I can’t say, but through the kindness of a friend, I can take us all back to the Nice Jazz Festival to hear some priceless music: for instance, Kenny Davern and Bob Wilber using DIZZY ATMOSPHERE as a riff on I WANT TO BE HAPPY. Vic is in rare form (catch his ROSETTA); Davern is a trumpet-spectacular; Wilber is lyrical and hot. And how lovely to hear Wilson (brilliant on ROSETTA) and Duvivier in this context. (Who knows something about Dallas Taylor?) Davern lectures the crowd, memorably.
Everyone sounds truly happy.
Audiophiles be warned: this is a cassette-recording of an outdoor performance; it may run off speed; there is chatter. But wouldn’t it be ungracious to fuss over these things? This, more or less, is what we would have heard at Nice, and what a treasure it is.
The heroes are Teddy Wilson, piano; Bob Wilber, Kenny Davern, clarinet, soprano saxophone (Davern and Wilson make the announcements); Vic Dickenson, trombone, vocal; George Duvivier, double bass; Dallas Taylor, drums. Nice Jazz Festival, July 16, 1977. The tape is generously provided by Derek Coller. I WANT TO BE HAPPY (late start) / ON THE ALAMO / ROSETTA / [public service announcement] / I WANT A LITTLE GIRL (Vic, vocal) / RUNNIN’ WILD (rhythm) / MOTEN SWING //
The tape is a precious document. Bless Derek and people like him! But he does more than go to jazz oases with a cassette recorder. Derek is a great jazz scholar. His book on Big Joe Turner is a monument:
We owe so much to people like Derek who have made the evanescent beautifully permanent. And to these glorious musicians who give so unstintingly for decades.
Trombonist Vic Dickenson had feelings. Make that FEELINGS. Writers who didn’t entirely get him heard him as a double-entendre humorist, someone telling naughty stories through brass, those of us who heard him truly understood his emotions. And they came through fervently on his choice of a solo feature, Ellington’s IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD. Vic wasn’t chatty with people outside his circle, so he never explained his choice in print, but whenever he played it, he showed his heart.
A word about “features.” In the world of small-band swing that Vic found himself from1941 on, much of the music was exuberantly propulsive. There might be a slow blues paying tribute to a tin roof or a basin, perhaps, but in general the tempos were medium to medium-fast and the volume followed. Clarinet players might call AVALON; pianists, CAROLINA SHOUT; drummers, CARAVAN or WINNETKA, but brass players may have opted for variety of a psychic, sonic, or emotional kind. So wise musicians such as Roy Eldridge, Joe Thomas, Bobby Hackett and Vic chose to play ballads — not because they were easier to perform, but because they were music of a more solicitous kind.
I do not know when Vic first heard IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD, which was first recorded by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra in 1935. But obviously it struck an emotional chord with him. Earlier, he was featured on YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU, which he returned to through the decades; as a comic turn, he sang on SISTER KATE, but when I requested that at a 1972 gig, he said, “They don’t know the routine,” and I understood that was a polite practical “No.” Sometimes he would offer MANHATTAN as his solo turn; sometimes the bandleader would feature him on BASIN STREET BLUES — a song trombonists have been expected to perform, perhaps harking back to Jack Teagarden. But in the decade or so that I saw him, frequently but not frequently enough, he always returned to IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD. Here is a particularly gratifying performance: Vic doesn’t “do anything new,” but we see him close up in color, with a splendid rhythm section, and the sound is superb. Also, the rather fidgety cinematography typical of the Nice director is calmer here.
This video from the Nice Jazz Festival of July 7, 1977 (broadcast on French television) comes from a set where the front line was Benny Carter, Doc Cheatham, and Budd Johnson; the rhythm section was Hank Jones, piano; Bill Pemberton, double bass; Oliver Jackson, drums:
Play that again. We miss Vic terribly, but how fortunate we are to have his immortal music.
The personnel assembled for this once-in-a-lifetime live performance would require the best three-dimensional Venn diagram to explicate. If time hangs heavy on your hands you might embark into WHO PLAYED WITH WHOM, and WHEN, a version of Jazz Hero Bingo.
This delightful constellation took place at the Nice Jazz Festival and was broadcast on French television slightly less than a year later. On television, it was rightly heralded as “Benny Carter Special No. 9.” The stars are Benny Carter, alto saxophone; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Doc Cheatham, trumpet; Budd Johnson, tenor saxophone; Hank Jones, piano; Bill Pemberton, double bass; Oliver Jackson, drums.
Nice Jazz Festival: July 7, 1977; broadcast May 20, 1978. JUST YOU, JUST ME / YESTERDAYS (Budd) / ‘DEED I DO / TAKE THE “A” TRAIN //
To quote W.H. Auden, in a different context, “The Old Masters, how well they understood . . . . “
Vic Dickenson was a master of sounds and shapes. Like his friends Lester Young and Bobby Hackett, he created memorable stories in eight bars. Although a peerless soloist, he wasn’t assertive by nature, so even though his recording career may have begun in 1927, we don’t hear him playing more than sixteen bars of trombone on record until 1940 or so. But he loved melodies and he loved to sing. So it’s a wonderful surprise to hear him on record as a sweet vocalist in 1930, on a trip to New York City.
Thanks to the ever-resourceful Dustin Wittmann, who goes by exponent_of_sock on YouTube, we have a beautifully restored copy of HONEY THAT REMINDS ME (a love ballad by trumpeter John Nesbit) from December 17, 1930. The band is the splendid Luis Russell Orchestra (Dustin gives the personnel in the description) but it’s Vic’s tender vocal that is our focus now. The trombone solo is by J.C. Higginbotham. How Vic got to New York and how he sang with Russell are mysteries lost to time, but he must have told someone, perhaps Dan Morgenstern or Stanley Dance, that he was the singer. And sweetly, he is:
Vic was often accused of playing lewdly by critics who didn’t otherwise know how to characterize his singular instrumental style, but sweet melody was where his heart lived. A man who called IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD as his instrumental feature is telling us that in every phrase. And, although Vic didn’t always sing on gigs or record dates — the atmosphere had to be right and the band had to know the way — when he did, it was an emotional interlude.
A note on the photograph of Vic, which comes from the Dave E. Dexter collection at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. It’s nearly impossible to find a photograph of Vic without his trombone at the ready, but this is one of the less-reproduced images. Vic is younger here, and I think it is from his California period, 1944-46, when he recorded for Capitol Records.
There is no one like him, and I use the present tense intentionally.
This post could not encompass all the gifts Dick Hyman has given us. He has made the air around us beautiful for about seventy years. But let us attempt the barest list: peerless pianist, imaginative bandleader, scholar who put his scholarship into rewarding practice, teacher, advocate, expansive improviser, elegant spokesman for the music, mentor to younger musicians, infinitely adaptable — recording under aliases on a tack piano, and as himself on the MOOG, always thoughtful, precise, and vividly swinging.
Photograph by John Herr.
The best birthday card I ever saw had the words inside, THANK YOU FOR BEING BORN. Anyone who’s aware of Dick Hyman will echo these words. But the best way to celebrate him is through his own music. Dick led a wondrous small band that he called the Classic Jazz Band, and three sets at the 1982 Nice Jazz Festival were broadcast on French radio.
There was a time when the great women blues singers of the Twenties could be brought out of retirement for a few public gigs. The hour had passed for Clara and Bessie Smith, and Ethel Waters had moved beyond the secular, but Victoria Spivey, Alberta Hunter, Ida Cox, Eva Taylor, Edith Wilson, and Sippie Wallace (first with Jim Dapogny) came out to play: foremothers with flashing eyes and great stage presence, come back to tell us the truth.
Dick’s Classic Jazz Band featured Sippie, in fine form, with some of the finest instrumentalists ever: Doc Cheatham, trumpet; both Vic Dickenson and Trummy Young, trombone; Kenny Davern, clarinet; Major Holley, double bass; Oliver Jackson, drums. Bringing Trummy out of his well-deserved relaxation in Hawaii to play alongside his great friend Vic was a great gift to us (Dick Gibson may have managed it first) and the others were the core of many spectacular New York City sessions. But Dick is at the center, and one can listen to the half hour as a delightful totality, then go back and marvel at how he is masterfully shaping the performance in every phrase.
But first, Trummy and Vic at Nice, photograph by C.E. Castle:
Now, the music. Dick Hyman’s Classic Jazz Band at the Nice Jazz Festival, July 13, 1982: broadcast on French radio. Dick Hyman, piano and arrangements; Doc Cheatham, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Trummy Young, trombone; Kenny Davern, clarinet; Major Holley, double bass; Oliver Jackson, drums. Sippie Wallace, vocals. KEEP OFF THE GRASS (Hyman, solo) / WON’T YOU COME OVER TO MY HOUSE?* / EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY* / WOMEN BE WISE* / SHAKE IT TO A JELLY* / encore* / MY DADDY ROCKS ME / I FOUND A NEW BABY:
Isn’t that marvelous? Thank you, Dick, for this, and so much more. No one can take your place.
One of a glorious series of relaxed performances I was able to record nearly fifty years ago.
Vic loved Ellington, as seen by his claiming IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD as a feature for more than thirty years. Here, on January 30, 1975, he is surrounded by friends: Mike Burgevin, drums; Al Hall, double bass; Jimmy Andrews, piano — at Brew’s, then a happy place at 156 East 34th Street, New York City.
This one’s for Jen Hodge, who loves Vic and Duke:
And I must credit pianist / scholar / photographer Philippe Baudoin for his lovely photograph.
Today is Bobby Hackett’s birthday, even though he moved to another neighborhood some years ago. But we need no special occasion to share his music. To find him in energetic form alongside Vic Dickenson, another demi-god, is just too much. And the splendid Teddi King! I come from a world where the kitchen radio was often tuned to WCBS-AM, and to recall that such musical bliss was free and accessible is a powerful emotional experience. As is the music. It also says something that these sounds weren’t announced as “jazz,” but as music. Music for popular audiences, make of that what you will.
(Theme) TIN ROOF BLUES / JITTERBUG WALTZ / I’LL TRY (Vic) / FASCINATING RHYTHM / ON A CLEAR DAY (Teddi) / THE LADY IS A TRAMP (Teddi) / MEDITATION // Bobby Hackett, cornet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Teddi King, vocal; Lou Forestieri, piano; Tito Russo, string bass; Joe Brancato, drums. Broadcast by CBS Radio, transcribed for distribution to the armed forces.
Pianist-composer Lou Forestieri is still with us. I wonder what thoughts this music might provoke in his thoughts. All I know is that it provokes joy in mine, and I hope in yours also.
You can hear the love Vic Dickenson had for Louis Armstrong in his playing. My ears tell me that Vic heard the OKeh Hot Fives and Sevens when they were new, and they made a profound impression. Louis and Vic recorded together only once, which is a pity, but they created four glorious sides in 1946, SUGAR and I WANT A LITTLE GIRL being the most memorable.
But I was there more than once when Vic, by his own choice (not responding to a request) walked boldly into WEST END BLUES and evoked the whole recording, beginning with annunciatory phrases that say, “Listen, everyone! This is important!”
And it remains so, decades later. This performance comes from Tuesday night, January 28, 1975, at Brew’s (156 East 54th Street, New York City) where Vic was among friends: Mike Burgevin, drums; Jimmy Andrews, piano; Red Balaban, string bass. Yes, the audience is oblivious, but their inattention gave the musicians room to breathe and be even more themselves.
Memorable beyond any words I could write here, not only as music but as a love-offering. To Louis, to us.
Vic Dickenson told that to Stanley Dance in a 1964 interview published in THE WORLD OF SWING, and Vic gave us fifty years of evidence. Although often he was asked to saunter forth on I FOUND A NEW BABY or SWING THAT MUSIC, he preferred beautiful and obscure songs from Duke Ellington to Noel Coward to Richard Rodgers.
Here’s some lovely evidence. YOU’RE BLASE is by no means a jazz standard, although Louis did record it (with Russ Garcia) for his Verve LOUIS UNDER THE STARS. It was composed in 1931 by Ord Hamilton and Bruce Sevier, and I love its lyrics: what other song tells the hearer that they are boring? Ella, Benny, Hawkins, and Tatum did also, so perhaps I overstate its obscurity. But I’ve never heard it on a jazz gig, and even sure-footed Jimmy Andrews almost makes a wrong turn into the bridge before Vic sings it to him. We’re all human.
I recorded this performance nearly fifty years ago at Brew’s on East 34th Street in Manhattan. Vic is accompanied by Mike Burgevin, drums; Red Balaban, bass; Jimmy Andrews, piano. I used a Sony cassette recorder, and was aided and abetted in 2011 by wizard engineer Bryan Shaw.
And if you’re going to complain about the Tuesday-night crowd, instead celebrate the joys of Vic, Jimmy, Red, and Mike:
There is more Vic to come: I brought recording equipment to Brew’s on four evenings at the end of January 1975. For now, please savor what I think of as a gem.
This is among the most joyous pieces of music ever recorded: Ralph Sutton, piano, and Vic Dickenson, trombone, swinging through I’M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES. Clear your head of anxieties and listen. And then listen again. As many times as it takes:
Ralph and Vic had known each other in the mid-Fifties, and worked together for almost a decade in the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, but it was only near the end of Vic’s life that someone — the generous-minded Charlie Baron — had them record together, a sweetly fraternal conversation. A treasure.
I’ve been diving back into the recorded legacy of baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan because of a splendid new book about him by Steven A. Cerra, shown above. I reviewed it the day I received a copy because I found it so engrossing: here‘s my original post.
Mulligan was not bound by “styles and schools”: I read somewhere that he had a portrait of Jack Teagarden hanging over his desk. So here he is (audio only, sorry) at the Nice Jazz Festival on July 15, 1976, with a wide assortment of heroes, whose only commonality is their commitment to swing: Harry “Sweets” Edison, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Marian McPartland, piano; Dave Samuels, vibraphone; Percy Heath, string bass; Alan Dawson, drums. And they play I FOUND A NEW BABY / NIGHT LIGHTS / WHILE WE’RE YOUNG (Marian, solo) / I’LL BE AROUND (Mullgan-Marian) / YESTERDAYS (Sweets) / TEA FOR TWO / SHINY STOCKINGS:
and here is something more than unusual. Yes, it’s his “regular” piano-less quartet, but with TonyFruscella, trumpet; Red Mitchell, double bass; Frank Isola, drums — recorded at the first Newport Jazz Festival on July 17, 1954, with an introduction by Stan Kenton. Make of it what you will, this concert excerpt was broadcast on ABC-AM radio on a jazz program entitled “Strictly From Dixie.”
Introduction by Stan Kenton / BERNIE’S TUNE / Introduction by Mulligan / THE LADY IS A TRAMP / Introduction by Mulligan / LULLABY OF THE LEAVES. [Issued on Sounds of Yester Year (E)DSOY2251 [CD] or (E)DSOY2237 [CD]].
This was not Tony’s preferred context, so at times he sounds a bit overwhelmed by the baritone saxophone, but every note of Fruscella is both rare and precious:
Finally, something both common and uncommon: SHE DIDN’T SAY YES (by Jerome Kern) by an early version of the Quartet, with Chet Baker, trumpet; Jimmie Rowles, piano; Joe Mondragon, double bass; recorded at Phil Turetsky’s house in Los Angeles, July 9, 1952. The experiment didn’t continue (although Mulligan and Rowles would record together again) because the piano was too prominent for what Mulligan had in mind. However, for Rowlesians, a magnificent recording:
and the more obscure HAIG AND HAIG, a pretty variation on DINAH:
Many different ways to celebrate the multi-faceted Mr. Mulligan (preferably as soundtrack to Cerra’s delightful book).
If you were to measure jazz ensembles by their ability to adapt to contemporary media, THE KRAZY KAPERS would get high marks. They have a Bandcamp page , which I wll be returning to in this post. They have a Facebook page.
They have a whimsical caricature-logo, drawn by double bassist Raphael Dever:
that is part of their cover art for their debut CD:
and they do interesting visual presentations:
But unlike some bands who seem to focus all the energies on “merch,” band t-shirts and pinback buttons, THE KRAZY KAPERS make astonishingly rewarding music. To use an old advertising phrase, the steak is even better than the sizzle. I am going to take a risk and suggest two monumental sources of inspiration for this CD. One:
the 1933 masterpiece, an improvisation on the harmonies of DIGA DIGA DOO by Benny Carter, Max Kaminsky, Floyd O’Brien, Chu Berry, Teddy Wilson, Lawrence Lucie, Ernest Hill, and Big Sid Catlett . . . if you don’t know this record, go listen. We’ll wait.
And behind that masterpiece is George Herriman’s subversive creation, KRAZY KAT:
The brief liner notes to this disc state (as far as I can read French) that their inspiration is the Bobby Hackett – Vic Dickenson quintet of sainted memory, and that sits very well with me. I actually saw this group several times and they were a high point of the Seventies. But that quintet had a standard rhythm section of piano, double bass, and drums. The Krazy Kapers have guitar and bass, so I propose other antecedents: the Ruby Braff-George Barnes Quartet, and the various drumless / pianoless recordings made for the HRS label: Sidney Bechet – Muggsy Spanier; Rex Stewart – Barney Bigard – Django Reinhardt; Buck Clayton’s Big Four.
Wherever The Krazy Kapers come from, and they come from many places, they are wonderful.
The Kapers are Benoît de Flamesnil, trombone; Jérôme Etcheberry, trumpet; Félix Hunot, guitar; Raphaël Dever, double bass. And they offer music with noble lineages (both composers and performances) that isn’t heard all that much: Noone, but not SWEET LORRAINE or I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW; Ellington and Hodges, but not SATIN DOLL or LUSH LIFE; Bechet, but not PETIT FLEUR. Vic Dickenson, but not SISTER KATE or IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD. You understand.
DEEP TROUBLE / A GYPSY QWITHOUT A SONG / MANHATTAN / CONSTANTLY / JOE LOUIS STOMP / AWFUL SAD / KRAZY KAPERS / WHERE OR WHEN / GOOD QUEEN BESS / LASTIC / ROSE OF THE RIO GRANDE.
Here are two performances I love. Listen to what these creators do with this material. Please note that these aren’t “blowing sessions” but carefully created pieces, whether head arrangements or on paper, that allow the soloists delightful freedom, but something interesting is going on in every half-chorus, backgrounds and figures that suggest a tiny big band, with no dull spots:
Richard Rodgers’ WHERE OR WHEN has a quiet intensity I associate with the Hackett-Teagarden I GUESS I’LL HAVE TO CHANGE MY PLAN. When I first got the CD, I played this track so often that had it been a Fifties record, it would be graying by now. And a riotous ROSE OF THE RIO GRANDE.
What shines through here, as your ears will tell you, is that these four musicians are immensely talented, ready to solo eloquently or to support one another in ensembles in the best way . . . and they are themselves.
That sounds too simple: of course, we “are ourselves,” but in the world of hot music, with the Ancestors standing hundreds of feet tall, with OKehs and Victors casting huge shadows over our puny selves, the instinct to imitate is very powerful and can be crippling. A musician who approaches an Ellington composition with love and reverence may have to work hard to not imitate Cootie, Rex, or Barney, because it, at first, seems the deepest homage, and evidence of mastery.
But the wise musicians, and the Krazy Kapers are very wise, honor the innovators by hewing to the conventions, those that are durable, but shining their infividualities within them. Honoring Bobby or Vic, thus, on this recording, doesn’t mean playing Bobby or Vic’s notes: it means creating something that the great Ancestors would admire, permeated in every way with living, breathing individuality.
This disc is a lovely and fulfilling creation. I hope it’s the first of many Kapers.
The mythology attached to this music goes in two contrary directions when it comes to musicians who have been playing, and in the public eye, for decades. One group — often a “fan base” — disregards all objectivity and says, in effect, “It’s so wonderful that X is playing at their advanced age,” and celebrates the durability, ingenuity, and pure physical effort needed to perform. I am most often in this group.
Then, the people who give grades and stars to recordings, the self-appointed critics, say, in the name of objectivity, that X was marvelous for three years and is now “a shadow of their former self.” Andre Hodeir, writing of Dicky Wells in 1952, entitled his essay, “Why Do They Age So Badly?” The men in this 1977 performance had been playing for decades, and two of them, especially, were excoriated for their inability to be their younger selves: Barney Bigard and Teddy Wilson. One has only to look at commenters on YouTube videos criticizing the former, and a critical commenplace is that Wilson had lost his improvisatory fire after 1960. (I am sure, given the demographics of the hot-jazz audience, that many of the most severe critics are men in the same age bracket. Hmmmm.)
So here we have fifty minutes of leisurely swing performance by six masters who not only knew the language but had invented it: Teddy Wilson, piano; Jimmie Maxwell, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Barney Bigard, clarinet; Slam Stewart, double bass; J.C. Heard, drums.
Yes, J.C. rushed in his solos, and Slam’s witticisms were fresher decades earlier, but I would give a great deal to play clarinet as “badly” as Bigard does here, for one example. Few of us at sixty can climb the stairs as we did thirty years earlier, but that hardly means we should be tossed down the stairwell. These performances so evoke the beauties of the great (but also recent) jazz past, that they are to be cherished as evidence of sustained expertise and emotion.
LADY BE GOOD / POOR BUTTERFLY / AFTER YOU’VE GONE:
MOONGLOW / I GOT RHYTHM:
ST. LOUIS BLUES:
No, it was no longer 1944, but the Nice Jazz Festival was an absolute blessing, and the fact that so much of it was also broadcast on French television and radio is a boon beyond words. Let us celebrate it, and the musicians young and old who made it so.
The loops and connections of this universe — the Mobius strips — are there for those who see. I was writing this post on November 5, the day that the great jazz scholar and generous person Manfred Selchow moved to another neighborhood where we cannot reach him but we can remember him with love. Manfred spent several decades researching the inimitable trombonist and singer Vic Dickenson, research that culminated in a beautiful bio-discography, DING! DING!, published in 1988.
I don’t know how many thousand choruses Vic was asked to take on TIN ROOF BLUES or MUSKRAT RAMBLE, perhaps after the clarinet and before the bass solo. For those who listened closely, every phrase, every inflection, was memorable. But he rarely got a chance to shine as the only soloist, in part (I think) because he didn’t covet the leader’s role.
But when he did get to do what he had in mind, the results were even more memorable. I saw him as the sole horn with a rhythm section, and he called unusual songs and enjoyed playing and singing them. Quietly, mind you, with his characteristic high-pitched laugh when something amused him.
Here is music that — in several ways — is rescued from oblivion. Sackville Records, a wonderful Canadian company that put musicians first, closed its doors before it issued on CD the music Vic, Red Richards, and Johnny Williams made. I found my copy amidst shelves of private cassettes, and decided to share it with the JAZZ LIVES audience, some of whom I know “get” Vic deeply. Red and Vic were close friends, neighbors, so their work together deserves to be recognized.
Late in Vic’s life (he died in 1984) this was a little-known session with pianist Red Richards and double bassist Johnny Williams. The trio tracks were recorded in New York, October 6-7, 1981; RUNNIN’ WILD and SWEET SUE (Richards solos) in Toronto, March 16, 1985.
Apologies for some brief sonic interference (crackle and hum) from a nearly forty-year old audio cassette, and I have unintentionally reversed “sides” one and two. But this session presents Vic playing and singing songs he didn’t record elsewhere, so it is a treasure. Had you told me before this session was issued that I could hear Vic play HERE LIES LOVE (an early moody Crosby masterpiece) and ME AND MY SHADOW, I would have been thrilled. As I am now.
TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE / MEMORIES OF YOU (vocal Red) / SWEET SUE / BYE BYE PRETTY BABY (vocal Vic) / HERE LIES LOVE / ME AND MY SHADOW / ON A CLEAR DAY / WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD (vocal Red) / HOW MANY TIMES? / ONCE AND ONLY ONCE / IF I COULD BE WITH YOU ONE HOUR TONIGHT (vocal Vic) / RUNNIN’ WILD:
Our world is gripped by cultural amnesia; we devour the new and forget anything older than yesterday. I hope that people will never forget Vic Dickenson. This may be the vain hope of someone old enough to have marveled at him in person in 1970, but a deep hope nonetheless.
If we forget our heroes, who will remember us?
The generous reader Stuart Leigh sent this watercolor of Vic, done by his father-in-law Victor Kalin, in 1986:
I think I first heard Vic Dickenson on Louis Armstrong’s 1946 recording of SUGAR, and I was entranced; soon after, I encountered the second volume of Vic’s SHOWCASE on Vanguard, then the Blue Note Jazzmen — from then on, if a recording had Vic on it, I bought it if I could. In 1970, I saw him with the World’s Greatest Jazz Band and I followed him around New York City for the next dozen years.
To me, he is the Prince of Sounds, and although I admire Teagarden, Morton, Wells, Nanton, Brown, and three dozen other players alive or dead, Vic is closest to my heart. Writers have celebrated his “wry” humor, his double-entendre tonalities, and more, but he is untouchable on a ballad, and his singular phrase-construction and rhythmic grace reminds me so much of his friend Lester Young. Often he was placed in ensembles that leaned more towards TIN ROOF BLUES than a more expansive repertoire, but Vic was more flexible a musician than some of his colleagues on the stand.
Trombonists don’t get the attention they deserve, but I rank Vic alongside Ben Webster and Benny Carter: his beauties might require close listening but they are profound.
His birthday was August 6, and this is in the way of a small celebration.
In performance, Vic didn’t often lead groups: I think he preferred to be within rather than out front. So this set, performed at the Nice Jazz Festival on July 14, 1979, is a remarkable and touching exception. His “cousins” included two young French musicians: Stephane Guerault (on clarinet, sounding very much like a musician Vic admired greatly, Barney Bigard) and pianist Philippe Baudoin, alongside drummer Duffy Jackson and the veteran bassist Gene Ramey. Guerault and Jackson are extroverted here, but Vic was a peerless ensemble player and very little bothered him in performance. The absence of a trumpet-leader also allows for greater flexibility for Vic: at points, this set is reminiscent of his recordings with Sidney Bechet as the other horn. Alongside Vic, Ramey — not often seen on film — and Baudoin, a great stylist, shine.
I would guess that someone, probably George Wein, asked Vic what he wanted to call the band and “cousins” is his friendly witty coinage. The performance was slightly edited for broadcast on French television; this is the unedited version. Vic, Ramey, and Jackson have left us. Philippe Baudoin is very much present and he graciously encouraged me to share this video. Google tells me that Guerault, born in 1936, had a Paris gig in 2018, but about his current status I know nothing.
JUST YOU, JUST ME / ROUTE 66 (vocal Guerault) / INDIANA / SUGAR (vocal Guerault) / TOPSY / DO NOTHIN’ TILL YOU HEAR FROM ME / GET HAPPY / CARELESS LOVE (vocal Guerault) //
I offer this in memory of Harriet Choice, Vic’s friend, who left us in July 2023.
and, “this just in,” as they say on the news — a wonderful gift from the multi-talented M. Baudoin, his photograph of Vic in 1968:
Let us assume you were the director or one of the producers of an all-star jazz television special on a major commercial network, the Columbia Broadcasting System, with a well-known sponsor, Timex watches. You would want to emphasize the free-wheeling nature of jazz, its embodiment of improvisatory democracy. Certainly the television program of the previous year, THE SOUND OF JAZZ, would be large in your memories. Its loose roving camera style is a boon here. You might also have taken notice of the Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe on Nat King Cole’s television show.
You might have your host, the famous comedian and television star Jackie Gleason (a genuine friend of the music who could pronounce all the names correctly) tell the nationwide audience that a “jam session” was about to occur. You would have an astonishing array of artists: Coleman Hawkins, tenor saxophone; Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Marty Napoleon, piano; Milt Hinton, string bass; Jo Jones, drums; Dakota Staton, Ruth Olay, vocals, on hand.
But time would be a crucial factor. Once this part of the “jam session” was over, an even larger spectacular would follow: PERDIDO by, among others, the entire Duke Ellington orchestra, Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, and more. (That segment, which verges on Twilight of the Gods, is widely seen: this one, far less so.)
So “the bust-out of all time” was tightly controlled and scripted. Yes, let us have Coleman Hawkins play BODY AND SOUL — instantly recognizable from his 1939 recording — but not at the usual passionate ballad tempo, rather as a storming improvisation. And it’s clear that everyone knew what to do in their portion of the “jam session,” part musical explosion, part stage play. So there is something for everyone in less than three minutes. I’ll leave it to you to enjoy the surprises, noting only that Ruth Olay is on the right, singing melody while Dakota Staton improvises around her. And I was immensely relieved to see that Vic Dickenson got, as we say, his spot.
This copy, clearer than usual, is from the collection of Franz Hoffmann, who has no equal as archivist, collector, and scholar of the music. Thanks also to Alessandro King for essential insights.
Now, to the music. A “jam session” in name only, but irreplaceable and thrilling. A pity that it’s only three minutes, but that was the length of the recorded jazz masterpieces until the Forties. And yes, one can fulminate about television’s leaning towards Westerns and cartoons rather than more weekly jazz series, but I bless Timex for their investment in the art, and it is a blessing that it took place and exists for us to view now.
Irrelevantly, I’m wearing one of their products as I type this, although it’s not from 1959.
Vic Dickenson has been a hero of mine for decades and continues to be one. I’ve tried to chase down everything he recorded, which is a substantial amount — so I was very pleased to encounter music of the highest quality, recorded under ideal circumstances, that I’d never heard before. By “ideal circumstances,” I mean live — not in the studio — among musicians of his caliber, and at leisure.
The peerless Black and Blue record label recorded many performances both during the Grande Parade du Jazz (informally, the Nice Jazz Festival) and in the studio, when visiting musicians could be brought together. A CD series devoted to July 1978 Nice performances has been issued yet elusive. Vic appears on CDs headed by Harry “Sweets” Edison, Helen Humes, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, and Jonah Jones. A few days ago, these CDs were shared — complete — on YouTube, and I can now present those performances on which Vic is, properly, given time to shine. Details, in brief, below.
BYE BYE BLACKBIRD (Sweets Edison, Lockjaw Davis, Vic, Gerry Wiggins, Major Holley, Oliver Jackson):
TANGERINE (and the two following selections: Sweets, Jaws, Vic, Hank Jones, Major, J.C. Heard):
STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY:
ROMPIN’ WITH J.C.:
IF YOU’RE A VIPER (Helen Humes, Paul Bascomb, Wiggins, Holley, Oliver Jackson):
BILL BAILEY (and the four following: Jonah Jones, Wiggins, Pierre Michelot, Jackson):
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO MISS NEW ORLEANS? / POOR BUTTERFLY (mislabeled):
HELLO, DOLLY!:
ALL OF ME:
ST. LOUIS BLUES:
YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU (Jonah, Vic, Wild Bill Davison, Claude Gousset, Johnny Mince, Bob Wilber, Bob Fields, Jerome Darr, Ivan Rolle, Clyde Lucas):
ROYAL GARDEN BLUES (as YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU):
Even if you’re not a viper, these are remarkable performances. Those who have heard hours of “festival jazz” or “jazz party jazz” know that it is always expert — these people are professionals beyond dispute — but sometimes with an air of “Well, I guess we have to play INDIANA for the millionth time. You go here, I’ll go there, and eventually we can relax offstage.” But these performances show Vic and others, energized, no matter how familiar the chosen repertoire.
Bless Vic Dickenson and his lovely friends is what I say. And thank you, unknown YouTube benefactor, for these gifts.
Perhaps because I am both nearsighted and fallible, “I MAY BE WRONG (But I think You’re Wonderful)” is a favorite song of mine — written by Henry Sullivan (music) and Harry Riskin (lyrics) no matter what the cover states. The lyrics only make sense if one realizes that the singer is seriously myopic. Here’s the verse:
A delightful November 929 recording (the song was a duet in the original presentation) thanks to the splendidly musical Peter Mintun:
and here is my favorite instrumental version, with decades of playing this track on the “Swingville All-Stars” session on the Prestige-Swingville label. (Coleman Hawkins, Joe Newman, J.C. Higginbotham, Jimmy Hamilton, and Claude Hopkins were on another session, which is why Hawk is credited here.)
The band is a gathering of gentle idiosyncratic deities, each singing his own song: Joe Thomas, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Pee Wee Russell, clarinet; Al Sears, Buddy Tate, tenor saxophone; Cliff Jackson, piano; Danny Barker, guitar; Joe Benjamin, string bass; J.C. Heard. drums. New York, May 19, 1961:
I think these performances are wonderful, and in this I don’t think I’m wrong.
My gratitude to Peter Mintun and to Michael Burgevin, who introduced me to Joe Thomas.
Some years before I met the reedman Sammy Margolis in New York City (at the Half Note, 1971, sitting in with his friend Ruby Braff) I had heard and admired him on record: a floating player, thoughtful, incorporating Bud Freeman, Lester Young, and Pee Wee Russell into his own gentle conception. He was never loud or forceful, but a sonic watercolorist.
In the next few years, I had the good fortune to hear and record him in several gigs: at Brew’s, at the New School, on an afternoon gig in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, at the Root Cellar in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, along with Vic Dickenson, Jack Fine, Marshall Brown, Doc Cheatham, Mike Burgevin, Dick Wellstood, Dill Jones, and others. I was a shy college student, reluctant to impose myself in conversation with my heroes, although from what I know of Sam, he would have made me welcome.
This was my first aural introduction to Sammy, serene in Ruby Braff’s energized wake, thoughtfully creating songs of his own:
and Sammy’s beautiful interlude in the company of George Wein:
About a year ago, I made friends (thanks to Facebook) with his multi-talented daughter Carla, who generously shared her memories of her father. I offer her extended loving portrait to you now, with thanks.
Sammy and Louis: photograph by Jack Bradley, courtesy of the Louis Armstrong House Museum
My dad had a fraternal twin brother who was also musically talented. He played piano by ear and whenever they went to the movies as kids, his brother would come home and play themes the pianist played during the showings, having somehow retained all of that musical information in his head. My Uncle Carl (for who I am named) tragically died young (I think from glomular neuphritis) after having returned home from WWII.
His father was a housepainter who died from a burst appendix when my dad was eight. His 12 year old (?) brother Mortie had to go to work as did his mother. He had two sisters as well.
I’m not even sure how he and Ruby came to be friends. As my dad often loved to say, “Oh, yes, I’ve been friends with Ruby many times.” My mother actually dated Ruby first. I don’t know what happened there, but then my mother started dating my dad.
Sammy and Ruby Braff, photograph by Jack Bradley, courtesy of the Louis Armstrong House Museum
The recordings that you sent me, around 1974, I was surprised that Ruby was on there. I heard so much about Ruby, but I never met him until I was a teenager. I was under the impression that they were on the outs, and I thought maybe it was because of the relationship with my mother, but I don’t know. They both were Boston people who came to New York, but they were really not the same people, my father and Ruby.
On records, he was the sideman for Ruby most of the time. But he was on a Martin Mull recording that Ruby wasn’t on. I didn’t know that he was on fifteen recordings! He talked about how much he hated doing studio work, that it made him very anxious. He didn’t like recording. And I didn’t find out until maybe two and a half years ago that he was on so many recordings.
Ruby and my dad loved Bud Freeman and Lester Young, but he had considered jumping the fence into be-bop. He strongly considered that, because that was what was coming, what was current. He claimed that Ruby had talked him out of it, so they both stayed on that side of the fence. I don’t know if he was happy about that decision or not, I don’t know how that went. He didn’t have a great opinion about bop — I went to Indiana University and I was a jazz studies major, and he was kind of unenthusiastic about it, but then he started listening to it more . . .
I do remember going to Brew’s and the Red Blazer with him. I remember going to Doylestown, Pennsylvania with him, the club that had the big murals at the back of the stage, Mike Burgevin’s THE ROOT CELLAR. He took me to the hotel once, and I remember telling him that I wouldn’t go to bed until he played SATIN DOLL. I was about nine.
Kenny Davern, Mike Burgevin, and Sammy at Brew’s, New York City: courtesy Chuck Slate
When I was in my teens, he had me sitting in a lot, singing, when he was playing at Jimmy Ryan’s with Max Kaminsky, who was the leader. Ernie Hackett, Bobby Hackett’s son, was playing drums. The trombonist might have been Bobby Pratt. One night I sat in and Roy Eldridge was in the audience, my dad introduced me to him, and I was “Yeah, okay, I don’t know who that is.” I’m really glad I didn’t know who Roy was when I was singing! I remember going to Eddie Condon’s with him, and he played a lot in the basement of the Empire State Building, at a restaurant called the Riverboat.
Back row: Sammy, Ruby, Vic Dickenson, Jackie Williams, Al Hall; front: Wayne Wright, Jimmy Andrews. Brew’s, New York City. Photograph by Mike Burgevin, courtesy Chuck Slate.
A musical interlude, 1974, part one:
and part two:
He was really making a living doing these gigs. He wasn’t doing anything else. In the summers he would play in the Catskills, all summer. The Italian Catskills, not the Jewish Catskills. I went with him one time; I usually spent my summers with him because my mom and dad weren’t together. From the time I was about eight I spent summers with him in New York. My mother sang a little bit but I wouldn’t call her a singer although she liked to sing. She was an actor and dancer who sang. She came to New York for that, and my dad was impressed with her dancing but he never saw her act, which I find astonishing, because that’s what her big aspirations were, and that’s what she did, mostly. She was a dancer at the Copacabana, and I don’t know where else. And she studied at the Herbert Berghoff Studio. But she later became a lawyer. Because of them, I grew up with a lot of exposure to musical theater and to jazz.
My father was really sweet and affectionate. He read a lot of Krishnamurti. He was very much into health foods and supplements, always reading up on those things. He was into ayurvedic medicine. He ate other things, but he wanted me to be very healthy. He was, although culturally, ethnically and gastronomically Jewish, an atheist, but interested in Eastern philosophy. Despite his avid interest in health foods, supplements, etc., he did enjoy the occasional hamburger and jelly doughnut and Sanka with Sweet and Low. When I asked him about that he responded “Years of bad habits.”
He was also a really good athlete, very athletic, forever, up until right before he died. He played golf and tennis. I remember he and Ruby had done a date in Hawaii with Tony Bennett, and when they came back he and Tony played tennis often. Once when they were playing tennis, some guy from the club asked Tony if he would play with him after he got done playing with his instructor (meaning my dad)…my mom loved telling that story.
I remember we went to Tony’s apartment one time and had lunch. Tony had artwork there and I thought that was really cool, because my dad was also a really lovely artist as well. He did a lot of watercolors. I don’t know what happened to his art, whether he got rid of it when he moved to Florida in 1990 or 1991, but it disappeared and I wanted to have some of it.
Portrait of the singer Connie Greco by Sammy Margolis
In NYC, he lived in Hell’s Kitchen on 44th and 10th Avenue. At that time, one had to be rather paranoid to stay safe from crime. Of course he was diligent about locking his car and his apartment. Once he moved to Deerfield Beach, Florida, he refused to live in fear and refused to lock his apartment or his car. Whenever I visited him in Florida, he would not allow me to lock anything either, which I found hilarious. I lived in NYC at the time, and understood completely.
He had had rheumatic fever as a child, and later that caused a leaky heart valve, so some time in the late Eighties he had surgery to replace the heart valve – several surgeries, because there was an artificial heart valve that his body rejected, then there was a pig valve which worked, but he had to be very careful. I’m not sure if he knew that he had prostate cancer before he moved to Florida. He moved down there to relax, to be a “snowbird” with family who spent winters in Palm Springs. There were a lot of musician friends who had retired to Florida, so he did do some gigs there – but he was basically retired when he went down there. He was very worried that the heart problem was going to do him in, but it was the prostate cancer, and they couldn’t do surgery because of the heart problem.
When I took my son down to Florida as a baby (I think that was the last time my dad saw him), I had to go to the laundry room in his complex, leaving him alone with my son (who could stand up but wasn’t yet talking). He played clarinet for my son to keep him amused. I only caught the tail end of it when I returned. It was so cute, my son was enthralled.
He was very funny, very outgoing, and he had hilarious stories. He was a very good storyteller, and I loved that. There was a story about a tiger in Bermuda, but I don’t remember how it went. He spent some time on cruise ships going to Bermuda, and he used to bring back gifts for me and art. There’s one statue of a woman which I have in my house now that he always had on the mantel in his living room.
He loved taking me to museums, to art museums, oh my gosh. He would talk to me about composition, and he loved Matisse and vibrant colors. Did you know he studied at the Art Students’ League? I mean, he felt it was really kind of a curse to be really good at a lot of things, but not just art. He was an intellectual, and some things he didn’t really have to try to be good at. Cooking and art and more. He was a thinker, and that may have been hard for him later. He loved Nature, and we’d go to Central Park, and he’d set up some watercolors and we’d draw, but he didn’t interfere with what I was doing, he would just let me do my thing.
Whenever we were walking down the street in New York, and we did a lot of walking together, and he was always singing or humming. All the time! – when we were talking or even when we were. He was a man full of music. There was never ever a second when it wasn’t turned on. I should record THE MORE I SEE YOU for him, because he always wanted me to do that song. I don’t know why it was that particular one, but he did. And he used to sing ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET all the time.
He loved having me sing, whenever I was with him in a club. Once I started that, he loved it. And he would give me really, really helpful feedback. Truly helpful. He was not overly critical of my singing at all. No, he was lavishing praise, But when I wanted to be a music major in college – I started out as a French major –which was actually useless to me (what was I going to do with that?) when I was at Indiana University. But I had friends who were musicians, I interacted with them, and they were super-surprised that I was not a music major. “You should be a music major!” they told me. I was terrified that I would not get in to the program. I went and did an unofficial audition for David Baker first, and he sent me to this classical vocal teacher, then, with their blessing, I officially auditioned for the music school there. I got it, but I didn’t tell anybody at all that I had auditioned.
Then I called my dad to tell him I had gotten in, and he was tickled, he was beside himself with joy. He hung up the phone, and thirty seconds later he called me back. “Are you sure you don’t want to get a different major as a backup? Why don’t you stick with the French?” And I looked at the phone, and I was like, “French??? French is more useless than music. I don’t know what the hell I would do with French. Go somewhere and translate?” I had no vision how that would work into my life. It cracked me up that he was so overjoyed and then called me back and was “Wait, wait, wait . . . . “ It was the mentality he grew up with; my dad was born in 1923. I mean, when I moved back to New York as an adult, I saw him every week, at least once a week, we had our official dinner once a week. I had a day gig at a Japanese insurance company, because I could type. And he would tell me, “You know, my dream for you, my goal for you, my life-dream is for you to marry some businessman you meet around there.” “Wow. Really? Your dream for me?” It didn’t work out that way. Maybe he was right, I don’t know. He was worried that if I became a singer I would become an alcoholic. He was sure those two things went together. It did not happen, but he was very, very worried about that.
He also helped me be prepared when dealing with musicians, even on pick-up dates, sitting in, or being a leader. He really told me, “You know, musicians are going to hate you because you’re a singer. You really have to be super prepared so that they respect you.” I thought that was the best piece of advice anybody could give me. I was incredibly spoiled by all the musicians I met even when I was a little girl. But when I was little even though I played a little piano, I didn’t know what keys I sang in. I’d just start to sing, they would find the key, and it would be fine. I was spoiled by that. But things change.
I remember meeting Vic Dickenson and Doc Cheatham, Marshall Brown, Mike Burgevin, Kenny Davern, and of course Max Kaminsky. Oh, there’s a sad thing. I was supposed to meet Louis Armstrong, my dad really wanted to introduce me to him, but I was in Michigan and Louis died before I got back to New York, but later I did meet Lucille Armstrong. Dill Jones was the first pianist to play for me in public. My mom and dad were both really good friends with Jack Bradley. My sister said – I wasn’t old enough to understand this – that Jack facilitated it so that my mother bought Louis’ cream-colored Cadillac from Louis for five hundred dollars. I remember that car very well and I know there was some connection to Jack Bradley and Louis.
That same evening. Photograph by Mike Burgevin.
In the Seventies, when I was in New York with him, he would go off and do gigs at night, and I wasn’t going out at night so I would stay at the apartment watching TV, but I got hold of his fakebook, and I was going through it, listening to jazz recordings that he had, and jazz radio – he listened to WNEW – teaching myself songs from that fakebook. Even though I couldn’t really read music yet, I would listen to people singing the songs and I would follow along. I learned a lot of tunes that way. I wouldn’t have learned them with him around, or my mother around: that was solo contemplation.
And on those recordings you sent, you said there were people talking at the start, and I thought, “Oh, I hope I get to hear his voice!” and he wasn’t talking, but he was in the background warming up his saxophone, and that’s why he wasn’t talking, he was on the stand already.
There’s a story my dad liked to tell, and in my recollection I cannot do it justice because I cannot give you his facial expressions or inflections. He was at his friend’s apartment in upper Manhattan (I don’t remember whose apartment, possibly Lou Levy’s?). Dave Lambert was at the party. Jazz records were being played (of course). Someone knocked on the door and the host asked my dad to answer. He opened the door and Duke Ellington was standing there. My dad was so surprised to see one of his idols standing there. After he let him in, the host asked my dad to pick the next record for everyone to listen to. My dad was so nervous because he couldn’t believe he was picking music for Ellington to listen to. I wish I could remember what he chose. But evidently it was something Ellington liked.
Here is Ruby Braff’s elegy for his friend, Ruby’s liner note to the 1996 BEING WITH YOU (Arbors):
This album, this salute to Louis, is as much about Sam Margolis as it is about Pops!
So much of my musical thinking was formed and inspired by the musical dedication and artistic humility of Sam, my old friend and teacher. No one ever did or could pay more homage to the genius and influence that Louis had on every aspect of American music. In that sense, Sam was a great champ and winner.
On March 23, 1996 tragedy struck out group of friends and many others! Our Sammy lost his fight with cancer. To the end he went with great courage and gallantry! My thoughts were about him as we made this recording a scant few weeks later.
Every one who knew him will miss this enormously talented person of profound influence. Jack Bradley’s great picture of Sam and Pops is the way I think he’d like to be remembered.
May God grant him the eternal peace his great soul deserves.
We will never forget you, Sam . . .
I would add to those grieving words my own perception that Sammy Margolis, up close or at a distance, was a joyous individual, a remarkable man: gentle, funny, modest, multi-talented. I regret now that my shyness got in the way of a real conversation, because I feel that Sammy would have engaged my young self with kindness.
There will be more music to celebrate Sammy, and perhaps JAZZ LIVES’ readers have their own tales. He deserves to be well-remembered. And my deep thanks to Carla Margolis for her memories above.
People who draw “jazz history trees” love to create categories that are often divisive, at best restrictive. For those so inclined, whether critics, journalists, or “fans,” the art form is defined as discrete sections, painted lines in an aesthetic shopping-center parking lot.
The musicians laugh about such dopiness, and not only talk to their friends but play alongside them. Happily.
Here’s a passionate interlude that refutes such categorization, from the Nice Jazz Festival of July 15, 1976. The set was called “Jeru and some friends,” “Jeru” being the baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, who made himself at home with musicians “from different schools” where and whenever he could, including Count Basie, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell, and Joe Sullivan — and I am sure that is only a fraction of the friendly gatherings he participated in.
I love the fact that the common language is “the three B’s,” or in jazz terms, “Basie,” “the blues,” and “ballads.”
Nice Jazz Festival (audio only); “”Grande Parade du Jazz,” July 15, 1976.
Gerry Mulligan, baritone saxophone; Harry “Sweets” Edison, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Marian McPartland, piano; Dave Samuels, vibraphone; Percy Heath, string bass; Alan Dawson, drums. I FOUND A NEW BABY / NIGHT LIGHTS / WHILE WE’RE YOUNG (Marian, solo) / I’LL BE AROUND (Mullgan-Marian) / YESTERDAYS (Sweets) / TEA FOR TWO / SHINY STOCKINGS.
Miraculous to me, but common friendly practice to these wise feeling players:
I was born either too early or too late to truly appreciate Walt Disney films, but a few of the songs are very dear to me: WITH A SMILE AND A SONG, WISHING WILL MAKE IT SO, and WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR, which has been recorded and improvised on by many of my heroes.
Over the past few months, I have been making my way through my CD shelves, repackaging them in flexible plastic sleeves rather than the more cumbersome jewel-boxes, and yesterday I came across the CD recorded live in 1973 by Marian and Jimmy McPartland, Vic Dickenson, Buddy Tate, Rusty Gilder, and Gus Johnson. Rather than his usual features (IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD or MANHATTAN) Vic chooses this song, and the result — an unadorned two-chorus melodic effort with the key change upwards for the last eight bars — touches me so that I wanted to share it with you. And that led me to a quick survey of a wonderful composition. I don’t know whether Alec Wilder would have singled out Leigh Harline’s music and Ned Washington’s lyrics for praise, but they are emotionally rich to me. And who among us doesn’t have dreams?
The source, an uncredited Cliff Edwards in 1940, beautifully at the top of his vocal range:
Vic Dickenson, Marian McPartland, Rusty Gilder, Gus Johnson at the Royal Box of the Americana Hotel, New York City, June 1973. Jimmy McPartland says, “Wasn’t that pretty?” Who would disagree?
Ruby Braff, Vic, Sam Margolis, Nat Pierce, Walter Page, Jo Jones 1955, one of the lesser-known Vanguard sessions:
And Louis 1968, monumental and tender both:
“If your heart is in your dream / No request is too extreme.”
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:
JAZZ LIVES 