And one thing led to another. When the big band era faded away after World War II and “the boppers took the intellectual jazz listeners away,” the young honkers just starting out discovered the benefits of showmanship, when “a little repetition, tonal distortion, and grandstanding, when cannily paced and well-placed in a program, could create pandemonium.”
Palmer, in his methodical, thorough and accessible chronicling, also notes a geographical bearing on the development of honker and screamer rhythm and blues, as he takes the blues riff, the basis of R&B music, on a southwestern route. In contrast to jazz bands elsewhere who worked from written arrangement or continued on with New Orleans-style collective improvisation, black musicians in such southwestern regions as Texas and Oklahoma “were playing ‘by head,’ getting together on blues riffs and making up new riffs behind improvising soloists as they went along.”
Established bandleaders, seeing the potential in such audacious sidemen, enticed them away from other bands, and the swaggering sound and riff-based construction of honking and screaming quickly spread. Palmer shows how even the non-saxophone efforts of vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and guitarist Charlie Christian, were, well, instrumental.
In any event, the stage was set for the careers of Williams, Singer, McNeely, Allen, and Taylor. And while Palmer devotes a generous chunk of commentary to all five musicians, many of the colorful retellings involve Paul Williams — according to producer Teddy Reig, a “‘glamour puss’”who’d “‘play his solos and make the broads happy’” — whose talent makes for a good illustration of how and why honking spread. “‘The word got out,’” Williams himself recollects, “’Maan, that saxophone player down there blowed the mike into the FLOOR! And that was it. We started doing dances and we had lines, both ways, as far as the eye could see. Fire department, police department, everybody was there.’”
Big Jay McNeely, an extrovert who was a master of endurance able to out-honk just about anyone, and who, Palmer says, “went on to acquire a reputation as a wild man among wild men,” was equally suited for the spotlight and famous for his “walks.” Walking — leaving the stand and walking through the audience, down the length of the bar, even into the street — “was as much part of being an R&B saxophonist as honking and screaming.” As Palmer shows in a choice anecdote, McNeely even topped Williams’ showstopper of walking and honking alongside a hired midget who walked atop the bar:
- ‘I remember we were playing on a package show in an amusement park outside Beaumont, Texas,’ recalls Teddy Reig, ‘and Big Jay and part of his band did a walk. And the white folks’ police didn’t understand what his walk was all about and they took him and the other musicians who were walking down to the jailhouse. Well, the rest of the band was still on stage playing, and the people were screaming for Big Jay. And then we got a call from the police station and we had to run down there and get him out.”
All the makings for rock and roll, in its pre-rock and roll state. In his summation, Palmer writes that the R&B and rock stagecraft of today owes a lot to these pioneer exhibitionists and attention-seekers. “They brought large black audiences together in communal celebration, and they rocked the theaters and dance halls where they played to the foundations,” he states. Moreover, as Palmer goes on, “their visceral, invigorating music has withstood the test of time with its energy and irreverence intact. Listen and enjoy.”
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