Year: 2024

From the Studio #11 – The Spell of the Blues – I have liked this tune ever since I, as a teenager, heard it in a recording by the Dorsey Brothers, featuring the great Bing Crosby on vocal. I play it as a cornet duet, one muted and one open, with clarinet. Then I added (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #207 – Georgia Cabin – A string of pearls, or to quote the cover “outstanding performances,” could be said about this compilation. It covers almost a decade from 1932 until 1941 when eventually the American record ban put a stop (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #206 – Arabella’s Wedding Day – As when you look at silent movies, or as for today’s young people if they look at black and white films, listening to the pre-Armstrong jazz takes some adjustment. You have to accept that it’s partly (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #10 – Dinah – Here is a jam on Dinah. The tune is from Akst-Lewis-Young and was published in 1925. Ethel Waters sang it, and Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra made an instrumental record. Other memorable versions are the ones of Bing Crosby with (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #205 – What a Wonderful Wedding That Would Be – Today I listen to a quite worn out 78 rpm record that comes from the collection of Jean-Christophe Averty (1928–2017) who was a French TV-director and a huge fan of early jazz (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #204 – Dinah – The Jean Goldkette Orchestra is known mostly for the classic recordings it made when Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer were featured jazz soloists in 1926-27. How did the band sound prior to that? In January -26 (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #203 – Black Dog Blues – Among the good music on this CD there is the ragtime guitar master Blind Blake who is in a class by himself. Further on the disc, there is this track that made me think of early Bob Dylan. I don’t think that he would (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #9 – That’s How I Feel About You – came to like this tune. There is no well-known recording of it. Here my new mute came to good use. Last autumn I tried some different ones in a shop in Paris. In the end I bought the one that is still made under the (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #202 – Rose of Washington Square – Milt Gabler had a record shop since 1926 in Manhattan, across the street from the Commodore Hotel. In the thirties, he sold mostly reissues of the jazz classics from the 1920s, and one day he said to (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #201 – Memories of You – Even if I often delve into more obscure things, I now and then have to play a Louis Armstrong record just to set things straight. Like many other successful artists in the US, he and his managers could choose to (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #8 – Four or Five Times – Here is a jam on a tune that I think is quite suitable for just that. Often, when we play at parties, we don’t have a list of tunes to choose from, and this one is frequently there. Here I play it in Eb. To get further inspiration there are (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #200 – Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home – “Big Bill certainly was big, and his death in 1958—when he succumbed to cancer— removed one of the greatest singers from the active blues scene.” The uncredited comment on the sleeve (…) read more and listenread more and listen