MUSIC FROM PARIS: ALIX COMBELLE, BILL COLEMAN, FRANK “BIG BOY” GOUDIE, OSCAR ALEMAN and FRIENDS (January 12, 1938)

Jazz continues to be international. What I present here was issued only on an Italian bootleg recording devoted to a trumpeter, born in Paris, Kentucky, who spent much of his life in the other Paris, and the music was broadcast by the British Broadcasting Company, and it is posted for your enjoyment by a born New Yorker.

Alix Combelle was what the music magazines of the time might have called a “booting” tenor saxophonist and lyrical clarinetist. You would know him from his recordings with Django Reinhardt, from his part in the 1937 Benny Carter-Coleman Hawkins date, from later recordings with Lionel Hampton and Buck Clayton: a fertile recording career from 1933 to the late Fifties, with one last recorded performance in 1978.

Someone, presumably in England, recorded this broadcast of what would then have been called “modern dance music,” owing a great deal to the alliance of Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, Edgar Sampson, and Chick Webb. I don’t know the provenance, but this is audibly a professional recording cut at 33 rpm, if my ears are accurate. That it survived for us to enjoy is delightful.

It’s not simply a showcase for Combelle: for me, the star is the luminous trumpeter (able to leap tall buildings in a single bound) and singer Bill Coleman. And because it was the start of 1938 in Paris, I am sure that the European news encouraged him to scat-sing and ignore the phrase, “that you want to go to war” in Berlin’s ALEXANDER’S. Django Reinhardt did not make the broadcast, but his presence is evident in DAPHNE, his composition and (we are told) his arrangement. From recording sessions, I gather that Django was in London on January 12, although he did return to Paris by March 4.

BBC broadcast of January 12, 1938 from Paris with the possible personnel: Bill Coleman, trumpet, vocal on ALEXANDER’S; Pierre Allier, Alex Rewail, trumpet; unidentified trombone; Alix Combelle, tenor saxophone; Christian Wagner, clarinet, alto saxophone; Frank “Big Boy” Goudie, tenor saxophone, clarinet; unidentified piano; Oscar Aleman, guitar; unidentified string bass; Tommy Benford, drums. Issued only on the Italian label Two Flats Disc TFD5010.

DAPHNE / MY MELANCHOLY BABY / ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND (vocal Bill Coleman) / DON’T BE THAT WAY:

A wonderful swinging interlude: it reminds us of what music came out of people’s radios in 1938, before and after.

May your happiness increase!

CONTRITION OR VENGEANCE? RICKY ALEXANDER, DAN BLOCK, ADAM MOEZINIA, DANIEL DUKE, CHRIS GELB at CAFE BOHEMIA (Nov. 22, 2019)

I think WHO’S SORRY NOW? (note the absence of the question mark on the original sheet music above) is a classic Vengeance Song (think of GOODY GOODY and I WANNA BE AROUND as other examples): “You had your way / Now you must pay” is clear enough.  Instrumentally, it simply swings along. It seems, to my untutored ears, to be a song nakedly based on the arpeggiations of the harmonies beneath, but I may be misinformed.  It’s also one of the most durable songs — used in the films THREE LITTLE WORDS and the Marx Brothers’ A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA — before being made a tremendous hit some twenty-five years after its original issue by Connie Francis.  Someone said that she was reluctant to record it, that her father urged her to do it, and it was her greatest hit.)

Jazz musicians loved it as well: Red Nichols, the Rhythmakers, Frank Newton, Bob Crosby, Lee Wiley, Sidney DeParis, Wild Bill Davison, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Benny Carter, Eddie Heywood, Woody Herman, Buck Clayton, Sidney Bechet, Paul Barbarin, George Lewis, Big Bill Broonzy, Archie Semple, Charlie Barnet, Raymond Burke, Rosy McHargue, Oscar Aleman, the Six-and-Seventh-Eighths String Band, Kid Ory, Teddy Wilson, Earl Hines, Miff Mole, Hank D’Amico, Teddi King, Kid Thomas, Bob Scobey, Franz Jackson, Chris Barber, Matty Matlock, Bob Havens, Ella Fitzgerald, Armand Hug, Cliff Jackson, Ken Colyer, Jimmy Witherspoon, Jonah Jones, Capt. John Handy, Jimmy Rushing, Tony Parenti, Claude Hopkins, Jimmy Shirley, Bud Freeman, Ab Most, Benny Waters, Peanuts Hucko, Billy Butterfield, Kenny Davern, Humphrey Lyttelton, Bill Dillard, New Orleans Rascals, Barbara Lea, Allan Vache, Paris Washboard, Bob Wilber, Lionel Ferbos, Rosemary Clooney, Rossano Sportiello, Paolo Alderighi, Vince Giordano, Michael Gamble . . . (I know.  I looked in Tom Lord’s online discography and got carried away.)

Almost a hundred years after its publication, the song still has an enduring freshness, especially when it’s approached by jazz musicians who want to swing it.  Here’s wonderful evidence from Cafe Bohemia (have you been?) at 15 Barrow Street, Greenwich Village, New York, one flight down — on November 22, 2019: Ricky Alexander, tenor saxophone; Chris Gelb, drums; Daniel Duke, string bass; Adam Moezinia, guitar, and special guest Dan Block, tenor saxophone:

That was the penultimate song of the evening: if you haven’t heard / watched the closing STARDUST, you might want to set aside a brief time for an immersion in Beauty here.  And I will be posting more from this session soon, as well as other delights from Cafe Bohemia. (Have you been?)

May your happiness increase!