The Jaki Byard 78 RPM Mystery Record

Records are endless, their number infinite in the span of human life, not only the records manufactured now and sold new but also all those of the past, the classic icon and the unknown masterpiece records which are sometimes found in the flea markets, the Goodwills and the junk shops in the same bins with multitudes of the records, probably not heard by anyone for decades, of artists; some once popular, all now long forgotten. No one could hear or know of any but the tiniest percentage of all the records that exist. The record collector searches in wondrous puzzlement.

When I bought approximately 8500 78 rpm records from my friend Robert, neither of us knew, except in a general “these are the highlights” way, what records were in the collection. So, when I was unpacking a box of records on labels beginning with the letter “H,” and found, after a run of Hit Of The Weeks, another of HMV’s, Johnny Guarneri with Don Byas on HN Society and right before ten Hollywoods, a black and yellow label, emblazoned “Holiday” in stylized letters, which I had never seen before, I was neither surprised nor especially interested and thought it was probably one of the obscure R&B labels that Robert collected. The “A” side was “Again,” a mediocre, late forties pop tune, described as “vocal with instrumental.” I had never heard of the singer “Mel Collins” and wondered why Robert had kept the record.

The “B” side was the answer. The artist's credit was not “Mel Collins” but “Jackie (sic) Byard Quintette,” and the tune was “Since Yesterday,” credited as a Byard original composition. I was puzzled; I was sure that Byard’s first recordings under his own name were in 1960, but this record was obviously pressed in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and I began to doubt my memory.

Byard (1922-1999) was a great jazz musician who somehow remained under appreciated, despite recording approximately forty albums of his own, playing in Charles Mingus’ Workshop on the classic albums Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady and recording with Eric Dolphy, Roland Kirk, Booker Ervin, and many others. A multi-instrumentalist, he played tenor and alto saxophone but was known in the jazz world primarily for his unique piano style, which could range from ragtime to free playing in a single solo.

Byard, a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, after stints in the army and in the Earl Bostic band, worked in the Boston area in the late 1940s and early 1950s, playing piano in Charlie Mariano’s small group and saxophone in Herb Pomeroy’s big band. At some point during this period, probably in 1949, he recorded “Since Yesterday” as the “B” side of the Holiday Record Co. of New York’s issue # 700.

The label design is attractive and doesn’t bear the typical “one-off” personal label, “no graphics and typesetting at the record plant” appearance. Possibly, this “Holiday” was intended as a real moneymaking record label but was poorly funded and folded after the lone “lucky 700” issue. Some commercial ambition is apparent. “Again,” the song on the “A” side of the record, was a #1 pop hit for Doris Day in the spring of 1949, and three other versions made the charts that year. Recording and releasing a jazz flavored cover version in an attempt to sell the song to Black record buyers was a clever business decision but poorly executed.

The singer, Mel Collins, is of modest talent in a Nat King Cole/Billy Eckstine style with a touch of early R&B, but clearly, he’s not a jazz singer and sings the song very straight without swing and with some intonation issues. No other records by him or information about him can be found in any discography or reference work. He seems to have made this one recording before vanishing into the complete obscurity of day jobs and occasionally sitting in with the trio at the local lounge.

The arrangement is a scaled down version of Doris Day’s and played somewhat tentatively by the band. Had they just met Collins in the studio and worked it up after a quick listen to the Day record and a glance at the sheet music?

Who were they? The guitarist sounds like a jazz pro and provides some nice fills and accompaniment. There are no drums, and bass is only occasionally audible. The pianist plays in cocktail-ish style and sounds nothing like Byard. There’s an eight bar tenor sax solo which is played with an attractive tone, sticking close to the melody, while sounding quite a lot like Lester Young. The guitarist is inspired to play a nice countermelody behind the solo and some interesting chords. It’s a sudden flash of creativity amidst a dull rendering of the song.

Was Byard the tenor saxophonist? It’s hard to imagine that the Lester Young styled soloist on “Again” could have developed into the much different sounding, strongly Charlie Parker influenced saxophonist that Byard was on his 1957 tenor saxophone recordings with the Herb Pomeroy Band. But then, we might be wise not to come to any firm conclusions based on an eight bar solo on a pop tune.

The “B” side of the record, “Since Yesterday,” is credited to the “Jackie Byard Quintette,” so we can be sure that he appears on it, but listening to the tune only raises more questions that cannot be answered with certainty, such as what instrument does Byard play? The pianist on the tune does not exhibit the great two handed facility and “deep in the keys” sound that Byard displayed on his 60s recordings and throughout the rest of his career. The single chorus solo does use rumbling pre-bop left hand figures and block chords, maybe even overuses them, while managing to be hip and forward looking and simultaneously old fashioned in the way that became a trademark of Byard’s later style. Also, the comping of the left hand behind the saxes uses some of the harmonic ideas Byard played behind Charlie Mariano in 1950 on what were formerly his earliest known recordings. Are we hearing an embryonic version of the pianist that Byard was to become? We will probably never know for sure.

The saxophonists on “Since Yesterday” are just as puzzling. After the piano intro, a tenor sax with a full, rounded Ben Webster sound and a solid swing to bop time feel improvises fluently for two choruses in a style showing the influence of Charlie Parker. After the piano solo there is another tenor solo, again showing Parker's influence, but with a lighter, breathier sound and a more of a Lester Young, floating rhythmic feel. At the very end of the tune, when the second tenor has apparently finished playing, the first tenor, seemingly unplanned, plays a few bars of improvised melody, and the second tenor joins back in for two bars. It’s an odd, jam session like ending.

“Since Yesterday’ is a themeless 12 bar blues and seems like a completely off the cuff, “let’s just play the blues” performance. Was the tune a rehearsal or a warmup recorded at a session we will never hear? The matrix numbers in the runouts are “HOL-105” for “Again” and “HOL-106” for “Since Yesterday,” which would seem to indicate that they were recorded consecutively but not necessarily at the same session. What happened to matrices HOL-100 through 104? Was there a Mel Collins session that only produced one usable take—“Again,” leaving Holiday without a “B” side and forcing them to issue “Since Yesterday” from an aborted or informal session?

I believe Byard is the pianist on “Since Yesterday” and that one of the saxophonists might be Boston area legend Andy McGhee, who played with Byard in Jimmie Martin’s BeBoppers band in 1949. This is speculation, but everything about this record is speculation.

I admit that my guess, I hesitate to call it an opinion, might be wrong, and Byard could be playing tenor sax, not piano, on “Since Yesterday.” Two extremely knowledgeable jazz listeners, both very familiar with Byard’s music, who have heard the record think he is. To my ears, Byard, on saxophone throughout his career, was heavily Parker influenced, playing slightly wildly and at the edge of his technical command with a bright, wailing sound and a pushing the beat time feel. To me, the saxophonists on “Since Yesterday” sound different; they are more restrained, and for 1949, they play in a slightly outdated swing with bop touches style.

So, what do we know about this record? Nothing except what is printed on the label and what we hear. It’s a mystery record. The discographies tell you who and what you will hear, but there are no spoilers here. This record allows you to use your imagination. Tenor saxophonists Roland Alexander, Ken McIntyre, and Sam Rivers all played with Byard in Jimmie Martin’s BeBoppers. Could one or even two of them be on the record? Probably not, but who is to say? Not me. I choose to let my imagination run wild---Lucky Thompson, Paul Quinichette, Charlie Rouse? Probably not, but why not? No one knows, and probably no one ever will. What do you think? Listen and use your imagination.

Additional note---- Robert told me while I was preparing this essay that he once owned two (!) copies of the Byard Holiday #700 78. The other copy was loaned to a collector, not returned and may have been sold on Ebay some years ago.

I would like to thank saxophonist-composer Charlie Kohlhase for his invaluable insights

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