Welcome to Sound Projections

I'm your host Kofi Natambu. This online magazine features the very best in contemporary creative music in this creative timezone NOW (the one we're living in) as well as that of the historical past. The purpose is to openly explore, examine, investigate, reflect on, studiously critique, and take opulent pleasure in the sonic and aural dimensions of human experience known and identified to us as MUSIC. I'm also interested in critically examining the wide range of ideas and opinions that govern our commodified notions of the production, consumption, marketing, and commercial exchange of organized sound(s) which largely define and thereby (over)determine our present relationships to music in the general political economy and culture.

Thus this magazine will strive to critically question and go beyond the conventional imposed notions and categories of what constitutes the generic and stylistic definitions of ‘Jazz’, ‘classical music’, ‘Blues.’ 'Rhythm and Blues’, ‘Rock and Roll’, ‘Pop’, ‘Funk’, ‘Hip Hop’, etc. in order to search for what individual artists and ensembles do cretively to challenge and transform our ingrained ideas and attitudes of what music is and could be.

So please join me in this ongoing visceral, investigative, and cerebral quest to explore, enjoy, and pay homage to the endlessly creative and uniquely magisterial dimensions of MUSIC in all of its guises and expressive identities.

Saturday, August 20, 2022

Charlie Rouse (1924-1988): Outstanding, versatile, and innovative musician, composer, arranger, ensemble leader, producer, and teacher

SOUND PROJECTIONS



AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE

 


EDITOR:  KOFI NATAMBU

 


SUMMER,  2022




VOLUME ELEVEN  NUMBER THREE

 

MARC CARY

 

Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:  

 

REVOLUTIONARY ENSEMBLE

(June 11-17)


OLU DARA

(June 18-24)


WALTER SMITH III

(June 25-July 1)


BOBBY WATSON

(July 2-8)


JAMES MOODY

(July 9-15)


RONALD SHANNON JACKSON

(July 16-22)


LEYLA McCALLA

(July 23-29)


RUSSELL MALONE

(July 30-August 5)


JOHN HANDY

(August 6-12)


STANLEY CLARKE

(August 13-19)


CHARLIE ROUSE

(August 20-26)


JASON HAINSWORTH

(August 27-September 2)

 

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/charlie-rouse-mn0000176387/biography
 


Charlie Rouse 

(1924-1988) 

Biography by Scott Yanow 

  

Possessor of a distinctive tone and a fluid bop-oriented style, Charlie Rouse was in Thelonious Monk's Quartet for over a decade (1959-1970) and, although somewhat taken for granted, was an important ingredient in Monk's music. Rouse was always a modern player and he worked with Billy Eckstine's orchestra (1944) and the first Dizzy Gillespie big band (1945), making his recording debut with Tadd Dameron in 1947. Rouse popped up in a lot of important groups including Duke Ellington's Orchestra (1949-1950), Count Basie's octet (1950), on sessions with Clifford Brown in 1953, and with Oscar Pettiford's sextet (1955). He co-led the Jazz Modes with Julius Watkins (1956-1959), and then joined Monk for a decade of extensive touring and recordings. In the 1970s he recorded a few albums as a leader, and in 1979 he became a member of Sphere. Charlie Rouse's unique sound began to finally get some recognition during the 1980s. He participated on Carmen McRae's classic Carmen Sings Monk album and his last recording was at a Monk tribute concert. 

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/charlie-rouse 

Charlie Rouse

Though a top tenor man in his own right, he will always be remembered as the saxophonist for the Thelonious Monk quartet. He adapted his playing to Monk’s music; his tone became heavier, his phrasing more careful, and he seemed to be the medium between Monk and the audience.

Charlie Rouse studied clarinet before taking up tenor saxophone. He played in the bop big bands of Billy Eckstine (1944) and Dizzy Gillespie (1945), but made his first recordings as a soloist only in 1947, with Tadd Dameron and Fats Navarro.

After playing rhythm-and-blues in Washington and New York, he was a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra (1949-50) and Count Basie's octet (1950). He took part in Clifford Brown's first recordings in 1953, then worked with Bennie Green (1955) and played in Oscar Pettiford's sextet (1955); with Julius Watkins, also one of Pettiford's sidemen, he led Les Modes (later the Jazz Modes), a bop quintet (1956-59). He joined Buddy Rich briefly before playing in Thelonious Monk's quartet (1959-1970), the association for which he is best known.

In the 1960s Rouse adapted his style to Monk's work, improvising with greater deliberation than most bop tenor saxophonists, and restating melodies often. His distinctive solo playing with Monk may be heard on the classic recordings in the bands heyday.

Though he would go on to do some solo projects, they were very selective and he opted for quality over quantity. His first outing as leader was “Taking Care of Business,” (1960) for this overdue debut, he selected trumpeter Blue Mitchell, and a rhythm section of pianist Walter Bishop and bassist Earl May, and Art Taylor on drums.

During the 1970s he worked as a freelance, and recorded three albums as a leader. The album "Two is One" was recorded in 1974 for Strata East. Charlie in 1977 did “Moments Notice,” and enlisted the help of some top crack Brazilian locals for “Cinnamon Flower.” Dom Salvador, Amaury Tristao, Dom Um Romao, Portinho and Claudio Roditi were hooked up with some of NYCs finest-Ron Carter,Bernard Purdie and Clifford Adams. This was a highlight album for Rouse in that period, very well received.

In the early 1980s he was a member and joint leader of the quartet Sphere, which was dedicated to the performance of Monk's music. He recorded other albums as “Social Call,” (’84) where he joined up with Red Rodney. His offering of “Epistrophy,” (1988) was his tribute to Monk.

This was his last recording as he died seven weeks later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Rouse

Charlie Rouse

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 
CHARLIE ROUSE

Charlie Rouse (April 6, 1924 – November 30, 1988)[1] was an American hard bop tenor saxophonist and flautist. His career is marked by his collaboration with Thelonious Monk, which lasted for more than ten years.[2]

Biography

Rouse was born in Washington, D.C., United States.[1] At first he worked with the clarinet, before turning to the tenor saxophone.[1]

Rouse began his career with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra in 1944, followed by the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band in 1945, the Duke Ellington Orchestra from 1949 to 1950, the Count Basie Octet in 1950, Bull Moose Jackson And His Buffalo Bearcats in 1953, and the Oscar Pettiford Sextet in 1955.[1] He made his recording debut with Tadd Dameron in 1947,[3] and in 1957 made a notable album with Paul Quinichette.[4]

He was a member of Thelonious Monk's quartet from 1959 to 1970.[1] In the 1980s he was a founding member of the group Sphere, which began as a tribute to Monk.[2]

Charlie Rouse died from lung cancer on November 30, 1988, at University Hospital in Seattle at the age of 64.[5]

Honors

The asteroid 10426 Charlierouse was officially named to honor Rouse by American astronomer Joe Montani of Spacewatch, who discovered it in 1999.[6][7] Earlier, in 1994, asteroid 11091 Thelonious had also been discovered and named by Montani.[6]

Discography

As leader

With Julius Watkins as Les Jazz Modes/The Jazz Modes

With Sphere

As sideman

With Dave Bailey

With Clifford Brown

With Donald Byrd

With Benny Carter

With Sonny Clark

With Art Farmer

With Joe Gordon

With Bennie Green

With Hank Jones

With Duke Jordan

With Thelonious Monk

With Oscar Pettiford

With Louis Smith

With Art Taylor

With Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson

With Mal Waldron

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/02/obituaries/charlie-rouse-64-a-saxophonist-known-for-work-in-monk-quartet.html

Charlie Rouse, 64, a Saxophonist Known for Work in Monk Quartet

by Peter Watrous

Charlie Rouse, a tenor saxophonist and one of jazz's great individualists, died of lung cancer on Wednesday afternoon at University Hospital in Seattle. He was 64 years old.

Mr. Rouse came to prominence in 1944 when he joined the Billy Eckstine Orchestra, which at the time included Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Lucky Thompson and Sarah Vaughan. He became known for his beautiful tone and the individuality of his playing.

He quickly became an important musician, working and recording with many of the major figures of the day. He played in Dizzy Gillespie's big band, and in 1947 recorded with the trumpeter Fats Navarro and the composer Tadd Dameron. In 1949, Mr. Rouse replaced Ben Webster in the Duke Ellington Orchestra, but he had to leave the band in 1950 when a passport problem kept him from embarking on an international tour. Months later, he was working with a small band led by Count Basie. Collaboration With Monk

In New York he worked regularly at the Village Vanguard, either as a member of Sphere, with an exceptional band jointly led by the pianist Mal Waldron, or with his own quartet. His most recent appearances in New York City were at the Village Vanguard, in 1986, and at Lincoln Center in August, where he played with a trio at a tribute for Tadd Dameron.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Ellen Rouse, a son, two brothers and a sister.

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 2, 1988, Section D, Page 16 of the National edition with the headline: Charlie Rouse, 64, a Saxophonist Known for Work in Monk Quartet. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper

https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2017/04/charlie-rouse-creative-force-on-tenor.html

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Charlie Rouse - A Creative Force on Tenor Saxophone

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


“Though a top tenor man in his own right, he will always be remembered as the saxophonist for the Thelonious Monk quartet. He adapted his playing to Monk’s music; his tone became heavier, his phrasing more careful, and he seemed to be the medium between Monk and the audience.”
- AllAboutJazz

"A communicator rather than a pioneer, he must have found it strange and galling to be pushed out of view with the rest of the 'avant-garde.' On the strength of [his solo albums], Charlie Rouse was 'in the tradition,' centrally and majestically."
-Richard Cook & Brian Morton, Penguin Guide To Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.

Tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse was a long-standing member of Thelonious Monk's quartet (1959-1970), the association for which he is best known.

In the 1960s Rouse adapted his style to Monk's work, improvising with greater deliberation than most bop tenor saxophonists, and restating melodies often. His distinctive solo playing with Monk may be heard on "Shuffle Boil" (1964), in which he alternates reiterations of the principal thematic motif with formulaic bop runs.
-Barry Kernfeld, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz

“Charlie Rouse, who has often been disparaged by critics but served his leader well. Rouse was certainly not a soloist of the stature of Coltrane or Rollins (or, for that matter, Griffin) but he absorbed and understood Monk's musical processes as well as anyone the pianist ever played with, and explored them with considerable imagination and timbral variety in a style of improvisation which he developed specifically for that purpose.”
- Kenny Mathieson, Giant Steps: Bebop and The creators of Modern Jazz, 1945-1965

“I never wrote a column about Charlie Rouse — can't explain it. When I first got to know Stanley Crouch, we bonded over our mutual outrage at how three favorite tenors had been critically disrespected when we were growing up: Rouse, George Coleman, and Paul Gonsalves. We set out to render justice. Rouse's pithy, almost epigrammatic phrases; sandy timbre, by way of Wardell Gray; and uncanny ability to blend with the tones of Thelonious Monk's piano amounted to a rare oasis in a frantic era. For that matter, I never wrote a long-planned column on Wardell Gray either. What the hell was I doing? Nearly 650 Weather Birds, maybe 400 Riffs, yet no Rouse, no Gray, no Ervin, no Tristano, no Dameron, no James P., no Teschmacher, no Lee Morgan, Mea multiple culpas.”
- Gary Giddins, Weather Bird: Jazz At The Dawn of Its Second Century

After reading the “mea culpa” by Gary Giddins, I didn’t feel so bad about having omitted a profile of tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse from these pages until I located a disc by him entitled Charlie Rouse: Unsung Hero [Columbia Jazz Masterpiece/Epic CD 46181].


That did it!


“Unsung hero?”


Not if I had anything to say about it.

Then the fun began because - you guessed it - despite an eleven year association with Thelonious Monk, one of the Grand Masters of Modern Jazz - good luck finding anything readily available about Charlie other than passing references.

But as Will Friedwald states in his assertion that Monk would have had to invent Charlie had he not existed, I had to conjure him up by a deliberate combing of the Jazz literature in order to represent something about Charlie on JazzProfiles. Charlie has become such an overlooked figured in Modern Jazz annals, it’s almost as though he didn’t exist.

In addition to the quotations about Charlie at the outset of this piece, what follows is the complete text of Will Friedwald’s notes to Charlie Rouse: Unsung Hero and Pete Watrous’s obituary which appeared in The New York Times.

Together these should provide you with a pretty good overview of Charlie’s 40+ career which seems to span the ascent and the descent of 20th century modern Jazz.

“If Charlie Rouse hadn't existed, Thelonious Monk would have had to invent him. Never exactly a co-leader of the groups they worked in together over the course of eleven years, Rouse was, nevertheless, more than a Monk sideman, more even than the Monk sideman. In Rouse, Monk found the collaborator of his dreams: not only a horn frontline player who shared his attitudes towards melody, meter and phrasing, but his Johnny Hodges, Ben Webster, Paul Gonsalves, and Harry Carney all rolled into one.

A first listen to any of the hundreds of recordings, live and studio, extant by their magical quartet might lead one to assume that they thought as one. But actually it was more like one and a half, since Rouse was never merely a musical yes-man. Rather than just finishing Monk's sentences, Rouse added something of his own to them which added infinitely to the potency of the message.

Monk so trusted Rouse with keeping his stylistic flame alive that he felt free to rise from the piano bench during the tenor solos and give vent to the passion that Rouse's playing unleashed in him. As Rouse gave out, Monk danced around the piano in a terpsichorean display both hornlike and bear-like, and every bit as delightfully improvisation as his keyboard work. Even while Thelonious himself was producing no sound, the noises coming from the bandstand were no less Monkish. Still, even though Monk trusted Rouse to deputize while he became a one-man Buck and-Bubbles, apart from the quartet he never served as Monk's emissary, say, as Don Cherry has for Ornette Coleman. Throughout his career, Rouse was recognized by his fellow musicians (if only rarely by critics) both as a voice unique in and of himself, and for his equally extraordinary ability to groove into Monk's music.

Both he and Monk had passed through the bebop era, Monk at its birth, Rouse at its zenith, but remained stylistic outsiders to its tenets, belonging as much to the domains of swing and mainstream. Just as Monk could appear at times art extension—and not necessarily a bebop extension—of Duke Ellington, Rouse identified his roots in Ben Webster. "Somebody's always saying I was influenced by this guy or that guy," Rouse said to Don DeMichael in a down beat interview in 1961, "but they never mention the guy who really influenced me—Ben Webster. I dig his sound so, the warm sound he gets on ballads."

Remember, not only were forward-thinking stylemasters such as Monk and Duke Ellington attracted to Rouse, but so were advanced swing mavens like Count Basie and Buddy Rich, various voices from the bop era, like Tadd Dameron, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Pettiford, and Fats Navarro, and rhythm and blues groups like .Eddie Vinson and Louis Jordan. (Milt Jackson told him later, "I didn't know which side you were on, rock and roll or jazz.')

Growing up in the District of Columbia, the milestones in Rouse's early career included sessions with two fellow Washingtonians, Billy Eckstine and Duke Ellington. He joined Eckstine's bond at age 20, the veteran of extensive "wood-shedding" at a local club called the Crystal Cavern during his high school years.

At first, as Eckstine associate tori Coleman recalled, the young tenorist was in over his head in this band of bebop firebrands whose store were, after the leader himself, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; and, after a tour of the South, Rouse and Lucky Thompson (for personal reasons) were let go in Chicago. For a year in Milwaukee he played on weekends while working odd jobs out of music, until Dizzy Gillespie sent for him, first to play in a short-lived small bond that worked in Washington before the Gillespie-Parker unit tackled California, and then more extensively with the fabled Gillespie big band.

The mid-'40s to mid-'50s served as Rouse's bebop decade, during which time he gigged extensively with virtually every major figure of the modernist revolution, making his first records in the company of Tadd Dameron and Fats Navarro.

Rouse's bop period was interrupted by an engagement that would have serious ramifications on his development: "Ben Webster left Duke Ellington's band [for the second time, in 1949], and Duke was looking for a tenor player," Rouse remembered to Pete Dawson in a 1982 Coda interview, "and one of my fans, a lady who always wanted me to play 'Body And Soul” and who knew Duke very well, told Duke he should come and listen. So, Duke heard me and hired me."

Because of the recording ban and other problems, the Ellington band only did two short commercial sessions for Columbia during the few months when Rouse was in the reed section. Ellington did feature Rouse in his 1950 Universal Pictures film short, Salute to Duke Ellington. Rouse may well have been the next Ellington tenor star (a place in history that went to Paul Gonsalves); however, he encountered catastrophe when the band was booked to tour Europe in spring of 1950. Rouse couldn't find his birth certificate and was summarily denied a passport. "There I was," he told DeMichael, "standing on the dock, waving goodbye to them."

There would be lots more work with both modem jazz and r&b groups, including the most important of trumpet legend Clifford Brown's Blue Note sessions. But Rouse was clearly looking to make a kind of music somewhere between bop and Ellington.

He took an important step towards it when working with Oscar Pettiford (on a 1954 Bethlehem ten-inch Lp, and elsewhere), the bassist, cellist, and bandleader who had also pivoted between Ellington's band and the new musk and who himself was fast becoming one of jazz's most distinguished when he died at age 38 in 1960.

While playing with Pettiford intermittently and with trombonist Benny Green's more regularly working bond, Rouse joined forces with jazz's leading French horn player, Julius Watkins. "We discovered that tenor and french horn have a beautiful sound, so we decided to get a band together," Rouse said in a Cadence interview with A. David Franklin in 1987, explaining that the group's name "Les Jazz Modes" amounted to o franglais wink at the name of Watkins's instrument. "Our first album for Atlantic was The Most Happy Fella, an album of show tunes they wanted us to do. The next album was of our own compositions, and after that nobody wanted to book the band."

"Sonny Rollins was the one who told me that Thelonious needed a saxophone player/' Rouse recoiled in downbeat. "Sonny had been working with him off and on, and then Johnny Griffin had been working with him at the Five Spot - then Griff left the group and was on the way to Europe." As it turned out, Monk had already contacted Rouse when Rollins got in touch with him. "Before the Five Spot, I had worked with Thelonious now and then, so he knew me; we were friends. And after a point they just couldn't keep Monk back; if something was right, you can't stop it."

The Monk-Rouse combination turned out to be the rightest in music, easily the highlight of both careers. In 1961, the team switched from the smaller Riverside label to the big leagues at Columbia, and the '60s became the decade of international recognition-not to mention work-that Monk and Rouse had worked 20 years to achieve.

Early in their collaboration, some years before Monk came to Columbia, in fact, Rouse recorded an album and a half's worth of material for CBS producer Mike Berniker. Berniker was creatively using the Epic imprint at Columbia to give exposure to a series of worthwhile musicians, most of whom hadn't even been featured on the jazz specialist labels. Rouse's first two Epic sessions appeared on the album Oh Yeah!, while the remaining three tunes were combined with an unrelated date by the equally deserving tenorist Seldon Powell (Epic made several of these tandem albums, such as Ray Bryant and Betty Carter), in a set accurately titled We Paid Our Dues. The two Epics with Rouse quickly became valuable collector's items, if scarcely noticed by the jazz press and, apparently, never mentioned again by Rouse.

Just as a Monk-Rouse treatment of a standard excites because it makes you see an old friend from a new angle, the Rouse Epic sessions signify landmark achievements because of the ways they confirm what we suspected but didn't know for sure. Certainly they reveal stylistic elements inherent in Rouse's playing with Monk but, just the same, we had to hear Rouse with a more conventional pianist to confirm how much they were a part of Rouse's own stylistic lunchbox. On six out of nine tracks here, one Billy Gardner, whose name as much as his playing suggests stylistic similarities to both Erroll Garner and Red Garland, making his first session, plays piano (later he would play organ for Sonny Stitt), while on "When Sunny Gets Blue," "Quarter Moon," and "I Should Core" the swing and bop main-streamer Gildo Mahones (a close associate of Lester Young, and Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross) sits on the piano bench.

Although Gardner and Mahones fete Rouse with conventional comping as opposed to Monk's nate-for-note empathy, Rouse still lets you have his putty-edged tone and his staccato melodic structure straight, no chaser. When he improvises on idea, Rouse doesn't dress it up or milk it until he can think of something else, but rather states it simply and elegantly and then moves on. Rouse's ballad improvisations resound as particularly impressive: out of the Thelonian context, his breathy exhalations reveal his roots in Ben Webster (especially in the "Chelsea Bridge"-styled "Quarter Moon").

However, Rouse has reasoned away Webster's emotional polarization, offering neither excessive sentiment nor aggressiveness as the older man was wont to do, but rattier speaking with a single unified voice. Even the cadenza intro to "When Sunny Gets Blue,” which would sound florid in the horn of another tenorman, comes off as a perfect route into the heart of the standard. Furthermore, the boppish uptempos in no way compromise the mood of the ballads, while "Billy's Blues," a moody, loping slow blues, assumes all the tenderness of the love songs, and, conversely, "Stella By Starlight" and "(There Is) No Greater Love" take on the groovy, medium gait of the blues numbers.

Overall, the blend of standards and blues edges the Monk-Rouse ideal from the left field to the mainstream, which anticipates Rouse's subsequent "leader” albums in which he succeeds at turning his tenor sax into a popular music voice, although his bid for that audience ultimately failed.

Long after Monk's retirement, Rouse reached a different sort of pinnacle in the cooperative collective Sphere, which, until his death in 1986, continued to explore the principles and sometimes the music of the Monk-Rouse group.

"Once you start creating, you never know what's happening on the bandstand," Rouse said in 1982, "and once the flow of whoever is on that bandstand starts meshing, and you hear that pulse, you hove to be dead not to start patting your feet. That's the beauty of that music."



Charlie Rouse: Hail The Individual

by


Every significant development in jazz has been the work of trailblazers. In the case of bebop of course the two most readily associated with the development have always been Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and whilst there is no little substance in this, the determinism of such a view obscures the contributions of other musicians who were active in the midst of this musical revolution. Whilst this situation has arguably never caused irreparable damage to any musician's career, it might be said to have caused some musicians to suffer neglect.

Charlie Rouse was the victim of some unstated critical consensus, which always seemed to mask the fact that he found his own way in the eye of the bebop hurricane. Guilty as he was of being neither John Coltrane nor Sonny Rollins at a time when such giants were more common, he was a tenor saxophonist who carved out his own niche, and in so doing found his personal resolution of the possibilities that bebop offered. In short, he did his own thing, and he does it effectively on both Bossa Nova Bacchanal and Social Call.

On the face of it the former of these titles might seem like an attempt at hopping aboard a passing bandwagon, recorded as it was at a time when the gentle melancholy of bossa nova struck a chord with an audience well beyond that of the core audience for jazz, and lured in no small part perhaps by Stan Getz's somnolent way with the idiom. Rouse's individuality was however of a different order to Getz's, and throughout the album it has the unexpected effect of highlighting the rhythmic emphasis of his playing, which might well have been in the forefront of Thelonious Monk's thoughts when he gave Rouse the gig with his quartet. Here Rouse's craggy individuality is compromised not a bit, a point which is emphasised by "One For Five" the additional track recorded in a more familiar hard bop setting in the company of Freddie Hubbard. 

Social Call , recorded in the company of fellow bop veteran Red Rodney in trumpet in January of 1984, finds both men playing more reflectively than they did in the heyday of the idiom. The date is a late flowering of the bop message at a time when it was still relatively fresh -albeit deeply unfashionable- and the rhythm section of Albert Dailey, Cecil McBee and Kenny Washington is state of the art.

The fact that both Rouse and Rodney were in at the beginning seems to raise the bar a notch or two. Rodney in particular seems to have purged his playing of the grating exuberance that was often the mark of early bebop trumpeters, and his music is a lot more considered. Exhibiting a similar depth in his own playing, it's clear that one of Rouse's primary considerations at this stage was time; he allows himself all the time in the world here, and his playing is more telling as a result.

Jazz has never been about the relentless pushing on towards some ill-defined -or indeed indefinable- point, but what the passing of time has revealed is the importance, if not the primacy, of the individual voice as an essential requirement for enduring music. Throughout his lengthy career Charlie Rouse embraced that philosophy and his work always had the kind of depth that escaped critical consensus.

Bossa Nova Bacchanal - Blue Note 7243 5 93875 2 9
Social Call - Uptown UPCD 27.50


https://jazzmf.com/wiki/rouse-charlie/

JazzMF

Jazz research on the Internet: a continuing saga

Rouse, Charlie

by

Tenor saxophonist.

Bibliography

Franklin, A. David. “Charlie Rouse.” Cadence 13, no. 6 (June 1987): 5–10.
Milloy, Courtland. “Their Music Lives On.” Washington Post, December 8, 1988.
Morgenstern, Dan. “Charlie Rouse & the Long Road to Recognition.” Metronome, October 1960.
Rouse, Charlie. Interview. Interview by W. Royal Stokes, October 10, 1981. W. Royal Stokes Collection. Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Rouse, Charlie. Interview. Interview by W. Royal Stokes, March 30, 1982. W. Royal Stokes Collection. Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Rouse, Charlie. Interview. Interview by W. Royal Stokes, February 6, 1985. W. Royal Stokes Collection. Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Rouse, Charlie. Interview. Interview by W. Royal Stokes, February 7, 1985. W. Royal Stokes Collection. Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Stokes, W. Royal. “Native Son.” Washington Post, October 18, 1981.
Stokes, W. Royal. “Charlie Rouse.” Washington Post. August 25, 1984.
Stokes, W. Royal. “Home-Town Reunion at Woodie’s.” Washington Post. June 23, 1986.

https://www.mixcloud.com/HUMSRCDigital/charlie-rouse-interview-part-1/

Charlie Rouse Interview Part 1

 
Charlie Rouse Interview Part 1

#interview#artist interview

An interview with Charlie Rouse as part of the Howard University Jazz Oral History Project

https://burningambulance.com/2012/01/13/thelonious-monk/

Thelonious Monk

Written by

Who better to feature, on Friday the 13th?

Thelonious Monk: piano; Charlie Rouse: tenor saxophone; Larry Gales: bass; Ben Riley: drums, live in Copenhagen, 1966. I have always liked Monk’s Columbia albums featuring this band (or the earlier iteration with John Ore on bass and Frankie Dunlop on drums) better than his Riverside or Blue Note recordings.

Set list:

Lulu’s Back in Town

Don’t Blame Me

Epistrophy


https://fromthevaults-boppinbob.blogspot.com/2022/04/charlie-rouse-born-6-april-1924.html

Wednesday, 6 April 2022

Charlie Rouse born 6 April 1924

Charlie Rouse (April 6, 1924 – November 30, 1988) was an American hard bop tenor saxophonist and flautist. His career is marked by his collaboration with Thelonious Monk, which lasted for more than ten years.  Rouse was born in Washington, D.C., United States. He attended Howard University, where he studied classical music and clarinet before taking up the tenor saxophone. Growing up in the District of Columbia, the milestones in Rouse's early career included sessions with two fellow Washingtonians, Billy Eckstine and Duke Ellington. He joined Eckstine's band at age 20, the veteran of extensive "wood-shedding" at a local club called the Crystal Cavern during his high school years. 

Rouse was always a modern player and he also worked with the first Dizzy Gillespie big band (1945), making his recording debut with Tadd Dameron in 1947. Rouse popped up in a lot of important groups including Duke Ellington's Orchestra (1949-1950), Count Basie's octet (1950), on sessions with Clifford Brown in 1953, and with Oscar Pettiford's sextet (1955). He co-led the Jazz Modes with Julius Watkins (1956-1959), and he made a notable album with Paul Quinichette.(1957). 

Ellington did feature Rouse in his 1950 Universal Pictures film short, Salute to Duke Ellington. Rouse may well have been the next Ellington tenor star (a place in history that went to Paul Gonsalves); however, he encountered catastrophe when the band was booked to tour Europe in spring of 1950. Rouse couldn't find his birth certificate and was summarily denied a passport. "There I was," he told Down Beat, "standing on the dock, waving goodbye to them." 

He was a member of Thelonious Monk's quartet from 1959 to 1970. The Monk-Rouse combination turned out to be the rightest in music, easily the highlight of both careers. In 1961, the team switched from the smaller Riverside label to the big leagues at Columbia, and the '60s became the decade of international recognition-not to mention work-that Monk and Rouse had worked 20 years to achieve. 

Both he and Monk had passed through the bebop era, Monk at its birth, Rouse at its zenith, but remained stylistic outsiders to its tenets, belonging as much to the domains of swing and mainstream. Just as Monk could appear at times art extension—and not necessarily a bebop extension—of Duke Ellington, Rouse identified his roots in Ben Webster. "Somebody's always saying I was influenced by this guy or that guy," Rouse said in a Down Beat interview in 1961, "but they never mention the guy who really influenced me—Ben Webster. I dig his sound so, the warm sound he gets on ballads." 

During the 1970s he worked as a freelance, and recorded three albums as a leader. The album “Two is One” was recorded in 1974 for Strata East. He did “Moment’s Notice “in 1977 and enlisted the help of some top crack Brazilian locals for “Cinnamon Flower.”  This was a highlight album for Rouse in that period, very well received. It wasn’t until 1979 when he formed the group Sphere, which was dedicated, at first, to playing Monk's compositions that he began to achieve the sort of recognition he deserved. The group, which became one of jazz's most sophisticated bands, recorded several albums, showcasing his distinctive, assured style. 

In New York he worked regularly at the Village Vanguard, either as a member of Sphere, with an exceptional band jointly led by the pianist Mal Waldron, or with his own quartet. His most recent appearances in New York City were at the Village Vanguard, in 1986, and at Lincoln Center in August, where he played with a trio at a tribute for Tadd Dameron. He participated on Carmen McRae's classic Carmen Sings Monk album and his last recording was “Epistrophy,” (1988) from a Monk tribute concert. Rouse recorded over 25 albums with Monk, and over 12 as a leader. 

Charlie Rouse died from lung cancer on November 30, 1988, at University Hospital in Seattle at the age of 64. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, Jazz Profiles, All About Jazz & AllMusic)

Thelonious Monk in Oslo, Norway

April 15, 1966

Thelonious Monk:  Piano

Charlie Rouse:  Tenor saxophone

Larry Gales:  Bass

Ben Riley:  Drums

 
 
For “CHARLIE ROUSE QUARTET & QUINTET (Fresh Sound)” go here:

https://mega.n/file/trpQGTiY#UDwVqNolbQCnKOigJnxkg4uH7b4Ld7TQ34QRXdJDl7s

CD 1

01. You Dont Know What Love Is (Raye-DePaul) 6:26
02. Lil Rousin (Rouse) 5:01
03. Stella by Starlight (Young-Washington) 6:16
04. Billys Blues (Rouse) 8:43
05. Rouses Point (Rouse) 4:44
06. (There Is) No Greater Love (Symes-Jones) 6:21
07. When Sunny Gets Blue (Segal-Fisher) 5:50
08. Quarter Moon (Mahones) 5:49
09. I Should Care (Cahn-Stordahl) 7:09

CD 2

01. Blue Farouq (Mitchll) 7:24
02. 204 (Weston) 7:24
03. Upptankt (Rouse) 4:44
04. Weirdo (Drew) 6:00
05. Pretty Strange (Weston) 5:13
06. They Didnt Believe Me (Kern-Reynolds) 6:52
07. Slop Jah (Terry) 7:23
08. Little Old Mongoose (Terry) 5:47
09. Evad Smurd (Terry) 3:19
10. Blues for J.P. (Parlan) 16:47

ALBUM DETAILS
Sources:

CD-1, tracks #1-6 from the 12" album "Yeah!" (Epic BA17012)
CD-1, tracks #7-9 from the 12" album "Charlie Rouse & Seldon Powell - We Paid Our Dues!" (Epic BA17018)
CD-2, tracks #1-6 from the 12" album "Takin' Care of business!" (Jazzland JS919)
CD-2, tracks #7-10 from the 12" album
"Dave Bailey Sextet - Gettin' Int Somethin'" (Epic BA17008)

Personnel on "Yeah!" + "We Paid Our Dues!":
Charlie Rouse (ts), Billy Gardner #1-6 or Gildo Mahones #7-9 (p), Peck Morrison #1-6 or Reggie Workman #7-9 (b), Dave Bailey #1-6 or Art Taylor #7-9 (d).

Recorded in New York City, December 20 & 21 (#1-6), 1960, and July 13 (#7-9), 1961.

Personnel on "Takin Care Of Business!":
Blue Mitchell (tp, out on #5), Charlie Rouse (ts), Walter Bishop Jr. (p), Earl May (b), Art Taylor (d).

Recorded in New York City, May 11, 1960.

Personnel on "Gettin' Into Somethin'":
Clark Terry (tp, flgh), Curtis Fuller (tb), Charlie Rouse (ts), Horace Parlan (p), Peck Morrison (b), Dave Bailey (d).
Recorded live in the studio, NYC, Oct. 26 & 27, 1960.

Despite a decade as an important member of Thelonious Monks high-profile quartet, Seattle-born Charlie Rouse remained somewhat taken for granted. It was partly due to his consistency; as a soloist his work was well ordered, interesting and melodic. But it was also because, although influenced by Ben Webster and Charlie Parker, he was essentially a more understated player than either, though no less warm and, in his own way, just as individual.

His gifts were appreciated by leaders as disparate as Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Tadd Dameron and Count Basie, and when he came to make his debut as sole leader in 1960 with Takin Care of Business, it was clear why. A lovely ballad player, he was equally at home on the blues and uptempo pieces, characteristics also demonstrated on the quartet performances of Yeah! and We Paid Our Dues!, and on the live album, Getting Into Somethin with drummer Dave Baileys sextet. Regardless of tempo, he was always a rhythmically acute, swinging and thoughtful storyteller and the story he told was his own. (Fresh Sound notes)

For “Charlie Rouse, Paul Quinichette - The Chase Is On (1957)” go here:

https://www.upload.ee/files/14027729/Rouse___Quinichette.rar.html

1. The Chase Is On
2. When The Blues Come On
3. This Can,t Be Love
4. Last Time For Love
5. You,re Cheating Yourself
6. Knittin
7. Tender Trap
8. The Thing I Love

Charlie Rouse - tenor sax
Paul Quinichette - tenor sax
Wynton Kelly - piano (1 & 3 & 4 & 6 & 7 & 8)
Hank Jones - piano (2 & 5)
Freddie Green - guitar (2 & 5)
Wendell Marshall - bass
Ed Thigpen - drums

#1,3,4,6-8: Recorded New York City, August 29, 1957.
#2,5: Recorded New York City, September 8, 1957. 6 April 2022 at 09:19
http://flophousemagazine.com/tag/charlie-rouse/

Monk’s long-running sideman takes care of business on his own.

Charlie Rouse - Takin' Care Of Business

Personnel

Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Blue Mitchell (trumpet), Walter Bishop Jr. (piano), Earl May (bass), Art Taylor (drums)

Recorded

on May 11, 1959 at Plaza Sound Studios, New York City

Released

as JLP-19 in 1960

Track listing

Side A:
Blue Farouq
“204”
Upptankt
Side B:
Weirdo
Pretty Strange
They Didn’t Believe Me


Aten-year stint in the group of Thelonious Monk ain’t chicken feed. This was the accomplishment of tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse and it speaks volumes about his skills, artistry and personality. Rouse was asked to join Monk at the start of 1959, the successor to the stint of Johnny Griffin and two short engagements of Sonny Rollins and former Monk associate John Coltrane. That’s a lot of tenor madness and a hell of a challenge. Nobody would’ve argued that Rouse is in the league of Coltrane and Rollins, nor would it have been easy to match the fire of The Little Giant. Indeed, for a lot of people, Charlie Rouse was a surprise pick, not least for a slew of young lions soliciting for the job, Wayne Shorter among them.

Rouse was already a veteran of sorts with a great track record, who had played in the bands of Billy Eckstine, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Tadd Dameron and was a prolific sideman in the 50s. Preceding the Monk period, Rouse co-led the sophisticated group The Jazz Modes with French horn player Julius Watkins. After a nervous start, he got off well with The High Priest. It is said that Monk was particularly enamored by the genial, relaxed Rouse, which surely was, apart from his abilities, one of the reasons they gelled so well for such a long time. Rouse quickly adjusted to Monk’s focus on melodic improvisation.

Rouse’s contribution on Monk’s 5 By 5 record, sharing the frontline with Thad Jones, is especially spicy and belies the rigorous opinion that Rouse’s solo’s better be casually accepted, criticism ventured from his start with Monk and the kind that inclines to become myth and survive for numerous decades. It would be interesting as well to take a listen to Rouse the balladeer, predominantly his lush interpretation of When Sunny Gets Blue on We Paid Our Dues on Epic from 1961, a record that is equally divided between the groups of Rouse and Seldon Powell.

Takin’ Care Of Business may not be the most inspired of titles. Who didn’t take care of it? However, it’s a strong effort from a top-notch group that further includes trumpeter Blue Mitchell, pianist Walter Bishop Jr., bassist Earl May and drummer Art Taylor. Mitchell contributed Blue Farouq, a hip blues line that also is featured on organist Melvin Rhyne’s Organ-izing and Junior Cook’s Junior’s Cookin’. Interestingly, “204” in fact is Randy Weston’s wonderful waltz Hi-Fly, the initial version with a slightly differing melody. Rouse’s Upptankt (meaning what?) and Kenny Drew’s Weirdo provide the saucy bop contrast to the jaunty take on Jerome Kern composition They Didn’t Believe Me and Randy Weston ballad Pretty Strange – which indeed is pretty strange, certainly not your usual melody with a sequence that is somehow unresolved, moving in front of the bedroom window like a thin fog and rather intriguing in its own weird way.

Solid mainstream from a punchy band, Rouse flowing and with sustained, logical ideas and slightly edgy tones opposite Blue Mitchell’s sinuous, exuberant lines and Walter Bishop Jr.’s charged bop style. Turn-of-that-decade quintet stuff that merits plenty of attention.

Posted in Review - Tagged , , ,  
 

Charlie Rouse / Red Rodney: Social Call

by  
23 September 2003

Charlie Rouse / Red Rodney
Social Call
Uptown
 
2003-08-26

Name a jazz artist and Rouse either shared the stage, played a session date, or spent time with him or her on the road or in a band. Born in 1926, he played tenor saxophone in the early ’40s with bands such as the Billy Eckstine Orchestra and Dizzy Gillespie’s big band. Rouse had a stint with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1949, but was forced to leave the band when he was unable to locate his birth certificate which he needed in order to get a passport for Europe. After that, he worked with everyone from Clifford Brown to Louis Jordan. It was not until 1959, however, that Charlie Rouse found a home in Thelonious Monk’s band, where he spent the next decade making music that would ultimately be considered classic, ensuring his place in the great American jazz pantheon. In the early ’70s, Rouse dropped out of the music scene to get his personal life together. Gradually, he returned to the jazz world, and by the late ’70s had formed a band called Sphere, which brought Rouse well deserved recognition. He continued to make powerful records right up to his untimely death in 1988.

Born a year later, in 1927, Red Rodney’s bio is peppered with much of the same. He cut his teeth on trumpet in the ’40s with the Jerry Wald orchestra, Jimmy Dorsey, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, and several others. In the early ’50s, having drawn heavily from the styles of Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, Rodney played with Charlie Parker on and off for three years. Like Rouse, he acquired some bad habits along the way, and used heroin for close to two decades. His lifestyle led to run-ins with the law, incarceration, a deteriorating career, and finally, a stroke in 1972. Amazingly, he made a comeback and was eventually playing as well, if not better, than he had before. This album finds Rodney’s playing as spirited and as succinct as ever. Rodney continued performing and recording until his death in 1994.

Recorded in 1984, Social Call is a muscular testimony from two survivors of the big band, bebop, cool, post-bop, hard-bop, acid jazz, and fusion eras. Both Rouse’s and Rodney’s performances are aggressive, at times playful, and, thankfully, tinged with the colors of rebellion and abandon so essential to this music. Neither musician was too old, too burnt out, or too soft by the time he made Social Call to leave out these elements, as so many jazz artists have done in their autumnal years, leaving their attempts at bop flat and emotionless, mere parodies of their earlier work.

“Little Chico”, a Rouse composition, and the first track on the album, is yet another version of rhythm changes with an intricate bebop-esque head and a bridge lifted from one of Thelonious Monk’s more popular tunes. Rouse and Rodney both blaze through their improvisations with such ingenuity and spontaneity that I was quite genuinely surprised and shaken out of whatever doldrums I’d been in before I hit Play on my CD player. Social Call maintains that pace and conviction right through to the end.

Honestly, the titles seem hardly worth mentioning here, because it’s not about the songs. It’s about the spontaneity. To those early boppers, the songs, the standards, were really nothing more than harmonic landscapes to explore. Rouse, Rodney, and a wonderful rhythm section, including Albert Dailey on piano, bassist Cecil McBee, and drummer Kenny Washington, explore these landscapes with abandon, rebelliousness, a touch of humor, and somehow, even with all that combined experience, with the eyes and ears of children. As listeners, we rejoice in their enthusiasm and excitement in the process of discovery.

TAGS


https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1988/12/04/jazz-great-charlie-rouse-saxophonist-dies-at-64/cd38319b-24a9-46ff-b79f-f673bea524cf


JAZZ GREAT CHARLIE ROUSE, SAXOPHONIST, DIES AT 64

Charlie Rouse, 64, a Washington native who became one of the country's great tenor saxophonists and who played with many leading jazz groups, died of cancer Nov. 30 at a hospital in Seattle.

Mr. Rouse joined the Billy Eckstine Orchestra in 1944, where his fellow performers included Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan. Later in the 1940s, he played in the Dizzy Gillespie band and with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. In 1950, he joined Count Basie. From the mid- to late 1950s, Mr. Rouse performed with his own group, Les Jazz Modes.

From 1959 to 1970, he was a member of the Thelonious Monk quartet, gaining his greatest fame as a brilliantly sophisticated player whose improvising was blunt and clipped, yet emotional. If Mr. Rouse was a brilliant musician, he was not an outgoing showman, seeming content to leave much of the spotlight and the talk show circuit to others.

In 1979, Mr. Rouse formed the jazz group Sphere, which was dedicated to the musical legacy of Monk. It recorded a number of albums. Its 1987 album, "Four For All," on the Verve label, contained only one Monk number, the remainder featuring compositions of the group.

In a 1985 interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Rouse said he became interested in music while growing up on the 400 block of M Street NE. Also on the block was the rehearsal site of Bill Hester's band, where Mr. Rouse and other neighborhood children not only became enthralled by the music but also were allowed to play the band members' musical instruments.

Before he finished at Armstrong High School, Mr. Rouse was playing with John Malachi's band at the Crystal Caverns and played in school jazz groups. Among his classmates were baritone saxophone player Leo Parker, tenor saxophonist Frank Wess and drummer Osie Johnson.

Mr. Rouse's survivors include his wife, a son, two brothers and a sister.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/unsung-hero-mw0000690409

Unsung Hero Review

by Scott Yanow


Tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, who would spend all of the 1960s as a member of Thelonious Monk's Quartet, had relatively few opportunities to lead his own sessions. This CD reissue has an LP and a half's worth of material that the instantly recognizable tenor cut for Epic. Well-versed in the swing/bop tradition and a veteran of both the Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie orchestras, Rouse plays thoughtful solos with a pair of conventional rhythm sections on this album (which includes either Billy Gardner or Gildo Mahones on piano, Peck Morrison or Reggie Workman on bass and Dave Bailey or Art Taylor on drums), sticking mostly to standards and avoiding Monk tunes (which he performed on a nightly basis anyway). A fine example of Charlie Rouse's playing outside of the world of Thelonious Monk.

THE MUSIC OF CHARLIE ROUSE: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH CHARLIE ROUSE:

Charlie Rouse — "Upper Manhattan Jazz Society" [Full Album ...



Charlie Rouse & Paul Quinichette - The Chase Is On ( Full ...



Charlie Rouse - Just Wailin' ( Full Album )



Charlie Rouse (USA, 1974) - Two is One



Charlie Rouse — Yeah!


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