Don Ewell Is The Healing Force Of The Universe

[MomsMobley]

* everything with Teagarden (lots on Mosaic Roulette T)

* the three Good Time Jazz sides with Darnell Howard, Pops Foster, Minor Hall

for starters

[Larry Kart]

Really? Ewell is OK, and those GTJ albums are very nice (though IMO mostly for Ewell's partners), but as a solo pianist in that idiom I much prefer Paul Lingle (1902-62):

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_srch_drd_B000UBJBS6?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=digital-music&field-keywords=Paul%20Lingle

http://www.amazon.com/They-Tore-My-Playhouse-Down/dp/B000000XPE/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1315960908&sr=1-4

http://ragpiano.com/comps/plingle.shtml

Nice Lingle story:

'That Lingle truly loved the material of the ragtime era and just beyond was quite clear. On V-J Day in 1945, Lingle told his wife Betty, "I'm glad the war is over." She was a little surprised he even knew of the event since Paul was often in his own world. "Why, Paul?" she asked. "Because now I can play 'Japanese Sandman' again."'

[Chuck Nessa]

He was a great drinker.

[MomsMobley]

Dink Johnson

[T.D.]

Dunno much about Ewell, but dig what I've heard (ok, only 3 CDs )...I have 2 of the 3 GTJ releases (not Man Here Plays Fine Piano), listen to Denver Concert (Storyville, a real high-energy event) most often.

[johnlitweiler]

Ewell also did a Chiaroscuro LP with Buddy Tate and Herb Hall.

When he recorded "Music to Listen to Don Ewell by" in Oakland in 1956, weren't Darnell Howard and Minor Hall playing a long-time engagement in Oakland with Muggsy Spanier? And /or Earl Hines?

Let's all urge Delmark to reissue the rest of their Euphonic Paul Lingle material on CD. Seem like we've been waiting a long time.

[AllenLowe]

I stick with Jelly Roll Morton. I like a lot of these other guys, but they just seem to lack something. Need to play the piano like it's a drum.

However, the best I ever saw was Johnny Guarnieri.

And Dill Jones was quite terrific in that style.

then of course Jaki Byard was the best of all.

Edited September 15, 2011 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

also musn't forget Art Hodes, who had a lot less technique than those guys, but, touch and sound-wise, was the most real old time piano player I ever heard.

[medjuck]

I stick with Jelly Roll Morton. I like a lot of these other guys, but they just seem to lack something. Need to play the piano like it's a drum.

However, the best I ever saw was Johnny Guarnieri.

And Dill Jones was quite terrific in that style.

then of course Jaki Byard was the best of all.

Used to see Ewell playing at a bar in Toronto. Because I'm a jerk I never saw Guarnieri when he was playing every night at at restaurant near my house in The Valley (LA). Maybe seeing and interviewing Willie the Lion makes up for it. (Actually he was doing a CBC tv show dueting with Don Ewell.)

[Larry Kart]

also musn't forget Art Hodes, who had a lot less technique than those guys, but, touch and sound-wise, was the most real old time piano player I ever heard.

Heard Hodes a lot in his later years. By then, at least with his own band, he sounded a good deal like Basie.

[Chuck Nessa]

He could be a cantankerous sob.

[jazztrain]

Perhaps, but he (Hodes) was perfectly pleasant the one time I saw him (in New Hampshire). Played well also.

He could be a cantankerous sob.

[AllenLowe]

hearing him hit the piano (I saw him in NYC playing solo, 1970s) was the closest I ever got to Chicago in the '30s - it was just one of those sounds.

Edited September 16, 2011 by AllenLowe

[jazzbo]

I like Ewell a lot. And Morton, and Jones. And Guarnieri. And HODES--love that guy. I'm a big fan of pianists.

[Clunky]

However, the best I ever saw was Johnny Guarnieri.

I must listen more closely as Guarnieri never struck me as in the same league as others mentioned here

[MomsMobley]

ah of course I put Jelly Roll in own category as composer rake and madman but otherwise I agree.

I would ask the jury to consider Don Ewell as an accompanist.

The solos are nice but there's more value to his being in a band than JUST holding his liquor.

I like Ewell a lot. And Morton, and Jones. And Guarnieri. And HODES--love that guy. I'm a big fan of pianists.

Edited September 16, 2011 by MomsMobley

[JamesJazz]

Few writers could paint a picture as well as Hodes. "Selections From The Gutter" is one of my favorite books. I got to hang with Art a few times when he played in Windsor and enjoyed his company very much. If he leaned to Basie in later years it may have been due to arthritis or something similar.

[AllenLowe]

as for Guarnieri - there are some good recordings, but I'm not sure anything went on record that was as good as when I saw him in NYC in the '70s. Lotsa amazing stride, Fats-Wallerish, but very personal. Great left hand, very inventive improviser. I saw both him and Hodes at the same place - a restaurant in Manhattan called Hanratty's - at about the same time.

To me the response to those 2 guys first represented the kind of racialist B.S. which ruined Lincoln Center's whole jazz thing. They were both active and around when that program was getting going - and were like primary sources at a time when all the primary sources were disappearing - and did Lincoln Center give a shi*? No.

Same thing with the second-generation white beboppers I tried to get them interested in (wrote a long letter back then which nobody responded to) - Knepper, Triglia, Schildkraut, Carisi, Haig (well, he was first gen) - there were plenty of those guys around who would have just been thrilled to get some historic recognition, some tribute for the work they had done and the legacy they had left - the answer was: Silence.

Edited September 17, 2011 by AllenLowe

[jeffcrom]

I thought Moms was overstating his case, and he probably is, but I'm listening to Ewell's Trio and Quartet album from 1966, and it sure is good.

It was issued on Center, and is now owned by Jazzology. I expect that it's been reissued on Jazzology or GHB, but haven't checked.

[AllenLowe]

my problem with most of the post-modern stride players is touch and time - there is a percussiveness and slightly off-centered sense in the originals that tends to be missing in the later guys (except, I wold say, Byard). Guarnieri had it when I saw him and, as I mentioned earlier, Dill Jones could do it wonderfully. But I hear people like Butch Thompson (and, I will add, at the risk of pissing people off, Dave Burrell) and they just sound stiff to me, It's like they are working too hard to get it right,and there's no sense of adventure or abandon.

also, btw, I did see Hank Jones do some excellent Fats Waller one night in NYC the 1970s.

Also, has anyone mentioned Wellstood?

Edited September 20, 2011 by AllenLowe

[jazztrain]

I don't think Wellstood has been mentioned yet in this thread. Great player. He was out of an earlier tradition but had a very personal spin to it.

Saw him at least a few times, once in DC where he played solo. I also distinctly remember seeing him playing as part of the traditional/mainstream night at the Boston Globe Jazz Festival in the late 1970s. He did a version of "If Dreams Come True" that I still remember. I thought he stole the showm but Marian McPartland and others got more applause.