SUNDAY-NIGHT LEVITATION: YANK LAWSON, BOB HAGGART, RALPH SUTTON, BUD FREEMAN, BOB WILBER, BILLY BUTTERFIELD, GUS JOHNSON, LOU McGARITY, CARL FONTANA (April 20, 1969, “The Ed Sullivan Show”)

What follows is, to me, a thrilling four minutes and some seconds: it caused me a good deal of excitement two days ago. Never mind that the people in charge mis-titled the second of two songs, and that the applause, appearing at moments unrelated to what is going on musically, was surely generated by flashing APPLAUSE signs to a willing audience; never mind that Dick Gibson’s name for this wondrous assemblage — yes, “The World’s Greatest Jazz Band” — made many listeners want to puncture the PR balloon.

Here are Yank Lawson, Billy Butterfield, trumpet; Lou McGarity, Carl Fontana, trombone; Bob Wilber, clarinet; Bud Freeman, tenor saxophone; Ralph Sutton, piano; Bob Haggart, string bass; Gus Johnson, drums. (By the time I’d encountered the band, on June 21, 1970, in Town Hall, New York City, the trombone section was Vic Dickenson and Eddie Hubble, monumentally.)

I hope that the Ed Sullivan Show people uncover more than four minutes, although the two performances — a Lawson / Butterfield BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME? and their rollicking chart on UP, UP, AND AWAY — are spectacular. In concert, we didn’t see the two trumpets (in impassioned conversation) at this close range, and, my goodness! — to see Lou McGarity in color is a delight I never thought I’d have.

To think that this was once beamed into American homes on an ordinary Sunday night, in between the comedians making mother-in-law jokes, Topo Gigio or Senor Wences, high-energy pop singers . . . it dazzles. Watch it once, and then again. All the people who did bad impressions of Ed Sullivan, well, they never made music like this happen:

Thank you, Ed; thank you, Dick Gibson; thank you, incendiary creators.

UP, UP, AND AWAY! for sure.

May your happiness increase!

A LITTLE TREASURE-BOX: ED HALL, RUBY BRAFF, VIC DICKENSON, KENNY KERSEY, JOHN FIELD, JIMMY CRAWFORD; MAX KAMINSKY, VERNON BROWN; RALPH SUTTON (1944-1960)

The music may not go ’round and ’round, but at the moment my collection certainly extends itself from room to room. Because I can envision myself moving house, as the Brits say, I have been slightly more energetic in my tidying, although Marie Kondo would have walked away in despair a long time ago (Marie: what happens if so many things “spark joy”? Hmmmm?)

A few days ago I noticed three cassette boxes that have been on a bedroom windowsill for some time. One was empty and unlabeled; another was Frank O’Connor reading “My Oedipus Complex,” a souvenir of a past life, and the third, mildly waterlogged and soiled, but with its tape safely inside, was this:

I recognized it as a gift from the late Joe Boughton, which, since Joe left us in 2010, already made it an artifact. Joe was a concert and jazz-party impresario (“Jazz at Chautauqua” among other delights), a record producer, but most often he was a collector and enthusiast who brought a tape recorder to many gigs and traded tapes of his favorites. Our tastes ran in the same directions, and when I had obtained something I knew he would like, I would send him a cassette of it, and he would send me one of his homemade anthologies. (We never called them “mixtapes,” but each of us had cars with cassette decks.)

I didn’t know if the tape would play, but it did, and I can share with you the most remarkable portions . . . saved from the recycling bag that holds disposable plastics.

First, four performances captured on home-recorded acetates, radio broadcasts of Ed Hall’s Sextet from the Savoy Cafe, Boston, WMEX, Nat Hentoff, m.c. May-June 1949: Hall, clarinet; Ruby Braff, cornet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Kenny Kersey, piano; John Field, string bass; Jimmy Crawford, drums. CHINA BOY / MORE THAN YOU KNOW (glorious Vic) / S’WONDERFUL into program closing / THE MAN I LOVE //

And a mysterious bonus, mysterious because Joe didn’t type in any data about it, BACK HOME IN INDIANA, by (audibly) Max Kaminsky, trumpet; Vernon Brown, trombone; others not known. My friend Sonny McGown, a fine listener and collector himself, wrote in quickly, “The version of Indiana sounded familiar to me and I recognized the clarinetist as Ernie Caceres. The recording is from an Eddie Condon Associated transcription session of 24 October 1944. Others listed for this particular tune on the session date are Kaminsky, Lou McGarity, Jess Stacy, Condon, Bob Haggart, and George Wettling. What a band!”

Then, Ralph Sutton at Sunnie’s Rendezvous in Aspen, Colorado, 1960s, playing Willard RobIson’s I HEARD A MOCKINGBIRD SINGING IN CALIFORNIA.

Thank you, gorgeous improvisers, and thank you, Joe, for sharing the music with me . . . so that more than a dozen years later, I can share it with you.

May your happiness increase!

MASTERS OF HOT: WARREN VACHÉ, EDDIE HUBBLE, BOB WILBER, KENNY DAVERN, RALPH SUTTON, DAVE GREEN, JAKE HANNA (“A Tribute to Wild Bill Davison,” Bern Jazz Festival, 1990)

There is a school of thought, one I don’t subscribe to, that traces the course of hot music as a series of inevitable dilutions. I won’t name names, but this stance points to the great Originators (primarily African-American) and then their disciples (racially diverse) and the end result, watery and Caucasian, amateurs with straw boaters and striped vests, reading music. True, some of the purveyors of this particular genre of jazz have strayed from the intensity and expertise of their forbears (they are the amateurs, asking on Facebook for lead sheets for HOT TIME IN THE OLD TOWN TONIGHT because they can’t learn it in performance or from recordings) but it isn’t universally true that everyone born after a certain date can no longer “play that thing” with fire and individuality.

I present nearly an hour of wonderful hot jazz performed at the 1990 Bern Jazz Festival — the A+ team — in a tribute to Wild Bill Davison and his world, his approach, his repertoire, and by extension, a tribute to Eddie Condon and his world, and a whole way of approaching pop standards.

Energy and lovely singularity of sounds, in solo and ensemble, is vivid throughout. Glowing music, no tricks, no comedy, played by masters. Warren Vaché, cornet; Eddie Hubble, trombone; Bob Wilber, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone; Kenny Davern, clarinet; Ralph Sutton, piano; Dave Green, string bass; Jake Hanna, drums. NOBODY’S SWEETHEART / TIN ROOF BLUES / BLUES MY NAUGHTY SWEETIE GIVES TO ME / VIPER’S DRAG (Ralph) / BEALE STREET BLUES / BLACK AND BLUE (Bob, Kenny) / AS LONG AS I LIVE:

So hot, so swinging: although the repertoire is familiar, there’s no trace of staleness or over-familiarity. When you get through listening to the singular horn soloists, delight in that steady ferocious rhythm team, and then listen to how the great ones construct ensembles from chorus to chorus. I imagine not only Bill and Eddie, Anne and Phyllis, smiling approvingly, but also Milt Gabler and George Avakian . . . as well as legions of delighted fanciers.

May your happiness increase!

“THIS BAND DOESN’T REHEARSE. WE JUST PLAY.” WARREN VACHÉ, ALLAN VACHÉ, JOHN ALLRED, GRAY SARGENT, RALPH SUTTON, JACK LESBERG, JAKE HANNA (Bern Jazz Festival 1997)

These were the 1997 Bern Jazz Festival All-Stars!

And the exclamation point was so well-deserved, with Warren Vaché, cornet; Allan Vaché, clarinet; John Allred, trombone; Ralph Sutton, piano; Gray Sargent, guitar; Jack Lesberg, string bass; Jake Hanna, drums. Bern, Switzerland, 1997.

As Uncle Jake used to say, “Pay attention.”

“This band doesn’t rehearse; we just play,” says Warren. And so they do, spectacularly.

YOU’RE DRIVING ME CRAZY / LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME / AFTER YOU’VE GONE (Allan) / VIPER’S DRAG (Ralph) / NOBODY’S SWEETHEART NOW / I’M GETTING SENTIMENTAL OVER YOU (John) / WALKIN’ MY BABY BACK HOME (Gray) / NOBODY KNOWS (Warren – Ralph) / FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (Jack) / LIMEHOUSE BLUES (Jake) / BLUES:

What swing, what proficiency, what delight, individually and collectively. An amazing band, a memorable performance . . . and I don’t usually get hyperbolic, but I do here.

May your happiness increase!

SWINGING IN SWITZERLAND: CLARK TERRY, GEORGE MASSO, KENNY DAVERN, DANNY MOSS, JOHNNY LETMAN, RALPH SUTTON, HOWARD ALDEN, MILT HINTON, GUS JOHNSON (Bern 1989)

This astonishing band was assembled for the 1989 Bern Jazz Festival. Even more astonishing — across the distance of years — is that a concert was televised, the evidence remains, and you can see it here and now. We have Clark Terry, m.c., trumpet, flugelhorn, mouthpiece, vocal; George Masso, trombone; Kenny Davern, clarinet; Danny Moss, tenor saxophone; Howard Alden, guitar; Ralph Sutton, piano; Milt Hinton, string bass; Gus Johnson, drums; Johnny Letman, trumpet.

Couldn’t be better.

Howard Alden, a few years later.

Here’s the bill of fare: SWINGIN’ THE BLUES / MY BLUE HEAVEN / IT HAD TO BE YOU (Moss, Masso) / IN A MELLOTONE / THANKS A MILLION (Johnny Letman) / MOTEN SWING / TRAV’LIN ALL ALONE (Davern, Alden, Milt, Gus) / IN THE DARK (Sutton) / PULL ‘EM OFF (Milt, Clark, Alden, Gus) / GOD BLESS THE CHILD (Clark) / UNDECIDED / Encore: THINGS AIN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE //

Some of these festival assemblages — you know them in the first ten minutes — have a “Do we have to go through this again?” weary air, with the opening ensemble number, a string of features, and a breakneck finish. Not this one: it is a gathering of wonderfully swinging friends, smiling at each other in person and in sound. And the familiar repertoire gleams.

I could have offered a portrait of any of the Eminences on the stand, but I choose Howard Alden for a few reasons aside from his natural sustained brilliance. In 1989, he was already a young veteran who’d recorded with everyone from Dizzy to Ruth Warrick to Joe Bushkin, Benny Carter, and Mel Powell . . . but there in the Swiss spring he was the Official Youngblood, and now he is the Eminence standing squarely on his own. I also salute him because when I asked him for permission to post this video, his response was (typically) gracious and swift: he remembers “a wonderful trip.”

A triumph of the Common Language of Jazz and the buoyancy of joy.

May your happiness increase!

AN HOUR WITH BILLY BUTTERFIELD, CARL FONTANA, RALPH SUTTON, JACK LESBERG, TYRONE MARTIN (Denver, Colorado: December13, 1975)

Just what it says, and gloriously. This tape came to me through the generosity (so memorable) of John L. Fell, and I have the names “Weinrich-Roscie” stuck in my head, attached to the music. I am guessing that it was a Dick Gibson-styled house party, and I bless the unknown person who recorded the music . . . for us, forty-six years later, to enjoy.

The songs are S’WONDERFUL (ending cut) / MEDITATION / LOVE LIES / WILLOW WEEP FOR ME / LIMEHOUSE BLUES / I GOT IT BAD / THE LADY IS A TRAMP. And if the names are new to you, that’s Billy, trumpet and flugelhorn; Carl, trombone; Ralph, piano; Jack, string bass; Tyrone, drums:

What a great gift was given to us. Hear and marvel.

May your happiness increase!

RALPH SUTTON, PIANO MASTER (1980)

Ralph Sutton (courtesy of BlueBlackJazz)

The pianist Ralph Sutton, who recorded so expansively for more than fifty years, should be better known. But I suspect that since he was typecast as a particular kind of pianist — a “stride pianist,” which he was, splendidly, he was expected to provide a predictable menu of standard tunes, Fats Waller compositions, and up-tempo dazzlers, and listeners forgot just how superb he was as an improvising musician, a magnificent pianist, and an ensemble player. Although Ralph played with great dramatic range, he led a calm life and his artistry was so consistent that there was little for journalists to fasten on: no personal disasters. Too, there are the deplorable labels affixed to pre-KIND OF BLUE jazz, even by the fans of such music. Unlike his contemporaries, the erudite Dick Hyman and the whimsical Dick Wellstood, Ralph did not expend much energy on “show” or wooing an audience. The performance that follows shows him a craftsman, concerned with little else than the extraordinary sounds and rhythms he could create at the keyboard. But it is a rare document of his art, and since he made no commercially issued recordings in 1980, it is especially valuable: a master at work. Of course, I say wryly, it was recorded for European, not American television.

In the first segment, Ralph plays ECHO OF SPRING (Willie “the Lion” Smith) / ALLIGATOR CRAWL (Fats Waller) / LOVE LIES (Terry Shand) / VIPER’S DRAG — interpolating LULLABY IN RHYTHM (Fats // Clarence Profit) / HONEYSUCKLE ROSE / GIN MILL BLUES (continued in the next segment):

and GIN MILL BLUES (concluded) / EYE OPENER (Bob Zurke):

In a more equitable jazz world, bereft of labels and hierarchies, Sutton would get his due. But then again, so would a thousand other remarkable artists. Do your bit: share this video with your daughter’s piano teacher, your friend who admires Horowitz, and so on. Let’s launch a peaceful Sutton Revolution.

May your happiness increase!

MR. RUSSELL FELT BETTER ALREADY: EDDIE CONDON, WILD BILL DAVISON, CUTTY CUTSHALL, EDMOND HALL, GENE SCHROEDER, BOB CASEY, BUZZY DROOTIN, RALPH SUTTON, ERNIE CACERES, AL HALL, JOE BUSHKIN, RAY McKINLEY (Town Hall, New York, February 21, 1951)

Pee Wee Russell hadn’t taken good care of himself, and his body had rebelled in 1951. Thank goodness for the medical acumen of the times that enabled him to live almost twenty years more. But I also think that knowing that he was so loved — Jack Teagarden and Louis Armstrong visiting him in the hospital — and events such as this concert must have helped. Music and love were so intertwined that it would be silly to ask where one starts and the other one ends, because neither one of them ends.

Pee Wee, distorted, by Weegee, c. 1955.

It’s odd to write that good things came out of the Cold War. But the belief that one of the best ways to exhibit the happiness possible under capitalism was to share hot music as an emblem of freedom may seem naive now, but it had sweet results. The Voice of America, an active propaganda medium, beamed live American jazz “behind the Iron Curtain,” hoping for conversion experiences.

In 2021, those of us old enough to remember Khruschev’s shoe and the Bay of Pigs, hiding under our desks, terrified of a thermonuclear device, can listen to some rich “Americondon” music. And for those who have no idea what those historical references might mean are encouraged to learn a little history and listen to the joys.

Here’s the menu:

JAZZ CLUB USA (Voice of America): from Town Hall, New York City, February 21, 1951: Tribute to Pee Wee Russell.

FIDGETY FEET / I’M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES Wild Bill Davison, Cutty Cutshall, Ed Hall, Gene Schroeder, Eddie Condon, Bob Casey, Buzzy Drootin / UNDER A BLANKET OF BLUE Ernie Caceres, Schroeder, Al Hall, Buzzy / I CAN’T GET STARTED – HALLELUJAH! Joe Bushkin, Ray McKinley / IN A MIST Ralph Sutton / BASIN STREET BLUES as FIDGETY FEET:

And Pee Wee got better. Isn’t that lovely?

May your happiness increase!

BLOWINGLY, 1948

At JAZZ LIVES, we don’t much care what cola — if any — that you drink. But we do care about our affection and worship of Oran Thaddeus Page, of Corsicana, Texas, who lit up so many rooms and stages in his short life.

And we care about generous friends, such as trumpeter / bandleader / kind imaginative fellow Yves Francois — who dug down into his collection to share a treasure with us, something I’d not heard before. . . . a 1948 recording from a television program — Lips backed by a band fully in synch with him, although they are unidentified (I believe the pianist is Ralph Sutton), performing a novelty he’d recorded with Artie Shaw some seven years earlier. I like that TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF, BABY, is a fantasy of Lips and the sympathetic young lady running off to a kind of Big Rock Candy Mountain world. I also like that a prerequisite is that she be barefoot, although I hope the terrain is welcoming. Pay close attention to Lips’ heroic momentum as he moves into his second chorus: “Atlas,” as Marc Caparone calls him. Here’s the neatly-done label (bless you, unknown archivist!) and below is the music.

Lips shows us the way to Paradise:

“Blowingly”? Lips sometimes signed autographs with his own coinage — a witty variation on “Sincerely,” just right.

May your happiness increase!

ANOTHER “TOWN HALL CONCERT”: PAOLO ALDERIGHI, BERT BOEREN, MENNO DAAMS, BERNARD FLEGAR, MORITZ GASTREICH, NICO GASTREICH, HELGE LORENZ, NICKI PARROTT, MATTHIAS SEUFFERT, STEPHANIE TRICK, NIELS UNBEHAGEN, ENGELBERT WROBEL (Westoverledingen, Germany, April 10, 2016)

I was there, among admired friends.  And the music was spectacular.

In German, it’s JAZZ IM RATHAUS — Jazz at the Town (City) Hall — but given that Louis’ 1947 Town Hall Concert shaped my life, I realign the words as tribute.  The Dramatis Personae is on the green cover.

April 9, 2016. Photograph by Elke Grunwald

This was the thirtieth annual concert, a series featuring, among others, Wild Bill Davison, Kenny Davern, Marty Grosz, Ralph Sutton, Jon-Erik Kellso, Dan Barrett, Randy Sandke, Warren Vache, Bob Haggart, Mark Shane, Danny Moss, Chris Hopkins, Jake Hanna, Rossano Sportiello, Antti Sarpila, Butch Miles, Ken Peplowski . . . . All of this happened because of Manfred Selchow, known to his friends as Mannie, a deep jazz-lover, author of beautifully comprehensive studies of Ed Hall and Vic Dickenson.  He’s the serious man below with both hands on the check, but don’t let that somber visage fool you: he is a warm and easy fellow.

But music is what we’re here for — two rousing selections from the final concert of the April 8-10 jazz weekend at the Rathaus.  The first, LADY BE GOOD, is full of gratifying solos, ensemble telepathy, uplifting surprises.  That’s Matthias Seuffert, Engelbert Wrobel, tenor saxophones; Helge Lorenz, guitar; Bert Boeren, trombone; Menno Daams, cornet; Rico Tomasso, trumpet; Bernard Flegar, later, Moritz Gastreich, drums; Nico Gastreich, string bass; Niels Unbehagen, Stephanie Trick, Paolo Alderighi, piano — doing crowd-pleasing handoffs.  AND 1936 Lester!  (Wait for it, as they say.)

The encore, PERDIDO, evokes JATP, with Matthias, Engelbert, Helge, Nicki Parrott on string bass; Bernard, Niels, Stephanie, Paolo, Rico, Menno, and Bert:

Someday, sweethearts, we shall meet again.  And thanks for the lovely sounds.

May your happiness increase!

“HONESTLY, I DO”: MUSIC FOR WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2020

I think that, as a species, we don’t do well with uncertainty.  Is that shadow on the wall a shadow or is it The Wolf coming to get us?  I suggest that music can help us turn on the light and see clearly that The Wolf is only a stuffed toy.  To that end, I offer a soundtrack for this Wednesday, November 4. 2020.  Yes, the lyrics are — if you take them at face value — a fairly predictable 1935 love song, but I encourage you to embellish them in your thoughts, making them as relevant as you can.  The song?  I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES, by Pete Wendling, George Meyer, and Sam M. Lewis.

A rather plain version by Greta Keller, a starting point, verse and chorus:

Ralph Sutton, Ruby Braff, Milt Hinton, Mousie Alexander:

An early recorded version, by the Dorsey Brothers’ Orchestra with Bob Crosby:

Marty Grosz, Dick Meldonian, Greg Cohen, 1992:

Our very own EarRegulars in 2010 — Jon-Erik Kellso, Pete Martinez, Matt Munisteri, Greg Cohen:

Wingy Manone, Matty Matlock, Eddie Miller, Gil Bowers, Nappy Lamare, Harry Goodman, Ray Bauduc, 1935:

and the wellspring, the inspiration . . . Fats Waller, Bill Coleman, Gene Sedric, Al Casey, Charlie Turner, Harry Dial, 1935:

Love can weave a miracle.  Keep believing.

May your happiness increase!

JAMMIN’ AT TOWN HALL: EDDIE CONDON, WILD BILL DAVISON, BUZZY DROOTIN, EDMOND HALL, JOE BUSHKIN, CUTTY CUTSHALL, RALPH SUTTON, RAY McKINLEY, ERNIE CACERES, GENE SCHROEDER, BOB CASEY, AL HALL (February 21, 1951)

Sadly, Eddie Condon’s music is misunderstood and dismissed these days.  The serious “traditionalists” — whether they bow to Jim Robinson or Turk Murphy or a hundred other icons — accuse him of aesthetic impurity (the way they feel about Happy Cauldwell’s tenor saxophone on Jelly Roll Morton’s 1939 Victor session.)  More “modern” listeners see FIDGETY FEET and flee; they also associate anything related to Eddie as identical to semi-professional “Dixieland” played from music stands or loud Bourbon Street busking.

I offer this half-hour Voice of America broadcast as a stimulating corrective to both views.  Ironically, it is introduced by Leonard Feather, openly hostile to  Eddie and his musicians, although he is polite enough here.  It pleases me greatly that the VOA broadcasts began with a nearly-violent flourish from Hot Lips Page, one of Eddie’s best musical friends.  The generous YouTube poster dates it as April 1951, but the concert — a tribute to the recovering Pee Wee Russell — happened on February 21, 1951, according to Manfred Selchow’s invaluable book on Ed Hall, PROFOUNDLY BLUE.

Something for everyone: serious collective improvisation by a group of players who are both exuberant and precise; rhapsodies; ballads; jazz classics.  There’s kinshp between Buzzy Drootin and Max Roach, between Cutty Cutshall and Bill Harris, between Ernie Caceres and Ben Webster, between Joe Bushkin and Teddy Wilson.  Heard with open ears, this music is timeless, as inspired as the sounds cherished by the Jazz Bureaucracy.

Here’s the bill of fare:

FIDGETY FEET / I’M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES: Wild Bill Davison, cornet; Cutty Cutshall, trombone; Edmond Hall, clarinet; Gene Schroeder, piano; Eddie Condon, guitar; Bob Casey, string bass; Buzzy Drootin, drums. UNDER A BLANKET OF BLUE: Ernie Caceres, baritone sax; Schroeder; Al Hall, string bass; Drootin.  I CAN’T GET STARTED – HALLELUJAH!  Joe Bushkin, piano; Ray McKinley, drums.  IN A MIST: Ralph Sutton, piano.  BASIN STREET BLUES: as BUBBLES:

Once again, I am impressed by the storming drumming of Buzzy Drootin.  If you share my admiration, I direct you to the two brilliant videos created by Kevin Dorn on YouTube — which made me appreciate Buzzy even more.  Eddie and Co. I already appreciate over the moon.  To quote Eddie, “Whee!”

May your happiness increase!

ORAN THADDEUS PAGE: 1941, 1951, 1952

Hot Lips Page never let the flame go out. Two 1941 views (eBay, of course):

and the other side:

Lips with Artie Shaw:

and the rear:

Here he is in 1951, with Tyree Glenn, Paul Quinichette, Kenny Kersey, Danny Barker, Walter Page, and Sonny Greer at a jam session organized and recorded by Rudi Blesh:

and in 1952, with Andre Reweillotty’s band in Belgium:

and with Peanuts Hucko, Cutty Cutshall, Ralph Sutton.  Catch Lips’ four choruses, beginning at 2:13.  No wonder Marc Caparone calls Lips “Atlas”:

and THE DEVIL’S KISS, which soars over Massenet’s ELEGIE:

And here‘s a beauty:

Price is 899.99 plus 11 shipping, but the seller offers an extended-payment plan of $41 for 24 months and 30-day returns.

May your happiness increase!

SHOOT FIRST. ASK QUESTIONS LATER.

Zoot, riding the range.

The splendid people at jgautographs (on eBay) have reached into the apparently bottomless treasure chest and come up with an assortment of photographs for sale.  The auction has a time limit, so don’t (as we say) dither.

Bill, Kenny, and Bob, also riding the range, although dressed like city slickers.

Question: what do Bobby Hackett, George Barnes, Flip Phillips, Bob Wilber, Bud Freeman, Connie Jones, Max Kaminsky, Joe Venuti, Lou Stein, Joe Wilder, Zoot Sims, Ralph Sutton, Kenny Davern, Dick Wellstood, Scott Hamilton, Milt Hinton, Bucky and John Pizzarelli, Greg Cohen, Dick Hyman, Urbie Green, Trummy Young, Vic Dickenson, Hank Jones, Bob Haggart, Dick Cathcart, Jess Stacy, Joe Bushkin, Dave McKenna, John Best, Franz Jackson, Wild Bill Davison, Butch Miles, Jack Lesberg, Dick Johnson, Bob Havens, and a few others have in common . . . . aside from their musical glories?

Urbie, the one, the only.

Answer: They were all caught in performance by Al White and his roving camera (many of them at Dick Gibson’s Colorado jazz parties) — asked to sign the photos — the ones I’ve seen have all been inscribed to Al — and these 8 x 10″ black and white beauties are now being offered at the site above.

In 2000, Al and Ralph Sutton’s biographer James D. Schacter created a large-format book, JAZZ PARTY, with over a hundred of these inscribed photographs, but that book is now out of print, although copies can be found.

Al started life as an amateur drummer and jazz fan, then put on concerts and parties in Arkansas . . . . and at some point began to specialize in candid shots of the musicians he admired.

The noble Dick Cathcart.

The photographs offered on eBay have, for me, a special resonance.  For a moment in time, Bobby or Urbie had to touch this piece of paper to sign it, so they are beautiful artifacts or relics or what you will.

I’ve been running out of wall space for some time now (and it would be disrespectful as well as damp to start hanging photographs in the bathroom) so the field is clear for you to visually admire and place bids, even though I might be tempted in two days and twenty-something hours.

I thought you might like some jazz-party-jazz, so here is the priceless 1977 color film (102 minutes) of the Dick Gibson party, “The Great Rocky Mountain Jazz Party,” featuring everyone:

May your happiness increase!

A MUSICAL LANDSCAPE: MARCH 13, 1951

LANDSCAPE WITH BUSHES, Ivana Falconi Allen, 2020.  In a private collection.

The little world we know as jazz has moved so quickly in its hundred-plus years that sometimes it seems precariously balanced between the beloved Living and the heroic Dead.  I can go out in New York City to hear people I admire tremendously blow breath through horns and out of mouths, to make music right in front of me.  But at times jazz seems like a well-tended graveyard, with death announcements hitting me between the eyes every morning, adding to the great graveyard where Buster, Bessie, Billie, Bean, Brownie, Blanton, Ben, Bix, Big Sid, and Bunny are buried.

Where the music I am about to present — thanks to our great friend “Davey Tough” — fits in this formulation is a large charming paradox.  I do not think any of the players on this transcription disc, recorded before my birth, are alive in 2020.  But their music is resoundingly alive, and their ability to make a shining personal statement in sixteen bars, a time span of under thirty seconds, is marvelous.  Their names are announced, and you can read more on the label.

What’s the moral?

Emulate our great heroes, by doing something so well that when our bodies have said, “All right, that’s enough!” our selves live on.

And like “Davey Tough,” share your joys generously.

And a postscript: if you don’t know the artwork of the endearingly imaginative Ivana Falconi Allen, you are missing work as sharply realized and as delightful as any jazz solo you cherish.  Here is her website, full of sweet shocks.

May your happiness increase!

BRIGHT SPARKS, DEEP SHADOWS: JON-ERIK KELLSO, ROSSANO SPORTIELLO, TAL RONEN at MEZZROW (Sept. 16, 2019)

This sign is catnip to me and to other cats — so much so that we were standing in line (in a drizzle) outside of Mezzrow long before the Powers would open the door.  But our perseverance was well rewarded, that night of September 16, when Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Rossano Sportiello, piano; Tal Ronen, string bass, got together for a vibrant imaginative session.  Here are a few highlights.

Rossano’s musical beverage, TEA FOR TWO:

Honoring Fathahood, MONDAY DATE:

ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE (featuring Tal):

I’M CRAZY ‘BOUT MY BABY, echoing not only Fats but also Ruby and Ralph:

Rossano’s marriage of Sammy Cahn, Saul Chaplin, and Fred Chopin, in SHOE SHINE BOY / Waltz, Opus 69, No. 1:

And Jon-Erik’s suggestion that we not leave, STICK AROUND:

Brilliant solo voices, rewarding thoughtful ensemble interplay.  Yes, it happened.

May your happiness increase!

A LEISURELY CONVERSATION OF KINDRED SOULS, or “BLUES FOR MANNIE”: MATTHIAS SEUFFERT, HELGE LORENZ, ENGELBERT WROBEL, BERT BOEREN, MENNO DAAMS, ENRICO TOMASSO, BERNARD FLEGAR, NICO GASTREICH, NIELS UNBEHAGEN (April 10, 2016)

You wouldn’t imagine that the serious man (second from left in the photograph, holding a corner of the check) could inspire such joy, but it’s true.  That fellow is my friend and friend to many, Manfred “Mannie” Selchow, jazz concert promoter, jazz scholar, enthusiast, and so much more.  He even has his own Wikipedia page that gives his birthdate, his work history, and more — but it also says that he has organized more than thirty concert tours of Germany that have resulted in many joyous concerts and CDs from them (released on the Nagel-Heyer label) featuring Ralph Sutton, Marty Grosz, Harry Allen, Randy Sandke, Eddie Erickson, Menno Daams, Jon-Erik Kellso, Dan Barrett, Kenny Davern, Bob Wilber, Mark Shane, Rossano Sportiello, and hundreds more.

I first met Manfred through the mail: he had published a small but fascinating bio-discography of one of his great heroes, Edmond Hall (whom he heard in 1955 when Ed came to Germany with Louis).  Eager as always, I wrote him to let him know about some Hall I’d heard that he hadn’t.  We began corresponding and traded many tapes.  The slim monograph grew into a huge beautiful book, PROFOUNDLY BLUE, and Manfred then began working on an even more expansively detailed one about Vic Dickenson, DING! DING! which I am proud to have been a small part of.  In 2007, I visited him in his hometown for a weekend of music; I came over again in April 2016 for “Jazz im Rathaus,” which takes place in Imhove.  This 2016 concert weekend was in celebration not only of thirty years of wonderful music, but of Manfred’s eightieth birthday.

The concert weekend was marvelous, full of music from the people you see below and others, including Nicki Parrott, Stephanie Trick, and Paolo Alderighi. However, one of the most satisfying interludes of the weekend took place near the end — a JATP-themed set led by Matthias Seuffert.  And Matthias, who has excellent ideas, had this one: to play a blues for Mannie.  Now, often “Blues for [insert name here]” is elegiac, since the subject has died.  Happily, this isn’t the case.  What it is, is a medium-tempo, rocking, cliche-free evocation of the old days made new — honoring our friend Mannie.  The players are Bernard Flegar, drums; Niels Unbehagen, piano; Helge Lorenz, guitar; Nico Gastreich, string bass; Bert Boeren, trombone; Engelbert Wrobel, Matthias Seuffert, reeds; Menno Daams, Enrico Tomasso, trumpet.  What a groove!

I think the world — in its perilous state — needs blues like this (homeopathically) to drive away the real ones we face, and this nearly ten-minute example of singular individuals working together lovingly in swing for a common purpose is a good model for all of us.  Thanks to the always-inspiring Mannie for all he’s done and continues to do.

P.S.  This post was originally prepared for the faithful readers and listeners shortly after the music was performed, but technical difficulties of a rather tedious sort interfered . . . and now you can see what we all saw a few years back.  Thanks for holding, as they say in telephone conversations.  And if Manfred is still somewhat computer-averse, I hope someone will share this post with him.

May your happiness increase!

MR. WILBER, THE SAGE

Days gone by: December 1946, Wilber, Dick Wellstood, Johnny Glasel, Charlie Trager, Eddie Phyfe. Photograph by William P. Gottlieb.

Robert Sage Wilber, born in 1928, who never played an ugly or graceless note in his life, has left us.  I first heard him on recordings more than fifty years ago, and saw him in person first in 1970 with the World’s Greatest Jazz Band.  He was a magnificently consistent player — his time, his intonation, his creativity, his vital force, his melodic lyricism — and one of the world’s most versatile.  He didn’t care to be “innovative” in the best modern way, but kept refining his art, the art of Louis and Bechet and Teddy Wilson, every time he played.

People who didn’t quite understand his masteries (the plural is intentional) thought of him as derivative, whatever that means, but even when he was playing SONG OF SONGS in the Bechet manner or WARM VALLEY for the Rabbit, he was recognizably himself: passionate and exact at the same time, a model of how to do it.  And if you appreciate the jazz lineage, a man who performed with Baby Dodds, Tommy Benford, Kaiser Marshall, Joe Thomas, Sidney Catlett, Billy Strayhorn, Eddie Condon, Vic Dickenson, Ruby Braff, Ralph Sutton, Cliff Leeman . . . so deeply connected to the past while remaining fiercely active, has moved to another neighborhood.  I send my condolences to his wife, the singer Pug Horton, and his family.

I was extremely fortunate to cross paths with Bob — not only as an admiring spectator of Soprano Summit, where he and Kenny Davern were equally matched — but as an admiring jazz journalist and videographer.  He was not worried about what I captured: he was confident in himself and he trusted that the music would carry him.  Here are some glimpses of the Sage in action, in music and in speech.

Rare photographs and music from 1947 here.

A session with David Ostwald’s Gully Low Jazz Band (2010) and Daryl Sherman here.

Two parts of an intimate session at Smalls in 2012 with Ehud Asherie and Pug Horton as well here and here.

And a particular prize: a two-part 2015 interview session (thanks to Pug!) here and here.

More than a decade ago, when I began this blog, I worked hard to keep away from the temptations of necrology — my joke is that I didn’t want it to be JAZZ DIES — but if I didn’t write and post something about Robert Sage Wilber, I’d never forgive myself.  We will keep on admiring and missing him as long as there is music.

May your happiness increase!  

THE WORLD’S GREATEST JAZZ BAND: YANK LAWSON, BOB HAGGART, GUS JOHNSON, DICK WELLSTOOD, BOB WILBER, BUD FREEMAN, SONNY RUSSO, BENNIE MORTON, MAXINE SULLIVAN // AL KLINK, PEANUTS HUCKO, GEORGE MASSO, RALPH SUTTON, BOBBY ROSENGARDEN (1975)

I wouldn’t have known of these programs (now shared with us on the Musikladen YouTube channel) except for my good friend, the fine drummer Bernard Flegar.  They are rich and delicious.

The WGJB lasted from the late Sixties (when they were a development of the Nine / Ten Greats of Jazz, sponsored by Dick Gibson) to 1978.  In some ways, they were both a touring assemblage of gifted veteran players — I believe Robert Sage Wilber, known to his friends worldwide as Bob, is the sole survivor — and a versatile band that echoed the best of the Bob Crosby units, big and small.  The WGJB came in for a good deal of sneering because of their hyperbolic title, which was Gibson’s idea, not the musicians’, but from the perspective of 2019, they were great, no questions asked.  And they weren’t just a collection of soloists, each taking a turn playing jazz chestnuts (although JAZZ ME BLUES was often on the program); Haggart’s arrangements were splendid evocations of a Swing Era big band with plenty of room, and the WGJB brought its own down-home / Fifty-Second Street energy to current pop tunes (I remember their UP, UP, AND AWAY with delight).  And they played the blues.

I remember them with substantial fondness, because the second jazz concert I went to (the first was Louis in 1967, which is starting at the apex) was held in Town Hall, with Gibson as host, probably in 1970, and it featured the WGJB — Vic Dickenson and Eddie Hubble on trombones — and a small group with Al and Zoot, possibly Joe Newman, where they performed THE RED DOOR and MOTORING ALONG, titles no one would forget, and Gibson told his anecdote of the white deer.

These two programs seem to have been sophisticated television offerings: multi-camera perspectives with a great deal of editing from one camera to the other, and beginnings and endings that suggest that these were not finished products.  The absence of an audience — or their audible presence — on the first program seems odd, but I don’t mind the quiet.  The WGJB could certainly add its own charging exuberance — hear the final ensemble of CALIFORNIA, HERE I COME — that few bands have matched.

The first program features co-leaders Yank Lawson, trumpet; Bob Haggart, string bass, arrangements; Billy Butterfield, trumpet; Bob Wilber, clarinet, soprano; Bud Freeman, tenor saxophone; Bennie Morton, trombone; Sonny Russo, trombone; Dick Wellstood, piano; Gus Johnson, drums; Maxine Sullivan, guest vocalist, and the songs performed are BLUES / MERCY, MERCY, MERCY / DOODLE DOO DOO / THE EEL (featuring its composer, Bud Freeman) / THAT’S A PLENTY (featuring Bob Wilber and Dick Wellstood) / A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY (featuring Maxine Sullivan) / THE LADY IS A TRAMP (Maxine) / SOUTH RAMPART STREET PARADE/ MY INSPIRATION (closing theme) //:

And here’s another forty-five minute program, presumably aired October 17 of the same year, with certain personnel changes — this time there’s an audience but the band is also dressed with great casualness: Ralph Sutton, piano; Al Klink, tenor saxophone; Peanuts Hucko, clarinet; Bobby Rosengarden, drums; George Masso and Sonny Russo, trombones; Lawson, Haggart, Butterfield, and Maxine, performing AT THE JAZZ BAND BALL / BASIN STREET BLUES (featuring Masso) / CALIFORNIA, HERE I COME (featuring Sutton) / BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME (featuring Lawson and Butterfield) / LIMEHOUSE BLUES (featuring Russo and Masso) / HARLEM BUTTERFLY / EV’RY TIME (featuring Maxine Sullivan) / ST. LOUIS BLUES / STAR DUST (featuring Klink) / RUNNIN’ WILD (featuring Hucko) / BIG NOISE FROM WINNETKA (featuring Haggart and Rosengarden) / SOUTH RAMPART STREET PARADE / MY INSPIRATION //:

The repertoire for the longer program is more familiar, with few surprises, but that band could roar as well as play pretty ballads and its own version of Thirties funk.  What unexpected treasures these programs are.

May your happiness increase!

STATE OF THE ART: DALTON RIDENHOUR and EVAN ARNTZEN (Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival, Sedalia, Missouri: June 2, 2018)

Dalton Ridenhour, photograph by Aidan Grant

Duet playing in any genre is difficult — making two into one while keeping the individuals’ individualities afloat.  Improvised duet playing, as you can imagine, might be the most wonderful soaring dance of all but it is fraught with the possibility of disaster.  Can we agree on a tempo?  Is one of us rushing or dragging?  Do we agree on the changes?  Do we play the tag at the end of every chorus?  Do we change key for the final chorus?  Or, as Vic Dickenson said, “How do you want to distribute the bounces?”

Evan Arntzen, photograph by Tim Cheeney

But I am sure that some of my most enthralling moments have been as an open-mouthed spectator at some duets: Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines or Buck Washington, Al Cohn and Jimmie Rowles; Ruby Braff and Ellis Larkins; Ruby and Dick Hyman; Vic and Ralph Sutton; Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson; Zoot Sims and Bucky Pizzarelli, Andrew Oliver and David Horniblow, Marc Caparone and Ray Skjelbred . . . . and and and.  Now I add to that list the two fellows photographed above . . . on the basis of two songs in concert.

Here are two lovely examples of how improvised duet playing — by two people, expert and intuitive — can touch our hearts while we marvel at the risks taken and the immense rewards.  Pianist Dalton Ridenhour was playing a solo set at the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, and gave us a surprise by inviting his colleague and neighbor, clarinetist Evan Arntzen, to the stage for a dozen memorable minutes.

The tender and evocative THAT OLD FEELING:

The song I call CHANGES MADE (and then someone insists that THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE is the properly pious title . . . . what-ever):

I dream of a venue and an occasion where Dalton and Evan could play as long as they wanted . . .

May your happiness increase!

OF COURSE, THEY WEREN’T “TRAINED SINGERS”!

Anna Moffo, one of my mother’s favorite sopranos: my definition of a “trained singer.”

Everyone of us has pet theories: there’s a secret way to fold fitted sheets; day-old bagels, toasted, are better than fresh, and so on.  You, no doubt, have yours.

One of mine that is relevant to JAZZ LIVES is that often, singers who never sing because they are busy playing are the best singers of all.  I don’t mean those who are clearly identified as singers — Louis, Jelly, Teagarden, Cleo Brown — but those instrumentalists who have recorded once or twice only.  So I assembled a host of my favorites, leaving out scat choruses.  Some recordings were inaccessible: Sid Catlett’s OUT OF MY WAY, Basie’s HARVARD BLUES (where he, not Jimmy, takes the vocal) Ed Hall’s ALL I GOT WAS SYMPATHY — but this is, I hope, a pleasing, perhaps odd offering.  I present them in no particular order, except for Lester being the last, because that recording so touches me.

James P. Johnson, 1944 (with Frank Newton, Al Casey, Pops Foster, Eddie Dougherty).  The story is that Alan Lomax thought that James P. was a blues pianist when he interviewed him for the Library of Congress — and compelled him to sing this.  I don’t know: James P. is having a good time:

Coleman Hawkins, 1936, highly impassioned (when was he not?):

Vic Dickenson, crooning in 1931 with the Luis Russell Orchestra:

Vic — nearly fifty years later — singing his own composition with Ralph Sutton:

Benny Carter, aiming for Bing and having a dear good time in the process, 1933.  (This has been one of my favorite records since 1974.  Catch Benny’s trumpet solo and clarinet solo.  And Sid Catlett pleases.)  Those clever lyrics aren’t easy to sing at that tempo: ask Dan Barrett:

And another helping of Benny-does-Bing, gliding upwards into those notes.  Another favorite:

Yes, Art Tatum could sing the blues.  Uptown, 1941:

I save this for last, because it leaves me in tears.  Lester Young, 1941, and since this is the only copy of a much-played acetate, there’s a lot of surface noise.  Be patient and listen deeply:

Little is known about that recording, but I remember learning that one side of it was a dub of SHOE SHINE BOY by Jones-Smith, Inc., and this — a current pop tune with glee-club embroideries — was the other.  It’s been surmised that this was a demo disc for Lester’s new small band that he hoped to make flourish after leaving Basie.  Some of the sadness, to me, is that the attempt worked poorly, and although Lester loved to sing, there is only one other recording (the 1953 IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO) that exists.

These singers go right to my heart.

May your happiness increase!

GENEROSITIES from MISTER McGOWN: “DAVEY TOUGH” on YOUTUBE

I’ve been collecting jazz records as long as I’ve been fascinated by the music.  When I began, so much of the music I craved was not easily available, so I turned to other collectors for assistance, trading items back and forth with those who were generous.  I have benefited so much from the kindness of collectors, some of whom who have moved on and others who are reading this post.  And I cherish most those who are open-handed.  I think of John L. Fell, Bill Coverdale, Bob Hilbert, Bill Gallagher among the departed: the living people know who they are and know how I value them.

One of the open-handed folks I celebrate is collector, discographer, and scholar Sonny McGown.  An amiable erudite fellow, he doesn’t feel compelled to show off his knowledge or point out that his records are better than yours.

On this 2015 podcast, Sonny, in conversation with “spun counterguy,” tells of becoming a jazz-loving record collector here.  It’s an entertaining interlude with good stories (among other subjects, DON’T BE THAT WAY and POP-CORN MAN) and musical excerpts.

Sonny is fully versed in 78s and 45s, and he understands the power technology has to make generosity easy, to share precious music.  The word “broadcast” is apt here: one collector sending another a cassette, mp3, or burned CD is casting very small bits of bread on the waters.

About four months ago, he created his own YouTube channel, “Davey Tough”  — and although it doesn’t yet have a large audience by YouTube standards, I am counting on this blogpost to remedy that.  Sonny has been quietly offering rare music, well-annotated, one surprise after another.  How about Goodman, Jack Teagarden, the aforementioned Dave Tough, Peanuts Hucko, Ray McKinley, Yank Lawson, Helen Ward, Dick Wellstood, Kenny Davern, Soprano Summit, Joe Marsala, Lou McGarity, Bobby Gordon, Charlie Byrd, Tommy Gwaltney, Clancy Hayes, Ralph Sutton, Wild Bill Davison, and other luminaries.  And surprises!  Some are from truly rare non-commercial records, others from even rarer tapes of live performances in clubs and at jazz parties.

I’ll start with the one performance that I already knew, because it is so much fun: clarinetists Ernie Caceres, Joe Marsala, Pee Wee Russell, playing the blues at a 1944 Eddie Condon concert — backed by Gene Schroeder, Bob Haggart, and Gene Krupa (with Bobby Hackett audible at the end):

Notice, please, unlike so much on YouTube, this is factually correct, in good sound, with an appropriate photograph.

Here’s a real rarity: Dave Tough as a most uplifting member of Joe Marsala’s very swinging mid-1941 band, more compact than the norm, certainly with Joe’s wife, Adele Girard on harp, and plausibly brother Marty on trumpet:

And another performance by the Marsala band with Adele and Dave prominent:

Backwards into the past, in this case 1933, not the familiar version of AIN’T ‘CHA GLAD, although we know the arrangement by heart:

and, finally, backwards into the more recent past, for Pee Wee Russell and Charlie Byrd at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C., from December 1957:

These are but a few of Sonny’s treasures.  I resist the temptation to rhapsodize both about the sound of Dick McDonough and about Pee Wee, free to explore without restrictions, but you will find even more delights.  I encourage readers to dive in and to applaud these good works by spreading the word.

And thank you, Mister McGown.

May your happiness increase!