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Exploring the highways and byways of Classic Recorded Jazz - from the Ragtime era to the day before yesterday!
198 Episodes
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More great bass clarinet performances by Don Byron, Eric Dolphy, Harry Carney, Joe Temperley, Hal McKusick, Gene Allen and Buddy De Franco!
Great period in the Calloway discography . . from June through December 1932 the band had a very stable personnel featuring Doc Cheatham, Ed Swayzee and Lammar Wright (tpt), DePriest Wheeler and Harry "Fatha" White (tbn), Eddie Barefield, Arville Harris, Andrew Brown and Walter Thomas (reeds), Benny Payne (p), Morris White (g), Al Morgan (sb) and Leroy Maxey (d) backing the leader's athletic vocals. Arrangements by White, Benny Carter and Will Hudson really show off the ensemble and launch some excellent solos from this driving group.
Great recordings for the French Vogue label featuring both Hines and Smith playing solo and a date (largely of his own originals) with Smith joined by Wallace Bishop . . stride and post-stride at its best!
Almost forgotten tenor sax player of the late swing and early bop periods in England, Tommy Whittle played with Ted Heath, Harry Hayes and other mainstream groups from his early teens. By the late 1940's he was clearly influenced by bebop and these recordings demonstrate this. With the Jack Parnell Quartet and Quintet (from Heath's band), Tony Kinsey's group (with Dill Jones on piano) and two sessions under his own name (with Derek Humble and other nascent British stars), Whittle established himself as an important solo voice on the European Jazz scene.
Kessel and his Charlie Christian-derived guitar playing was the focus of all these quintet sessions for Contemporary in the middle 1950's, but he gives good innings to Buddy Collette, Bud Shank and Bob Cooper on saxophones and flute, Claude Williamson, Arnold Ross and Hampton Hawes on piano, Red Mitchell on bass, Shelley Manne on drums and several others . . standards as well as original compositions and arrangements by the leader.
Recorded for Down Home at Hambone Kelly's . . Watters on trumpet, either Don Noakes or Warren Smith on trombone, Bob Helm on clarinet, Wally Rose on piano, Clancy Hayes on vocals and banjo, Pat Patton on banjo, Dick Lammi on tuba and Bill Dart on drums. A program of Watters' originals, blues and 1920's Jazz tunes.
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!
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