LE JAZZ HOT: MAKING THE SCENE ON MONDAY (August 8, 2011)

Monday nights are usually low-key if not anxious: the week looms.  Perhaps we should bring lunch to work?  But Le Jazz Hot has created a scene for musicians, listeners, and swing dancers at Le Colonial (which, I’m told, used to be Trader Vic’s), every Monday night from 7-10 PM.

I took my camera there on Monday, August 8, and captured these three performances by Paul Mehling, guitar, vocal, and leader; Sam Rocha, Isabelle Fontaine, guitars; Jeff Sandford, reeds; Clint Baker, bass.  And a variety of swing dancers, most expert, with our friend Leslie Harlib twirling and dipping at the bottom right of my frame.

Paul began with his own version of wild-eyed Harry “the Hipster” Gibson’s Forties drug-hallucination-fantasy, STOP THAT DANCING UP THERE:

Nothing could follow that except a peaceful song — pastoral rather than hallucinogenic — so here’s Carmichael’s SKYLARK:

And in another mood, the 1920 warning, beloved of Sophie Tucker and jazz bands alike, SOME OF THESE DAYS:

Make the scene at Le Colonial some Monday — it’s at 20 Cosmo Place in San Francisco; it has a very intriguing Vietnamese menu.  No cover, no minimum, nice acoustics.  To quote Slim Gaillard, “Very mellow.  Very groovy.”

MISS HELEN WARD, 1953

One more photograph from Helen Ward’s collection, through the generosity of Sonny McGown, another souvenir of that 1953 Goodman-Armstrong concert tour.  I don’t recognize the hall, but here Helen is in front of the “Goodman” Orchestra.  She always sounded the same — friendly, warm, sweetly affectionate — from her first records to her SONGBOOK, perhaps forty years later.

THE ANGELS SWING, 1953

The photograph below comes from Helen Ward’s collection, courtesy of my friend Sonny McGown.  It’s amazing — an onstage jam session from one of the 1953 concerts that began with the Benny Goodman Orchestra and the Louis Armstrong All-Stars.  After Benny chose not to go on with the tour, Gene Krupa led his band — and obviously a good time was had by all.  See who you can identify:

From the left, I see George Auld and three other saxophone players, Steve Jordan (guitar), Israel Crosby (bass), a Goodman trombonist and bespectacled Vernon Brown, Trummy Young behind Vernon, a short fellow in a light suit whose name escapes me, Cozy Cole behind him, Ziggy Elman, an unidentified trumpeter and Charlie Shavers in front of Arvell Shaw.

I think I hear an uptempo blues . . . but whatever it is, the sound I imagine is angelic.  Wow!

P.S.  Sonny pointed out to me that Willie Smith (on left) has his back to the camera, Al Stewart is the unidentified trumpeter . . . and the closing jam session was typically THE SAINTS.  So now I know what I’m hearing.

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME DIDN’T COME

The 1953 Benny Goodman – Louis Armstrong concert tour was an unusual idea to begin with, and for a full version of the events leading up to its abrupt termination, there’s no better account than in Ricky Riccardi’s WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD: THE MAGIC OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S LATER YEARS.  (Bobby Hackett also told his side of the story in Max Jones’s TALKING JAZZ, for the truly fervent.)

But here’s a startling piece of evidence from the eBay treasure chest – a Program (or should I say Programme) from that aborted tour, autographed by Goodmanites Teddy Wilson, Israel Crosby, Ziggy Elman, and Vernon Brown — as well as by the Armstrong All-Stars of the time: Louis, Trummy Young, Barney Bigard, Joe Bushkin, Arvell Shaw, Cozy Cole, and Velma Middleton (it’s the only Velma signature I’ve ever seen).

Aside from presenting an Israel Crosby autograph (not a common signature, and a treasure), the cover is intriguing because it is a Programme.  I hadn’t known that a tour of any part of the United Kingdom had been envisioned.  Here are the two facing center pages with the planned program, suggesting that no interplay between the two orchestras had been planned even in the tour’s earliest stages:

Louis worked with, recorded with, and hung out with many players who went on to Goodman alumni — including Teddy Wilson, Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton — but as far as Armstrong / Goodman meetings that were documented, one must turn to the three or four minutes of AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ Louis performed on the King’s 1939 Camel Caravan.  (Although I am sure there is a private recording of their initial concert . . . . the fans were devoted.  And we remain so.)