Harlan Leonard and His Rockets

Harlan Leonard

Back in the early 1970s, I became a tremendous jazz fan, an outgrowth of my youthful interest in swing bands such as that of Glenn Miller.

Among my biggest enthusiasms were the bands that came out of Kansas City. The most famous, and my favorite, was Count Basie, but I also listened to such ensembles as Andy Kirk and Jay McShann, and the earlier groups such as Bennie Moten, which spawned Basie and many other important musicians, including today's subject, tenor saxophonist Harlan Leonard.

I never did get around to listening to Leonard's records 50 years ago. Back then, recordings were not so easily acquired, especially on a budget, and I never come across a cheap copy of the RCA Vintage Series reissue of the sides that Leonard's band made for Bluebird in 1940.

Five decades later, a post on the JazzWax blog reminded me that I had wanted to hear that band, so as I often do in these cases, I looked for lossless needle drops on Internet Archive. There I found 13 of the approximately 20 songs that Leonard recorded during 1940, the only year he was in the studio. After remastering, they came out sounding very good, probably better than the RCA reissue - Vintage Series sonics often were not that vivid.

Members of the Harlan Leonard Band, circa 1940: Richmond Henderson (trombone,
standing), Jimmy Keith, Leonard, Darwin Jones, Henry Bridges (saxes), Myra Taylor
(vocals). Vocalist Ernie Williams leads the band.

As I mentioned, Leonard came out of the Moten band, going on to lead the Kansas City Skyrockets in 1932, then forming the Rockets in 1936. He gained enough notice that Bluebird had him come in to do sessions in January, March, July and November 1940, all in Chicago except for the March date, which was in New York. Unfortunately, the band's success was relatively short-lived. It broke up in 1945 and Leonard left the music business soon thereafter.

Leonard used excellent arrangers, with Tadd Dameron probably the best known these days. In this collection he is responsible for "Rock and Ride," "'400' Swing" and "A-La-Bridges." Trumpeter James Rose handled many of the other songs. Eddie Durham arranged Myra Taylor's vocal specialty, "My Pa Gave Me a Nickel," inspired by "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," Ella Fitzgerald's 1938 success with Chick Webb's band.

Despite Dameron's charts and the brief presence of Charlie Parker in the band (he left before the recording dates), there are no bop pre-echoes here. Leonard's ensemble is best seen as a precursor of the driving big-band proto-R&B that was soon to become so influential through the recordings of such bands as Lionel Hampton and Lucky Millinder.

The Rockets boasted no famous soloists, although tenor saxophonist Hank Bridges and trombonist Henry Beckett were highly accomplished. You can read more about them and the band in Leonard Feather's detailed notes from the Vintage Series reissue, included in the download. I never did acquire that album, but I found an image of its back cover that I've managed to make readable. It details the arrangers and soloists for most of these records.

While Harlan Leonard achieved some renown, he was not as fortunate as some of his Kansas City compatriots. He never had a hit, even though the Rockets were the first to record "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" (not included here). And Charlie Barnet later had a hit with their "Hairy Joe Jump" under the title "Southern Fried." Still and all, it was an exciting band, one that is well worth revisiting 80 years later.