Here are two savory solo piano performances by John Sheridan, almost a decade ago, having his own kind of intent fun at the piano in the parlor of the Hotel Athenaeum, the Friday afternoon before the proceedings officially began.
John had a vast repertoire, so these two performances — riotous yet exact, meditative yet focused — are simply two aspects of his multifarious self. I invite you to savor them, and also share my slight amusement at John’s crisp rapport with the listeners, never mean-spirited but always slightly brusque, at least on the surface.
COME BACK, SWEET PAPA, by Paul Barbarin and Luis Russell, made immortal by Louis Armstrong in Chicago, 1926. Verse and chorus, delightfully orchestral and vivid:
and the other end of the emotional spectrum, a ruminative impressionistic THE LEGEND OF LONESOME LAKE by Eastwood Lane, a composer and composition Bix Beiderbecke knew well:
It’s easy to say that artists are immortal as long as their art is within reach, and it’s true . . . but I wish the telephone would ring and John would be on the other end. Seeing and hearing him, however, is a delight, even if tinged with regret.
I’m going to allow myself the freedom of not writing the history of this song, nor posting all the versions, but simply offering a few that please me immensely. This post is in honor of Doctor J, who knows why it is.
A little introduction (2006) by the Manhattan Ragtime Orchestra, who closed sets with it: Jon-Erik Kellso, Brad Shigeta, Orange Kellin, Morten Gunnar Larsen, John Gill, Skye Steele, Conal Fowkes, Rob Garcia:
Louis gets to introduce his own performance:
and here’s the lovely 1930 version, with magnificent Louis (yes, I know that’s redundant) and his “Rhythm Boys” drawn from the Luis Russell band, starring J.C. Higginbotham and Pops Foster. Apparently Paul Barbarin plays vibraphone and the band’s valet plays drums: he swings!
Count Basie, slightly less than a decade later, with Buck Clayton, Lester Young, and the rest of the Hawaiians (the trumpets make wonderful derisive noises at the end of Lester’s solo — why? I don’t know, but it’s just splendid):
And a more contemporary version I treasure because it seems to convey decades of vernacular music performance, making the transition from waltz-time to quietly majestic rocking (yes, Louis is standing in the wings, very happy). I imagine the opening choruses as a tea-dance or perhaps a summer band concert in a gazebo in the town park, and then the band takes on restorative color and swing, never aggressively but with sweet eloquence. The group is the 1987 Red Roseland Cornpickers, featuring Bent Persson, Claus Jacobi, and Keith Nichols, and this is taken from my prized “long-playing record” on the Stomp Off label:
Details for those who crave data: Bent Persson (tp-2,vcl) Folker Siegert (tb-3,vcl) Claus Jacobi (as-4,ts-5,cl-6,vcl) Engelhard Schatz (cl-7,sop-8,ts-9,vcl) Lothar Kohn (as-10,g-11,vcl) Joachim Muller (bassax-13,cl-14,as-15) Keith Nichols (p,vcl) Gunter Russel (bj-12,vcl) Ulf-Carsten Gottges (d) Gottingen, January 4 & 5, 1987. SONG OF THE ISLANDS: (2,3,4,6,7,9,12,13,14,15, Bent, Folker, Claus, Engelhard, Lothar, and Keith, vocal).
In these stressful times, this music evokes warm days, cool nights, tropical beaches, and fresh pineapple.
We know many people born on February 28th. However, we know a much smaller number born on that date in 1930. And there is only ONE Martin Oliver Grosz, who will thus turn ninety in a few days.
Marty won’t read this post, so I will spare him and all of us a lengthy explication of his particular virtues. But let me inform you about a few events related to his birthday . . . and then there will be a reward for those with high reading comprehension skills. “Three ways,” not chili . . . but a book and two parties. And patient readers will find another reward, of a particularly freakish nature, at the end of this post.
Marty has talked about writing his autobiography for years now (I was almost a collaborator, although not in the wartime sense) — he has stories! And the book has finally happened, thanks to the Golden Alley Press, with the really splendid editorship of Joe Plowman, whom we know more as a superb musician. Great photos, and it’s a pleasure to look at as well as read.
The book is entertaining, readable, funny, and revealing — with stories about people you wouldn’t expect (Chet Baker!). It sounds like Marty, because the first half is a tidied-up version of his own story, written in longhand — with elegant calligraphy — on yellow legal paper. I’m guessing that a few of the more libelous bits have been edited out, but we know there are severe laws about such things and paper is flammable.
The second part of the book, even more vividly, is a stylishly done series of interviews with Marty — a real and sometimes startlingly candid pleasure. I’ve followed Marty musically for more than twenty-five years and have had conversations with him for two decades . . . this, as he would say, is the real breadstick, and I learned a great deal I hadn’t already known. More informationhere and here. The official publication date is March 4, but you can pre-order the book from several of the usual sites — as noted above.
And two musical events — Marty encompasses multitudes, so he gets two parties.
One will take place at the Hopewell Valley Bistro, tomorrow at 6 PM, where Marty will be joined by Danny Tobias, Scott Robinson, and Gary Cattley, for an evening of swing and badinage, sometimes with the two combined. Details here. And on March 4, another extravaganza — at the World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, with what used to be called “an all-star cast”: Vince Giordano, Danny Tobias, Scott Robinson, Dan Block, Randy Reinhart, Joe Plowman, Jim Lawlor, Jack Saint Clair, and I would guess some surprise guests. Details here. Even though I am getting on a plane the next morning to fly to Monterey for the Jazz Bash by the Bay, I am going to this one. You should too!
Now, the unearthed treasure . . . for all the Freaks in the house, as Louis would say, a congregation in which I happily include myself. I’ve written elsewhere of taking sub rosa videos at the 2007 and 2008 Jazz at Chautauqua weekend ecstasies, and I recently dug out this spiritual explosion. The camerawork is shaky and vague (I was shooting into bright light), but the music is life-enhancing. Even the YouTube Disliker is quietly applauding:
Let us celebrate Marty Grosz. He continues to be completely Himself, which is a fine thing. With Dispatch and Vigor, Fats, Al Casey, and Red McKenzie looking on approvingly.
Today, one of our great heroes and pathfinders turns 90 — the down-to earth jazz deity of the Upper west Side, Dan Morgenstern. (He’ll be celebrating with David Ostwald’s Louis Armstrong Eternity Band at Birdland this afternoon into evening.)
I’ve been reading Dan’s prose and absorbing his insights for more than fifty years now, and in the video interviews he’s graciously encouraged me to do since 2017, I know I have learned so much and I hope you all have as well. And some of what I’ve learned is about Dan’s generosity and the breadth of his interests.
During those interviews, he has often caught me by surprise. We were speaking about another musician who had played with pioneering string bassist George “Pops” Foster, and Dan said . . . hear and see for yourself:
I’ll return to the culinary subject at the end. Right now, some glimpses of Pops.
First, a trailer from a short documentary done by Mal Sharpe and Elizabeth Sher called ALMA’S JAZZY MARRIAGE:
I’d seen this documentary on a DVD and was thrilled to find it was still for sale — so Steve Pikal (a serious Pops devotee) and I will have copies in a short time. You can, too, here.
Here’s a 1945 interview Wynne Paris (in Boston) conducted with Pops:
and Roger Tilton’s astonishing 1954 film JAZZ DANCE, once vanished, now found, on YouTube (featuring Jimmy McPartland, Pee Wee Russell, Willie the Lion Smith, George Wettling, and Pops):
Those who want to understand the glory of Pops Foster — there are recordings with Luis Russell and Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Art Hodes, Sidney Bechet, and many more.
You’ll notice that I haven’t included more of the interviews I’ve done with Dan here. They are all on YouTube — stories about everyone from Fats Waller to Miles Davis onwards (with more to come) which you can find as part of my YouTube channel “swingyoucats”.
The tense shift in my title is intentional: it pleases me to think of Pops making dinner for friends in some eternal present. I just got through idly perusing a new book on the relationship between brain health and diet, where the ideal is greens, grains, wild salmon, and more. Now I wonder: are ham hocks the secret ingredient to health and longevity? Or do we have to have Pops Foster’s recipe?
To quote Lennie Kunstadt, we need “Research!” But whatever has kept Dan Morgenstern with us for ninety years, we bless that combination platter.
As we bless Dan. So let us say as one, “Happy birthday, most eminent Youngblood!”
P.S. The Birdland tribute was heartfelt and too short. David’s band had Will Anderson, Jared Engel, Arnt Arntzen, Bria Skonberg, Alex Raderman, and Jim Fryer — with guests Joe Boga, Ed Polcer, Evan Arntzen, and Lew Tabackin. Dan (with piano backing from Daryl Sherman) sang WHEN YOU’RE SMILING. And we were.
Our subjects today are the overlap of “madness” and “pleasure.” Please be prepared to take notes.
“But first, this,” as they used to say on public radio.
PLEASURE MAD, a Sidney Bechet composition, was recorded in 1924 but the vocal versions weren’t issued, except for this one. Did the record company find it too direct to be acceptable? Here’s Ethel Waters’ version, clear as a bell:
Perhaps the song continued to be performed with those lyrics, but I don’t have any evidence. However, it resurfaced in 1938 as VIPER MAD, new lyrics, as sung — memorably — by O’Neil Spencer:
There might be other ways to pose the rhetorical question, but at what moment in those fourteen years did sexual pleasure become a less interesting subject in popular song than smoking reefers?
While you consider that intriguing philosophical question, I have a new double-CD set (36 tracks! 12 pounds!) to share with you. A little personal history: I attended the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, then renamed Mike Durham’s International Classic Jazz Party, from 2009 to 2016, and had a fine time: the best American, European, Australian, and occasionally South American musicians turned loose for a long weekend of hot and sweet jazz, its spiritual center the late Twenties and early Thirties.
Here are three samples, videoed by me, songs and personnels named:
and
and
I ended with GOT BUTTER ON IT so that JAZZ LIVES readers can — as they say — get a flavor of the experience. The Party continues to do its special magic splendidly, a magic that videos only partially convey. This year it’s November 1-3, and details can be found here. And if you search JAZZ LIVES for “Whitley Bay” or “Durham,” you will find a deluge of posts and videos.
But this post isn’t exactly about the Party as such, nor is it about my videos. Its subject — now, pay attention — is a 2-CD set of live performances from the 2018 Party, which is just thrilling. It’s called PLEASURE MAD: ‘LIVE RECORDINGS FROM MIKE DURHAM’S INTERNATIONAL CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY 2017 (WVR RECORDS WVR1007). As I wrote above, 36 live performances in beautiful sound.
And the sound is worth noting, with delight. At the Party, some fans record the music from the audience with everything from ancient cassette recorders to digital ones; when I was there, I videoed as much as I could. But this CD issue has the benefit of superb sound, because of the young Norwegian trumpeter and recording engineer Torstein Kubban, who has recorded every session for the past six years. Torstein is a phenomenal player, so I may be permitted this digression:
He’s got it, for sure. And his recordings are wonderful.
Here are the songs performed — referencing Duke Ellington, Ben Pollack, Bennie Moten, the Halfway House Orchestra, Alex Hill, Rube Bloom, Jabbo Smith, Louis Armstrong,Eddie Condon, Willie “the Lion” Smith, Clarence Williams, Luis Russell, King Oliver, James P. Johnson, and more:
And the musicians: Mike Davis, Andy Schumm, Duke Heitger, Jamie Brownfield, Malo Mazurie, Kristoffer Kompen, Jim Fryer, Graham Hughes, Ewan Bleach, Michael McQuaid, Richard Exall, Claus Jacobi, Matthias Seuffert, Lars Frank, Jean-Francois Bonnel, Emma Fisk, David Boeddinghaus, Martin Litton, Keith Nichols, Morten Gunnar Larsen, Martin Wheatley, Spats Langham, Peter Beyerer, Henry Lemaire, Jacob Ullberger, Phil Rutherford, Elise Sut, Malcolm Sked, Josh Duffee, Richard Pite, Nick Ward, Nick Ball, Joan Viskant, Nicolle Rochelle. If I’ve left anyone out, let me know and I will impale myself on a cactus needle as penance, and video the event.
I think it’s taken me so long to write this post because every time I wanted to take the CDs into the house to write about them, I would start them up on the car player and there they would stay. A few highlights, deeply subjective: Martin Litton’s sensitive and tender solo LAURA; the riotous hot polyphony of CHATTANOOGA STOMP (which I recently played six times in the car, non-stop); the exuberant GIVE ME YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER; Spats Langham’s NEW ORLEANS SHUFFLE; a completely headlong RAILROAD MAN; a version of THE CHARLESTON that starts with Louis’ WEST END BLUES cadenza; SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE that rocks tremendously; I FOUND A NEW BABY that sounds as if Hines (in the guise of Boeddinghaus) visited a Condon jam session in 1933; SOBBIN’ BLUES with layers and textures as rich as great architecture. You will find your own favorites; those are mine of the moment.
My advice? If you can, get thee to the Party, where seats are going fast. Once there, buy several copies of this set — for yourself, national holidays, the birthdays of hip relatives — and enjoy for decades. If you can’t get to the UK, you can still purchase the set, which I urge you to do.
And when the authorities knock on your door to ask about the ecstatic sounds coming from within, you can simply show them this CD and say, “Well, Officers, I’m PLEASURE MAD! Would you like to come in?” And all will be well.
I know someone who can both Do and Teach: my friend and jazz hero above.
When Clint and I were on the STOMPTIME cruise last April and May, we had free time in the afternoons, and (because of my pleasure in video-interviewing others, including Dan Morgenstern, Mike Hashim, and Kim Cusack) I asked Clint if he wanted to sit for my camera. He was graciously enthusiastic, and because of our recent conversations, he chose to talk about a school of trombonists, working in New York in the early part of the last century, who aren’t praised or noticed as much as they should be.
So here is a beautiful swinging lesson from Professor Baker, the first portion examining the work(s) of Arthur Pryor, Charlie Irvis, Charlie Green, Miff Mole, and the overarching influence of Louis Armstrong:
Here Clint finishes the tale of Charlie Green, considers the work(s) of Jimmy Harrison, Jack Teagarden, Bennie Morton, the “vocal style,” and that influential Louis fellow:
The world of J.C. Higginbotham, with side-trips to Henry “Red” Allen and Luis Russell, Bill Harris, Kid Ory, Honore Dutrey, Preston Jackson, and more:
and finally, a portrait of Sandy Williams, with comments on Sidney Bechet, Bunk Johnson, Jack Teagarden, Chick Webb, and Tommy Dorsey:
Any good classroom presentation asks the students to do some research on their own, in their own ways. Clint has pointed to many recorded examples in his hour-plus interview / conversation. I offer a sampling below; for the rest, you are on your own . . . a lifetime of joyous study awaits.
Arthur Pryor’s 1901 masterpiece, THE BLUE BELLS OF SCOTLAND:
A recording that always is heralded for the brilliance of Louis and Bechet, rightly. But listen to Charlie Irvis all the way through, who’s astonishing:
Charlie Green on the Henderson “Dixie Stompers” CLAP HANDS, HERE COMES CHARLEY:
“Big” Green with Louis, for HOBO, YOU CAN’T RIDE THIS TRAIN:
and, because it’s so rewarding, the other take (which sounds like their first try):
Lawrence Brown showing the Pryor influence on the Ellington SHEIK (YouTube doesn’t offer the 1940 Fargo dance date version, yet) — with a later solo by someone we didn’t speak of, Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton:
Jimmy Harrison on the “Chocolate Dandies” DEE BLUES:
Cross-fertilization: Jack Teagarden on RIDIN’ BUT WALKIN’:
Bennie Morton, on Don Redman’s 1931 I GOT RHYTHM, with a glorious trio:
J.C. Higginbotham, Henry “Red” Allen, and Pops Foster — with the 1929 Luis Russell band, for JERSEY LIGHTNING:
Higgy, Red, and Cecil Scott, 1935, with ROLL ALONG, PRAIRIE MOON:
Preston Jackson, explosively, on Jimmie Noone’s 1940 NEW ORLEANS HOP SCOP BLUES:
Sandy Williams with Bunk and Bechet, UP IN SIDNEY’S FLAT:
Sandy with Bechet, Sidney De Paris, Sidney Catlett, OLD MAN BLUES:
and Sandy on Chick Webb’s DIPSY DOODLE:
A wonderful postscript: Dan Morgenstern recalling Sandy Williams at a 2017 interview, as well as the kindness of Bennie Morton, and a James P. Johnson story:
But my question is this, “Clint, what shall we talk about next? I can’t wait . . . and I know I have company.”
It’s Those Men Again: pianist Andrew Oliver and reedman David Horniblow for our weekly benificence of Jelly Roll Morton: their gift to us, the Complete Morton Project, to which you certainly should subscribe . . . it’s free, beautifully done and recorded.
First, THE CRAVE, the nearly-hypnotic exploration of the Spanish Tinge, which Jelly recorded for the Library of Congress in an extended take, and for General as a 10″ 78.
Here’s what we crave in 2018:
MINT JULEP is less famous, but was commercially recorded for Victor in 1929, when Morton took a slightly cut-down version of the Luis Russell band into the studios:
Thanks go to Andrew and David for our weekly helpings of lyrical swinging hot jazz — finely-tuned dance music as well.
Edward Ory — that’s the Kid to those of us who admire and keep his name and music alive — is a fabled figure. His 1925-28 Chicago recordings with Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Luis Russell, Johnny Dodds, Lil Hardin, George Mitchell, Jelly Roll Morton, Ma Rainey, even Tiny Parham are bedrock masterpieces of the pre-World War Two jazz canon, and many bands celebrate them.
But the California climate — whether you consider the ground-breaking 1922 recordings or the evidence of Ory’s second career — must have agreed with him, because the music he made from 1943 on, while less celebrated, is as gratifying, to some even more so. In the middle Forties, Ory’s band was not a formulaic “trad” group; like Bunk Johnson, he played popular songs. Rather than have a two-beat rhythm section with banjo, tuba, and a pianist playing their impressions of an older style, the Ory band carried a rhythm guitarist, a string bassist who mized 2/4 and 4/4, and often had the elegantly down-home pianist Don Ewell keeping things light, bright, and swinging. At its most gliding, the Ory band suggested a fraternal meeting of New Orleanians still in beautiful form and a swing rhythm section with hints of Basie’s . . . quite a lovely blend.
Ory’s music of the Forties and Fifties has been well-documented on disc, because the band was caught live on radio broadcasts, and, later, for Norman Granz, but I think many lovers of “traditional jazz” associated him with a rough-hewn trombone style over their idea of “traditional” rhythms. That is, until the superb drummer and jazz scholar Hal Smith assembled a group of congenial players for his new “On the Levee” Jazz Band, its title referring to a San Francisco club owned by Ory, where he and his band played from 1957-61.
I asked Hal about his first awareness of this period of Ory’s music, and he told me, Back when I bought my first Lu Watters record, the owner of the record store handed me the Watters LP, looked at the label and said “Oh — ‘Good Time Jazz.’ I have another Good Time Jazz record here that someone ordered, but never came in to pick up.” The LP she offered me was “Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band, 1954.” I gladly accepted it, and from the first hearing the combination of Ory’s tailgate trombone and the swinging rhythm section (Minor Hall, Ed Garland and Don Ewell in particular) became some of my favorite sounds in Jazz.
Hal later told me, Based on our performances in New Orleans and Pensacola, I think the On The Levee group most closely resembles the GOOD TIME JAZZ ensembles, circa 1953 – 1955. A lot of that is due to Kris’ admiration for Ewell, and Josh Gouzy’s Ed Garland-inspired bass. (Ory’s sound changed considerably after Ewell and Garland left, and even more in the late ’50s and early ’60s).
The band has already played gigs in New Orleans and in Pensacola, Florida, with Clint Baker nobly filling the Ory role; Ben Polcer, trumpet; Joe Goldberg, clarinet; Kris Tokarski, piano; Alex Belhaj, guitar; Joshua Gouzy, string bass; Hal Smith, drums. And early in 2018 they will again play in New Orleans . . . and will appear at the San Diego Jazz Fest in November. I am sure that there will be many other opportunities to hail this group in between.
For now, here is the band’s website, and here are a few videos. Many more are on YouTube, and the site has a whole cloud of audio-only performances, more than enough to roll up the rugs (if anyone does that) and invite the neighbors over for swinging cheer.
WEARY BLUES:
DOWN HOME RAG:
CARELESS LOVE:
PANAMA:
Many bands are playing this repertoire, but few are doing it in this fervent;y swinging way. And since the club no longer exists on the Embarcadero — 987 would be part of the Ferry Plaza Maketplace — we should embrace this new band, so nicely keeping a jazz legacy vibrantly alive.
My dear friend Michael Burgevin was the first person I knew who used the expression “Give me a shout,” when he meant “Call me when you can,” or “Be in touch,” and it’s almost archaic these days. But I know MB would enjoy what I am about to post.
It’s only a few minutes long, but it is both Prime and Choice — and the result of the kind energetic generosity of our friend Enrico Borsetti, who took his video camera to the JazzAscona, Switzerland, and captured a set by Dan Barrett’s Blue Swing — a noble band that had, alongside Dan, Jon-Erik Kellso, Brian Ogilvie, John “Butch” Smith, Ray Sherman, Eddie Erickson, Joel Forbes, and Jeff Hamilton.
Here’s a wonderful blues with flourishes, composed by Luis Russell and Charlie Holmes for the splendid band (featuring also Henry “Red” Allen, J. C. Higginbotham, Albert Nicholas, Paul Barbarin, and Pops Foster) the former led from 1926-34, named for the Saratoga Club, where they romped:
I’ll let Jon-Erik have the last word: “Can’t believe this was 17 years ago already. Fond memories of playing with Dan Barrett’s Blue Swing at the JazzAscona fest in Switzerland. “Saratoga Shout” by Luis Russell. I miss our friend Brian Ogilvie, the tenor player here, very much, he left us much too young. I also miss this band, one of the finest I’ve been a part of.”
And Enrico, our Benefactor, promises to share the rest of the set with us. Grazie, amico!
As we know, sometimes The Past comes out of the darkness and raps us sharply across the bridge of the nose. In this case, it’s given us a very warm hug.
Betty Lou has something to explain to us, and it doesn’t need Google Translate:
That rare record (quite hot and swinging) comes to us through the generosity of collector / scholar Steve Abrams, who has been showering the faithful with treasures of all kinds on his YouTube channel, SMARBA100. Everything from hot classics (Luis Russell, Joe Robechaux) to Twenties dance bands and “American roots music” — all gratifying and surprising. Thank you, Steve!
I couldn’t find any photographs of the band or of Betty Lou, but thank goodness we have the music: that survives. And as for Betty Lou: “DO try this at home.”
In the history of jazz, people who do not play instruments do as much, in different ways, to sustain the art without getting equal credit. Think of Milt Gabler, George Avakian, Henry Sklow, Norman Granz, George Wein, Whitney Balliett, Nat Hentoff, and other catalysts. Then there are broadcasters. “Broadcasting” meant something even before radio and television: spreading something widely, effectively: a newsboy shouting the headlines or a farmer distributing seed over a field. Jazz radio broadcasters — in previous decades Martin Block, Art Ford, Fred Robbins, Sid Torin; in our time Ed Beach, John S. Wilson, Phil Schaap, Dan Morgenstern, Alisa Clancy, Linda Yohn and many others – do more than play records. They become our friends, teachers, and benefactors. We look forward to their voices, personalities, and insights. Before there was streaming radio, we arranged our schedules around them; we tape-recorded their programs, which became sweet swinging libraries, introducing us to new artists or rare records.
Rich Conaty, who died of cancer on December 30, 2016, gave his energy and ultimately his life in the reverent and delighted service of the music he loved: the pop and jazz of the teens, Twenties, and Thirties, roughly 1911-1939. For forty-four years, he shared that music on a Sunday-night broadcast on Fordham University’s radio station, WFUV-FM (90.7). Rich’s THE BIG BROADCAST, named in homage to the 1932 film with Bing Crosby, Eddie Lang, the Boswell Sisters, Arthur Tracy, Cab Calloway, and others, was a consistent pleasure.
Rich was enchanted by this music when he was thirteen or fourteen, began broadcasting as a high school student on New York’s Hofstra College radio station. When he had to choose a college, he picked Fordham University because of its radio station, and beginning in January 1973, was on the air every Sunday night, live perhaps fifty weeks every year, taping shows in advance when he went away, perhaps to visit his mother in Florida.
Early on, Rich formed an alliance with Vince Giordano, leader of the Nighthawks, and these two did more to introduce this music to a wider, younger audience than perhaps anyone. Rich said that his program was “for the old and the old at heart,” for his humor was sharply wry (occasionally painfully self-deprecating) but he was most happy to learn that some seventeen-year old was now collecting Chick Bullock 78s or had fallen in love with Lee Wiley. He had other interests – vintage Nash automobiles, cats, and other kinds of vintage pop culture – but was devoted to the music and musicians above all.
Listening to Rich for decades, I was able to trace the subtle development of a scholarly intelligence. Years ago, his library of recordings was small (as was mine) so he played the Mills Brothers’ TIGER RAG frequently. As he became the person and the scholar he was meant to become, his awareness, knowledge, and collection deepened.
We’ve heard earnest but ignorant radio announcers – those who call the Ellington clarinetist “Barney Biggered,” or the King of Jazz “Paul White Man,” but Rich knew his music, his musicians, and his history. Every show, he created tributes to musicians, songwriters, and other figures whose birthday he would celebrate: not just Bix, Bing, Louis, Jolson, Annette; his enthusiasm for songwriters and figures, once renowned, now obscure, was astonishing. He had interviewed Bob Effros, Edward Eliscu, Ben Selvin, and Vet Boswell on the air; he was friends with Dolly Dawn, had gotten drunk with Cab Calloway. Connee Boswell sang HAPPY BIRTHDAY to him over the phone; Arthur Tracy performed at his wedding to Mary Hayes (“Manhattan Mary,” who also died too young of cancer).
Rich expanded our knowledge and our joy by playing an astonishing range of music from his own collection of vintage records. Every Sunday that I heard the program, I would say several times, “What is that? I never heard that record before!” and this was true in 2015 and 2016, where it seems as if everything is accessible on CD, download, or YouTube. He spent his life surrounded by 78s – those he had acquired at auction, those he was selling at record shows. Because the idea of THE BIG BROADCAST was not just famous, documented recordings, he would often play a record about which little was known. But he could offer an educated guess about the true band behind the Crown label pseudonym, whether the singer was Irving or Jack Kaufman, when the song had been premiered – much more than statistics gleaned from books. He took requests from his devoted audience, gave away tickets to jazz concerts, and with Bryan Wright, created a series of BIG BROADCAST CDs — I have more than a few — which are wonderful cross-sections of the period.
I should say that his taste was admirable. He didn’t play every 78 he had found — no sermons, no organ recitals of light classics, no comedy records — but within the “pop and jazz” area I could trust him to play the good stuff, the music that would otherwise be forgotten. He left IN THE MOOD to others, but he played Henry Burr, Bill Coleman, Jane Green, Johnny Marvin, Fred Rich, Ben Selvin, Annette Hanshaw, Lee Morse, Emmett Miller, Eddie Lang, Jack Purvis, Luis Russell, The Sunshine Boys, Kate Smith, Ted Weems, early Ellington, Jean Goldkette, and on and on.
And part of the pleasure of his expertise and of radio in general (at its best, when the programmer is subtle and wise) is not just the delighted shock of one record, but of the juxtapositions Rich created in three-sides-in-a-row. THE BIG BROADCAST was rather like being invited to an evening at Jeff Healey’s house, where you knew the music would be embracing, uplifting, and educational in the best way. (I should also say that Rich did talk — digressing into his own brand of stand-up comedy, with little bits of slightly off-key a cappella singing — but music made up the bulk of the program. He wouldn’t tell you the personnel of the thirteen-piece big band, by choice, I am sure, because it would mean he could play fewer recordings.)
On a personal note: I, like many others, made cassettes of the program and played them in the car. I fell asleep to the program on hundreds of Sunday nights. When I was young and diligent, I graded student essays to it. Although Rich and I had much of the same focused obsession with the music, we met in person only a few times (I think always at Sofia’s when the Nighthawks were playing) and THE BIG BROADCAST was his world — and by extension the health and welfare of WFUV. So our conversations were brief, before the band started or in between sets. But my debt to him is immeasurable, and it would not have increased had our conversations been lengthy.
I do not know what will happen to Rich’s recorded legacy – more than eight thousand hours of radio. Some shows have been archived and can be heard through wfuv.org, but whether the station will share others as a tribute is not yet decided. More information can be found on the Facebook page devoted to Fans of the WFUV Big Broadcast.
I think of Wild Bill Davison’s puzzled question about Frank Teschemacher, dead in an auto accident in Bill’s car, “Where are we going to get another sax player like Tesch?” Paraphrase the question to apply to Rich Conaty, and the answer is, “We never will.” But his generosity will live on.
We hope this truth can be made evident. The new CD by The Fat Babies, SOLID GASSUH, on Delmark Records, embodies Truth in Advertising in its title and its contents.
“Solid gassuh,” as Ricky Riccardi — the Master of all things Louis — informs us in his excellent liner notes, was Louis’ highest expression of praise. (I’d like to see it replace “sick” and “killin'” in the contemporary lexicon. Do I dream?)
The Fat Babies are a superb band — well-rehearsed but sublimely loose, authentic but not stiff. If you don’t know them, you are on the very precipice of Having Missed Out On Something Wonderful — which I can rectify here, here, and here. (Those posts come from July 29, 2016 at the Evergreen Jazz Festival, and feature the “new” Fat Babies with the addition of the heroic Jonathan Doyle on reeds.)
SOLID GASSUH was recorded at the Babies’ hangout, the Honky Tonk BBQ, but there’s no crowd noise — which is fine — and the recorded sound is especially spacious and genuine, thanks to Mark Haynes and Alex Hall. I know it’s unusual to credit the sound engineers first, but when so many recordings sound like recordings rather than music, they deserve applause.
The Babies, for this recording, their third, are Andy Schumm, cornet and arrangements; Dave Bock, trombone; John Otto, reeds; Paul Asaro, piano and vocals (also the chart for EGYPTIAN ELLA), Jake Sanders, banjo and guitar, Beau Sample, leader, string bass; Alex Hall, drums.
Their repertoire, for those deep in this music, says so much about this band — DOCTOR BLUES / AFTER A WHILE / FEELIN’ GOOD / DID YOU EVER SEE A DREAM WALKING? / ORIGINAL CHARLESTON STRUT / PENCIL PAPA / I MISS A LITTLE MISS / PARKWAY STOMP / YOU WERE ONLY PASSING TIME WITH ME / ALABAMY BOUND / SLOW RIVER / DELIRIUM / EGYPTIAN ELLA / SING SONG GIRL / MAPLE LEAF RAG. There are many associations here, but without looking anything up I think of Ben Pollack, Paul Mares, Boyce Brown, Ted Lewis, Benny Goodman, Bix Beiderbecke, Fud Livingston, Red Nichols, Miff Mole, Luis Russell, Bud Freeman, Bing Crosby, Nat Finston, Thomas Morris, Lil Hardin, Sidney Catlett, Al Wynn, Punch Miller, Alex Hill . . . and you can fill in the other blanks for yourself. And even though some of the songs may be “obscure,” each track is highly melodic and dramatic without ever being melodramatic. (As much as we love ROYAL GARDEN BLUES, it’s reassuring to know that it wasn’t the only song ever played.)
The Babies are remarkable for what they aren’t — not a “Dixieland” or “New Orleans” or “Condon” ensemble, but a group of musicians who obviously have studied the players, singers, and the recordings, but use them as inspired framework for their own creativity. Occasionally, the Babies do offer us a transcription of a venerable recorded performance, but it is so energized (and by that I don’t mean faster or louder) that it seems as if someone has cleaned centuries of dust off an Old Master and it’s seen freshly. More often, they use portions of an original arrangement, honoring it, as a way to show off their own bright solos. So the effect at times is not an “updating,” but music seen from another angle, an alternate take full of verve and charm, as if the fellows had been playing the song on the job rather than in the studio.
If you follow the Babies, and many do, you will have known that this recording is coming, and will already have it. When my copy arrived, I played it through three times in a row, marveling at its energy and precision, its lively beating heart. SOLID GASSUH is immensely satisfying, as are the Fat Babies themselves.
You can purchase the disc and hear sound samples here, and thisis the Delmark Records site, where good music (traditional and utterly untraditional) flourishes.
The Union Rhythm Kings at the 2013 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party
The debut CD of this wonderful hot band,A HOT REUNION, on Herman Records, came out in 2009. So the second one is long overdue, and I am happy to report that it is here, and as delightful as its predecessor. (I am grateful to Trygve Hernaes, the band’s enthusiastic guide and supporter, for enabling me to hear them on disc before I’d met them all in person.)
The band, the Union Rhythm Kings, is a wonderful hot hybrid of Norwegian and Swedish musicians — Kristoffer Kompen, trombone; Bent Persson, trumpet; Lars Frank, reeds; Morten Gunnar Larsen, piano, Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Jacob Ullberger, banjo / guitar. For the geographers keeping score, Kris, Lars, and Morten are from Norway; Bent, Frans, and Jacob from Sweden. The band even has its own Wikipedia page.
What sets the URK apart (and above) many other “traditional” jazz bands is the excellence of their solo and ensemble work, expert and impassioned, and free from cliche. They are inspired by the original recordings and arrangements, but they bring their own energy to the repertoire. They’ve broken free of the Jazz Museum.
On this disc, much of that repertoire is comfortable Morton, Ellington, Armstrong, Luis Russell, and Beiderbecke — but the URK takes pleasure in Jack Purvis and obscure Morton. Thus, CLARINET MARMALADE, CROCODILE CRADLE, DAVENPORT BLUES, SARATOGA SHOUT, HUMPTY DUMPTY, WHEN YOU’RE FEELING BLUE, I DIDN’T KNOW, I AIN’T GOT NOBODY, MILENBERG JOYS, RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE, WHAT’S THE USE OF CRYIN’, BABY, SANTA CLAUS BLUES, BLUES OF THE VAGABOND, SOMEBODY STOLE MY GAL, DUSKY STEVEDORE.
I’ve listened to them with great pleasure at their recent annual appearances at the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party, and I have some performance video from November 5-8 to share with you — which will embody the band’s virtues better than paragraphs of enthusiastic prose. The great young drummer Nick Ball helps out on all these performances.
Here are four from their Sunday-evening concert:
DAVENPORT BLUES:
BLUES OF THE VAGABOND:
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
CLARINET MARMALADE:
and four from the Thursday-night pub session:
In honor of the Luis Russell band, SARATOGA SHOUT:
For solitaries everywhere, I AIN’T GOT NOBODY:
and these last two (with Bix in mind), with Thomas Winteler sitting in for Lars:
SORRY:
JAZZ ME BLUES:
The URK discs (beautifully recorded), can be obtained from Sonor Records AS,
Postboks 4275, NO 7436 Trondheim, Norway. Information at email: sonoras@online.no. Price: NOK 200 or USD 25, packing and postage included. Payment via Paypal, to the email address above.
I hope all JAZZ LIVES readers are familiar with the Anachronic Jazz Band — loosely translated, that’s “going against time” — a beautifully-rehearsed and inspiring jazz ensemble that plays modern jazz standards in the styles of the Twenties and Thirties. With sincerity, accuracy, and wit they not only imagine worlds that never existed but translate those worlds into glorious music. The AJB is a joyously playful band but also an exact one; they don’t just play music in a vaguely historical style; rather they take, perhaps, a Mingus composition and reimagine it as a Luis Russell recording. They admire and they do not satirize.
They began in 1976 as a nine-piece orchestra led by pianist Philippe Baudoin and multi-instrumentalist Marc Richard, made several inimitable recordings, and then the members went their separate ways — reuniting in 2013. Here‘s my review of that CD. And their websiteand Facebookpage.
I want everyone to admire a particular AJB performance: a July 16, 1977 rendition — recorded and televised at the Nice Jazz Festival (“La Grande Parade du Jazz”) — of Thelonious Monk’s ballad ASK ME NOW.
Monk’s first recording, 1951, with Al McKibbon, bass; Art Blakey, drums:
But where Monk’s original is both passionate and spiky, the AJB reimagined this lovely ballad as played by Louis Armstrong (Louis, in this case, being Patrick Artero) with equally touching solos by Daniel Huck on alto saxophone and Philippe Baudoin on piano.
Patrick Artero, trumpet; Daniel Barda, trombone; Marc Richard, alto saxophone; André Villéger, tenor saxophone; Daniel Huck, alto saxophone; Philippe Baudoin, piano; Patrick Diaz, banjo; Gérard Gervois, brass bass; Bernard Laye, drums.
Ricky Riccardi, who lives Louis in his waking hours and dreams Louis in the three or four hours he’s allowed to sleep, would tell us that Louis indeed had a Monk record in his library — and transferred it to tape, his highest tribute. Who knows that the two men didn’t cross paths in 1941 or 1942 or later? But the AJB doesn’t simply write this as a musical science-fiction story; their rendition of ASK ME NOW sends love all around: to Monk, to Louis, to anyone with ears.
It gives me great pleasure to know that such things are possible.
When the conversation turns to the great swinging bands before “the Swing Era,” the names that are mentioned are usually the Luis Russell Orchestra and Bennie Moten’s Kansas City aggregations, Henderson, Ellington, Goldkette, Calloway, and Kirk. Each of these bands deserves recognition. But who speaks of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers? (Is it the name that so embarrasses us these days?)
The song and performance that so enthralls me is from their last record date in September 1931 — DO YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE AT SIGHT? — composed by Ted Fio Rito and Gus Kahn. I am assuming that it was originally meant as a love ballad, given its title and world-view, but the band takes it at a romping tempo. (Was it played on one of their “coast to coast radio presentations”? I hope so.) Several other marvelous features of this recording have not worn thin: the gorgeous melody statement by Doc Cheatham; the incredible hot chorus by Rex Stewart; the charming vocal by Quentin Jackson; the tenor saxophone solo by Prince Robinson, the arrangement by Benny Carter, and the wondrous sound of the band as a whole — swinging without a letup.
The personnel is listed as Benny Carter, clarinet, alto saxophone, arranger / leader: Rex Stewart, cornet; Buddy Lee, Doc Cheatham, trumpet; Ed Cuffee, trombone; Quentin Jackson, trombone, vocal; Joe Moxley, Hilton Jefferson, clarinet, alto saxophone; Prince Robinson, clarinet, tenor saxophone; Todd Rhodes, piano, celeste; Dave Wilborn, guitar; Billy Taylor, brass bass; Cuba Austin, drums. Camden, New Jersey, September 8, 1931. (The personnel offered by Tom Lord differs, but I think this one is more accurate.)
Here, thanks to our friend Atticus Jazz— real name available on request! — who creates one gratifying multi-media gift after another on YouTube — is one of the two takes of DO YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE AT SIGHT?:
I love Doc Cheatham’s high, plaintive sound, somewhat in the style of his predecessor, Joe Smith — and how the first chorus builds architecturally: strong ensemble introduction, trumpet with rhythm only (let no one tell you that tuba / guitar doesn’t work as a pairing), then the Carter-led sax section — imagine a section with Carter, Hilton Jefferson, and Prince Robinson — merging with the brass. By the end of the first chorus, you know this is A BAND. (I’m always amused by the ending of the chorus, which exactly mimics the end and tag of THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE. Nothing new under the sun.) And whose idea — Carter’s? — was it to so neatly use orchestra bells throughout this chart? Lemon zest to the ear.
But then there’s Rex Stewart’s expert and hilarious solo — he wants to let you know he is here, immediately. I always think of him as one of those bold trumpeters who, as the tempo speeded up, he played even more notes to the bar, rather than taking it easy and playing whole and half notes. In this chorus, he seems like the most insistent fast-talker, who has so much to say and only thirty-two bars in which to say it. Something else: at :56 there is a small exultant sound. It can’t be Rex taking a breath and congratulating himself (as he does in WILD MAN BLUES on THE SOUND OF JAZZ) so I believe it was one of his colleagues in the band saying without the words, “Yeah, man!”
Then a gloriously “old-fashioned” vocal from Quentin Jackson, but one that no one should deride. He told Stanley Dance that he learned to sing before there were microphones, so that you had to open your mouth and sing — which he does so splendidly here. He’s no Bing or Columbo, wooing the microphone: this is tenor singing in the grand tradition, projecting every word and note to the back of the room.
The final chorus balances brass shouts and the roiling, tumbling Prince Robinson, who cuts his own way amidst Hawkins and Cecil Scott and two dozen others: an ebullient, forceful style. And by this chorus, I always find myself rocking along with the recording — yes, so “antiquated,” with tuba prominent, but what a gratifying ensemble. Yes, I believe!
Here is what was to me the less familiar take one:
It is structurally the same, with the only substantial difference that Rex continues to play a rather forceful obbligato to Quentin’s vocal — almost competing for space, and I suspect that the recording director at Camden might have suggested (or insisted on) another take where the vocalist was not being interfered with. How marvelous that two takes exist, and that they were recorded in Victor’s studios in Camden — a converted church with fine open acoustics.
There is a third version of this song, recorded in 1996 by Doc Cheatham and Nicholas Payton — sixty-five years later, but for me it is a descent from the heights. You can find it on YouTube on your own.
Whether or not you believe in love at sight (that’s a philosophical / emotional / practical discussion too large for JAZZ LIVES) I encourage you to believe in the singular blending of hot and sweet, of solo and ensemble, that is McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. One has to believe in something.
I urge anyone who loves the music to experience it live. For some, that isn’t possible because of cost or one’s health. But even though I am proud of my video recordings, they are not the same thing as being on the spot while beauty is created. And jazz festivals, parties, clubs, concerts can only go on if there are people in attendance.
My readers know all this. But the trick is to make the great leap from an intellectual awareness (“I should go hear some live jazz . . . someday.”) to action. All of us who have said, “I’ll go to hear Hot Lips Ferguson some other Sunday . . . those gigs will go on forever!” know the sadder reality.)
End of sermon.
I cannot attend this year’s Steamboat Stompin New Orleans, but my absence means there’s another seat for you. It begins Friday evening, November 14, and ends Sunday afternoon, the 16th. In between I count nineteen one-hour sets of music, in addition to a presentation about the Historic New Orleans Collection, four steam calliope concerts by Debbie Fagnano. Much of the music will be performed on the two decks of the steamboat Natchez, gliding up and down the Mississippi River. The artists include Duke Heitger, Don Vappie, Evan Christopher, the Yerba Buena Stompers, Dukes of Dixieland, Tim Laughlin, David Boeddinghaus, Hal Smith, Banu Gibson, Solid Harmony, Jon-Erik Kellso, John Gill, Kevin Dorn, Clint Baker, Tom Bartlett, Conal Fowkes, Orange Kellin, Leon Oakley, Steve Pistorius, and another dozen.
I was able to attend in 2013, and had a wonderful time. Some evidence!
SWEET LOVIN’ MAN by Duke and the Steamboat Stompers:
Steve Pistorius considers the deep relationship between music, memory, and love in A DOLLAR FOR A DIME:
Banu Gibson, as always, shows us her heart, and it’s full of RHYTHM:
and the Yerba Buena Stompers play a later King Oliver piece, EDNA:
INSERT FOUR-BAR MODULATION HERE.
I returned last night from the 2014 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, exhausted and uplifted. The exhaustion will wear off (it always does) after a day or two of treating myself like an invalid, nut the joy is permanent. It comes from seeing people make friends through music. The music began with rehearsals at 9 AM on Thursday and ended sometime late Monday morning (I heard the jam session at the pub as I was going up the stairs around 1 AM). The texts for those mellow sermons were based on the teachings of Johnny Dodds, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Orchestra, Jabbo Smith, Jean Goldkette, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Chu Berry, Paul Whiteman, Cootie Williams, Adrian Rollini, Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Johnny Dunn, Luis Russell, Bing Crosby, Helen Morgan, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Carter, Don Byas, Willie Lewis, Sidney Bechet, Al Bowlly, Cliff Edwards, Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Chick Webb, Jelly Roll Morton . . . you get the idea.
And the performers! Rico Tomasso, Duke Heitger, Menno Daams, Andy Schumm, Bent Persson, Claus Jacobi, Thomas Winteler, Matthias Seuffert, David Boeddinghaus, Graham Hughes, Alistair Allan, Martin Litton, Janice Day, Morten Gunnar Larsen, Keith Nichols, Richard Pite, Malcolm Sked, Phil Rutherford, Spats Langham, Emma Fisk, Frans Sjostrom, Josh Duffee, Nick Ball, Mauro Porro, Henri Lemaire, Kristoffer Kompen, Lars Frank, Martin Wheatley, Jean-Francois Bonnel. . . and sitters-in at the Pub, including Torstein Kubban. (If I’ve omitted anyone’s name, it is because yesterday was nearly twenty hours of travel, which does terrible things to cognition.)
And the friends! Everyone who was there will have a mental list, but I think we all start with Patti Durham — then I think of Bob Cox, Bobbi Cox, Derek Coller, Veronica Perrin, Chris Perrin, the young woman clarinetist, so intent, Jonathan David Holmes, Julio Schwarz Andrade, Andrew Wittenborn — and many more.
If you are wondering, the answer is Yes, I did bring my video cameras. Plural. Safety first.
And I shot video of all the sets, one jam session / concert in the Victory Pub, and many of the rehearsals — several hundred performances. It takes some time to upload and download, so I have nothing from this last weekend to share with you at the moment. But I will.
While you are thinking, “How could I start putting money away for the 2015 WHITLEY BAY CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY?” (for that will indeed happen), I invite you to revel in this, recorded at a rehearsal at the 2012 Party:
All over the quite comfortable Village Hotel in Newcastle (with a very solicitous staff) are signs and photographs advertising the pleasures to be found there, all sharing a lower case “v.” at the start, both to show an intensity of feeling (“very!”) as well as remind you of the hotel chain’s identifying logo. In the mechanism that takes you from one floor to another (I called it an elevator and was reminded that it was a “lift,” because I was in the United Kingdom now) was a photograph of three pillows reading “v. snuggly” “v. cheeky” and “v.lazy.”
All I will say here, as a bow to the Party and to the Village Hotel and to my heroes and friends, is that I am “v.joyous.”
Some of the hottest music of the late Twenties was created by Luis Russell and his Orchestra. That band could “romp,” to use Pops Foster’s perfectly accurate verb, in ways that blended New Orleans polyphony and the awareness of how musicians in a big band could play effectively as sections. Russell wrote wonderful arrangements and the band showed off a galaxy of soloists — Red Allen, Charlie Holmes, Albert Nicholas, J. C. Higginbotham, Teddy Hill, Greely Walton, Will Johnson, Pops Foster, Paul Barbarin (later editions of the band, captured on record, also included Dicky Wells, Rex Stewart, and a sweetly vocalizing Vic Dickenson). The band also backed Louis Armstrong on memorable records — and it became the nucleus of Louis’ Decca band as well.
If someone asked me to define “swing,” it would be easy to do by playing the Russell PANAMA or JERSEY LIGHTNING — perpetual motion machines that amaze and delight.
Trumpeter / arranger / scholar Bent Persson has long loved the Russell band, not only for its soloists but for its ensemble beauty — and last year at the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party he offered a full plate of joy, taking us in time and space to the Saratoga Club in 1929-1930. He was aided in this journey by Jeff Barnhart, piano and vocal; Henri Lemaire, string bass; Richard Pite, drums; Jacob Ullberger, banjo and guitar; Andy Schumm, trumpet; Kristoffer Kompen, trombone; Jean-Francois Bonnel, Lars Frank, Stephane Gillot, reeds.
SARATOGA SHOUT:
DOCTOR BLUES:
NEW CALL OF THE FREAKS (with its classic vocal: is it an invitation or a command?):
LOUISIANA SWING:
ON REVIVAL DAY (purification of the Spirit thanks to Reverends Jeff and Kris):
POOR LI’L ME, with an extraordinary vocal by Jeff:
SARATOGA DRAG:
HONEY, THAT REMINDS ME (which was Vic Dickenson’s first recorded vocal):
Oh, what a band! — both in the original and in the energetic evocation here.
All of this wonderfully uplifting jazz was performed (in 2013) at the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party where many of these musicians will be performing in the 2014 version in a few days.
A good time was had by all at another happy Friday at Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park, California (1010 El Camino Real: 650.327.0830).
Yes, good food, cheerful staff, beaming friends, but most of all because of the wonderful music provided by Clint Baker’s Cafe Borrone All Stars. This night they were Clint, trombone and vocal; Leon Oakley, cornet; Robert Young, saxophones, vocal; Jeff Hamilton, keyboard; Bill Reinhart, string bass; Nirav Sanghani, rhythm guitar; J Hansen or Riley Baker [Riley sat in for SWEETHEART and TELEPHONE], drums. You can note the noble associations. Louis, Goodman, Django, Rex Stewart, Jelly Roll, Red Allen, J. C. Higginbotham, Bill Coleman — but this band (although everyone’s deeply immersed in the tradition) is playing itself, which makes us glad.
SHINE:
ON TREASURE ISLAND:
EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY:
WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM:
ONCE IN A WHILE:
BUDDY BOLDEN’S BLUES:
AFTER YOU’VE GONE:
SOMEDAY SWEETHEART:
GIVE ME YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER:
COME BACK SWEET PAPA:
SOLID OLD MAN:
JOE LOUIS STOMP:
Clint and friends will be back at the Cafe on May 2, 16, and 30; June 6, 13, 20 — with more Fridays to be announced.
We’re glad that there is a Catherine Russell, and she’s generously offered us another delicious helping of the heartfelt swing she and her colleagues create — in a new CD, called BRING IT BACK:
CATHERINE RUSSELL: BRING IT BACK (Jazz Village JVS 97001) Bring it Back; I’m Shooting High; I Let A Song Go out of My Heart; You Got To Swing and Sway; Aged and Mellow; the Darktown Strutters’ Ball; Lucille; You’ve Got Me Under Your Thumb; After the Lights Go Down Low; I’m Sticking With You Baby; Strange As It Seems; Public Melody Number One; I Cover The Waterfront.
Catherine Russell is a marvel: a great star and entertainer who gives herself utterly to the music, the rhythm, the words, and the emotions. She could have been a true rival for any of the great singers of the past, but she sounds utterly like herself.
She doesn’t have a gravelly voice or carry a handkerchief, but she embodies the warm, vibrant spirit of Louis Armstrong. That isn’t surprising, because her parents were Armstrong’s long-time pianist and musical director Luis Russell and singer / bassist Carline Ray.
BRING IT BACK continues her series of energized yet subtle CDs that draw on little-known tunes from an earlier era (composers from her father to Fats Waller, Harold Arlen, Jimmy McHugh, and Ida Cox) and blues-based material associated with Esther Phillips, Al Hibbler, Wynonie Harris and Little Willie John. The disc is emotionally satisfying, because Russell proves herself an adult who brings a consistent understanding to the emotions of each song. When the CD is over, it seems as if it’s just begun — and that’s not a matter of timing but of our pleasure: we want to hear more!
Russell’s voice is a pleasure in itself, with a high clear cornet-like attack when she chooses to croon an optimistic love song or romp through a swing fiesta such as SWING AND SWAY or PUBLIC MELODY. (At times she sounds like Ray Nance. Is there a higher compliment?) She takes on the dark rasp of a tenor saxophone when she sings the blues: Ben Webster, feeling low-down and grouchy, awakened too early.
Whatever the material or tempo, her intonation and time are splendid; no faux-Holiday lingering behind the beat for her. Russell’s energy comes through whole on BRING IT BACK, just as audiences worldwide have seen her dancing around the stage, a woman giving herself to rhythm.
On this disc, she is surrounded by a limber medium-sized band of New York swing stars: Mark Shane, piano; Matt Munisteri, guitar; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; John Allred, trombone; Andy Farber, Dan Block, Mark Lopeman, reeds; Lee Hudson, string bass; Mark McLean, drums; Brian Pareschi, trumpet; Nicki Parrott, string bass; Glenn Patscha, Hammond B-3 organ. The band evokes but doesn’t copy swing and rhythm and blues from the last century, encouraging Russell to be inspired, never derivative. The CD moves from jitterbug extravaganzas to dark midnight blues without a letup. I found myself playing my favorite tracks over and over.
Thanks to Claes Jansson, we have these performances by the hot, expert Swedish band KUSTBANDET — a band with fifty years of experience! — recorded in concert on November 22, 2013.
The members are Goran Eriksson, Jon “Jonte” Högman, and Klas Toresson, reeds; Jens “Jesse” Lindgren, trombone / vocal; Bent Persson, Fredrik Olsson, trumpet; Peter Lind, trumpet / vocal; Claes Göran Högman, piano; Hans Gustavsson, guitar / banjo; Bo Juhlin, tuba, string bass; Christer “Cacka” Ekhé, drums / vocal.
Onstage with OVER IN THE GLORYLAND into BIRMINGHAM BREAKDOWN:
More early Ellington with THE MOOCHE:
TISHOMINGO BLUES:
For Luis Russell, Red Allen, and the New Orleans boys in New York, SUGAR HILL FUNCTION:
Then, some Louis-inspired hot music:
AFTER YOU’VE GONE:
YOU’RE DRIVING ME CRAZY (thanks, Peter!):
YOU RASCAL YOU (with mock-threats from Peter and Jesse, who mean no one any harm):
and swing for saxophones with LADY BE GOOD:
What a band! (How do you say, “Romp it, boys!” in Swedish? No matter.)
Here are some names you might know: Duke Heitger, Andy Schumm, Enrico Tomasso (trumpet); Alistair Allan, Kristoffer Kompen (trombone); Jean-Francois Bonnel, Stephane Gillot, Michael McQuaid, Matthias Seuffert (reeds); Keith Nichols (piano); Spats Langham (banjo, guitar, vocal); Malcolm Sked (string bass, sousaphone); Josh Duffee (drums).
These splendid musicians — from the UK, the US, Australia, and Europe, gathered in a small room on October 29, 2012 — the day after the 2012 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party had ended — for a recording session, now available on Paul Adams’ Lake Records (LACD321). It is appropriately dedicated to Mike Durham, who did so much for so long for hot music and did not live to see this CD project completed.
Here’s a sample of what they did on that rainy day — the Jean Goldkette rouser, MY PRETTY GIRL:
For the rest, you’ll have to purchase the handsome CD package (which comes with two discs — mono and stereo) — glorious music played and recorded authentically. The other selections are HOT AND BOTHERED / THE STAMPEDE / CHANT OF THE WEED / MANDY, MAKE UP YOUR MIND / POTATO HEAD BLUES / EASE ON DOWN / UNDER THE SPELL OF THE BLUES / SKINNER’S SOCK / WHEN THE FOLKS HIGH UP DO THE MEAN LOWDOWN / MILENBERG JOYS / ONE MORE TIME / AWFUL SAD / JAZZNOCRACY.
JAZZ LIVES’ readers will of course note the homages to Ellington, Luis Russell, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, Bing Crosby, Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong, Don Redman, the Dorsey Brothers, Coon-Sanders, Gus Arnheim, Jimmie Lunceford, and their glorious soloists. Wonderful ensemble playing — exact without being stiff — and the pleasure these musicians had in playing this repertoire comes through on every note of the CD. For information on this and other LAKE issues, click here.
(The music is also available in download form from the usual suspects — iTunes and Amazon.com, although I note with amusement that the latter purveyor has labeled one of the songs SKINNER’S SOCKS, which I suppose makes a certain kind of sense.)
It’s one of those joyous CDs that I always want to play at a substantial volume in my car, with the windows open — to let the joy and enlightenment bubble out, come what may. And I like greatly the idea that the c0-leaders, Keith Nichols and Josh Duffee, are theoretically separated by decades and continents, but they are on the same path — hot and sweet music played joyously, accurately, and splendidly.
Feel free to join in with my new song — doggerel created to the tune of Harry Belafonte’s JAMAICA FAREWELL: “I’m on me way / to Whitley Bay / won’t be back / till late Monday / I’m all excit’ / Won’t miss my flight / I know I’ll have a time / at Whitley Bay.”
Obviously, I have no reputation as a composer of calypso.
The omens and portents are much more favorable today than they were in 2012. That trip that began with this weary traveler leaving his passport at home and making a costly racing roundtrip to retrieve it. The glorious jazz weekend ended with Superstorm Sandy and its global effects. Of course, in both cases, I was helped immensely by generous strangers (at British Airways) and swing friends.
But Whitley Bay — now the Classic Jazz Party, formerly the International Jazz Festival — has been a special place since my first visit in 2009. There I met and admired Bent Persson, Aurelie Tropez, Nick Ward, Jacob Ullberger, Matthias Seuffert, Emma Fisk, Frans Sjostrom, Norman Field, and two dozen others. There I basked in the wit and generosity of the late Mike Durham, who still remains a vivid presence. I will be looking around corners for him all weekend long. And this year the visiting Americans aren’t so bad, either: Andy Schumm, Josh Duffee, Duke Heitger, Jeff Barnhart, Daryl Sherman.
This year’s party offers exciting thematic presentations: the music of Coon-Sanders, early Ellington, Mildred Bailey, Lee Wiley, Basie 1937, Johnny Dodds, Eddie South and Stuff Smith, rare Bix, rare Fats, California Ramblers, and more. My camera batteries are charged and I feel the same way.
I wish I could sweep you all along with me, but the airlines are fussy about bringing unscheduled guests. So I hope JAZZ LIVES readers have patience: I will video-record as much as possible, and subject to musicians’ approval, you will see much of it in the months to come.
I expect to be busy listening, recording, talking and hanging out — living life away from the computer — so if this blog seems quiet for this long weekend, don’t feel abandoned. I am simply gathering new material for your pleasure.
I don’t anticipate think that any of my readers has sufficient frequent flyer miles to jump on a plane right this minute, but “day tickets” are still available, £50 a day. Details here. But you’d have to be fairly close to Newcastle to make this possible. (On a whim, I checked Expedia for round-trip from New York and the least expensive flight was $1500.)
By the time some of you read this, I will already be on a Delta flight to Newcastle by way of Amsterdam . . . a jazz pilgrim on one of the great pilgrimages, bearing notebook and camera, CDs and snacks, clothing, pills, and an umbrella — instead of a scallop shell.
See you back at the ranch on Tuesday, November 5!
Here’s a little music from the 2012 Party, a video of mine that has not been made public before, to lift up your spirits and embody what the weekend is all about. Rene Hagmann, cornet; Jean-Francois Bonnel, clarinet; Roly Veitch, guitar; Manu Hagmann, string bass, performing THAT’S A-PLENTY in hono(u)r of the Bechet-Spanier Big Four. My feelings exactly.
JAZZ LIVES 