Jazz flourishes where you wouldn’t expect it, but always amidst its fervent supporters. What follows was the second half of an afternoon concert for the San Joaquin Dixieland Jazz Society, held at an Elks Lodge in Stockton, California. (I posted the first half some weeks back here.)
It was worth the drive to hear one of the bands most effectively committed to a style, a period, an energized way of playing: the music that Clarence Williams and friends made between the early Twenties and the middle Thirties.
The Black Diamond Blue Five was created almost two decades ago by the banjoist George Knoblauch, sadly no longer with us, and George’s friends carry on the hot, earnest, deeply felt tradition: Clint Baker, banjo, guitar, vocal; Leon Oakley, cornet; Robert Young, soprano / alto saxophone, vocal; Marty Eggers, piano; Bill Reinhart, tuba, and special guest Isabelle Fontaine, washboard, vocal.
Here’s a second helping of hot jazz, dance tunes, blues, serenades to imaginary figures, mildly naughty inventions, and more:
COME BACK SWEET PAPA:
FOUR OR FIVE TIMES:
I’M NOT ROUGH:
DREAMING THE HOURS AWAY:
EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY:
WEST END BLUES:
WAIT ‘TILL YOU SEE MY BABY DO THE CHARLESTON:
Two postscripts. The BDBF also appeared at the 2014 Cline Wine and Dixieland Festival, so more video performances will be gracing your screens before long. And this particular post was motivated by Andrew Jon Sammut’s offering on his THE POP OF YESTERCENTURY, where he focuses on the original Clarence Williams recordings of several of these songs.
Back by popular demand, as promised — solos played by Charles Ellsworth “Pee Wee” Russell. Several reed players found the previous Russell post intriguing and there has been an enthusiastic reaction to the most recent Eddie Miller interlude. So here are the complete Russell solos: consider them well. And then go for yourselves! As he always did.
Slow. Don’t rush.
Slow Swing!
Fast Swing!
At the end of the day, consider this:
Stick around, why don’t you?
A classic. Fast!
The Spanish tinge:
For the Barnharts, especially Anne:
When whip-poor-wills call:
And finally:
These are for Jeff in the UK, Stan, Ben, Hal, Andrew, and myself in the US. Anyone who can play these convincingly is encouraged to make a little video — we might like to hear them come to life.
Thanks to my sharp-eyed friend Andrew Jon Sammut*, I am now in possession of this Ancient Writ, the inexpensive pages a beguiling yellow. Its owner loved, used, and admired it: as the creases and fingermarks on the back show.
It allows us another way to experience — perhaps at a distance — the legerdemain of Pee Wee Russell.
Those of us who revere certain musicians know enough to be mildly suspicious of these folios. The more idiosyncratic a musician’s style, the less likely it could be reproduced as a series of notes on paper. Also, the “method books” that propose to be presenting solos performed by our heroes are often untrustworthy. Did Dave Tough or Cliff Edwards ever sit down to create the books that bear their imprimatur?
Apparently many famous “name” musicians were paid to come to a studio to record one-chorus solos on songs owned / published by Feist. The recorded solos were then transcribed and clarinet players (for instance) could have something they could read, study, copy, emulate. Some of this information is hypothesis; some of it is supported by the issuing, years ago (on one of Bozy White’s SHOESTRING vinyl records) of choruses recorded by Bunny Berigan for just this purpose. The pioneers in such endeavors were Red Nichols and Louis Armstrong.
This folio is not dated, but the one-page introduction refers to Pee Wee’s work with Eddie Condon, Bobby Hackett, and Bud Freeman, so I would place it no earlier than 1938 and perhaps more into the very early Forties. Whether it was connected to Charles Peterson’s famous photograph of Russell in LIFE I cannot say, but he surely was enjoying sufficient fame — as the antidote to Goodman and Shaw, perhaps? — to be awarded such an honor.
I am struck by how very uncomfortable Russell looks in his photograph: needing a haircut (or is it the shadow of the bright flashbulb?) and without a mustache. Perhaps the recordings were done in the morning, which might make any jazz musician look haunted, despairing:
And the main event:
I haven’t had the time even to try that on the piano, but it strikes me as quite simple — for the student clarinetist — one of those muttering-around-the-melody first choruses Russell loved so. How would the transcriber have notated the growls and surreal arching sounds that Pee Wee made? (Think of SERENADE TO A SHYLOCK, for example.) I don’t know, and perhaps it is best that the attempt was not made.
Here’s something that would elude all but the most subtle transcriber, Pee Wee’s solo (beginning at 1:30) on the 1936 Louis Prima CROSS PATCH, a marvel of sound:
To return to the All-Star Series of Modern Rhythm Choruses (ask for that at your local music shop in one breath!) I think it plausible that after Charles Ellsworth Russell recorded ten one-chorus solos, and was given (let us hope) fifty dollars at least in cash, he never thought of his morning in the studios again. But we, now, have another little sliver of Russell to consider into the twenty-first century.
I plan to pack this book with my clarinet — which I used to play quite amateurishly and now perhaps will sound even worse — to take to California. Whether my squeaks and moans will be my own or Russellian, I can’t say. But perhaps I can be inspired by his courage.
*Andrew wrote his own marvelous post on the Feist folio created by Buster Bailey here. As you’ll see, my effort above is what jazz critics would call “derivative” and “imitative”; I call it homage to an inspiring friend who is on the same path. And this post is for Stan Zenkov, another inspirer!
People who know me are often startled by the hours I spend in front of the computer, but if they knew what friendships and generosities I find there, they would be less appalled, or at least I hope so. Here are four blogs that will capture your attention for the best reasons, if you love this music.
My ebullient friend Ricky Riccardi has been writing and sharing music connected with Louis Armstrong for some years now, but just the other day he offered us an amazing treat: the earliest recordings we have (new discoveries) of live performance by Louis’ All-Stars, in Chicago, performing ROYAL GARDEN BLUES. The band — a heaven-sent ensemble — was Louis, Jack Teagarden, Barney Bigard, Dick Cary, Arvell Shaw, and Sidney Catlett. It’s a marvelously leisurely performance, full of controlled power and ease. Hear it here and read Professor Riccardi’s lively commentary.
My pal and colleague Andrew Jon Sammut has also been pedaling along in cyberspace, creating his own path, for some time now: enjoying “pop music” from several centuries, from Vivaldi to Venuti and back again. Here he shares his latest discovery with us — some music in a variety of forms from the much-respected yet often-undervalued clarinetist William C. “Buster” Bailey from Memphis, Tennessee.
David J. Weiner is a newcomer to the world of blogging but certainly not to the world of music. A generous humorous fellow who is erudite about a large variety of music, he never wields his knowledge violently. David (whom I first met before I had my driver’s license) has started a new blog, which he calls — in proper Millerite adulation — COMMUNITY SWING and its early entries have startling discoveries about Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, even Charles Ives. I’ve been enjoying it fervently.
And someone I’ve not met, James A. Harrod, has created a new blog devoted to the television program JAZZ SCENE USA, the mid-Fifties creation of Steve Allen. On it you can see information about television that will make you rethink Newton Minnow’s characterization of it as a “vast wasteland,” for Allen’s love for jazz reached from Ben Pollack to Jutta Hipp, which is admirable. Visithere for all of the good stuff.
Generous, informed, wise people — and they never tell us what they had for breakfast. I treasure them!
My friend and mentor Andrew and I have been having a conversation in cyberspace about the delicious unerring playing of drummer George Stafford. Stafford drove the Charlie Johnson orchestra, but he appeared on precious few recordings. Here’s a particularly brilliant one — led by the Blessed Eddie Condon — as “Eddie’s Hot Shots.” They were, and they are: Leonard “Ham” Davis, trumpet; Jack Teagarden, trombone and vocal; Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, C-melody saxophone; Happy Caldwell, tenor saxophone; Eddie, banjo; Joe Sullivan, piano; Stafford, drums.
This is the first take of I’M GONNA STOMP MR. HENRY LEE — part incitement to Dionysiac ecstasies, part ominous warning:
Please listen to Stafford! His rimshots behind the first ensemble chorus, lifting everything up — emphatic YESes all through; choke cymbal behind the earnest saxophone; pistol-shot rimshots all behind Teagarden’s singing; divine rattling and cackling on the wooden rims alongside Sullivan’s piano — excited commentaries; cymbal crashes and rolls into the final ensemble chorus, and a closing cymbal crash.
I am away from my books as I write this, so I cannot be sure, but I think Stafford died young — 1935? — which is a great sadness, although what he had to say to us was plenty. Priceless, I think.
As much as I revere Catlett, Jo, and Gene, I would make space in my own Directory of Percussive Saints for George Stafford. He goes right alongside Walter Johnson, Eddie Dougherty, O’Neil Spencer, and two dozen more. They made the earth move in the most graceful and exultant ways. Bless them.
P.S. I’M GONNA STOMP has four composers — Jack and Eddie, Eddie’s friend George Rubens, and the magically invisible pianist Peck Kelley. There’s a novel in itself . . .
JAZZ LIVES 