To celebrate the publication of his book REALLY THE BLUES, Mezz Mezzrow was the star of a concert at New York’s Town Hall on January 1, 1947 as a benefit for the American Committee for Yugoslav Relief.
The basic band was Muggsy Spanier, Sandy Williams, Sidney Bechet, Mezz Mezzrow, Sammy Price or Art Hodes, Wellman Braud, Baby Dodds. Later in the evening Bob Wilber’s Wildcats were added: Johnny Glasel, Ed Hubble, Bob Wilber, Dick Wellstood, Charlie Traeger, Eddie Phyfe. Coot Grant and Kid Sox Wilson also performed. The concert was recorded on twelve-inch acetates on two machines (hooray!) and ten performances were issued on lp — Jazz Archives JA-39 — but what follows was not.
Quite simply, it is an exultant hymn of praise to Louis.
It’s a life-changing performance of WHEN YOU’RE SMILING by Johnny Windhurst, unlisted in Tom Lord’s discography, with Bechet, prominent, and Dick Wellstood on piano. My guess is that the veterans gave place to the Youngbloods, but it’s Windhurst who catches our ears and our hearts. Rather like Hot Lips Page in his prime, Windhurst seems energetically lit from within, and just when you think he might have had enough or done enough, he takes another chorus. Radiantly.
After Mezz’s announcement, the roadmap (to my ears) is one ensemble statement of the theme, one chorus by Bechet; one chorus by Wellstood; one by Eddie Hubble, trombone; two choruses by Windhurst with Bechet and the ensemble joining in. The tape I was working with was a copy of a reel-to-reel tape where the plastic had started to decay, alas, so there is some distortion and tape squeal. But if you can turn away from Windhurst’s shining Louisness because of these flaws, we don’t have much to say to each other.
Incidentally, the question, “How’s your Louisness?” is, I believe, a co-invention of two of my favorite people, Riley and Clint Baker. . . . it is another way of saying, “How’s your internal spiritual compass?” and “Have you spread some joy today?” They do, and certainly young Mister Windhurst does.
The last of five splendid performances that took place at Jazz at Chautauqua, September 21, 2008, celebrating the hot music of the Bechet-Spanier Big Four, enlivened in the present moment by Bob Wilber, clarinet and soprano saxophone; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Marty Grosz, guitar; Vince Giordano, string bass. The first four performances: THAT’S A PLENTY, SQUEEZE ME, SWEET SUE, and IF I COULD BE WITH YOU (ONE HOUR TONIGHT) can be savored here.
And the inspiration, although not on the original Hot Record Society label:
And here we go!
All I will say is that these informally-captured treasures have been in the Official JAZZ LIVES vault for a dozen years. They haven’t gotten stale; in fact, their flavors seem richer today than ever. Bless them all: Sidney Bechet, Muggsy Spanier, Carmen Mastren, Wellman Braud, Steve Smith (HRS record producer), Vince Giordano, Marty Grosz, Jon-Erik Kellso, Bob Wilber, Joe Boughton, family, and friends . . . even the people crossing in front of me with plates of food and Styrofoam cups of coffee, because they, as the audience, made Jazz at Chautauqua possible. Days gone by.
The scene of the gorgeous music, and now, the poignant memories:
Where it happened!
The inspiration:
The reality, as created forty-eight years later, by Bob Wilber, soprano saxophone; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Marty Grosz, guitar; Vince Giordano, string bass:
How lyrically they swing out — and before noon, no less. For those of you who slept late (in a manner of speaking) here you can enjoy the first three songs performed that morning: THAT’S A PLENTY, SQUEEZE ME, and SWEET SUE.
Three footnotes.
My title . . . in my suburban town, parking meters ornament the sidewalks except for a very few oases. And municipalities such as mine are always looking for more money, so when I moved here in 2004, a quarter bought me sixty minutes on the meter. A few years ago, the Code Enforcement people decided that this was too generous, and now I’d need two quarters for the same time. Love, or even a trip to the pizza parlor, became twice as costly. But still worth the price.
The title of the song. Exhibit A:
But also Exhibit B:
I prefer the latter, perhaps because I was trained by the late — and very much missed — John L. Fell, who would type WDYINO for the famous song about New Orleans. Life is too short to spell everything out, and you can always ask.
Finally, when my hero Vic Dickenson, very late in his life, sang ONE HOUR, when he got to that phrase, he would very clearly and vehemently hold up two fingers so that everyone could see that sixty minutes would be insufficient for “I’d love you strong.” You can see that performancehere — a small masterpiece.
One more performance from 2008 exists: see you and it tomorrow.
As JAZZ LIVES waves adieu to 2020, we continue with our series of five memorably hot performances created at Jazz at Chautauqua on a Sunday morning, September 21, 2008, by Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Bob Wilber, clarinet and soprano saxophone; Marty Grosz, guitar; Vince Giordano, string bass — honoring irreplaceable recordings from 1940 featuring Sidney Bechet, Muggsy Spanier, Carmen Mastren, and Wellman Braud, known to us as the “Bechet-Spanier Big Four.”
If this is your first immersion in Hot, you can visit the first two splendid performances — THAT’S A PLENTY and SQUEEZE ME — here.
And here’s Will J. Harris and Victor Young’s 1928 paean to Miss Sue, with a charmingly period sheet music cover to start the good works.
and the sounds of 2008 as we — hopeful and cautious — peer into 2021:
thanks to Bob Wilber, soprano saxophone; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Marty Grosz, guitar; Vince Giordano, string bass. For Part One (THAT’S A PLENTY) and more explication, click here. Today, our breakfast menu has one item, Fats Waller’s airbrushing of THE BOY IN THE BOAT into SQUEEZE ME:
Delightful. Timeless. And this Big Four played three more. No fractions.
It was a Sunday morning, 10:30 or so, and perhaps half of the audience was deep in contemplation of their breakfasts on September 21, 2008.
But magic larger than bacon and coffee was being revealed to us. We can revisit it now: festival director Joe Boughton’s idea to recreate the Bechet-Spanier Big Four of Blessed Memory (1940, Hot Record Society: Sidney Bechet, Muggsy Spanier, Carmen Mastren, Wellman Braud) with living Masters: Bob Wilber, clarinet and soprano; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Marty Grosz, guitar; Vince Giordano, string bass. Five songs were performed, each a Hot Benediction:
I had no video empire then — no collection of cameras, tripods, batteries, external hard drives — and I recorded this quite surreptitiously. But I didn’t want it to vanish. For you, for me, forevermore.
The astonishing eBay treasure chest called jgautographs has opened its lid again. Apparently the trove is bottomless, since the latest offering is 118 items under “jazz,” with only a few debatable entries. “Donovan,” anyone? But the depth and rarity and authenticity are dazzling.
Consider this Ellington collection, including Joe Nanton, Billy Taylor, Fred Guy, Juan Tizol, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, and the Duke himself:
The appropriate soundtrack, give or take a few years — Ellington at Fargo, 1940 with the ST. LOUIS BLUES (wait for “WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK”):
Incidentally, someone wrote in and said, “Michael, are they paying you to do this?” and the answer is No, and that’s fine. Imagine my pleasure at being able to share Joe Nanton’s signature with people who just might value it as I do.
Here’s Meade Lux Lewis:
And his very first Blue Note issue, from 1939, MELANCHOLY BLUES:
Taft Jordan, star of Chick Webb, Duke, and his own bands:
Taft in 1936, singing and playing ALL MY LIFE with Willie Bryant:
“Mr. Rhythm,” Freddie Green, with an odd annotation:
a 1938 solo by Freddie (with Pee Wee, James P. Dicky, Max, and Zutty):
Tyree Glenn, a veteran before he joined Louis (Cab Calloway and Duke):
Tyree’s ballad, TELL ME WHY:
The wonderful Swedish singer Karin Krog:
Karin and Bengt Hallberg, joining BLUE AND SENTIMENTAL and SENTIMENTAL AND MELANCHOLY:
The link at the top of this post will lead you to more than a hundred other marvels — the delighted surprises I will leave to you. And as in other eBay auctions, you or I are never the only person interested in an item . . .
First, the soundtrack to get you in the mood for jazz speculation, even though the subject of this wonderful performance is romance, not authenticity of paper ephemera (anything that gives me an excuse to listen to and share Louis is always welcome):
Now, two pieces of evidence, just spotted today on eBay. The first one comes from a Detroit newspaper, with no other details, advertising something I would have liked to participate in: a personal appearance and autograph signing by an artist I admire, Tommy Dorsey:
My questions are perhaps reasonable but at this distance, I think unanswerable. What was the name of the record? Should we assume that the Dorsey band was playing a gig at the State Fair? When was this? And (most poignantly) when can I expect the R.C.A. VICTOR DANCE CARAVAN show up to my town?
I hear some of you hissing, “Never, Michael, never!” to which I say, “I’ll bet you think Toto is dead, too.” The link is here — should you want this mysterious sentimental artifact for your own.
The second item also raises questions: advertised as an autographed glossy photograph of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, each member signing his name in fountain pen, a glorious photograph that I had not seen before:
And here is the Ellington link. I was a little skeptical at first, because real on-the-spot autographs tend to be less careful, and I wondered that everyone in the band either had the same fountain pen or they passed it from one to another. I would guess that the photograph lay flat on a table for it to be signed by all those heroes ever so neatly. But I stopped worrying when I saw that Sonny Greer had signed “Luck always,” which is the way he signed a Jazz Panorama lp for me in the Seventies. Perhaps someone can say why the bassist — Wellman Braud, I assume — didn’t sign. Now there‘s a mystery.
I can’t afford the Ellington photograph, but it’s lovely to see.
If you look for me, I’ll be scanning the street for Tommy Dorsey. And I have my own fountain pen, thank you.
When I am in conversation with someone new and the talk turns to my pursuit of live jazz in New York City, the question will be, “I suppose you go uptown to hear music? Do you go to . . . ” And then my questioner will mention some club, usually now-vanished, in what he or she thinks of as “Harlem.” My answer nearly always causes surprised perplexity, “No, almost every place I frequent is below Fourteenth Street — you know, Greenwich Village.”
Nearly seventy-five years ago (before my time) the Village was a thriving place for hot jazz to flourish, with clubs and venues now legendary but long gone.
One of the quiet heroes of hot piano was Cliff Jackson, who began his career as accompanist to female blues singers but always as a striding player on his own or as the leader of a big band, an in-demand sideman, intermission pianist, and valued soloist. (And he was married to Maxine Sullivan until his death in 1969.)
Cliff Jackson, 1947, photograph by William P. Gottlieb
In the last years of the Second World War, several independent record companies (notably Black and White and Disc) took the opportunity to record Jackson, either solo or in bands. He was a remarkable player, full of charging percussive energy, with singularly strong left-hand patterns (just this week I found out, thanks to the great player / informal historian Herb Gardner, that Jackson was left-handed, which explains a good deal).
Here are three sides from a remarkable and remarkably little-known session for Black and White by the Cliff Jackson Quartet, featuring Pee Wee Russell, Bob Casey, and Jack Parker. Pee Wee and Casey were long associated with Eddie Condon bands (Eddie featured Cliff in concert and on the television “Floor Show” often). I am assuming that Jack and Jack “the Bear” Parker, both drummers, are one and the same, recording with Eddie Heywood, Don Byas, Eddie South, Hot Lips Page, Mary Lou Williams, Pete Johnson, Leo Parker, Babs Gonzales — and he’s on Louis’ BECAUSE OF YOU and Nat Cole’s 1946 THE CHRISTMAS SONG as well).
The quartet speaks the common language with grace and eloquence. We get to hear Cliff at length, and Bob Casey has a fine solo. Pee Wee seems particularly unfettered: he was the sole horn on sessions that happened once every few years (with Joe Sullivan and Jess Stacy for Commodore) and I think not being placed between trumpet, trombone, and baritone saxophone made for greater freedom. That freedom means great sensitivity on ONE HOUR, and wonderfully abstract phrases on WEARY BLUES.
from Fats to James P. Johnson:
and back in time to Artie Matthews:
Readers who are well-versed or have discographies (some might be both) will note that the YouTube poster has not offered us Cliff’s minor original, QUIET PLEASE. Yes, there are a number of offerings of this song by Cliff, but they are of a 12″ Black and White session including Bechet, the DeParis brothers, Gene Sedric, Everett Barksdale, Wellman Braud, Eddie Dougherty — a true gathering of individualists. But — before there is wailing and gnashing of teeth from the cognoscenti — a nearly new copy of the quartet’s QUIET PLEASE arrived yesterday from my most recent eBay debauch, and if the stars are in proper alignment, it could emerge on this very site.
I keep coming back to the videos I’ve shot at several yearly incarnations of the San Diego Jazz Fest — and finding treasures and marvels I’d overlooked. (I also keep coming back to the actual Fest, but that should startle no one.)
Jonathan Doyle
Here are some highlights from a long quartet set performed by Ray Skjelbred, piano; Jonathan Doyle, the swing star from Austin, Texas; Beau Sample, string bass and leader of the Fat Babies; Hal Smith, who’s played with and swung everyone who deserves it.
Beau Sample
My titles are an expression of whimsical shorthand, but there’s nothing left out in these performances. First, a swing trio (Chicago pays San Diego a visit) then quartet improvisations that are delightful inducements to the dance, even if you are sitting in a chair.
Hal Smith
MY HONEY’S LOVIN’ ARMS (scored for trio):
A song I associate with Bessie Smith, I’M WILD ABOUT THAT THING (decide for yourself what THAT THING is, but no need to write in, because no prizes will be awarded for the best answer). I’m wild about this performance, I feel compelled to say:
BLUES MY NAUGHTY SWEETIE GIVES TO ME (in a medium tempo sitting nicely between Noone and Condon):
I’LL NEVER BE THE SAME (evoking Venuti and Lang, Billie and Lester, or both):
Finally, THE 313 JUMP, whose title has a new pop culture / numerological significance — just Ducky:
See you at the 2016 San Diego Jazz Fest — Thanksgiving weekend, Nov. 23-27. Of course.
A postscript. The jazz-scholar part of my being says that I could have written a thousand words on Influences and Echoes, with a long list of names, including Jess Stacy, Joe Sullivan, Earl Hines, Frank Melrose, Rod Cless, Frank Teschemacher, Lester Young, Eddie Miller, Wellman Braud, George Wettling, Jo Jones, Sidney Catlett, Milt Hinton . . . but I will let you do the research for yourself — in whatever way offers the most satisfying results. I’d rather revel in the actual sounds made by Smith, Sample, Doyle, and Skjelbred on a late November day in 2014.
First, the uplifting and relevant soundtrack. Recorded January 30, 1940, by Jelly Roll Morton’s Seven for General Records: Henry “Red” Allen, trumpet; Claude Jones, trombone; Albert Nicholas, clarinet; Eddie Williams, alto saxophone; Jelly Roll Morton, piano, vocal, composer; Wellman Braud, string bass; Zutty Singleton, drums:
Morton made such an impact as composer, arranger, pianist . . . that we run the risk of forgetting just how wonderful he was as a singer. This record, and others from these late session, show his awareness of what a hit Fats Waller was for Victor, the record company that Morton may have felt had shown him only intermittent love. Finally, this song is very contemporary — in Morton’s mythical Southern town, much of the lyric has to do with produce, obviously organic, locally grown, and no doubt delicious.
I’ve seen photographs of the sheet music for several late Morton songs. Most sheet music issued by the major companies had photographs and elaborate artwork: Tempo Music had a much smaller budget:
Two more improvisations on SOUTHERN TOWN, before we move on. A contemporary version (from December 1995):
Bob Barnard, cornet; Keith Ingham, piano; Earl May, string bass; Jackie Williams, drums.
Even more contemporary! From November 7, 2014, at the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, with Bent Persson, trumpet; Graham Hughes, trombone; Jean-Francois Bonnel, Thomas Winteler, reeds; Morten Gunnar Larsen, piano; Jacob Ullberger, guitar; Henri Lemaire, string bass; Nick Ball, drums.
Attentive readers will notice “that paper” in my title, and here it is.
Hereis an astonishing item for sale on eBay. My friend Kris Bauwens(of Gent, Belgium) — one of the great collectors of jazz autographs — told me about it yesterday. Yes, six thousand dollars. But an easy payment plan:
a closer look at that signature:
and the inside:
continued:
turning the page:
continued:
and the back cover:
At the end of Eudora Welty’s classic 1941 story, “A Worn Path,” an elderly lady from the Mississippi backwoods, Phoenix Jackson, plans to buy her grandson a paper windmill. “He going to find it hard to believe there such a thing in the world.” That is my reaction to the autographed MY HOME IS IN A SOUTHERN TOWN.
Should you like more information about Mister Jelly Lord, I urge you to read SO WHO KNEW? — a brief post that attracted a good deal of attention.
Here’s Alex Hill’s description of a “house rent party,” circa 1934, as enacted by Louis Prima, George Brunis, Eddie Miller, Claude Thornhill, Benny Pottle, Nappy Lamare, Stan King:
The legendary singer and activist Barbara Dane — 87 this May — isn’t exactly raising money to pay her own rent, but she is starring in a musical fundraiser for the Bothwell Arts Center in Livermore, California — on Saturday night, July 19, 2014. Barbara will be joined by her musical friends Tammy Hall, piano; Angela Wellman, trombone; Richard Hadlock, soprano sax/clarinet, as well as a string bassist and drummer. More details here.
I can’t promise that the items listed in Alex Hill’s lyrics — corn liquor, chitlins, potato salad, pigs’ feet, spaghetti — will be on sale at the Bothwell. In fact, I think you will probably have to have your dinner before or after the concert. What I can promise is enthusiastic, deeply-felt, authentic music from someone who has performed with the greatest artists in all kinds of music — from Louis Armstrong to Pete Seeger, Lu Watters, Earl Hines, Bobby Hackett, Wellman Braud, Lightnin’ Hopkins and many more.
I had the good fortune to see and record Barbara and a hot band at KCSM-FM’s JAZZ ON THE HILL, and I present the results here. As Jack Teagarden sang in SAY IT SIMPLE, “If that don’t get it, well, forget it for now.”
But don’t forget our Saturday date with Ms. Dane and friends.
Pianist, bandleader, composer, and occasional vocalist Ray Skjelbred is gently but obstinately authentic, a prophet and beacon of deep Chicago jazz — whether it’s tender, gritty, or romping. He and the Cubs proved this again (they always do) at their November 2013 appearances at the San Diego Jazz Fest. For this weekend, The Cubs were Kim Cusack, clarinet, vocal; Clint Baker, string bass, tuba, vocal; Katie Cavera, guitar, vocal; Mike Daugherty, drums, vocal.
SIX POINT BLUES:
EVERY EVENING:
A highlight for all of us — heartfelt and quietly fervent — ANY TIME, ANY DAY, ANYWHERE:
Alienation of affections or kidnapping was never so festive as this rendition of SOMEBODY STOLE MY GAL:
HO HUM!:
PIANO MAN:
DARKTOWN STRUTTERS BALL:
That music is good news for us all. But more good news — larger and more tangible than the computer monitor — is coming: the Cubs are making a California tour in early July 2014, beginning in two weeks. Jeff Hamilton will be on drums, along with the regulars you see above.
Thursday, July 10: Rossmoor Dixieland Jazz Club in Walnut Creek CA. For more information visit here.
Friday, July 11: Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park, California. 7:30 – 10:00 PM. (1010 El Camino Real, dress casual, good food and drink and a sweet atmosphere).
Saturday, July 12: Cline Wine and Jazz Festival in Sonoma, California. The Cubs will play three sets: for details, visit here.
Sunday, July 13: Napa Valley Dixieland Jazz Society. For more information visit: here.
Monday, July 14: Le Colonial in San Francisco, California (20 Cosmo Place). For more information visit here.
The admiring shades of Alex Hill, Sidney Catlett, Lee Wiley, Eddie Condon, Count Basie, Earl Hines, Sippie Wallace, Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Noone, Cassino Simpson, Tut Soper, Frank Melrose, Pee Wee Russell, Joe Sullivan, Jess Stacy, Wellman Braud, Frank Teschemacher, Gene Krupa, and scores of unheralded blues musicians stand behind this band — as the Cubs make their own lovely ways to our ears and hearts. Panaceas without side-effects.
It’s not exactly what you might think: David Merrick hasn’t returned from the Great Beyond to stage a musical autobiography of Sidney Bechet. A pity, because Bechet’s life is dramatic in itself, even leaving aside his heroic music.
But we don’t have to wait for a Broadway producer to take this on, nor do we have to wait until the right actor is found. (I suspect a modern producer would insist on calling the show SIDNEY!)
What I’m referring to is the opening concert of the Fall 2013 season of the Sidney Bechet Society. Once again, the SBS has collected some of New York’s finest hot players to celebrate Bechet’s sweeping talents: as musician, composer, bandleader.
The players span the generations, but they all have the same spirit: exuberant swing. Leader Ed Polcer, cornet, knows how to kick a band along — as he’s proven so often. Next to him in the front line are the Midiri Brothers, Paul (trombone / vibraphone); Joe (clarinet / soprano saxophone), making their debut at a Bechet Society concert. The rhythm section is made up of Three Rhythm Men of Great Renown: Mark Shane, piano; Frank Tate, string bass; Kevin Dorn, drums.
And the press release hints at evocations of the Bechet-Spanier Big Four, so you know the music will alternate between tenderness and dangerously incendiary.
Here’s one of the original 1940 masterworks, with Carmen Mastren, guitar, and Wellman Braud, string bass:
The concert will take place on Monday, September 9, 2013, beginning at 7:15, at Peter Norton Symphony Space (95th Street and Broadway, or 2537 Broadway) in Manhattan. Tickets are $35 ($10 students / children) and can be purchased by visiting symphonyspace or calling 212-864-5400.
The subject today is The Illusion of Musical Purity in Jazz.
I think it began in the Twenties, when jazzmen themselves made divisions between “commercial” and “hot” music. The former was what you were paid to play — often trivial, unswinging, unimaginative — reading stock arrangements while someone in a tuxedo waved a baton. The latter — the ideal — was what you played at 4 AM with enough gin or muggles or spaghetti (or all three) to make sure that everyone was mellow. Later on, when the fans started to anatomize the music in ways the musicians had never cared to, the fans and journalists built walls stronger than the Berlin version. “Commercial” music was “Swing,” where good guys played insipid pop tunes and took eight-bar solos once a night; “the real thing” was an ideal, rarely achieved.
Think of the posthumous scorn heaped on Paul Whiteman because his Orchestra wasn’t Bix and his Gang; think of those serious jazz fans who traced The Decline of Louis Armstrong to I CAN’T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE taking the place of MAHOGANY HALL STOMP.
But the musicians themselves — while preferring looseness, open-mindedness, swing, and an escape from the paper — never much cared what songs they were playing. Was PISTOL PACKIN’ MAMA unworthy of Bunk Johnson? He didn’t think so. Did John Coltrane disdain MY FAVORITE THINGS, or Charlie Parker A SLOW BOAT TO CHINA?
I have remembered, more than once, Wild Bill Davison’s comment to an interviewer that he never learned or knew THAT’S A PLENTY until he came to New York: in Chicago, he and his friends played swinging improvisations on current and classic pop tunes. As did Eddie Condon, Ellington, Teddy Wilson, Mildred Bailey.
These thoughts were especially prominent in my mind when I found the latest videos from the estimable First Thursday Band — led by pianist Ray Skjelbred — at the New Orleans Creole Restaurant in Seattle, Washington . . . on September 6, 2012. The other members of the FTB are drummer Mike Daughterty, skilled at roll play; bassist Dave Brown, whose beat can’t be beat; multi-instrumentalist Steve Wright. Some of the tunes you will see and hear below — by virtue of jazz instrumentalists playing them memorably — have become “jazz classics.” But they were all popular tunes, premiered in vaudeville, Broadway musicals, the movies, around the parlor piano.
The ambiance here is so reminiscent of an otherwise unknown Chicago club, circa 1934, with the good guys having the time of their life playing requests and songs they like. Close your eyes and you’ll hear not only Wright, Brown, Daugherty, and Skjelbred, but Frank Melrose, Earl Hines, Alex Hill, Zinky Cohn; Guy Kelly, Jimmie Noone, Frank Teschmacher, Wellman Braud, Milt Hinton, Zutty Singleton, Sidney Catlett — the list of happily approving ghosts is very long.
I begin this history / music theory lesson with Wayne King’s theme song — in the wrong hands, as soggy as uncooked French toast, but here snappy and sweet:
THE WALTZ YOU SAVED FOR ME :
Richard Whiting’s SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY, which had a life long before John Hammond handed it to Billie Holiday:
A zippy Harry Barris song from the film extravaganza THE KING OF JAZZ — in our century, adopted as music for penguins — HAPPY FEET (with the verse — and then Skjelbred leaps in like a man possessed):
Isham Jones’ pretty, mournful WHAT’S THE USE? (with a rhythm section that won’t quit):
And from 1919, one of those songs suggesting that happiness could be conveyed by facial expressions, in fact, by loving SMILES:
I don’t mean to suggest that my return to New York after a California summer is as momentous as that of Louis — but the phrase brought to mind this beloved vinyl issue — cover drawing by Thomas B. Allen, I think, and eloquent commentary by Dan Morgenstern.
Being “back in New York” could be defined in a thousand ways . . . but joy for me is being back at The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho) on a Sunday night from 8-11 for a session with the EarRegulars. No fake stereo there, just genuine swinging creativity.
Sunday, September 2, found Matt Munisteri (guitar), Danny Tobias (cornet), Pete Martinez (clarinet), and Jared Engel (string bass) having themselves a time and sharing their pleasure with us. You’ll hear four sweetly intense conversationalists who majored in empathy and telepathy in graduate school. No one steps on anyone else’s line, but it’s clear they all know The Path. And that Path winds around through 1938 Basie, the Keynote sessions, 1929 Ellington, but the EarRegulars are never imprisoned by the past. This music is splendidly vibrant, shining in the twenty-first century.
You’ve never been to The Ear Inn on a Sunday night? You, too, can be BACK IN NEW YORK if you put your mind to it . . . .
MY HONEY’s LOVIN’ ARMS (for Bing and Cutty Cutshall):
CREOLE LOVE CALL (for Barney Bigard and Wellman Braud):
BLUES MY NAUGHTY SWEETIE GIVES TO ME (alas):
I MAY BE WRONG (for Joe Thomas and Pete Brown, among others):
AT THE JAZZ BAND BALL (for Bix and Eddie):
The American Decca Jazz Heritage series started off promisingly, but several reissue projects never got to their second volume. No such worries about The EarRegulars at The Ear Inn . . . many more glorious Sunday sessions to come!
And are you free to join me uptown — Thursday night into Friday morning — for some remarkable hot jazz?
It’s not every day you get to hear Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow and his Blue Bird Recording Orchestra featuring Tommy Ladnier on Trumpets, is it? I have never been to a Sensational Attraction and Dance, myself.
Here’s the official invitation if a newspaper clipping seems too gauche:
I want to know who else was in the band. Teddy Bunn, Elmer James, Manzie Johnson, James P. Johnson, Wellman Braud, Zutty Singleton . . . .? And who knew that Mezz was living at 126th Street and Fifth Avenue at the time. Tommy Ladnier, alas, would be dead on June 4.
Who were the Park Royal Boys? And when did the Congress Casino Ballroom become an office building or an apartment complex?
Thanks to David J. Weiner, sleuth extraordinaire, for this eBay find!
IN THE SHADE OF THE OLD APPLE TREE, composed in 1905 by Williams and Van Alstyne, may have seemed nostalgic even when it first appeared. The lyrics describe some caressing and blushing and a promise of pastoral fidelity although they are now apart. But no one has been thrown out of the Garden.
To establish the song, here’s a 1929 Max Flesicher SCREEN SONGS cartoon — a whole show in itself, with a comic prelude, the cynical vaudeville patter (is the singer Billy Murray?), then two verses, two choruses. The satire of the cartoon jostles the innocence of the lyrics and melody. (As the lyrics describe pastoral pleasures — the birds, bees, and flowers — the sandwich refuses to be eaten, the dachshund is nearly caught in the shrinking building: slapstick proliferates.)
Here’s Duke Ellington’s version from August 15, 1933:
This has been one of my favorite recordings for years, showing once again how beautifully jazz improvisers take the most simple material and make it spacious, relaxing in the freedom that simple melodies and harmonies afford.
It begins with the reed section stating the first notes of the melody against a simple stride figure from Ellington’s piano — a stripped-down Willie “the Lion” Smith motif, perhaps? — that suggests both a vaudeville vamp and someone ambling down the street. The reeds and piano (over Wellman Braud’s happily prominent string bass) converse in a most pastoral manner . . . suggesting that a sweet band is taking the stand (although Duchin could never have managed that piano figure with such swing) until ominous rumblings are heard in the background.
Did a large dog make its way into the Brunswick studios? No, it’s just Cootie Williams with his plunger mute. I think in the second half of the chorus either Freddy Jenkins or Rex Stewart takes over to continue the sweet satire. If, in the first thirty seconds, the Jungle Band was peeking sideways through the sweet foliage, the second half of the first chorus is more raucously comic — the apple tree gets connected to horse racing, to a repeated blues phrase, and the trumpet soloist ends his chorus with what sounds like a genuine guffaw. Obviously more than “the dull buzz of the bee” is evident here.
So far, by the way, one might think this a small band recording — a three-piece rhythm section, a reed section, and one or two trumpeters at most. None of the annunciatory “big band” power of trading sections.
The next eight bars suggest that satire — or at least a distinctively mocking voice — has taken the upper hand. Could anyone mistake the half-muted plunger sound of Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton, offering his own wry commentary on what exactly might be going on in the wildwood — certainly blushing and caressing are the least of it, for the imagined lovers have given full vent to their animal passions! Then Tricky (in the next eight bars) seems to jam his plunger mute fully into the bell of his horn, sounding like another musician completely, ending his chorus with a huge guffaw or Bronx cheer.
So far we’ve had the counterpoint between the decorous (although swinging) reeds delineating the melody and the much naughtier brass voices. Ellington saves his most dramatic soloist for the next chorus — the golden sound of Johnny Hodges, turning this simple melody into a blues, then adding a Louis-inspired upwards phrase to move us completely away from melodic embellishment. There is no satire here — rather a mixture of the blues and a dramatic aria.
One more chorus remains. What sounds like the whole ensemble (did Ellington have all his thirteen players in the studio for this or was it a smaller band?) — muted brass playing staccato phrases, supported by the reed section . . . but wait! A beautiful embroidery of woody, swooping phrases (“that’s Barney Bigard on clarinet / you ain’t never heard nothing like him yet”) decorates the clipped phrasing. That phrasing, to my ears, is so reminiscent of music for a tap-dance routine that I wonder if Ellington began playing this piece in theatres for a group like the Four Step Brothers.
And after a decorous, rather formal ending, the piece closes with a reiteration of those brass mockeries, doo-wahs that look backwards to the Jungle Band and IT DON’T MEAN A THING. Whatever happened under the Old Apple Tree might have been less nostalgic, in Ellington’s imagination.
On paper, this is a very simple series of inventions: the reed section (and then the brass) keeps stating a pared-down version of the melody, while a small number of soloists improvise over it. But what a variety of sounds! And although I may have heard this recording several hundred times, and I know who and what is coming next, it never fails to be a delightful surprise. No drama in volume, just a beautiful series of dance-vignettes celebrating individual sounds.
Twelve years later, Ellington returned to the piece and offered it regularly as part of his 1945 radio broadcasts from theatres. One such version, recorded on May 26 in Chicago, made its way onto a V-Disc, which is how we have it here. The band is larger: Rex Stewart, Shelton Hemphill, Taft Jordan, Cat Anderson (tp) Ray Nance (tp,vln,vcl) Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton, Claude Jones, Lawrence Brown (tb) Jimmy Hamilton (cl,ts) Johnny Hodges (as) Otto Hardwick (as,cl) Al Sears (ts) Harry Carney (bar,cl,b-cl) Duke Ellington (p) Fred Guy (g) Junior Raglin (b) Sonny Greer (d).
The outlines of the original performance are still visible, but the whole recording has a rather leisurely — even lazy — feel to it, as if this was a piece that Ellington’s band didn’t have to work too hard to perform:
And just in case you’d like another taste of the Apple . . . here’s my own personal Paradise, a sublime quintet:
Feeling low? Got a parking ticket? Can’t shake that nasty cold? Worried about the bills? Did you burn the toast?
It’s going to be all right. In fact, it’s already all right.
Make yourself to home and listen to this music. Or — if you’re swiffing around, turn up the volume and feel the deep swinging joy this band creates.
They’re Ray Skjelbred’s First Thursday Band, caught live at the New Orleans Restaurant in Seattle, Washington, on December 1, 2011. They are Ray Skjelbred, piano / leader; Steve Wright, cornet, clarinet, alto and soprano saxes; Dave Brown, string bass; Mike Daugherty, drums.
And — in the spirit of the season — do you hear what I hear? I hear a real jazzband. “What’s that?” I hear someone in the back saying. Well, that’s an improvising group where all the members love the music and work together towards the same purpose, supporting one another in a gritty joyousness appropriate to the song, picking up each others’ cues, playing witty follow-the-leader so that one hears simultaneously a quartet and four strong-minded individualists taking their own path to get to their own versions of Jazz Paradise.
I also hear echoes of Pee Wee Russell, Rod Cless, Fud Livingston, Guy Kelly, Doc Poston, Earl Hines, Frank Melrose, Wellman Braud, Milton J. Hinton, Pops Foster, Eddie Dougherty (a relation, perhaps?), George Wettling — all embodied on December 1, 2011, by living creators who have absorbed the tradition and made it their own. Who cares if people fight cyber-skirnishes in the blogosphere about whether “J**z” is alive or dead? Call this by whatever polite name you like: it is most certainly alive.
The first song and performance that caught my attention was LOVE ME TONIGHT, which is associated in my mind with Earl Hines and Bing Crosby — one hell of a pair! It is a lovely song: with lyrics, one of the most insinuating seduction lyrics I know (perhaps more wooing than A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY): a carpe diem pointed towards the bedroom. But here it’s a bit more lowwdown, suggesting that Chicago jazz was a powerful aphrodisiac as well:
And here’s a lowdown Commodore JADA:
Something unusual from Mister Piano Man — a little solo tribute to someone quite forgotten, Cassino Simpson. All most of us know of him is that he worked with Tiny Parham and did his own Chicago gigs, before succumbing to mental instability. After he unsuccessfully tried to kill Frankie “Half-Pint” Jaxon, he was institutionalized and I believe he spent the rest of his life there. The noble John Steiner took recording equipment to Simpson and recorded him playing piano in 1942: the results, very hard to find even fifty years ago, appeared on a Paramont 10″ lp, which I’ve heard but never seen. Mister Skjelbred gives us a window into the blues — the Cassino Simpson way:
And something pretty, soulful, as well as funky: Ellington’s BLACK BEAUTY:
Here’s a truly mournful TRAV’LIN ALL ALONE (Ethel Waters – Jimmie Noone – Kenny Davern tempo, not Billie’s ironic bounce):
And a rather obscure tune from 1936 — I associate it only with Henry “Red” Allen, but that’s sufficient pedigree for anyone — NOTHING’S BLUE BUY THE SKY:
Something else from Red (circa 1933), his affirmation that everything is really OK — THE RIVER’S TAKIN’ CARE OF ME:
And the song that could stand as the band’s secondary title, summing up their attitude towards their work and their art, LIVIN’ IN A GREAT BIG WAY (think of Bill Robinson, Fats Waller, and Jeni LeGon in STORMY WEATHER). Ray sings the delectable lyrics softly, but you might consider memorizing them — you could do far worse for a mantra to get you through every day:
What exquisite music — delicate and raunchy at the same time!
P.S. I don’t want to be especially preachy, but I would like all the youthful musicians in the house to watch and listen closely to these clips — for the deep unspoken unity of the quartet, the shifting sound-textures, and numberless virtues. Mister Skjelbred doesn’t cover the keyboard with runs and arpeggios (unless he wants to); his left hand is integral to his playing; he could be a whole orchestra but doesn’t trample on anyone. Mister Wright knows everything there is to know about “tonation and phrasing”: not a note is out of place and each one has its own purpose, its own sound. And, children, there were ways of playing the alto saxophone that Charles Parker did not render obsolete. Mister Daugherty does so much with so few cymbals — bless him! — he knows what his snare drum and bass drum are for; he swings those wire brushes, and he is always listening. And Mister Brown, whether plucking or bowing, gets a deep resonant yet flexible sound out of his bass. Want to know what kind of amplifier he uses? It’s called LOVE. And although he can play the guitar beautifully, he doesn’t turn his string bass into one. There! I have spoken. Learn it to the younguns!
When someone tried to get Thelonious Monk up early for the GREAT DAY IN HARLEM photo shoot in 1958, Monk is supposed to have replied — and I don’t think he was joking — that he didn’t know there were two ten o’clocks in the day. Perhaps an extreme statement, but many jazz musicians — by habit, temperament, and experience — are nocturnal creatures. They aren’t terrified of daylight, just unaccustomed to it.
Thus the session that follows is special for reasons above and beyond the fine music that these players produced. It took place on Sunday, September 5, 2011, at the Sweet and Hot Music Festival — and it began at 9:45 AM. But no one complained, because they were taking such delight in each other’s company.
And, even better (perhaps a nod to the irritable shade of the late Kenny Davern) it was a totally acoustic session. No microphones in sight! That’s the way it’s supposed to be but so rarely is — electrified instruments or a forest of microphones. Some sound men and women are expert, sensitive listeners, but it’s such a treat to hear acoustic music in a quiet room — it happens infrequently.
All of this wouldn’t matter if the musicians were ordinary . . . but this band is made up of great players, individualists willing to create something synergistic, a musical entity larger than themselves. Tim Laughlin is a model clarinetist — his sweet, full tone is a pleasure to hear whatever he plays; his swinging playing never lets us down. Connie Jones is a quiet master, offering one subtle, peaceably emotive solo after another. He never reaches for a cliche of the idiom or of his instrument, and his knowledge of harmony is so deep that he never plays an expected or an overemphatic phrase. I think of Bobby Hackett and Doc Cheatham, but also the translucent quality of early Lester Young. Chris Dawson makes his hard work look easy, spinning airy phrases out as he goes — glistening arpeggios bolster and urge on the soloist, the band — without playing one superfluous note.
Next to these three polished stylists, we have the untrammeled man of jazz, the master of grease and fuzz, Clint Baker, reminding us that if it ain’t gutbucket, it ain’t worth playing. Clint dosen’t demand the spotlight and is soft-spoken, but is a serious purveyor of darker impulses on his horn.
That rhythm section? Sweetly propulsive! Katie Cavera knows her harmony and pushes everyone forward in the most affecting way — a Freddie Green with a West Coast bite (as if Mr. Green had eaten many more ripe avocados in his day). Marty Eggers plays his bass the old-fashioned way, the Wellman Braud way, without being overpowering or raucous. And Hal Smith just shines back there at his drum kit: offering the exactly right sound, push, or rhythmic seasoning for this or any other band.
As an extra bonus: no terribly hackneyed “Dixieland” tunes — no muskrats rambling . . . just melodic favorites, some less-played, most at nice rocking tempos.
They started with a song whose title well represents this band’s feeling — a Twenties pop song not often recorded by jazz players, although Louis and the All-Stars did it more than once in 1948 — TOGETHER (an apt description of this band’s overall conception):
SPAIN (by Isham Jones) was ornamented with the Irving Fazola introduction — a lovely touch — and was taken at a sweet tempo (rather than a near-run):
WANG WANG BLUES might have called forth memories of the earliest Paul Whiteman Orchestra . . . . but the easy tempo here evoked the Benny Goodman Sextet of 1945 where the front line was BG and the much-missed Atlanta stalwart, trombonist Lou McGarity (ain’t nobody played like him yet!):
(WHAT CAN I SAY, DEAR?) AFTER I SAY I’M SORRY is not only a song with two identities; it also lends itself to varied approaches and tempi. Here Tim counts it off as if we really should know the emotional intent — a deep apology — and the band catches the sweet rueful mood immediately — after Chris, a soulful fellow, points the way:
Chris Dawson deserves more attention — he is such a fine (although understated) player that I think many people haven’t given his quiet swinging playing the applause it deserves. Listen to what he and the rhythm section do to and for Berlin’s PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ:
They called her frivolous Sal. Enough said — but MY GAL SAL commemorates this lively young woman:
There are two songs called ONCE IN A WHILE associated with Louis Armstrong. One, a Hot Five display piece; the other, a lovely pop ballad that Louis played and sang with a small group for Decca in 1938 — that’s the one Tim and friends chose here:
Finally, the Louis-Hoagy Carmichael connection (such a fertile partnership over the years) gets its moment with JUBILEE:
Mister Gloom won’t be about / Music always knocks him out — even before 10 AM! And lyricism at this level makes Mister Gloom pack up and go somewhere else forever.
Carl (piano), Clint (bass), and Jeff (drums) don’t play waltzes, but I thought this recent acquisition provided just the title for the music they created at the Wednesday Night Hop in Mountain View on August 20, 2011:
Because Carl is such a superb boogie-woogie pianist and blues singer (no one else I know summons up all that lowdown energy) he is often typecast within that genre. But he is such a fine player of straight-ahead swinging jazz that I wanted to showcase him in that way here. (Readers take note: he is also a powerful yet subtle player of ragtime and stride: I’ve been dazzled by his versions of SWIPSEY CAKEWALK and CAROLINA SHOUT.)
Clint is so good on so many instruments that his strong, focused bass playing might be taken for granted. But he makes me think of the heroes of that instrument — Al Morgan, Wellman Braud, Steve Brown, Walter Page.
And I always knew how marvelously Jeff Hamilton swung, having admired the two compact discs he’s recorded as a leader — check them out for yourself at http://www.jeffhamiltonjazz.com — but his playing at this session was especially rewarding. He can swing mightily in any tempo; his time is superb; he makes any drum kit sound orchestral without raising the volume; his solos have shape and form and wit. He surprises in the same way Dave Tough did, and his grounding in New Orleans jazz keeps any band rocking.
I apologize to Jeff and to viewers for the post that seems to bisect him vertically. It didn’t seem to affect his playing, and filming from this angle kept me safe from airborne lindy-hoppers.
Here are the HEAVENLY RHYTHM BOYS (rechristened for the purpose of this blog), making music that needs no exegesis:
Imagine a jam session after hours in Chicago, circa 1934 or so (the date, being imagined, is flexible). Waiting their turn to play are Pee Wee Russell, Rod Cless, Omer Simeon, Boyce Brown, Guy Kelly, Jess Stacy, Earl Hines, Cassino Simpson, Frank Melrose, Joe Sullivan, Wellman Braud, Truck Parham, Zutty Singleton, George Wettling, and others.
No, the late John Steiner didn’t record such a gathering of saints and heroes.
But a modern evocation of such a gathering is to be found when one of my new-irreplaceable-favorite jazz groups, the FIRST THURSDAY JAZZ BAND, comes to play.
They are Ray Skjelbred, leader, piano; Steve Wright, reeds, cornet; Dave Brown, string bass, Mike Daugherty, drums. Everyone in the quartet has been known to sing a chorus or two. It’s a thrifty, focused, engaging quartet — listeners get more than their money’s worth!
I’ve shared some YouTube videos of the band, performing at the New Orleans Creole Restaurant in Seattle, Washington — and more are at the bottom of this blogpost.
But there’s good news tonight, as a famous radio broadcaster used to say. The First Thursday Jazz Band has just come out with their debut CD — drop evertyhing and pay attention, please!
It’s an old-fashioned production: recorded on the job (but with a sweetly attentive audience) in good sound, with a variety of songs and approaches — one of those CDs you can listen to the whole way through and come back to again right away.
If you know anything about Ray Skjelbred, you know that he rocks — and he loves both classic and unusual material. And people who admire him can argue (in the nicest of ways) if he is a greater soloist than an accompanist. Like Stacy, Ray is so fine backing up someone else that occasionally I want to listen to the track again just to hear his bubbling down-home fills and figures.
Ray’s partner in the rhythm section is the quietly propulsive Dave Brown. String bassists tend to get less respect than they deserve, but rhythm is Dave’s business. And business sure is swell. He has a big plush sound (no amps, thank you kindly) but he doesn’t need one. And his time is neither stodgy nor over-eager: I think of the Blessed Walter Page when I hear Dave play.
Mike Daugherty (the man with the red drum) is a jovial player with fine time and a whole galaxy of sonic effects from his kit. He doesn’t opt for the usual tricks, but often just stays on his snare with a rich, padding brush carpet, or moves around his set in a way that feels just right. No showboating, no look-at-me, not ever.
Steve Wright should get triple or quadruple pay, but I don’t think he’d even entertain the notion of asking for it. A sweet alto player (a style I miss a great deal) with deep but casual lyricism, a clarinet player who can be Russell-tart or Darnell Howard-smooth, and a neat, unflurried Bixian trumpeter — sweetly to the point.
That’s the band — and these fellows are having a good time purling through the repertoire. Their quiet pleasure comes through from the first note.
The CD is called simple RAY SKJELBRED and the FIRST THURSDAY BAND, and it’s on the Orangapoid label (number 103). It has a wonderfully diverse repertoire — Don Redman and Chris Smith, Louis and Red McKenzie, old favorites, oddities, and deep blues. (JAMES ALLEY BLUES, sung guttily by Bob Jackson, is priceless — immediately identifiable as authentic.)
The songs are YELLOW DOG BLUES / YEARNING AND BLUE / CAVERNISM / SOLID ROCK / TRY GETTING A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP / DON’T BLAME ME / LOVER COME BACK TO ME / FAR AWAY BLUES / NEVER HAD A REASON TO BELIEVE IN YOU / SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY / LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART / HUSTLIN’ AND BUSTLIN’ FOR BABY / JAMES ALLEY BLUES / CHERRY / PENNIES FROM HEAVEN / SHAKE THAT JELLY ROLL.
I wish I could send you to your local record shop and be assured that it would be there — several copies! — but I think those days are gone, gone, gone. However. Obviously if you meet Ray at a gig (or the other FT chaps) you can buy a copy for the pittance of $15. But for most of us, the idea of meeting Ray or the FTJB in person has a certain dreamlike quality. So for $18, Ray himself will mail you a copy. He promises! The details go like this. Ray Skjelbred can be found at 19526 40th PL. NE., Lake Forest Park, Washington 98155. If you need more information or want to make a quantity order of a hundred copies, feel free to let me know and I will tell Ray immediately. Here’s what the cover looks like.
Now. I promised some new YouTube clips (I regret that they aren’t mine, but they are still lovely) recorded at the New Orleans Creole Restaurant on June 2, 2011.
Let’s begin with a ruminative PENNIES FROM HEAVEN that has all sorts of bonuses — Ray plays the verse in fine Crosby fashion, and Steve solos on clarinet and cornet:
Something in memory of Frank Melrose and George Wettling (with Tesch and Bud in the dim background), the WAILING BLUES:
Want to be some place where they huggy and kissy nice? How about NAGASAKI?
And two highly reason-able songs, with connections to Red McKenzie, Wingy Mannone, Jack Teagarden, Fats Waller — the first being NEVER HAD A REASON TO BELIEVE IN YOU (vocalizing by Mike Daugherty):
And that eternal plaint, WHAT’S THE REASON (I’M NOT PLEASIN’ YOU)?
ROLL ALONG, PRAIRIE MOON might have been just another Thirties cowboy song if Red Allen and J.C. Higginbotham hadn’t been handed it in the Vocalion studios. “Take another one, Higgy!” I think also of the version with vocal by Al Bowlly to which Bob Hoskins emoted in PENNIES FROM HEAVEN. Vocal by Mike, doubling by Steve:
And THE SONG IS ENDED:
But that last song title (with apologies to Mr. Berlin) isn’t accurate. There are more videos from this evening on YouTube, and — that new CD!
Be the first one in your neighborhood to be walking around with a wide grin — and when someone says, “Why the hell are YOU so happy?” you can say, “Have you heard the new CD by The First Thursday Jazz Band?” And — if you’re a really charitable spreader-of-the-good-word, you can share your headphones / iPod, or even invite them into your car for a few minutes of The Real Thing.
JAZZ LIVES 