Jazz Focus

Three sessions for Vogue and Swing in Paris, 1949 by two great Swing Era trumpets.  Buck Clayton's Sextet with Don Byas and Wallace Bishop, the Buck Clayton and Bill Coleman Orchestra with Alix Combelle, George Kennedy and Andre Persiany, and Bill Coleman with the Jack Dieval Quartet with Paul Vernon

Survey of the 1920's Hot Dance Band scene with all sides featuring a solo bass clarinet!  Paul Whiteman, Gus Arnheim, Jelly Roll Morton, Cab Calloway, Doc Cooke, The Harlem Trio, Eddie South, Ben Selvin, Jesse Stafford and Mal Hallett, among others . . . 

Big band formed at exactly the wrong time - Buddy Rich had a superb group he put together in the fall of 1945 . . .players like George Berg, Bitsy Mullins, Earl Swope, Allan Eager, Harvey Leonard and Tommy Allison played great arrangements by Ed Finkel, Tadd Dameron and Neal Hefti with vocals and drum features by the leader.  These recordings are from V-Disc sessions and three sessions for Mercury.

The great if unheralded pianist Mel Powell was better known after he left the jazz world as a classical composer and teacher, but in his late teens through his thirties he was a terrific piano player and an even better arranger.  These sides (for Vanguard and Capitol in 1947 and 55) show him playing solo in and in small chamber jazz groups featuring Ruby Braff, Bumps Myers, Oscar Pettiford, Skeeter Best, Tommy Kay, Arnold Fishkin and Bobby Donaldson.

Virtually forgotten Jamaican player who dominated the London jazz scene in the 1950's and 60's with a style that encompassed trad, swing and free - although his primary sound was bebop.  Here he is featured with three different quartets in the mid 1950's and as a soloist with the Kurt Edelhagen radio band in Germany in 1959.   Dill Jones on piano, Phil Seamen on drums and many others are also featured.

Several classic Vanguard albums from 1955 featuring the duo of trumpeter Ruby Braff and pianist Ellis Larkins doing a series of duets.  Songs associated with Bing Crosby and composed by Rodgers and Hart are the feature . . .

From Sept 1933 through the end of January 1934 (when the band left for a European tour), the Calloway Orchestra recorded for RCA Victor, redoing some earlier hits (like "Minnie" and "Scat Song") and premiering some great jazz numbers by trombonist and arranger Harry "Father" White ("Fatha's Got His Glasses On," "Harlem Camp Meetin'," "Evening" etc).  Featuring Ed Swayzee, Lammar Wright and Doc Cheatham on trumpet, White and DePriest Wheeler on trombones, Eddie Barefield on alto, Arville Harris on clarinet, Andrew Brown on bass clarinet, Walter Thomas on tenor and bari sax, Bennie Payne on piano, Morris "Fruit" White on guitar, Al Morgan on bass and Leroy Maxey on drums - all with Calloway singing!

Great mid 1940's sides featuring the tenor sax player soon after his tenure with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.  All these recordings feature Webster as the only horn with stellar rhythm accompaniment under his own name (with John Simmons, Al Haig, Johnny Guarnieri, Oscar Pettiford, Bill De Arrango and David Booth) and with Sid Catlett (with Marlowe Morris and Simmons).

Live airshots, mostly from the Dawn Club in San Francisco of Lu Watter's first Yerba Buena band, featuring himself and Bob Scobey on trumpet, Turk Murphy on trombone, Ellis Horne on clarinet, Forrest Brown and Wally Rose on piano, Clancy Hayes and Russell Bennett on banjos, Dick Lammi on tuba and Bill Dart on drums . . .a bonus wartime date during the summer of 42 without Watters, but with Benny Strickler on trumpet, Bill Bardin on trombone, Horne or Bob Helm on clarinet, Burt Bales on piano, Bennett and Clancy Hayes on drums

Three great (and vastly different) mainstream sessions featuring the alto of Hilton Jefferson, who was known more popularly as a lead alto player for Calloway, Henderson and Ellington.  Here he is featured with Rex Stewart on a Feltsted album with Garvin Bushell on clarinet and bassoon and Everett Barksdale on guitar; the Swingville All Stars with Al Sears, Taft Jordan and Don Abney and a different Swingville All Stars date with Joe Newman, J.C. Higginbotham, Jimmy Hamilton, Coleman Hawkins, Claude Hopkins and Tiny Grimes.

A wide ranging survey of 1920's, Trad and Swing recordings featuring bass clarinet - with the Cotton Club Orchestra, PIccadilly Players, Monette Moore, Wilbur Sweatman, Anglo-American Alliance, Hoosier Hotshots and bands led by Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Ray Noble, Marty Grosz, Bob Scobey, Turk Murphy, Jean Morel, Humphrey Lyttleton and Ted Weems!

Selections taken from two lps featuring Taft Jordan playing Ellington tunes with a quintet including Kenny Burrell and Richard Wyands and the Swingville All Stars with Al Sears, Hilton Jefferson and Don Abney.

Two great sessions from August, 1955 with Billie Holiday backed by the same band - Harry "Sweets" Edison, Benny Carter, Jimmy Rowles, Barney Kessel, Ray Brown and Larry Bunker.  Holiday was at the tail end of her career, but the top-shelf accompaniment inspired her to some of her best singing - rerecording tunes for Clef in 1955 that she had done twenty years earlier for ARC and Brunswick.

Out and out jazz sessions led by the New Orleans pianist and entrepreneur Williams featuring mostly his own compositions/publications.  Ed Allen and King Oliver play cornet, Buster Bailey, Arville Harris, Russell Procope, Benny Moten and Carmelo Jejo play reeds, Cyrus St. Clair on tuba and Floyd Casey on washboard, giving the group its name!

Some of the first feature recordings made by Norman Granz on his various labels.  This represents three sessions led by Ben Webster (the last two of which were issued on LP as "King of the Tenors").  The first is 1951 with Maynard Ferguson on trumpet, Benny Carter on alto, Gerald Wiggins on piano, John Kirby on bass and George Jenkins on drums.  The others are from 1953 and feature Oscar Peterson on piano, Barney Kessel on guitar, Ray Brown on bass and J.C. Heard on drums on the first, with the second substituting Herb Ellis on guitar and Alvin Stoller on drums, with Harry "Sweets Edison and Benny Carter added on trumpet and alto.

Great records featuring the iconoclastic trumpeter playing with other groups, including Charlie Johnson's Paradise Orchestra (with Charlie Irvis, Benny Waters, Ben Whitted and Monette Moore), Duke Ellington (with Joe Nanton, Rudy Jackson, Otto Hardwick and Harry Carney), Charles Lavere and His Orchestra (Joe Marsala, Preston Jackson, Zutty Singleton, Boyce Brown), Banjo Ikey Robinson (Omer Simeon, Lawson Buford), the Louisiana Sugar Babes (with James P. Johnson, Fats Waller and Garvin Bushell), and Eva Taylor (Clarence Williams, Charlie Irvis).

These recordings from a septet through a full band feature the arrangements and some compositions by the great Mel Powell.  After he left jazz in the late 1950's he became well known as a serious composer and educator, but his arrangements for jazz groups demonstrate his earlier abilities as applied to more commercial ensembles.  The 1946 orchestra features Bernie Privin, Johnny Carisi, Lou McGarity, Cutty Cutshall, Bill Shine, Cliff Strickland and even Mitch Miller on oboe!  The septet from 1955 has Al Mattoliano on trumpet, Peanuts Hucko on clarinet, Nick Caiazza on tenor sax, Tommy Kay on guitar, Arnold Fishkin on bass and Bobby Donaldson on drums.  The quintet and sextet from 1947 has either Jake Porter or Frank Beach on trumpet, Bumps Myers on tenor, Red Callendar on bass and Lee Young.  All with the immaculate piano of Mel Powell!

Two of the stalwarts of Count Basie's band of the early 1940's, Clayton and Tate recorded many times in the 1950's and 60's, but these dates for Swingville really highlight their chemistry and affinity for the blues - with Sir Charles Thompson, Gene Ramey, Mousie Alexander and Gus Johnson.

Early sessions produced by Norman Granz for his Clef label featuring great Swing Era Stars - the Gene Krupa Sextet has Charlie Shavers, Bill Harris, Ben Webster, Teddy Wilson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and the leader while the various Hodges groups have Emmett Berry, Lawrence Brown, Hodges, Webster, Leroy Lovett, Cal Cobbs, Osie Johnson and others all playing standards and originals!

The original wild man of jazz - Purvis was an extraordinarily gifted trumpet player who spent time with most of the great white players of the pre-swing era and led several dates.  Here he is with his own groups (with J.C. Higginbotham, Coleman Hawkins, Frank Froeba and Adrian Rollini among others), Hal Kemp and His Orchestra, Ben Selvin and His Orchestra, Rube Bloom's Bayou Boys (with Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman) and Frank Froeba's Orchestra (with Slats Long and Herbie Haymer)