I would like to be younger, but I do not regret my age, because being around for this long means that I got to see Jimmy Rushing, Buck Clayton, Ruby Braff, Vic Dickenson, Bud Freeman, Freddie Green, and Buzzy Drootin, sometimes close enough to have conversations. So when I hear their music I see them in front of me, in motion, having a good time, fulfilling their purpose on the planet, joyously. But even if you, reading this, know them only as vibrations in your earbuds, we are so fortunate that they left their soul-stirring (no cliche!) sounds for us to hear.
I present them, gloriously alive.
I’M GONNA SIT RIGHT DOWN AND WRITE MYSELF A LETTER / GOIN’ TO CHICAGO / ST. LOUIS BLUES. Announcer (not all that amusing) Willis Conover. Newport Jazz Festival, July 2, 1959.
Jimmy Rushing, vocal; Buck Clayton, trumpet; Ruby Braff, cornet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Bud Freeman, tenor saxophone; Pee Wee Russell, clarinet; Ray Bryant, piano; Freddie Green, guitar; Champ Jones, double bass; Buzzy Drootin, drums. Originally broadcast by the Voice of America:
I saw Jimmy Rushing only once, on April 4, 1972. He died on June 8 from leukemia. That April night at the Half Note, where he was accompanied by Ruby Braff, he had difficulty climbing the three or four steps to the bandstand, and he sang, seated. Each time he sang, his performance was lengthy, not perfunctory. He never faltered.
When the performance was over, we walked past him on the way to the street. I said the only words that seemed appropriate, “God bless you, Mr. Rushing,” and he thanked me. I should have said, “Thank you, Mr. Rushing, for the blessings you give us.”
Wishing you all joy, health, music, and freedoms in 2026.
The sentiments are from legendary tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, and they were never not true. Music uplifts us if we allow it entrance, and we can always choose to do so. I offer you living, breathing evidence: quietly brilliant music from three lyrical swinging explorers: Dan Block, tenor saxophone and clarinet; Robert Redd, piano; Sean Smith, double bass.
October 30, 2025, at Cafe Ornithology, 1037 Suydam Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York City.
BLUE ROOM / PURPLE GAZELLE / TIME ON MY HANDS / EMILY / IT’S ALL RIGHT WITH ME.
Please allow yourself the luxury of watching and listening at leisure: the singular and collective creativity here is a great reward.
Even better: this trio will be playing, in as many dimensions as you care to tabulate, at Cafe Ornithology, on January 7, 2026.
Wear your warm coat, bring cash for the tip jar, and prepare for an infusion of what Ruby Braff called “aesthetic vitamins.” In fewer syllables, I call it joy.
Thanks to a gracious literary benefactor, I visited Dublin, twenty years ago. When she couldn’t find something, she would cast her eyes to the ceiling and say, “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, help me look around. Something is lost and must be found.” Sometimes the set of keys would appear. When they were recalcitrant, other things would get said, but we need not detail those prayers here.
I am not Catholic, but I hope the Saint will understand that what follows is respectful, not blasphemous.
I have been in love with jazz for more decades than I care to annotate here, and I had a pre-computer childhood, so my access to the music was severely limited by today’s standards. No YouTube, no Internet Archive, no Spotify. Rather, the record departments at local department stores; the radio, records in thrift stores; trading cassettes with friends and collectors.
In its own constricted way, that was lovely. If you don’t know that something exists, you can’t pine for it.
The floodgates began to open in my college years, with collectors’ lps, foreign issues, and obsessive tape-trading. I remember the life-altering sensation of hearing the Ellington Fargo concert for the first time, the 1944 Metropolitan Opera House jam session, the 1940 Goodman Octet with Christian and Lester, seeing Louis in Copenhagen, JAMMIN’ THE BLUES, and more. In the years that followed, I accumulated discographies; Jan Evensmo generously opened his treasure-boxes to me, as did a host of generous collectors.
But as the hoard grew, so did the desire to hear music beyond my reach. The inaccessible seems sweeter than what is at hand, although sometimes the rarities disappoint after decades of yearning.
I should note that I am not a “completist.” I revere many musicians with the ardor usually reserved for deities, but I can sleep at night knowing that there is, let us say, a four-bar break by ___________ that I will never hear. But some Grails, out of my reach forever, do glimmer, so thrillingly inaccessible.
I thought, in the spirit of earnest heartfelt whimsy, I would list the music I have been yearning to hear for years and see what happens. Maybe St. Anthony knows where those OKeh test pressings are.
In no order of yearning, I offer the following.
More broadcast material, radio airshots, from Cafe Society, with Teddy Wilson’s band, Frank Newton’s, and Joe Sullivan’s.
The second set of kinescopes from the Eddie Condon Floor Show.
The complete recordings from the 1944 Fats Waller Memorial Concert (Jerry Valburn issued some of this) featuring Frank Newton, Ben Webster, Sidney Catlett, and others.
The three tapes from the CHANGING TIMES jazz parties that I lack.
Any yet-unheard discs from John Hammond’s house in 1933: the one I know about has Joe Sullivan, Benny Carter, Chu Berry, and Eddie Condon.
Late in life (I do not recall the source) jazz enthusiast and promoter Ernest Anderson told of being hired by a wealthy executive to make some one-of-a-kind jazz records for his son, a deep fan. Anderson got Bobby Hackett, Sidney Catlett, and Harry Gibson (not yet “the Hipster”) into a studio and they recorded an album — how many 12″ discs I do not know — of which one copy was pressed.
Jo Jones told Phil Schaap about hearing Lester Young, before meeting him, by means of “a little silver record” (those who know may imitate Jo’s distinctive voice here). When I spoke to Jo at Frank Ippolito’s drum shop, I asked him what had happened to the record. You can imagine his facial expression.
The 16″ discs recorded by Ralph Berton of the 1941 Village Vanguard jam sessions, which Berton may have played on his WNYC radio show.
The rejected take of I’M GONNA STOMP MISTER HENRY LEE recorded by Jack Teagarden and Louis, Happy Caldwell, Sullivan, Eddie Lang, and Kaiser Marshall at the KNOCKIN’ A JUG session. Also, if the Saint wouldn’t mind, Louis’ OKeh of LITTLE BY LITTLE.
Sheet music, with the verse, to HE’S A SON OF THE SOUTH.
We have this, though:
More of the discs Jerry Newman recorded uptown.
The acetate discs (recorded but then broken and presumably discarded) of the jam session featuring the Count Basie and Bob Crosby reed sections.
The discs recorded at Squirrel Ashcraft’s house in Evanston, Illinois.
A complete run of the music recorded at Stuyvesant Casino, Central Plaza, and other shrines, preferably when the crowd was placid and the piano in tune (I know, I dream too much).
One that requires a long prelude: impatient readers may skip it. In March 1972, a concert was held at Queens College celebrating “American music between the wars.” It was really a fancy name for the familiar “history of jazz,” and in two parts, it went from MAPLE LEAF RAG to NOW’S THE TIME. The band was breath-taking even for 1972: Ray Nance, Joe Newman, Garnett Brown, Frank Wess, Herb Hall, Hank Jones, Milt Hinton, Billy Butler, Al Foster. And how they swung! I had brought my cassette recorder, hoping to get it all down for posterity (read: my delight) and one of my nervous friends, who shall not be named here, anxiously convinced me to let the first half of the concert go unrecorded because he was sure we would be thrown out. (When the second half started, I turned the recorder on and told him, “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” and I recorded it. I will post that tape in 2026.) But because of his fear and my unwillingness to argue, I missed Ray Nance singing and playing MARGIE and I’M IN THE MARKET FOR YOU. I know MARKET was recorded and issued on a Black Lion disc, but MARGIE, never, as far as I know. I would ask St. Anthony to let me hear MARGIE once again. Please?
I write all this with amusement.
If you came to the room (is it my “studio” or my “office”?) where I am writing this, you would see an abundance of music, everything but reel-to-reel tapes and cylinders: 78s, 45s, 10″ and 12″ lps (let others call them vinyls), cassette tapes, external hard drives full of videos, YouTube both audio and video as yet not shared with the world, compact discs.
I would have to live several lifetimes to make a dent in this glorious hoard.
This year, 2025, I have gained access to collections I never dreamed of hearing, thanks to gracious people. So, as they say, I ain’t starving. But St. Anthony might like jazz.
Stranger things have happened. If you’d asked me when I was fifteen if I would ever hear a recording of Frank Newton and Art Tatum, or one of Hot Lips Page and Fats Waller, I would have said, “Impossible.” But these things have come to pass.
A year and two days ago, the OAO and I were visiting New Orleans, and one of the highlights was the music we heard and saw aboard the Steamboat Natchez on two balmy afternoons. I’ve posted the good sounds from James Francis Evans, Steve Pistorius, and Tom Saunders here and here; a day later, the trio was Duke Heitger, trumpet and vocal; David Boeddinghaus, piano; Tom Saunders, tuba. Watch and hear!
Here I am, at home in New York, thinking with affection of that music.
So I will share with you the second set from the steamboat.
WHY DON’T YOU GO DOWN TO NEW ORLEANS? (vocal Duke) / BLUE AND BROKEN-HEARTED / SHREVEPORT STOMP / LET IT SNOW! (vocal Duke) / IT HAD TO BE YOU (vocal Duke) / THAT’S A-PLENTY / ALLIGATOR CRAWL / ST. JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES (vocal Duke) / AS TIME GOES BY / WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN (vocal Duke):
Wonderful musically, and all in the land of dreamy dreams, with the red paddlewheel spinning. Faye Marable, Louis, Jelly Roll, and Earl have moved to other neighborhoods, but their energized loving spirits live on vividly through these artists.
And if the music above doesn’t whet your aesthetic appetite for a trip to NOLA, maybe the photograph below will: my blindingly delicious dinner plate on December 27, fried chicken over red beans, rice, and sausage: a cardiologist’s nightmare and more than enough for two people, and, no, I didn’t eat it all.
If, as so many do, you associate Dave Brubeck and his colleagues only with relentless excerpts from TAKE FIVE as telephone hold-music, you do him a disservice.
Thanks to saxophonist-scholar Jon De Lucia, I’ve had many opportunities to discover music by Brubeck, Lee Konitz, Jimmy Giuffre, Gerry Mulligan, Ted Brown, Warne Marsh, and others. The music Jon and friends study and offer is surprising and delightful: intricate yet impassioned tapestries of sound and texture.
I first encountered Jon at the fabled Brooklyn studio of Michael Kanan and Stephanie Greig, The Drawing Room, where his Octet was accompanying the wondrous saxophonist Ted Brown. This was in April 2016, and although some think (wrongly) that my musical tastes begin and end with ROYAL GARDEN BLUES, I was enthralled by his music.
In the intervening almost-decade, I’ve followed Jon and friends, sometimes this sleek Octet, sometimes ad hoc groups, sometimes a surprise sitting-in, and have always been delighted and restored by the music he creates, both himself and his groups, and his devout, careful, but never ostentatious scholarship.
Here’s a most recent example. Jon has been working on his doctorate, where his studies focus on the music of the Dave Brubeck Octet, which existed from 1949 to 1953. In previous concerts, he has worked from sometimes partial scores to reconstruct and reimagine music the Octet recorded. Here, as a result of deep archival study, he presented music never recorded, with apt compact commentary. This free concert was a prelude to Jon’s second recording of this music: out early in 2026. (Watch this space.)
Photographs by RSG Studios.
Jon De Lucia, leader, alto saxophone; Brandon Lee, trumpet; Becca Patterson, trombone; Jay Rattman, clarinet, baritone saxophone; Scott Robinson, tenor saxophone; Danny Fox, piano; Kevin Thomas, double bass; Keith Balla, drums.
Monday, December 8, 2025, at the CUNY Graduate Center: HAPPY IN LOVE / GOODNIGHT EILEEN / I WANT TO BE HAPPY / FUGUE TWO / TEA FOR TWO / STARDUST / HOW ABOUT YOU? / CHORALE / LULLABY IN RHYTHM / MY HEART / PERDIDO:
“Cerebral,” but never cold: full of energy, wit, precision, and power. Warm music for a very chilly night.
Hail to those musicians who turn dots on paper into tangible joys.
Finding something that you know exists — perhaps you misplaced it or, worse, put it “in a safe place” and you come upon it again — is a pleasure and a relief. Finding something you didn’t know existed is a hundred thousand times better.
I had a tape recording of Joe Thomas, trumpet; Jimmy Andrews, piano; Mike Burgevin, drums, that Mike had copied for me. (Our friendship was based at first in admiration for Joe, Louis, Bing, Dave, George, and of course Big Sid.) No date and no exact place, though I assumed it was the early Seventies in New Jersey. The tape was incomplete, but it offered three of Joe’s Keynote classics, performed with two of his dear friends and admirers: YOU CAN DEPEND ON ME; BLACK BUTTERFLY; HOME. The tape ran out in the middle of HOME, and I assumed that this fragment was all that existed.
But a few months ago, a friend deep into New Jersey jazz offered me the tape you will hear below, nearly forty-five minutes by the same trio with guest tenor saxophonist Bill Kimode sitting in on ROSE ROOM and the two songs that follow.
Here are the titles performed: YOU CAN DEPEND ON ME / BLACK BUTTERFLY / HOME* / AVALON / ROSE ROOM [add Bill Kimode, tenor saxophone] / CRAZY RHYTHM / GEORGIA ON MY MIND* [NC] //
For those who know Joe’s luminous earlier recordings, it’s clear that some of the ease and gloss is gone. The trumpet is an especially unforgiving instrument!
Compare this impromptu performance to the Decca sides with Lil Armstrong, Art Tatum, Big Joe Turner; the BBC jam session; the recordings with Teddy Wilson, Sidney Catlett, Ed Hall; the Keynotes with Jack Teagarden, George Wettling, Coleman Hawkins, Earl Hines, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Roy Eldridge, Emmett Berry, Barney Bigard, Red Norvo, Vic Dickenson; the HRS sides with the Ellingtonians; the Jamboree sides with Don Byas, Dave Tough; the Buck Clayton Jam Session; the Tony Scott BLUES FOR THE STREET; the Prestige-Swingville dates, the Atlantic MAINSTREAM, and more. Whitney Balliett wrote of a session that paired Joe with Ellis Larkins, which never appeared. Catnip.
As an aside, if we are known by the company we keep, Joe was a bright light of the first rank.
But as we know in our own lives, the forty-year old cannot run the dash as she did at eighteen. If we criticize the elder, we are in danger of having the blinding light turned into our own eyes, to punish us for being ungenerous. Rather, let us celebrate Joe for honing his musical intelligence, his expressiveness, so that those who know Joe Thomas recognize him immediately. He knew who he was, and such self-knowledge is incredible valuable, a sign of maturity. And let us celebrate Mike Burgevin and Jimmy Andrews, who loved Joe dearly, the unknown Bill Kimode, who plays his part well.
Just in case you would like compact evidence of Joe in his prime, here he is in 1941, in admittedly low fidelity, leading a peerless group on THEM THERE EYES, his playing both grand and subtle:
Joe is not part of the Star System. He is often confused with Jimmie Lunceford’s tenor star with the same first and last names. The major online jazz discography lists a double bassist on some Herbie Hancock records as our trumpet man.
When Joe was in his great period (however you define it) the woods were thick with the greatest jazz trumpeters, all Louis-inspired in their own ways. I don’t think he ached to be a leader, so he was second or third trumpet on many recordings: Alex Hill, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, and Fats Waller. His name is in the discographies, but his solos didn’t get recorded (although on a treasure trove of Carter broadcasts from the Savoy Ballroom, 1939-40, now no longer accessible to me, he and Vic get many solo spots). Happily, he always had people who understood his singular voice: Harry Lim, Steve Smith, Albert McCarthy, and Mike Burgevin. But he didn’t have the push (can there be a better word?) of a Roy Eldridge or the good fortune of a Buck Clayton, so his discography is marked by long absences.
Those absences make this interlude even more touching for those who understand.
I know I saw Joe perhaps a half-dozen times: at Brew’s with Mike and Jimmy; outdoors in Battery Park with Mike and two others; four times at Newport — twice with Eddie Condon, twice with Benny Carter’s SWING MASTERS big band. I cherish those moments. And I cherish these forty-five minutes of Joe and friends that we can hear today, years after the steaks and baked potatoes became historical artifacts. Bless the people like Chuck Slate and Mike Burgevin, who made such music possible. Great gifts.
I’m not alone in this, but a deep pleasure is hearing hot bands play pop tunes. Bunk’s MARIA ELENA. Louis’ SOMETHING TELLS ME. Ivie’s MEXICALI ROSE. Basie’s I’LL ALWAYS BE IN LOVE WITH YOU. You can compile your own list.
I am listening right now to a new CD that brings these grateful thought to the fore. It’s pictured above, and the link is here. It’s a truly engaging evocation of a band and a style perhaps not well-known: Ted Shafer’s Jelly Roll Jazz Band (which I saw live once, in its later incarnation, perhaps 2010). And the fine musicians on it are Dave Kosmyna, cornet; Clint Baker, trombone; Natalie Scharf, clarinet; Charles Chen, piano; Jacob Alspach, banjo; Bill Reinhart, string bass; Hal Smith, drums/leader; T.J. Muller, vocal.
I love this performance of the 1925 hit, A CUP OF COFFEE, A SANDWICH, AND YOU (music by Joseph Meyer; clever lyrics by Al Dubin, who enjoyed his food perhaps to excess, and perhaps some wayward ideas by Billy Rose).
Dave Kosmyna, cornet; Clint Baker, trombone; Natalie Scharf, clarinet; Charles Chen, piano; Jacob Alspach, banjo; Bill Reinhart, string bass; Hal Smith, drums/leader; T.J. Muller, vocal.
The performance by the Telegraph Avenue Jazz Band reminds us, or at least me, that what we call “traditional jazz” or “classic jazz” was once performed for dancers. So this COFFEE is at an easy stepping tempo, nothing rushed or in boldface, the band’s tone dictated by Dave Kosmyna’s terse but lyrical lead, Natalie Scharf’s delicate melodic improvisation, with the rhythm section taking neat bites of the sandwich and sipping the hot coffee decorously.
The other songs on this digital issue are Sweet Lovin’ Man / Terrible Blues / Charleston / Muddy Water / Down Among The Sheltering Palms / At The Christmas Ball / Who’s It? — a pleasing offering of pop songs, jazz classics, and more, however you wish to define the music.
I never talk about prices, but since this is the holiday season and everything has a price tag, I will note that one can purchase the digital download from bandcamp.com for a pittance of eight dollars. I don’t know what economics-data-driven scale you measure cost by, but in my world both the lunch special at the Chinese takeout (broccoli with garlic sauce, spicy, and brown rice) of that New York standard, bacon-egg-and-cheese-on-a-roll-with-or-without-catsup, are both more than eight dollars these days. They’re both delicious, and they disappear in minutes. The CD is also delicious . . . and you know the rest.
Yes, such things happened. Improvisations both subtle and intense. And here is the evidence to prove it, from Jazz at Chautauqua, Chautauqua, New York. September 18, 1999.
The creators are Scott Hamilton, Ken Peplowski, tenor saxophones; Dick Hyman, piano; Howard Alden, guitar; Jay Leonhart, double bass; John Von Ohlen, drums. JOHNNY COME LATELY / TOO LATE NOW (Ken) / WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM / SKYLARK (Scott) / BLUES UP AND DOWN //
Of course we owe everything to the musicians, but the occasion was created and the performance was preserved because of jazz enthusiast and producer Joe Boughton. It is shared here through the kindness of Sarah Boughton Holt and Bill Boughton:
I’ve heard inventive swinging jazz like this all my life on records. But to see it created, fresh and fervent, in front of an audience, without retakes or studio-alterations, is the deepest pleasure.
So much has been written about Benjamin David Goodman, including a superb screenplay, that I declare a prose holiday. I write only this. How fortunate we are that he and a clarinet found each other in Chicago, that he loved to play, and kept doing so until the end.
And let us thank Bobby Hackett, not only for glorious playing and keeping things on track, but for recording the music that follows on his Tandberg tape recorder. Never was a “hobby” such a beneficence.
Benny Goodman, clarinet; Bobby Hackett, trumpet; George Masso, trombone; Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar; John Bunch, piano; Peter Appleyard, vibraphone; Slam Stewart, double bass; Joe Corsello, drums. South Yarmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, August 12, 1973. The tape I possess offers these excerpts from the concert:
UNDECIDED / THE GOOD LIFE (Bobby) / A SMOOTH ONE / THE ONE I LOVE (Masso) / ROSE ROOM / DON’T BE THAT WAY – STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY / THE DUKE (Bunch) / MEMORIES OF YOU / POOR BUTTERFLY / MISTY (Bucky – Bobby) / IF I HAD YOU / BEI MEIR BIS DU SCHOEN / INDIANA / I’M COMIN’ VIRGINIA / GOOD-BYE / applause / THAT’S A-PLENTY //
In mid-December, the volume level of advertising rises to a collective howl. Whether you are celebrating the winter solstice, Hanukah, the end of the semester, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or something else, you’re encircled by guilt-inducing ads for “that special someone.” Bathrobes. Scarves. Pears in tissue paper.
I’ve never done a JAZZ LIVES holiday list, but six CDs I admire greatly are in view, so here is my brief Gift Guide for people who thrive on inventive heartfelt music. Alphabetical order, no ranking.
JOSH COLLAZO’S JAZZBOREE — “a band of merry players”!
I know Josh as a wonderful swinging drummer, a warm-hearted team player, and an engaging intuitive composer of hummable songs. His original compositions are full of small surprises, and they stick very comfortably in the mental jukebox. JAZZBOREE is his new band, and this CD shows off some truly inventive players: Marc Caparone, Nate Ketner, Riley Baker, Carl Sonny Leyland, Sam Rocha, and Josh.
Here’s CAROUSEL, which to me is ten pounds of groove in a sandwich-size Ziplock. Available as CD, “vinyl,” or download at bandcamp.com.
Colin Hancock’s Jazz Hounds featuring Catherine Russell, CAT & THE HOUNDS (Turtle Bay Records)
Colin and Catherine take us on a brightly-colored tour of the Black music of the Twenties: dance numbers, saucy vaudeville routines, sly love songs, and the occasional downhearted lament. It’s a wholly entertaining pageant of sounds and feelings, and their effort to reset the compass, to return the music to its authentic selves. (Brilliant deep notes by Colin.) The rousing band is, along with Colin and Catherine, Dion Tucker, Evan Christopher, Jerron Paxton, Jon Thomas, Ahmad Johnson, Kerry Lewis, and Vince Giordano. For her part, Catherine could sing the menu at the local Chinese takeout and we would order everything, enchanted. Here’s YOU’VE GOT EVERYTHING A SWEET MAMA NEEDS BUT ME. I delight in imagining ELEVATOR PAPA, SWITCHBOARD MAMA as an essential addition to the holiday soundtrack. Available in the three forms above at turtlebayrecords.com or bandcamp.com.
This is a lively cohesive unit, everyone deeply aware of each song’s background and performance conventions. But they don’t “play old records live”; rather they are enthusiastic individualists. They are having fun and their audiences at Birdland (where they have a steady weekly gig and where this CD was recorded) are also. This single disc shows off the depth of their repertoire: Jelly Roll Morton, Freddie Keppard, a New Orleans funeral, venerable pop tunes, dance hall standards, a nod to San Francisco jazz, and more. HERE COMES THE HOT TAMALE MAN is properly spicy, and the band passes my test for this number when we hear, “Red hot!” “That’s what!” If band members don’t know to do that, send them back to the woodshed. These inspired musicians are Simon Wettenhall, Conal Fowkes, Harvey Tibbs, Tom Abbott, Josh Dunn, Brian Nalepka, and Kevin Dorn. Get it at bandcamp.com.
The word I have for double bassist-composer Neal Miner is eloquent, although he is cheerfully modest and self-deprecating. But a Miner solo often reminds me of Churchill inspiring the British on BBC in 1940. Not loud or oratorical, but focused and deeply communicative. And his compositions have some of the same quality. INVISIBILITY is his seventh CD as a leader, the latest in that consistently rewarding series. Chris Byars and Jason Tiemann offer contrapuntal frolics, lullabies, midnight introspections, strolls and saunters, soundtracks for a yet-unshot film noir, love songs, conversations overheard at the diner, and more. The session has some of the playful seriousness I associate with chamber-jazz recordings by Lucky Thompson, Sonny Rollins, and Oscar Pettiford. Here’s one of my favorites, BLUE VIEW — to my ears, as if Strayhorn and Monk had collaborated. Find this disc at bandcamp.com.
Michael Kanan always offers deep emotion that murmurs. He has made a number of resonant sessions with his long-time colleague, vibraphonist Jorge Rossy, another quiet melodic engine, but this is their first recorded duet, a meeting of kindred souls. SOMEWHERE is a lovely example of what these two masters of emotion do: for those who know WEST SIDE STORY, this performance so deeply evokes hope with an undercurrent of melancholy. I selected that track because I had made my own rule: only one performance per disc, but I played all of RED ON MAROON with awe, wanting to post every note, and finally resigning myself to the final track. Tony and Maria agreed. Incidentally, the elegantly vibrating cover art is by the splendid double bassist Stephanie Greig. This session is available at bandcamp.com.
Angela’s singing always feels so unaffected; each song feels like an unexpected phone call from a dear faraway friend. Tenderness is her native soundtrack, but on some performances she sounds as if she is about to burst into laughter and is containing it, barely, until the last note is sounded. Pianist Ray Gallon is a superb accompanist in the great line of Ellis Larkins and John Lewis: I found myself playing performances a second time, attempting to ignore Angela (nearly impossible) to concentrate on Ray’s dancing but never obtrusive lines. Of the eleven performances here, slightly less than half are her originals, which stand up solidly next to the great standards. Hear I’M 99% SURE OF YOU (co-written with Cathy Gyorgy) — honest and hilarious in the best Frishberg manner. I regret that AM radio and television variety shows have vanished: these performances would be pop hits, and that is not faint praise. Streaming in the expected places, and it can be purchased at Angela’s website.
If the list seems too short, here are four marvels I’ve already rhapsodized over: two books, two discs.
I know of no photographer who has photographed people as inwardly as Lisette Model. Berenice Abbott
Jazz aims straight at our ears. Since so much of the music we treasure comes to us on recordings, we are accustomed to receiving the delightful information in a visual void. (Live performances and the now-ubiquitous video-recordings are exceptions.)
But the eye thirsts for some ways to deepen the experience. Those who have record collections have spent their listening hours staring at photographs, each a foot square, that ornamented and deepened the experience. And since the Forties, books and magazines have offered photographs of fabled players and singers. But often those photographs have been restricted by convention and circumstance. How many portraits of women singers at the microphone, mouths unintentionally contorted, have we seen? How many trumpeters, cheeks bulging? How many tenor saxophonists in profile, how many trombonists, their faces half-obscured by the bell of the horn?
The photographs that stay longest in the memory tell deep stories: Louis Armstrong on the bus, half in another world and not too happy with the one surrounding him; Lester Young in his bedroom, trying to accept that someone with a camera has intruded; dancers at the Savoy Ballroom, aloft and grinning.
The photographer Lisette Model understood the possibilities and the limitations of the form, and found her own way in both cases. The new book, LISETTE MODEL: THE JAZZ PICTURES, edited by Audrey Sands with an original essay by Langston Hughes and an afterword by Loren Schoenberg (Eakins Press Foundation, $65) is a world between covers.
Model said of these photographs, “I was absolutely overwhelmed by jazz because I knew that was America. And that was something I really wanted to photograph.”
Some books of jazz photographs are burdened by commentary tone-deaf, inaccurate, or both. THE JAZZ PICTURES begins with a warm precise introduction to Model and her jazz work, more than seventy pages, written and researched by Audrey Sands. At every turn, Sands’ writing is sensitive, light-footed, and wise, navigating the double worlds of jazz and photography with grace. She does in words what Model does with her camera. When I reached Sands’ closing page, I felt satisfied: I’d already gotten my money’s worth, even though the photographs still lay before me. It is not often we encounter a writer so sympathetic and deft. (You may read more about her here — and I found out that her 2019 dissertation had Model as its subject. I hope that is another book on its own.)
The photographs by Model that illustrate Sands’ essay are completely remarkable because unformulaic (although I have seen other photographers attempting to copy it for themselves). Jazz is a way of communicating through vibrations wrapped in emotion, or the other way around. So Model’s photographs are sometimes consciously “unsharp,” the better to catch mobile energy. And although she created full-face portraits of Eddie Condon and Harry James, she is often focused on the rapt joyous audiences, reflecting the music in their faces and bodies.
Some jazz photographs are memorable primarily as documents of people we revere occupying the same space: I think of one of Milt Hinton’s photographs that presents Ben Webster and Pee Wee Russell as seated neighbors. But often such photographs do not compel us as art. Model’s work does. The book opens with a portrait of Ella Fitzgerald, standing, singing. We have seen countless photographs of Ella. But Model’s portrait is both photo-journalism and a vision of Ella as living sculpture, and that doubleness is entrancing.
The format of the book is at once inviting and practical. The photographs Model chose to print are presented full-size, one to a page. Her negatives have been printed as positive images, and are grouped as smaller but still eminently readable photographs on other pages. Looking at her images, I found myself wondering whether she was, at heart, a great painter, a novelist, or the head of an artistic detective agency. The majority of the photos capture musicians and audiences in action — what we call “candid” photography. But I felt, over and over, that “candid” really referred to its root in “candor,” that Model is first and foremost a truth-teller. Her photographs of Bud Powell in performance in 1957 are strongly revealing studies of the person and the performer.
Two other examples of Model unearthing something as deep as any biography or perhaps extended psychoanalysis will suffice. A good number of photographs of Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars summon up the joyous energies of that band: Louis grinning, Velma Middleton powerfully gesturing. But looking more closely, one sees, now and again, that Louis’ eyes are sharp, even cold and assessing: performance of his music was a life-and-death matter to him, and every thirty-second note mattered more than we knew, behind the jolly visage. Another trumpeter, Miles Davis, is seen at his ease. Or so one might think. Although his body is relaxed, he is watchful, a sentry on duty among possible enemies. Model sees these depths and shares them with us.
The book contains too many delights and surprises to list here. Not every musician of renown from 1954-1959 appears, but Model’s fascination with jazz was expansive and free from ideological accretions. So we see Zutty Singleton, Gene Sedric, and Vic Dickenson at Central Plaza; we see Teddy Wilson and Jutta Hipp at the Newport Jazz Festival. We find both Toshiko Akiyoshi and Dizzy Gillespie with cameras, his a fine Rolleiflex. We peer in at Erroll Garner, Paul Chambers, Wilbur Ware. We visit Maely Dufty’s house to witness Billie Holiday rehearsing new material; we catch her on the telephone and perhaps we overhear her conversation; we see Herbie Nichols leaning against the stove in the Dufty kitchen. At Music Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts, Willie “the Lion” Smith plays piano for Charles Mingus and Oscar Pettiford. Many have heard the Atlantic recording of a concert there, combining Rex Stewart, Pee Wee Russell, Pettiford, and Jimmy Giuffre: we can now gaze at Model’s photographs of that performance.
Even more rewarding to me are her photographs of audiences, occasionally with famous figures in the seats, John Hammond, Quincy Jones, Elaine and Louis Lorillard. More often the people captured are never to be known, but their faces tell all without words: women under ponchos in the rain at Newport, someone ecstatic, another woman in gloves, her hands protecting herself, whether cold or impatient to go home, we cannot know.
Many of the previously-unseen photographs are of Billie Holiday, looking more at ease and healthy than the famously unsparing studies of that decade. The last photographs are eerie: Model was given three minutes to photograph Lady Day in her coffin. I cannot describe that series; readers will find themselves both drawn in and wounded.
After that, no photographs could follow. The book concludes with prose: Langston Hughes’ brief playful rhapsody, “Jazz as Communication,” and Loren Schoenberg’s “Overtones,” which places Model in the larger world of the Fifties and in that decade’s jazz cosmos.
A personal note: some books, when I have finished an initial reading or inspection, I move to the bookcases, in hopes of future tidiness and order. I have immersed myself in that book’s experience, and for the moment, see no need to revisit it. I will not be shelving THE JAZZ PICTURES any time soon, because its pages reveal more on each visit. It will be a sustaining pleasure.
Obviously this book would please and enlighten any jazz enthusiast or youthful musician who wants to get under the surface of the sounds. It is also valuable as a political document of what was once repressed, and certainly as a collection of gorgeous photographs of a time and a place. (There are enough details of clothing and furniture to keep anyone, even someone uninterested in jazz, enthralled.)
If the recipient of this gift asks “Who’s that on the cover?” and has never heard of Bud Powell, no matter. Encourage them to turn to the inside front and back cover photographs of people so jubilant that we can hear their laughter, and they will begin the journey, happily following Model into a world she makes her own, while inviting us to visit.
I use the present tense in my title because Model’s photographs are alive. This beautiful book is no museum.
And at a time when gorgeous large-format books like this are often priced, of necessity, in three figures, this one is a bargain. You will have enough money left over to snag a lovely (perhaps secondhand) wooden coffee table to hold it.
It’s been a long time since I heard a CD as endearing as this. “Endearing” isn’t common praise in CD reviews, but this one deserves that adjective and more.
I have to go back in time. More than fifty years ago, I fell in love with the recordings Billie Holiday made with Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, Bennie Morton, Buck Clayton, and other deities. They came out in seven lps on the Columbia label, more than a hundred songs, and each performance delivered the best kind of shock. I listened in delighted amazement, feeling (although I didn’t put it into words) “Is this possible? Could this have happened, and, better yet, can I hear it again?” Each three-minute experience was a door into magic, a place where emotion and irresistible swing were the common language. If you think I exaggerate, at your leisure, go back and listen to those records, for the first time or the thousandth, and feel them coursing through you.
I felt the same way while listening to the self-produced CD you see above, a live concert bringing together the singer / violinist Heather Stewart, the tenor saxophonist Nicolas Montier, and “3 for Swing”: guitarist / singer Christophe Davot, pianist / leader Jacques Schneck, and double bassist Laurent Yanhee.
Before you toss your drink to the ground and close your laptop in horror: “Is Michael saying that this new CD is ‘as good as’ those classic recordings? I hope he’s getting paid well for such hyperbole!” I tell you that this new CD creates the same effect as those great recordings of 1935-41, and I assure you that I don’t mean imitation. Imitation is suicide, as Emerson wrote.
But what Heather, Nicolas, Christophe, Jacques, and Laurent do — live and in concert, thus no punches, inserts, or autotune — is to deliver a series of sweetly audacious performances, each gratifying in its own way.
For those of you who delight in “Sounds Like,” I can tell you that Heather has listened hard to Billie, Mildred, Ella, and Stuff; Nicolas is a whole Ellington reed section on tenor: Ben, the Rabbit, and Gonsalves; Jacques, Laurent, and Christophe summon up Basie, Nat, Rowles, John Lewis, Christian, Oscar Moore, Blanton, and more. Butthey are themselves, which is the point of the whole enterprise. It’s one thing to have the glowing shades of your heroes standing behind you, shedding their divine light; it’s another thing, and an annoying one, to try to be the record you have listened to so many times. Our heroes, in the afterlife, are laughing at such impersonations, even when created with the most loving intentions.
Enough words? I agree. Some musical evidence, please.
LITTLE WHITE LIES, with the verse and a second set of lyrics, both new to me:
THAT AIN’T RIGHT:
Heather sounds particularly lovely in this context, full of feeling yet understated, never missing a cue, always honoring the song. And her violin work is such a pleasure. 3 for Swing takes its inspiration from the early Nat Cole trios, but they are not clones. Nicolas Montier always surprises in the nicest ways. The whole recording is both emotionally intense — unabashed gaiety, sly wit, sentiment without melodrama — and I felt as if I was hearing some venerable songs with decades of accretion removed.
I wanted to post another half-dozen tracks, but since this is a self-produced CD, I wanted the artists to get some appropriate recompense. Right now, it isn’t on Spotify or other streaming media. You can, however, purchase an actual compact disc direct from 3 for Swing. Price is 20, either USD or euro. Send inquiries to 3forswing.schneck@gmail.com.
We were in France last month, and I hadn’t heard the CD. If I had . . . I vow I would have paid Jacques for forty copies and set up my own JAZZ LIVES lemonade stand to make sure my US friends could share in the beauty. But you all will have to self-actualize on your own. I promise you will feel rewarded.
And if you are in France on December 18, you can see and hear them live. Details here. Tell them JAZZ LIVES sent you! (Or don’t, if you aren’t the forward type.)
The CD is such a rewarding creation: it’s an uplifting reminder of what is possible in music when you combine like-minded gifted artists and encourage them to be their most relaxed selves. Thank you, Jacques, Christophe, Laurent, Heather, Nicolas, and the people who made the concert happen. You have given us a gift greater than you know.
Earlier this month, in the grip of whimsy and curiosity, I set up a small game or quiz. I posted two solos by a professional jazz drummer, no amateur, without naming the person, the date, or the occasion. I was hoping that my readers were as wise as I think they are.
Three people identified the musician without hesitation, and one sharp-eared reader heard that the performances were in stereo, which meant they would have been recorded no earlier than 1957. Others took what they thought were educated guesses, none correct but all enthusiastic. Some praised him; others thought he wasn’t very good.
I will now pull back the curtain to reveal, not a frost-free refrigerator, but the identity of this musician: Benjamin “Buzzy” Drootin, born in the Ukraine c. 1920, died 2000. Many of his associations were with Ruby Braff, Eddie Condon, Sidney Bechet, George Wein, Vic Dickenson, but he also recorded with Serge Chaloff:
Charlie Parker loved his playing. (Now you know the origin of Bird’s BUZZY.) I realize I am doing the debatable thing here of establishing a pre-Coltrane musician as somehow “important” by saying he also had associations with more “modern” types, but for some, that gambit is necessary.
Buzzy was a thoroughly original player, with his own sonic orchestra, a style that he sustained no matter what the context, and (to me and a few others) a completely recognizable sound. Ride cymbal, assertive rimshots, a growling enthusiastic accompaniment, a ferocious pulse. None of that polite padding-along-with-brushes-stroking-the-snare for our Benjamin: he came to play, and you couldn’t ignore him. I saw him a number of times in the summer of 1972, and he never coasted, never pulled worn tricks from a bag of drum cliches. I regret I was too timid to approach him, but I admired him for his musical personalities.
If my experiment is an accurate measure, he is marginalized beyond belief.
Here he is on film and in color: probably in the Seventies, with Wild Bill Davison, cornet; Bill Allred, trombone; Chuck Hedges, clarinet; Bob Pillsbury, piano; Jack Lesberg and another, string bass. The songs I’ve chosen to show him off are AVALON and STRUTTIN’ WITH SOME BARBECUE. (For those enticed, I’ve posted the whole session on YouTube under the same title.) Hear how he drives the ensemble, how he anticipates and responds. A master of glorious propulsive noises:
If you think I am overstating the case for Buzzy, let me bring in some authorities, people who know.
First, Dan Morgenstern:
and drummer-scholar Kevin Dorn:
and
Why isn’t Buzzy known and remembered? And there are a thousand other fine musicians who are never written about. The reasons have nothing to do with musical merit.
I have written elsewhere about the Star System in the arts, not only in jazz. I don’t know whether it’s the limits of our collective ability to absorb and retain information, or it is a function of “the media,” publicizing some at the expense of others. But it feels as if the collective has only limited space for a small number of people to praise, unless, of course, we are speaking of movie stars or celebrated athletes. In jazz, it seems as if there is only room for three trumpet players, two saxophonists, four pianists . . . you get the idea. Everyone else is waiting in the dust for the Bus to Acknowledgment to pick them up.
The casual jazz listener has shrunk the pantheon over the years. Trumpet? Miles or perhaps Louis. Saxophone? Coltrane or Bird. And thus the casual listener, faced with a playful quiz like this, makes quick assumptions. Extended drum solo? It must be Buddy Rich. Never mind that Buzzy sounds nothing like Buddy; it’s a long solo, so Buddy’s is the first and sometimes the only name to come to mind.
And here the ideological ice may become thinner. Pre-Coltrane jazz, again to the casual listener, might as well be Palestrina: at best, acknowledged in one sentence but marginalized as ancient. And musicians are supposed to stay in their own personal stylistic tiny houses.
Buzzy Drootin was a jazz drummer. He had his own quirkily personal style. If you had time-traveled him into the Blue Note studios in 1963, he would have sounded perfectly at home on a Hank Mobley recording — that is, of course, if a listener was not so trapped by their assumptions of what jazz drumming on a Mobley record should sound like.
But Buzzy and many other memorable musicians have been pigeonholed and pushed aside for reasons of race and a name given to a style. Tactlessly, “white Dixieland,” which is seen as the province of amateurs in striped vests and straw boaters wandering through MACK THE KNIFE (reading it off their music) at someone’s eightieth birthday party. And jazz criticism, or what now passes for it, seems like the House Un-American Activities Committee.
“Sir, have you ever played ‘Dixieland?'”
“No, I play music.”
“I submit for your examination a phonograph record. Do you recognize it?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Would you describe it to the committee?”
“It’s my band, the Hot Seven.”
“Would you read the songs that your band recorded?”
“TIN ROOF BLUES, MUSKRAT RAMBLE, BLUES MY NAUGHTY SWEETIE GAVE TO ME – – -.”
“That will be all. Bailiff, take this man into custody.”
It’s a pity. If we are able to actually listen to the music, when it is played with invention and emotional depth, it sounds timeless. It stirs us.
Your life-homework? Search out those players who aren’t in the pantheon. Your ears will reward you.
Jim Dapogny left this neighborhood on March 6, 2019, and what follows comes from the last time I saw him. He was a hero to me: a surprising man, generous and sly, and a musician who loved to explore possibilities others hadn’t envisioned.
He is here, intact: the roving musical imagination, the sly wit, the life-long immersion in music played, considered, and loved. The surprising chords, the unexpected rhythms, the ascending octaves, the unpredictable shapes he created.
James Dapogny at Jazz at Chautauqua, September 2014.
The songs are, as Jim explains, his own WHOLE CLOTH BLUES, Jelly Roll Morton’s BERT WILLIAMS, a Fats Waller medley of I’VE GOT A FEELING I’M FALLING, KEEPIN’ OUT OF MISCHIEF NOW, IF IT AIN’T LOVE, HONEYSUCKLE ROSE, a reprise of FALLING, and William H. Tyers’ MAORI.
Jim took a sizable chunk of the universe with him when he went offstage. This half-hour recital is a dear thing, a fragment I can shore up against my sense of loss. But it could never be enough.
I don’t always use the word “thrilling” for music, but that was just right for the concert given by composer-arranger Max Seigel with his Nonet at St. John’s Lutheran Church Saturday night.
Photograph by Nathan Tokunaga.
The Nonet shares its instrumentation with the famous “Birth of the Cool” group, but it is neither a tribute band or a repertory orchestra playing the 1949-50 arrangements. Rather, it is a startlingly fine orchestral canvas for Max Seigel’s expansive imagination and the talents of New York City’s first-call players: Scott Wendholt, trumpet; Jay Rattman, alto saxophone; Eric Davis, French horn; Matt McDonald, trombone; Frank Basile, baritone saxophone; Marcus Rojas, tuba; Leo Genovese, piano; Scott Ritchie, double bass; Paul Francis, drum set; Max Seigel, compositions and arrangements.
I asked Max about the group’s origin, This nonet came about after Covid. The first live music that I went to hear out and about again after lockdown was my friend Joe Policastro’s “Mulligan Mosaics” nonet in Chicago. They were playing the original Birth of the Cool arrangements and it was fantastic to hear that sound live as opposed to the recordings that I grew up listening to. I decided to send Joe an arrangement. After starting with one, it led to 30 charts now for the band with me wondering why the original nonet only existed for a year or two back in 1949-50. We play maybe 3 or 4 times a year. We have played at the Deer Head Inn many times as well as single engagements at Smalls, Ornithology, and the Jazz Gallery here in NYC. One of these days I hope to record the band, but funding is not there right now.
Any record company executives reading this now? We can hope.
Meanwhile, here are three performances from last night’s concert. Thanks to Janet Sora Chung and St. John’s Lutheran Church for making this wonderful explosion possible. Max’s TENTH DIMENSION; Bunny Wailer’s REINCARNATED SOULS; the Thirties classic THESE FOOLISH THINGS:
I left the concert feeling that Max’s Nonet could do anything, with vigor, grace, and surprise. Except, of course, they can’t be dull or predictable. Leave that to others.
How to make the familiar come alive is the task artists face. An apple and a pear on a table in light and shadow: how to make us see this scene as if generations have not attempted to portray it before. Here’s a song, famous for eighty-plus years: how to make us hear and feel it as if it were new?
Daunting, but Dawn Lambeth does it here with I GOT IT BAD (And That Ain’t Good).
I’ve admired Dawn‘s singing for more than fifteen years now. She keeps finding emotional depths in her songs, always at a lightly swinging tempo. No tricks, no ego-displays: the music is always to the forefront, and her gently clear readings of lyrics are a delight.
She’s accompanied most feelingly here by Marc Caparone, trumpet; Riley Baker, trombone; Jacob Zimmerman, clarinet and alto saxophone; Duke Robillard, guitar; Chris Dawson, piano; Jake Sanders, guitar; Sam Rocha, double bass; Josh Collazo, drums.
Dawn also has a wonderful new CD out, I GET IDEAS, which I wrote about here. It is a basket of pleasures.
She will be singing at the San Diego Jazz Party in February 2026 and at the Redwood Coast Music Festival as well as having frequent gigs in the Central Coast area of California: her current schedule can be found here.
She’s the real thing, someone we cherish.
And for those who would like to read more about Dawn and her esteemed friends at the October Redwood Coast Music Festival, my review (with photographs) can be found here.
I’m fascinated by the Star System in jazz (and any other art): who is celebrated, who is forgotten. I am considering starting a society for the restoration of the forgotten, although I don’t like any of the acronyms, and in some ways, JAZZ LIVES has been doing this for eighteen years next February.
Recently I offered an audio excerpt from a fine jazz drummer and asked my readers to identify the person.
Two people, friends of mine who play drums and study drums, got the answer immediately, but they were disqualified from the start.
What about you, students of the art? This isn’t a trick question.
Here’s another offering, same performance:
Here’s Exhibit A, posted a few days ago.
I know my readers are erudite deep listeners, both by their appreciative responses and (less often) their eagerness to point out perceived inaccuracies. I thought I would offer this quiz or test, all in fun with no prize except satisfaction, to see how well and deeply my readers have delved.
[Note: a stock illustration not related to the performance under consideration.]
Here’s a beautiful sustained drum solo. The creator? North American, known for their jazz drumming. A live gig. Now, for those who wish to venture: identify the drummer, and, more importantly, say WHY you think so. When the answers abate, I will repost with the answer.
Ready?
Note: So far, readers here and on YouTube have identified the performer as Gene Krupa, Jo Jones, Buddy Rich, Sidney Catlett, Roy Haynes, Ray Bauduc, Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, Gary Burghoff, Paul Barbarin, Panama Francis, Joe Ascione, Billy Higgins. Keep listening!
Natalie Scharf has got it all: amazing technical proficiency, soulful energies, and her own distinct individuality, even when she is paying tribute to tenor saxophone ancestors and recordings that we know by heart. She remains herself, elegantly gutty, never becoming a repeater pencil.
At Whitley Bay, she was asked to pay tribute to tenor saxophonists of the Thirties, but her evocations of Lester Young, Benny Carter, Bud Freeman, and Coleman Hawkins are not note-for-note copies, but remarkable dramatic creations. It’s as if she invites us to her house and says, “Yes, Benny Carter lived here for years, and I think of it as his house, but my name is on the mailbox.”
Most often Natalie is an indispensable member of Andy Schumm’s Chicago Cellar Boys or Paul Asaro and his Rhythm, but we are fortunate to have almost a half-hour of Ms. Scharf out in the open, leading a marvelous rhythm quartet of David Boeddinghaus, piano; Felix Hunot, guitar; Harry Evans, double bass; Josh Duffee, drums. The songs are (bravely) OH, LADY BE GOOD / IF I COULD ONLY READ YOUR MIND / THE EEL / YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME / BODY AND SOUL / JAMAICA SHOUT:
The excellent video was created by my friend Christer Jonsson, and many more can be seen on his YouTube channel, CANDCJ – YouTube. Hooray for these musicians, the festival, and for the chance to see such inspiring hot sounds.
And we look forward to more of Natalie, playing music associated with no one but herself.
I know my readers are erudite deep listeners, both by their appreciative responses and (less often) their eagerness to point out perceived inaccuracies. I thought I would offer this quiz or test, all in fun with no prize except satisfaction, to see how well and deeply my readers have delved.
[Note: a stock illustration not related to the performance under consideration.]
Here’s a beautiful sustained drum solo. The creator? North American, known for their jazz drumming. A live gig. Now, for those who wish to venture: identify the drummer, and, more importantly, say WHY you think so. When the answers abate, I will repost with the answer.
Ready?
Note: So far, readers here and on YouTube have identified the performer as Gene Krupa, Jo Jones, Sidney Catlett, Roy Haynes, Ray Bauduc, Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, Gary Burghoff, Paul Barbarin, Panama Francis, Joe Ascione. Keep listening!
Vic Dickenson was never on lists of great male romantic balladeers, which proves only that he didn’t have enough opportunities to show off his deep feeling. He loved to sing, but only in the right circumstances. Often the crowd wanted SOUTH RAMPART STREET PARADE rather than a ballad, or someone in the rhythm section didn’t know the way. He was often typecast as a musical comedian whose specialty was unspoken double-entendre, but he was a true romantic, and it came through when he sang.
Whether Vic became attached to YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU from seeing Judy Garland sing it as a love letter to Clark Gable, or if he heard it in THE JOLSON STORY, I don’t know. He was recorded (officially) a half-dozen times between 1946 and 1979 choosing it as a solo feature, and he was recorded informally, by people like me, playing it another seventeen times. (All of this is documented in the late Manfred Selchow’s wonderful book, DING! DING!, a bio-disocgraphy of Vic.)
But this is the only recorded performance of the Monaco-McCarthy musical bouquet on which Vic sings as well as playing his horn. It comes from the Count Basie alumni small group, the COUNTSMEN, supervised by Phil Schaap. I never asked Phil why the apostrophe was missing, and I can’t now. They performed in New Jersey on March 31, 1974, with a rhythm section of Marty Napoleon, piano; Franklin Skeete, double bass; Jo Jones, drums. (The other members of the group were Doc Cheatham, Buddy Tate, and Earle Warren.)
I ask you to clear your ears and mind and heart for the next six minutes, to fully absorb the love that Vic is sending out into the world. It is a transformative experience for those who hear and feel. And I dedicate this post to Dan Morgenstern, Harriet Choice, Mike Burgevin, Manfred Selchow, and anyone else who loves Vic.
Some of you will, I hope, recognize the man on the left, Vic’s friend and trombone colleague, Bennie Morton, one of the most gentle men in music. The photograph was taken in 1982, and it comes from the Buck Clayton Archives at UKMC Digital Collections. Although the photographer is not credited, I think it was Nancy Miller Elliot.
But such details matter far less than the magic of hearing Vic Dickenson play and sing of love, and, in doing so, embrace us. His musical friends said that Vic didn’t like to talk much (the rare times I heard him introduce a song bear this out) but he opened his heart in song.
And since there are so few photographs of Vic without a trombone obscuring his face, I offer two more rare poses from the Clayton collection.
1964, on a plane to California (the first stop on Eddie Condon’s tour of Australia and Japan):
and 1975:
My feelings about Vic — who I first heard in childhood on Louis’ SUGAR — go beyond words. I hope my admiration and affection come through here.
JAZZ LIVES 