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April 30, 2005

Fess Williams and his Royal Flush orchestra opened the show by pressing all our "Buttons," in a September 1929 performance included in the must-have reissue of Williams' Victor records on Jazz Oracle BDW 8041. We went "Messin' Around," first with Freddie Keppard and the version by Cookie and Gingersnaps, recorded on June 22, 1926, reissued on Retrieval RTR79017. Two days later, Joe Candullo and his Orchestra made his own record of "Messin' Around" at a slower tempo; it was released on Banner 1796 [78]. The Mills Brothers, armed with only a guitar, conjured up their own orchestra for the "Limehouse Blues," from September 1934 and available on Nostalgia Arts NOCD 3012. Tommy Dorsey, his Orchestra and vocalist Edythe Wright were "Head Over Heels in Love With You." Recorded in October 1936, it's available on Classics 878. Gene Krupa asked "Who?" from July 1940, and on Columbia CK53425.

The Jazz Unlimited label from Denmark has issued a nice CD of Artie Shaw's 1945 band (and the Grammercy Five), live from the Coca Cola Victory Parade of Spotlight band programs over a period of five weeks in September and October 1945.  We heard "Blue Skies," Summit Ridge Drive," "Can't You Read Between the Lines?," and "Hindustan."  A week after the "Hindustan" broadcast, Artie Shaw married Ava Gardner and broke up the band.  The two events were probably not related; Shaw made a minor industry of starting and breaking up bands and marriages.  The CD is <a href="http://www.storyville-records.com">Jazz Unlimited JUCD 201 2088</a>.

George Buck has issued another compilation of blues that originally appeared on the Paramount label, this one called "Paramount Blues Ladies." It's <a href="http://www.jazzology.com">Black Swan BSCD-34</a>. Paramount was a label not known for its cleanest surfaces, but the sound quality on the titles in this collection are, by and large, decent and never less than acceptable.  Viola Bartlette was accompanied by pianist Lovie Austin and her Serenaders with trombonist Albert Wynn, clarinetist Jimmy O'Bryant, drummer Buddy Burton and perhaps Bob Shoffner on trumpet in January 1926 for "You Can Never Tell What Your Perfectly Good Man Will Do."  

Edith Johnson's husband ran a St. Louis music store and was a Paramount talent scout. He wasn't keen on having his wife become a recording artist, but she managed to sneak in some titles and we might be just as happy she did.  She was accompanied by the cornetist listed in the discographies as "Baby Jay" for "Can't Make Another Day," from early September of 1929. (I think I hear her calling him "Baby James," but then, maybe she didn't know him.)

Elzadie Robinson, accompanied by pianist Bob Call, sang the "St.  Louis Cyclone Blues." I heard from a listener after the show that her late aunt was in her school when the storm, that was the subject of that song, struck suddenly.  Storms and natural disasters were always good grist for the blues mill. Two of the great St. Louis gutbucket players, trombonist Ike Rodgers and pianist Henry Brown, were on hand for Mary Johnson when she recorded the  "Key to the Mountain Blues" in November 1929.  A very nice collection for any follower of these sort of recordings!    

Count Basie brought the first hour to its close with the Lang-Worth transcription of "Sugarhill Shuffle," recorded in 1945 and issued on <a href="http://www.jazzology.com">Circle CCD-130</a>.

Benny Carter played both trumpet and alto sax on "Ramblers Rhythm" from March 1937, so titled because Carter was accompanied by Holland's Ramblers Dance Orchestra. The track came from Masters of Jazz MJCD 103.

Then it was that old Marx Brothers exchange between Groucho and Chico in "Animal Crackers" ... that song about Canada...oh yeah, "I'm A Dreamer, Montreal," so we were obliged first by the California Ramblers and their October 1929 Edison recording of "I'm A Dreamer, Aren't We All" followed by Al Starita and his Piccadilly Players with "Hello, Montreal," which dated from December 1928. These titles have been reissued on Diamond Cut DCP-301D, and <a href="http://www.mellotonerecords.com">Mellotone 010</a>, respectively. 

Then we were off to India, with two versions of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Song Of India," from the Casa Loma Orchestra in December 1937, and then up-to-date, gypsy style, by the Hot Club of San Francisco.  The set closed with Charley Straight and his Orchestra and the delightful Williams Sisters, Hannah and Dorothea, on "What A Man!" Recorded in March 1926. We may be grateful to the Timeless label fro including it in their reissue, "Brunswick/Vocalion Odds & Bits," <a href="http://www.timeless-records.com">Timeless CBC-055</a>.

We kept the Hot Club of San Francisco spinning with two more selections from their new CD, "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007UVXQ8/wamu-20">Postcards From Gypsyland</a>," listening to "Spivy" and an original, "Not So Fast."  The <a href="http://www.hcsf.com/">group's website</a> is well worth a visit, too.

We've heard some more titles this evening from <a href="http://www.unlimitedjazz.com">Jazz Unlimited JUCD 201 2087</a>, which features three different 1930s broadcasts by Benny Goodman.  Among them, one from August 22, 1935, the night after Goodman's fateful opening at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, the date that I (among others) have always considered more or less the launch of the Swing Era.  The story goes that, following the band's depressing reception from audiences as it traveled west from New York, Benny told the band to cut loose after a few dance sets on the night of the 21st, only to experience a roar of approval from the kids in the audience who had been hearing the band on radio from New York, and had heard some of the band's new Victor records on local radio.

If the story is true, and we've no reason to doubt it in all its particulars, why is the broadcast from August 22 so relatively tepid?  John McDonough's notes to this CD are a brilliant commentary on the nature of change and the way memory - and by extension, history - collapses in upon itself.   

John McDonough writes, "How do we explain serenity when we expected to find throbbing energy and excitement?"  Goodman's arrival in Los Angeles, McDonough writes, should perhaps be seen as "a piece in a somewhat subtle shift in the focus and sensibility of American popular culture," things that are "often difficult to perceive and gauge as they're happening, yet take on an unrealistic clarity and certitude in retrospect, something that invariably seduces biographers and journalists." McDonough suspects that this one surviving broadcast from the Palomar reflects that this was no instant musical revolution, but a tentative "dance" between the band and an audience, neither quite certain what was in the other's collective head and feeling their way to an accommodation - something that was not to be accomplished by a single 45-minute set the night before.  In sum, McDonough's point is that those moments on the night of August 21 were a data point, not a national musical epiphany.

From this historic broadcast, we heard "East of the Sun," "The Dixieland Band," "Ballad In Blue," and "What A Little Moonlight Can Do."  At this time, the band used "Goodbye" as both its opening and closing theme.   

We turned for the balance of the evening to explore two fascinating repertory projects.  The first of these, on the Arbors label, sprang from the head of pianist Dick Hyman, who, with cornetist Tom Pletcher, presented a program back in 1996 at the 92nd Street Y in New York that was called "If Bix Played Gershwin."  Bix recorded virtually no George Gershwin songs.  Hyman decided to conceive settings for Gershwin compositions based on the instrumentation of ensembles like Bix and his Gang, Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra, and even the trio of Bix, Tram and Lang.  

"If Bix Played Gershwin" reached CD on <a href="http://www.arborsjazz.com">Arbors ARCD 19283</a>.  There are instances where you'll hear Tom and Dick playing in Bix's style on both the cornet and piano at the same time, almost as if Bix were multi-tracking with himself!  We heard "But Not For Me" and "I've Got A Crush On You." The third selection in the set was "In A Mist," played by Dick Hyman as if Gershwin had been asked to play it at a party and unable to resist interpolating some of his own melodies into the Beiderbecke composition.  It's a little forced, but a very intriguing premise!  The set closed with "Rialto Ripplies."

Joining Dick Hyman and Tom Pletcher are Dan Levinson on clarinet and C-melody saxophone, Dave Sager on trombone, Vince Giordano on bass sax, Bob Leary on guitar and drummer Ed Metz Jr.    Dan Levinson and Dave Sager were a part of the second repertory project highlighted on this night's broadcast.  Dan Levinson's Stomp Off CD, "Echoes From the Wax," Stomp Off CD 1380, is an exploration of several of the early recorded jazz or "jass" ensembles, among them, the Frisco Jazz Band. This was a band that came together in New York at a cabaret in the Winter Garden Theater called Montmartre and starring an exotic dancer named Doraldina - who was, at one time, a manicurist at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco!  Ah, from humble beginnings...

While working in San Francisco, the no-dummy cutie of cuticles picked up on a musical sound that she knew would be perfect for the Monmartre.  It would be the group billed as the Frisco Jazz Band, representing a flavor of early syncopated music that has been overshadowed by groups like the Original Dixieland Jazz Band that featured the traditional trumpet front line.  By way of contrast, the Frisco Jazz Band included a sax and violin playing a music that Dan Levinson characterizes as falling somewhere between jazz and dance music - something that Levinson calls "rag-a-jazz," a music that is lively, but carefully conceived and executed, an ensemble music with an extraordinary spirit.

At the heart of it is the C-melody saxophone, played in the Frisco Jazz Band by Rudy Wiedoeft, whose saxophone had a singing sound that blended with the ensemble.  Wiedoeft had already arrived in New York to play in the Earl Carroll show, "Canary Cottage." Rudy accepted an invitation to lead a band at the Montmartre and sent for some like-minded former colleagues from the West Coast.  The group had a six-piece lineup of violin, C-melody saxophone, trombone, piano, banjo and drums; the violin played the melody part one octave below the C-melody saxophone.  The band drew the attention of the Edison recording company, and made nine records for Edison between May and October of 1917.  The group was, in fact, the first jazz ensemble to make records for Edison.

Dan Levinson says that music played in the style of Rudy Wiedoeft and the Frisco Jazz Band ".sounds kind of ethereal, as though it's coming from &#226;&#8364;&#8220; well, from somewhere else."   We heard three titles played by both the Frisco Jazz Band and Dan Levinson's Roof Garden Orchestra.

Then the story continued with Dan's newest Stomp Off CD, Stomp Off 1400, titled "Crinoline Days," and featuring Dan and his Canary Cottage Dance Orchestra.  Here, Dan extends the Frisco Jazz Band sound by playing a number of tunes as the Frisco Jazz Band might have treated them (even though the greatest number of the songs on SOS CD1400 predate or postdate the Frisco Jazz Band's brief lifetime in 1917-1918).

This is the sort of repertory project that I find so exciting because it takes us in fresh directions and to groups and discography hardly well known at all. Dan has invested years in pulling these projects, and Bob Erdos of Stomp Off deserves yet another kudos for releasing this sort of music.

Stomp Off CDs are available from <a href="http://www.jazzbymail.com/">Jazz By Mail</a>.  Thanks to Dan Levinson for sharing his Edison recordings of the Frisco Jazz Band.  One of the band's 1917 Edison recordings, "Pozzo," featured on a prior HJSN, has been included on Timeless 1070, "From Ragtime To Jazz, Volume 3."