Remembering Why Everyone Called Him ‘Sweets’ Edison

Guitarist John Collins remembers the first time he met Harry “Sweets” Edison, the longtime Count Basie trumpeter and Los Angeles resident who died Tuesday in Ohio of prostrate cancer at age 83.

Collins, who will be 86 in September, was a member of trumpeter Roy Eldridge’s ensemble in 1937 and was making an appearance at New York’s Savoy Ballroom when he learned the Basie band was in town.

“They were playing down on 52nd Street at the Famous Door and, of course, [guitarist] Freddie Green was a good friend of mine, and I really went down there to see him.

“When I got to the club, I see Harry talking to Basie, and I can’t tell you what he was saying, but it wasn’t pretty. So I came up and said, ‘How can you talk like that to Mr. Basie?’ That’s how I introduced myself.”

Collins and Edison maintained a friendship that lasted over 60 years. Both made significant contributions to Nat Cole’s landmark “After Midnight” sessions for Capitol, recorded in 1956, and in the last two decades were seen playing together under the auspices of the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s Jazz Caravan and at other events. Edison appears on Collins’ recording “The Incredible John Collins.”

“There are just a few giants among horn players,” says Collins, “and Harry is among them. He had a good individual style; you would hear him play and right away know it was him. And that sound! That’s why they called him ‘Sweets.’ ”

Indeed, Edison’s style, always known for its brevity, became more refined as the years progressed. His performances in the ‘80s at Santa Monica’s now-defunct Loa club, always attended by a large group of female admirers, frequently saw him form a single, breathy note during a solo, which he blew across the room like a kiss. “That’s why Sinatra loved him,” says Collins, referring to Edison’s sweet ways with Nelson Riddle’s orchestra. “He was the perfect blend of musicality and expression.”

On Garde: Don’t look now, but the jazz avant-garde, that loosely defined, experimental genre that rose out of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s behind the music of Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, members of Chicago’s Assn. for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and others, is more popular now, according to some record marketers, than at its inception.

“The avant-garde--the underground scene--is as strong now as it’s ever been,” says Doug Engel, director of promotions at Delmark Records, a small Chicago-based label that focuses on blues and avant-garde musicians, most out of the AACM. “Musicians like Archie Shepp and Roscoe Mitchell have suddenly risen to a new level of prominence, and there’s a lot of national attention being brought on Chicago’s avant-garde tradition.”

Reissues are at the forefront of the revival. Delmark recently reissued its very first album from an AACM member, saxophonist Mitchell’s 1966 date, “Sound,” with bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath. The label has a host of other reissues on its roster, from pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trombonist George Lewis and others. Engel notes that the label’s very first Sun Ra album, “Sun Song,” first issued in 1957, is selling more now, even in current vinyl LP format, than it did when it was first released.

Impulse!, a label that championed avant-garde music in the ‘60s, has contributed to the resurgence with a number of reissues from Shepp (“Four for Trane,” “The Way Ahead”), Taylor (“The Cecil Taylor Unit/Roswell Rudd Sextet Mixed”), Dewey Redman (“The Ear of the Behearer”), Pharoah Sanders and others all released in the last 12 months. High point in the label’s “New Thing” series is the late saxophonist Ayler’s “Live in Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings,” originally cut between 1965 and 1967.

There has also been movement in new releases from avant-garde figures in 1999, notably Mitchell’s “Nine to Get Ready” on ECM and “Momentum Space,” a collaboration of pianist Taylor, saxophonist Dewey Redman and drummer Elvin Jones from Verve. Saxophonist Shepp has resurfaced on Delmark with “Conversations: Archie Shepp Meets Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio,” only his second release in the last 10 years.

Engel has no illusions about the commercial appeal of avant-garde music in a world where sales of 5,000 or more copies of a single CD is considered good. “Our market is so narrow that the business isn’t really about cranking out hundreds of titles,” he says. “And the big labels don’t really have an advantage over the smaller labels. People who love this music will find it, no matter what label it’s on.”

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Jazz Grant: The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation this week announced a total of $6.7 million in grants as part of the foundation’s jazz initiative. The money, part of a five-year program, will be given to five different organizations promoting jazz, including a $3 million grant to the Nonprofit Facilities Fund of New York City to establish JazzNet, a proposed network of 12 jazz presenters from across the country.

The 12 presenters, not yet selected, will be announced in November. A number of Los Angeles organizations are being considered, according to a spokesperson at the Nonprofit Facilities Fund.

Other recipients of the Duke Foundation’s jazz initiative awards include National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., which will receive $2.2 million to extend its jazz broadcasting and to create a jazz online “super site,” and public television station WETA of Washington, D.C., which will be given $1 million to support the production of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’ 10-part series “Jazz,” which is scheduled to be aired in 2000. Smaller grants will be given to other New York-based organizations that support or present jazz.

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Scholarship Concert: The third annual Thurman Green Memorial Scholarship Concert, named for the prominent Los Angeles-based trombonist who died in 1997, will be held Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Musicians Union in Hollywood. Scheduled to appear are baritonist and World Saxophone Quartet founding member Hamiet Bluiett from New York, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, trombone ensemble BoneSoir (of which Green was a member), the Bobby Rodriguez Latin Jazz Explosion, trumpeter Jerry Rusch & Zing, saxophonists Teddy Edwards and Arthur Blythe, and past scholarship winners Isaac Smith (a member of the Clayton-Hamilton band) and Ryan Porter, who’s currently attending the Manhattan School of Music. Information: (310) 636-7571.

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Free Jazz: The first of the Henry Mancini Institute’s free summer concerts is Aug. 7 at 7 p.m. at UCLA’s Royce Hall. It will feature bassist Christian McBride, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, pianist Peter Stoltzman and the HMI Big Band and Orchestra. Though the concert is free, reservations are suggested (most of last year’s concerts played to capacity crowds). Reservations: (310) 825-2101.