Good Bait

Tadd Dameron composed Good Bait around 1944, with Count Basie receiving a co-composer credit as bandleader, though some accounts place the tune's origins in Dameron's earlier years in Ohio and Kansas City jam sessions. The piece is a contrafact built on I Got Rhythm chord changes, following a thirty-two-bar AABA form with the A sections in B-flat and the bridge transposed up a fourth to E-flat, a distinctive harmonic lift that sets it apart from most rhythm changes vehicles. Scholars have noted parallels between Good Bait and the French song La Mer (later known as Beyond the Sea), which appeared around the same period, and the title may be a sly allusion to this resemblance. Dizzy Gillespie made the first studio recording in 1945 for the Manor label in Newark, New Jersey, with trombonist Trummy Young, tenor saxophonist Don Byas, pianist Clyde Hart, bassist Oscar Pettiford, and drummer Shelly Manne. According to one account, the composition originated when Dameron played unusual chord voicings at a jam session and Gillespie enthusiastically encouraged him to develop them into a complete tune. Dameron's own group with trumpeter Fats Navarro recorded it in 1948, and the Basie band performed it live at the Royal Roost that same year. The tune became a staple of the bebop repertoire, recorded by Clifford Brown, Miles Davis with Dameron in Paris in 1949, and John Coltrane on a 1958 Prestige session. It stands as one of Dameron's most enduring contributions alongside Hot House and Lady Bird.