upset a year ago by the MJQ. 1. Dave Brubeck Quartet; 2. Modern Jazz Quartet: 3. Oscar Peterson Trio; 4. Miles Davis Quintet; 5. Cannonball Adderley Sextet.

All-Stars All-Star Vocal Group: Les Françaises continue to trade top rankings as the Double Six regains the first position from the Swingles. Nashville's Anita Kerr Singers are the only newcomers, replacing the Beatles and the Supremes, who tied for fifth last time out. 1. Double Six of Paris; 2. Swingle Singers; 3. Hi-Lo's; 4. Anita Kerr Singers; 5. Four Freshmen.

Jazz Hall of Fame

In its short history (this is the second year), the Playboy Jazz Hall of Fame--created to honor artists whose contributions to the jazz world are deemed major and lasting--has aroused great enthusiasm among readers and musicians. Each year, the specially commissioned busts of the top three favorites in the annual balloting will be placed next to the likenesses of previous winners. Last year the Hall of Fame debuted by honoring Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra and Dave Brubeck. The following is the order of finish of this year's first 25 vote getters:

Records of the Year

Each year Playboy's readers are also asked to select the best LP of the last 12 months in each of three categories--Best Instrumental (Big Band), Best Instrumental (Fewer than Eight Pieces) and Best Vocal. Naturally, the balloting in a category without nominations covers a broad spectrum, but there was wide agreement on the winners.

Best Big Band LP: Basie Meets Bond/Count Basie (United Artists). The Count's men hopped on the Bond wagon with bouncing versions of the movie themes, including the title tunes from Thunder-ball, Goldfinger and From Russia with Love. The readers seem to have taken to Count as to Sir James himself.

Best Small Combo LP: Whipped Cream & Other Delights / Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass (A & M). It was neck and neck down to the wire between old-favorite Ramsey Lewis' Trio and newcomer Alpert's Tijuana Brass, but the roses went to Alpert in a photo finish as the two groups traded the top five places in the combo category. Ramsey's second-place album is Hang On Ramsey! (Cadet), containing such pop favorites as Hang On Sloopy (natch), while the Brass LP features the smash-hit version of A Taste of Honey.

Best Vocal LP: Strangers in the Night/Frank Sinatra (Reprise). Frank evidenced his invincibility again as he copped top honors in the balloting with a hit album featuring a hit title tune (and only Sinatra could get away with singing "doobie doobie-doo" as a scat line). And though the Chairman was solidly a winner, Lou Rawls, the boy wonder of the r&b ballad, did stake out a strong second in the attentions of our voting readers with Live! (Capitol). The following are the top 25 vote-getters in each LP category:

Best big band LP

Best small combo Lp

Best vocal LP

All-Star Readers' Poll

Playboy's readers returned most of the 1966 All-Star winners to the bandstand this year. The only shake-ups of note, other than a minor shifting of chairs in the trumpet and trombone sections, were the triumphs of the Supremes in the vocal-group category and Nancy Wilson in the female vocalist competition. But bubbling under the surface were a number of significant changes. Here's how they ran:

Henry Mancini maintained his hold in the leader category. Major gains were made by Oliver Nelson, who moved from 15th to 10th, and Skitch Henderson, who made a Brobdingnagian leap from 22nd to 4th (Skitch made a similar jump in the piano balloting, from 25th to 8 th).

Dizzy and Louis traded trumpet chairs; last year Gillespie was third and Armstrong fourth. Miles Davis and Al Hirt retained their one-two punch.

J. J. Johnson was again in no trouble for his first chair in the trombone section. Si Zentner and Kai Winding exchanged seats, coming in second and third, respectively. Bob Brookmeyer was back in fourth place, the same spot he occupied last year.

In the alto battle, Cannonball Adderley and Paul Desmond held onto the two top positions. The big gains from last year were made by poll regular Benny Carter (14th to 9th) and relative newcomer John Handy (21st to 8th).

Stan Getz and John Coltrane seem to have tenor-sax honors locked in. There were no major changes, despite some slight shifting here and there among the top vote getters.

Gerry Mulligan proved unshakable as big man on baritone. Below the summit, there was frenetic action, most notably Bud Shank's surge from fifth to second.

There were no changes of any import at the top of the clarinet list. Pete Fountain was again the winner by far.

The first six positions in the piano polling also held firm, with pianomeister Dave Brubeck once more in charge of the keyboard in the All-Star Band. Of interest was Count Basie's climb from 12th to 7th.

The big news on guitar--aside from Chet Atkins' and Wes Montgomery's return in second and third positions and the continuance of Charlie Byrd as band guitarist--was João Gilberto's jump to fourth from last year's 26th position.

Charles Mingus again plucked the top bass spot, with Ray Brown and Gene Wright second and third, the same as last year. Wes Montgomery's brother Monk surged from 14th to 7th place in the bass polling.

Drum king Joe Morello completes the rhythm section again this year. Old swinger Gene Krupa repeated in second slot. The surprise of the year here was the bang made by Sandy Nelson, who placed 18th in last year's competition. Voting was apparently catching up with record buying, as the young drummer placed 5th.

The miscellaneous instrument category was a model of stability, as vibist Lionel Hampton again took his place with the band. The only change among the leaders was the addition of Latin percussionist Mongo Santa Maria in the number-10 spot. Mongo did not make the final listings last year.

Frank Sinatra again took first place and Ray Charles followed up in the male vocalist category, but there was turmoil under the leaders. Dean Martin, who has been enjoying a resurgence by dint of films, personal appearances and records, moved from 13th to 8th. Bob Dylan went from 17th to 6th, and Lou Rawls, the r&b hit of the year, came into a very strong third; he was 15th in last year's balloting.

Red-hot Nancy Wilson not unexpectedly took the lead from Barbra Streisand; but the big excitement was produced by two r&b artists who tied for the number-33 spot last year. Marianne Faithfull managed to build up to number 10, while Dionne Warwick shot past to sixth place.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet again edged out the second-place Ramsey Lewis Trio, though not as easily as last year. Ramsey made it touch and go right up to the very end. The surprise of the year was the big jump made by Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass, who were nowhere among last year's finishers; this year, Playboy's readers brought them in fourth, just behind the repeat third-place grabber, the Stan Getz Quartet.

Finally, the other newcomers to the All-Stars--placing first in the vocalgroup category--were the lovely and talented Supremes. The girls from Motown nudged out the Beatles (who placed second) and Peter, Paul & Mary (last year's first-place winners, who placed third in this year's contest).

The following is a detailed tabulation of the many thousands of votes cast in the Playboy Jazz Poll, the biggest of all readers' polls. The names of the jazzmen who won chairs in the 1967 All-Star Jazz Band appear in boldface type. (They will be awarded silver medals, as will the All-Stars' All-Stars, our three Hall of Fame winners, and the performers, and their record companies, of the three records of the year.) In some Jazz Band categories, there are two or more winners in order to make up a full-scale jazz orchestra. Artists polling fewer than 100 votes are not listed; in categories where two choices were allowed, those receiving fewer than 200 votes are not listed; in categories where four votes were allowed, no one with under 400 votes is listed. (continued on next page)

Leader

The Playboy Jazz Hall of Fame

In our October 1965 issue, Playboy readers were given their first opportunity to vote for the three outstanding jazz artists--instrumentalist or vocalist, living or dead--who they thought were worthy of enshrinement in the Playboy Jazz Hall of Fame. In this second year of balloting for the honor, a royal triumvirate--a Queen, a Duke and a Count--easily outdistanced their competitors to join 1966's winners, Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck and Frank Sinatra, in our jazz pantheon. Each October, our readers will be polled to elect three new artists to the Hall of Fame to take their places alongside those already honored.

Duke EllingtonEdward Kennedy Ellington presents jazz critics with a unique problem: Confronted by the sheer magnitude of his talent, they find it nearly impossible to keep him in human proportions. If only as a composer (with such beautiful creations as "Mood Indigo," "Sophisticated Lady" and "Black, Brown and Beige" to his credit), Ellington's place in the jazz hierarchy is assured. But many critics maintain that Duke's greatest contribution rests in the orchestra that he has molded and for which he has created a brilliant body of arrangements. And the Duke has always used his piano masterfully in the big-band context. Not content to praise his music, jazz writers have also complimented the dapper Duke on everything from his sartorial élan to his quick wit. The Duke's myriad fans (and Playboy readers, obviously) have never felt a like need to categorize. They just know that Ellington--now 50 years a jazz musician--is the greatest.

Ella FitzgeraldIn the three decades plus since bandleader-drummer Chick Webb found her singing in a 1934 Harlem amateur show, Queen Ella has seldom been far from the top of the list of favorites with jazz and pop fans. Miss Fitz' career--punctuated with more exclamation points than a Tom Wolfe essay--has included successes as varied as her 1938 novelty hit single "A-Tisket A-Tasket," her scat classics of the Forties, "Oh, Lady Be Good" and "How High the Moon," and her definitive series of LP "Song Books" (Porter, Ellington, Arlen, Rodgers and Hart, Gershwin and Berlin). As fellow Hall of Famer Ellington has put it, "She captures you somewhere through the facets of your intangibles. She's just plain good." She may, in fact, be too good; Ella makes the singer's art seem so effortless, one is prone to accept nothing less than perfection from her. She was perfect enough, however, to be named by Playboy's readers as the first distaff member of the Hall of Fame.

Count BasieSince he took over Benny Moten's Kansas City aggregation in 1935, Bill Basie has used his band as a platform for an outstanding assemblage of soloists. Several elements make up the distinctive Basie sound: the spare, tentative piano style of the leader; the infectiously pulsating arrangements executed by first-rank chartists of the likes of Eddie Durham, Ernie Wilkins and Quincy Jones; and the most consistently solid rhythm section (led by the longest-standing Basie-man, guitarist Freddie Greene) in big-band history. Over this foundation have soared the brilliant solos of such jazz luminaries as tenor men Lester Young and Illinois Jacquet, trumpeters Harry Edison and Buck Clayton, trombonists Dickie Wells and J. J. Johnson, and such exemplary singers as Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams. Installation of the Count in the Hall of Fame is a tribute not only to him but to all he has done for jazz.

Trumpet

Trombone

Alto Sax

Tenor Sax

Baritone Sax

Clarinet

Piano

Guitar

Bass

Drums

Miscellaneous Instrument

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Instrumental Combo

Vocal Group