TRIPLE PLAY

Dan Vernhettes has been celebrated in these pages as the author of the thoroughly illuminating study of trumpeter Tommy Ladnier, TRAVELING BLUES.  So I knew and admired him as a diligent and original jazz scholar, someone devoted to doing more than repeating the same facts and assertions printed elsewhere. 

But I had almost forgotten that Dan is a fine jazz trumpeter himself.

Here’s his nine-piece band, SWING FEELING, doing a lovely job on DICKIE’S DREAM (homage to the 1957 version from THE SOUND OF JAZZ) — recorded in August 2007:

Dan takes the second (open) trumpet solo.

And, going perhaps sixty years in conception — from Basie to Bolden — here are the VINTAGE JAZZMEN playing DON’T GO ‘WAY NOBODY (which surfaces later as HOW’M I DOIN’ and other variants):

Here, Dan’s colleagues are Tommy Sancton (cl, ts), Olivier Beuffe (tb), Siphan Upravan (bj), Enzo Mucci (b, g, bj), Guillaume Nouaux (dm). Filmed at Jazzclub Mülheim (Germany) in May 2006.  Visit http://d-vernhettes.club.fr

It’s always inspiring to see someone who puts his love of a subject into action!

GIFTS FROM AGUSTIN

Agustin Perez Gasco is the sole proprietor of the wondrous blog MULE WALK AND JAZZ TALK.  Its website’s name, http://thereisjazzbeforetrane.blogspot.com., says a good deal about his ideological bent, one that I certainly share. 

I am convinced that Agustin is the sorcerer of jazz paper — newspaper clippings, old magazines, anything remotely connected with wood pulp and swing. But he’s outdone himself this time.  See this 1929 advertising flyer, which contains multitudes:

First, I was astonished by LOU.  Louis himself referred to Luis Russell on recordings as “Lou,” but I can’t think of an example on record where someone calls him (Mr. Strong) anything but Dipper or Papa Dip or Satchelmouth or Louis (pronounced Lew-is, not Loo-ie).    I like “Ball Room,” too: perhaps the printer thought it was more high-class to make it into two words.  And that picture, so distant to us now, was a fairly recent one of the star (who would be in front of “America’s Greatest Broadcasting Orchestra,” suggesting of course that they were on the radio.  Acetates, anyone? 

I hope that the letter from Carroll and Lou brought many thousand friends in!  And that everyone, uplifted by a man who was “rarin’ to go,” with a trumpet “too tight,” was ready to sing I CAN’T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE — starting with the verse.

And, just when I was about to content myself with this “borrowing,” which I mean only to shine some light on Agustin’s noble works for those who might not know his blog, he came up with this one.

A scholarly study of Tommy Ladnier.  What?!

On his blog, I found out about this new book, published in a limited edition of 500 copies by two French jazz scholars — TRAVELING BLUES — devoted to the little-known but eloquent and short-lived trumpeter Tommy Ladnier, someone who recorded with Ida Cox, Lovie Austin, Sidney Bechet, and other luminaries.  Visit  http://www.jazzedit.org/Traveling-blues.html for details.  The book looks remarkably detailed; it can be purchased with a CD that contains (in mp3) form all of Ladnier’s 189 recordings.  It’s a delight that Ladnier should be so splendidly celebrated: he was a great, thoughtful player with deep feeling.  I’ll have more to say about this enterprise when my copy arrives!

THANK YOU, Agustin!