jeffcrom

Lee Collins - In the 30's: I Can Dish It - Can You Take It? (Collectors Items). The great New Orleans trumpeter recorded nothing under his own name in the 1930s and 40s, only as an accompanist. But he sounds fabulous on these sides by Lil Hardaway, Richard M. Jones, Blue Scott, Lil Johnson, Victoria Spivey, and The Yas Yas Girl.

Not Billy Taylor. Here's a hint on the second tune, which is admittedly obscure: I know the pianist takes a pretty free approach rhythmically, but try to scope out the meter. I want to give more hints, but I think I talk too much in my BFT threads.

Jukeboxes? Problems? Are we looking at..."interference" here, if you know what I mean? Dang, I'm not going to have anything left to talk about in the reveal thread. But that's okay - I'm enjoying the conversation now. Jukebox problems, but not the way you're thinking. More like poor business decisions on Danny's part. He financed the session himself, and issued the records on his King Zulu label. But apparently it took him a few years to get the money up to have the records pressed. To quote from his A Life In Jazz: "This recording project was a disaster: when the records were printed the jukeboxes had changed over from 78 rpm to 45 rpm, so I could not put the records on the new boxes." Without exact dates...it's possible then that if it might have been seen as a cover-ish of Sugar Boy's tune, when in fact, no. Historically significant without being historically relevant. I've always assumed that the King Zulu sides were issued before the Sugarboy's record, but it's kind of irrelevant, since practically nobody heard Danny's records for years. Edit: ...which is more or less the same thing that you're saying, I guess.

My favorite quote, after a Cecil Taylor recording: "I remember in the ’50s he played with Steve Lacy. He was a wonderful combination with Steve, like hot knives with butter. A perfect antidote."

I generally prefer to keep my mouth shut about musicians I don't like, but I'm with Larry here. Anat Cohen is fluid, technically accomplished, and totally inexpressive. Whatever message she is trying to convey doesn't reach me at all.

Just listened to "It's You I love" again after listening to several recordings featuring Albert Walters. Granting that the discographical world is full of folks who think that their opinion is right, and that I've been wrong with my aural identifications before at times.... Dave Bartholomew is the trumpet soloist on that tune - 100% sure, bet the bank, no doubt. I did what I didn't think to do last night - look at the composer credits. It's credited to Bartholomew-Domino. I imagine that he took the opportunity as producer to slip in one of his songs, and wail on it. It's hard to tell, but it's possible that there are two trumpets on that track. All the trumpet notes could have been played by one person - I never hear two trumpet notes at once - but there are some odd-sounding notes answering the phrases of the melody that could be by a second player. My copy is mono, so it's not easy to tell. But in any case, the solo is by Bartholomew.

Wow - thanks for the info; I don't have that book. I'll listen again to "It's You I Love," but to my ears, Dave Bartholomew is pretty unmistakable on that track; his style jumped out at me the first time I played the record several years ago. I'll also listen again to try to pin down which trombonist is on which track, but Stagg and Crump can't be totally correct about that - there are definitely two trombones on "Slide, Frog, Slide" and "It's You I Love."

Jukeboxes? Problems? Are we looking at..."interference" here, if you know what I mean? Dang, I'm not going to have anything left to talk about in the reveal thread. But that's okay - I'm enjoying the conversation now. Jukebox problems, but not the way you're thinking. More like poor business decisions on Danny's part. He financed the session himself, and issued the records on his King Zulu label. But apparently it took him a few years to get the money up to have the records pressed. To quote from his A Life In Jazz: "This recording project was a disaster: when the records were printed the jukeboxes had changed over from 78 rpm to 45 rpm, so I could not put the records on the new boxes."

So, yeah, historically important...quite! Oh, yeah! I'll correct the Amazon reviewer a little - these are the first commercial recordings of NOLA Indian songs. Jelly Roll Morton recorded some in his Library of Congress sessions. And Heywood Henry was a baritone saxophonist; Johnny Williams was the bassist. Danny was always interested in preserving/passing along the culture of New Orleans; not only did he record these songs, but his formation of the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band years later was largely responsible for the New Orleans brass band revival. The Fairview band never recorded, but the Hurricane Brass Band, which grew out of the Fairview group, did. That led, directly or indirectly, to the Dirty Dozen. But he also was looking to make some money - he thought that every bar in New Orleans would want these records on their jukebox. It didn't work out that way, for reasons I'll explain later. And yes, the "Jazz a la Creole" sides with Albert Nicholas are extremely "important," too. The Baby Dodds solo and trio sides are merely excellent. However you figured it out, you are correct, sir! Now maybe someone will track down more info on this unusual record. And heck, even if it wasn't an "official" guess, I'm giving you a point for recognizing Han Bennink - it is indeed him on track 11. eee I will gladly take a point, doesn't happen very often. I did mean to comment on that track. The only Bennink I know of with that instrumentation is the Clusone Trio. I can almost talk myself into Reijseger but I really don't think the horn guy sounds like Michael Moore. Not Clusone, Reijseger, or Moore.

You have me mistaken for someone who can remember what he had for lunch yesterday, let alone an afternoon three years ago!

And I just thought of a scenario which would explain the autographs: A jazz fan buys this album, possibly at gig by the Celestin ghost band. As the bandleader, Papa French, is autographing it, the fan asks him who played on the record. French tells him; our fan gets those present to autograph it then, and takes it to another gig or two to get autographs from those who were not regular members of the Celestin band. He never gets Dave Bartholomew's autograph, because if Bartholomew was gigging, it was at the Dew Drop Inn uptown, not in the French Quarter jazz clubs. It's impossible to know for certain, of course, but this works for me.

However you figured it out, you are correct, sir! Now maybe someone will track down more info on this unusual record. And heck, even if it wasn't an "official" guess, I'm giving you a point for recognizing Han Bennink - it is indeed him on track 11.

I think that Alvin Alcorn and Wendell Eugene are the only two that I wouldn't bet the bank on. I still think it's them, but I'm not as certain as with the others - Dave Bartholomew, Frog Joseph, and Cornbread Thomas are easily identified aurally, and Jeanette Kimball, Papa French, and Stewart Davis are identified by the singer. Some of which corresponds to Ruppli & Lord, of course.

I have a very interesting copy of this album, and I wanted to get my discographical thoughts about it somewhere on the web - and what better place than here? Most folks here won't be interested in this at all, but again, I wanted this on the record. Imperial issued three albums credited to Oscar "Papa" Celestin, but they were all recorded after he died in 1954. Celestin was an incredibly popular musician in New Orleans, and his band carried on in his name after he died, with Albert Walters in the trumpet chair. There is no personnel or recording date on the back cover, but Ruppli's Aladdin/Imperial discography gives the Celestin "ghost" band, with Walters, as the personnel on this album, with the location and date given as "NO?, May 16, 1962 (or c. 1956??). Which means he really doesn't know. My copy is autographed by eight New Orleans musicians. Here is what they signed: Albert French banjo mgr. Alvin Alcorn Trpt Jeanette Kimball (Piano) Waldren Joseph Trom Wendell Eugene (Trombone) Joseph Thomas (Clarinet) Stewart Davis (Bass) Louis Barbarin Drums This personnel is not that listed in the Ruppli discography. When I bought the album in New Orleans, I didn't think much of that. I figured that some fan brought the album to a gig, and those musicians were the ones that happened to be playing the gig that night. But when I played the album for the first time, I realized that I recognized the playing of some of the signees. What is interesting about the signatures is that they were written with several different pens, as if they were signed at different times. If a fan got them all to sign at the same concert, they probably would have all used the same pen. One of the tunes is "Mama Don't Allow It," still a popular tune at Preservation Hall. In this song, the singer usually introduces the individual musicians by name before their solos. Here, there are just piano, banjo, and bass solos; the unidentified singer introduces the soloists as "Jeanette," "Albert," and "Stew." That seems to confirm three of the musicians who autographed the album. The personnel of Imperial LP 9160 (Hongo Fongo by Punch Miller) is nearly the same as the signees of my Celestin album - Waldren "Frog" Joseph is not on the Miller album, and of course Alcorn isn't. A quick comparison confirms that the clarinet on both albums is obviously the same player, so that gives us Joseph "Cornbread" Thomas. The trombonist on most of the tracks of the Celestin album sounds like the same guy as on the Miller album - Wendell Eugene. I'm quite familiar with Frog Joseph's style - he had a unique, staccato approach - and he's definitely the trombonist on "Wabash Blues" (one of Frog's signature numbers) on the Celestin album. Two other tracks, "Slide, Frog, Slide" and "It's You I Love" have two trombones, and Frog is obviously one of them. "Slide, Frog, Slide" is, not surprisingly, a Frog Joseph feature - he recorded it on several other occasions. There's another surprise on " It's You I Love" - the trumpet soloist is Dave Bartholomew, without a doubt. There's no producer listed, but I imagine that he produced the album as well. The trumpeter on the rest of the tracks certainly sounds like he could be Alvin Alcorn, but I can't say for certain. So my guess is that the folks who autographed the album are in fact the musicians who play on the album (plus Dave Barthomew on one track). Did someone with inside knowledge of the New Orleans scene and of this album get them to autograph the cover, one at a time, over the course of several gigs? All of this means something to me, as a lover of New Orleans music. I heard Jeanette Kimball the first time I went to Preservation Hall, in 1990. And I second-lined Frog Joseph's funeral - an amazing experience.

Go ahead and spill the beans!

Lee Collins - A Night at the Victory Club (New Orleans), plus the "soundsheet" record that was included in the great New Orleans trumpeter's autobiography, Oh, Didn't He Ramble - it includes an additional tune from the Victory Club sessions.

Your post triggered several things - first of all, the realization that I have that Mat Mathews 78! I just played it; it's a little faster than Budd's version, but it has the same guitar licks answering the phrases of the melody. And while I was researching the Atlantic recording in the process of assembling my BFT, I came across this, from the November 14, 1953 issue of Billboard: Atlantic "Shore" Disk Out Fast... Atlantic Records demonstrated unusual speed in getting out a new disk this week when the rhythm and blues label recorded alto sax star Budd Johnson doing an instrumental version of "Off Shore." The session was held yesterday (6) and the results were mastered and mothered the same day, with the disk scheduled to go on the presses today (Saturday). First shipments are set for Monday morning. The Mathews record credits the tune to "Leo Diamond," Hanover Music Corp. The Johnson record says "Diamond-Graham," Critereon, ASCAP. http://www.amazon.com/Gettin-Outlook-Bill-Mason-Chandler/dp/B00004TTOQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1367766868&sr=1-1&keywords=bill+mason+gettin%27+off Don't delay - both albums are great! MG Ordered.

The HBO show aside, masking as an Indian on Mardi Gras was a dangerous activity early in the 20th century. Many people were hurt or killed in encounters between tribes. As time passed, the bloodshed (thankfully) morphed into ritual street theater - the tribes would fight "with needle and thread" rather than with clubs and knives.

I don't know if he ever masked as an Indian. Maybe not - he was a Downtown French Quarter New Orleanian, and the Indian culture started Uptown. But he grew up in the city while all that stuff was going on. He was a great musician, and kind of a New Orleans griot. And I'm probably giving away too much too early, but who cares? I enjoy the conversation about the music more than the ID game: he plays on track 4 as well.

The closest I've ever seen the recording date of #12 pinned down to is "mid 1940's." I'm thinking mid-to-late 40's myself. whoa.... Yeah. It's a great record, and it's an "important" recording, and I could have asked the guy about it, but I didn't know about it when I sat in his living room.

Whew! I escaped relatively unscathed. Glad there was some stuff you enjoyed. Nailed it! Recorded 1967/68, but not released until 2003 (although I think "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" may have shown up earlier in a Keith Jarrett anthology). This album is every bit as all over the place as my BFT. More later.... The closest I've ever seen the recording date of #12 pinned down to is "mid 1940's." I'm thinking mid-to-late 40's myself. I enjoyed it, and was not previously familiar with it. Since there's really no mystery about track 13, I'll say that, as touching as the singing is, the part that intrigues me most is the short trumpet solo.

Well, you're not nuts to think so; I'll say that. It doesn't sound like Hodges to me, but I already knew that it wasn't. The vibrato isn't right, and Budd plays a chromatic glissando that, in Rabbit's hands, would be a microtonal slide. But the sound is close enough that if I heard this out of the blue - who knows? I might have thought Hodges, too.

Flannery O' Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find Bernard Malamud - The Magic Barrel P.G. Wodehouse - The World of Jeeves

Okay, it's the fourth day of the month, and my "impossible," "impenetrable" BFT selection has been identified. As far as I've been able to determine, this single has never been reissued. I assume that you're right and that it was issued on 45, but this recording is a transfer from my 78 collection. The other side is more recognizably Budd - he plays tenor on "Don't Take Your Love From Me." I'm not sure who's ahead in points - MG or JSngry. MG definitely gets bonus points for this one.