I’ve been fortunate enough to know, hear, and admire the Swing Explorer — saxophonist Joel Press — for a decade now. It happened, as many good things do, utterly by surprise, but through the quiet guidance of a good friend. The good friend is Robert D. Rusch, the creator of CADENCE, that rare thing, a candid jazz magazine. In 2006, I was reviewing CDs for CADENCE, and one called HOW’S THE HORN TREATING YOU? arrived in the mail — with this cover portrait (by Herb Snitzer) of a man I’d not known:
I was moved and delighted by Joel’s easy yet searching approach to melody and swing: new and yet affectionately connected to the great traditions. To explore Joel’s many worlds, one place to start would be here.
A decade later, more or less, we found ourselves in friendly proximity: Joel on the bandstand at Smalls, me with a video camera as close as I could get without posing a fire hazard. The other members of this compact inventive ensemble are Michael Kanan, piano; Lee Hudson, string bass; Fukushi Tainaka, drums.
Here’s a still photograph of that world, taken for us by Chihiro Tainaka, with the back of my head accurately and mercilessly rendered for posterity. Two seats to my left is the warm and thoughtful Maya Press, beaming love at her father.
But you can’t play a picture, any more than you can eat the recipe. So — with Joel’s approval — I present five performances from that night at Smalls, with some more to follow. His soft tone, love of melody, and caressing swing are still gloriously intact, and his colleagues on the bandstand are the most subtly intuitive conversationalists one could want.
GONE WITH THE WIND:
SOFTLY, AS IN A MORNING SUNRISE:
FOOLIN’ MYSELF:
NOSTALGIA:
YOU DO SOMETHING TO ME:
I wanted to call this blogpost PRESS ONE FOR SWING. Now you know why. More to come.
Because I’ll be on my way to the 2016 Evergreen Jazz Festival tomorrow, my thoughts turned back to those few days in July 2014 where — amidst rainbows and rain, nocturnal elk, Vietnamese food with dear friends and heroes — I heard some of the finest music of my life.
The music was created by Professor James Dapogny (piano, arrangements, research, and even a sly vocal or two) and his Chicago Jazz Band: Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Kim Cusack, Russ Whitman, reeds; Christopher Smith, trombone, Rod McDonald, guitar; Dean Ross, string bass; Pete Siers, drums. No gimmickry, just deep music.
One of the most memorable performances of that weekend was the Ellington – Rex Stewart MOBILE BAY, deep and slow. Here’s a map for those who need to orient themselves:
I think of this four-minute interlude as the very definition of poignant: something that gives the sensitive person a sharp pang. But the pain of regret, of loss, the feeling of sadness, is counterbalanced by awe: “How beautiful is that embodiment of sadness,” so that we have to entertain both sensations at once.
At the 2014 Evergreen Jazz Festival, I recorded and shared the better part of seven sets by this band. I apologize if what I am about to write seems greedy, but I want to hear them again. Shall we talk of the financing necessary to have the official JAMES DAPOGNY CHICAGO JAZZ BAND FESTIVAL? No other groups need apply.
I report with glee and trepidation that I am going to be in Colorado for the 2016 Evergreen Jazz Festival on Friday. The trepidation has nothing to do with music, but arises because of the details that emerge in even the least complicated travel. But the rewards at the end of the rainbow — a Colorado double rainbow — are even more immense.
Double rainbow, Evergreen, Colorado, 2014. Photograph by Michael Steinman
One such reward is multiple opportunities to hear three of my favorite musicians: Carl Sonny Leyland, piano / vocal; Clint Baker, string bass and perhaps other instruments of mass pleasure; Jeff Hamilton, drums.
They will be appearing throughout the Festival, but before it starts they will be creating seismic happiness at a barn concert on Thursday night: details here. At this concert there will be dancing. I will bring back videos, I promise . . . but just to get you in the mood, here are several I shot at a California swing dance on August 20, 2011, a Wednesday Night Hop in Mountain View.
I knew less about videoing then, so it took me a while to get courageous at the start of LADY BE GOOD, but the music is always there:
and . . .
and . . . .
These three heroes have the rollicking force of the Thirties Basie band in full cry. And they use their powers for good.
I know that some of you can’t get up to Colorado on this short notice, and I understand. However, I see that Carl’s trio is booked for the 2017 Evergreen Jazz Festival . . . so that gives everyone time to make arrangements.
AVALON, “composed” in 1920 by Al Jolson and Vincent Rose, owed so much to a Puccini melody that Puccini’s publishers sued and won. Thanks to Chris Tyle for the facts here.
Between 1920 and 1937, AVALON was a popular composition recorded by Red Nichols, Isham Jones, Coleman Hawkins, the Quintette of the Hot Club of France, Jimmie Lunceford, and others. In 1937, Benny Goodman featured it as a quartet number (with Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, and Gene Krupa) in the film HOLLYWOOD HOTEL — also recording it for Victor, performing it in 1938 at his Carnegie Hall Concert. Benny performed it hundreds of times in the next half-century, and a performance of that song has been a way for contemporary clarinetists both to salute him and to dramatize their aesthetic kinship with him.
As a delightful point of reference, here is the 1937 Victor, a lovely performance by four men clearly enjoying themselves expertly:
That recording is, in its own way, a joyous summit of swing improvisation.
On November 29, 2014, at the San Diego Jazz Fest, Tim Laughlin (leading his own New Orleans All-Stars with Connie Jones) had already invited clarinetist Jim Buchmann to join him for a few songs. Then, Tim spotted clarinetist Dave Bennett and urged him to join in. I thought that AVALON might be on the menu for three clarinets. Not that Tim is in any way predictable, but AVALON is familiar music — with known conventions — in the same way that a group of saxophonists might call WOODSIDE or FOUR BROTHERS — music that would please the crowd and the route signs are all well-marked.
Connie Jones and Doug Finke sat this one out, but Connie’s delighted reactions mirror every nuance of the music.
The other members of this band: Chris Dawson, piano; Marty Eggers, string bass; Katie Cavera, guitar; Hal Smith, drums, are deeply immersed in both the tradition of Goodman AVALON’s and how to make it alive at the moment — Chris and Hal create their own variations on Wilson and Krupa most beautifully.
This one’s for my friend Janie McCue Lynch, and for students of the Swing School everywhere.
(For those correspondents who say “This is TOO Swingy!” in the tone of voice one would discuss a contagious disease, you are exempt from watching this. But you’ll miss deep joy.)
See you all at this year’s San Diego Jazz Fest: we’ll all gather.
A nice bio of trumpeter / vocalist Taft Jordan is available here, which is also the source for the photograph.
In February 1935, “Taft Jordan And The Mob” — Taft, trumpet; Ward Silloway, trombone; Johnny Mince, clarinet; Elmer “Tone” Williams [not “Skippy” Williams as listed in Tom Lord — thanks to Mark Cantor], tenor saxophone; Teddy Wilson, piano; Bobby Johnson, guitar; John Kirby, string bass; Eddie Dougherty, drums — recorded four memorable sides that have never gotten the attention they deserve. (Incidentally, the beautiful record labels are illustrations only: the music can be found in the videos below.)
The idea was John Hammond’s, and one that we are grateful for. The usual story is that Hammond worked hard to get the music he loved on record, to make opportunities for racially mixed bands. He succeeded beautifully: most readers know this part of the story as preface to the 1933-42 Billie Holiday sides.
But other parts of the story deserve attention. There is, for one thing, the success of the coin-operated phonograph (later, the “jukebox”) that could offer people recorded music in restaurants, bars, and elsewhere for what seems to us like a bargain: a nickel would get you three minutes of new music. But a 1935 nickel was much more than the ninety-nine cents per song that iTunes charges. (A contemporary advertisement shows Easter dresses for $1.95, and a skilled worker for the W.P.A. might earn $79 a month.)
And, at the time, commercially produced records were — as it says on the label — “not licensed for radio broadcast.” I think that coin-operated phonographs served the audience’s desire for novelty (“Let’s hear that new record of ______ by Erin Morris and her Ponies!”) — songs from new movies, new songs popularized by much loved bands and singers . . . and for five cents, one could have a side played for a gathering of listeners and/or dancers. The record labels pictured above are now called “dime-store,” because one could buy these records inexpensively at, say, Woolworth’s.
Radio and recordings created a need for new material, so many songs, not all memorable, were published, with a clear financial relationship between composers / lyricists, publishing companies, artists, recording supervisors, and record companies. (A small example: IF THE MOON TURNS GREEN was written by Bernard Hanighen, Billie Holiday’s friend, also a recording director at Brunswick Records. He would have been happy — aesthetically and financially — to have his song recorded.)
Taft’s four sides run parallel to other small groups led by Fats Waller, Henry Red Allen, Bob Howard, Putney Dandridge, Stuff Smith, Adrian Rollini, Tempo King, Cleo Brown, Lil Hardin Armstrong, Frank Froeba, Bernard Addison, Louis “King”Garcia, Stew Pletcher, and others. I’ve heard writers say these sessions were “cranked out for the jukebox trade,” but these records are lovely, imperishable. That there were only four sides says more about an audience’s awareness of Taft as a star than about their quality. Some listeners might have known him from the Savoy Ballroom and radio, but not many. When the records were later reissued in the UK (the red-and-gold Vocalion issues) Teddy Wilson had become famous enough so that his name would sell discs.
The artists made little or nothing for these sessions: they were paid “scale,” although they were pleased to make the extra money. The math is fascinating, a quiet recital of economic disparity, even at the remove of eight decades. Let us say a band of eight musicians made four sides for $50 a musician. The records were pressed, distributed, and ended up in the phonographs. One could hear a side once — no limit on the number of hearers, theoretically — for a nickel. The machine could take in twenty nickels in an hour. In 1935, the profit went to the record companies and the owners of the phonographs. Later (too late, perhaps) musicians and composers received royalties, but that is another story.
Yes, mechanical reproduction of art guarantees “exposure,” but one cannot eat exposure. I am aware of this from both sides as an interloper with a video camera who can only recompense musicians in insubstantial ways.
I offer these notions, some of them quite sad or infuriating, as preface to wonderful music, and also to point out that an unstable, often exploitative relationship between the artists, “the marketplace,” technology, and lasting art is not a twenty-first century issue.
What good songs these “disposable” pop tunes are — thanks to Rothberg, Coots, Alex Hill (yes!), and Hanighen. And the players, professionals all, were used to sight-reading and creating instant arrangements — with split choruses, riffs, backgrounds. To take one example, LOUISIANA FAIRY TALE, still recognizable, is a series of thirty-two and sixteen bar solos with rhythm (and what a rhythm section!) with a jammed ensemble ending. How fine it sounds now. One could spend an afternoon listening to the glowing epigrams Wilson dispenses, the variety of timbres the horns offer, solo and in ensemble.
In my collecting history, these four sides were part of a Columbia Chick Webb lp compilation — glorious gap-fillers, but also logical because of Taft’s role in the band. Mince and Silloway were with Tommy Dorsey; Skippy Williams, Bobby Johnson, and John Kirby with Webb also; Eddie Dougherty a busy free-lancer. Wilson had not yet joined the Goodman orchestra as a member of the Trio and Quartet, but had recorded with BG in ad-hoc studio groups.
What we have here — each side is less than three minutes long — is both superior dance music and small-band swing of the highest order, pleasing to all audiences.
In my time-travel fantasy, I would like to be a silent onlooker at one of these sessions, but I doubt the musicians romanticized such work. It was another way to pay the rent, perhaps (for the lucky sideman) to get some recognition for future leader’s gigs . . . or perhaps, after creating four quiet masterpieces, the guys went out for a drink or some ribs, a nap before the night’s work. If I’d asked Taft about these sides in 1972 /3 and later — I didn’t see him at close range — I wonder what would he have said.
LOUISIANA FAIRY TALE:
NIGHT WIND:
DEVIL IN THE MOON:
IF THE MOON TURNS GREEN:
All four of these songs were also recorded “with vocal chorus” by Taft, a charming Louis-influenced singer (consider his work with the Washboard Rhythm Kings and Webb) but none of the vocals was issued. Mysterious. I know there is an alternate take of NIGHT WIND issued on a Jerry Valburn collectors’ compilation, but it’s instrumental.
Does anyone know more about Eddie Dougherty than is published in John Chilton’s WHO’S WHO IN JAZZ? I have learned that he recorded between 1933 and 1952 or a little later, that he lived in Brooklyn, and, according to Johnny Williams via Mike Burgevin, that he pronounced his last name as if spelled Dockerty. But no more.
The music remains. And I, for one, am truly grateful for that.
Taft as a member of the Ellington orchestra. Photograph by Charlie Mihn, courtesy of Chuck Slate.
As a postscript, here are four contemporaneous versions of DEVIL IN THE MOON — in honor of the Blessed Alex Hill. I think they are all beautiful, so this is not to make insidious comparisons.
Leo Reisman:
Mills Blue Rhythm Band (with an incendiary Buster Bailey interlude that the expert dancers must have loved):
There is an art to playing melody so that it soars, so that the performer, the notes, and what we sense of the composer’s mood and intentions are all one, as if the performer was subtly lifting the melody upwards so that we could admire it as we had never been able to before.
There’s the equally subtle art of melodic embellishment: improvising around and through that melody to make it shine more brightly without obscuring it.
Bobby Hackett, who not only knew these arts but embodied them, said after hearing Louis Armstrong, “Do you know how hard it is to make melody come so alive?”
And Goethe wrote of “thou holy art,” though he never made it to a jazz festival.
Here is a gloriously eloquent example of melody-making by a group of masters: Tim Laughlin, clarinet; Connie Jones, cornet; Doug Finke, trombone; Chris Dawson, piano; Katie Cavera, guitar; Marty Eggers, string bass; Hal Smith, drums, performing at the San Diego Jazz Fest on November 29, 2014. The text they chose is Hoagy Carmichael’s plaintive NEW ORLEANS:
What marvels. It takes lifetimes to learn how to do this, and then a quiet determination to be able to do it in public, courageously and with love.
And — as a postscript — if you’ve never heard the FAREWELL BLUES to which Tim refers (it preceded this performance) it would be cruel to deny you this rocking, melodic pleasure:
Who’s that? Why, the pianist, arranger, and occasional singer Mark Shane.
I’d heard Mark on records and bootleg concert tapes going back to the late Eighties, but didn’t get to meet him until 2004. And I was astonished. He’s quiet; he doesn’t rely on volume or pyrotechnics, but he swings beautifully. (He is A Stride Monster, but it’s not his only claim to our hearts.) His playing is thoughtful, delicate, without being stiff or effete. Right now, you are most likely to hear Mark as pianist and musical director for that force of nature, Catherine Russell.
But I thought a few minutes of Shane-beauty would help us keep perspective in these troubled times.
Here he is at the 2012 Atlanta Jazz Party, lovingly making his way through BLUE AND SENTIMENTAL, a hymn of praise and grief for Herschel Evans:
And, a year later, Mark’s stylish romp on MOONGLOW — always melodic, ticking away like a swing clock, with beautiful voicings and subtly varied embellishments:
Please notice how much the musicians onstage (Messrs. Chirillo, Weatherly, and Dorn) are appreciating it as well. That says a great deal.
Here’s Mark with Tal Ronen and Dan Block — thinking about Fats and his Rhythm — playing YACHT CLUB SWING:
and another salute to gorgeous melody, Mark and Terry Blaine performing SHINE ON, HARVEST MOON in 2015:
“Don’t be shy,” says Terry. And I’m not shy about my absolute admiration for Mister Shane. Hereis his website, where you can hear and learn more from this master.
Small painful ironies emerge even in the midst of listening to and thinking about beautiful music. Ivie Anderson and the Duke Ellington Orchestra recorded the Edgar Leslie-Joe Burke song AT A DIXIE ROADSIDE DINER in July 1940 and played it on a broadcast:
The elaborate video production is the work of Tim Gracyk. But what concerns me is that these African-American musicians were singing and playing a love song in praise of a specific locale “in the heart of Caroline,” a favorite of New York City / Hollywood songwriters — where a blue-eyed pair fall in love. However, when the Ellington band toured the American South, the roadside diners wouldn’t allow them inside or sell them food. Did it hurt to sing and play this song?
On that same emotional path . . . Lorenz Hart was a gay man at a time when his love had to be concealed. (And he thought himself physically unattractive.) But he spent his career turning out one song after another in praise of heterosexual bliss, or at least bliss that a heterosexual listening public could identify as their kind of attachment. “With your wee head upon me knee,” in BLUE ROOM, is the first example that comes to mind, and there are many more. It’s very clearly a he-and-she marriage with a trousseau, the prospect of children, and more, in this sweet performance from 1926 by the Revelers.
Did that wound him with each new song? We can’t know, but merely considering these hurts is in itself painful.
Several audience members and a musician-friend wrote in after yesterday’s postfeaturing Keith Nichols and the Seagoon Serenaders, asking if I would post more. Happy to oblige!
Here you can find out more about Keith’s inspiration, THE GOON SHOW, a radio series from 1951-60.
The Serenaders are Keith, piano; Emma Fisk, violin; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Spats Langham, guitar; Nick Ball, drums; Malcolm Sked, bass; Lars Frank, Thomas Winteler, Michael McQuaid, reeds (Michael doubling cornet). Dance music of the highest order.
The first song of the set is the old Chicago standard, SOMEDAY SWEETHEART, with an explanation of the group’s inspiration by Keith as well as a vocal:
IF I GIVE UP THE SAXOPHONE (WILL YOU COME BACK TO ME?) was a hit for Eddie Cantor in the 1929 film WHOOPEE — written by Irving Kahal, Sammy Fain, and Willie Raskin. I suspect that the song is an outgrowth of the instrument’s popularity early in the decade and the large number of amateur players:
I don’t know how much Goonery there will be at the 2016 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party(November 3-6) but there will be some. Musicians are often great comic improvisers, and they honor the guiding spirit of the party: Mike was both witty, sometimes dangerously so, and he had a stockpile of jokes that was astonishing.
What happens when vestiges of THE GOON SHOW meet early jazz, under the benignly unsettling leadership of Keith Nichols? I present a brilliant example below. Keith’s presentation, mixing satire and Hot, was called THE SEAGOON SERENADERS, and it came alive at the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Partyon November 8, 2015:
Once when we get past the hilarity, the Serenaders launch into a very delightful performance of Ellington’s THE MOOCHE (named, I am told, for a contemporary dance), complete with clarinet trio and hot cornet chorus. That’s Keith, piano; Emma Fisk, violin; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Spats Langham, guitar; Nick Ball, drums; Malcolm Sked, bass; Lars Frank, Thomas Winteler, Michael McQuaid, reeds (Michael doubling cornet on this performance). Dance music of the highest order.
A nice mixture of hot jazz, occasionally leavened with comedy, can be found this November 3-6. Details here.
It’s always a pleasure to observe Thomas “Spats” Langham — singer, vaudevillian, string virtuoso — and he always surprises in the nicest ways. One of his specialties is bringing “new” (as in unheard or rarely-heard) song treasures to us. In this case — at the 2015 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party, the song was SLEEPY HEAD, written by Banjo Ikey Robinson. As far as I can tell, the only official recordings of this song have been by Spats and Jeff Barnhart, individually and as a duo. (There are several other songs with that title, the one I know being a tender Thirties lullaby that Bobby Hackett used as his closing theme on his 1949 broadcasts from Nick’s in Greenwich Village.)
In this performance, Spats is joined by Robert Fowler, reeds; Martin Litton, piano; Malcolm Sked, brass bass.
What I find delightful here is not simply the song itself, or the vocal, or the instrumental interludes, but the blend — that seems so right — between the sad lyrics and the swinging tempo, something that musicians in the late Twenties and Thirties brought to a high art: the lyrics are frankly sad, but the dancers wanted to swing. As they would here.
Thank you, Spats, Robert, Martin, and Malcolm, for making beauty out of sadness.
More of this — the “beauty” part more than the “sadness” — will be offered generously at the 2016 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party— one of the most rewarding weekends I could imagine. And I won’t have to imagine it. See you there, I hope.
Notice the composer credits: drummer Jack Parker and trumpeter Joe Guy, who has gained deep posthumous fame for being married to Billie Holiday for a brief period.
But we’re here to have some music. Music about food. What could be better?
The YouTube algorithm has linked this performance to Ben Webster and Sonny Rollins, but such things are mere trifles. Some listeners may move to dismiss this as a mere novelty, looking forward to rhythm and blues performances of thin material. But if we can resist the urge to categorize and condescend, it’s audible that this little band swings more — vocally at the start — than many more famous ensembles do in their highest gear.
The song was first recorded in 1941 by Al Cooper’s Savoy Sultans — a recording I’ve not heard. This performance (one take only) is led by Hot Lips Page, whose delighted spirit is audible throughout: Lips, trumpet and vocal; Earl Bostic, Butch Hammond, alto saxophone; Don Byas, tenor saxophone; Clyde Hart, piano; Al Lucas, string bass; Jack Parker, drums: September 29, 1944.
Now for eight bars of name-dropping. Circa 1974, several friends and I were invited to visit Ruby Braff at his Riverdale apartment. When I’m invited to a new place, I often look at the bookshelves and record collection. Ruby had several dozen of the then new Chiaroscuro recording — live at the New School — of the quartet he and George Barnes led. Leaning at an angle to the lowest bookshelf was an unsleeved copy of FISH FOR SUPPER on the 78 pictured above.
I am sure that Ruby admired the sound of that little band, the frolicsome energy of Lips Page. Or perhaps he warmed to the poetry: “We ain’t got no menu / But our fish will send you,” worthy of Robert Frost at his best.
At this Mezzrow gig in New York City, a few months ago, the wonderful pianist Hod O’Brien had laryngitis. But his winding melodies, his ingenious harmonies, and easy swing had their own powerful voices. He was accompanied — in the simplest meaning of that overused word, which to me suggests a companion at one’s side — by a string bassist I’d never met before, the very youthful Daryl Johns, who will impress you as he did me.
Here are five explorations of that art form, lyrical swing improvisation.
SAVE YOUR LOVE FOR ME (Hod pointed out that this was originally done by Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley, but he felt the tune in a more Basie fashion):
EV’RYTHING I LOVE:
TADD’S DELIGHT (for Mister Dameron):
and two classics —
I CAN’T GET STARTED:
TANGERINE:
Much more to come from this session. And when I saw Hod in June, he had his voice back.
No, I didn’t hear any shouts in the night, “The British are coming!” (Or, for that matter, “The British are going!”)
But if Paul Revere had been well and truly hip, he might have shouted, “Hot jazz in Ypsilanti! Thursday nights! Cultivate!” and that would have gotten me out of bed for sure.
Here are three truly entrancing performances recorded on June 16 and 23, 2016, by Laura Wyman of Wyman Video— yes, she deserves her own place in the personnel roster). The leader of this morphing band of creators is Erin Morris, tuba. Yes, I know you know Erin as a unique dancer and choreographer, but she is also a wonderful low-brass player, able to entrance us when she’s just sitting still.
I’VE GOT THE WORLD ON A STRING with Erin; James Dapogny, keyboard (“He makes that new piano sound exactly like old,” to paraphrase Johnny Mercer); Rod McDonald, guitar; Chris Tabaczynski, C-melody saxophone. Where? Cultivate Coffee & Tap House, Ypsilanti, Michigan:
That’s the very definition of Mellow to me, what I think of as the music the great artists make for themselves when the lights aren’t shining in their faces. Not morose nor a let’s-show-the-people-this-is-jazz romp, but pretty and moving. And Erin plays the tuba with gentleness; at times in the ensemble it sounds like a sweet bass saxophone heard from far away. And Chris Tabaczynski is my new Youngblood Hero. Dapogny and McDonald have been Heroes of mine for years.
Now, let’s add a little Americana to the mix, as Bonnie Smith sings CARELESS LOVE in an unaffected, heartfelt way, with her father, Christopher, on trombone; Alex Belhaj, guitar; Erin and Jim:
Finally, what my dear friend Mike Burgevin used to call a “Bingie” — one of those songs that we hear through a sacred veil of Crosby — WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS, performed by Christopher, Alex, Jim, and Erin:
All I can say about this scene is that it does my heart good to know that a small group of secular saints is bringing lyricism into the world. Cultivate Joy. And for my part, I’ve got my plane ticket to Ann Arbor.
It’s never too early to think about a Stomp. And not just any Stomp — but the fourth annual Steamboat Stomp, held in New Orleans . . . for the most part, on the river, while the Steamboat Natchez lazily goes up and down the Mississippi, the bands are playing, or the steam calliope is wailing, the food and drink are being offered.
If my words aren’t sufficiently evocative, let this image sink in:
Steamboat Natchez. Photograph by John Snell.
Here’s the Stomp’s Facebook page where you can learn more, buy tickets, make hotel reservations, and get yourself in the mood for Stomping. (For those of you who resist the charms of Facebook, please note that the poster has the Stomp’s web address, also information about the chosen hotel.)
I have been fortunate enough to be part of the 2013 and 2015 Stomps — and I brought my self and my camera, so I offer evidence of the delights that took place — and will continue this coming September.
Hereare Tim Laughlin, Ray Heitger, Steve Pistorius, and Jeff Hamilton from 2013.
and a delicious performance by Banu Gibsonfrom 2013.
Enough to convince you? If not, please look again at those names on the flyer, and know that the flyer can’t list all the luminaries (Hal Smith is going to be there, for one — as part of Kris Tokarski’s HOT CLASSICISM, a trio including Andy Schumm) — so hot music will surely be happening. The way the Natchez is set up allows for simultaneous sets: sometimes three at once, so the only problem I foresee is deciding WHICH? We should all have such dilemmas.
JUST FRIENDS — when it was originally performed in 1931 — was a sad love ballad, appropriate to the beautifully mournful tones of Red McKenzie — and notice how hip and expansive his second chorus is. He had known and heard the Chicagoans, Jimmie Noone, and of course Louis:
If you prefer the 1932 Russ Columbo version, it’s beautiful also.
At some point, JUST FRIENDS was treated less as a lament and more as a song to play on. (One could point to the Charlie Parker with Strings recording in 1949, and subsequent performances, but Bird often treated it as a medium-tempo ballad.) And that tradition — swing rather than sobbing — prevails today.
I present an extended swing meditation on this song, performed on Thursday, September 10, 2015. The participants, the creators, are Ehud Asherie, piano; Frank Tate, string bass; Pete Siers, drums; Howard Alden, guitar; Bill Allred, trombone; Randy Reinhart, cornet; Dan Block, tenor saxophone.
That is the sort of wonderful music that happens every year at this party, whether it’s at the informal jam sessions of Thursday night or the sets on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This year, the Party takes place from September 15 to the 18th.
A word about names. When I started attending this party, it was held in Chautauqua, New York, and was called Jazz at Chautauqua; then it moved to Cleveland and temporarily was called the Allegheny Jazz Party; now it has become mature and changed its name to the Cleveland Classic Jazz Party. You can find out more details here, on Facebook, or at the Party’s www.alleghenyjazz.org, or even by calling 216.956.0866.
The Party takes place at the InterContinental Hotel and Conference Center, 9801 Carnegie Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106. You can call 216.707.4100 or 855.765.8709 to make reservations, but be sure to use the Group Code YOO when you call or reserve online.
Musicians who will be there . . . are the Faux Frenchmen, Rebecca Kilgore, Wesla Whitfield, Andy Stein, Hal Smith, Pete Siers, Ricky Malichi, Frank tate, Kerry Lewis, Jon Burr, Rossano Sportiello, Mike Greensill, James Dapogny, Ehud Asherie, Marty Grosz, Howard Alden, Bill Allred, Dan Barrett. Scott Robinson, Dan Levinson, Dan Block, Harry Allen, Jon-Erik Kellso, Andy Schumm, Randy Reinhart, Duke Heitger.
Come by, hear some wonderful music, eat and drink, and make friends.
The string bassist Leonard Gaskin (1920-2009) could and did play with anyone: from Forties bop small groups (including Bird, Miles, Max, Cecil Payne, J.J., and more), to Billie and Connee, to Louis Armstrong to Eddie Condon to pickup groups of all shapes and sizes. Like Milt Hinton, he was steady, reliable, with a beautiful big sound that fit any ensemble: backing Odetta, Solomon Burke, Earl Hines, Butterbeans and Susie, as well as LaVern Baker, Cecil Scott, Ruby Braff, Kenny Burrell, young Bob Dylan, and Big Maybelle too.
Hereis Peter Vacher’s characteristically fine obituary for Leonard. (I’d like Peter to write mine, but we have yet to work out the details.)
And if you type in “Leonard Gaskin” on YouTube, you can hear more than two hundred performances.
Leonard was the nominal leader of a few “Dixieland” sessions for the Prestige label in 1961. Another, led by trumpeter Sidney DeParis, was called DIXIELAND HITS COUNTRY AND WESTERN (draw the imagined cover for yourself) with Kenny Davern, Benny Morton, Charlie Queener, Lee Blair, Herbie Lovelle. . . . from whence this sly gem comes:
Here is a loving tribute to Leonard from the singer Seina — it will explain itself:
And since anything even remotely connected with Miles Davis is judged important by a large percentage of jazz listeners, I offer the very Lestorian FOR ADULTS ONLY from February 1953, with Al Cohn (tenor, arranger) Zoot Sims (tenor) John Lewis (piano) Leonard (bass) Kenny Clarke (drums):
and from another musical world, the 1950 poem in praise of awareness, from a Hot Lips Page date, where Lips and Leonard are joined by Jimmy Buxton (tb) Vincent Bair-Bey (as) Ray Abrams (ts) Earl Knight (p) Herbie Lovelle (d) Janie Mickens (vcl):
Now, why am I writing about Mr. Gaskin at this moment?
Sometimes I feel that the cosmos tells me, gently, what or whom to write about — people or artistic creations to celebrate. I don’t say this as a great puff of ego, that the cosmos has JAZZ LIVES uppermost in its consciousness, but there is a reason for this post.
Recently, I was in one of my favorite thrift stores, Savers, and of course I wandered to the records. Great quantities — wearying numbers — of the usual, and then I spotted the 1958 record above. I’d owned it at one time: a Condon session with Rex Stewart, Herb Hall, Bud Freeman, Cutty Cutshall, Gene Schroeder, Eddie, Leonard, and George Wettling, distinguished by a number of songs associated with the ODJB. (A completely uncredited Dick Cary is audible, and I am fairly sure he would have sketched out lead sheets and spare charts for the unfamiliar songs.) An interesting band, but not the apex of Fifties Condonia.
I debated: did I need this hot artifact. Then I turned it over, and decided that I did, indeed.
I suspect that signature is later than 1958, but the real autographs are usually not in the most perfect calligraphy. And, as always, when a record turns up at a thrift store, I wonder, “Did Grandpa have to move? Did the folks’ turntable give out? What’s the story?”
I won’t know, but it gently pushed me to celebrate Leonard Gaskin.
And for those who dote on detail, I’d donated some items to this Savers, and so the record was discounted: I think I paid seventy-two cents. Too good to ignore.
Every year at about this time, Ray Skjelbred and his Cubs make a tour of the Bay Area in Northern California, including visits to the Dixieland session at Rossmoor, the Cline Wine and Dixieland Festival, Pier 23, Cafe Borrone, and other fortunate locations. (Don’t let the “Dixieland” label throw you; what Ray and Company play is light-years away from that manufactured product. Marketing isn’t music.)
Note: I realize that my title is geographically inaccurate, since everyone in this band lives in the West, as one of my Corrections Officers is sure to point out, but it made more sense than titling this post SOUTHBOUND, in honor of Alex Hill.
Here are the details from Ray’s own site, a remarkable place to spend a few hours.
Ray and his Cubs onstage at Rossmoor, perhaps 2014.
Ray has the good luck to have a dedicated videographer and archivist, RaeAnn Berry, somewhere between tireless and indefatigable, who will offer up large helpings of the music performed in these few delightful days.
Here’s a deliciously satisfying taste: DARKTOWN STRUTTERS BALL at an enticing tempo — in a thoroughly Commodore manner that reminds me, and perhaps you, of TAPPIN’ THE COMMODORE TILL:
That’s one performance from their July 7 concert at Rossmoor. I encourage you to subscribe to RaeAnn’s channel, where you can see the other dozen or so performances from that concert (made possible by the energetic devotion of Robert Burch and Vonne Anne Heninger, to give that kind pair their full monickers) and several thousand other musical delights.
As I write this in New York, RaeAnn is surely videoing something . . . and I know there will be more Ray / Cubs epiphanies to come.
Since childhood, Sonny LaRosa, trumpeter, has given himself body and soul to the music he loves and creates. Here he is, two years ago, at 88:
Photograph by Douglas R. Clifford.
And hereis the February 2015 newspaper story, how Sonny retired from 36 years of leading his own generous creation, America’s Youngest Jazz Band. But this is not a story about a frail nonaganerian. This is not a tribute to a man who is, as they say, “resting on his morals.” This is a salute to a glorious trumpet player . . . although he might have escaped your notice.
Sonny’s approach is a kind of trumpet playing you don’t hear often enough: a languorous, full-toned, loving approach to the melody. He clearly is deeply affectionate: when he plays YOU GO TO MY HEAD or IMAGINATION, what you hear first is a beautiful act of reverence to the composer. This isn’t to say that he is tied to the written manuscript. No, he has a subtle rhythmic lilt, and when he improvises, you hear that he knows sophisticated harmonies. Nothing’s formulaic or mechanical in his playing, and although his art is virtuosic, he doesn’t show off: no ascents into the highest register, no blurts of volume.
You wouldn’t expect anything else from a man whose father played him Louis records from age 4 onwards. And even better — Sonny, in his early teens, met and spoke to Louis, who encouraged him and recommended a “good teacher,” who turned out to be Maurice Grupp. Sonny had many teachers, but ultimately went his own way — away from the symphony, deep into the world of beautiful sounds. He is one of those rare ambassadors of beauty, his music unfussy, humble, and loving. His goal, he says, was to have “a pure dark tone,” and he’s succeeded nobly.
Here you can hear Sonny play ANGEL EYES from his most recent CD, which is called THE HAUNTING SOUND, STYLE AND SOUL OF SONNY LA ROSA — and that title, to me, isn’t in the least hyperbolic. When asked about his passion, he’s said, “I like that feeling of playing like somebody would sing . . . the way Sinatra would sing a song. God gave me the gift of sound,” and that is no boast.
The CD offers twelve lovely standards: ANGEL EYES / IMAGINATION / MISTY / JUST ONE MORE CHANCE / BY THE TIME I GET TO PHOENIX / MY FUNNY VALENTINE / I GOT IT BAD AND THAT AIN’T GOOD / YOU GO TO MY HEAD / AUTUMN IN NEW YORK / SOLITUDE / CLOSE TO YOU / Theme from LOVE STORY — and two dazzling etudes at the end, KEEL ROW, played straight, and then as a Sonny-plus-Sonny duet which swings mightily. The backgrounds are very simple; the performances are unadorned explorations of song, and most of them end with a gentle fade, as if a beautiful sailboat was drifting into the distance.
If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you can hear a few more samples from the CD.
I have been enjoying this CD for its masterful yet quietly glowing trumpet playing — and I’ve also played it in the car for a friend who says “I don’t like jazz,” but who said, “Wow! That is gorgeous! I like that!” so the CD works on many levels.
You can purchase the CD (and I encourage you to!) for $15, which includes postage, directly from Sonny. Contact him here and tell him JAZZ LIVES sent you. This world can be very dark these days. I think of Sonny’s art as healing for our troubles. It’s music that comes from his heart, and it will gently make its way into yours.
The Tim Laughlin – Connie Jones All Stars, a band I was fortunate enough to hear for a few years at the San Diego Jazz Fest, remains in my mind as a transcendent listening experience: a completely melodic group with great sensitivity and a wonderful quiet drive.
Here’s another sample of their magic, from the 2014 Fest — with a romper, a groove, and a pretty ballad — each gloriously realized. The players are Tim, clarinet; Connie, cornet; Doug Finke, trombone; Chris Dawson, piano; Katie Cavera, guitar; Marty Eggers, string bass; Hal Smith, drums.
THAT DA DA STRAIN has nothing to do with baby talk or with Marcel Duchamp; like many other songs of the times, it describes a dance that would bring dancers bliss. Mamie Smith, early on, then Eva Taylor, then the NORK, and on. Everyone solos here except Marty (who will on the next performance) but I’d call special attention to Hal, who rocks the church:
Here’s another Twenties song (popularized by Paul Whiteman) with an equally onomatopoetic title, THE WANG WANG BLUES. We’ve looked for deep meaning in that title, but I recall reading somewhere that one of the three people listed on the cover thought that WANG made a good sound once, and twice was even better — so it added a little spice to the conventional she-went-away-and-I’m-so-sad. As far as I can tell, there was no other intention, not Asiatic or anything else.
Now to move forward to 1947, to a song immediately taken up by Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, and Billie Holiday — connected to the film NEW ORLEANS. This performance has a surprise in it: Tim talk-sings the lyrics, and it is a heartfelt effusion of feeling for him, because he has a deep connection to his city, immediately evident in his playing and now in his song:
What a band. How generously they offer splendid subtle music to us. And I count myself fortunate that I will see Tim (and Kris Tokarski) at the Evergreen Jazz Festival at the end of this month, and then at the Steamboat Stomp in New Orleans in September.
Since 1971, July 6 is always a mournful date for me, since Louis Armstrong departed this temporal neighborhood (“made the transition,” “passed into Spirit,” or what you will) on that day.
Because of the beautiful post Ricky Riccardi wrote about the last music Louis listened to before he died (here) I was ready to write about an emotional vortex that hit me hard.
On the last tape Louis made for himself, he led off with SATCHMO IN STYLE, the life-enhancing music he and Gordon Jenkins made from 1949-52). That’s important to me, because eight of those performances are the music that made me absolutely devoted to Louis — this is more than a half-century ago.
But then I thought of the tradition where you rejoice at the funeral, and that Louis would not have wanted us to weep, but to hear good music with a strong lead and wonderful melodies. I think he would also have approved of seeing buoyant young swing dancers move around, for this was the way (in a backwards fashion) that he fell in love with Lucille Wilson, his fourth wife.
So here we are, rhythm and miracles conjoined, which is also appropriate.
I GOT RHYTHM:
I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES (with the verse and at a gorgeous tempo):
These videos come to us through the generosity of the musicians and dancers, but also because of videographer Laura Beth Wyman of Wyman Video, who did a splendid job in capturing that most difficult situation: a room full of dancers with musicians playing for them. The musicians! James Dapogny, piano; Mike Jones, clarinet; Roderick McDonald, guitar; Joe Fee, string bass. This performance took place during the properly named Plenty Rhythm Weekend. Filmed at Gretchen’s House, Ann Arbor, Michigan, on December 5, 2015. For more rhythmic miracles, visit here.
I tell the Youngbloods, “Yes! Go see Ray Skjelbred play piano and (once in a great while) sing. It is a magical experience.”
Here are two more beauties from his solo session at the San Diego Jazz Fest on November 27, 2015. Ray loves what we call the tradition — as distinguished from “OKOM,” a term I don’t use — by honoring the Ancestors while being himself all the time. And he continues to surprise and transform, skirting cliche always.
ROSETTA (for Earl Hines and Henri Woode) with a wondrous brooding beginning:
ELGIN BREAKDOWN (in honor of / in mourning for Cassino Simpson):
I hope to see you at the 2016 San Diego Jazz Fest, which will take place over the Thanksgiving weekend — November 23 through 27. Here’s another piece of the magic Ray (with friends Dawn Lambeth and Marc Caparone) created at that same festival:
I was moved and delighted by Joel’s easy yet searching approach to melody and swing: new and yet affectionately connected to the great traditions. To explore Joel’s many worlds, one place to start would be here.
JAZZ LIVES 