Jazz & Pop '75

It was a year of triumphant return by diverse superstars--Bob Dylan's first concert tour in eight years; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young together again after four years; and Eric Clapton back in America after a two-year absence. It was also a year of loss, the greatest of which was the death, at 75, of the protean Duke Ellington.

Characteristic of the music year was a pervasive feeling among both performers and audiences that although the high promises of the counterculture of the Sixties are far from being fulfilled (the "greening of America" having been postponed), the music that flourished during that decade and that has continued to expand is just as essential now, though in a different way, as it was during those apocalyptic years.

As David Crosby put it, before going on stage in front of a huge audience at one of the stops on the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tour, "There's people out there because there's no party on the street, there's very little feeling good out there, and we're among the only lucky bastards that can make anybody feel good and that's why they all tromp down there and plonk down the money."

Another kind of music that has been making people feel good for a long time was also resurgent. With growing speed, jazz has begun to attract larger audiences among younger listeners. As Teddy Wilson noted during the year, "I knew the climate was changing when, at a number of concerts, I found myself besieged by people wanting autographs--not only people of my generation but also college and high school students, and even some elementary school kids. That would have been unheard of a few years ago."

Country music, meanwhile, continued to prosper, with Charlie "The Silver Fox" Rich largely leading the field for the second year in a row. Significantly, Rich's performances are laced with blues and jazz, and his ability to still hold country-music devotees as well as his sizable audience of listeners from the realm of rock is further proof of the increasing ecumenicity of country music.

Additional evidence of the widening range of country sounds is the breakthrough last year of Waylon Jennings, an outspoken, rebellious Texan whose country-rock reflects, among other sources, the time he spent on the road with the late Buddy Holly, a key influence on early rock. Called by Kris Kristofferson "the best country singer in the world," Jennings, like Kristofferson and Rich, had a hard time with country audiences at first--before the barriers between country and rock began to be lowered. "People resented me," Jennings says, "and I got awful hurt. But they see now I wasn't out to destroy nothin'."

Another composer-performer in the Jennings-Rich-Kristofferson vein is Willie Nelson, who enjoyed a year of markedly increased national attention. Nelson's Phases and Stages album on Atlantic--the story of a disintegrating marriage told from each side--emphasized that country lyrics are becoming more subtly evocative and more applicable to lives far removed from country roots.

The most extraordinary advent of 1974 in country music was that of Tanya Tucker. At 16, this tangy, sensuous-sounding Texas-born singer, whose precocious emotional range is equaled by few of her female elders, already has recorded five hit singles and three rivetingly intense Columbia albums. One of the songs with which Tanya has become identified is I Believe the South Is Gonna Rise Again, a harbinger, maybe, of a new Populist Southern era of economic as well as racial justice.

As for present rather than visionary politics, Bill Graham--the prodigiously energetic organizer of the Bob Dylan and the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tours--acted on behalf of most of the rock and country-rock constituency when, during the CSN&Y journey, he arranged for a celebratory, giant fireworks display on the night Richard Nixon announced his resignation. That same fateful evening, the new President's youngest son, 18-year-old Steven Ford, rather than watch the fallen President, was off listening to Led Zeppelin with some of his friends. Susan Ford, a year younger, turned out to be a Beach Boys' fan; and the Chief Executive--whatever his other limitations--did dance a reasonably proficient slow rock to Bad, Bad Leroy Brown at a White House party soon after he took office.

Of more durable import than the First Family's relationship to rock was the strong evidence last year that feminism continues on the ascendant in that idiom. Isis, a nine-member, all-woman band, proved, for those who still needed proof, that women can cook in places other than the kitchen. Along with its propulsive rhythm section and crisply swinging horns, the considerable impact of Isis is further enhanced by the penetrating, vibrant singing of lead singer and co-writer Carol MacDonald. The degree of that impact has been witnessed to by Josh Mills, who, describing an Isis concert in the September Playboy, reported that (text continued on page 145) he had been "overwhelmed, jumping up and down on the bench, screaming with excitement."

Linda Ronstadt, whose own open, freshly erotic singing was one of the year's musical pleasures, predicts, "There's gonna be a woman musician in the next three or four years that's just gonna knock everybody's head off. I'm waiting, I'm just waiting, for that woman musician to come along like the Messiah."

To which composer-guitarist June Millington, formerly with Fanny (another all-woman band), adds, with regard to the present scene: "The women who are knocking me out the most are the horn players. I never met women before who could play horns."

While some women musicians press for all-female combos, others, such as Ronstadt, believe that "the best thing for us is for women musicians to just be accepted as equals in the business. You know, it won't have to be an all-girl or an all-guy band, it'll just be a rock band. Like Sly Stone. He had the first integrated band of men and women."

Stone, with characteristic understatement, is also the first soul-rock star to have been married in Madison Square Garden. The bride was Japanese-American Kathy Silva, the mother of their then-nine-month-old son. With 21,000 of the faithful on hand for the pop social event of the year, Sly's nuptial rites--heightened by 11 black models, carrying gilded palms over their heads, in attendance onstage--were succeeded, naturally enough, by a Sly & the Family Stone concert. The breakup of Sly and his wife several months later was a more private affair.

While there was no overwhelming new presence on the music scene during the past year, a number of performers--among them Sly, Elton John (who won almost everything in sight in this year's poll), James Taylor and his wife, Carly Simon, Don McLean, Rick Nelson, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Helen Reddy and Paul McCartney--further matured musically as they held onto their simultaneously maturing audiences. In a way, McCartney, speaking of his former Beatle colleagues, set the tone for many performers and listeners who had gotten heavily into music during the turbulent, heady ambience of the Sixties and early Seventies but who don't want to leave their minds back there. McCartney said: "I really ought to talk to those boys, tell 'em the facts of life. I thought we were finished with all those immature things--religious kicks, chasing birds--that was good when we were kids, but it's no good now. I gave it all up. I'm really lucky to have found Linda--to be happy inside myself and start again with a clear head."

In other areas of the rock world as well, this was a year of reassessment. Dylan's nationwide tour with The Band drew large and enthusiastic audiences; but for many listeners in their 20s and early 30s, the return of Dylan signaled that it was time to distill the past and move on. Or, as critic Geoffrey Himes put it in the University Review, "There is a time to denounce and a time to envision. But sooner or later, there comes a time to find something positive to do and to learn how to do it well. This is what Bob Dylan and The Band are about. This is the message for us this time around."

This thrusting toward maturity, however, was far from applicable to all of the year's music. "Glitter rock" (or "creep rock," as Steve Stills calls it) continued to abound, from bisexual David Bowie with his dyed orange-red hair, complicated sets and flocks of movable props to Todd Rundgren, the New York Dolls, Suzi Quatro and the perdurable Alice Cooper. Nor was much reflectiveness evident in the music of such of the heavy metal groups as Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk and Black Sabbath. These and similar bands continued to play crude blues at the highest level that could be gained from massive arrays of amplifiers and loud-speakers. (A refreshingly unpretentious exception among solid rock combos was Paul Rodgers' new group, Bad Company.)

Directly opposite both glitter and heavy metal rock in style and temperament is the music of John Denver, who is considered far too straight and ingenuous by much of the rock press but who continues to enlarge his audience with his soft, clear, essentially sanguine songs in which ecology is one of the few issues that gently exacerbate him. Denver, who last year sold more records for RCA than any other performer, responds to criticism of himself as being bland ("a modern-day Perry Como in blue jeans," one critic noted) by saying, in unusually bellicose language: "The problem with many of the electric groups is that eighty percent of their albums is pure crap." And of performers like the New York Dolls and Bowie, Denver claims that they "exist only to please the far-out and sick. Alice Cooper entertains a lot of people, but in two or three years he won't be around."

One performer likely to be around for a long time is Maria Muldaur, who took a giant leap forward in terms of national recognition during the year. The former Greenwich Village folk singer has become so engaging in her fusion of jazz, country sounds and blues that her first Reprise album on her own brought her a gold record (sales of $1,000,000) while she also had a long-riding hit single, Midnight at the Oasis.

Muldaur's attitude toward her success (after years of working toward it) is instructive, because it indicates the kind of realistic, professional approach toward pop stardom that is being adopted in this decade by singers and groups with a long view of what it takes to stay at or near the top. Although quite attractive, she notes that "sometimes I'll go out on stage in a Raggedy Ann sweat shirt and dungarees, because I don't want to get trapped in an image.... I want to be a musician for a long, long time. I'm wary of that image trip, because I'm not going to get any cuter." Determined to survive through the quality of her music, Muldaur adds: "I'm no transvestite. I don't set myself on fire. All I want to do is sing."

Other performers on the rise include Bruce Springsteen, whose recordings have not yet captured the zany originality of those "live" appearances by him that have caused seasoned rock critic Jon Landau to proclaim: "I saw rock-'n'-roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen." Also moving up were Maggie Bell and Anne Murray. The former, possessed of a gutsy but flexible voice, had won just about all the music-magazine polls in Britain before being introduced here by Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler, who observes that "I'm as excited about Maggie as I was about Aretha Franklin when I first started working with her." While Maggie Bell is an ebullient extrovert, Anne Murray, a husky-voiced Canadian, abhors the showbiz elements of the rock microcosm, being herself, as she puts it, "a small-town girl."

Considerably more sophisticated than Maggie Bell's or Anne Murray's are the lyrics and the resilient singing style of Toni Brown, who helped found the Joy of Cooking and is now working as a single. Also worth keeping track of in 1975 are Elliott Murphy (a mordant examiner of middle-class suburbia), Bill and Taffy (a fresh-sounding, infectiously relaxed husband-and-wife team), Mo McGuire (a salty, invigorating spirit), Alan Price (a London-based composer-singer with roots in the irreverent tradition of the British music halls) and Terry Melcher (Doris Day's record-producer son, whose first album last year revealed him to be an uncommonly affecting, believably intense performer).

Elsewhere on the music scene, there was increased emphasis on what can be called classical rock. From the example set in previous years by the Moody Blues and, for that matter, by such earlier Beatles devices as the use of a string quartet in Yesterday, groups have developed that, in diverse ways, fuse elements of classical style with vigorous rock. A particularly ambitious practitioner of classical rock is British performer Rick Wakeman, who toured the United States last fall with a 60-member orchestra, a classical conductor and a choir. Also in the classical-rock vein are such groups as Genesis, Renaissance, Yes and The Electric Light Orchestra.

Moving in a different direction are the exemplars of jazz rock, which is able to reach and hold both rock and jazz aficionados. Leading the field are Weather Report, Chick Corea's Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Donald Byrd's Black-byrds, Larry Coryell's The Eleventh House and Billy Cobham's combo. With electronic attachments, jazz-inflected lines and rhythm that owes much to rock, each of these groups had a decidedly successful year. The present tag, jazz rock, however, may be only temporary, as these units increase in number and influence. Or, as Coryell puts it, "Contemporary music has absorbed the whole thing called rock or rock 'n' roll, and what's coming out now is a wide variety of creative efforts by people with both jazz and rock backgrounds. It's not classifiable as either jazz or rock, it's just music that is as good as the people doing it."

With jazz rock gathering momentum, and straightaway jazz experiencing a genuine renaissance (as was evident during both the broadly eclectic Newport Jazz Festival/New York and the Monterey Jazz Festival), the year was nonetheless blighted by the death of Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington. As the Canadian jazz magazine Coda put it: "With Ellington's passing the first great age of jazz music has terminated." The funeral services were held in New York's spacious St. John the Divine Cathedral, a setting of relaxed grandeur eminently appropriate to the lifestyle and the music of one of the two most original and indigenously American composers in the history of this country's music (the other having been Charles Ives).

Also on the obituary list were three of Ellington's key sidemen. Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves and trombonist-vibist Tyree Glenn died before Duke; baritone saxophonist Harry Carney, who had been with Ellington since 1927, died four months after Duke.

Among other jazz musicians gone were tenor saxophonist Gene "Jug" Ammons, Georg Brunis, one of the foremost exponents of the tailgate trombone, and New Orleans pianist-blues shouter Billie Pierce. From the jazz-rock field, trumpeter Bill Chase and three of his sidemen were killed in an airplane crash. Another casualty was "Mama" Cass Elliot, who first gained recognition as a founding member of The Mamas & the Papas.

The year also saw the death of a distinguished group, the Modern Jazz Quartet, founded in 1951 by pianist-musical director John Lewis and since then the pre-eminent "chamber jazz" ensemble in contemporary music. Lewis joined the music faculty of the City College of New York and his former colleagues--Milt Jackson, Percy Heath and Connie Kay--will be pursuing independent careers in the jazz years ahead.

As the rest of us kept on keeping on, so did Duke Ellington's son, Mercer, long a trumpet player in his father's orchestra and now its leader. With the band booked months ahead, Mercer, putting the huge legacy of Ellington scores in order, emphasized that his father was "a composer as important to his time as Mozart was to his. I want to be sure everything [in his music] is preserved just right."

As for the future of jazz, Argentine tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri indicated that he may well become the first non-American (with the possible exception of Django Reinhardt) to make an authentically original contribution to the music. Barbieri's Third World approach combines jazz and blues with, among other ingredients, the tango of Argentina and variegated folk rhythms and forms from other Latin-American countries. Barbieri, incidentally, is as interested in the politics of Latin America as he is in its music, but he has no illusions about music being (continued on page 160)Jazz & Pop '75(continued from page 146) a direct weapon against authoritarian regimes. "A revolution has to come by political means," he acknowledges, "but perhaps the music, if it is beautiful enough, can help people begin to change a little bit--begin to change their consciousness so that they will be ready to move in other ways, political ways."

Along with Barbieri's having established himself last year as a powerful force in expanding the scope of jazz, there was a vocal triumph by another non-American--British singer Cleo Laine. Long familiar to British audiences, she had made hardly any impact on American listeners until the release in this country of a resplendent album recorded outside a studio, RCA's Cleo Laine Live at Carnegie Hall. Last fall, making her second American tour in two years, she kept accumulating more enthusiasts of the extraordinary technical prowess and emotional subtlety of her singing.

The instrumental jazz discovery of the year, although not many listeners have been exposed to it yet, was the New York--based Revolutionary Ensemble, which is composed of Leroy Jenkins (electric violin, viola), Sirone (bass) and Jerome Cooper (percussion). The most together of all the post-Coltrane, avant-garde groups, the Revolutionary Ensemble is continually finding and developing new relationships among pitch, rhythm, timbre and dynamics--all for the purpose, as Jenkins points out, of "portraying change of consciousness through sound."

While not "discoveries" any longer, three pianists--McCoy Tyner. Keith Jarrett and Cecil Taylor--added considerably to their achievements and stature during the year as they stretched the expressive capacities of the instrument. Each, in variously individualistic ways, has become a master jazz dramatist of often stunning energy and inventiveness. Meanwhile, a particularly arresting figure in contemporary jazz, Marion Brown, finally began to get more of the attention due his work. This reflective, deeply searching alto saxophonist-composer, who spent several years in Europe in the late Sixties, finished a major three-part work last year, using music much like a novelist does words. As Robert Palmer pointed out in The New York Times. Brown, in his three albums, Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, Geechee Recollections and Sweet Earth Flying, "has re-examined his Southern past through the filter of a Continental 'education.' " Through this kind of musical autobiography. Brown is continuing a genre most brilliantly explored in the jazz past by Duke Ellington as he also reveals the possibilities of creating sound pictures in the language of a new era of jazz.

As jazz musicians continued to devise added dimensions of improvisation, there was simultaneously a rediscovery by listeners of the vintage melodic charm and rhythmic grace of turn-of-the-century ragtime. The impetus for this looking backward was, of course, The Sting. The film's score, consisting of Scott Joplin rags as scored by Marvin Hamlisch, won an Academy Award and led to a freshet of ragtime recordings, the most notable of which is William Bolcom's on the Nonesuch label, where Joshua Rifkin's recordings of Joplin rags had started it all.

While the ragtime resurgence, despite the black antecedents of the form, has primarily involved white performers and audiences, black soul music continued to appeal widely to both black and white listeners. A case in point is Stevie Wonder, clearly the soul king of 1974 and probably of the rest of the decade. Although he has become a multimillionaire, Wonder has lost none of his zeal for trying to make music a transcendental way of communicating with his audiences. "I would like to feel," he says, "that as my albums change, my people--meaning all people--will come with me, that we will grow together. Everything I experience is in the songs I write. You see, my music is my way of giving back love."

Frank Sinatra, his decision to retire rescinded, did not exactly give back love during a tour of Australia last year. Having excoriated local male reporters as bums and female journalists as hookers, Sinatra ran into a ban directed against him by unionized musicians and theater workers. A second Melbourne concert had to be canceled, and for a time, as airport unions became involved, it looked as if Sinatra might be permanently grounded in the land down under. Mediation prevailed, however, and as part of the agreement, Sinatra consented to make a statement about the furor. Instead of being contrite, however, Sinatra lectured an audience of several millions on the principles of free speech: "Whether I was right or wrong, or whether they were right or wrong, the fact remains that the main issue was that they tried to keep me from saying what I thought and I think that's the thing we've got to fight all the time."

During concerts at home last year, Sinatra did, indeed, say whatever he wanted, including his customary verbal assaults on the press, but his feuds were of far less moment to the capacity crowds at his appearances than the warmth and finely honed theatricality of his singing. All in all, it was a celebratory year for this continually regenerated prerock superstar, who, except for Tony Bennett, is the last, to use his own term, of the superior "saloon singers."

Sinatra's comeback also encompassed television, with one of his Madison Square Garden concerts having been shown live in October on ABC-TV with the apt title Sinatra--The Main Event. Throughout the year, pop, rock and country sounds were getting growing exposure on television, either as specials (such as Sinatra's show) or in series (Soul Train and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, among others). In addition, music performers continued their incursions into films--from Ladies and Gentlemen ... The Rolling Stones and Alice Cooper's Good to See You Again, Alice Cooper to Ken Russell's ambitious filming of The Who's rock opera, Tommy.

While debate continues as to the nature and durability, if any, of the societal change wrought by rock, the music itself does continue to transform itself into new shapes and colors as it reaches into nearly every corner of the world. On Ellesmere Island, for instance, the farthest-north Eskimo gathering place in North America, rock has begun to flourish through the influence of such Eskimo combos as The Icebergs from Arctic Bay. There is now even a rock festival in those otherwise cold climes and one of last year's stellar performers was an Eskimo from Greenland who sang in Greenlandic. Next year: Antarctic Rock.

All-Star Musicians' Poll

As in the past several years, the musicians we polled split their vote roughly 9,000,000 ways. Most of last year's winners, with their relatively stable constituencies, came through intact. There were, however, some changes--the victory of Stevie Wonder, who had a great year, in the songwriter-composer category; the comeback of Frank Sinatra as top male vocalist; the appearance of the Pointer Sisters and Herbie Hancock's jazz-rock quintet as the top vocal group and instrumental combo, respectively; and the emergence of Thad Jones and Mel Lewis as the premier big-band leaders, Duke Ellington having passed on as the undefeated champ. Here's how it went, category by category:

All-Stars' All-Star Leader: As noted above, it took death to knock Ellington out of first place; however, the Ellington band, now led by Duke's son Mercer, got enough votes to rank right behind our new coleaders, who were tied for third a year ago. 1. Thad Jones / Mel Lewis; 2. Mercer Ellington; 3. Count Basie; 4. Doc Severinsen; 5. Woody Herman, Quincy Jones.

All-Stars' All-Star Trumpet: Not much change here--Diz and Miles traded places and Jon Faddis, who last year shared the fifth spot with Oscar Brashear and Clark Terry, had it to himself this time. 1. Freddie Hubbard; 2. Dizzy Gillespie; 3. Miles Davis; 4. Doc Severinsen; 5. Jon Faddis.

All-Stars' All-Star Trombone: J. J.'s the winner again, but Frank Rosolino and Garnett Brown weren't among last year's finishers. Those who were, but failed to repeat, are Curtis Fuller and Vic Dickenson. 1. J. J. Johnson; 2. Frank Rosolino; 3. Garnett Brown: 4. Carl Fontana. Bill Watrous.

All-Stars' All-Star Alto Sax: No change here. Would you believe it? No change at all, right down to the fourth-place tie between Stitt and Coleman. 1. Cannonball Adderley; 2. Phil Woods; 3. Paul Desmond; 4. Ornette Coleman, Sonny Stitt.

All-Stars' All-Star Tenor Sax: Getz again; Wayne Shorter and Zoot Sims entered the top five as Sonny Rollins and Boots Randolph failed to repeat. 1. Stan Getz; 2. Joe Henderson, Stanley Turrentine: 4. Wayne Shorter, Zoot Sims.

All-Stars' All-Star Baritone Sax: A year ago we said, "We could just wrap this one up and let Gerry take it with him." Surprise--longtime winner Mulligan was knocked off by another veteran performer, Pepper Adams. Ronnie Cuber and Jack Nimitz are new to the top five; dropouts are Charles Davis and the late Harry Carney. 1. Pepper Adams; 2. Gerry Mulligan; 3. Ronnie Cuber: 4. Jack Nimitz. Cecil Payne.

All-Stars' All-Star Clarinet: Goodman was again the best man, according to the musicians. Eddie Daniels moved up to tie Buddy De Franco for second and Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Jimmy Hamilton slipped out of the top five as Kenny Davern and Walt Parazaider edged their way in. 1. Benny Goodman; 2. Eddie Daniels, Buddy De Franco: 4. Kenny Davern. Walt Parazaider.

All-Stars' All-Star Piano: Oscar, Herbie, Chick and Keith are back, but Leon Russell is missing: Robert Lamm makes a first appearance and Bill Evans returns. 1. Oscar Peterson; 2. Herbie Hancock: 3. Chick Corea: 4. Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Robert Lamm.

All-Stars' All-Star Organ: We may swallow the phrase again next year, but frankly, it looks as if we could just wrap this one up and let Jimmy take it with him. 1. Jimmy Smith; 2. Groove Holmes: 3. Dick Hyman. Rick Wakeman; 5. Johnny Hammond, Brother Jack McDuff, Billy Preston.

All-Stars' All-Star Vibes: As far as this competition goes, Mr. Jackson is solid as a stone wall. Terry Gibbs made the top five as Lionel Hampton slipped out. 1. Milt Jackson; 2. Gary Burton; 3. Bobby Hutcherson; 4. Roy Ayers, Terry Gibbs.

All-Stars' All-Star Guitar: The names are identical, but the order is slightly changed, as Jim Hall, fifth last year, vaulted into the runner-up spot. 1. George Benson; 2. Jim Hall; 3. Kenny Burrell; 4. John McLaughlin, Joe Pass.

All-Stars' All-Star Bass: Ron Carter, who took over from Ray Brown last year, held him off again. 1. Ron Carter; 2. Ray Brown; 3. Chuck Rainey; 4. Richard Davis; 5. Stanley Clarke.

All-Stars' All-Star Drums: In the land of bip-bip-bam, Billy Cobham retained his laurels. Like Carter, Cobham took over the leadership a year ago--it was two years ago for George Benson--so it appears that a new generation of jazzmen is, indeed, reaching the summit. 1. Billy Cobham; 2. Buddy Rich; 3. Elvin Jones, Tony Williams; 5. Jack De Johnette.

All-Stars' All-Star Miscellaneous Instrument: A lot of flute players have asked us why we don't create a separate category for them--but look who won this time, as perennial winner Rahsaan Roland Kirk slipped into a third-place tie. 1. Hubert Laws, flute; 2. Jean Thielemans, harmonica; 3. Rahsaan Roland Kirk, flute, manzello, stritch; Airto Moreira, percussion; 5. Charles Lloyd, flute.

All-Stars' All-Star Male Vocalist: It's Franksville again--talk about successful comebacks--as last year's winner, Billy Eckstine, wound up in a deadlock for third place and Stevie Wonder, tied for third a year ago, moved into the runner-up spot. 1. Frank Sinatra; 2. Stevie Wonder; 3. Billy Eckstine, Joe Williams; 5. Johnny Hartman.

All-Stars' All-Star Female Vocalist: Ella Fitzgerald regained the crown she lost two years ago as Aretha Franklin came up to tie last year's leader, Sarah Vaughan, for second place; Roberta Flack dropped out of the winners' circle as a newcomer, Dee Dee Bridgewater, moved in. 1. Ella Fitzgerald; 2. Aretha Franklin, Sarah Vaughan; 4. Carmen McRae; 5. Dee Dee Bridgewater.

All-Stars' All-Star Vocal Group: In a field dominated by rhythm-and-blues groups, the Pointer Sisters came out of nowhere to go straight to the top. 1. Pointer Sisters; 2. 5th Dimension; 3. Spinners; 4. Stylistics; 5. Gladys Knight & the Pips.

All-Stars' All-Star Songwriter-Composer: The Wonder man, second to Ellington a year ago, took it all this time, which surprised us not at all. Carole King, Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson are among the missing; new names are Quincy Jones, Chick Corea and the two folkies who tied for fifth. 1. Stevie Wonder; 2. Michel Legrand; 3. Quincy Jones; 4. Chick Corea; 5. Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon.

All-Stars' All-Star Instrumental Combo: The jazz-rockers held sway here as Return to Forever, last year's winner, gave way by a small margin to Herbie Hancock's funky new fivesome. Billy Cobham's group copped the fourth spot and Miles Davis, who started the whole syndrome, came in third. 1. Herbie Hancock; 2. Return to Forever; 3. Miles Davis; 4. Billy Cobham; 5. Chicago, Crusaders.

Records of the Year

Keeping up with our own traditions, we asked our readers to pick the best LPs of the year in each of three categories--best by a big band (ten pieces or more), best by a small combo and best vocal LP. The winners are:

Best Big-Band LP: Journey to the Center of the Earth / Rick Wakeman (A & M). Elaborate was hardly the word for this extravaganza based on a Jules Verne fantasy and recorded live with the London Symphony Orchestra. Rock rhythms, classical embellishments, narration by David Hemmings and Wakeman's electronic-keyboard work made for a cantata that was literally too much for some critics but that obviously hit the Playboy electorate where it counts.

Best Small-Combo LP: Chicago VII (Columbia). This is getting repetitious--last year we lauded Chicago VI in this space; the year before, it was Chicago V. Seemingly, they can't miss--and they certainly didn't with this double LP that contained the hits Wishing You Were Here, (I've Been) Searchin' So Long and 13 other tunes. Funny, but they sound like a big combo.

Best Vocal LP: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road / Elton John (MCA). Was there a radio station anywhere that didn't play the hell out of Bennie and the Jets? Could anyone in the rock generation miss its significance? And if you heard it once, could you forget it? Well, it was just one of 17 tuneful, spirited tracks on this epic four-sided release.

Best Big-Band LP

Best Small-Combo LP

Best Vocal LP

Jazz & Pop Hall of Fame

Elton John sure had his way this year with the Playboy electorate. He won almost everything in the Readers' Poll, had one of our Records of the Year and, from last year's number-four finish in our Hall of Fame balloting, he leaped right into the hall itself. His closest rival was Stevie Wonder, who also did pretty well in both the musicians' and the readers' polls. Stevie was 14th in the running for the Hall of Fame a year ago, so his rise was even more dramatic than Elton's. Other ascending entries were the late Jim Croce--from 20th to third--and another accident victim, Bill Chase, who was nowhere in 1974 but made tenth place this time. Also new to the list are the rejuvenated Maynard Ferguson, in 18th place, Joni Mitchell (22nd) and David Bowie (25th), who just got hold of the ladder's bottom rung, displacing Stan Kenton. Of last year's other finishers, only John McLaughlin, who was 18th, and Carole King--who skidded from ninth place all the way out of sight--failed to repeat. Upward progress was registered by Keith Emerson, Frank Zappa and Peter Townshend; backsliders include Neil Diamond, Ian Anderson, Paul Simon, Doc Severinsen, Buddy Rich, Chuck Berry, Leon Russell and Carole King. Here, now, the leading two dozen and one:

All-Star Readers' Poll

If you're a numerologist, you might want to ponder the relation of the number four to the results of our 1975 Readers' Poll. For one thing, out of 19 categories, four--the same number as last year--saw a change of leadership. The new pacesetters are Joni Mitchell, who replaced Carly Simon as top female vocalist; Elton John, who took Neil Diamond's title as number-one male vocalist; Stevie Wonder, who ousted Ian Anderson at the head of the other-instruments category; and a rather old "new pacesetter," swing-era clarinetist Benny Goodman, who edged out longtime medal winner Pete Fountain.

There were also four categories in which the readers agreed with the musicians--again, the same number as last year, though they weren't exactly the same ones. This year's double winners are J. J. Johnson, Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz and Goodman. The latter wasn't a double winner last year, as the readers went for Pete Fountain; Gerry Mulligan was a double winner last time, but not again, as the musicians turned to Pepper Adams.

Of course, if you're Elton John, the significant number is either one or three; Elton wound up number one in each of three categories--piano, male vocalist and (in tandem with his lyricist, Bernie Taupin) songwriter-composer. It just so happens that finishing first in three of the poll's categories is a first--and an impressive one--in itself.

If you're Stevie Wonder, the number of destiny may be two. Stevie, who won the other-instruments competition with his work on the harmonica, clavinet and synthesizer, finished second to Elton not only in the Hall of Fame voting but also in two categories of the Readers' Poll--songwriter-composer and male vocalist. He also was third as a big-band leader--and, of course, he is the musicians' top songwriter-composer; so if his achievements in our 1975 poll take a back seat to Elton's three first-place finishes, it certainly isn't by very much.

As usual, there were a fair number of shooting stars--and falling ones. John Denver came from nowhere--in terms of the poll, anyway--to rate as number-three male vocalist behind Elton and Stevie. Olivia Newton-John, also in limbo a year ago, finished second among the female vocalists. Newcomers who made strong showings under the vocal-group heading were Paul McCartney & Wings, and the Doobie Brothers. Other names appearing for the first time in the listings include Tower of Power, Herbie Hancock, Return to Forever and Kool & the Gang in the instrumental-combo competition; and the Pointer Sisters, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Tony Orlando & Dawn, Tower of Power and Earth, Wind & Fire among the vocal groups.

The instrumental categories are far less volatile than the vocal and group contests, but, as can be expected, there's a smattering of new people, including guitarists Rick Derringer, Roy Buchanan and Larry Coryell; organists Charles Ear-land, Brother Jack McDuff and Jimmy McGriff; vibists Peter Appleyard and Ruth Underwood; drummer Alphonse Mouzon: pianist Joe Zawinul; trumpeters Randy Brecker, Woody Shaw, Art Farmer and Roy Eldridge; and reed men Tom Scott, Emilio Castillo and Ernie Watts.

Some of last year's favorites didn't make it into print this time. Lost from the standings are such entries as the Jefferson Airplane, the Bee Gees. Creedence Clear-water Revival, the Temptations, War, Sonny and Chér and the Modern Jazz Quartet, the latter two having disbanded during the year. Still others who didn't make it back include singers Al Green, Tony Bennett, George Harrison, Alice Cooper, Rod Stewart, Vikki Carr, Dionne Warwicke and Laura Nyro, and songwriters Harrison, Kris Kristofferson, Leon Russell and Stephen Stills.

Which, of course, is all in the roller-coaster nature of the music biz; for it's not only on their own talents and efforts but also through the efforts of agents and the fickleness of the fans that the stars rise--and fall. (And rise. And fall.)

Here, without further ado, are the top 25 vote getters in each category. Those in boldface make up our All-Star band; they will receive silver medals, as will the artists whose records were voted best of the year.

Big-Band Leader

Trumpet

Trombone

Alto Sax

Tenor Sax

Baritone Sax

Clarinet

Piano

Organ

Vibes

Guitar

Bass / Electric Bass

Drums

Other Instruments

Male Vocalist

Female Vocalist

Vocal Group

Songwriter-Composer

Instrumental Combo

The 1975 Playboy All-Stars' All-Stars

The 1975 Playboy All-Stars' All-Stars

The 1975 Playboy All-Stars' All-Stars

The 1975 Playboy All-Stars' All-Stars

Elton JohnGiven the prevailing perversity of the music business, it, seems ironic that Elton John should have been given the Instant Superstar treatment by his backers and promoters when he made his L.A. debut in the fall of 1970. Ironic because those build-ups are normally reserved for people who lack the talent to be superstars and, consequently, bomb. Whereas John showed right away, during that hectic week at the Troubadour, that he had the goods--command of the piano and the various idioms of pop music (thanks partly to the classical music he studied as a kid and later at the Royal Academy of Music in London, partly to the four years he spent in a combo backing up American acts as they toured Britain); good, articulate, rocking material (the result of his collaboration with lyricist Bernie Taupin, whom he met through a newspaper ad and with whom he spent several semesters vainly trying to turn out songs for Engelbert Humperdinck and Lulu); and an arsenal of theatrics--handstands and such--firmly rooted in the Little Richard/Screamin' Jay Hawkins tradition. Notice that we didn't say where he got the latter. Observation, partly. But, as Elton's fans know, he grew up as a shy, repressed fat kid from a normally restrictive upper-middle-class family--Dad was an R.A.F. officer, concerned with propriety, who protected the back-yard flowers by forbidding the kid to play soccer--and his onstage ebullience is just what you'd expect from somebody who was supposed to crawl through life but suddenly discovered he had wings. He was ready for L.A. in 1970, and the American rock public was certainly ready for him. At this point, after a string of hits such as "Your Song," "Madman Across the Water," "Honky Cat" "Crocodile Rock," "Benny and the Jets" and "The Bitch Is Back," Elton John has become the apotheosis of the flamboyant rock star, flashing his electric sunglasses at the screaming masses. But he doesn't sit around putting drugs up his nose and yelling about how great he is; Elton's a modest fellow, really, for whom the rock-star dream is yet unspoiled. And now that he's come this far, why not do it all? So Elton--who, as we neared presstime, was in the midst of a typically successful American tour--made recent news by (1) playing on a John Lennon album, (2) breaking into the movie business, as the Pinball Wizard in Ken Russell's "Tommy," (3) directing his protégée Kiki Dee to apparent stardom and (4) playing tennis with Bill Cosby and Billie Jean King. You may wonder when he finds time to write his songs. Well, he seldom spends more than 20 minutes on one of them, so he doesn't need much time. Given Taupin's lyrics, it takes him a couple of days to work out enough material for an album. And seven of his eight albums have sold over 1,000,000 copies. Our conclusion from all this is that John--who recently signed an $8,000,000 contract with MCA, the biggest ever, anywhere--is going to get more popular, not less. And he'll probably keep on getting better, too.

The Playboy Jazz & Pop Hall of Fame

With Elton John following Duane Allman, our Jazz & Pop Hall of Fame now contains an even two dozen performers. Half are rock stars, and they've all been elected since 1970, when the Hall--previously a jazz sanctum--opened its doors to the younger generation. Some might bewail this changing of the guard--but an awful lot of jazzmen are now playing rock. Small wonder.