Martin Oliver Grosz celebates his 93rd birthday today. He abhors sentimentality, and he doesn’t read blogposts, so all I will say is “Thanks for sticking around, Marty.”
But for those who wish to celebrate Marty by marveling at him in action, here is an eighty-minute concert he and cornetist Tom Pletcher gave at the Canadian Collectors’ Congress in April 2007. (More about the CCC below.)
Video created and produced by Robert Gibbons.
Marty Grosz, guitar and vocal and badinage; Tom Pletcher, cornet. Introduction by Colin J. Bray.
ALL GOD’S CHILLUN GOT RHYTHM (with Marty’s patented “Porto-San” refrain) / TAKE ME TO THE LAND OF JAZZ / I’M BUILDING UP TO AN AWFUL LETDOWN / UP JUMPED YOU WITH LOVE – KEEP A SONG IN YOUR SOUL.
Duets: I WOULD DO MOST ANYTHING FOR YOU / EMALINE / SQUEEZE ME / FROM MONDAY ON.
Marty talks about Roger Wolfe Kahn and Red McKenzie: THERE’S A SMALL HOTEL / HOW CAN YOU FACE ME? / JUST A GIGOLO / IF WE NEVER MEET AGAIN – SWING THAT MUSIC /
The Lost Earring and Surrender of the Badges:
In one of my eBay peregrinations last year, I found this DVD offered for sale. I had never seen nor heard of it, so I sprang to obtain it, and can share it with you. The disc has a slight technical detail: it froze in the middle of Marty’s solo version of a Carl Kress piece, which I have edited out.
I knew nothing of the Canadian Collectors’ Conference, so I contacted Colin Bray and Christopher Ian Ferreira for their thoughts.
Colin: The CCC was described as ‘A conference specifically planned for record collectors and discographers/researchers interested in ragtime, vintage jazz, blues, gospel, hot dance music, and Canadiana.’
It was originally held at collectors’ homes but then it got too popular and had to move to a hotel conference room where some attendees would stay. Welcome evening was on the Friday and the main event on Saturday. In the morning was short presentation of 10-15 minutes on discographical stuff or new information and all sorts of things. In the afternoon we had three one hour presentations which may have been on a band, musician, record label etc.
Many times we had visiting musicians from the classic era. Marty Grosz, Tom Pletcher, Spiegle Wilcox, Lou Hooper (before my times) come to mind. We had John R.T. Davies over from the UK – the 78 record restorer wizard and musician. Rainer Lotz from Germany, Alex Van Der Tuuk from Holland – the expert on Paramount records, Larry Gushee on the Creole Band, Ate Van Delden from Holland on Adrian Rollini, Mark Berresford twice, once to talk on Ted Lewis and then Wilbur Sweatman. Sometimes on the Saturday evening we had jazz films – Joe Showler in Toronto was a major jazz film collector and THE expert on Jack Teagarden – I assume you have seen the incredible documentary he made on him?
Andsometimes we had a live band, hence Tom Pletcher, Marty Grosz and Spiegle Wilcox performing. We had another get together on the Sunday, played more records and generally had a good time.
We stopped about 5 years ago because our numbers were dropping fast and it would have made it too expensive to make it work. Plus we were running out of experts to bring in to give presentations. And it took a lot of work and organising and after Gene Miller passed away, the two people left – myself and Chris Ferreira found it hard to keep going without his enthusiasm. John Wilby was another who helped organise it but stepped down a few years back. But we miss it!
Christopher: It was wonderful to be there to witness Marty and Tom play together. Unique performance I believe. 46 years of yearly fellowship, research, discography, music, good food and drink- etc. Bob produced a number of other interesting films. Including the wonderful full length Jack Teagarden documentary. Produced by him, Joe Showler and Steve LaVere.
Good people: not only collecting records and talking about them, but sharing live irreplaceable music.
Happy birthday, Martin Oliver Grosz. And thank you so much (also to Colin and Christopher and Robert Gibbons and the CCC).
“Up among the stars we’ll find / A harmony of life to a lovely tune.”
Here are Howard Alden, guitar, and Tom Pletcher, cornet, sweetly making their way through Brooks Bowman’s EAST OF THE SUN (and West of the Moon) at the Jazz at Chautauqua weekend, September 20, 2009:
I just learned that the title came from a Norwegian folk tale containing drugged beverages, a golden apple, trolls, a bear, a wicked stepmother, and more . . . but who needs words when the sounds embrace us so?
Preparing to write this post, I needed to know, so I spent a few minutes while my coffee cooled, inquiring of Google, “Where is Hindustan located?” And finally the reliable Encyclopedia Britanica (much more hip than the World Book Encyclopedia) of my childhood genially answered:
Hindustan, (Persian: “Land of the Indus”) also spelled Hindusthan, historically, the northern Indian subcontinent—in contrast to the Deccan, the southern portion of the Indian subcontinent. This area can be defined more particularly as the basin of the five Punjab rivers and the upper Indo-Gangetic Plain. As a mostly fertile and well-populated corridor situated between walls of mountain, desert, and sea, Hindustan has been regarded as the principal seat of power in South Asia, containing the bulk of wealth and physical energy. The name Hindustan is sometimes used to indicate the lands “north of the Vindhya Range.” It is also occasionally used as a synonym for the entire Indian subcontinent.
Now that’s settled. Moving closer to our usual concerns, there is the 1918 hit song of the same name. I didn’t know that one of the composers, Oliver Wallace, also wrote the score for Disney’s DUMBO; his collaborator, Harold Weeks, seems only to have composed HINDUSTAN.
A more erudite cultural historian schooled in “Orientalism” could write a great deal about the fascination in the late teens and early Twenties with popular songs celebrating the non-Western: THE SHEIK OF ARABY, SONG OF INDIA, SO LONG OOLONG, CHINA BOY, SAN, NAGASAKI, CHINATOWN MY CHINATOWN: songs that Americans and others sang and played, while they regarded people from those regions with suspicion — “You’re not from around here, are you? Where were you born?” — and refused them employment and housing. As a species, we are fascinating.
I think I first heard the song on Jean Shepherd’s radio program (circa 1969) and he is the reason I knew a portion of these lyrics — which, I confess, I also looked up this morning for accuracy: “HINDUSTAN, where we stopped to rest our tired caravan / HINDUSTAN, where the painted peacock proudly spreads his fan / HINDUSTAN, where the purple sunbird flashed across the sand / HINDUSTAN, where I met her and the world began.”
“Where we stopped to rest our tired caravan”! This performance, from the 2009 Jazz at Chautauqua weekend, is anything but tired, sparked by Jon-Erik Kellso’s idea of changing the key for every chorus (I believe between C and Eb). Trumpeter Jon is joined by Tom Pletcher, cornet; Bob Havens, trombone; Bob Reitmeier, clarinet; Dan Block, tenor saxophone; Ehud Asherie, piano; Howard Alden, guitar; Vince Giordano, string bass; Pete Siers, drums:
Yesterday I published a post where four wonderful musicians — Eddy Davis, Conal Fowkes, Jon-Erik Kellso, and Evan Arntzen — improvised on OUR MONDAY DATE in December 2019 at Cafe Bohemia in Greenwich Village, New York City. You can enjoy it here. And I hope you do.
A MONDAY DATE has a personal resonance. It’s not unique to me, but I haven’t had the pleasure of “being on a date” with a tangible person since the end of February (dinner and a festival of short animated films). For me, songs about dating are poignant and hopeful: such encounters can come again, although the February evening was more short than animated. Mirror-gazing over. Onwards.
This MONDAY DATE was performed at Jazz at Chautauqua in September 2009, although not on a Monday. These brilliant players are Tom Pletcher, cornet; Dan Barrett, trombone; Bob Reitmeier, clarinet; Jim Dapogny, piano; Frank Tate, string bass; Pete Siers, drums. I was, as I have explained elsewhere, shooting video sub rosa without Joe Boughton’s permission, which lends a subversive air to the recording, but I was thrilled it came off, then and now. It is a special pleasure to hear Jim’s piano ringing through, adding magic.
Jim Dapogny and Tom Pletcher are no longer with us: I’ve written about them here and (with a beautiful long essay by David Jellema) here. Both posts also have video-recordings of performances you won’t see or hear elsewhere.
A note about “recordings” at Jazz at Chautauqua. Joe Boughton was enthusiastically kind to me long before we met in person: he recognized that we adored the same music. When I visited Chautauqua in 2004, he greeted me warmly, and I spent the whole weekend writing about the joys I experienced there, and wrote the program biographies for more than ten years.
Joe had certain aversions, in large type. The most dramatic was his loathing for over-familiar songs: SATIN DOLL, SWEET GEORGIA BROWN, slow blues, and more. Musicians who broke this rule were asked not to return — in one case, in the middle of the weekend. Secondly, although Joe apparently recorded every note of the weekends I came to — someone operated a videocamera high above our heads — he would not tolerate anyone else recording anything, although he let an amateur jazz photographer make low-quality cassettes. I gave Joe valuable publicity in The Mississippi Rag, which he appreciated: I don’t know whether he saw me with my camera and tacitly accepted it as part of the Michael-bargain or whether he was too busy with the music to notice, but I send him deep gratitude now. I hope you do also.
Of course, the Legends are Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, Adrian Rollini, and their majestic colleagues. But from this distance — can it be a little more than forty years ago? — Messrs. Pletcher, Ingle, Harker, Gibson, Whitman, Miller, and Koch are legendary as well.
I asked someone who is too young to be a legend but certainly plays like one, David Jellema, to write an appreciation of this band, this video, and Tom Pletcher, and I am delighted to present it to you. David, whom I’ve known for more than a few years, is a world-class cornet and clarinet hero, hot and lyrical, his work intelligent and passionate, his style all his own even when he is paying tribute to the Masters who have inspired him. At the end of this presentation, I’ll share a few videos where David shines and list a few sessions that delightfully showcase his work.
But now, to the Sons, through David’s affectionate and perceptive lens.
In the 1970s and 80s, many of the founding fathers of jazz and swing, although in their twilight years, were fortunately yet with us. It was also a great time for the second generation of jazzmen not only to be personally influenced by the ancestors, but to be mingling and collaborating to make their own unique sweet preserves of musical fruits. Bands featured at many of the revival traditional jazz festivals tapped specific, living veins of American jazz heritage.
There were a few bands on the scene that dedicated themselves to the memorialization of the legend of Bix Beiderbecke, some featured over the years at the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society jazz festival in Davenport, Iowa where Bix was born. One such specialty band, western Michigan’s “The Jackpine Savages,” formed in 1971, had the expected repertoire of traditional jazz standards and many tunes that Beiderbecke had recorded, but had the honored distinction of including leader Don Ingle (Baldwin, Michigan) on valve trombone and vocals, and Tom Pletcher (Montague, Michigan) on cornet.
Ingle’s father, Ernest ‘Red’ Ingle, played tenor sax and violin,and over his career had recorded with Ted Weems, Spike Jones Orchestra, and his own group,the Natural Seven. For an engagement in Cincinnati in May and June 1927, Red appeared on tenor sax with the Jean Goldkette Orchestra. So Don Ingle (1931-2012, who, as an infant, had been held in Bix’s own arms), inheriting his father’s music, humor, and artistic talents, was tutored on cornet by Red Nichols, on arranging by Matty Matlock, and played at Chicago’s Jazz Limited in the mid ‘60s. When he formed The Jackpine Savages in the early 1970s to play at the Lost Valley Lodge on Lake Michigan’s shore near Montague (also for various appearances locally and at aforementioned festivals), he switched to the valve trombone and hired local business-man Pletcher to play the cornet.It was just a few years later that Ingle collaborated with Chicago-based bandleader and piano player Don Gibson (Al Capone Memorial Jazz Band) in forming the Bix-style repertory band heard here, the “Sons of Bix,” whose repertoire and arrangements were primarily informed by Bix’s recordings and as well by period tunes Bix may have played.
This cornet player, Tom Pletcher (1936-2019), was fortunate to have been born to a sterling jazz trumpet player who had played in a few of the earliest jazz groups in collegiate circles. Stewart (“Stu” or “Stew”) Pletcher had friends and associates among the likes of Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, Bobby Hackett, and Roy Eldridge (who had once exclaimed to young Tom sweet profanities of praise about his dad), and played professionally for Ben Pollack, Smith Ballew, Red Norvo. Young Tom had the nurturing environment of the earliest of the jazz pioneers even in his home growing up; and at 15, hearing his first Bix record, decided to take up the cornet. After formative youth years on the West Coast, adult Pletcher ended up taking over his grandfather’s decorative metal business in the White Lake, Michigan area (something his jazz musician father was not in position nor disposition to do) throughout a good deal of his life. This metal fabricator shop was a little more than 7 miles from where Ingle’s band would play at that lone restaurant overlooking Lake Michigan shores.
Pletcher’s fascination with Beiderbecke’s music led him into remarkable musical circumstances and personal associations that fueled and lent credence to his knowledge of Bix’s life and music. He corresponded with and visited the homes of the guys who had known and played with Bix. As a layman, he was diligent in seeking, and lucky in finding, not only information, facts, and stories about Bix, but even unseen pictures and a previously unheard recording, thereby to a small degree aiding in the research of Phil Evans toward two different exhaustive books about Bix. In that respect alone he deserves some credit toward the shaping of a factual account of Bix’s life beyond romantic and apocryphal mythologies and fantasies, something the dreamy jazz icon was victim to even before his tragic early death.
Pletcher’s acute intimacy with Bix’s music found its real recognition, however, in how he played a Getzen Eterna cornet(–one from 1965 that Ingle sold to him when Tom joined the Jackpines, and another large bore Eterna he bought in 1987). Certainly Pletcher had been influenced by his own father, Stu, and the musicians Stu associated with (especially Armstrong and Teagarden). Pletcher was an avid fan of Bobby Hackett, and often could deliver a solo sounding convincingly like the gentle man from Providence. He loved the recordings of Bunny Berigan, listening til the end of his life. Tom had acquired and absorbed all the lp records of Chet Baker. (Pletcher was also a keen listener, with Bix, to the music of the French Impressionist composers, Debussy, Ravel, and Delius, beautiful sounds that also influenced how he felt the music.) So a broad base of jazz (and classical) sounds made for a rich depth and diversity of the ideas that he expressed on the horn: he didn’t just play Bix’s licks or try to copy Bix. (The note-for-note tribute solo features like “Singin’ the Blues” mark the rare exception).
It was the extent to which Pletcher had absorbed and internalized technical aspects of Bix’s playing (attack and articulation, tone, vibrato, dynamics, effects and idiosyncrasies, and often, humor) without slavishly or consciously copying Beiderbecke that allowed him the acclaim among fans and musicians, contemporaneous to his generation and that of Beiderbecke’s, that he had come closest to Bix’s sound and spirit of anyone to date. All the other influences that had seasoned his playing allowed him freedom to express his own modern feel of the Bixian sound, keeping those sounds fresh.
Among musicians in the 1980s and early 1990s, he would be the first call to sit in “Bix’s chair” for a host of projects that recreated that period in repertory bands. While yet still alive, Bill Challis, the Bix-friendly arranger for the famous Jean Goldkette Orchestra and Paul Whiteman Orchestra (and the man who transcribed and published Bix’s piano compositions), joined with protégé Vince Giordano to do some newer, expanded renditions of songs from the Goldkette years, including tunes Bix had recorded and some he hadn’t. Legendary piano demi-god and musical powerhouse Dick Hyman had Pletcher featured in a 92nd Street Y concert in New York City (and subsequent CD for Arbors Records) called “If Bix Played Gershwin,” a delicious pallet of all Gershwin tunes rendered as if they had been played in some of the formats that Bix had been grouped in. (Actually, only one Gershwin song from the concert was one that Bix had recorded, “Sunny Disposish.”) An Italian film producer had Pletcher playing the Bixian lead and solos for the stellar soundtrack of a not-so-stellar film loosely based on Bix’s life called “Bix: An Interpretation of a Legend.” John Otto’s “Hotel Edison Roof Orchestra” made in two recordings the perfect setting for Pletcher’s sound: hot jazz arrangements from Jean Goldkette, California Ramblers, Ted Weems, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Sam Lanin, Frank Skinner, and more.
A word must be said about one of Pletcher’s longest standing gigs of fairly consistent personnel. Pletcher played yearly among a group of musicians who gathered to play at Princeton 50th class reunions (months of June, 1975-1981), partly to entertain alumni, but mostly to enjoy their own private ongoing reunions of musicians who were fond of Bix’s music and some who were there when Bix played at Princeton near the end of his life. Squirrel Ashcraft, Bill Priestley, Jack Howe, and other Princeton grads had continued playing music under Bix’s spell at jam sessions in the 40s, 50s, and 60s; they were joined by later Princeton grads like Ron Hockett and Doug James, and collegiate and commercial band alumni like Spencer Clark, Bud Wilson, and Bob Haggart. The music had Eddie Condon-like small group spirit and freedom, and a relaxed approach. Live recordings from these were privately issued on vinyl for the musicians, friends, and alumni. They too called themselves “Sons of Bix.” They later went into Jazzology studios to record formal lps under Haggart’s name, with arrangements on “Clementine” and “In a Mist” by Hockett. They also did a number of private parties on the east coast that carried the reunion flames forth, one among many in Vero Beach which produced a nice album of cassettes with a complete 8-page history of the various “Sons of Bix” configurations over the decades, written by Jack Howe.
The Sons of Bix that you hear in this video (originally calling themselves, tongue in cheek, “The Sons of Bix’s”) only have Pletcher in common with the Princeton Reunion Sons of Bix, although their personnel may have had associations in the Evanston, Illinois jam sessions at Squirrel’s. These SOBs had three lp albums that were released (“A Legend Revisited” on Fairmont Records;“Ostrich Walk,” “Copenhagen”both on Jazzology). One was recorded but not issued on vinyl, and only in part much later online, called “San.” They played at the popular traditional jazz festivals like San Diego, Central City, and Sacramento. They toured Europe in 1979, playing in numerous countries and at the Breda Jazz Festival. (That is no small feat for loads of luggage, many horn and drum cases, a bass sax, train schedules and coaches, plane rides, small alleys, streets, and bars, wives and my own tagging aunt and uncle..)
In their “first East Coast appearance,” introduced here by the director of the DC-area Manassas Jazz Festival, Johnson “Fat Cat” McRee, the personnel consists of Glenn Koch, drums; Don Ingle, announcer, valve trombone, arranger, co-leader; Don Gibson, piano, arranger, co-leader; John Harker on clarinet and alto sax; Dave Miller, banjo and guitar; Tom Pletcher, cornet; and Russ Whitman, bass saxophone. In this video you’ll hear six songs that Beiderbecke had recorded, and one traditional tune they occasionally played.
I heard this band live for the first time at this very festival. I was a little boy, almost 14, with a bowl-cut Dutch-boy head of blonde hair and corduroy pants climbing high over white socks. I joined some of them for a brief after-hours jam session, along with another young Bix-Pletcher protégé named Ralph Norton, whose hair was slicked back and parted down the middle. (By the next time I heard them live, Ralph and I were in a cordial race to see who could part with his hair first.)Fast forward. In August 1987, I was just graduated from college, and for that summer was at my family farmhouse near Montague, Michigan (within a 12-minute walk from the Lost Valley Lodge where I first had heard the Jackpine Savages as a lad). The Sons of Bix had two appearances in the area the 8th and 9th, one at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp with guest Marian McPartland, in which she joined the band for a standard, played “In a Mist” solo, and did a haunting duet of “Stardust” with Pletcher. The next day,the SOBs were at a country club near Muskegon. Tom was playing that weekend on a brand new, large-bore Getzen Eterna, and any adjustments he needed to get used to the feel of the new horn on its maiden voyage Saturday night had been made into a crackling performance for the local jazz society the next day.
Unfortunately, life was making demands on me that did not allow me any further opportunities to hear this band live. But the lp records had to suffice, and the magic had been done on me. In either case, here was a band that liked playing together, liked the specific material they were reviving and reshaping, played with energy and cohesion, joked and giggled a lot. They had intelligent arrangements when needed, they could hug the ballads, and could fire up listeners with the standard barn-burners of the genre. Each musician was a seasoned, veteran master at his craft. Each one had remarkable personal connection to his antecedents at a time when some of those musical forebears were still alive to enjoy their own memories and these new achievements.
I have resisted a number of other opportunities herein to insert myself further into the narrative about this band and its roots, about Ingle, and especially about Pletcher. I will simply close with a note of gratitude to them for their loving treatment of their musical heroes and their influence on the younger musicians they had the chance to shape, to the two horn players that especially mentored me, to all the other musicians who play in these sounds, and finally to the historians, archivists, and documenters that have the cultivating hands in making this tree continue to grow in the shape of a musician from Davenport, Iowa.
And now, that 1978 session. SUSIE / I’M COMIN’ VIRGINIA / BORNEO / CARELESS LOVE / THOU SWELL / CLEMENTINE / FIDGETY FEET // Introduced by Johnson “Fat Cat” McRee: Tom Pletcher (cornet), Don Ingle (valve trombone), John Harker (clarinet), Don Gibson (piano), Russ Whitman (bass sax), Dave Miller (guitar, banjo), Glenn Koch (drums).
Back to David for a rewarding short interlude.
What could be nicer than four friends romping through a jazz evergreen: Albanie Falletta, David, Jonathan Doyle, and Jamey Cummins in 2014:
More friends, the Thrift Set Orchestra (yes, that’s Hal Smith!) in 2013, doing KRAZY KAPERS:
Many of the same rascals, plus the wonderful Alice Spencer, in 2014:
You can also hear David on the Brooks Prumo Orchestra’s THIS YEAR’S KISSES, two sessions by the Jonathan Doyle Swingtet, THE ROAD TO LEAVING and LIVE AT THE SAHARA LOUNGE, as well as FLOYD DOMINO ALL-STARS.
For context, you need to hear the lyrics to this song before we proceed — sung by one of the most influential and perhaps least-credited singers ever. Incidentally, the personnel is not identified in my discography. If Brian Nalepka reads this, I wonder if he hears that strong bass as Joe Tarto’s:
If you want to play that again, I don’t mind. Go ahead: we’ll wait.
But here’s something only the people at Jazz at Chautauqua in September 19, 2009, got to hear and see. This amiably trotting performance, led by trombonist Dan Barrett, also features Tom Pletcher, cornet; Keith Ingham, piano; Howard Alden, guitar; Dan Block, tenor saxophone; Bob Reitmeier, clarinet, Frank Tate, string bass; Pete Siers, drums. Video by Michael sub rosa Steinman, lighting by Henry “Red” Allen:
I hope you go away humming this song, and that the affectionate hopeful music is good protection against all those nasty things we are reading about now. The music and the musicians are — seriously — lucky to us. (So, next time some players and singers offer their hearts and language “for free” online, toss something larger than an aging Oreo in the tip jar, please.)
Few jazz musicians stir up as much longing and yearning as Bix Beiderbecke. This isn’t an aesthetic judgment on his achievement as measured against anyone else’s, but I sense that he is so powerfully missed by so many people. Although his recorded legacy is not by any means the most brief, those who love his music both revel in its beauties and wish with all their hearts that there would be more. Nearly seventy-five years after his final appearance in a recording studio, it seems unlikely that more will surface — although more unusual events have happened.
So those who revere him and his music have turned to Alternate Universes — tributes that do more than offer beautifully recorded or more leisurely versions of Okeh, Victor, Gennett, Harmony, Columbia sessions — but attempts to recreate something unheard. (The parallel experiment, and a beautiful one, has always been Bent Persson’s ongoing Studies in Louis, spread over many records and CDs, and always rewarding.)
Nearly fifteen years ago, the very imaginative trumpeter Randy Sandke and friends recorded a CD for the Nagel-Heyer label of music associated with Louis and Bix: here is Doug Ramsey’s 2000 review of that disc. A few years later, Dick Hyman took a small group in to the studio for Arbors Records (with Tom Pletcher inventing new beauties) to consider what would have happened if Bix played Gershwin. (A wonderful Stomp Off session paired Bent and Tom for, among other imaginative fancies, a Bix-meets-Louis romp on MAD.)
Now, a decade later, Julio Schwarz Andrade came up with this new imaginative venture and recruited the musicians, and Paul Adams of Lake Records is eager to record the results, so a CD will become reality with some support from you. It’s a continuation of Paul’s work over a number of years called Vintage Recording Projects — where he assembles wonderful idiomatic musicians, records them with a minimum of fuss (no baffles or headphones, just people playing in a suitable room) with delightful results. Here is what the most recent session looked and sounded like — heroically gratifying!
I’ll let Julio explain:
The premise is, of course, that there are many tunes that we know Bix played andwas fond of, but never had the chance to record. So this is our humble attempt to right that historical / circumstantial wrong, and to recreate what could have been. The musicians are: Andy Schumm, cornet; Mauro Porro, reeds; Kristoffer Kompen, trombone; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; David Boeddinghaus, piano; Josh Duffee, percussion. The list of tunes hasn’t been finalized yet, but the following are being considered (in no particular order): STARDUST / SKYLARK / WOLVERINE BLUES / WASHBOARD BLUES / SWANEE / I’D CLIMB THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN / LAZY RIVER / IT MUST BE TRUE / PANAMA / ANGRY / HIAWATHA’S LULLABY / NO-ONE KNOWS WHAT IT’S ALLABOUT among others.
Now, projects like this don’t take shape without support, so we are asking people to help out. Here is the link to contribute some . . . money. A £30 donation gets your name in the booklet. Anything more than that gets you a place in heaven and eternal salvation as well. And all contributions will win gratitude from the organizers, the band, and future listeners.
The session will take place right after this year’s Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, and I look forward to the results.
The splendid jazz drummer and jazz scholar Hal Smith and I share certain serious devotions. One is to the pianist Frank Melrose and his daughter Ida; another is to the clarinetist and brave explorer Frank Chace.
Hal has emerged with yet a third talent to share (generously) with us: he has created a beautiful and lively video tribute to Mister Chace, with a glorious soundtrack of SORRY — played by Marty Grosz and his Honoris Causa Jazz Band from the Riverside recording called HOORAY FOR BIX — as well as a panorama of rare, never-before-seen, highly evocative photographs that open the door to understanding Frank Chace a little wider.
Thank you, Hal! Frank would be amused, perplexed, and I think pleased by your creative act of love. Ultimately, he would be delighted that someone who understood the music so well — and played it with equal grace — had taken the time to honor him:
Hal and Frank can be heard together on two rewarding and illuminating CD sets on the Jazzology label — one with Butch Thompson, John Otto, and Charlie DeVore; the other with Tom Pletcher and Tom Bartlett, among others. Winning music indeed.
With Hal’s permission, here is a tribute from one great jazz drummer to another — its source Hal’s website.
My friend and teacher Wayne Jones passed away on Thursday, May 30. He celebrated his 80th birthday on May 21, and married the devoted and caring Charlotte on May 24.
It is difficult to express just how much Wayne meant to me as a person and as an inspiration for drumming. From the time I met Wayne — at the 1972 St. Louis Ragtime Festival — there was never a moment when I worried about his friendship.
Though I had heard Wayne on 1960s-era recordings by the Original Salty Dogs, hearing him live was a life-changing experience! He unerringly played exactly the right thing at the right time, with the right touch and the right volume, with an economy of motion, though I think he must have had the loosest wrists and fingers of any drummer I ever saw! The Original Salty Dogs were, and are, one of the greatest Traditional Jazz bands of all time. But with Wayne on drums, they were something else. The late Frank Powers described the Dogs’ rhythm section as “The Cadillac of Traditional Jazz Rhythm Sections.” Frank’s description was spot-on, and Wayne’s drumming was an integral part of that sound.
He played with a lift, even when using woodblocks and temple blocks to accompany John Cooper’s ragtimey piano solos. (I remember when a musician who heard one of my early recordings, featuring woodblocks, said “You need to listen to Wayne Jones. Now, there’s a drummer who swings!”) That stung at the time, but my critic proved to be correct. Wayne swung when he played Traditional Jazz!
Not only did Wayne inspire me with his onstage performances. He also made invaluable contributions to my Jazz education by sending boxes and boxes of reel (later cassette) tapes, LPs, CDs and photocopies of articles. A chance comment such as, “You know, I’m really interested in Vic Berton” would result in a large box of cassettes arriving a few days later, containing every Berton recording in the Jones collection. Wayne was totally unselfish and giving, and I am humbled to think how much of his free time was taken up with educating “The Kid.” Whether in person or in a letter he could be gruff, but always soft-hearted. No one ever had to question his sincerity or generosity.
Years later, Wayne wrote some wonderful liner notes for projects I was involved in. I will never get over the kind words he wrote for a session I made with Butch Thompson and Mike Duffy, but anyone who reads those notes should be aware that my best playing is because of Wayne’s influence!
By the time he wrote those notes, I considered Wayne to be family. I know Wayne felt the same way…Once, during the San Diego Jazz Festival, I commandeered an empty venue with a piano to rehearse the “Rhythmakers” for a recording to be done immediately following the festival. We had been playing for just a few minutes when Wayne wandered in. Obviously he was out for a stroll, in search of coffee for when he walked in the room he was in street clothes — no band uniform or musician badge. He found a seat near the back of the room and settled in to listen. Vocalist Rebecca Kilgore looked up from her music, spotted Wayne and stammered, “Th-th-this is n-not open to the p-public!” Wayne replied, “It’s o.k. I’m family!”
We had many wonderful “hangs” over the years, during festivals in St. Louis, San Diego and elsewhere. “Talking shop” was always fun, though Wayne had interesting opinions on all kinds of things besides drums and drumming! For instance, he was passionate about Elmore Leonard’s writing and frequently quoted lines of dialogue from Leonard novels when he wrote letters. During the past couple of years, I always enjoyed the phone calls with Wayne when we discussed the characters and plots of the television show “Justified” (which is based on Elmore Leonard characters).
Fortunately I had a couple of chances to visit Wayne at home while he was still able to talk and listen to music for extended periods of time. He had slowed down considerably, but still had a fantastic sense of humor and well-informed opinions concerning a variety of subjects — particularly the contemporary Traditional Jazz scene. The last visit was a lot of fun until his expression turned serious and he looked down at the ground and asked quietly, “You want my cymbal, Kid?” Wayne knew that his playing days were over, and he wanted to find an appropriate place for his “signature” cymbal. It was difficult to keep my composure, but I gratefully accepted “that” cymbal which livens up so many recordings by the Dogs, Jim Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band, the West End Jazz Band, Neo-Passe’ Jazz Band and more. The cymbal went to a good home, where it is respected, well-cared-for and used in special circumstances only. The first time I used it — with the Yerba Buena Stompers — John Gill, Leon Oakley and Tom Bartlett looked up immediately, recognizing the presence of an old friend on the bandstand.
On a recent phone call, Wayne had difficulty conversing on the phone. We got through the conversation — barely — and I wondered if that would be the last time we talked. Unfortunately, it was. When I called again, he had fallen and was headed for the hospital. He died peacefully in the early hours of May 30 and I never had a chance to tell my mentor “good-bye.” But fortunately I was able to convey how much he meant to me during a performance a few years ago.
There are certain “Wayne licks” that have great appeal to drummers who studied his records and his live performances. (Drummers who have listened closely to Wayne, including John Gill, Chris Tyle, Steve Apple, and Kevin Dorn, will know what I mean). At a festival in the late ’90s, I was playing with Bob Schulz’s Frisco Jazz Band when Wayne came into the room and took a seat a few rows back from the stage, but directly in view of the drums. He scrutinized my playing with the usual poker face. I thought about the description of Baby Dodds seeing George Wettling in the audience one time and “talking” to George with the drums. So I deliberately played in Wayne’s style. Tom Bartlett wheeled around and grinned through his mouthpiece. Kim Cusack eyed me and gave a quick nod, as did Mike Walbridge. But, best of all, out in the audience Wayne looked up, set his jaw and slowly nodded his acknowledgement. I would not trade that moment for anything.
Farewell, Wayne. Friend, teacher, inspiration. You will never be forgotten and you will always be loved.
Hal Smith
May 31, 2013
A few words from JAZZ LIVES. I’m happy that we can see and hear Wayne swing the band. Here’s YOU TELL ME YOUR DREAM (I’LL TELL YOU MINE) by a 1996 edition of the Salty Dogs. Although Wayne doesn’t solo, his sweetly urging time is always supporting the band, and the just-right accents and timbres behind the ensemble and soloists are masterful. Catch the way Wayne ends off the tuba solo and rounds up the band for the final ensemble choruses. The other players are Kim Cusack, clarinet; Bob Neighbor, cornet; Tom Bartlett, trombone; John Cooper, piano; Jack Kunci, banjo; Mike Walbridge, tuba:
And at the very end of 2010, nearly the same band (Cusack, Bartlett, Kunci, Walbridge, Jones) with two ringers: Andy Schumm, cornet; Paul Asaro, piano, performing SMILES. Again, masterful work: hear the end of the banjo chorus into Bartlett’s solo, and the way Wayne backs Schumm:
Thanks to Ailene Cusack for these videos (and there are more appearances by Wayne and the Dogs on YouTube).
After hearing the news of Wayne’s death, I kept thinking of the star system of jazz — which elevates many wonderful players, giving them opportunities to lead bands, have their own record sessions, and we hope make more money. But so many exceedingly gifted musicians are never offered these opportunities. I would take nothing from Gene Krupa, for instance, but for every Gene there were many beautiful musicians half in the shadows: think of Walter Johnson, Jimmie Crawford, O’Neill Spencer, Cliff Leeman, Buzzy Drootin, Nick Fatool, Harry Jaeger, Gus Johnson, Shadow Wilson, Denzil Best . . . and Wayne Jones.
Wayne didn’t lead any recording sessions; he might not have had his picture in DOWN BEAT advertising a particular drum set — but he lifted so many performances. Wayne leaves behind some forty years of recordings with Clancy Hayes, Marty Grosz, Frank Chace, Eddy Davis, Jim Kweskin, Terry Waldo, Edith Wilson, Frank Powers, Jim Snyder, Carol Leigh, Tom Pletcher, Bob Schulz, Jim Dapogny, Turk Murphy, John Gill, Don DeMicheal, Jerry Fuller, Sippie Wallace, Franz Jackson, Jim Cullum, Ernie Carson, Jon-Erik Kellso, Mike Karoub, Ray Skjelbred, Peter Ecklund, Bobby Gordon, and three dozen other players in addition to the recordings he made with the Salty Dogs.
I would have been eager to visit clarinetist Ron Odrich’s monthly session at San Martin on East 49th Street, New York City (it happens the first Tuesday of each month) for his swooping playing — and the lovely work of his colleagues James Chirillo (guitar); Gary Mazzaroppi (string bass); “Cenz” (drums). But last Tuesday’s session was even more special because it allowed me to hear one of the quiet masters of jazz in person.
I refer to trombonist George Masso: veteran of the late Forties Jimmy Dorsey band (a band whose trumpet section had Charlie Teagarden and Maynard Ferguson!) and then right-hand man to Bobby Hackett, Ken Peplowski, Barbara Lea, Spike Robinson, Harry Allen, Wild Bill Davison, the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, Warren Vache, Ed Polcer, Joe Wilder, Urbie Green, Helen Ward, Al Klink, Scott Hamilton, Ruby Braff, Tom Pletcher, Maxine Sullivan, Mike Renzi, Kenny Davern, Carl Fontana, Dave McKenna, Eddie Higgins, Randy Sandke, Charlie Ventura, Dan Barrett, Dick Hyman, Bob Wilber, Lou Columbo, Ralph Sutton, Jake Hanna, Woody Herman, and the King of Swing himself.
Obviously, if all those people had called upon Mr. Masso, he was special: this I already knew from the recordings: his accuracy and fine, broad tone — his remarkable combination of swing-time and ease with a broad harmonic palette and astonishing technique, always in the service of melody and logical improvisations.
Two additional facts you should know before you watch the videos that follow (featuring superb playing by everyone in the group). George Masso is one of the most gentle, humble people it will be my privilege to know — so happy that a fan (myself) would make a small pilgrimage to hear and capture him (his lady friend June is a dear person too, no surprise).
Mister Masso is eighty-five years old, obviously one of the marvels of the age. Cape Cod and Rhode Island must agree with him. And his playing certainly agreed with everyone there.
They began their set with TANGERINE:
I’M OLD-FASHIONED, taken at a walking tempo:
BLUE BOSSA, lilting and graceful:
A romping I FOUND A NEW BABY:
And — not dedicated to anyone in the room! — George’s ballad feature on OLD FOLKS:
Masterful.
P.S. I hope George comes back to New York City — with his trombone — soon! In April, Ron’s guest star will be baritone saxophone wizard Gary Smulyan.
Josh Rushton, son of the late bass saxophonist / clarinetist Joe Rushton, sent this photograph — taken in his family house in Silverlake, California, in 1956. The three men here are rapt in concentration, listening to Joe’s Bix Beiderbecke 78s. From the left, they are cornetist Tom Pletcher, happily still with us, his father Stewart Pletcher — no longer alive but brought back to life through an extraordinary audio portrait on the JAZZ ORACLE label, and Rushton himself. Josh pointed out the very exciting wallpaper (how could anyone miss it?) and the fact that it was used to cover the front of the floor-standing speaker to the right. And don’t miss the photos on the wall of the Rushton den! The photograph here gets deeper as you look more into it: the family photograph on the wall echoes the jazz family depicted and the jazz family gathered to listen to Bix.
To me, casual photography seems devalued these days, with everyone snapping candids of themselves on their smartphones, but a photograph like this captures people, a place, a way of being: you can almost hear the records spinning.
The photograph appears here courtesy of Josh Rushton, and is reproduced with his kind permission.
Thanks to Michael Supnick and his YouTube channel (“Michaelsjazz”) here are performances from the 2003 Ascona Jazz Festival, featuring a group of musicians connected to the sometimes-fanciful film about Bix Beiderbecke. I believe it was called BIX: AN INTERPRETATION OF A LEGEND, and its intent was more homage than history.
The full band includes the remarkable Kenny Davern and Bob Wilber, with Tom Pletcher on cornet, David Sager on trombone, Frans Sjostrom on bass sax, Keith Nichols on piano, Joel Forbes, bass, Lino Patruno on banjo, Walter Ganda on drums, and Andy Stein on violin.
Let’s begin with JAZZ ME BLUES:
Bix never recorded ROSES OF PICARDY, but I would guess that he played this World War One melody:
We know he worked magic on SOMEBODY STOLE MY GAL:
Andy Stein and Lino Patruno become Venuti and Lang for a few minutes on STRINGING THE BLUES:
On MARGIE, Sjostrom is characteristically majestic and mobile:
Joel Forbes replaces Frans for I’LL BE A FRIEND WITH PLEASURE:
Finally, with everyone on board — here’s a rocking but not-too-fast ROYAL GARDEN BLUES:
And a “Chicagoan” version of CHINA BOY, notable for Sager’s shouting solo and the pleasure on Davern’s face during Stein’s solo:
Behind the musicians, visible in flashes, are scenes from the film, for which a version of this band provided the appropriate soundtrack.
Bix never got to Europe, but his music certainly did. It was alive and lively in 20003 (his centennial) and continues to be.
The drummer and versatile bandleader — man of many personalities, all of them rocking — Hal Smith is also a fine writer, someone who counted his too-rare opportunities to play alongside the Chicago clarinetist Frank Chace as life-altering experiences. Here, with Hal’s permission, I’ve reprinted his tribute to Frank, first published in JAZZ RAMBLER and reprinted in JAZZ BEAT.
FRANK CHACE — FREE SPIRIT OF THE CLARINET
By Hal Smith
President, America’s Finest City Dixieland Jazz Society
Chicago pianist Oro “Tut” Soper once said, “A Chicago Jazz musician will always have to fight to keep a free, wild heart.” For over 60 years, clarinetist Frank Chace fought for that same freedom.
Chace was born in Chicago on July 22, 1924—over three years before the first classic recordings that would define the Windy City’s musical style. As a youth he played flute, but did not stay with the instrument. In 1943, while attending Yale University, he was drafted by the U.S. Army. The Army is often castigated—justly—for its treatment of musicians such as Lester Young. Luckily for Frank Chace, his Army hitch yielded a benefit: A posting to New York, which resulted in an opportunity to hear Pee Wee Russell at Nick’s. Chace was instantly drawn to Russell’s idiosyncratic sound. He took up clarinet and used Pee Wee Russell’s music as a template for his own playing.
His first recordings were made with the “Cellar Boys” in New York in 1951. The personnel included three musicians who became lifetime friends of Chace: guitarist Marty Grosz, multi-instrumentalist John Dengler and pianist Dick Wellstood. (The great New Orleans bassist Pops Foster and Jelly Roll Morton’s drummer Tommy Benford also played on the records).
Later in 1951, Chace played with Wild Bill Davison at George Wein’s Storyville Club in Boston. Two of the evenings with Davison were recorded and several tracks were issued on the Savoy label.
In 1952, Chace played at the Barrel in St. Louis. The band included another lifelong friend: pianist Don Ewell. Live recordings made at the Barrel indicate that although Pee Wee Russell was still his main inspiration, Chace had also listened to Omer Simeon, Johnny Dodds, Frank Teschemacher and Darnell Howard.
After the St. Louis job ended, Chace established permanent residence in Chicago. In 1955 he played with the Salty Dogs. He also recorded with pianist Dave Remington for the Jubilee label and with Natty Dominique’s New Orleans Hot Six for Windin’ Ball. (Dominique’s group also included the legendary Baby Dodds and Lil Hardin Armstrong). Two years later Chace played a concert in Minneapolis with Doc Evans—later issued on a Soma LP.
One of Frank Chace’s greatest performances was recorded in 1957, when Marty Grosz organized a recording session for the Riverside label. The record, “Hooray For Bix,” by the Honoris Causa Jazz Band, featured Chace on clarinet and bass sax. The other sidemen were: Carl Halen, cornet; Bud Wilson, trombone; Bob Skiver, tenor sax and clarinet; Tut Soper, piano; Chuck Neilson, bass; and Bob Saltmarsh, drums. Bill Priestley, a longtime friend of Bix Beiderbecke, played cornet and guitar on a few tunes. Grosz played guitar, led the band and wrote the arrangements. His charts were based on the sound of Bud Freeman’s Summa Cum Laude band (which was also the inspiration for the band name). Chace is in top form throughout the record, but his first chorus on “Sorry” is the crown jewel of the session. After the four-bar introduction by the horns and string bass, the horns play the melody in tight harmony. Chace floats above the ensemble, joyfully deconstructing the melody in the best tradition of Pee Wee Russell. His use of extended harmonics and rhythmic suspension is as close to “free jazz” as one can get in a swing setting. This breathtaking chorus is Chace’s supreme moment on record and one of the most inspired solos in the history of recorded jazz!
Another highlight for the clarinetist in 1957 was the opportunity to meet Lester Young when both were performing in Indianapolis. One night, after their club date was finished, drummer Buddy Smith offered to take Chace to the hotel where Young was staying. The other musicians gathered around “The Prez,” but Chace hesitated. Young finally asked the shy clarinetist to join the throng, addressing him as “Long-Distance Man.” Compare Lester Young’s introspective clarinet playing on “I Want A Little Girl” (with the Kansas City Six) with Chace’s on “For No Reason At All In C” from the “Hooray For Bix” session. In Lester Young’s own words, “See if you hear something.”
In 1959, Chace was reunited with Don Ewell and John Dengler when Grosz assembled a recording band for the Audio Fidelity label. The band, with Max Kaminsky, Cutty Cutshall, Gene Schroeder (alternating sessions with Ewell) and Don Maclean, recorded enough material for two LPs: “Roaring Twenties at the Gaslight” and “Banjo at the Gaslight Club.” As good as these recordings are, Chace is even better on some private tapes made during the same period. One of these—a session at Bill Priestley’s home in the summer of 1959—features the clarinetist in a trio with Ewell and Grosz. Musicians and jazz fans agree that Chace’s playing on “I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me” ranks with “Sorry” as one of his greatest performances.
He also worked briefly with Gene Mayl’s Dixieland Rhythm Kings in 1959. That particular edition of the band included banjoist and vocalist Clancy Hayes. During that period, Chace and Hayes were involved in another memorable session at Priestley’s, with vocalist Lee Wiley. Fortunately, the tape recorder was running on that occasion too!
Chace’s only commercially-issued recordings from the early 1960s are two LPs on the Jazz Art label, taken from rehearsal sessions with the legendary trumpeter Jabbo Smith; these sides are being reissued with this release. .
During the early and mid ‘60s, except for a brief stint with Muggsy Spanier, Chace worked with the Salty Dogs and also led his own bands. One such group included veterans Johnny Mendel, Floyd O’Brien, Tut Soper and Jim Lanigan as well as younger musicians—Bob Skiver, Grosz and Wayne Jones. When this group played for the Chicago Historical Society in 1964, they were joined by a very special guest—Gene Krupa!
A late-60s Chicago recording session by guitarist/vocalist Jim Kweskin resulted in three more classic Chace solos. The album, “Jump For Joy,” released in 1967, paired Kweskin with cornetist Ted Butterman’s Neo-Passé Jazz Band. In addition to Butterman, the personnel consisted of Chace (clarinet and bass sax); Kim Cusack, clarinet; Johnny Frigo, violin; Grosz (guitar, banjo and arranger); Truck Parham, bass; and Wayne Jones, drums. Fellow reedman Kim Cusack called Chace’s playing on “You’re Not The Only Oyster In The Stew” “one of the sublime moments in jazz.” The clarinet choruses on “Memphis Blues” and “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” are two more outstanding examples of Frank Chace at his best.
Recently, the GHB label released a two-CD set of Chace playing with a specially-assembled band in 1967 at the Emporium of Jazz in Mendota, Minnesota. The group included Bill Price (cornet), Jimmy Archey (trombone), Don Ewell (piano), Bill Evans (bass) and Sammy Penn (drums). A cursory glance at the personnel and their stylistic differences might cause concern. However, the musicians—particularly Chace and Ewell—sound wonderful together.
Sometime during the ‘60s, or possibly the ‘70s, Chace went to work as a technical writer. He continued to work with bands around Chicago, and to play sessions, but did not rely on music for a living. As musician/author Richard Hadlock explains,
“Most jazz players learn to adjust, at least somewhat, to shallow audiences, wrongheaded entrepreneurs, pandering bandleaders and jaded or inept sidemen.
“Not clarinetist Frank Chace, however. Over the thirty-some years I’ve been observing his largely hidden talent, I have heard story after story to do with Frank’s losing out because he wouldn’t play ‘pretty’ or ‘straight’ or ‘traditional’ or some other term that meant going outside his own natural way of making music…
“There have been occasions when Frank simply would not take a paying but dumb job. At other times he hasn’t been hired or was let go because someone wanted to hear, say, Stardust and didn’t recognize Frank’s version of it. The result is that Frank Chace has kept one of the lowest profiles among outstanding jazz players.”
During the 1970s, Chace also listened closely to the music of John Coltrane and other modern jazzmen. In the right setting, his solos often went farther “out” than ever before! Delmark Records producer Bob Koester, a longtime admirer of Chace’s music, wrote about his plan to record the clarinetist with a “modern rhythm section.” Alas, the session never materialized.
This writer’s first encounter with Frank Chace was on Apr. 28, 1985. Pianist Butch Thompson assembled a band to play a concert for the Good Time Jazz Club in Libertyville, Illinois. Butch invited Frank to play clarinet, in a group that included Charlie Devore, cornet; John Otto, alto sax; Jack Meilahn, guitar; Bill Evans, bass; and myself on drums. It was an unbelievable thrill to hear that intense, wailing, clarinet coming from directly in front of the drums! The concert flew by—much too fast—and my only contact with Frank Chace for the next year would be written correspondence. The letters are priceless, especially for the humor. In one exchange, he obviously remembered the salutation on my first letter (“Dear Mr. Chace”). At the end of a very funny letter, which ran to several pages, he signed off as Your Friend, Mr. Chace.
In 1986, he was flown to New York, to perform at the JVC Jazz Festival’s “Chicago Jazz Summit.” An LP was subsequently issued, featuring several instrumental combinations recorded live at the festival. Unbelievably, Chace is only heard on one track. However, it is a rip-roaring version of “At The Jazz Band Ball,” played by Yank Lawson, George Masso, Eddie Miller, Truck Parham, Ikey Robinson, Barrett Deems and festival producer George Wein. Though we can wish that Chace was heard on more tracks, it is safe to say that his two idiosyncratic choruses are easily worth the price of the record!
My final gig with “Mr. Chace” was in 1987—another concert for the Good Time Jazz Club. On that occasion, I led the “Chicago Loopers” which also included Tom Pletcher, cornet; Tom Bartlett, trombone; Joe Johnson, piano; and Dan Shapera, bass. Frank’s playing that day—passionate, rasping, keening, whispered—was other-worldly. It was an indescribable high.
He continued to play with unlimited creativity for nearly 20 more years. In 2001, Drummer Wayne Jones played with Chace at a gig sponsored by Delmark’s Bob Koester. He reported that “Frank sounded not the least dimmed by the passing years.”
Frank Chace died on 28 Dec., 2007. He never gave up that fight to keep a wild, free heart.
Following is a list of recent CD issues that feature Frank Chace:
Salty Dogs 1955 (Windin’ Ball CD-105)
Marty Grosz & The Honoris Causa Jazz Band: Hooray For Bix
(Good Time Jazz 10065-2)
Marty Grosz & The Cellar Boys 1951/Honoris Causa Jazz Band alternate takes 1957
(J&M CD-004)
Jim Kweskin with Ted Butterman & the Neo-Passé Jazz Band: Jump For Joy
(Universe UV0051)
Jimmy Archey & Don Ewell at the Emporium Of Jazz 1967
(GHB BCD-461/462)
Chicago Jazz Summit
(Atlantic 81844-2)
These sessions are due for release in 2009:
Jabbo Smith – 1961 GHB BCD-510
The Chicago Loopers with Frank Chace – Live, 1987 Jazzology JCD 371-372
Butch Thompson and his Boys in Chicago – 1985 Jazzology JCD 373-374
COPYRIGHT, MICHAEL STEINMAN, HAL SMITH, AND JAZZ LIVES, 2010
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Michael Steinman and Jazz Lives with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
This post is meant as a follow-up to my lengthy presentation of letters from the Chicago clarinetist to me. When Frank Chace died, many jazz listeners who would have admired his work were unaware of it, and the first question asked on several online forums was “Where can I hear his recorded work? Here’s a brief overviewm beginning with something of a sentimental artifact.
These aren’t compact discs, but 78s from the first recording session of both Marty Grosz and Frank Chace. Dick Wellstood had already been recording since 1946; Pops Foster and Tommy Benford were veterans.
Two other titles were recorded: the session was reissued on ten-inch lps on the Pax / Paradox label. Compact disc reissue, anyone?
Since most of my readers prefer compact discs, here is a brief (and perhaps incomplete) listing of current issues of Frank’s music, in approximate chronological order.
DEWEY JACKSON LIVE AT THE BARREL CLUB, 1952 (Delmark). This session, recorded by Delmark’s founder Bob Koester, finds Chace with trombonist Sid Dawson and St. Louis trumpet legend Jackson as well as long-time friend Don Ewell.
SALTY DOGS 1955 (Windin’ Ball). This features trumpeter Birch Smith, who arranged for the music to be recorded, the legendary trombonist Jim Snyder, John Cooper (piano); Jack Lord (banjo); Bob Rann (tuba); Dick Karner (drums). Visit http://www.tradjazzproductions.com/music3.html to hear an mp3 of Frank — and to order the CD from TradJazz Productions.
HOORAY FOR BIX: Marty Grosz and his Honoris Causa Jazz Band, 1957 (Riverside / Good Time Jazz). These sessions — under Marty Grosz’s leadership – pair Frank with cornetist Carl Halen, Bill Priestley on guitar and second cornet, Bud Wilson on trombone, Bob Skiver on reeds, Tut Soper on piano, and others. (The outlandish names on the liner are pseudonyms — for reasons I have never discerned, since most of the players were not under contract to any other company.) This might be the best introduction to Frank on record. A vinyl record of alternate performances showed up very briefly at the end of the vinyl era (and the alternate material was again issued on a compact disc on the British J&M label.)
JIMMY ARCHEY / DON EWELL LIVE AT THE EMPORIUM OF JAZZ, 1967 (GHB: 2 CDs). Recorded live at the Emporium of Jazz in Mendota, Michigan, home base for the Hall Brothers’ Jazz Band, this live issue features Archey, Don Ewell, trumpeter Bill Price, and drummer Red Maddock among others.
FRANK CHACE and his CHICAGO LOOPERS, 1987 (Jazzology: 2 CDs). This 2009 issue pairs Frank with the fine drummer Hal Smith, the Bix-inspired cornetist Tom Pletcher, gutty trombonist Tom Bartlett, bassist Dan Shapera, and pianist Joe Johnson. The candid portrait of Frank at work is by his friend Terry Martin.
Jazzology plans to issue a complete 2-CD set of the sessions Frank recorded with Butch Thompson, Charlie DeVore, John Otto, Hal Smith, and others — originally issued in part on vinyl as BUTCH THOMPSON AND HIS BOYS.
Should anyone suggest a hidden agenda — ranking the merit of these recordings by the size of the images above — nothing of the sort is implied or expressed.
Other CDs with appearances by Frank have come and gone — a Vanguard session led by Jim Kweskin (featuring Marty Grosz and Ted Butterman) called JUMP FOR JOY; Frank’s one track from a 1981 Newport Jazz Festival tribute, CHICAGO JAZZ SUMMIT (Atlantic). Much of his recorded work has been issued on spectacularly obscure recordings: two records by Marty Grosz and his Gaslighters on Audio Fidelity; a session with Dave Remington on Jubilee (a record, oddly enough, that has surfaced a good deal online — in inexpensive V+ copies); with Doc Evans on Soma (where Frank plays baritone sax as well as clarinet). But Frank’s refusal to play or record music not to his liking make his recorded oeuvre smaller than it should have been. Ironically, at times I tried to interest two producers of traditional jazz records in doing a Frank Chace recording — preferably a new session — by sending them a cassette of chace in 1958 and 1997. I received, as I recall, polite demurrers. Not, mind you, that Frank was ever eager to record: his Chicago friends did herculean wheedling and coaxing with very little result. But it took until 2009 — and the efforts of Hal Smith — to have a CD issued under Frank’s name, which is a pity.
COPYRIGHT, MICHAEL STEINMAN AND JAZZ LIVES, 2010
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Michael Steinman and Jazz Lives with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
The Beloved and I spent the past long weekend (Thursday, September 17 – Sunday, September 20) at the Athenaeum Hotel in Chautauqua, New York, delighting in the twelfth Jazz at Chautauqua.
This party, burnished to a happy sheen, is the result of Joe Boughton’s sixty-year immersion in the timeless jazz he loves, situated somewhere between King Oliver and Charlie Parker, with reverential nods to Mr. Condon, Mr. Strong, Mr. Waller, Mr. Wilson. Joe is also the fierce champion of melodies that don’t get played elsewhere, and as the common parlance of jazz occasionally seems to shrink into a few syllables, Joe is trying to keep the beautiful repertoire of the past alive. That means CHINA BOY, BLUE TURNING GRAY OVER YOU, SKYLARK, I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH ME, I’M SORRY I MADE YOU CRY, and others. Play SATIN DOLL at a Boughton extravaganza and you might get glared at, which I understand.
Jazz at Chautauqua has its own delightful conventions (and I don’t mean the clusters of people who gather around the coffee urn, the bar, the tables of compact discs and sheet music). Thursday night is devoted to what Joe calls “informal music with all musicians in parlor room,” sometimes the most eloquent jazz of the whole weekend — loose jam session sets by bands Joe has assembled on the spot — no lighting, the musicians on the same level as the audience. Friday afternoon is spent in the parlor around a grand piano, with a variety of solo recitals, and the opening blow-out that night begins as if we had returned to the Third Street Condon’s of 1947, with two front lines alternating and then joining forces for an unusual number (this year it was GOD BLESS AMERICA), a ballad medley, and an old favorite.
Each day features an exalted version of Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, because most of the Chautauqua players are also Nighthawks alumni — rather like an all-star baseball team behind their blue banners and music stands. In between, there’s the occasional set by “the faux Frenchmen,” a QHCF group augmented this year by Andy Stein on violin, sets for the wondrous Rebecca Kilgore. Musicians ranging in age from 29 to 87 come and go, and there’s a good deal of friendly conversation between players and listeners, with some players holding forth at length while sitting on the porch or leaning against the front desk. (The Athenaeum, if you’ve never been there, is a delicious throwback: an entirely wooden hotel, over a hundred years old, with perhaps the most friendly, solicitous hotel staff on the planet.)
In years past, I brought my notebook to Chautauqua and wrote down the details of every set. This year, I abandoned my notebook for other methods of capturing the evanescent and as a result this reminiscence is more impressionistic than quantitative. I was also busily chatting with friends David and Maxine Schacker, John Herr, John and Mary-Etta Bitter, Jim Adashek, Sally and Mick Fee, Caren Brodskey, and making new friends of Steve LaVere, Lois Lardieri, James Stewart, John and Helen Trudinger, as well as various Boughtons. Essayist and art photographer Lorna Sass graciously offered her candid portraits for this post.
What sticks in my mind is, of course, the music. On Thursday night, after a witty set by “the faux Frenchmen,” a delicious band of Andy Schumm, Dan Barrett, Bob Reitmeier, Jim Dapogny, Vince Giordano, Marty Grosz, and John Von Ohlen took the stand, and offered seven tunes that paid homage to Red Nichols (a slow SHEIK OF ARABY), Louis (YOU’RE DRIVING ME CRAZY) and the tradition of the “rhythm ballad,” with Marty Grosz’s earnest vocal on BACK IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD. They were followed by Duke Heitger, Dan Block, Bob Havens, Ehud Asherie, Frank Tate, and Pete Siers, whose set reached a peak with SEPTEMBER SONG — featuring Duke, plunger-muted, and Dan Block, richly emotional. Joe Wilder and Harry Allen floated over the wonderful rhythm section of Rossano Sportiello and Jon Burr for four leisurely numbers, ending with a growly JUST SQUEEZE ME and a BLUES in Bb. Then, suitably inspired by what they had heard, Jon-Erik Kellso, Scott Robinson (wearing a red-and-black shirt that had SPACE CADET or was it SPACE CHAMP printed on the front) hit five home runs, playing ecstatic tag with one another with the help of Ehud, Andy Brown, and Arnie Kinsella — a rhythm section that had probably never gotten together ever but produced gliding, propulsive swing. The closing SOMEBODY STOLE MY GAL was hilarious, hot, and intense.
After that point, I put my notebook away — so what remains is a happy blur of solos, ensembles, and moments.
Andy Stein, shown here on violin, was even better on his secret weapon, the baritone sax, anchoring and boosting every group he played in.
Jim Dapogny, properly Professor Dapogny, jazz scholar, once again showed himself the invaluable member of every ensemble, his right hand landing with force and delicacy to produce ringing octaves; his left offering powerful stride and variations.
Just as impressive was Ehud Asherie, not yet thirty (someone I had recommended to Joe to fill the piano chair) who so impressed us all — whether recalling Donald Lambert or being harmonically and melodically adventurous. One of the highlights of the first night was a long Asherie-Harry Allen duet set, capped by three numbers where Ehud invited Dan Barrett to join them. Two horns plus a piano might seem lopsided, but it was a wonderfully balanced trio.
Andy Schumm, the young Bixian from Wisconsin, continued to delight and amaze — not only with his evocations of the Beiderbecke era (his versions of RHYTHM KING and NO-ONE KNOWS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT) but with his delicate fluency: he would fit in anywhere and shine. When I passed through the bandroom, I was touched to see Andy and Tom Pletcher, Bixians young and old, deep in conversation. Too bad that they didn’t get to play a set together.
Guitarist Andy Brown reminded me happily of George Van Eps, his chordal traceries gleaming (he is one of those rare guitarists who knows better than to stun us with rapid-fire passages); he and the lovely Petra van Nuis offered two brief sets. Petra, who appears girlish, has a surprising emotional range: she got absolute rapt attention at 9 in the morning with her opening song, a version of SERENATA. (Later in the weekend, I prevailed upon the modern troubadour Edward Lovett to sing two songs, accompanying himself on the guitar: he’s somewhere between Seger Ellis, young Crosby, and Dave Frishberg — you’ll hear about him!)
And there were non-musical moments: Duke Heitger, now the delighted father of two beautiful little girls, showing off their pictures and positively glowing with pride. Marty Grosz, discoursing at length both on and off the stand — at one point discussing how current CD covers all show grinning performers and his reluctance to adopt that pose. Marty also sang I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH ME at the just-right 1931 ballad tempo, recalling his hero Red McKenzie.
Jon-Erik Kellso, at his ease on the stand (he is an inestimable bandleader as well as player) and happily taking his ease with wife Jackie. Rebecca Kilgore, getting so pleased with the rhythm and solos her accompanists were creating that she indulged in a good deal of ladylike trucking on the stand (as well as singing better than ever).
On one of Rebecca’s sets, Joe Wilder was so buoyed by the rhythm section of Rossano Sportiello, Jon Burr, and Pete Siers, that he flew through dazzling solos — leading Dan Block, as a spectator, to say, “Unbelievable!” while shaking his head in amazed delight. Scott Robinson, playing a luminous AT SUNDOWN on trumpet. That same Dan Block, eloquent on clarinet, bass clarinet, and various saxophones, his body always reflecting the power of the music flowing through him. An impassioned I CAN’T GET STARTED by Duke Heitger, who saw the heights of passion and attained them. Arnie Kinsella, the poet of volcanic ebullience, hitting his cowbell in a solo, as he said later, “as loud as he could,” because he wanted to — in a way that we agreed was a celebration of joyous impulse and a Bronx cheer in the face of death.
The music still rings in my ears. And I am thrilled to announce that on Sunday, Joe Boughton was busily signing up musicians for next year’s Jazz at Chautauqua. I’ll have to wait, but it won’t be easy.
I’ll have more to say about this ecstatic weekend in posts to come.
I may have overwhelmed readers of this blog with my new enthusiasm for the Whitley Bay International Jazz Festival, less than a month away. But I hope you understand.
However, when falling in love with something new it would be ungracious in the extreme to forget the familiar — and, in this case, the familiar (but ecstatic) is Joe Boughton’s western New York State extravaganza, Jazz at Chautauqua. This year the dates are September 17-20.
I know all of the reasons people decide not to go to jazz parties. The money. Their health. The potential inconvenience. The economy. And so on. I would be remiss if I suggested that any of these reasons should be ignored. But I am writing this post, of my own accord, to tempt people into Pleasure.
Although at times the modern world seems to be a gaudy hedonistic circus, I still think that Pleasure gets a bad rap. We’re always urged to hang out with Prudence, that rather severe woman in the corner. You know — she’s drinking water when everyone else is having Campari; she doesn’t eat anything fried, ever . . . she knows what’s in her 401K plan to the penny. Prudence will outlive all of us. But is she having any fun? Do her investments make her tap her foot and bob her head?
Here endeth the sermon. I’ll suggest, however, what the Beloved and I are looking forward to at this year’s Chautauqua:
Leaves under our feet in the walkways between the houses. Stories, on and off the bandstand, from that bow-tied master of badinage Marty Grosz. Joe Wilder playing SAMBA DE ORFEU. Jon-Erik Kellso saying naughty things through his plunger mute. Jim Dapogny rocking the piano in the parlor with a song no one’s ever heard before. Newcomers Andy Brown (guitar), Petra van Nuis (vocal), Ehud Asherie (piano), and Tom Pletcher (cornet) making everyone lean forward, intently, when they play. Andy Schumm, Dave Bock, and Tom bringing Bix into the Hotel Athenaeum. Duke Heitger leading the troops through some romping ensemble. Dan Block and Harry Allen caressing a ballad. Rebecca Kilgore being tender or perky, as required. Dan Barrett being himself. Vince Giordano, likewise, and leading the best version of the Nighthawks anyone could imagine.
I can hear it now!
That’s only a small sampling, and I mean no disrespect to the musicians I’ve left out of my list.
So perhaps you might consider slipping out the side door while dour Prudence squats watchfully in the kitchen, making sure that no one puts butter on their bagel. You can always explain to Prudence when you get back! Tell her that it was your moral duty to be there. Moral duty she understands. And perhaps you can bring her a CD, too.
For details, prices, and availability, you can visit the Allegheny Jazz Society website at www.alleghenyjazz.com, or call the ever affable Apryl Sievert at the Hotel Athenaeum (1-800-821-1881.) Remember, no one has yet invented a way to make carpe diem work retrospectively.
That title isn’t just a pretty Thirties song recorded by Fats Waller, Ruby Braff, Bob Wilber, Ralph Sutton, and Marty Grosz. Although I am incorrigibly secular, my version of a jazz miracle took place a few days ago when I learned that the 2009 Jazz at Chautauqua party was going on, full speed ahead, this year. It will take place, as it has for some time, at the lovely, old-fashioned Athenaeum Hotel, looking out over Lake Chautauqua. Joe Boughton, who has a deep affection for improvised lyricism and wondrous songs that haven’t been overplayed, is once again at the helm. He tells me he’s grown a beard, but I expect that the faithful will still recognize him. And he has once again triumphed over the obstacles that would have stopped an army in their tracks to create this party.
Loyal readers of this blog — if they search for “Chautauqua” — will find that it was the subject of my very first posting. I am very sentimental about this party, because I’ve heard some of the best impromptu jazz of my life there. The party starts with informal music (sometimes the best of the whole weekend, but that’s a secret) on Thursday night, September 17 — and it goes apparently without a four-bar rest up to the early afternoon of Sunday, September 20.
I won’t clutter up this blog with the annoying details of prices, but you can find all of that out for yourself by contacting Apryl Seivert, reservations manager and tracer of lost persons at the Athenaeum — at 1-800-821-1881 or at athenaeum1881@hotmail.com.
I know that September seems a long way off, but it’s not too early to close your eyes and imagine the music that you’ve heard at past Chautauquas . . . or the music you know that the players below will invent. Here’s the magical cast of characters, most of them returning veterans with a few new stars:
Cornet / trumpet: Duke Heitger, Jon-Erik Kellso, Joe Wilder, Andy Schumm, Tom Pletcher
Trombone: Dan Barrett, Bob Havens
Reeds: Dan Block, Harry Allen, Bob Reitmeier, Bobby Gordon, Chuck Wilson, Scott Robinson
Piano: Keith Ingham, Ehud Asherie, James Dapogny, Rossano Sportiello
Guitar: Marty Grosz, Howard Alden, Andy Brown
Bass: Jon Burr, Frank Tate, Vince Giordano
Tuba / Bass Sax: Vince Giordano
Drums: John Von Ohlen, Pete Siers, Arnie Kinsella
Vocal: Rebecca Kilgore, Petra van Nuis, Marty Grosz
Extra Added Attractions: the faux frenchmen with Andy Stein and Joe Lukasik
I know that it is a really bad idea to rush time ahead — you never get those days back! — but I’m looking forward eagerly to this. More to come!
I’m indebted to Flemming Thorbye, whom I’ve never met, for video-recording these two songs and putting them on YouTube, where they held me transfixed through several viewings. The performances might look informal, but it takes a great deal of hard-earned mastery to be so casual. Thorbye captured this band at the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival in Davenport, Iowa, July 2005.
The band was officially billed as Spats Langham and his Rhythm Boys, but this ensemble has a democratic strolling feel: routines are improvised on the stand and no one monopolizes the stage. Even at a distance, you can see the players grinning at each other’s solos, which is not as common as you might think.
The Anglo-American players — what players! — are Thomas “Spats” Langham, guitar and vocal; Tom Pletcher, cornet; Paul Munnery, trombone; Norman Field, clarinet; Jeff Barnhart, piano; Frans Sjostrom, bass sax; Nick Ward, drums.
The first song was one of Jule Styne’s earliest — “Sunday,” whose lyrics make the trek through the week to arrive at the one day when romance can flourish. Bix recorded it as a member of the Jean Goldkette band — with an enthusiastic, cheery vocal by the Keller Sisters and Lynch. Apocryphally, Lynch was the Sisters’ brother, but that might be too confusing a fact to incorporate.
I know “Sunday” from years of listening to jazz sessions that took place on that day: it was and is a comfortable tune to begin with. Ruby Braff and Bobby Hackett did it often, and Jon-Erik Kellso continues the tradition now.
After a few cinematographic shudders, we settle down with Pletcher’s firm, nuanced lead — helped immeasurably by neat improvisations from Field and Munnery. The limber rhythm section moves things along: Sjostrom, as always doing the work of two or perhaps three men, playing rhythm and soloing. After Tom ends his solo with a “Holiday for Strings” lick, Munnery comes on like a supple Harlem trombonist c. 1931, with easy grace. Pletcher’s solo outing is full of Bix sound-castles, beautiful architecture, but I would also have you listen closely to Nick Ward’s rocking choke-cymbal (and then his accents behind Field on what Jo Jones used to call “elephants’ nuts”). Feld is deep into the idiom, but he doesn’t copy anyone’s phrases. Spats (at Pletcher’s direction) takes a winsome vocal, backed by Barnhart and then Sjostrom. When Frans solos, it’s easy to get swept away in his pure sound — but on a second listening, one comes to admire the shapes of his phrases, echoing the whole reed tradition. Jeff Barnhart drifts into some nifty Zez Confrey flourishes in the middle of his solo, paving the way for a fervent but still measured ensemble, driven home by Nick once again.
“Roses of Picardy,” a sentimental favorite from the First World War, is even better. It was the last tune of the set, and (as often happens) all the horns and the players and their instruments had warmed up. I can’t connect Bix with this song, but it was a popular favorite of his teens. Everyone is even more lyrical — Frans, Tom, a very Russellish Field, Langham blending Django and Lang, and Munnery, leading into the final ensemble. Although the audience drowns out Nick Ward’s break, we know it was there, so that will have to do. What great ease!
Some discographical comments:
I first heard Nick Ward, Spats Langham, and Norman Field on a Stomp Off CD, THE CHALUMEAU SERENADERS (1394) which also features the reed wizard Matthias Seuffert in the front line. Spats appeared on only one track — a vocal on a song I associate with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, “Okay, Baby,” but his singing was so wonderful that I sought out the two Lake CDs he had made under his own name — a duet with pianist Martin Litton called LOLLIPOPS (LACD 226) and a small band — also featuring Norman! — THE HOTTEST MAN IN TOWN (LACD 228). The duet album has its serenely beautiful moments; the small band is cheerfully frisky. Norman shows off his beautiful alto work as well on these CDs. And Nick Ward is a quiet powerhouse, rocking the band without getting loud or louder.
I apologize for my not having any Paul Munnery CDs to report on — but a bit of online research suggests that he is a Higginbotham – Nanton man on CD, so I will look for his smaller group, SWING STREET, and his work with a big repertory band, HARLEM.
Jeff Barnhart has made many CDs with multi-instrumentalist Jim Fryer, and he’s also recorded a lovely solo piano CD for Arbors, IN MY SOLITUDE (19324).
I’ve praised Frans Sjostrom elsewhere in this blog and will continue to do so: search out his extraordinary HOT JAZZTRIO on the Kenneth label (CKS 3417) with Bent Persson, and he also is an essential part of the ensemble on I’M GLAD: TOM PLETCHER AND THE CLASSIC JAZZ BAND (Stomp Off 1353). Tom has appeared on many earlier vinyl issues with the Sons of Bix — have they made it to CD? But most recently, he has impresed me deeply on CD, not as a player, but as a writer and annotator of a most special kind. Many of you will know of Tom’s late father, Stewart (or Stu or even Stew) Pletcher, a wonderfully lyrical player whose most notable recordings were made as a member of Red Norvo’s Thirties orchestra and combos. I was delighted that the Jazz Oracle label issued THE STORY OF STEWART PLETCHER (BDW 8055) in 2007. Marvelously researched as always, it gives a thorough picture of Pletcher Sr.’s playing — through rare recordings, of course, from 1924 to 1937. That would be enough for me. But I was tremendously moved by his son’s essay on his father. It is loving yet candid, a tribute to a man much-loved but not always easy to know. I do not overpraise it by calling it an affecting memoir, honoring both father and son at once.
If you don’t know these players, I hope I’ve given you reason to regret your previous ignorance and repent yourselves of it as soon as possible.
P.S. The espression “What fun!” comes from Liadain O’Donovan — of Kinvara, Dalkey, New York, and San Francisco — and I hope she doesn’t mind my borrowing it.
Andy Stein, shown here on violin, was even better on his secret weapon, the baritone sax, anchoring and boosting every group he played in.
Just as impressive was Ehud Asherie, not yet thirty (someone I had recommended to Joe to fill the piano chair) who so impressed us all — whether recalling Donald Lambert or being harmonically and melodically adventurous. One of the highlights of the first night was a long Asherie-Harry Allen duet set, capped by three numbers where Ehud invited Dan Barrett to join them. Two horns plus a piano might seem lopsided, but it was a wonderfully balanced trio. 
And there were non-musical moments: Duke Heitger, now the delighted father of two beautiful little girls, showing off their pictures and positively glowing with pride. Marty Grosz, discoursing at length both on and off the stand — at one point discussing how current CD covers all show grinning performers and his reluctance to adopt that pose. Marty also sang I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH ME at the just-right 1931 ballad tempo, recalling his hero Red McKenzie. 
However, when falling in love with something new it would be ungracious in the extreme to forget the familiar — and, in this case, the familiar (but ecstatic) is Joe Boughton’s western New York State extravaganza, Jazz at Chautauqua. This year the dates are September 17-20. 
JAZZ LIVES 