This Town Hall concert was produced by Bob Maltz as a tribute to Baby Dodds, Eddie Edwards, and Tony Parenti. I don’t know how a recording of it was made (presumably on disc) but a copy came to me thanks to the late John L. Fell almost thirty-five years ago. (Two tracks have been issued on a CD included with their Tony Parenti book.) It’s time to share the music with people who might never have heard it otherwise: a cross-section of the jazz riches that were at hand in 1946, with veterans of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band still active.
Here are the details, which I find head-spinning.
ORIGINAL DIXIELAND ONE-STEP / talk: Eddie Edwards, trombone (and Tony Parenti, clarinet) and Maltz
FIDGETY FEET (NC): Marty Marsala, trumpet; Tony Parenti, Eddie Edwards, Joe Sullivan, piano; Tony Spargo, drums and kazoo on FIDGETY
DIPPERMOUTH BLUES (NC) / talk: Albert Nicholas, clarinet and Maltz
CLARINET MARMALADE: Sidney and Wilbur DeParis, trumpet and trombone; Sidney Bechet, soprano saxophone and clarinet; Albert Nicholas, Art Hodes, piano; Pops Foster, string bass; Baby Dodds, drums
GRACE AND BEAUTY Parenti, Hodes, Foster, Dodds
BALLIN’ THE JACK DeParis band plus Marsala, Sandy Williams, trombone; Jim Moynahan, clarinet / talk: Parenti and Dodds with Maltz, about fifteen minutes
I don’t know who I would thank at the Voice of America these days, but I do know we can all thank Tohru Seya, the generous collector whose YouTube channel Hot Jazz 78rpms provides us with excellent music. Much of it is beautifully preserved original discs that sound wonderful, but here is something even nicer — transcription discs of jazz recorded live and hot that I’d never known of before. I would guess from the sonic ambiance that it was recorded at Central Plaza or Stuyvesant Casino circa 1951-52 (parallel to the “Dr. Jazz” broadcasts of the time, but without announcements by Aime Gauvin) for broadcast overseas. The title is “All-Star Concert,” the subtitle “American Jazz,” and the disc is Voice of America J-18 (VOA-402)
Max Kaminsky(tp); Ed Hubble(tb); Joe Barufaldi(cl); Bud Freeman(ts); Dick Cary(p); Arthur Herbert(d)
JAZZ ME BLUES / SQUEEZE ME:
The same band, J-17 (VOA 401), performing SOMEDAY SWEETHEART and MUSKRAT RAMBLE:
Here, the band is “Wild” Bill Davison(cnt); “Big Chief” Russell Moore(tb); Omer Simeon(cl); Joe Sullivan(p); Eddie Phyfe(d). [J-20; VOA 404.] — Sullivan in wonderful form. A few bars are missing from the start of each song, suggesting that an announcer’s words may have been edited out.
STARDUST, HONEYSUCKLE ROSE, and UGLY CHILE:
and SEPTEMBER IN THE RAIN:
and I NEVER KNEW (I COULD LOVE ANYBODY):
But wait. There’s more! Under the heading of “Eddie Condon Dixieland Band,” there are a handful of performances from a 1949 Condon Floor Show with Wild Bill Davison, Cutty Cutshall, Peanuts Hucko, Gene Schroeder, Eddie, Bob Casey, and Buddy Rich; under “Dixieland All-Stars,” several pearly improvisations by Bobby Hackett — NEW ORLEANS and SWEET GEORGIA BROWN.
All exceptional music, given to us in the most open-handed ways. And for those who crave discographical details more than the labels of these 16″ transciptions provide, I can only say, “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your copy of Tom Lord or Brian Rust.”
“More than just books”: Eric Whittington’s Bird & Beckett Books (652 Chenery Street, San Francisco, California) is a delightful sanctuary for art, for poetry, for music. And certainly jazz.
July 5, 2022 was an exciting and rare appearance by four of the finest under the banner of RAY SKJELBRED AND HIS CUBS: Ray Skjelbred, piano, vocal; Marc Caparone, cornet; Clint Baker, string bass; Jeff Hamilton, drums.
They play and sing:
BLUE AIR BLUES (Ray’s selection of a strain from Sidney Bechet’s BLUES IN THEAIR) / Fats Waller’s THAT RHYTHM MAN / Hines’ ROSETTA, vocal by Ray / SOMEDAY SWEETHEART, homage to Joe Sullivan and Bing / ONE SWEET LETTER FROM YOU for Lionel and friends / NOBODY’SSWEETHEART for the Chicagoans / MEMORIES OF YOU for everyone who has memories of Eubie, Louis, Benny, and more / Ray commends the band / OH, BABY! also for the Chicagoans / an intermission / James P. Johnson’s OLD-FASHIONED LOVE / SPECIAL DELIVERY BLUES for Barbara Dane / WHO’S SORRY NOW? for the Blue Note Jazzmen and others / WAITING AT THE END OF THE ROAD for Bing and Berlin and my friends too / I NEVER KNEW for Benny Carter, Pres, and Berkeley Rhythm / PEG O’MY HEART for Miff Mole / Bubber Miley’s IT DON’T MEAN A THING (IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT SWING) and closing with James P.’s A PORTER’S LOVE SONG TO A CHAMBERMAID //
Music that’s at once subversive and very direct, with bold statements and tender little explosions. If you can hear the lovely densities, you are tuned to the correct astral channel; if you can’t at first, listen again. And those who are uplifted, as I am, might consider sending a few cyber-lettuce leaves to the sites listed above. Pussycats need food and water; musicians and venues, also.
The lopsided stereotype of pianist Joe Sullivan is that of a hard-drinking barrelhouse man and player, attacking the keyboard with great power until he day he could do it no more. But that’s only a small snapshot: if you’ve seen Sullivan, somewhat nervously chatting with Ralph Gleason on JAZZ CASUAL, you see a gentle, sensitive man: underneath the many versions of LITTLE ROCK GETAWAY is the humble romantic, tenderly exploring A ROOM WITH A VIEW or FOREVERMORE.
Here is something rare and precious: Joe’s solo improvisation, thirty minutes long, for the soundtrack of a documentary film about blind children. I don’t know more than this, except it’s aurally clear that the film’s producers did not or could not pay royalties, so they asked Joe to keep far away from copyrighted compositions, his as well as others. Did he watch the screen while playing? I don’t know. This seems to have been one of his last recorded adventures. The tape from which this is taken is third or fourth-generation, so you will hear the high-end distortion characteristic of decaying acetate tape. Sorry!
But any auditory disturbance fades away in the ear and heart as one follows Joe through his — to me — thrilling meanderings:
This is in honor of my great friend, far-away teacher and benefactor John L. Fell.
The singular musician and personality Oran Thaddeus “Hot Lips” Page was born today, January 27, in 1908. Alas, he moved to another neighborhood on November 5, 1954. Happily, he left behind a good deal of evidence: soaring heroic trumpet solos, wonderful vocals. He remains an inspiring presence who comes through whole on record. I don’t ordinarily celebrate birthdays on JAZZ LIVES, but he deserves to be remembered and celebrated.
Here’s Lips — leading the way as only he could — at a concert on February 22, 1947, at the Caravan Hall at 110 East 59th Street in New York City, with Charlie Castaldo, trombone; Tony Parenti, clarinet; Joe Sullivan, piano; Danny Barker, guitar; Pops Foster, string bass; Charlie Minogue, drums. Beautifully recorded as well:
Music from three of these Caravan Hall concerts has been issued on Jazzology Records (including performances by Bunk Johnson, Muggsy Spanier, James P. Johnson, Albert Nicholas, Baby Dodds, and others). The CD notes do not explain what saintly benefactor(s) recorded the concerts, but apparently the evenings were structured as friendly battles between two groups of musicians: established African-Americans, often from New Orleans, and a band of young Caucasians, some of whom went on to be famous, others remaining obscure — Castaldo, who worked with Goodman and Shaw . . .was he Lee Castle’s brother? and Minogue here).
I think that’s a mighty helping — and accurate depiction — of the energies Lips Page brought to music and to performance.
What follows is in celebration not only of Lips, but of Dr. Scott E. Brown, the James P. Johnson scholar. The second edition of his JAMES P. JOHNSON: A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY is something I eagerly look forward to.
Unlike the eight minutes above, what follows is silent, static, tantalizing (made available by the resourceful Jean-Marie Juif):
That’s a CBS television camera; the three stylishly-dressed men are Lips; Zutty Singleton, drums; James P. Johnson, piano. This is a less-reproduced photograph from the same occasion: one that is currently eluding me shows Lips playing, his body bent over Zutty’s drum kit, if memory is accurate.
Jean-Marie also opened the door to new information. There were two television shows — not preserved — by what Getty Images calls “Eddie Condons Jazzopators,” a name that would have made Eddie recoil and then lie down in his version of a Victorian swoon. CBS broadcast a variety show, MEN AT WORK, and Eddie Condon brought a band twice: these photographs are from April 16, 1942; the second show was May 14. Here‘s the sketchy IMDb link, and here tells who appeared on almost all of the sixteen episodes. Of greatest interest to us would be the appearance of “jazz harpist Adele Girard” on October 20, 1941, on a show that also included Professor Nelson’s Boxing Cats.
This description comes from tvobscurities.com and I take it as reasonably accurate, even though it makes no mention of Eddie and calls Robert Alda a “comic”: Beginning July 7th, 1941, WCBW broadcast an hour-long variety show called Men at Work every Monday from 8:30-9:30PM (starting with the December 22nd, 1941 broadcast, the show was cut down to 55 minutes; a five-minute news program was shown from 9:25-9:30PM).
Worthington Minor, the CBS director-in-chief of television, was in charge of Men at Work. Each program took two hours to rehearse and practice. During any given show, viewers might watch singers, dancers, bicyclists, acrobats, roller skaters, mimics, comics, toe dancers, boxing cats, puppeteers, marionettes, Indian dancers, ballroom dancers, comic cellists and more.
Some of the acts seen on the program included Lou and Dorothy Rowlands (roller skaters), Hildegarde Halliday (mimic), the Two Deweys (jugglers), Hank Henry and Robert Alda (comics), Ruth Page and Bentley Stone (dancers), Burl Ives (singer), Reid and Mack (acrobats) and Libby and Betty (bicyclists), to name but a few. Men at Work was last seen on Monday, January 26th, 1942, after thirty broadcasts.
No kinescopes of the Condon episodes [characteristically racially integrated] survive, and so far no home-recordings of the audio portion. However, my explorations of Getty Images this morning yielded jewels.
NEW YORK – APRIL 16: Eddie Condons Town Hall Jazzopators, jazz musicians, perform on CBS Television. New York, NY. Zutty Singleton on drums, Hot Lips Page, trumpet. Image dated April 16, 1942. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
Joe Sullivan and Zutty Singleton:
NEW YORK – APRIL 16: Eddie Condons Town Hall Jazzopators, jazz musicians, perform on CBS Television. New York, NY. Zutty Singleton on drums;Joe Sullivan on piano. Image dated April 16, 1942. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
Eddie, Billy Taylor, Sr., and Pee Wee Russell:
NEW YORK – APRIL 16: Eddie Condons Town Hall Jazzopators, jazz musicians, perform on CBS Television. New York, NY. Eddie Condon on guitar; Billy Taylor, bass; Pee Wee Russell, clarinet. Image dated April 16, 1942. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
Zutty, Eddie, Joe, Billy, Pee Wee, Bennie Morton, Max Kaminsky:
NEW YORK – APRIL 16: Eddie Condons Town Hall Jazzopators, jazz musicians, perform on CBS Television. New York, NY. Zutty Singleton on drums; Eddie Condon on guitar; Joe Sullivan on piano; Billy Taylor, bass; Pee Wee Russell, clarinet; Benny Morton, trombone; Max Kaminsky, trumpet. Image dated April 16, 1942. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
Max and Bennie have changed places, but the same band:
NEW YORK – APRIL 16: Television debut of all-star jazz band on CBS Eddie Condon on guitar, Pee Wee Russell on clarinet and other jazz greats. Image dated April 16, 1942. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
That trio again!
NEW YORK – APRIL 16: Eddie Condons Town Hall Jazzopators, jazz musicians, perform on CBS Television. New York, NY. Zutty Singleton on drums, Hot Lips Page, trumpet, James P. Johnson on piano. Image dated April 16, 1942. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
With Eddie, half-hidden, at right:
NEW YORK – APRIL 16: Eddie Condons Town Hall Jazzopators, jazz musicians, perform on CBS Television. New York, NY. Zutty Singleton on drums, Hot Lips Page, trumpet, James P. Johnson on piano. Image dated April 16, 1942. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
That quartet:
NEW YORK – APRIL 16: Eddie Condons Town Hall Jazzopators, jazz musicians, perform on CBS Television. New York, NY. Zutty Singleton on drums, Hot Lips Page, trumpet, James P. Johnson on piano and Eddie Condon on guitar. Image dated April 16, 1942. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
If you’re like me, these photographs may evoke emotions somewhere between sorrow and frustration, expressed briefly as “Why weren’t these programs recorded?” I offer these speculations. One, CBS had enough to do with sending these programs out “over the air.” The number of people who had home television sets was small — beneath “small.” Perhaps you could see one in the window of what would eventually be called an electronic store. I am doubtful that bars had televisions in 1942.
Preservation of broadcast material — as in radio — was not seen as crucial, for this was entertainment and thus perceived as ephemeral. For us, now, the idea of hearing more of James P. Johnson is a wonderful fantasy. If you lived in New York City then, however, you might be able to hear him five or six nights a week in Greenqich Village; Eddie and his friends were at Town Hall or Nick’s. So there was no scarcity: if you missed hearing Lips Page on Wednesday, you could always hear him on Friday.
At least we know MEN AT WORK happened and we can see flashes of it.
This just in (Feb. 7) thanks to good friend / deep researcher David J. Weiner:
First, it’s not Dudgeon and Dragons. “High dudgeon” is annoyance, anger, resentment. “She left the meeting in high dudgeon.” A witty piece on the etymology by Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman can be found here.
And it’s also the title of a wonderful Joe Sullivan record. I present the four sides he recorded in Los Angeles on April 1, 1945, for Sunset Records. Sunset was the creation of Eddie Laguna, also a concert promoter, who’s proven elusive. But the music isn’t. Encouraged by his friend Zutty Singleton, Joe had moved west in 1943, and the first two sides recorded for Sunset were piano solos.
But these records are by a quintet and a trio: Joe, piano; Archie Rosati, clarinet; Ulysses Livingston, guitar; Artie Shapiro, string bass; Zutty Singleton, drums: NIGHT AND DAY / HIGH DUDGEON / BRUSHIN’ OFF THE BOOGIE / HEAVY LADEN (Joe, Archie, Zutty).
Joe is typecast as a “barrelhouse” “Chicago” pianist, and that he could be, but he loved the great lyrical songs — Coward and Porter as well as the blues. Perhaps this choice was also inspired by another clarinetist named Shaw?
And the very thing:
Hear the crystalline sound of Zutty’s brushes:
and finally a trio performance (the cover of the Nagel-Heyer assemblage is odd at first — although Joe and Bird would have played together without scrapes):
A few small mysteries, without which no blogpost can be said to be complete. One: I have not found a photograph or biography of Eddie Laguna, although he is references endlessly in articles about Nat King Cole (Will Friedwald, inexplicably, even makes fun of his name) Wardell Gray, and others of that time and place.
Two: I am assuming that HIGH DUDGEON is Joe’s title, not Eddie’s, because it is credited to Joe. He went to parochial school in Chicago, although he may have stopped in his teens. I envision a nun saying, “Do that one more time, Joseph, and you will see me in high dudgeon!’ Just as possible is that Joe picked it up from Bing Crosby, who loved elaborate flourishes of language. Joe himself was articulate in speech and prose: see him on JAZZ CASUAL with Ralph J. Gleason; I’ve also seen several of his sophisticated letters to Jeff Atterton, which will turn up on another post.
All I know is that Joe’s music never leaves me annoyed, angry, resentful. Is the opposite of HIGH DUDGEON something like FLOATING JOY? Consider this, but listen to Joe as you do.
If you wanted to visit Joe in his San Francisco period — more or less from 1945 to his death in 1971, here’s where you would find him:
. . . . on the fifth floor:
A nifty postscript. More than one skeptical reader wrote in to dispute the existence of Eddie Laguna, because that name was used as a pseudonym for Nat Cole on a record label. The fine scholar-professor-guitarist Nick Rossi rode to the rescue with Ray Whitten’s photographs of the December 4, 1947 Dial Records date, led by Dexter Gordon at Radio Recorders, supervised by Eddie Laguna. Personnel as follows: Dexter Gordon, Teddy Edwards, tenor saxes; Jimmy Rowles, piano; Red Callender, bass; Roy Porter, drums.
Feast your eyes, friends! Laguna, should you need a clue, holds no instrument.
Thanks to CB Detective Agency for this newspaper ad.
The music that follows is brilliant, but the details surrounding it are vague. For one thing, most writers have misspelled the restaurant owner’s name as Terassi for decades. I’ve done it myself. Apologies to Lou.
I read in a British trade paper that this band, the Jimmy McPartland Sextet, was appearing at Lou Terrasi’s Hickory Log at the end of 1952, but I haven’t found a specific date for this recording. All trace of the Hickory Log has vanished, although it was still in operation in 1964. In 1975, the address was a restaurant that also featured music, the Spindletop (there’s a review of Maxene Andrews at that time) and should you go to that address now, it is Trattoria Tricolore.
Assuming that Terrasi was Italian, I’ve always thought the cuisine was also, but “Hickory Log” suggests charcoal-broiled steaks. I had two friends who celebrated their engagement at the bar in 1952, between Hot Lips Page and Zutty Singleton — a story I love. But I can no longer ask them for details.
Here’s a 1952 portrait by Bob Parent of Joe Sullivan at the Hickory Log piano, which also shows something of the decor. That curtain would haunt me:
2nd October 1952: American jazz musician Joe Sullivan (1906-1971) plays piano at Lou Terrasi’s ‘Hickory Log’ on West 47th St., New York City. (Photo by Bob Parent/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
But the music is vivid, a previously unknown version of the half-hour broadcasts done by Aime Gauvin, “Dr. Jazz,” featuring the Jimmy McPartland Sextet: McPartland, cornet; Dicky Wells, trombone; Cecil Scott, clarinet; Joe Sullivan, piano; Walter Page, string bass; George Wettling, drums; Marian McPartland, piano, on EMBRACEABLE YOU and SWEET GEORGIA BROWN. A bonus: even though we hear the crash of dishes (the kitchen and bandstand always seem to be adjacent) the ambiance is serene in comparison to Central Plaza or the Stuyvesant Casino.
The band, introduced by Leonard Feather, who also chats with both McPartlands, plays LOVE IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER / TIN ROOF BLUES / EMBRACEABLE YOU / BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME / SWEET GEORGIA BROWN.
Broadcasts like this originated with the Voice of America, beamed overseas to show the Communists the virtues of democracy and capitalism. Leaving the ideological wrappings aside, the music is superb: everyone is focused and effective, and no one sounds bored by the repertoire or its conventions. I don’t know if Walter or Dicky missed being with Basie, but I am sure they were pleased to spend their days at home rather than being on the band bus; Jimmy, Joe, George, Cecil, and Marian had been playing in small groups for decades. We hear the assurance of people who know the way, and that’s truly delicious.
There is much to say about these two photographs, perhaps too much to say.
The first, a performance shot from Eddie Condon’s downtown club on West Fourth Street, features Wild Bill Davison, Peanuts Hucko, and George Brunis. The pianist may be Gene Schroeder, the drummer Morey Feld, and I haven’t identified the string bassist. Eddie is talking to the customers, somewhere. The front line is relaxed; Brunis is in charge of the show, I think. And he has autographed the photo — along with Eddie (“Me too”), Bill, and Peanuts. The eBay seller asked for $250, so I contented myself with taking the image and sharing it with you. Someone did buy it.
When the second photograph remained unsold on eBay, I made the seller a more thrifty offer, which was graciously accepted, and the second photograph is mine.
I do not know if the two photographs were taken the same night, but I would assume it was a Tuesday night (“jam session” or, in Condon’s wry language, “ham section” night) when the equivalent of two bands played in varied combinations. Gene Schroedr is clearly at the piano, playing and being amused.
The autographs on the second photograph are Wild Bill Davison, Tony Parenti, George Brunis, and Joe Sullivan, who explains what is going on. Brunis, as one of his many stunts (one involved shots of vodka and hot sauce, alternating) would have one of the lighter members of the band stand on his stomach while he played. All I can say is “Don’t try this at home.” And if readers want to comment on the BMI of Joe Sullivan, at 190 pounds, those comments will be deleted.
There isn’t much to say about this beyond WOW, or OH MY GOODNESS . . . and to be thankful that nightclubs had roving photographers who would capture such moments, have the shots developed, put in a cardboard folder for purchase so that properly reverent fans could get their heroes’ autographs. My photograph came properly framed in black wood, but the seller noted that it “came in original folding cardboard souvenir frame from Condon’s club, displaying the Condon guitar logo.”
And some more ephemera, documenting the New York jazz club The Hickory House (the first photograph is from 1937):
another view:
still another postcard, to mail to the folks back home to show you were having a grand time in the big city:
But that’s mighty thin substance for a jazz blog. How about this? (I wish sellers would erase their pencil annotations from holy relics, but that may be just me.)
and the front:
The eBay link is here; the seller’s price is $79.99 “or Best Offer.” Free US shipping too — who could resist?
The signature looks genuine, and the seller asserts, “Rare Hickory House New York Jazz Club Postcard Signed by Pee Wee Russell. I guarantee the authenticity of the autograph as I discussed it with the wife of the owner who received it from the jazz legend.”
Here‘s a glimpse of the hickory House drink menu . . . although the modern annotator misses the point that a seventy-five cent drink was not “cheap” at all in the Thirties and Forties.
Alas, here is what 144 West 52nd Street looks like (according to Google) now. I daresay there are no aromas of broiled steaks and chops — for my vegan friends, no baked potato, either. And I certainly can’t imagine the music of Pee Wee Russell or Joe and Marty Marsala coming out into the street:
But Mr. Russell is always generous with his sounds, and is thus always alive:
That’s what he, Joe Sullivan, and Zutty Singleton sounded like in 1941. There are, of course, many other samples of Pee Wee’s expansive career on YouTube and elsewhere. Even if you don’t want to make an offer for the postcard, you could spend many joyous and enlightening hours with him.
Jack Teagarden, Earl Hines, Willis Conover, late Forties: photograph by Norm Robbins. Photograph courtesy University of North Texas Music Library, Willis Conover Collection.
and this:
Once upon a time, what we like to call “jazz” was divided into warring factions. Divided, that is, by journalists. Musicians didn’t care for the names or care about them; they liked to play and sing with people whose artistry made them feel good. And gigs were gigs, which is still true. So if you were, let us say, Buck Clayton, and you could work with Buddy Tate playing swing standards and blues, or rhythm and blues, that was fine, but playing MUSKRAT RAMBLE with Tony Parenti was just as good, as was playing NOW’S THE TIME with Charlie Parker.
But this was not exciting journalism. So dear friends Jimmy McPartland and Dizzy Gillespie were asked to pose for a photograph as if they were enemies, and people like Hughes Panassie, Leonard Feather, Rudi Blesh, and Barry Ulanov fought the specious fight in print. Even some musicians caught the fever and feuded in public, but perhaps that was jealousy about attention and money rather than musical taste.
One positive effect was that musical “battles” drew crowds, which musicians and promoters both liked.
Since every moment of Charlie Parker’s life seems to have been documented (the same for Bix Beiderbecke, by the way) we know that he played a concert in Washington, D.C.’s Washington [or Music?] Hall on May 23, 1948; that the masters of ceremonies were Willis Conover and Jackson Lowe, and that the collective personnel was Buddy Rich, Charlie Parker, Wild Bill Davison, Joe Sullivan, Sir Charles Thompson, George Wettling, Tony Parenti, Earl Swope, Benny Morton, Charlie Walp, Sid Weiss, Ben Lary, Mert Oliver, Sam Krupit, Joe Theimer, Arthur Phipps. We know that the concert began at 2:30 PM, and — best of all — that private acetate recordings exist. A portion of the concert, heavily weighted towards “modernism,” appeared on the CD above, on Uptown Records, and copies of that disc are still available on eBay and elsewhere.
Details from Peter Losin’s lovely detailed Charlie Parker site here and here.
But for those of us who hadn’t bought the Uptown disc, there it might remain. However, through the kindness and diligence of Maristella Feustle of the University of North Texas Digital Library, excavating recordings in the Willis Conover collection, we now have twenty-seven minutes of music — some of it unheard except by those who were at the concert. There’s the closing C JAM BLUES / a partial RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE, talk, and a partial SQUEEZE ME / S’WONDERFUL / TINY’S BLUES / TINY’S BLUES (continued). Yes, we have no Charlie Parker here . . . but a great deal of lively fine music. (Do I hear Eddie Condon’s voice in this or do I dream?).
But wait! There’s more. My dear friend Sonny McGown sent me a photograph I’d never seen before, from a similar concert of the same vintage, at the National Press Club, with this description: “Your email this morning reminded me of a photo that belonged to my father. He is in the picture with his head visible just above the bell of the trombonist on the far left. Some of the musicians’ identities are obvious such as Jimmy Archey, Wild Bill Davison, Ben Webster, and George Wettling. The rest are unknown to me. I wonder if the trumpet at the microphone is Frankie Newton? The clarinetist looks a bit like Albert Nicholas. It is quite possible that some of the fellows are locals.” [Note: in an earlier version of this post, I had assumed that the photograph and the concert tape were connected: they aren’t. Enthusiasm over accuracy.]
My eyes and ears were ringing while I stared at this gathering. I couldn’t identify the others in the photograph, but did not think the tall trumpeter in the middle was Newton. (And Sonny’s father, Mac, was a spectator, not a player.) Sonny then found two more photographs from the concert that we hear the music — their source being Maggie Condon, which would place Eddie there, logically, as well.
Tony Parenti, George Wettling, Wild Bill Davison, either Sid Weiss or Jack Lesberg, Bennie (the spelling he preferred) Morton:
Joe Sullivan, happy as a human can be:
This photograph popped up online, labeled “Washington Press Club,” but I wonder if it is from the same occasion. Even if it isn’t, it’s always a pleasure to portray these sometimes-ignored majesties:
Now, might I suggest two things. One, that JAZZ LIVES readers go back and listen to this almost half-hour of joys here — giving thanks to the University of North Texas Digital Library at the same time — for instance, the five-hour interview Louis gave to Conover on July 13, 1956, which starts here, and ten years later, something astonishing, Louis playing COLUMBIA, THE GEM OF THE OCEAN and singing “This is the Voice of America,” the former of which I would like as a ringtone: here.
Still hungry for sounds? A January 31, 1956, interview with Eddie Condon here; a brief 1946 interview with Duke Ellington where he seems to say nothing about the death of Tricky Sam Nanton — the music section begins with Ellington’s BLUE ABANDON, which contains a stunning solo by Oscar Pettiford, which is then followed by lovely records by Sinatra, Glenn Miller, and Kenton: here.
There are many more gems in the University of North Texas Music Library, which seems better than any ancient debate about the merits of different kinds of jazz. There is music to listen to and photographs to stare at . . . and gratitude to express, nor only to the musicians and Mr. Conover, but to Ms. Feustle and Mr. McGown. Those who keep the archives tidy and share their gifts are our lasting friends.
We love Ray Skjelbred, who loves Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, and Joe Sullivan. Here, he starts THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT — dedicated to Ginger, her hair a mass of shampoo-suds — as a rubato exploration, then shifts into dreamy dance music:
And here’s the original scene from SWING TIME, which makes me wish that the fantasies of 1936 were plausible: that our lovers could serenade us so tenderly through the bathroom door. I don’t know where the RKO studio orchestra would fit themselves, but no matter.
Thanks to Ray for evoking such a sweet moment, and to Rae Ann Berry for the video. And here‘s Ray’s November 2016 solo rendition of this song (he told me it was the first time he’d performed it) along with several other gems.
James Dapogny died yesterday. He was 78 and had been keeping cancer at bay for nine years until he could do it no longer.
Because the absence of people I love is deeply painful, I have embraced the notion that the dead don’t go away, that their temporal selves leave us but they merely move into other neighborhoods. With Jim’s death, I cannot keep that illusion afloat. There is a void much larger than his human form that will never be filled. No parade of clicked-on Facebook sad emojis can express this. And this sorrow isn’t unique to me: ask anyone who knew him, who learned from him, who savored his creativity and his company.
Prof. and still-active cellist Mike Karoub to Prof’s left. Photograph by Laura Beth Wyman, 2014.
An expansive, restlessly diligent and curious person, he had several names. When I first met him (at Jazz at Chautauqua, 2004) I timidly called him “Mr. Dapogny,” and because I was shy, my voice was low and he referred to me — just once — as “soft-voiced Professor Steinman” while we were both leafing through Thirties sheet music. Later, I bought all his records and CDs, where he was “James,” but I summoned up the courage to call him “Jim” to his face and — referring to him in the third person, I took on the affectionate coinage that Laura Beth Wyman, whom he called “my best student in thirty years,” and his dear friend, had created: “Prof.”
I will hand off to Prof.’s friend Kim Cusack for his memories:
Jim was puckish, never morose, so my first musical example is a jam-session rouser. Keep your ears on the pianist, who explodes into a solo at 4:14:
Although he was characterized as a stride pianist and he loved the music of Fats Waller and Alex Hill, he dismissed that categorization, and told me that his mentors were Stacy, Sullivan, and Morton. In the fashion of those three great individualists, his playing was full of spiky surprises — arresting commentaries that could woo and distract in the ensemble or when he accompanied a soloist. I think he found stride conventions constricting, possibly monotonous, so I hear him as a Pee Wee Russell of the piano: going his own completely recognizable ways while uplifting all around him, creating bright-sounding treble lines but also providing solidly original harmonic support and rhythmic propulsion. He was never predictable but always heroically satisfying.
But LADY BE GOOD, because it was impromptu (rain and wind made reading charts impossible) was not what Prof. liked best. He delighted in “paper,” that is, arrangements — but they were charts with plenty of breathing room for the splendid soloists he hired and nurtured. Here’s his powerfully blue version of the Ellington-Stewart MOBILE BAY, also from Evergreen 2014:
and another 2014 romper — this time, because the weather was better, the band could use Prof.’s charts:
Here is Prof. and a band in 2012 — note his dry whimsical introduction:
and a piano solo on one of the most familiar jazz ballads, uniquely Dapogny:
Jim (I have shifted to the non-academic because it feels warmer) was also terribly funny, in person and in print. David Sager says he had “a sly and delicious wit,” which all of us experienced. He was a wordsmith, a jester, a stand-up comedian, a sharp-edged deflater, a Michigan S.J. Perelman. A deadpan improvising comedian, he didn’t mug and pander on the stand, preferring to let the heartfelt music speak.
He and I exchanged emails from 2011 to October 2018: a coda from one of his:
P.S. I don’t know if you ever read the columns of humorist Dave Barry, but I did because Wayne Jones used to send me bundles of them. The ones I liked best were those entitled “Ask Mr. Language Person,” in which Barry answered usage questions ostensibly sent in by readers. One asked about rules for the use of quotation marks in small-business signs. Barry answered that quotation marks were to be used on words chosen at random. Then he gave three examples. Try Our “Pies” Try “Our” Pies “Try” Our Pies To me this is absolutely hilarious. It still makes me laugh.
My relationship with Jim grew and deepened. When I first met him, I was intimidated by his comic rapier, and when I got to know him a little better, I asked him to put it down, which he did without fuss. The more I encountered him, the more I admired him. And finally I — like everyone else who knew him — loved him.
I took him on as one of my not-so-secret spiritual fathers, even though he was only a dozen years my senior. The blend of humor and toughness (he could have shown up in a 1935 Warner Brothers picture, although not as the gangster lead) reminded me of my own father, so he was dear to me. I originally wrote, “I hope I didn’t embarrass him too much with my direct affection,” but on second thought I hope I did embarrass him: that way I would know he had received the message I was sending.
He was extremely kind, superbly generous. I had asked him to write a letter for me in support of a sabbatical I was hoping for, and I dare not read that letter now because I would not be able to write through tears. And every so often he would praise something I’d written, which would make me feel like a peculiarly graceful colossus of words and insights. (Of course, now and again, he corrected my wayward grammar, which made me wince and then rush to fix the lapse.)
Although he knew his own worth, he was infuriatingly modest. I, and then Laura, shot videos of him in performance at Jazz at Chautauqua, the Evergreen Jazz Festival, and the Cleveland Classic Jazz Party. The last email response I got from Jim — late October 2018 — concerned a trio video I had sent him to see if he would agree to my posting it. (Sometimes when I sent him videos, the answer was silence, which I could never tell whether it was “God, no!” or “I am too busy doing other things more important than considering my own performances.) His response, the names redacted in true CIA fashion, was, “OK with me, but this doesn’t scream out for preservation except by being documentation that I once weaseled my way into the company of H- and R-.”
He was always busy transcribing charts for PORK, researching new old music, and more. But I think his secret passion was in what we call, for want of a more gracious term, mentoring. Ask any musician who played or sang with him: Jon-Erik Kellso to Dawn Giblin to Mike Karoub to Erin Morris to the members of his bands. Like Ellington, he saw very clearly what strengths we had, and worked tirelessly to bolster us — offering the most gentle helping hand to make people more glorious versions of their natural selves.
One of my great pleasures, was my being able to visit him and Laura and Erin for a few days in 2016. Yes, Jim was a scholar of all things musical — not just Jelly Roll Morton and James P. Johnson’s operas — and his range was broad. When I visited Ann Arbor, the plan was that I would stay in a quietly nondescript motel, and work on my blog over breakfast (instant oatmeal from paper envelopes, and coffee) and then Jim and I, sometimes Laura along as well, would eat deliriously good ethnic food in some restaurant that only Jim knew — Indian, Korean, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese — and the conversation would become expertly culinary as well, because he could cook, away from the piano. He was truly insightful but ready to applaud others’ insights.
I dreamed of visiting him again, but missed my chance, just as I missed the opportunity to help bring Jim’s band once again to the Evergreen Jazz Festival in Colorado.
It would please me immensely if others who knew Prof., or James, or Jim, would add their voices to this post. I will close with one of the great beautiful moments captured by video. I am particularly proud of this 2015 performance because of the lovely music and that it was recorded by my friend Laura Beth Wyman. Jim’s own FIREFLY:
The moral that James Dapogny’s life and art and generous friendship offers us is very simple. We are fireflies. At our best, we are brilliant: we trace paths along the summer night sky. But we are fragile. What can we do but live our lives so that when we depart, we are irrevocably missed? As he is.
I will eschew my usual closing — consider it here but unsaid — to send love and sorrow to Jim’s wife, Gail, to his family, to his friends, to all the people he touched.
I had the good fortune to visit my long-time dear friends Lisa DuRose and Susan Peters at their St. Paul, Minnesota home this summer. I’d like to think of myself as a passable guest, so once I knew we would have plenty of time to talk and laugh and muse, I kept my requests manageable: interesting things to eat (pride of place went to Cheng Heng, a wonderful Cambodian restaurant (448 University Avenue), visits to thrift shops, a delightful bookstore, Midway Used and Rare Books (1579 University Avenue W.).
I made one Special Request.
I’d heard of a magical place where 78 RPM records and machines to play them flourished, so I asked Lisa and Susan to take me here:
I was worried that I would go down into the depths and never surface, so I asked them to pick me up in an hour, which was an atypical kind of restraint on my part. Lisa and Susan were curious about this museum of sounds and shapes that they’d never entered, so they came in with me.
Scott, the owner, stopped what he was doing and greeted us. I have an odd sense of comedy, so I said that I was a jazz blogger from New York, a collector of records, and that I had brought two friends who lived locally, that Lisa was my probation officer and Susan was my psychotherapist. Perhaps because of Scott’s clientele, he only allowed his eyes to widen a bit, but did not boggle at this news. I started to laugh, gave him my card and a Louis button, and we were off and running into hilarious instant friendship.  Here — just so you know I am not describing some time-machine dream — is the store’s Facebook page.
Here is a six-minute film portrait of Scott in his element, blissfully honest, doing what he was meant to do:
And here is a very short film of Scott, playing a cylinder on an Edison “Gem” machine:
Scott and I fell into conversation about Joe Sullivan. That in itself should tell you a great deal — in this century, how many people can talk with depth about Joe? I tore myself away — he is hilarious, erudite, and entertaining — to look at records. Of course there was a Louis section, an Ellington section, but (as you can see from above) there was a Bob Pope section and one devoted to Don Redman, one to Clarence Williams.
I no longer do well with extreme sensory stimulus, and I was grateful that I could find a mere eight records: Joe Sullivan on Sunset (!) and Conqueror (the 1939 Cafe Society Orchestra); Henry “Red” Allen on Banner; the UHCA issue of JAZZ ME BLUES with Tesch and BARREL HOUSE STOMP with the Cellar Boys; a sunburst Decca of Louis’ ON A COCOANUT ISLAND; a beautiful Variety of Chauncey Morehouse and Swing Six (no “his”) of ON THE ALAMO. In the name of realism, I will also point out that the days of finding N- Paramounts at the Salvation Army for a nickel apiece are long gone. With tax, these records cost slightly less than eighty dollars, and I went away feeling gloriously gratified.
Two other record-collecting sidelights. Scott knows a great many kinds of music well and deeply, so the shop offers opera, “roots music,” and many other things that I didn’t have time to explore. If I remember correctly, he has three-quarters of a million records, both on the ground floor and in a well-organized basement. And more machines on which to play them than several large houses could accommodate.
And while I was there, the phone rang and Scott had an extraordinarily courteous gentle conversation with a man of a certain vintage who wanted to bring his beloved and for-sure valuable collection of late-Forties black label Bing Crosby Deccas for Scott to buy. I was touched by the kind seriousness with which Scott handled the man on the phone, never condescending to him or being scornful, while telling him the truth, that it would not be worth his while to bring the Crosbys down in hopes of a splendid payoff.
I admire Scott’s enterprise greatly — where on earth are you going to see a 78 record shop with its own Red Norvo section? Yes, I know a few other stores exist, and I’ve had self-indulgent fun in the 78 section of Amoeba Music — I think the one on Haight Street, but Scott’s store is a paradise of rare music and rare artifacts. You won’t find Oliver’s THAT SWEET SOMETHING DEAR there, but if you visit and go out empty-handed, and you love this music, I marvel at you, and not necessarily in an admiring way.
He is a man of stubborn devotion to his own ideal, and that is a beautiful thing. I will go even deeper and say that if everyone who loves older music — and the way in which it was heard — bought a seven-dollar record from Scott, or, better, a working vintage phonograph, the world we know would be improved. I wish that he and his passionate vision prosper and continue.
First, Ray makes friends with the piano, then says quietly, “Well, I’m not going anywhere, so I’ll play something I like,” or words to that effect.
He does and we do.
THE ONE I LOVE is not only a memorably catchy Isham Jones tune, but it’s famous in jazz history as the first song Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines improvised on together, at their first meeting at the musicians’ union. I hear their approving phantasmal selves in Ray’s version:
Like AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN has become victim to people who race through it and make its lovely contours mechanical. Knowing, as I do, the memorable versions by Bing Crosby (1936) and Louis (1947), who treated it as a rhythm ballad, I’ve come to dread it in performance. But Ray’s tender version, starting with the verse, is what the song is all about: gently swinging optimism, a view of the world where wonderful surprises are still possible:
Here’s James P. Johnson’s hymn of praise to the gentle loving ways that we all might recall and even enact, OLD FASHIONED LOVE:
Finally, a reminder that even when love affairs implode, the subject is still good for beautiful music: I COVER THE WATERFRONT (“We like it! We like it!”):
Ray Skjelbred doesn’t cater to his audiences; he doesn’t woo us. But he continues to delight, to amaze, with his love for the piano, the songs, and the great traditions.
This post is for my faraway and well-remembered friend Donna Courtney.
Before anyone gets too excited, I do not have acetates or videos of this event to share with you. All I can offer is the souvenir program, which was on sale a month ago on eBay here for $300. This item does not seem to have sold, but the seller ended the sale. If someone were interested, I’d suggest contacting the seller and opening negotiations again.
This program was from a benefit for Joe, ill with tuberculosis, from which he recovered. I had never seen this paper treasure before; I thought you, too, would be intrigued. And I’ve inserted some contemporaneous recordings by Joe to keep the display from being silent.  Since I’ve never seen or heard evidence that this concert was broadcast or that airshots or transcription discs exist, this paper chronicle is all we have. It must have been a lovely evening of music and feeling.
and this, from 1945 (Archie Rosati, clarinet; Ulysses Livingston, guitar; Artie Shapiro, string bass; Zutty Singleton, drums — on the SUNSET label):
and
and SUMMERTIME, 1941, Commodore:
and
another Decca solo from 1935:
and (Larry and Everett were Crosby brothers; Bing had a large role in this):
and Joe’s Cafe Society Orchestra, with Ed Anderson, Big Joe Turner, Benny Morton, Ed Hall:
and
and the Cafe Society Orchestra with Helen Ward:
and what an assortment of stars and bands!
and LADY BE GOOD from the same band, in a performance I’d bet stretched out longer when live (Danny Polo takes the tenor solo):
and
and I CAN’T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE by the same band, with Ed Anderson building on Louis and Big Joe Turner making it a blues:
and
and
and
and
and
and
Joe recovered and lived on until October 1971, which to me shows the sustaining power of community in times of stress and despair.
Like other jazz fans and collectors, I have had many dreams of music I would like to hear, and in my lifetime many of those dreams have come true: the alternate takes of the Jones-Smith, Inc. session; airshots of the Basie band at the Randall’s Island Carnival of Swing; the Ellington Fargo concert; the Jerry Newman uptown recordings; more Louis and Big Sid, on and on.
Earl Hines and Ray Skjelbred
The pianist Ray Skjelbred — treasured courageous explorer of beauty — is part of this story of dreams taking lovely shape. I heard him on recordings perhaps fifteen years ago, and I encountered him in videos perhaps eight years ago, first in those of Rae Ann Berry, then in my own attempts, having met him, to capture him with appropriate skill and reverence.
In whatever medium I found him, I was astonished by the spacious, emotionally dense worlds he invented at the keyboard. I still am. And although Ray allowed me to capture individual performances that he approved of, solo and in duet; Ray leading his own Cubs — I am proud of the results, but they are beautiful snapshots for the most part. In my videos, the sound might be imperfect; the audience might be chatting or moving in and out; Ray would speak, memorably, but briefly.
I came to dream of a Skjelbred film, a recital-explanation that would help us capture his secrets and his deep essence, as much of his history and magic that he cared to reveal. But it remained a dream until Ray’s friend John Ochs, with Ray, created a profound but never sententious portrait of Ray and the musical atmosphere he both swims in and has enriched for decades. It exists, and it can be seen.
From the first pearly notes of Joe Sullivan’s GIN MILL BLUES to Ray’s reminiscences-with-music of Burt Bales, Johnny Wittwer, Earl Hines, Joe Sullivan, Art Hodes, Jess Stacy, stride piano, octaves, tenths, the blues, tremolos, a stomping LITTLE ROCK GETAWAY, anecdotes of Sullivan — among well-trained kindergarten children, or listening to Bob Zurke play GETAWAY, a brilliantly meandering chorus of ROSETTA which reminds me of someone picking up glittering beach glass at the ocean’s edge, and a riotous BEAU KOO JACK, and so much more — the film is a treasure. It is both the chronicle of a questing artist and his interactions with Hines, Sullivan, Stacy, Hodes, and a series of casual lessons from a Master about other Masters.
I admire it tremendously. Ray’s deadpan puckish humor animates all of his conversation with us, as when he describes a heart attack at the keyboard turning, for seconds, into stride piano . . .his description of a poor traditional band as “six people with shotguns.” I encourage viewers to savor his after-midnight introduction to I FOUND A NEW BABY and the last minutes of MY LITTLE PRIDE AND JOY.
It isn’t a how-to film that entices the viewer with the kinds of promises historically made on matchbooks, “See, you can play _____ too if only you learn these sixteen gestures,” nor is it a chronological autobiography of gigs and encounters, but a warming combination of sounds, techniques, memories and music created right at the moment. I don’t think I’ll ever forget Ray’s story of Jess Stacy’s summation of a visit from jazz acolytes, at first unfamiliar to him, as “Those nice boys.”
The film is emotionally filling without being overwhelming: when I finished watching for the first (of several times) I felt as if I had spent a month with Ray, yet it felt like a seamless easy journey, over too soon.
Recorded in one sitting, at a fine piano, with subtle, telling editing, it is so far beyond my best videos that I am both thrilled it exists and slightly embarrassed by my own earnest amateur sallies.
I am not the only person to appreciate this film: it has been selected by the New York Jazz Film Festival and will receive an award for HISTORY / DOCUMENTARY at the end of August.
I am able to share the film with you — and frankly I would find it inexplicable if hundreds of people did not take advantage of the opportunity — but I do not know for how long this will be possible. These things are mysterious, but Imight not be able to share this film indefinitely.
So I urge and beseech my viewers to be with Ray Skjelbred, man and artist of independent spirit, for one hour (and twenty-three minutes and fifty-eight seconds) tonight, or, if not tonight, then tomorrow night.
Early on in the film, Ray says, as if to himself, “All music is a narrative of some kind — it starts somewhere and it goes somewhere.” He could have been describing this very fulfilling film as well.
Those of us who have heard Ray Skjelbred play the piano will not be at all surprised that he is also a poet of words and images, captured at a different keyboard.
Sycamore
One day all the leaves blow away. I have been worrying about the wrong things.
Let those words take up residence inside you before moving on, in a southerly direction, to the rest of this post. You can read more of his poetry at the link above.
Ray has written a sketch of his development as a poet, starting as a boy who “got up early to listen to the birds in the courtyard of our apartment building,” which tells me more than a hundred pages of analytic prose by an outsider would.
A rare and deep fellow.
Most of us encounter Ray when he has settled himself on the piano bench and is ready to fill us with sounds and colors, as he did at the 2016 San Diego Jazz Fest.  Here is my earlier presentation of music he created there on November 26, 2016.
And more. I will preface these selections by saying only that tenderness is so rare in life, and certainly more so in jazz played for audiences. Let Ray’s melodic explorations, gentle and whimsical, move into your house.
Joe Sullivan’s MY LITTLE PRIDE AND JOY:
“a tiny shred” of I AIN’T GOT NOBODY, with a beautiful ending that loops around to the opening phrase of the verse:
A version of THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT that has the quiet intent seriousness of a hymn at the start:
Ray told me that he thinks of Joe Sullivan or Ginger Rogers in this scene from SWING TIME — so if you haven’t seen it recently, you might want to steal three minutes from your day and dream into this world of lovely possibilities:
Along with many of the faithful, I have been waiting and hoping since 2010 that this set would become a reality. When it arrived, I turned immediately to the fifth disc — one of a pair containing thirty-nine live performances by the Count Basie band from May 1938 to February 1940, and I was open-mouthed and astonished three minutes into the first performance (one of four particularly extravagant frolics from the Randall’s Island Carnival of Swing) — music that I thought I would never have the good fortune to hear.
Mosaic Records box sets usually have a similar effect on me, but this one is — as a character in a Sean O’Faolain story says — “beyond the beyonds.” And, as a point of information, the box set contains substantially more music than was released through iTunes downloads.
You can learn more and hear something Savory here.
This set is more than a dream come true: it feels like a whole freight train of them. In a postscript below, I’ve copied Loren Schoenberg’s list of the enlightened and generous people who this set possible. Full disclosures: one, I was asked to write a few hundred words for this set, and thus one of my dreams came true, and two, I bought mine — with my allowance.
A Savory Disc
I will write primarily about the Basie cornucopia, but it is true for the set.
Many listeners forget the distinction between music created and captured in a recording studio and the sounds played “live.” Many of the performances in the Mosaic box explode with happy ebullience. Some of that is the freedom to play without being stopped at three minutes and twenty seconds (I hear John Hammond’s voice saying “Too long, Basie!” at the end of a take that could not be issued at the time) — in fact, the freedom to play without any recording supervisor (Hammond, Oberstein, Stephens, Hanighen) or their disapproving presence (Jack Kapp’s wooden Indian) in the room: the freedom to make a mistake and convert it into something remarkable by proceeding on. Often, the recording studio is all we have or will ever have, but its stated and unstated restrictions can make for a chilly environment.
Some of the joy comes from playing from dancers — the radio airshots from the Randall’s Island festival are particularly frolicsome. And we can’t discount the freedom to have a drink or something to inhale.
On the Basie sides, so much is both new and reassuring. Lester Young, Dicky Wells, and Jo Jones sound like schoolboys who’ve been told the school has burned down. Herschel Evans, so passionate, is in wonderful form (here and elsewhere in the set). I can’t leave out Bennie Morton and Vic Dickenson, Buck Clayton, Sweets Edison, a particularly eloquent Jimmy Rushing, and Helen Humes’ most tender singing the lyrics to BLUE AND SENTIMENTAL.
I hear the arrangements anew — often, the Basie band is perceived as a springboard for soloists, and there’s much justification for that — but these airshots make it possible to hear the sections as if for the first time. (Also, it’s evident how the arrangements become more complex.) And the rhythm section! Before hearing these recordings, I didn’t take in that Jo Jones was still playing temple blocks in mid-1938, and it’s a common assumption that Freddie Green and Walter Page were going along in a serious 4/4, four quarter notes to the bar, but their work is full of wonderful variations, accented notes and syncopations. Even when a soloist closely follows the version created in the recording studio (some audience members wanted to “hear it the way it was on the record”) everything sounds joyous and free.
And since Bill Savory had professional equipment and the discs were splendidly restored by Doug Pomeroy, overall the recording quality is superb — far from the airshots we know recorded by a fan in the living room holding a microphone to the radio speaker to funnel sounds onto his Recordio disc. The sound is not only clear — one hears details and the gentle enthusiasm of the audience — but large. I can’t explain what “hearing the sound of the room” actually means, but there is a spaciousness that is delightful.
The new repertoire — not just Basie — is also a treat, as if we had been offered an audio equivalent to Bob Inman’s SWING ERA SCRAPBOOK . . . Basie performing RUSSIAN LULLABY (with Jimmy singing), ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND, ROSETTA, LIMEHOUSE BLUES, and BUGLE CALL RAG.
To the other gems, some of which have already been well publicized: Coleman Hawkins’ six-minute rhapsody on BODY AND SOUL; Fats Waller at the Yacht Club — so revealing of what he was like as pianist, singer, personality, and entertainer — with dance medleys of songs by J.Fred Coots (a close friend) and Sammy Fain; windows into his world that the Victor sides never provide. Five minutes of young Ella; the Martin Block Jam session with the painfully lovely STARDUST featuring an ailing Herschel Evans; another Block session featuring Eddie Condon, Pee Wee Russell, Bud Freeman, Zutty Singleton, Charlie and Jack Teagarden, and Fats; Mildred Bailey singing TRUCKIN’ with the verse; Leo Watson taking on HONEYSUCKLE ROSE with the John Kirby Sextet and JEEPERS CREEPERS with Johnny Mercer; pearly Bobby Hackett, more from Joe and Marty Marsala, who didn’t get to record enough; Stuff Smith; Ben Webster, Albert Ammons, Chick Webb, Albert Ammons, Carl Kress and Dick McDonough, Ernie and Emilio Caceres, Roy Eldridge, Stew Pletcher, Ram Ramirez, Red Norvo, Teddy Bunn, Kenneth Hollon, Vernon Brown, Milt Hinton; Lionel Hampton, Charlie Shavers, Cozy Cole, Buster Bailey, Joe Thomas, George Wettling, Ed Hall, Carmen Mastren (with several long solos!), Jonah Jones, new music from the here-and-gone Teddy Wilson big band, the wondrous Benny Carter ensemble, and Glenn Miller; a set of four solo piano improvisations by Joe Sullivan, one of them ten minutes long — a true picture of the artist as a barrelhouse Joyce, wandering brilliantly.  And I am sure I’ve left someone out.
These six CDs are the Arabian Nights of swing, documents of a time and place where magic came out of your radio all the time.
I think it is obvious that I am urging listeners to purchase this set while they can. But I must modulate to another key — that is, to quietly comment on the culture of entitlement, which, sadly, also infects people who love this music. When some of the Savory material was issued on iTunes, some complained, “I don’t do downloads.” Now that it is all — plus more music — available on CD, I’ve heard some whinge, and yes, that is the right word, that they don’t want to buy this box set for various reasons. Some think, incorrectly, that the six discs of the box have only what was released on iTunes, which is incorrect. Check the Mosaic discography.
I’ve even heard people being petulant, “Why doesn’t this set include X or Y?” not understanding that the artists’ estates were paid for the music — think of that! a legitimate reissue! — and that some estates wanted extravagant reimbursement.
Consider what this set offers — rarities never even dreamed of — and do some simple math, how much each prized track costs the purchaser. And, on another level, what you would pay to keep Mosaic Records afloat. I know that, say, ten years ago, if you’d told me I could have thirty-nine new Basie performances for slightly more than a hundred dollars, I would have leaped at the opportunity, and I am no plutocrat. Of course, one is free to ruminate and grumble . . . but this is a limited edition of 5000 sets. Expect to see Savory boxes on eBay for $500 in a few months. You’ve been warned.
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem’s The Savory Collection Mosaic CD set has been issued after many years of planning. Many people were a part of the team who made it possible. Let’s start with Sonny McGown, who led me to the late Gene Savory, Bill’s son. Jonathan S. Scheuer, long-time board member of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, purchased the collection and donated it to the museum. Frank Rich helped spread the word, as did Ken Burns, and within a few months, the Savory story graced the front page of the NYTimes. Fellow board member and attorney Daryl Libow stepped right in to handle all the myriad legal challenges. Doug Pomeroy rescued all that was salvageable from the discs. Dr. Susan Schmidt-Horning had interviewed and written about Bill and gave us lots of help from the academic/acoustic realms. Garrett Shelton was invaluable at iTunes for the initial releases, as was Ken Druker and the production team he assembled to make all of that happen. Samantha Samuels created first-class promo videos for us, and then Scott Wenzel, to whom the jazz world owes a huge debt for his unflagging production of the Mosaic catalogue (along with the rest of the Mosaic team, read: Michael Cuscuna and Fred Pustay) hopped back aboard to bring this collection to fruition; he had been there at the git-go, joining me and Kevin Cerovich in Malta, Ill., to catalogue and drive the discs to NYC.
The album is graced by essays of some of the finest writers out here, starting with Dan Morgenstern and Ricky Riccardi, Tom Piazza, David Fletcher, Michael Steinman, Vincent Pelote, Anthony Barnett, James Carter, Ethan Iverson, and Kenny Washington.
And none of the music would have been issuable without the cooperation of the artist’s estates, and the dedication of the board and staff of The National Jazz Museum in Harlem.  So it’s been a long haul, well worth the wait; here’s hoping Bill Savory would be pleased.
If you consider an artist’s works in chronological sequence (bibliography as well as discography) certain landmarks blot out their neighbors. In the case of Coleman Hawkins, there’s BODY AND SOUL, then the Hampton Victor date, then his big band — leading up to the small-group sessions of 1943-44 for Signature, Keynote, Savoy, and more.
The Varsity Seven sides — full of delights — recorded in December 1939 and January 1940 — haven’t received the admiration they deserve. Hawkins’ admiring biographer, the diligent John Chilton, calls them “a pastiche of Dixieland.” I disagree.
The Varsity label (please note the transparent pseudonyms for Hawkins and Carter) was run by Eli Oberstein, and it never seems to have been entirely out in the open. I don’t know that Oberstein was the equal of Herman Lubinsky of Savoy, but Eli seems to have been ingenious in his dealings. I believe the masters of these and other sessions were bought by Savoy, and thus the trail to licit reissues is complex. Were they Victor sessions, they would have been available straightforwardly for decades now, including “official” CD issue.
Another side-note is that the session — one or both? — was co-produced by Leonard Feather and Warren Scholl, which may account for a Feather composition being there. I knew two sides from this date because my Long Island friend Tom Piazza played them for me, forty-plus years ago: SHAKE IT AND BREAK IT and A PRETTY GIRL IS LIKE A MELODY. I don’t know where each of the musicians was working in 1939-40, whether Fifty-Second Street or Cafe Society or uptown, but they come together to create great jazz. Cheerful Jeanne Burns (known for work with Adrian Rollini and Wingy Manone) is a liability, but we’ve all heard less polished singers. Here’s the information for the first session.
Benny Carter, trumpet, alto saxophone; Danny Polo, clarinet; Coleman Hawkins, tenor saxophone; Joe Sullivan, piano; Ulysses Livingston, guitar, vocal; Artie Bernstein, string bass; George Wettling, drums; Jeanne Burns, vocal.  New York, December 14, 1939.
IT’S TIGHT LIKE THAT (Burns, vocal). The first two choruses — bless Sullivan and Wettling, who are bringing Jimmy Ryan’s to a record date or doing the Commodore? — are flawless. Ms. Burns has pitch trouble, but I concentrate on Sullivan behind her. Polo and Livingston (the latter sounding much like a sweet Teddy Bunn) aren’t derailed by the young lady, and then Hawkins charges in, “I’m back from Europe, and let me remind you who is still King!” My idea of perfection is of course subjective, but the instrumental portions of this recording stand up with any other of this period:
EASY RIDER (Burns, Livingston, vocal). Hawkins starts off rhapsodically, and is then relieved by Polo, whose sound in itself is an aural landscape, no matter how simple his phrases. (In this, he reminds me of poets Joe Marsala, Raymond Burke, and Edmond Hall.) Ms. Burns Is much more at ease at this tempo and in this range, and her unusual mixture of Mae West and Mildred Bailey is her most successful vocal. Livingston’s vaudeville couplets are harmlessly archaic counterpoint, leading in to an ensemble where Carter and Polo take up most of the space, leaving Hawkins little to do. One must admire the lovely drumming of Wettling — and how beautifully Artie Shapiro’s bass comes through — before the consciously “old-timey” ending:
SCRATCH MY BACK is the one Leonard Feather composition, and a charming one, revisited by Dan Barrett a few years ago. I can’t figure out the changes beneath the melody — an experienced friend / musician says the first strain is similar to YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME. I love the opening ensemble, and Shapiro’s deep notes behind Polo, then Sullivan’s rollicking solo chorus, where Wettling is having a wonderful time — and the passage where Sullivan abstracts the melody for great dramatic effect. Then — what’s this? — a glorious alto solo by “Billy Carton” (heir to the cardboard box fortune) punctuated by a Livingston blues-pastoral. Everyone steps aside for Hawkins, and a recap of the theme with Livingston adding sweet arpeggiated chords. No complaints here:
SAVE IT PRETTY MAMA (Burns, vocal). Aside from the ending, I don’t think of this as “Dixieland”: rather a series of splendid improvisations from Carter, Sullivan, and two choruses from Hawkins — over a gently propulsive and balanced rhythm section. I find Burns’ version of Mildred Bailey’s upper-register-vibrato jarring, but I was listening to Polo, murmuring sweet limpid asides, and the rhythm section while she sang:
Fast forward to January 15, 1940: the same personnel except Big Joe Turner replaces Burns, an improvement.
And in his honor, they began with HOW LONG, HOW LONG BLUES. In the opening ensemble, Hawkins is nearly submerged (could this have been what irritated Chilton?) which leads into a lovely chorus by Polo — with plain-spoken rhythm section work. Then, Big Joe, in glowing voice, supported by a very powerful Sullivan, with lovely ensemble encouragements. It almost seems as if Hawkins has been waiting his chance, and he takes it eloquently, before Big Joe and the band return. At 2:23, apparently Turner has momentarily forgotten the lyric couplet or has gotten distracted. A fine improvised ensemble closes off the record, with a Wettling accent. This side seems slightly under-rehearsed, but the looseness adds to its charm:
SHAKE IT AND BREAK IT has always been a favorite, and this vocal version is a prize. If there’s a sound more engaging than this rhythm section following Sullivan, I have yet to hear it. Big Joe sounds positively exuberant (in touch with the lyrics); Polo and Livingston keep the forward motion going , and everyone is even more gleeful for Joe’s second chorus (“rub it all over the wall”) before particularly hot choruses by Carter and Hawkins follow, leading to jamming (with Wettling happily prominent) to end the record. If this is “Dixieland,” I want many more sides:
A PRETTY GIRL IS LIKE A MELODY was not a song much utilized for jam session recordings, but to have it here is a pleasure. I wonder if Oberstein said, “No more blues, fellows! Let’s have a hot one!” as Big Joe left the studio. Or it just seemed like a melodic yet under-played Berlin song, taken a little quicker than I imagine it was done in the Ziegfeld Follies. A very simple — even cliched — vamp led by Livingston starts things off before Polo takes the lead — which surprisingly turns into an ensemble passage, then a wonderfully quirky Sullivan solo AND Hawkins leaping into his chorus with the zeal of a great athlete (powerful playing from Shapiro, Livingston, and Wettling) — then a magnificent Carter solo and a romping ensemble close. This is one of the most successful sides of the eight:
And, finally, POM POM, a Carter original which might be a phrase from one of his solos scored for small band, with a particularly light scoring: I would have thought the opening 16 was scored for alto, clarinet, and tenor, but for the speed with which Carter plays trumpet on the bridge. Polo’s chorus is so tenderly levitating that if you, hearing his work on this session, don’t want to hear more, then I have failed. Hawkins is energized in his two-chorus solo, reminding me of the trio records he made in 1937, especially in his powerful second chorus — but Carter is as elegant a mountain-climber as I can imagine (with a distinct similarity to Joe Thomas or Bill Coleman of this period); another piece of swing lace-weaving from Livingston, and the record gracefully winds down — simultaneously hot and gentle. Is that a recording engineer’s “fade” or simply everyone getting softer? I don’t know, but it’s very sweet:
These aren’t flawless records. Some of them might have benefited from a second take. But they are uplifting examples of the stars willing to come in and play two dates for what I imagine was scale. All in a day’s work — and how glorious the results are.
Let us revisit 2010 for a brief tour of the Bill Savory Collection, with commentary by two of our heroic benefactors, Loren Schoenberg and Doug Pomeroy.
And from another angle, this 2016 article tells the tale.
Starting in 2016, through iTunes, listeners have been able to purchase and savor four volumes of downloaded music: featuring Coleman Hawkins, Fats Waller, John Kirby, Jack Teagarden, Joe Marsala, Leo Watson, Teddy Wilson, Glenn Miller, Bobby Hackett, Ella Fitzgerald, Carl Kress, Dick McDonough, Ernie Caceres, Vernon Brown, George Wettling, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Shavers, Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, Charlie Teagarden, Milt Hinton, Albert Ammons, Chick Webb, Joe Sullivan, Joe Bushkin, Ben Webster . . . and — for some of us — the great treasure of live Count Basie with Lester Young and Herschel Evans. I’ve written a preview of Volume Four here. It’s been the soundtrack for the past few days.
I and other collectors have heard rumors — whispered four-bar breaks — that in our lifetimes Mosaic Records would arrange to issue more of the Savory material on compact discs, and that blissful fantasy has taken shape.
In February 2018, a six-disc set will be released: $99 plus shipping. As always, it will be a limited edition of 5000 copies. It will have gorgeous photographs and the extensive annotation Mosaic is known for: most of the prose coming from Loren Schoenberg, but with some writers sitting-in: David Fletcher, Anthony Barnett among them.
Here you can read more.  And here is my definition of auditory bliss.
The four volumes of iTunes downloads offered 76 tracks. The Mosaic box will contain 108 tracks: the new music will be by Mildred Bailey, Stuff Smith, Joe Sullivan, and Count Basie — 39 tracks by Basie alone. (That’s eighteen new Basie tracks, four of them from the legendary Randall’s Island swing festival.) Two of the Sullivan solo piano improvisations are astounding creative rambles: one is ten minutes long, the other seven. Incidentally, many performances are longer than the three-minute-and-some-seconds limit of the 78 records of the time; most of them are in far superior sound.
I didn’t take any college courses in Marketing, and I don’t make my living in retail, but this post is an open advertisement for the set, and for Mosaic Records in general. (I’ve purchased my Savory box set — full price, should you need to know.) Since the iTunes downloads started to appear, I’ve read vituperative blurts from some collectors who “hate Apple” and others who want to know when the music will appear on CD.  Now, fellows (I am gender-specific here for obvious reasons), now’s the time to convert words into action.
If others of you are under economic pressures, which are — as we know — so real, pardon my words and go to the “auditory bliss” section of this post and enjoy what’s there. If the kids need braces or the car a new battery, all bets are off. Those who fulminate on Facebook because the set offers no performances by X Orchestra or Y should know that not all the heirs and estates of the musicians Savory recorded have agreed to permit music to be issued.
However, if there were to be the groundswell of support that this set deserves, some people who are currently saying NO to issuing music might change their tune to a more expansive YES. And I believe fervently that Mosaic Records deserves our support. In an age where people sitting in front of their monitors, expecting everything for free, some enterprises cost money. (I come from that generation where not everything was easily accessible, so I appreciate this largesse from my heart.)
So consider this post encouragement to purchase the long-awaited six-disc set. Feast your eyes on the track listing and soon you will be able to feast your ears.
DISC I:
COLEMAN HAWKINS:Â 1. Body And Soul (X) (5:51) /Â 2. Basin Street Blues (X) (5:50) /Â 3. Lazy Butterfly (X) (1:03)
ELLA FITZGERALD: 4. A-Tisket, A-Tasket (II) (2:22) / 5. (I’ve Been) Saving Myself For You (II) (2:50) /
FATS WALLER: 6. Yacht Club Swing (theme and intro) / Hold My Hand (RR) (3:39) / 7. I Haven’t Changed A Thing (RR) (3:56) / 8. (Medley): Summer Souvenirs / Who Blew Out The Flame? (RR) (5:38) / 9. (Medley): You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby / Sixty Seconds Got Together (RR) (3:44) / 10. I’ve Got A Pocketful Of Dreams (RR) (2:26) / 11. When I Go A-Dreaming (RR) (2:50) / 12. Alligator Crawl (RR) (1:38) / 13. The Spider and the Fly (RR) (2:40) /
LIONEL HAMPTON JAM SESSION:Â 14. Dinah (7:01) /Â 15. Star Dust (2:58) /Â 16. Chinatown, My Chinatown (2:25) /Â 17. Blues (9:52) /Â 18. Rosetta (4:06) /
CARL KRESS & DICK McDONOUGH:Â 19. Heat Wave (EE) (2:20)
EMILIO CACERES TRIO:Â 20. China Boy (S) (2:26)
DISC II:
ALBERT AMMONS:Â 1. Boogie Woogie Stomp (A) (3:03)
ROY ELDRIDGE:Â 2. Body And Soul (II) (4:23)
ROY ELDRIDGE / CHICK WEBB:Â 3. Liza (II) (2:03)
FATS WALLER: 4. Honeysuckle Rose (QQ) (6:31) / 5. China Boy (QQ) (5:57) / 6. I’m Comin’ Virginia (QQ) (4:35) / 7. Blues (QQ) (5:24) / 8. I Got Rhythm (QQ) (2:05) /
JOHN KIRBY: 9. From A Flat To C (CC) (2:39) / 10. Blues Petite (DD) (3:43) / 11. Front And Center (AA) (2:50) / 12. Effervescent Blues (Z) (2:43) / 13. Minnie The Moocher’s Wedding Day (DD) (2:23) / 14. Echoes of Harlem (Z) (3:36) / 15. Boogie Woogie (BB) (2:56) / 16. Milumbu (Z) (3:23) /17. Rehearsin’ For A Nervous Breakdown (CC) (3:27) /18. Honeysuckle Rose (Y) (1:07)
BENNY CARTER:Â 19. More Than You Know (T) (4:26) /Â 20. Honeysuckle Rose (T) (1:21) /
JOE SULLIVAN AND HIS CAFE SOCIETY ORCH.:Â 21. China Boy (MM) (1:28)
DISC III:
JOE MARSALA:Â 1. Jazz Me Blues (FF) (5:26) /Â 2. California, Here I Come (FF) (6:53) /Â 3. When Did You Leave Heaven? (FF) (7:21) /Â 4. The Sheik Of Araby (FF) (4:42) /
BOBBY HACKETT:Â 5. Body And Soul (U) (2:12) /Â 6. Embraceable You (V) (2:48) /Â 7. Muskrat Ramble (V) (2:09) /
JACK TEAGARDEN:Â 8. Honeysuckle Rose (PP) (5:04) /Â 9. Jeepers Creepers (PP) (6:10) /
MILDRED BAILEY: 10. My Melancholy Baby (B) (3:41) / 11. Truckin’ (B) (2:41) / 12. Rockin’ Chair (theme) / More Than You Know (C) (4:14) / 13. The Day I Let You Get Away (C) (2:08) /
STUFF SMITH:  14. Crescendo In Drums (KK) (3:57) / 15. I’se A’ Muggin (JJ) (2:28) /
Mister Page signs in — first on paper, then audibly and memorably.
The response to my recent posting of Hot Lips Page playing and singing CHINATOWN (here)Â at a 1944 Eddie Condon concert was so strong that I thought it would be cruel to not offer more of the same immediately.
(Note: the cross-species inventiveness of this cover — that the birdies have cute human faces — is a whimsy of the sheet music artist’s, and it’s not part of the song, in case you were anxious about the possibilities of such genetic mingling.)
One of Lips’ favorite showpieces was the 1924 WHEN MY SUGAR WALKS DOWN THE STREET, and here are two sterling versions.  The first is very brief but no less affecting.  The collective personnel is Bobby Hackett, Pee Wee Russell, Max Kaminsky, Lips, Bill Harris, Ernie Caceres, Clyde Hart, Eddie Condon, Bob Haggart, Joe Grauso.  New York, June 10, 1944:
Eight years later, Lips was part of an extraordinary little band, nominally led by drummer George Wettling: with Joe Sullivan, Pee Wee Russell, and Lou McGarity — a peerless quintet captured at the Stuyvesant Casino during one of “Doctor Jazz”‘s broadcasts, this one from February 15, 1952:
Late in the previous century, I had my fascination with the recordings of Bing Crosby intensified by the opportunity to listen to two decades of his records in chronological order. Â And although some see his career as an inevitable descent into “popular music,” I could always hear the glowing beauty of his voice, his wonderful phrasing, his direct appeal to the listener. Â He never seemed detached when he sang, even if the song was at first an odd choice for those who, like myself, grew up on his recordings of YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME, DANCING IN THE DARK, PLEASE, and dozens of other masterpieces. Â I think of Michael Brooks reminding us of the splendor of Crosby’s HOME ON THE RANGE, for one glorious example.
Although Johnny Mercer deserves his fame as songwriter and lyricist, I also encountered him early as a charmingly eccentric singer — the SIZZLING ONE-STEP MEDLEY with Trumbauer, THE BATHTUB RAN OVER AGAIN, and LORD, I GIVE YOU MY CHILDREN. Â Later Mercer vocals — for instance, MOON RIVER — have the sadness of a mature artist, but the ones I came to love first had a delicious impish puckishness to them, as if he was about to burst into helpless laughter at any point — which he didn’t, being an expert jester in complete control.
This 1938 recording, pairing the two, is an absolute favorite of mine: it exists at the crossroads of Swing, Vaudeville, and Jive: Bing and Johnny playing around with an ancient (even then) musical-vaudeville routine, MISTER GALLAGHER AND MISTER SHEAN, updated to be satirically hip, with new lyrics by Mercer.
Although everything here is scripted (unless perhaps a few of the ad-libs were invented in rehearsal) the whole performance has a goofy splendor, with Mercer’s lyrics both hilarious and intentionally vaudevillian; the splendid expertise of this hot band, evident even when they don’t have as much to do as jazz fans would have wished: Sullivan’s written phrase at the start, Secrest’s quiet obbligati; Spike’s rollicking old-time drumming; Lincoln’s slides. Â And the obvious joy Bing and Johnny exude, the sheer fun they are having.
I could close my eyes and see them nattily attired in updated 1922 vaudeville garb (straw boaters and striped jackets) pretending to teach us all about Swing — notice, it’s a lesson that “Johnny” doesn’t want at all, which is perhaps the best joke of all, for 1938-and-onwards listeners expecting this to be the triumph of “Modern” over “Old-Time,” which turns on itself when “Sorta Lombardo, Mister C!” is delivered in a completely authentic bluesy drawl. Â Those who suggest that Bing never broke out of old-timey rhythmic patterns, never got in the groove in true (let us say Basie) fashion should listen closely: yes, he and Johnny imitate New Orleans rhythmic patterns in their asides, but everyone is swinging. Â Oh, there are levels and levels of art here, even though Jack Kapp would have imagined this as one of this all-star productions, sure to win a mass audience, sure to sell well. Â It continues to delight me, and I hope it does the same for you.
Bing and Johnny are perfectly accompanied by Victor Young’s Small Fryers : Andy Secrest, cornet; Abe Lincoln, trombone; Jack Mayhew, clarinet; John Cascales, tenor saxophone; Â Joe Sullivan, piano; Perry Botkin, guitar; Jim “Slim” Taft, string bass; Spike Jones, drums. Â Los Angeles, July 1, 1938.
(7:01) /Â 15. Star Dust 
JAZZ LIVES 