January 2024 - Paul – and some of that Jazz

From the Record Shelves #153 – Be Bo Bo – Jack Purvis is a favorite of mine. He left relatively few recordings behind and had a short career. Still, his biography fills much space in the Who’s Who of Jazz. There are so many stories and rumors connected to (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #152 – Come On Mama – Thomas A. Dorsey, who got his nickname Georgia Tom by Paramount’s recording director Mayo Williams, wrote about two hundred blues songs between 1923 and 1932. After that, he became an important pioneer (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #151 – Mississippi Mud – On the LP cover, the uncredited commentary says: “Though Bix will be forever grieved, somebody else at least is playing his music.” And also: “Several of his written down compositions are regarded as classics (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #150 – The LP contains mostly early recordings where Cliff is alone with ukulele and a couple of good daring double entendre songs, but I have chosen a hit from 1930. It reminds me of Christmas. In Sweden, there is a strange tradition (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #149 – Shivery Stomp (Seger Ellis). Now I have managed to dig out the original piano version of this tune by Seger Ellis from my disorganized 78 rpm collection. Seger Ellis was a talented pianist and composer from Houston, Texas who somehow (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #148 – Shivery Stomp. On May 19, 1929, The Orchestra played at Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and a few days later they started on their trip to California to shoot the film King of Jazz by appearing in Philadelphia (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #147 – Sweet Suzanne. Here’s an example of a record that I can pull out of the shelves sometimes and enjoy a sweet melody without tapping my foot, looking up the personnel in a discography, and without the need to play it again (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #146 – I Keep the Blues. We see them on the football ground and sometimes hear them in music performances; couples that work so fine together, where they seem to know each step that the other is going to take in advance (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #145 – Little Buttercup. Frank Signorelli wrote the tune and recorded it three years earlier with Eddie Lang under its usual name, I’ll Never Be the Same. Later versions with touching lyrics were made by among others Billie Holiday (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #144 – Stompin’ at the Savoy. It’s a small group assembled around the genius Art Tatum at the piano. In the rhythm section we find John Collins, guitar, Billy Taylor, bass and Eddie Dougherty on drums. In this session from New York 1941 (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #143 – My Melancholy Baby. This was something new when I found and bought it around 1970. The record itself was green and there were no details about the personnel and no text to read on the sleeve. You had to have the Brian Rust (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #142 – Beato te. Even if you do not know Italian you may feel the joy of spring that is the subject here. “Beato te” means “lucky you”. And late in the song it’s comes to “lucky me”. “Primavera” is the Italian word for spring. (…) read more and listenread more and listen