jeffcrom

Alex Bigard (drums), Ernest Robleau (banjo), Andy Anderson; 1963.

Listening to George Lewis's Verve album Dr. Jazz earlier today got me thinking about Andy Anderson. Trumpeter Andy Anderson (1905-1982) was one of those accomplished New Orleans musicians, respected by his peers, who has kind of fallen through the cracks; he has largely been forgotten since his death. But he sure sounded good on that George Lewis album. Anderson was born in Mandeville, just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. He played with Oscar "Papa" Celestin's popular band during the second half of the 1930s- a period during which the Celestin band unfortunately didn't record. But in the late 1930s the New Orleans guitarist Frank Murray, who had a portable disc recorder, recorded casual sessions with friends as well as established bands. Thirteen of Murray's sides appeared on the American Music CD Prelude to the Revival Vol. 1. The CD has Kid Howard's first known recordings (from 1937), three duo sides of Anderson jamming with Murray, and more importantly, two sides by Anderson's regular group, the Pelican State Jazz Band. The Pelicans, as immortalized here, were a six-piece combo that played in a solid swing style. (There's no bassist listed on the CD, but there's definitely one present, although he's not well served by the recording.) One of the tunes is Anderson's "Chant of the Tuxedos," which is reprised on the Lewis Dr. Jazz album. Anderson's playing sounds very much like it does twenty years later with Lewis. Brass band work was presumably important to Anderson; he's part of the trumpet section on the 1958 Atlantic album by the Young Tuxedo Brass Band. This is the "modern" trumpet section that upset the purists, although the second-liners seemed to have no problem with it. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he was a regular with the Olympia Brass Band, and recorded with them several times. And on least on occasion he replaced Lionel Ferbos in the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra for a recording session. George Lewis's Dr. Jazz album and Blues From the Bayou from the same sessions, along with the Frank Murray acetates (amounting to sixteen minutes of music), are among the handful of sessions on which Anderson is prominently featured. There was another Verve George Lewis album, Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight, that was withdrawn for legal reasons after a few weeks. And Anderson played on an album by German trombonist Frank Naundorf which I haven't heard. Andy Anderson's style reminds me of a little of Kid Howard's, but Anderson's playing is "cooler" and more lyrical. It's an extremely attractive New Orleans lead trumpet style. Anderson's playing won't change anyone's life, but it's a personal style; he doesn't sound quite like anyone else. Andy Anderson wasn't a genius, but he deserves to be remembered.

Very sad to hear this.

George Lewis - Dr. Jazz (Verve stereo)

PM sent. Because I don't have any music to listen to, apparently.

I'm doing a show in July with the remarkable Chattanooga poet Laurie Perry Vaughen. She didn't want to include this poem, because it's so dark, but relented when I told her how much it meant to me. This seems to be a very personal poem for Laurie. In case it's not clear what's going on in the third stanza, she was robbed at gunpoint while trying to get into her apartment. Voice Lessons First, we learn again to breathe. Your father dies and your mother carries his memory around like a canister of oxygen. The back door key escapes your hand and cold becomes a trigger, really anything metal at the kiss of the back of your neck. You see a bridge, the woman. Watch her jump, but now, only remember the more awkward climb over the lattice guard, the rail. You read the obituaries for her proper name, learn she was a teacher of signs, a language only for the deaf. The white bicycle leans on a kick, a crutch. Your son asks "Why?" of the world. Care Bears pose at roadside shrines. We can sing what we can't say, swing words on a hinge, pulley long vowels up from our diaphragm, run our tongue across the Braille. - Laurie Perry Vaughen

Bunky Green/Willie Thomas - In Love Again (Mark). A kind of hard-to-find one, I think, from 1987. Mark is an "educational" label, which records lots of college ensembles, all-state bands, etc.

OMG - That's the greatest thing ever!

Sonny Rollins - The Freedom Suite, from The Freelance Years

The Georgia Yellow Hammers, an early country group from Calhoun, Georgia, in the foothills of the Appalachians. Pass Around the Bottle/Johnson's Old Grey Mule (Victor) My Carolina Girl/The Picture on the Wall (Victor) And the same group, doing gospel music for a different label: Gordon County Quartet - Walking in the King's Highway/Beyond the Clouds is Light (Columbia)

Art Tatum - Complete Group Masterpieces (Pablo). The Roy Eldridge session.

I visited Mercer St. Books last week. I would have been happy spending a few hours there, but I had a tired wife with me, so I kept the visit short. I walked out with the two-volume Berger/Berger/Patrick biography and discography of Benny Carter and the 1948 edition of Charles Delauney's Hot Discography. Patti Smith had apparently recently sold them some books - they had a table of books "from Patti's Smith's library."

I saw this last night, but was too tired to come up with a post. Battiste was an extremely important figure in New Orleans music. His saxophone playing was probably not the most important part of his legacy, but I enjoy his tenor contributions to the AFO In the Beginning album by the American Jazz Quintet. RIP.

The principles of playing percussion, as formulated by a young musician at the middle school band camp at which I taught this week: 1. Hit the thing. 2. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Dark times.

I think I'll pass on commenting, other than to say that I enjoyed that book quite a bit.

That concert has been bootlegged on a couple of labels over the years, and is probably not too hard to find.

Listened to it recently and it didn't do much for me. After reading your post, I'll have to give it another try. Well, the sound is a real barrier to getting to the music. for one thing. But to elaborate on some of the highlights as I hear them - I love the construction of "Broken Shadows." Each horn solos in turn while the others play the theme; the piece ends with a really moving (for me) anthemic presentation of the theme in harmony. And "Trouble in the East" (apparently mislabeled "Space Jungle") is just one of the most exciting pieces of music I know - a driving theme bookending a complex, passionate collection improvisation. Again, the sound gets in the way of it all. But I've found my way through that so that I can enjoy the music.

Ornette Coleman - Crisis (Impulse). In spite of the muddy recording and Denardo's still-unfinished drumming style, this is one of my favorite Ornette albums - a masterpiece, in my opinion. I was in New York a few days ago, and coincidentally, on the day he died, I attended a reception at New York University, on the site of the Loeb Student Center, where this was recorded. That building has been replaced by a newer one, but I still felt as if I was on holy ground. RIP, Ornette.

I didn't read them before. Thanks. Do any other versions use Ole Miss? I don't know of any other version of "St. Louis Blues" which incorporate it, but "Ole Miss" became the traditional last strain for " Bugle Call Rag," heard in many versions.

Late to the party due to traveling, but yeah, Handy didn't record as early as 1914. Alex has matters well in hand. Signed, Jeffcrom Heavy (15 pounds too heavy....)

Well, yesterday. I made one of my rare visits to New York earlier this week, and found The Complete Blue Note Forties Recordings of Ike Quebec and John Hardee at the Jazz Record Center. This is the Mosiac set I have most regretted not buying when it was in print, so I was excited to find a nice copy at a very fair price.

This is a tough one. RIP, OC.

Bacon's Record Changer reviews of Monk's early Blue Note records were amazingly perceptive and sympathetic at a time when the music was widely misunderstood. They're reprinted in The Thelonious Monk Reader. RIP

That Spanier material on EmArcy is very good; I have a 12-inch LP with much of it.