By: Donald James, Senior Writer, Real Times Media
Decades before Detroit-based Motown Records had the world dancing in the street in 1965, Detroit had established itself as one of the globe’s top jazz cities. And real music enthusiasts and historians know that behind the hundreds and hundreds of Motown hits were many of Detroit’s top jazz musicians generating the electrifying music. Those jazz greats included James Jamerson (bassist), Earl Van Dyke and Johnny Griffin (pianists), George Bohanon and Jimmy Wilkens (trombonists), Ernie Rodgers and Thomas “Beans” Bowles (saxophonists), Dennis Coffey, Joe Messina, Ron English (guitarists) and Marcus Belgrave (trumpeter).
Building the tall wall of rich jazz history in Detroit dates back to the mid-1920s and includes the contributions of the McKinney Cotton Pickers, the Black house band at the storied Graystone Ballroom. Adding to the city’s bulging jazz scene over the ensuing decades, especially from the 1940s through the 1960s, included legends Yusef Lateef (saxophonist, flutist), Milt Jackson (vibraphonist), Dorothy Ashby (harpist), Alice Coltrane (pianist), Terry Pollard (pianist, vibraphonist), Curtis Fuller (trombonist), Barry Harris (pianist), Kenny Burrell (guitarist), Donald Byrd (trumpeter), Joe Henderson (saxophonist), the Jones Brothers (Hank piano, Thad trumpet, Elvin drums), Tommy Flanagan (pianist), Roland Hanna (pianist), Lucky Thompson (saxophonist), Sonny Stitt (saxophonist raised in Saginaw), Kenny Cox (pianist), Howard McGhee (trumpeter), Harold McKinney (pianist, composer), and others.
Detroit’s vast contributions to jazz would be elevated to the top floor with just the above names. Yet, there were other Detroiters and Metro Detroiters who contributed to the city’s growing jazz scene, including Wendell Harrison (saxophonist), Roy Brooks (drummer), Teddy Harris Jr. (saxophonist, pianist), Gerald Wilson (trumpeter, bandleader), Louis Hayes (drummer), J.C. Heard (drummer), Benny Maupin (saxophonist). Earl Klugh (guitarist), Phil Ranelin (trombonist), Regina Carter (violinist), James Carter (saxophonist), Geri Allen (pianist), Duane Parham (saxophonist), Karriem Riggins (drummer), and too many others to name.
However, it’s safe to say that no city on earth can roll out a line-up of great “jazz heavyweight bass players” matching Detroit’s contributors to the bass guitar – acoustic and electric. The group is led by the iconic Ron Carter, considered the world’s greatest acoustic bass player. He has been recorded on more than 2,200 albums. Other world-class jazz bass players with Detroit lineage include Paul Chambers, James Jamerson, Ralphe Armstrong, Cecil McBee, Ray McKinney, Marion Hayden, Robert Hurst, Rodney Whitaker, Michael Henderson, Al McKibbon, Reggie McBride, and others.
“I have the greatest respect for the many great bass players from Detroit, including Ron Carter, James Jamerson, Paul Chambers and Ralphe Armstrong,” four-time Grammy winner, bass player and Philadelphia native Stanley Clarke told the Michigan Chronicle in 2017. “However, the bass player that influenced me the most on acoustic bass was Ron Carter. I studied him to become more educated on the bass. To me, pound-for-pound, he’s the best.”
In addition to bass players, there is a special circle of dynamic female jazz vocalists who have Detroit or Michigan roots, including Della Reese, Betty Carter, Freda Payne, Dee Dee Bridgewater (raised in Flint), Sheila Jordan, Joan Belgrave, Ursula Walker, Tamiko Jones, Dianne Reeves, Dinah Washington (moved to Detroit shortly before her death in 1963) and Kimmie Horne.
“One thing about the women jazz singers with Detroit connections is that they come correct,” said Joan Belgrave, singer, producer, composer and the wife of the late great trumpeter and composer Marcus Belgrave. “They come knowing their songs, knowing the key it’s in, and nine times out of ten, they will bring charts. You don’t get that everywhere. Female jazz vocalists run thick and run deep in Detroit.”
Belgrave is a true jazz ambassador representing Detroit wherever she performs worldwide. She spoke glowingly about her unique musical production, “From Detroit to The World, the Legacy of Marcus Belgrave.” The sold-out show premiered in New York in 2020, but the pandemic disrupted the production. Belgrave said many people are asking her to roll out the show in Detroit, which she wants to do at some point.
Another true jazz ambassador for Detroit is the legendary bass player Ralphe Armstrong, who has never been bashful about telling the world that Detroit’s jazz history is second to none. Armstrong should know because as a teenager in the early 1970s, he toured the world playing bass for the iconic cutting-edge jazz ensemble Mahavishnu Orchestra, led by elite guitarist John McLaughlin and Michigander Narada Michael Walden on drums.
“Detroit is the mecca for jazz in the United States,” Armstrong told noted journalist Jim McFarlin several years ago for a story in Hour Detroit Magazine. “If you look at the history of the jazz culture, Detroit has turned out more prominent jazz musicians than any other part of the world.”
Armstrong added that New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, has not turned out a third of the jazz musicians that Detroit has, and neither have other jazz cities like New York.
Belgrave agrees.
“There’s no jazz city like Detroit, and many people just don’t realize that fact,” Belgrave said. “The jazz scene here is still vibrant. New Orleans has its jazz, and New York has its jazz, but Detroit is a little different than everybody else because of our rich jazz history and legacy.”
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