Found on eBay! I see Eddie, Pee Wee, Bobby Hackett, George Wettling, Bud Freeman, Wild Bill Davison, George Brunis, and other brilliant stars shining in the jazz firmament or simply sitting in on a Tuesday night at the club.
Lions and tigers and jazzmen, oh my!
And others with sharper vision will identify the clarinet trio, I know.
The photograph is labeled with the name of the club and its address — as well as the telephone number: GRamercy 3-8736. I wonder who answers that telephone now.
P.S. For better or worse, I was outbid on eBay, thus I am feeling mixed disappointment and financial relief. I console myself by thinking that the new owner must love it as much as I do.
Although Wolfgang’s Vault (www.wolfgangsvault.com), that surprising online cornucopia, offers music from bands and performers who make me feel ancient — one of them is named QUIETING SYRUP — it also has rarities and delights for the jazz audience: three live sessions from the 1960 Newport Festival, a gathering marred by rain and bad behavior (not by the musicians, mind you).
The first concert — the one that drew me immediately — features Louis Armstrong and the All-Stars (Barney Bigard, Trummy Young, Billy Kyle, Mort Herbert, Danny Barcelona, and Velma Middleton), celebrating in advance what Louis believed was his sixtieth birthday. The concert runs slightly over an hour, and is a fascinating glimpse into what the All-Stars actually played: http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/the-louis-armstrong-all-stars/concerts/newport-jazz-festival-july-01-1960.html
That was the last jazz heard at Newport for 1960 and 1961. Here’s the history: “In other words, there will be no concert tonight or…again,” [Willis Conover] told the stunned audience. This decision was made following a clash with students and police the preceeding night (Saturday) that by all reports escalated into a full-scale riot. And while this disturbance took place not at Freebody Park where the festival was held but on the main drag in the city of Newport, council members nonetheless met on Sunday morning and voted 4-3 in favor of revoking the entertainment license of the Newport Jazz Festival. As Conover explained to the Sunday afternoon crowd: “The board of directors deeply regret that the true jazz lovers were denied the opportunity to hear their favorite jazz musicians, due entirely to non-ticket holding outside the park.” He added, “I think it’s a shame that the Newport Jazz Festival has to be killed because a bunch of pseudo beatniks and rock ‘n’ roll escapees who had no interest in jazz, had no intention of coming to the concerts and were not inside the park at all, decided to use the Newport Jazz Festival weekend and the City of Newport as an excuse for giving vent to their healthy animal instincts in such a fashion as to qualify them for admission to a zoo rather than a school.” Conover adds, “It does seem to me that in attempting to cure the disease that infected the Newport Jazz Festival activities, they decided to shoot the patient without clearing up the germs.”
That being said. . . .
A listener willing to register with the Vault (not at all a frightening act) will be able to listen to all of this music for free, and download it in a variety of forms for less than the cost of a compact disc. A good deal!
From the Joe Bushkin website — www.joebushkin.com — a galaxy of stars, seated in a club:
Louis and Lucille Armstrong, Eddie Condon, a lovely young woman (unknown to me), Jack Teagarden, Joe Bushkin. Circa 1949, perhaps? Oddly for a nightclub scene, the tablecloth is almost bare (no glasses, whether full or empty) and Louis has his handkerchief. Was this at one of his gigs? Research, please!
The Bushkin site has many other interesting photos (unidentified) and a video of Joe with, among others, Judy Garland and Bing Crosby.
I don’t exactly know the source of the videos below — except that they’ve been posted by “sergech” on YouTube some time ago. I was in the audience at several New York City concerts of the New York Jazz Repertory Company in 1974 and 1975: two tributes to Louis Armstrong, two to Bix Beiderbecke, but I can’t say whether these clips come from either of the two Bix concerts that I saw.
And perhaps the whole world has already seen them on YouTube. But since I keep returning to them with pleasure, awe, and sadness, perhaps they will be new to someone? The personnel is Richard M. Sudhalter and Warren Vache, cornets; Ephie Resnick, trombone; Bob Wilber, reeds; Kenny Davern, bass sax; a nearly invisible Dill Jones, piano; Chauncey Morehouse, drums. Although the color is murky (perhaps the source was a videotape?) the camerawork is professional, as is the sound.
Here’s a serious, steady ROYAL GARDEN BLUES that features Sudhalter and Vache trading congenial solos at the end, anchored by Davern’s stately bass sax (he sounds as if he’s playing LESTER LEAPS IN at one point) and Morehouse’s rocking drums:
DAVENPORT BLUES, where Sudhalter takes the solo:
And GOOSE PIMPLES, solidly anchored by Morehouse’s parade beats on the snare, Dill Jones both audible and visible, Vache having the last word:
Finally, a moving SINCE MY BEST GAL TURNED ME DOWN, with the “slow-drag” section firmly in place and a wonderful Davern solo:
Shall we mourn all of them who are gone – Davern, Dill Jones, Morehouse, Sudhalter? Or shall we celebrate the survivors – Grosz, Resnick, Vache, Wilber?
Both, I believe. And Bix, both gone and surviving.
My readers will catch the reference in the title to one of the great recordings of the early LP era (some might say one of the great recordings of all time) RINGSIDE AT CONDON’S, a collection of live performances by Eddie Condon’s 1951-52 band at the club named for him. The music is precise but utterly spirited, a collection of great idiosyncratic soloists forming a cohesive ensemble unit.
Drummer Kevin Dorn doesn’t have his own club, and he probably wouldn’t want one — but the music he and his band, THE BIG 72, played last night at The Garage (Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York City) evoked the Condon band of the Fifties in the best way. Not as a repertory exercise (although listeners with long memories might hear a respectful nod to a famous recording here or there during the set) but as a Condon-inspired exercise: hire the best players, let them have space to blow on good, sometimes less-heard songs, and enjoy the jazz.
The crowd did. (As an aside, I have to say that The Garage has the most mobile — or perhaps fidgety? — audience I’ve ever seen in a club: an apparently steady stream of people who had come in for a drink, a chat, or one song, entering and leaving. Come and meet / those tramping feet — about two miles south of Forty-Second Street). Hear a woman in the audience, who had been dancing wildly to the music, shout out “We love you!” before the band sails into HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO?
And that band. Kevin, summoning up the driving energy of Cliff Leeman, Buzzy Drootin, George Wettling — while listening to and supporting the band, varying his sound as the music demands. Bassist Kelly Friesen, a rhythmic rock, whether walking the chords, slapping, or even bowing the bass — he cut through the chatter and lifted everyone up. Jesse Gelber at the piano, talking to it as a man inspired, grinning enthusiastically at the keyboard. Trumpeter and sometime vocalist Simon Wettenhall, fervent and animated but subtle, turning curves like a race-car driver. Michael Hashim, mixing a gentle Hodges-approach with a violent rhythm-and-blues side, always enjoying himself. And my hero of the night, clarinetist Pete Martinez, who was in full flower with his patented version of Ed Hall’s inspired rasp in his tone. And, in the fashion of the great informal aggregations of jazz, each of them is a particularly stubborn (although mild-mannered in person) individualist who keeps his identity safe while playing for the glory of the ensemble. What a band they are!
People in the know are accustomed to seeing and hearing this aggregation under the heading of the TRADITIONAL JAZZ COLLECTIVE. Kevin and colleagues have taken on a new name, somewhat mysterious — THE BIG 72. To find out what it means, you’ll have to ask Kevin at a gig.
Here they are on Friday, February 5. 2010:
Paying homage to Bix Beiderbecke (and to Condon’s BIXIELAND sessions) they began with a quick I’LL BE A FRIEND WITH PLEASURE, capped by Simon’s derby-muted improvisation on Bix’s recorded solo:
Then, perhaps in tribute to the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, wherever, who formed the mass of the audience, they launched into a rocking FIDGETY FEET:
The aforementioned question (sometimes unanswerable) that reminded me of JAMMIN’ AT CONDON’S: HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO?:
Another Bix-inspired homage, although he never knew the song, composed later by Hoagy Carmichael: SKYLARK, with a rough-toned but convincing vocal by Simon:
And finally, in honor of Mr. Hall and perhaps Oran “Hot Lips” Page, here’s THE SHEIK OF ARABY, complete with verse:
I had a wonderful time listening to this band. And — don’t keep it a secret — they have a steady gig at the Garage, late night sessions two Fridays every month. You should see what they’re like live: I plan to!
From Bill Haesler, the Australian jazz scholar, and courtesy of Denis King, I learned that Harry Oakley has posted on YouTube a four-minute selection from the trumpeter Sylvester Ahola’s home movies, taken in the 1920s. They are cheerful sketches of musicians mugging for the camera, and in some cases doing vaudeville bits. But few of young men we see here are identified or perhaps identifiable. I wonder if these faces are known to my readers? (I find it delightfully ironic that there’s a sign for ROOSEVELT FIELD in this selection: it was famous as a Long Island airstrip – remember Charles Lindbergh? — before it became a shopping mall. I’ll drive past it today!)
From Harry: Trumpeter Sylvester Ahola was a keen filmer and began his hobby in the 1920’s when amateur filming was still a novelty. Ahola filmed much that interested him but we have selected the footage which shows a number of his fellow musicians from different bands of which he was a member. Alas, with only a few exceptions, we have been unable to identify these men and we invite everybody to help us find out who they are. Ahola himself can be seen a few times; rowing a boat, with his camera in his hand (obviously filmed by someone else with another camera although it is possible that he owned two), playing his trumpet, doing a short dance and with an elderly couple, probably his parents. In the scenes with the guys in striped jackets we have identified Adrian Rollini and Tommy Felline – both from the California Ramblers of which Ahola was, very briefly, a member. This footage was shot on the roof of the Newark Branford Theater in March 1927. After leaving the California Ramblers Ahola joined Bert Lowe and his Orchestra (not to be confused with Bert Lown), and several members of this band were also filmed. We have added an appropriate soundtrack; a long version of “The Pay Off”, played by the California Ramblers in 1927.
It has been nearly 40 years since I first heard the cornet magic of ‘Papa Ray’ Ronnei…
In the mid-‘60s I was a dedicated fan of the San Francisco style as played by Lu Watters, Turk Murphy, Bob Scobey, the Firehouse Five and…Vince Saunders’ South Frisco Jazz Band. In 1966 my parents had taken me to Huntington Beach, Californiawhere the South Frisco band played weekends at the ‘Pizza Palace’. We became instant fans of the SFJB after that first evening and made regular trips up from La Jolla to catch the band on weekends. The band members were especially kind to a young fan. Washboardist Bob Raggio, then an employee of Ray Avery’s ‘Rare Records’ was particularly helpful in locating several out-of-print Murphy and Watters LPs for me.
Late in 1967, Bob sent a note along with an LP he had found for me. The note mentioned that on the coming weekend, a ‘very special edition of the South Frisco band would perform at the Pizza Palace, with ‘Papa Ray’ Ronnei on cornet.’ I had heard of Ray Ronnei, but had not actually heard him play. 1 Even so, my parents accompanied me to Huntington Beach to hear the band.
At the Pizza Palace we settled in at a table, not knowing quite what to expect, when the band took off on ‘You Always Hurt The One You Love’. Ray Ronnei’s brassy, staccato attack and almost surrealistic phrasing was like nothing I had ever heard! 2 It was a glorious and unique sound; one I still have not recovered from! The tune selection was a radical departure from the San Francisco repertoire I was so used to: ‘Bogalusa Strut’, ‘Salutation March’, ‘Big Chief Battle Axe’, ‘One Sweet Letter From You’, ‘Ugly Chile’, ‘Blue Bells, Goodbye’, ‘Sweet Lotus Blossom’, ‘Bugle Boy March’ etc. This night at the Pizza Palacethe first time I had heard any of these numbers! 3
When the performance ended—much too soon to suit me!—we headed home to La Jolla. My head was spinning from the spellbinding sound of Ray Ronnei’s cornet. Despite my continuing interest in the San Francisco style, I wanted to hear this hornman again—as soon as possible! I did not have to wait too long, as South Frisco’s cornetist Al Crowne took a leave of absence from the band in 1968. His replacement: Ray Ronnei! My family made dozens of journeys north to Huntington Beach during Papa Ray’s tenure with the South Frisco in 1968-69.
The SFJB lineup varied during this period. 4 Trombonist Frank Demond moved to New Orleans and was replaced on by Eric Rosenau, then Roy Brewer. Mike Baird was usually on clarinet, though Jim Bogen and soprano saxophonist John Smith sometimes filled in for him. Ron Ortmann was the regular pianist, spelled at times by Dick Shooshan, Bill Mitchell and Robbie Rhodes. Tubist Bob Rann was usually present, with Mike Fay on string bass in Rann’s absence. Banjoist-leader Vince Saunders was a constant, as was washboardist Bob Raggio—until the latter moved to Pittsburgh to play at baseball star Maury Wills’ nightclub. But despite the shifting personnel, that distinctive cornet sound continued to ring joyously over the ensembles.
When the South Frisco repertoire expanded, three of the ‘new’ tunes—at least new to me—caught my fancy: ‘Here Comes The Hot Tamale Man’, ‘Messin’ Around’ (by Cook and St. Cyr) and ‘Flat Foot’. These three have been my favourite ‘trad’ numbers since hearing Papa Ray play them in 1968. Though Vince Saunders was the bandleader, he frequently let Papa Ray kick off tunes. The latter tended towards brisk tempos and kicked them off old-style, i.e. ‘one-two-three-four ONE! TWO! With only a little imagination I can still hear the powerful band roaring through all-ensemble versions of ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ and ‘Cakewalking Babies’ (with Papa Ray playing the same burst of capsicum on the outchorus that Mutt Carey played on the ‘New Yorkers’ record of the same tune). The South Frisco Jazz Band in 1968-69 was truly one of a kind.
In 1969, Papa Ray left the South Frisco group and Al Crowne returned. Earlier, the band recorded an LP for the Vault label entitled ‘Here Comes The Hot Tamale Man.’ Unfortunately, that LP has not yet been reissued on CD. However, Ted Shafer’s Merry Makers Record Company has released a CD of the South Frisco Band live at the Pizza Palace, recorded in 1968 by clarinetist Ron Going. This disc ‘tells the story’ of just how exciting a time 1968-1969 was for fans of Papa Ray’s cornet work.
While still a resident of Los Angeles, Papa Ray played with the Salutation Tuxedo Jazz Band, Crescent Bay Jazz Band and other groups. Before signing on with South Frisco, he worked with Ted Shafer’s Jelly Roll Jazz Band in the Bay Area. He returned to the Jelly Roll Jazz Band temporarily in 1969. I was able to enjoy his music via tapes made previously at the Pizza Palace, LPs by the El Dorado Jazz Band, Jelly Roll Jazz Band and the then-new South Frisco LP. On one occasion, our family was watching a San Francisco Seals hockey game on tv. After a Seals goal, a jazz band in the stands struck up ‘Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight’. Clarinetist Bob Helm and trombonist Bob Mielke were instantly identifiable, as was the peppery cornet—Papa Ray, of course!
I continued to see and hear Ray Ronnei on his visits to the L.A. area. Sometimes he would play at a Sunday-afternoon jam session at one of the local jazz societies. On one memorable occasion, I was asked to play a set with Papa Ray, Dan Barrett, Ron Going, Dick Shooshan, Doug Parker and veteran New Orleans bassist Ed Garland. I don’t have a recording of this session, but at least I got a photo!
Living away from California, I would hear occasional news concerning Ray’s appearances on various jobs. Later, there was a disheartening rumor that he had quit playing. I had the recordings to listen to, but still hoped to hear the ‘real thing’ again some day. In the early ‘90s I returned to California and wound up playing once a week at the ‘Hofbrau’ in Fullerton (Orange County), California. The bands in rotation at the time included Gremoli, Evan Christopher’s Quintet and my own Frisco Syncopators. One night, Mike Fay came to hear the band—with Papa Ray in tow! Ray looked the same as he had the last time I saw him, in the ‘70s. What a blast it was to see him, and in good health at that.
Later, when key personnel became unavailable to play the Hofbrau, the Frisco Syncopators gradually became the New Orleans Wanderers. Papa Ray was still making an occasional appearance at the club, though I had not been able to induce him to play. But Mike Fay stepped in, describing the band’s sound and repertoire and we managed to get Ray on cornet! With Alan Adams (trombone), Mike Baird (reeds), Vic Loring (banjo), Mike Fay (bass) and myself on drums, we hit ‘You Always Hurt The One You Love’. It unleashed a flood of happy memories, of good times at the Pizza Palace. And best of all, Ray had his lip and his drive. No one had to shoulder an extra load that night! I still don’t know why I didn’t take a tape recorder. Unfortunately, no one recorded us that night! The lack of recording is all the more unfortunate because Ray was unable to make the job on a regular basis. The Golden Eagles’ Ken Smith stepped in and became our regular hornman.
My last encounter with Papa Ray was in 1995, when the Wanderers recorded a session for release on cassette. We assembled in Mike Fay’s living room in Claremont, California and saw that a guest was settling in to listen to the session. Papa Ray was happy to see his musical friends and obviously enjoyed our performances. He would not join in on cornet, but we managed to coax him into singing ‘How Long Blues’, which was released on the cassette.
Since then, I continue to hear that Papa Ray has taken part in occasional sessions and the report invariably includes the line ‘He sounded as great as ever’. I am sure the reports are true. Hearing Papa Ray Ronnei on cornet has always been a magical experience; one of the biggest thrills I have experienced in jazz. To me, he will always be one of the greats!
Notes
I never heard the El Dorado Jazz Band in person. They played mostly in bars where a teenager could not enter, according to California state law. I bought the El Dorado Epitaph and Item-1 LPs after hearing Ray with the South Frisco band. The band finally broke up in mid-1966, but this ‘special edition’ of the South Frisco Jazz Band would be composed almost entirely of El Dorado veterans.
At the time I was unfamiliar with the recordings of Freddie Keppard, Abbie Brunies and especially Mutt Carey, who were the premier inspirations for Ray Ronnei. (Ray studied with Mutt Carey in the late ‘40s).
I discovered Bunk Johnson, George Lewis, Kid Ory and ‘British Trad’ after hearing this ‘New Orleans’ version of the South Frisco band. Bassist Mike Fay played that night, as did pianist Dick Shooshan. Besides hearing Ray Ronnei for the first time and hearing a wealth of ‘new’ tunes, this was my first exposure to New Orleans style string bass and Jelly Roll Morton type piano.
There were surely more substitutes and guests with the South Frisco Jazz Band during this period. My listing is based on those I actually heard, or who were recorded at the Pizza Palace.
P.S. Ray Ronnei, born in 1916, is happily still with us! Although he no longer plays the cornet, his composition SALTY BUBBLE can be heard in the 2009 Woody Allen film WHATEVER WORKS, and Ray plans to continue composing! The original recording can be purchased here: http://www.worldsrecords.com/pages/artists/r/ronnei_ray/ray_ronnei_64328.html
There’s a Stephen Sondheim song — BOUNCE — from the musical of the same name. I heard it many times on Jonathan Schwartz’s show on WNYC-FM. It’s a cynical paean to the ability to re-adapt, to get up off the floor, to reinvent yourself, sung by two brothers who have seen a great deal.
I thought about it, however irrelevantly, when the young jazz pianist Joe Alterman sent me a copy of his debut CD, PIANO TRACKS (VOLUME ONE). Young? He’s twenty-one. Credit for my knowing about Joe is due to the energetic Marc Myers, of JazzWax: read his December 2009 post on Joe here: http://www.jazzwax.com/2009/12/joe-alterman-piano-tracks.html.
Joe admires the lyrical, singing, propulsive styles — they’re timeless — embodied by Hank Jones and other giants.
Joe’s also got his own personal blog, where he writes about meeting Hank Jones and Jimmy Heath, studying with Don Friedman, and more — humble, funny, and to the point. It’s http://joealterman.blogspot.com/
But back to the CD at hand. It was recorded last year, and it is a comfortable kind of music: swinging without being self-conscious, embracing the past without being restricted by “repertory” conventions. Joe is a melodic player — someone who respects the compositions he sets out to play (Arlen, Johnny Green, Styne, Gershwin, Mancini) and is also an adept composer. I’ve heard some contemporary pianists recently who seem to believe that their improvisations must be aggressive to be compelling, so they rampage over the keyboard as if they were annoyed by it. That’s not Joe’s style. He knows the virtue of space, of letting lines breathe. And he knows how to swing naturally in the fashion of Red Garland and Ahmad Jamal. Some of the infectious bounce of this CD is due to bassist Scott Glazer and drummer Justin Varnes (on one track, they are replaced by Sam Selinger and Tiffany Chang), but with all due respect to them, I think Joe could swing on his own. He understands the possibilities within “medium-up-tempo,” and the CD has its own rocking momentum. And several of his originals deserve their own life — the moody THE FIRST NIGHT HOME, and the naughty blues (BEFORE YOU BRING ME MY CORNBREAD) SLAP SOME BUTTER ON THAT BISCUIT, which surely has lyrics waiting to be sung.
When you have a blog — this one or any other kind — you find out the words and phrases that people have used on Google or other search engines to come to your blog. Sometimes the journey is a straight line (the most frequent searches are for “Louis Armstrong,” “Billie Holiday,” “Frank Sinatra,” “Joel Helleny” and so on). But occasionally imagining the original impulse in the searcher’s mind and trying to reconstruct the journey from idea to JAZZ LIVES is both difficult and hilarious. Witness these recent examples of inexplicability:
First, we have the MIS-SPELLERS:
“man city blue blowers”
Phonetic-ese for MOUND CITY (St. Louis) which makes for a particularly testosterone-heavy group of comb-and-tissue players; men whose kazoos are formidable instruments.
lester young, lady be god
Perhaps the deification of Billie Holiday by Lester Young?
meaning atterly deplorable
Here, I don’t know if the writer was looking for a defintion of the phrase or saying that my blog was atterly, atterly to be deplored.
was is billie holiday’s nationality
Was American, korrekt?
talk less – miss holiday
1) I can’t say; my lips are sealed. 2) If you don’t say anything, they take away your sick days at work?
jazz pianist and singer black overweight
I assume that someone here was thinking of Fats Waller but couldn’t recall the name, or was shy about typing in his name for fear of causing offense: the computer would shut down because of such offensive language. One never knows, do one?
jazz vocal shout face
My first thought was that someone was looking for a Google Images piece of clip art — a singer whose face was showing the joyous possibilities of shouting in rhythm. But then I said, “No! Someone’s looking for information on the almost-unknown hot singer SHOUT FACE, who made three records with Billy Fowler and his Howlers in Atlanta in 1927.”
Who knew that the ethereally gutty Ms. Korn, an irreplaceable singer, was also a nifty photographer? Well, here’s a sample — taken in Lithuania when the Cangelosi Cards did their summer 2009 tour:
I found this photograph (and others) on the newly enlarged site devoted to the Cards and to Mona’s Hot Four, to their music (compact disc issues for sale!), their calendar, news, contact information, and more. Thanks to Marcus Milius for telling me about this. I gather that the Cards are not (as I write this) performing Monday nights at Banjo Jim’s — for the time being — but all things are mutable.
Three clips from a vanished era — when movies were introduced by black-and-white newsreels (and cartoons, short subjects, even travelogues) that had time to show jazz musicians, those vivid people, in action. Here are three very short excerpts brought to us by that intrepid jazz time-traveler Enrico Borsetti. The subjects of the first clips will be more than familiar (you’ll see Arvell Shaw in the big band clip) but the surprise, for me, was of the brilliant New Orleans clarinetist Albert Nicholas in the final clip.
Those of you who don’t speak Italian fluently and rapidly will find the narration difficult at first — but my readers are good at improvising!
In the first post (April 1959) the welcome is provided by the Roman New Orleans Jazz Band, and don’t ignore those beautifully dressed, smiling “stewardesses”:
Then, we move to Holland (May 21, 1958) in front of a very happy audience. FINE comes all too soon:
Finally, the International Jazz Festival at San Remo (February 1, 1956) with twelve glorious bars of Albert Nicholas — one luminous blues chorus:
Also featured are Italian jazz notables Nunzio Rotondo, Carlo Pes, Romano Mussolini, Gilberto Cuppini and the Milan College Jazz Society.
P.S. I have a particular sentimental attachment to footage of this kind because my late father worked for a time at Movietone News. Irrelevantly, perhaps — one of his colleagues was Walter Bishop Sr., father of the modern jazz pianist.
That title isn’t to be taken lightly, for several times last night when The Ear Regulars (with guests) got together to play, they hit a real groove. Not too slow, not too fast. But I thought of the Ruby Braff-George Barnes Quartet, or the Buck Clayton Jam Sessions: musicians who know deep down what it means to choose the right tempo for the right song, to patiently, humorously let things build, to listen to each other. The result was that often the room was both hushed and exuberant. It was annoyingly cold outside in New York City last night, but The Ear Inn was spiritually warm — the kind of place I hated to leave even when the music was over.
Here are four performances from the evening’s jazz festivities. The Ear Regulars (regular fellows all) were particularly lyrical: Jon-Erik Kellso, Matt Munisteri, Dan Block, and Pat O’Leary. Eloquent, concise storytellers all — people who know what it is to sing on their instruments.
You might notice an occasional blurry passage (visually, not audibly): either my camcorder was overwhelmed by emotion or it needs an appointment with the autofocus doctor. But the music comes through vibrantly, which pleases me greatly.
This post starts with a song that people know (through Louis, Jack, Billie, and others) — a Harold Arlen cride coeur — but few people play: I GOTTA RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES:
Then, a song that’s even more obscure in this century — perhaps because its period “ethnic” lyrics produce justifiable discomfort (although I miss Louis and Lips’ versions): CHINATOWN, MY CHINATOWN:
The Ear Regulars expanded nicely: Conal Fowkes took over the string bass while Pat O’Leary treated us to his exceptional jazz cello playing. An extraordinary string section! Watch their hands, please.
Anat Cohen came in and played her part while seated on a barstool. Andy Farber (sounding sweetly like Hilton Jefferson) added his alto sax. And they embarked on a sweetly hot I FOUND A NEW BABY (in two parts):
They were romping, although not accelerating:
Clarinetist Frank Perowsky joined them for the final ensemble — a lengthy, swaying version of the blues line RED TOP (in Db, or “dog flat”) that wasn’t a moment too long, although it ran sixteen minutes. I was in the middle of a four-piece reed section: a clarinet to my right (Anat), one to my left (Frank), two saxes in front of me — rather like living in a Fifties demonstration-of-stereo record. And, there was more from that world-class downtown unbuttoned string section!
The second part:
I haven’t written much about the music. As Charlie Parker told Earl Wilson, it speaks louder than words. The music I heard last night at The Ear Inn transcended words: it wasn’t a matter of volume.
It was an honor to be there, and that’s no stage joke. Thanks to everyone — and to Phillup de Bucket, who has a cameo in CHINATOWN, to Vlatka Fowkes, Beverly, Karen, Randi, and Katy; to Victor, the epitome of musical Hip; to the friends of hot jazz who made the place so convivial.
This biography of Sidney Catlett comes directly from http://www.jazzandroots.com/big-sid-catlett.html. I credit the original site — the “Jazz and Roots Club” found in Shrewsbury, England (I presume) so that readers know I am reporting rather than inventing.
Big Sid Catlett, was one of the large battery the swing era and one of the few who crossed stylistic boundaries smoothly without loss of quality would suffer. Born in Indiana and learned to play the piano as a child before the school band will pass to the battery.
He began his career in Chicago in the late twenties before moving to New York at the time of the Great Depression. His first serious contact with jazz came when he worked for Benny Carter’s orchestra in 1932. From that experience, he found work easily and well spent by the best swing bands of the time between most notably those of Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson.
Possessor of a light rhythm and full of swing, was able to adapt their style to each soloist who accompanied him. He was admired in his time by the general public who flocked to the ballrooms and dress, elegant, classic and fun at the same time, helped him be the focus of attention among the young. As a musician he felt at ease in any situation and in any format and was one of the first battery of swing who played with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.
It is remarkable in its contribution to the combos that organized the great clarinetist, Benny Goodman and his final year career before he died following a heart attack, was with “All Star” by Louis Armstrong where he spent his last years in the odor of popularity.
Now I understand much more than I did. The reason for Sidney’s wondrous inventiveness was his large battery (more volts, more swing). And he never lost quality while crossing stylistic boundaries (are those crossings rather like going through Customs at the border or more like passing through the metal detector at the airport?). Finally — there’s something in the air. A scent, light, elusive, entrancing. Not Chanel; not fresh hot coffee; not the scent of new-mown hay: no! It’s the odor of popularity.
I’m always glad to see that anyone’s paying attention to my heroes, but word-for-word translation has its limits.
The Beloved and I made our way uptown on a very cold Friday night (January 29, 2010) to Roth’s Westside Steakhouse to hear the chamber jazz duet of trumpeter Jon-Erik Kellso and pianist Ehud Asherie, both well known to readers of this blog. Perhaps everyone there had read in the papers that the economy had grown, because the air was loudly festive, although no one’s birthday was being celebrated.
Our waiter, a dramatic fellow with a dramatic upsweep of hair (“Pomade,” he told the Beloved) went around being cheerful. One memorable exchange was: “Having a good time?” he inquired of a table of diners. “Yeah, fine,” one of them said. “Well, keep having a good time!” he countered. David Mamet has nothing to fear.
In the midst of this, Jon-Erik and Ehud went about their work: medium-tempo James P. Johnson, a little Fats Waller, some Edgar Sampson.
The enthusiastic woman to our left (who occasionally applauded in the middle of a four-bar exchange) leaned forward in the middle of the set and asked the duo, “Can you play something torchy?” a request that caused some discussion and thought. Jon-Erik and Ehud settled on this Frank Signorelli-Matty Malneck composition, I’LL NEVER BE THE SAME (originally called LITTLE BUTTERCUP when it was an instrumental). That song, not incidentally, was first associated with Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti; later, Billie Holiday and Lester Young.
I am sure that the management at Ruth’s has informed the busboys (they look grown-up to me) that an uncleared table will be dealt with severely, so the staff makes frequent — if not incessant — visits to diners, taking a bread plate away here, a knife there. Perhaps it’s an unspoken law in the restaurant trade that a table almost devoid of utensils makes diners go home or makes them order dessert and coffee and then go home. I don’t know. But in the middle of this seriously lovely performance, a gentleman came to remove some plates and assorted debris and lingered in front of my camera long enough for it to lose its grip on reality. Hence a brief out-of-focus interlude, but the microphone continued to work.
These capers aside, I’LL NEVER BE THE SAME is a wonderful, serious lesson in deep-down melodic playing and subtle, touching embellishment — much more difficult than ripping off harmonically-adventurous scalar lines over shifting polyrhythms. And this kind of playing is second nature to Jon-Erik and Ehud.
Often of late I have noted jazz treasures for sale on eBay — and posting them here becomes a substitute for attempting to possess them).
But here is a delightful artifact I found and bought. It’s a 10″ red vinyl Paramount long-playing record (a John Steiner production) featuring cornetist Johnny Wiggs, clarinetist Raymond Burke, bassist Sherwood Mangiapane, and guitarist / singer Dr. Edmond Souchon. Recorded in 1955, it is wonderful chamber jazz, with Wiggs’s mixture of Oliver and Bix, somewhere between sad and jaunty, mixing perfectly with the limpid, gutty sound of Burke — resting most comfortably on the rhythmic cushion of acoustic guitar and string bass. Living-room jazz. And the repertoire is wonderful — a medley of MEMORIES / SMILES / SINGIN’ THE BLUES; HEEBIE JEEBIES (with a raucous Louis-inspired vocal by Souchon), TULIP STOMP (also known as WHEN YOU WORE A TULIP), MAMA’S BABY BOY, MAKE ME A PALLET ON THE FLOOR, BUDDY BOLDEN’S BLUES, CONGO (or CONGO SQUARE), and PRETTY BABY (in honor of Tony Jackson).
You can’t see it, but the record label itself credits everything to “Ray Burke and the New Orleanians”: did Wiggs and Burke flip a coin to decide who would get credited outside and inside?
That would have been more than enough for me: the seller offered this at a reasonable price, and I was eager to get it. True, I had the music on a cassette somewhere (courtesy of the late and generous Bob Hilbert) but I wanted the artifact itself.
It came in a soft cardboard envelope with a flap holding the record in, so to remove the disc I had to turn it over . . . and this greeted me, in careful fountain pen:
May 14 / 55
To Pinkey – with apologies for the Bourbon-seared vocal cords!
Cordially –
Edmond Souchon M.D.
I don’t think the seller had seen the back of the sleeve or, if he had, hadn’t made the connection (or hadn’t been trying to raise the price). Thank you, Sir, for your generous offering — whatever the reason! Other sellers, more observant or more avaricious, would have advertised this as RARE! and had a minimum bis of $299.
“Pinkey,” I assume, is clarinetist Pinky Vidacovich . . . and a closer inspection revealed that Souchon had glued a name / address label on the front cover and a small red oval sticker “Souchon” on the record label. Was it his own copy? I don’t know, but I treasure the signature and the sentiments as much as the music.
Living on the East Coast, I only knew about the Reynolds Brothers (that’s Ralf on washboard; John on National guitar; both sing; both are grnsdons of the legendary screen star ZaSu Pitts) through finding them on YouTube — a live session with singer Dawn Lambeth, trumpeter Marc Caparone, and plectrist Katie Cavera on her new triple, the string bass.
I was both amused and elated: they were very funny, often sweet, but they swung very hard without raising their volume.
Now, they have a new CD, and it’s is a corker. A pip. A honey. A dazzler. You find the appropriate adjective for “must-have.”
This CD features a beautifully-recorded, energetically hot quartet — with John taking most of the vocals, but with Ralf, Marc, and Katie having their own specialties. What does a quartet of trumpet, amplified National guitar, string bass, and washboard sound like?
Listen (you can watch, too!): here are two performances by this very group recorded at the Steve Allen Theatre in Hollywood, California, on January 13, 2010 (courtesy of Katie Cavera’s YouTube channel, “kcavera”).
Let’s start with a brief incendiary exercise, FUTURISTIC JUNGLEISM:
And here’s something more tender (the Boswell Sisters did a lovely version of it), WAS THAT THE HUMAN THING TO DO?:
This band harks back to an almost-forgotten series of recordings by one of the great Hot organizations of the early Thirties, the Washboard Rhythm Kings. If you didn’t have money for a trap set (and who did, during the Depression?) you could outfit what was then a common item, a laundry washboard, with a cymbal, a cowbell, perhaps other percussive side-dishes, find some thimbles, and wail away. A great washboard player (ask Doug Pomeroy about this art: he knows) would not only be an adequate replacement for a swinging drummer with a full kit, but could outswing one. Those recordings — sometimes at slow and medium tempos — had a wonderful momentum, and the really Hot numbers are astounding. Famous names played with those bands — trumpeter Taft Jordan, pianist Clarence Profit, and singer Leo Watson among them.
Now the washboard is usually relegated to truly traditional “trad” bands: in Ralf’s hands, it’s a full percussion orchestra, and he is a pleasure to watch . . . his hands swooping and diving in mid-air. John is an engaging singer, gentle and sly — approaching music and lyrics with great casual-sounding skill. His solos make melodic sense; his rhythm playing is a model of the art. Katie is a fine propulsive bassist — bringing the same accuracy to this instrument that she has brought to all her banjos and guitars. And she is a very sweet (but never sugary) singer: you believe her! Marc Caparone, I submit, has never sounded so electrifying as he does on this CD and these clips. I thought of what the National Forest Service calls “a controlled burn” — an intensely Hot fire that is, however, always precisely focused on its musical objectives. And the band is more than a collection of individualists: they rock, joyously, together.
The best way to but the CD is through the brothers’ site – (http://reynoldsbrothers.net/recordings.html) but those who prefer to use credit cards can order through CDBaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/ReynoldsBrothers. And if you’re sufficiently captivated, this quartet is “accepting engagements,” as the saying goes. I am sure that the Brothers could add to this band to suit anyone’s desires.
If you would like to hear more while you are waiting for your mail carrier to deliver the CD, Katie has posted a few more clips from this concert (as well as her own expert and witty short films).
Thanks to Enrico Borsetti, who pointed me in this direction, here are two versions of FROM MONDAY ON by the Original Prague Syncopated Orchestra. The first, a loose improvisation on the theme at a leisurely tempo, was recorded in May 26, 2008 and performed by a small contingent — it’s halfway between a rehearsal and a jam session, a most rewarding creation! (Life backstage, a pleasure.)
The members of the “Originální Pražský Synkopický Orchestr” here are Pavel Klikar (leader, trumpet, mellophone),Tomáš Černý and Jakub Šnýdl (clarinets), Jan Šimůnek (violinophone), Petr Wajsar and Tony Šturma (guitar), Jiří Šícha a Zbyněk Dobrohruška (banjo), Ondřej Landa (bass).
This more elaborately formal version, a beautiful production number, adds a vocal trio, a violin trio, a chorus line of beauties, a bit of visual comedy, and the contributions of Ondrej Havelka — also recorded in 2008. Although the purists have had their heated say, it gives me a taste of what a 1928 stage show might have been like.
Django Reinhardt in peak form, captured on film with Stephane Grappelli and the rest of the Hot Club Quintet. Yes, the film clip is hokey, the lighting melodramatic, and the Hot Club boys chug a little as they always did — but to hear those long-lined powerful melodies of Django’s is always a delight. And Django himself must be separated from his modern imitators, who spin out millions of notes: their technique may even be more astounding, but they have sometimes have less to say. I just wish someone had filmed the session Django did with Rex Stewart, Barney Bigard, and Billy Taylor: ethereal Hot!
Excerpts from his piece, “JAZZ IS DEAD. LONG LIVE JAZZ.” (From NEWSWEEK, Dec 21, 2009.)
[O]n an economic level, right: as a mass-culture force, jazz is dead. Simply look at the contemporary brand most familiar to a lay audience: the Marsalis family. In the early ’90s, one brother (Branford) was leading Jay Leno’s late-night band, while another (Wynton) was the preeminent trumpeter on Columbia, Miles’s old label. By the middle of this decade, both of them had lost those public perches—and no one has reached that stature since.
Multi-disc sets of previously unissued live concerts from Ella Fitzgerald and Stan Getz are also competing for the public’s limited attention span this season. So no wonder folks keep saying jazz is dead: devotion to its past is stealing oxygen from the same room in which the present hopes to draw a breath.
[A]t the point where a relatively young art like jazz amasses enough history to merit these important tomes and huge box sets, the more difficult it becomes for the culture to absorb what’s happening in real time. And real time is how jazz is best experienced. Like baseball—another great American invention—part of jazz’s appeal is in how it unspools without deference to the clock. Just as drama asks for suspension of our disbelief, jazz asks us for the suspension of our need to program our every moment. Meantime, our contemporary mania for abbreviated text updates—think Twitter, Facebook, and BlackBerrys—feels as if it stands in direct opposition to jazz’s deliberate, instrumental abstractions. Enjoying the music—really swinging with it—is a glorious sacrifice of the need to micro-manage the moment. And though it can be dreamy, this surely isn’t a recipe for amassing a stable brand that can support itself in the modern marketplace. At the beginning of the 21st century, the economic status of jazz is more like that of the symphony orchestra, only without the economic safety net of foundation funding that undergirds concerts featuring Beethoven and Brahms.
In fact, the arts community should debate whether a greater share of the music endowment pie ought to be going to jazz musicians. The rub is that it never will, unless there is an understanding that jazz’s economic status isn’t a hideous reflection of poor aesthetic health.But even if jazz is finally buried in that (expanding) graveyard of former mass-culture obsessions, that doesn’t mean the music isn’t still happening, or that it isn’t still perfectly capable of talking to us at an individual level. As long as they don’t starve to death, committed jazz musicians will be there for you, the forbidding economics of their pursuit be damned. And even if no one you know is talking about what they’re playing, be wary of any strangers who tell you they aren’t swinging anymore.
In reprinting excerpts from Walls’ piece, sent to me by Bill Gallagher, I am definitely not trying to awaken the Teachout-driven controversy about whether “jazz is dead” or not. But I think Walls makes splendid points about the competitive marketplace that makes jazz — for most listeners — less essential, and the short attention span so characteristic of our times that makes many people too impatient for the music, too eager for instant gratification to immerse themselves in a musical form that no longer seems like a common language. It wasn’t difficult to get listeners to appreciate jazz in 1936 or even 1956, because it was still part of the contemporaneous art . . . but now everyone has to work a bit harder. I would quibble about his division between “past” and “present” in his second paragraph, since the jazz I revere brings those two artificial entities together from the first bar. But that’s semantics.
Since I think that much of what Walls writes makes good sense, and especially because “swinging” is the penultimate word of his essay, I hope he is able to come to New York City some Sunday night: I’ll buy him dinner at the Ear Inn.
And I would try not to be startled by the many unfamiliar names Walls cites: you can, if they make the room spin around, insert the names of musicians you love.
I have a problem. Having posted an excerpt from the short film by Walt Roesner and the Capitolians, featuring every Hot soloist you can imagine, I followed the text that accompanied the video (as well as my own eyes) for the identification of the players. And since I couldn’t take my eyes off of the drummer — identified as the very original Vic Berton.
Now I find from a reputable percussion authority and several colleagues that they think the drummer is NOT Vic Berton.
What to do?
Here are pictures (verified by drummer / scholar Hal Smith) of Vic Berton.
Now, if you would look back to the posting of the Vitaphone excerpt: TEARING IT UP (Vic Berton and Friends)
I’m usually stubborn about these things, but the drummer in the Vitaphone short is substantial, perhaps verging on the rotund, and he may have a mustache. Vic seems slimmer in both body and face.
What do my readers think? If the man in the short film IS Vic, explain; if not, who’s playing drums with the Capitolians? He swings, whatever his name may be!
The 1930 sound film (part-silent Western, part musical revue) was called PARDON MY GUN (yes, you read that correctly) and it included a twenty-minute musical interlude by the Abe Lyman Orchestra, suitably attired in cowboy garb.
Here’s their exuberant TWELFTH STREET RAG, with the leader on drums, having a better time twirling his sticks than the law of the Old West might allow. The rousing trombone solo is by one Orlando “Slim” Martin:
And Al “Rubberlegs” Norman dancing to MILENBERG JOYS played by the Abe Lyman Orchestra:
Raucous music, eccentric dancing: why we love YouTube so!
Thanks to David J. Weiner for reminding me about this.
Walt Roesner and his Capitolians — the large all-star all-purpose orchestra that appeared at the Capitol Theatre in New York City — made a Vitaphone short film in 1928. Two-thirds of the film is given over to 1) an impassioned tenor singing O SOLE MIO, and 2) an impassioned tenor singing ANGELA MIA. Although these specialties are beautifully performed, they lack a certain savor or liveliness.
But the last number by the orchestra is Hot, truly so. And members of the band get to show off their considerable (sometimes quirky) solo talents in brief outings — with some of the most famous names in jazz doing their bit: how about Jimmy Dorsey, Arthur Schutt, Rube Bloom, Miff Mole, Leo McConville, Bruce Yantis, Vic Berton, Nat Brusiloff, Jimmy Lytell . . . ?!
I would not have posted this for the famous names alone — but I saw the entire short film recently for the first time and found myself watching the last number several times in a row, delighting in the music and the smiles on the faces of the musicians while their fellow players went at it. And I found myself insisting that the Beloved watch Rube Bloom and vic Berton in tandem — and that pleased her, too. I found this segment posted on Dailymotion with very accurate identifications, thanks to somename who goes by the alias “lordlister.”
So here it is, with commentary:
The eye is at first struck by the sheer number of beautifully-dressed men on the bandstand: twenty-five, perhaps, all with white flowers in their buttonholes. Two pianos, a plethora of violins, bowed string bass, bowed cello. Drummer Vic Berton standing in the rear amongst a good deal of percussion, including tympani. Roesner opens this number with the cheerful explanation that his musicians have had an appropriately “heated argument” about which one of them is the hottest man in the band. Not a bad idea. The bouncy tune that opens the proceedings is I’M MORE THAN SATISFIED by Fats Waller and Jo Trent (a song, which, like many famous hummable Waller tunes, repeats one catchy phrase often as a melody line) – recorded most memorably in this period by two fellows named Beiderbecke and Trumbauer, as “The Chicago Loopers.” Berton is particularly marvelous to watch, keeping time on the tympani with one hand while accenting a choked cymbal, sometimes visiting the head of his huge wooden bass drum — his legs spread to allow him to reach both places, raher like a wooden soldier in those white trousers. I would have been very happy for the band to explore this tune at this tempo for the rest of the film, but the premise moves into a solo features, which allow us to see these musicians on camera in their prime rather than as faces in the ensemble. (Many of them look particularly dark around the eyes: whether this was cinematic makeup or lighting of the time or a lack of sleep, I am sure one of my readers knows.) And the cameraman seems reasonably content with having one-half of an additional musician in the frame, and neatly lopping off the head or hairline of a soloist — but he seems to know what’s going on and to go in for a close-up before everything has concluded.
Up first after a piano modulation, Jimmy Dorsey on alto saxophone offers one of his particularly virtuosic solo choruses (in a manner beloved of Frank Trumbauer and Rudy Wiedoeft) showing off his incredible technique instead of hot improvisation. This kind of playing – here superimposed over TIGER RAG — was a JD specialty (hear OODLES OF NOODLES, for one example). Violinist Nat Brusiloff, next to Dorsey, is enjoying the chorus immensely. And JD must have been famous by this time; he is announced by name.
Then, showing that you don’t have to go fast to play Hot, we have a memorable twenty or so seconds of one of jazz’s most forgotten men, trombonist Miff Mole, offering a chorus of HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO? complete with breaks (Berton has switched to wire brushes, as we see). From this distance, Miff no longer seems as radical, as dashing as, say, Jack Teagarden or Dicky Wells, but his solo is masterful: the variations in tone and the way he gets gracefully but precisely from note to note, vocalizing the melody beautifully — and adding that lovely coda. It sounds very simple but it’s an example of how much he must have amazed all the musicians, Hot and legit, for a long time. I call your attention to Miff’s easy command of the horn and especially his glistening upper register, not the usual realm for most Twenties trombonists.
Violinist Nat Brusiloff (famous in radio as a conductor and for his early work with Kate Smith — his grandson is trombonist David Sager) offers more variations on the same theme . . . on what sounds like an intensely scratchy violin, with no apparent bow. I’m told he is playing a “single-hair” solo, which I assume is one hair taken from his bow, but the physics of the whole thing are beyond me, in a good way. Tell me where the other end of the single-hair is, please? And at the very end of the solo, Brusiloff permits himself the slightest glimmer of an impish grin, “Geez, I pulled that one off, didn’t I, now?” More violin acrobatics will follow.
Banjoist Lou (Luigi) Calabrese, who might have been noticeable from the start for the way he has stretched his legs out in front of him, then plays an incredibly fast and stunning chorus of IDA, romping in what seems like double double time over ensemble chords, his fingers flashing over the frets more quickly than anyone would expect them to — and not a note smudged or smeared. Something pretty follows (it would have to): clarinetist Jimmy Lytell, looking shlyly sideways, gently swaying his body, pensively ambling through the melody of his own A BLUES SERENADE (composed with pianist Frank Signorelli), the reed player to his right curiously impassive through it all. (Lytell gets lovely backing from the bowed bass seen to his right and from Berton’s tympani.)
What happens next is a highlight. Pianist-singer-composer (DON’T WORRY ‘BOUT ME) Rube Bloom gets up from the piano for his limber almost-comic turn on DINAH. He isn’t a splendid singer, but he’s got a rocking rhythmic engine reminiscent of Harry Barris, and he’s clearly having a fine time. The long shot allows us to notice Berton, shifting around his set with tympani mallets, but then, halfway through, our attention shifts to Berton, who is “tearing it up” in a way that goes beyond the hip cliche — he’s actually tearing strips off of something (a square piece of fabric?) with each tear a rhythmic accent like a tap dancer or a sand dancer. And the cameraman is sufficiently entranced eventually to move in for a close-up of this hilarious and marvelous rhythmic feat, remembering at the end that Bloom is supposed to be the headliner, even though he has had the spotlight stolen away from him. (Incidentally, the much more sedate second pianist to the right is Arthur Schutt.)
But violinist Bruce Yantis (someone I know only from a few late-Twenties sides with Eddie Condon, Red McKenzie, and Gene Krupa) is ready to follow Berton and Bloom with his violin solo a la Joe Venuti, his bow disassembled and strapped around his violin so that the hairs play all four strings at once — it looks like fun but it isn’t easy to do well. Luigi Calabrese has clearly heard Eddie Lang, as he should have.
Before the ensemble gets itself together (we never find out who the hottest man in the band is or was, although my vote is split between Miff and Vic Berton) trumpeter Leo McConville, usually hidden next to Red Nichols, gets off with a very brief Hot solo (a half-valve flourish at the end?) on the closing I’M MORE THAN SATISFIED.
This short seems an ideal window into the best of the Hot late Twenties: that decade’s version of the 1938 Randall’s Island footage, but with sound and close-ups. A ripping yarn!
