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.
May your happiness increase!
JAZZ LIVES 