Percy France Memorial Website

[Dan Gould]

On 5/10/2025 at 5:23 PM, JSngry said:

Joe Newman says bring it on!

 

OK, here is Percy France playing his tenor saxophone at his own surprise birthday party, August 15, 1989, and that is Joe Newman in profile at right.

[J.A.W.]

Based on a few recommendations I decided to get the Percy France Trio CD. In the end iIt cost me quite a bit more than anticipated, with overseas shipping, 21% tax (Dutch VAT) and a handling fee upon arrival. I'm not sure yet whether it was worth the cost, but it's a nice date. 

Edited August 15, 2025 by J.A.W.

[Dan Gould]

 

 

 Very slow with new uploads but here are three new Percy tracks, the first two surprised me (perhaps because I never knew the Andrews Sisters or subsequent performances).

[Dan Gould]

Been planning this one for a while ... I put together snips of Percy from his appearance on WKCR's Jazz Alternatives as Musician Host.  And today September 11, happens to be the anniversary of the day he bought his first tenor saxophone, with a little help from his Pop.

This is chaptered so you can hover your mouse to see the topics covered.  I hope people enjoy this, there are other clips I didn't use and some I couldn't find, including Percy talking about how different saxophone models are like a woman. So there might be a Part 2 coming up.

 

[Dan Gould]

 

[Dan Gould]

Listening to some recent uploads at Vandy on a road trip to Tallahassee, I realized that separated by a few months in 1979, Percy France expressed some related thoughts about ballads, singing thru your horn, and the importance of love.

 

 

[Dan Gould]

 

[Dan Gould]

 

 

[Dan Gould]

Very happy to share two tunes featuring Percy France and Papa Jo Jones ... I learned a couple of months back that Percy was the last tenor saxophonist to play in Papa Jo Jones & Friends but was so disappointed to not find any recorded examples of those gigs to date.  But a WKCR Benefit at The West End is better than none. With Loren Schoenberg (piano) and Skinny Burgan (bass):

 

 

 

[JSngry]

Percy plays great there!

[Dan Gould]

I got to thinking about how the author of the Junior Cook biography had census information about Junior and his parents so I went searching ... it took a little while to find but I can definitely affirm that is the Percy France's signature on the draft registration card.

Entirely coincidental but he and I share a middle name.

[Dan Gould]

New Percy to share this New Years Day, all from the same August 29 1982 show linked above.  All after Papa Jo left the stand, first Percy plays "I Can't Get Started" - he joked that first they didn't have a pianist, then they lost their drummer, before Al Dreares came out of the audience to play the rest of the set, so the group "Can't Get Started".

 

And then the show got extra special. I knew early on that Percy played with Big Joe Turner at Tramps but no recordings turned up in the Leonard Gaskin Papers, so having Big Joe sing two songs with Percy made this show a true keeper.

 

 

 

[Dan Gould]

It's truly amazing how things can be found still after so many years of pursuing Percy France's story.

 

There had been a rather mysterious recording that appeared on the Aviary website of Phil Schaap Jazz Collection digitized recordings: "Jeff Burtch 40th Birthday Party" with no date other than "1986?". Nevertheless I welcomed it as it was a recorded encounter between Earle Warren and Percy France, with a rhythm section of Jim Roberts, piano, Peck Morrison, bass and Ronnie Cole drums.

 

I did some internet sleuthing and began to suspect that an artist named Jeff Burtch was the birthday honoree but his connection to the musicians and the West End was a mystery.  According to the internet, Burtch was a sculptor and painter who died in 2021 and turned 40 in, yes, 1986.

 

I found a website with an email to contact his wife and she gave me details of Burtch's West End story: he was a bartender at the West End and later ran the jazz room, between about 1973 and 1986. That was the year he turned 40 and was able to pursue his artwork full time. 

 

In addition to the celebration at the West End that was found in Schaap's collection, the same group came to the Burtch home in Rockland County, NY and performed on July 19, 1986.  Keira Burtch shared these photos with me.

 

 

 

 

And the group plus Phil Schaap and the birthday celebrant:

 

 

 

[JSngry]

Whoa...

[Big Beat Steve]

Sleuthing indeed. Hats off! It is this sort of "grassroots" research of what seems to be minor details at first (superficial) sight that actually fleshes out ANY page of history!

Edited January 5 by Big Beat Steve

[Dan Gould]

Hey all you saxophonists, check out Percy France on the differences between Selmer and Conn instruments.

 

 

[Dan Gould]

I've been able to document Percy France with Big Joe Turner and Papa Jo Jones, how about the Basie alto/clarinetist Earle Warren?

 

 

 

 

[Dan Gould]

On this MLK Jr Day in the United States, let us go back to when the holiday was established, from the Phil Schaap Jazz Collection at Vanderbilt.

 

In this broadcast of Out to Lunch (January 19, 2015), Phil confuses the year, guessing that it was 1980 or 1981 and that it was for the Federal or NY State establishment of the holiday. But it was October 20, 1983 that President Reagan announced that he would sign the bill, November 2 was the signing ceremony, and the Federal Holiday went into effect in 1986 (If you're wondering, NY State followed the feds lead and adopted the holiday in 1984). So this would have in all likelihood been October 20 or November 2, 1983, or else the first actual celebration in 1986 (and I don't think Jabbo Smith was still performing at the West End by then).

 

Anyway ... let's let Phil set the stage:

 

"Now it really is a moment in which he needs to make a statement and what Jabbo Smith did was he took the spiritual, "Marching with the King" or Marching for the King" the king being our lord, and turned it into marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Singing the spirituals lyrics, faking words that he couldn't really articulate, and yes also creating stanzas that were Martin Luther King Jr. specific, and he turned the West End into a parade.

 

And I don't know how many of you listening even remember the uptown home for swing as it was sometimes called. Last year its remnants were completely gutted and it now no longer has any connection, physical remnant connection to what had been there for so many years, but it was a good place. And there were these two long aisles that went back towards the bar in the rear, and there was a long sort of like family style table that was in between the two, and Jabbo got us parading."

 

Schaap ID's Percy France and Shelton Gary by their playing, and thinks Jim Roberts was the pianist.