Jazz visual test

[EKE BBB]

Here's a test for good physiognomists:

Besides Count Basie and Lester Young, which musicians can you recognize on this photo from Life archives?

Big size photo

Best regards,

A

[brownie]

Earl Warren is just below Lester.

Mezz Mezzrow is on clarinet with drummer Kansas Fields next to him. Jo Jones and Sid Catlett flank Kansas Fields to make sure he does not miss a beat!!

Looks like Sweets on trumpet!

[Big Beat Steve]

The older bespectacled man on the extreme left is Pops Foster.

I've often wondered about the identity of the other horn men and onlookers as well. Must have been a gas hearing them all on site!

LIFE has quite a few more shots from that session. They might help for idientification. 2 or 3 of them look decidedly familiar but I just cannot pinpoint the names.

Anyway, the trumpeter up front at the left looks more like Lips Page to me.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[jeffcrom]

All the musicians I could identify have already been named. I think that's J. Edgar Hoover on the right, peering over the piano lid.

[brownie]

Anyway, the trumpeter up front at the left looks more like Lips Page to me.

BBS, you are right, it is Hot Lips Page. Hot Lips is more identifiable on another image from the same jam session (image link does not work).

Wish there was some audio from that jam!

[Chuck Nessa]

The saxophonist on the right looks like Leo Parker.

[Big Beat Steve]

Thought so too but that horn looks like an alto. Is he known to have played the alto frequently in his earlier days?

[EKE BBB]

The saxophonist on the right looks like Leo Parker.

It sure looks like a 19-years-old Leo Parker on alto (picture is supposed to have been taken in 1943), his instrument until he turned to baritone around 1945.

Thanks for the replies so far (Chuck and the others)!

[EKE BBB]

Thought so too but that horn looks like an alto. Is he known to have played the alto frequently in his earlier days?

Yes! (see my previous reply).

He was on alto in the Coleman Hawkins' proto-bop recording sessions for Apollo that produced Woody'n you, Bu-dee-daht and Yesterdays (Feb. 16, 1944) and Disorder at the border, Feeling zero and Rainbow mist (Body and soul) (Feb. 22, 1944).

[EKE BBB]

The saxophonist on the right looks like Leo Parker.

It sure looks like a 19-years-old Leo Parker on alto (picture is supposed to have been taken in 1943), his instrument until he turned to baritone around 1945.

Thanks for the replies so far (Chuck and the others)!

In fact he must have picked up the baritone in 1944, as he recorded with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra on September 5, 1944.

[EKE BBB]

Thought so too but that horn looks like an alto. Is he known to have played the alto frequently in his earlier days?

Yes! (see my previous reply).

He was on alto in the Coleman Hawkins' proto-bop recording sessions for Apollo that produced Woody'n you, Bu-dee-daht and Yesterdays (Feb. 16, 1944) and Disorder at the border, Feeling zero and Rainbow mist (Body and soul) (Feb. 22, 1944).

And he recorded again on alto circa 1956 for Imperial:

Leo Parker & Dizzy Gillespie

prob. Dizzy Gillespie (tp), Leo Parker (as) + unknown others

c. 1956

IM5032 Instrumental (unissued) Imperial

IM5033 Cool me off -

[EKE BBB]

Anyway, the trumpeter up front at the left looks more like Lips Page to me.

BBS, you are right, it is Hot Lips Page. Hot Lips is more identifiable on another image from the same jam session (image link does not work).

Closer look to the two trumpeters confirms one of them is Hot Lips Page:

Big size image

[Big Beat Steve]

In this second picture the second trumpeter behind Hot Lips Page somehow looks like Charlie Shavers but I'm not so sure when I look at the other picture.

My fault I missed that alto sax cue for Leo Parker. :blush2: I ought to have known that if I had thought of those 1944 sessions with Coleman Hawkins.

[thomastreichler]

In this second picture the second trumpeter behind Hot Lips Page somehow looks like Charlie Shavers but I'm not so sure when I look at the other picture.

Maybe Roy Eldridge?

[EKE BBB]

George Wettling has been suggested as the man behind the piano.

[Fer Urbina]

Hello

I've already commented on EKE's blog, I think Al Hall is on bass, possibly Frankie Newton on second trumpet (?), drummer O'Neill Spencer talking to the white woman on the second picture.

Also, could the guy giving a light to Big Sid be Omer Simeon or Billy Kyle? (I'd go for Simeon).

I'd really like to know who are the man between Lester Young and Jo Jones, and the one sitting by Basie.

F

[Big Beat Steve]

I agree about O'Neill Spencer but don't think that second trumpeter seated next to Hot Lips Page is Frankie Newton. He does not look like Frankie at all in the first picture.

BTW, sometime late last year somebody posted a link to the online LIFE photo archives where this and other pics from this session (and a LOT more) are accessible. Anybody have a link to that site on hand? I do not have it bookmarked here.

This site might prove useful as it includes other pics from that session, including one where "the man between Lester Young and Jo Jones" can be seen quite clearly between Pops Foster, Prez and Buster Bailey (cl) - proving that Buster Bailey was present at that session too, though not in the above picture.

Edited May 4, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[EKE BBB]

BTW, sometime late last year somebody posted a link to the online LIFE photo archives where this and other pics from this session (and a LOT more) are accessible. Anybody have a link to that site on hand? I do not have it bookmarked here.

This site might prove useful as it includes other pics from that session, including one where "the man between Lester Young and Jo Jones" can be seen quite clearly between Pops Foster, Prez and Buster Bailey (cl) - proving that Buster Bailey was present at that session too, though not in the above picture.

Looking through these three pages, you can find several more pics from that jam session:

http://images.google.com/images?sa=4&i...k+source%3Alife

Thanks everybody for their input!

[Big Beat Steve]

You just beat me to it ..

And here is the photo I mentioned above:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f?q=j...c0d86fbef5c408e

[flat5]

Thanks for the pics link. Grabbed 'em all.

[sheldonm]

Hello

I've already commented on EKE's blog, I think Al Hall is on bass, possibly Frankie Newton on second trumpet (?), drummer O'Neill Spencer talking to the white woman on the second picture.

Also, could the guy giving a light to Big Sid be Omer Simeon or Billy Kyle? (I'd go for Simeon).

I'd really like to know who are the man between Lester Young and Jo Jones, and the one sitting by Basie.

F

...is he giving him a light or snapping his fingers....hard to tell?

m