jeffcrom

The new Offbeat magazine (the premiere monthly guide to New Orleans music), has several brass band articles this month. First up is an oral history of the early days of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Next is an article about about three of the newest NOLA brass bands: the TCB, the Baby Boyz, and the Young Fellas Brass Bands. I don't know any of these, but I'm going to make it my business to hear them. And this last one - I'll just say that I absolutely hate that I can't be there.

Harriet Nelson Riddle Frank Gorshin

Duke Ellington - Live in '58 (Jazz Icons)

Both questions: Eric Dolphy. And I wish Bix Beiderbecke had lived to record just one 78 with a sympathetic group of musicians who were at least close to being his peers.

I really missed the boat, but Happy Late Birthday!

Gil Evans - European Tour July 1978

Another thread I hadn't known about - makes me want to pull out some of the albums mentioned above. And this seems like as good a place as any for this story: I saw Burton play in 1988, with the Hamiet Bluiett Big Band at Carlos I in NYC, the night that Bluiett fired Don Byron. The "big band" was actually nine pieces, IIRC. I do remember that the band outnumbered the audience. Byron was playing clarinet and alto, and unleashed Bluiett's wrath by talking to the tenor player during one of Bluiett's solos. Bluiett cut the band off and went into a sermon: "Every one of them (pointing to us audience members) is more into the music than you are!" At some point Burton started playing gospel licks behind him, and the rest of the rhythm section joined in behind the sermon, which got more and more heated. The climax came when Bluiett pointed to each band member and listed their accomplishments. "Joe Daley - played with Sam Rivers! Rahn Burton - Rahsaan Roland Kirk! Victor Bailey - Weather Report!" Pointing to Don Byron: "You - nobody!" The band left the bandstand except for Byron, who sat in shock for a few minutes, then slowly started putting his horns away. We waited for about 45 minutes to see if the band was going to play again. Joe Daley was standing outside as we were leaving, so we asked him what was going on - he didn't have any idea. It was a great 30 minutes of music, followed by the most uncomfortable floor show I've ever seen.

Bell's Expedition Stout, mentioned by alocispepraluger102 back in April, 2007. I thought about using the word "hearty" to describe this beer, but that's an understatement. If you turned the glass upside down and took it away, I think this beer would stand up by itself.

A very nice find today: a three-record Coleman Hawkins album on Asch, with a cool David Stone Martin cover. It's Bean's 1945 quintet, with Howard McGhee, Sir Charles Thompson, Eddie Robinson, and Denzil Best. Outstanding music, with "Bean Stalking," "Sportsman's Hop," and the rest. The only drawback is that it's on Asch. As Clunky has pointed out, their records were really noisy. Even though these records are in excellent condition, they're some of the noisiest 78s I have. Whatever Denzil Best is doing is totally lost in the white noise. Still, I'm very happy with this find - some great playing by Hawk and Maggie.

Too bad the Collectables doesn't include the Reprise album - it's a lot more interesting than you'd think, given that it was intended as a greatest hits collection.

Which CD release of this do you guys recommend? I see a Collectables, an "Avex Trax", and an M&I Japan on Amazon. Are they all more or less straight copies of each other or do some have NoNoise hideousness? I've got the 1989 Atlantic issue - the first CD issue. I've always assumed that the Collectables was a straight copy of the Atlantic.

"Rockin' in Rhythm" changed very little through the years, in its fundamentals, at least. The piano introduction got more extended, and the ending got more elaborate and melodramatic, but the meat of the arrangement stayed the same for 43 years, and that's because it swung so hard as written. As Ellington's rhythm sections became more modern over the years, "Rockin' in Rhythm" did too, without any updates. Besides the intro and ending, the only major change in later years was the addition of 16 bars for the "Pep Section" - two trumpets and a trombone with plunger mutes - after the trombone solo; this was a sound Ellington used a lot. Album notes usually attribute the clarinet solo on the early versions to Barney Bigard, but I'm not so sure. In later years, Harry Carney took the clarinet solo, and I suspect that it was him from the beginning. I've seen Bigard credited with other clarinet solos that I know to be Carney, and, after all, Carney is given co-composer credit on "Rockin' in Rhythm." Hell, yes! This version is the apex of "Rockin' in Rhythm," and probably the hardest swinging five and one half minutes in Ellingtonia.

Yes, annoying. Any worse than Symphony Sid or Pee Wee Marquette? This sort of hyperbolic presentation of 'stars' seemed to be pretty standard then; I'm not sure much has changed now in the celebrity world. In a perverse way I've always rather liked Irving's shout 'Take it away, Dukie' - a refreshing antidote to the almost religious reverence that has been coming from some quarters over the past decade. Maybe I've been reading too much into Mills' introductions on these sides. To me, they've always seemed to have an element of condescending paternalism. But maybe that's just me.

Before Bev moves on to the next "major" piece for discussion, I'll touch on "Hello Dolly." This was in the book for two periods - Ellington recorded it for the Ellington '65 album, which I've always avoided (possibly to my detriment), and played it at concerts and dances for about a year afterwards. From what I've read, it was a full-fledged big band arrangement of the tune. Maybe somebody with that album (or the Ellington Reprise Mosaic set) can give us a report on how it sounds. Ellington brought back "Hello Dolly" in 1971 as a feature for trumpeter Money Johnson's Satchmo imitation. There's no arrangement to speak of, just a copy of Louis Armstrong's All Stars, with Russell Procope's clarinet prominent. I've got it on an LP of a Polish concert in '71. It was recorded in the studio the next year; that version was eventually issued on a Laserlight CD; I have that version as well. Like I say, I can't speak about the Ellington '65 version, but the Money Johnson feature is pretty forgettable.

Duke Ellington - Last Time (Poljazz) A 1971 Warsaw concert.

Picked up a couple of "new" 78s today, so I spun them along with some old ones. It was a strange assortment: jazz, vaudeville, country, and New Orleans R & B. Jimmy McPartland and His Sextet - Singing the Blues/Royal Garden (Unison, 1949) A nice one, with young Marian "Page" on piano. Bert Williams - O Death, where Is Thy Sting?/When I Return (Columbia, 1918) Sly comedy. McMichen's Melody Men - Sweet Bunch of Daisies/Let Me Call You Sweetheart (Columbia, 1926) Sweet country waltzes by one of Georgia's best fiddlers, Clayton McMichen. Roy Brown - Rockin' at Midnight/Judgement Day Blues (DeLuxe, 1948) Somebody liked the follow-up to "Good Rockin' Tonight" - side one is really worn. They didn't play "Judgement Day" much. Roy Brown - Party Doll/I'm Sticking With You (Imperial, 1957) This is one of the new ones, and it's pretty disappointing. Imperial was trying to turn Brown from a blues shouter to a teen idol.

Okay, I'm not a Shearing expert at all. I've got about an hour's worth of his early MGM stuff on 78s, and I like those records for what they are - populist bebop, I guess you'd say. I don't have any of his Capitol records from the fifties. But I picked up three of his 1960s LPs because I was curious about Gary Burton's contributions. And I was a little shocked at how trite Shearing's playing was, compared to everyone else in the band. I found Shearing to be shallow and repetitive, although I really enjoyed Burton's playing, as well as that of the guitarists - John Gray and someone else whose name I don't recall right now. But that's just my opinion. I'm always happy when someone else can take pleasure in music which doesn't appeal to me. And like I say, the three hours or so of Shearing I'm familiar with don't make me an expert. But it doesn't really want to make me explore much further, either.

Duke Ellington - Centennial Edition: The Complete RCA Victor Recordings. Discs 5 and 16 - early 30s and mid 40s.

Bunky Green's recording debut: My Babe (Exodus mono) The Exodus label apparently reissued Vee-Jay material as Vee-Jay was going bankrupt.

"Freeze and Melt" was not an Ellington composition - it's by the great songwriting team of Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. It makes sense that Ellington would record this, as well as lots of other Fields and McHugh songs - their first gig together was writing for the Cotton Club shows, for which Ellington's band provided the music. I wouldn't be surprised if "Freeze and Melt" had its origins at the Cotton Club, although I haven't done any research to confirm this. The title and lyrics, along with the frequent stop-time passages, give you an idea of what the dance routine must have like. In addition to "Freeze and Melt," Ellington also recorded these Fields/McHugh songs in the 1920s: Harlem River Quiver I Can't Give You Anything But Love Bandana Babies Diga Diga Doo I Must Have That Man Japanese Dream Harlemania Hot Feet Arabian Lover Blue Again (1930, actually) Doin' the New Lowdown Red Hot Band Doin' The Frog Some of these have become standards, of course, while others are forgotten except for Ellington's recordings. Again, I haven't actually counted, but I suspect that Fields and McHugh must be the most-represented composers in Ellington's 1920s output except for Ellington and his band members themselves. Yes, it was included on "A Night at the Cotton Club." Does anyone else want to just slap Irving Mills for his hokey, patronizing narration on this record?

Julius Watkins - French Horns for My Lady (Philips) A guilty pleasure I turned to after the avant-garde solo saxophone improvisations I had on weren't working for me this morning.

Yes, on 15feb33. Here's the label scan: http://ellingtonweb.ca/Hostedpages/DoojiCollection/DE3302e-I'veGotTheWorldOnAString-W26505-ddc6_1_sbl.jpg You can hear it, for example, in this Hep CD: "Ivie and Duke Vol.1 - Raisin' the Rent. Studio Performances 1932/37". Nice vocals by Ivie. I've got it on an EMI/Swing double CD set: Ridin' in Rhythm, which includes Fletcher Henderson, Coleman Hawkins, and lots of great musicians. It's OOP, but not too hard to find. I almost wrote that this track was my introduction to Ivie Anderson, but I thought, "How could that be? I know I heard her before the CD era." Then I remembered that I once had these tracks on an old Prestige LP. I absolutely love that incomplete Fargo version of "It's Glory." It's really exciting. It's the Musicraft. IIRC, one disc of that Prestige album collected all the Musicraft sides.

Muggsy Spanier and His Orchestra (Jazum) 1953 radio broadcasts, recorded by a microphone held up to an AM radio speaker, it sounds like. Great traditional jazz, in spite of the sound.

Joe Harriott - Abstract (U.S. Capitol mono)

From what I can tell, Ellington only recorded "I've Got the World on a String" once, for British Columbia (the label, not the province) in 1933. It's a good version - Ellington puts his own stamp on the tune. There's a short intro and coda using the "Mood Indigo" instrumentation - clarinet, muted trumpet and trombone. Artie Whetsol (I think) introduces the melody on trumpet before Ivie Anderson takes over with her unique style. Barney Bigard plays an obligato behind the vocal, and there are good solos by Lawrence Brown and Cootie Williams. It's a good example of Ellington personalizing a pop tune. This recording also reminds me that part of being a great arranger/bandleader is knowing which soloist to point to next. I hear this in Gil Evans all the time. The succession of Lawrence Brown to Cootie Williams perfectly brings the arrangement to a climax, with the coda winding things down quickly.