ONCE RARE, NOW HERE: LOU McGARITY and FRIENDS, 1955

 Trombonist and very occasional violinist and singer Lou McGarity, who died in 1971, was both reliable and inspiring.  I think I first heard him on recordings with Eddie Condon, with Lawson-Haggart, and with a wild 1941 Goodman band that included Mel Powell, Billy Butterfield, and Sidney Catlett, who gave McGarity the most extravagant backing.  Lou was a delightful presence, someone who could electrify a performance with a shouting yet controlled eight bars.  I also gather from his discography that he was an expert section player and reader, for many of his sessions have him surrounded by other trombonists.  But Lou very rarely got to lead a session on his own aside from two late-Fifties ones.

He traveled in very fast company, though, as in this gathering at the Ertegun party, held at the Turkish Embassy in 1940.  (Photo by William P. Gottlieb):

Let us have a long pause to imagine what that band sounded like, and to lament that it wasn’t recorded.

But onwards to 1955.  I imagine that someone at M-G-M, not the most jazzy of labels, decided that it would be a good idea to have some “Dixieland” to compete with the product that other labels were making money on.  I don’t know who arranged this session (Leroy Holmes? Hal Mooney?) but McGarity was an unusual choice: a thorough professional with fifteen years’ experience, however with no name recognition as a leader.  Was he chosen as nominal leader because he wasn’t under contract to any other label or leader?  And, to make the session more interesting, the four titles are all “originals,” suggesting that M-G-M wanted to publish the compositions themselves or, at the very least, pay no royalties for (let us say) MUSKRAT RAMBLE.  I’d guess that the compositions and arrangements were by the very talented Bill Stegmeyer.

Most of the personnel here is connected, on one hand, to Eddie Condon sessions of the Fifties, on the other to the Lawson-Haggart Jazz Band. There’s Lou, Yank Lawson, both Peanuts Hucko and Bill Stegmeyer on reeds, Gene Schroeder, Jack Lesberg, and Cliff Leeman.  And here’s the music.  I say gently that it is more professional than explosive, but I delight in hearing it, and hope you will too.

MOBILE MAMA:

NEW ORLEANS NIGHTMARE:

BANDANNA:

BIRMINGHAM SHUFFLE (not SUFFLE as labeled here):

A mystery solved, with pleasing results.

May your happiness increase!

“IT’S IN THE GROOVE,” or FORTY-FIVE SECONDS WITH EDDIE CONDON (1949)

If you were to take all the video footage of Eddie Condon and his bands before the early 1960s, it wouldn’t add up to an hour, and that is sad.  But this clip from a 1949 March of Time short just came up on YouTube thanks to “pappyredux,” and although I’ve seen it before, it is delightful. 

BILLBOARD’s reviewer disliked “IT’S IN THE GROOVE” and seemed bored by the shallow coverage of the history of records offered in its eighteen minutes, I don’t share that negative opinion at all: 

The actual date for this rehearsal is unknown, although a version of this assemblage — identified on the labels of the Atlantic 78 as “Eddie Condon and His N.B.C. Television Orchestra” recorded four sides for that company on May 25, 1949.  The reference to television is of course to the Eddie Condon Floor Show.  And it is tragic but true that no kinescopes of those shows have ever surfaced: we are lucky to have as much audio from those shows as we do (even though little of it ever made its way to CD — my collection exists on cassette tapes and five records issued on the Italian Queen-Disc label). 

On two of the Atlantic sides, recorded on May 29, 1949 in New York City, the band played rather undistinguished scored background (arranged by Dick Cary, I would guess) for the new singer Ruth Brown — those titles are IT’S RAINING and SO LONG.  The recording band was composed of Bobby Hackett, trumpet; Will Bradley, trombone; Dick Cary, Eb alto horn; Peanuts Hucko, clarinet; Ernie Caceres, baritone sax; Joe Bushkin, piano; Eddie Condon,guitar; Jack Lesberg, bass; Sidney Catlett, drums. 

The other two sides (a 78 I now have in my collection again, thanks to David Weiner and Amoeba Music) are SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES — identified in a subtitle as the theme for Arthur Godfrey’s television show — and a fast blues seated midway between Basie and late Goodman, called TIME CARRIES ON, a nod to the MARCH OF TIME.  Eddie and friends had recorded for Decca a slow blues theme — their version of DEEP HARLEM, retitled IMPROVISATION FOR THE MARCH OF TIME, so I suspect Atlantic wanted a similar recording.  The Erteguns were deep into what we would call the best small-band swing, and I wish only that they had signed Eddie up for record session after record session.  Herb Abramson told Chip Deffaa a story that suggests that this whole session was the idea of Condon’s friend, the indefatigable publicist Ernie Anderson, and that the two vocal sides launched both Ruth Brown and Atlantic Records.  I wonder myself whether Condon was temporarily released from his contract with Decca Records (overseen by Milt Gabler) to make this session, or whether Decca hadn’t signed another contract with the musicians’ union after the 1948 recording ban.

But all this historical rumination matters less than what we see here.  For me, it took a few serious episodes of staring-at-the-screen to get past the newsreel touches (the overly serious voice of the narrator, the animated stack of discs growing larger, then the large-print display of one statistic (a repetitive tendency predating Power Point by sixty years).  Then, after a visual reminder of Atlantic Records — the disc on the turntable (yes, try this out at home), we are in a quite small room, microphones visible but pushed aside, two soda bottles on the piano — an oddity, perhaps. 

Everyone is arranged around the piano for a rehearsal of TIME CARRIES ON, a fast blues with arranged passages, riffs, and a four-bar drum break at the end.  However, Lesberg seems hidden to the right, and I would not swear that I hear either Cary or Caceres . . . were they added only for deeper background harmonies on SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES?

The music seems reasonably well synchronized with the film, suggesting that the players were not miming to a prerecorded soundtrack.  Great things happen: we can hear and see Eddie playing the guitar; his bowtie is especially beautiful.  (Hucko’s necktie is superb as well.) 

The players are so tidily attired in business attire that Hackett’s black or dark blue shirt comes as a small shock; we expect drummers to dress more casually, so Rich’s open-necked shirt is not surprising.  The music is hot but insufficient . . . but after the audible splice (or jump from one passage to another) we have a chorus that seems reasonably free-wheeling. 

Readers of JAZZ LIVES have long understood my deification of Sidney Catlett, and I am glad that he is on the record to play his own four-bar break, but I lament that he is not here.  It is possible that he was on the road with Louis Armstrong and that Rich made the film shoot, or (heresy according to my lights) that Rich was the drummer of choice and he couldn’t make the record date.  Buddy, by the way, plays splendidly on many of the Condon Floor Shows. 

It’s not a Town Hall Concert or a 1949 kinescope, but it is a wonderful glimpse into a world we would not other have seen had the March of Time people not wanted to array a variety of live musical groups to depict its own version of the history of recorded music.

I CAN HEAR THIS NOW

An extraordinary trio — captured on a still photograph but not (alas) at a recording session.  I think the stage was at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., before 1941 — at one of the concerts staged by the Ertegun brothers, Ahmet and Nesuhi.

And the players?  Joe Marsala, Zutty Singleton, Teddy Wilson.  What an answer to the Goodman Trio and the Shaw Gramercy Five . . . !

HOT JAZZ FOR SALE: HOLLYWOOD’S “JAZZ MAN” RECORD SHOP

That’s the title of an irresistible new book by Cary Ginell.

If I’m going to spend time with a new jazz book, I want it to be original, not a recycling of other writers.  An ideal book is full of first-hand narrative, it’s well-documented, without a limiting ideology, enjoyably written, full of surprises.

Ginell’s book was particularly interesting to me because I knew something about West Coast jazz (the pre-Chet Baker variety) but not much about this fabled record shop.  From the years I spent in New York record stores, I know that each one was its own anthropological microcosm, an eccentric cosmos in itself.  So I was prepared to learn a great deal about this manifestation of jazz culture when I opened this book.

But I didn’t expect to enjoy myself quite so much.

On the surface, Ginell’s book is the story of a record shop — as it passes from one set of owners to another, a dozen moves, from 1939 to 1984.  But that record shop also had its own label, a spiritedly unusual clientele, and it was a thriving part of the West Coast jazz scene.

The book floats along from one first-hand story to another, and some famous names pass through its pages (not simply as casual mentions): Orson Welles, Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, Bunk Johnson, Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun, Dave Stuart, Don Brown, Lu Watters, Reb Spikes, Bill Russell, Marili Morden (the seductive although restrained amorous cynosure of the traditional scene), Duke Ellington, Turk Murphy, George Avakian, the Firehouse Five Plus Two, Joe Venuti, the Rolling Stones, Bukka White.

But some of the most satisfying moments are frankly impossible to imagine: the story of Stravinsky coming to the Jazz Man Record Shop, listening happily to King Oliver (and not buying anything).  The tale of Harry “the Hipster” Gibson and his son — the only anecdote in the world bringing “the Hipster” and “Hare Krishna” into the same paragraph.  And then there’s the terrible story of Don Brown, a Johnny Dodds’ Black Bottom Stompers record, and a hammer . . . avert your eyes.

Ginell is a clear, enthusiastic writer; his narrative moves eagerly along.  It’s clear he isn’t a chronicler-for-hire (we all know those people, who assemble the facts without having their heart in the subject); he is someone deeply involved in the shop, the music, and the scene from 1971 on.  But the book isn’t about him, nor is he trying to prove a particular point.

The book concludes with a useful bibliography, discography of the JAZZ MAN label, and an index.  It’s beautifully illustrated with clear reproductions of many rare photographs, advertising flyers, letters, and fascinating paper ephemera.

Better yet — in addition to the book, Ginell has put together a fine CD anthology — including Morton, Bunk, Watters, Johnny Lucas, Pud Brown, Ory, Pete Daily, Darnell Howard, Bukka White (a previously unissued recording), George Lewis, Joe Venuti, Jack Teagarden, Jess Stacy, and others.

I found the book / CD combination a delightful experience and predict that you will, too.  To purchase the book, you can visit http://www.lulu.com; for the CD by itself, visit http://www.originjazz.com (which has a link to Lulu), or contact the author directly at originjazz@aol.com.

And thanks to Bob Porter for pointing me to this book.

HIS FATHER’S VOICE

Even if you don’t know Sidney Catlett (1910-1951, possibly the greatest percussionist in jazz) and his living son — a famous basketball player — you owe it to yourself to read this very touching article about son and father finding one another in ways that transcend the ordinary. 

Here are two links to the Washington Post article — and jazz fans will find the name of the author a special bonus.  I’m going to go through my day hearing in my head the sound of Spencer Clark (bass saxophone) in a trio with Erroll Garner and Sidney. 

Imagine what it feels like to hear your father’s voice for the first time when you are in your fifties:

And Sidney’s musical voice still reverberates for the rest of us:

http://bit.ly/eROa0t

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40429/what-brought-big-sid-and-little-sid-catlett-together/

WHAT WOULD BIG SID DO?  ALL MONEY GOES TO THE MUSICIANS.

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