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Jazz Musicians' Pseudonyms


BillF

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  • 4 months later...

BTW, can anybody enlighten me to the REAL identity of CLAUDE CLOUD of the "Claude Cloud & His Thunderclaps" fame (10in LP on MGM, variously entitled either "Rock & Roll" or "Let's Get Cat-Static")? The general concept of that LP is similar to that of Boots Brown (Shorty Rogers) on RCA and a line-up I have seen includes REAL names such as Sam The Man Taylor and Leroy Kirkland band members, but Claude Cloud figures in between (on drums, IIRC), though I have a HARD time believing there really was person by that REAL name. ;)

According to Jon Hendricks, there was no Claude Cloud - it was a pseudonym for arranger LeRoy Kirkland.

I vaguely remember that on the original recording, Cloud was listed as a "banjo" player. On later discographies, he's listed as a drummer. But I'm reasonably sure he was really Kirkland.

This one dude at a second-hand record store once told me (20-25 years ago) that Cloudburst was originally a Gene Krupa tune featuring Charlie Ventura on tenor.

Edited by jeffgollin
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4111RbHQuwL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Notice that Joe Dodge (dms) on this one has become Joe Chevrolet for the final session of this album. His partner on bass, Bob Bates, has been replaced by one Norm Bates. Pity we're too early here for Norman Bates of Psycho! :lol:

Weren't they brothers? And Norm also played piano...

You could be right ...

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4111RbHQuwL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Notice that Joe Dodge (dms) on this one has become Joe Chevrolet for the final session of this album. His partner on bass, Bob Bates, has been replaced by one Norm Bates. Pity we're too early here for Norman Bates of Psycho! :lol:

Weren't they brothers? And Norm also played piano...

You could be right ...

According to this, they were brothers.

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4111RbHQuwL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Notice that Joe Dodge (dms) on this one has become Joe Chevrolet for the final session of this album. His partner on bass, Bob Bates, has been replaced by one Norm Bates. Pity we're too early here for Norman Bates of Psycho! :lol:

Weren't they brothers? And Norm also played piano...

You could be right ...

According to this, they were brothers.

You are right!

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  • 3 years later...
On November 7, 2015 at 5:34:51 PM, king ubu said:

I might be slow getting it ... but can anybody tell me who "Raven Screen" is, the author of the liner notes to Sonny Criss' Prestige album "Up, Up and Away"?

Based on stylistic evidence, I'd bet a good deal on "Raven Screen" being a pseudonym for David A. Himmelstein, he of the deservedly famous notes for the Booker Ervin-Dexter Gordon "Settin' the Pace." Himmelstein and Schlitten were good friends, and while I don't know why Himmelstein would have used a pseudonym here, the over-the-top, but also personal, inventive, and perhaps cannabis-fueled vibe of the prose is similar (albeit the "Settin'the Pace" notes are a bit more grounded because Himmelstein was present for that recording session and the odyssey of what led up to it). E.g. (from the Criss notes): "Screamsong sirens of broken glass shatter the shaft of life, a dome of rain and daydreams where things fly together and no birds are.... Eyes of blinking destiny and bleary forgiveness stare on crimes of suffering in the ecstasy of a naked light that could raze the world pure once more and reforge the heart of everyone it touches." Whew.

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Thanks Larry! Himmelstein rings a bell though I don't know why/wherefrom/-to, as I don't know those Ervin/Gordon notes - somehow never got around to buying the single disc release and then the bix Prestige box of Dexter's came out. If they're online anywhere, I'd be glad for a hint!

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The notes can be found here. Scroll down and click on them; the type is small but readable. BTW the album title is "Setting the Pace," not "Settin'" etc. as I mis-remembered. The person on whose site the notes appear refers to them as "painfully hip," which is one legitimate response. Acknowledging their strain of self-indulgence and moments of excess, I have a more positive take overall. At the very least, they bring back vividly an era that I lived through, though I didn't live through it in quite the same way that Himmelstein seems to have.

https://londonjazzcollector.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/ervin-setting-the-pace-rearcover-1800-ljc.jpg

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