July 2024 - Paul – and some of that Jazz

From the Studio #44 – In a Café on the Road to Calais – A tune that is almost forgotten catches my attention because there is a version by Noble Sissle and his Orchestra (rejected but saved) recorded in New York 1931 where Tommy Lanier and Sidney Bechet play short solos (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #278 After You’ve Gone – For a period when I was about fifteen, I listened to this every day. Same program every morning. My mother woke me up, and after I had been to the toilet and got dressed, she had the porridge ready. Most of the time, I had (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #43 – It Had to Be You – Sometimes it can work well to slow down the tempo of a tune, especially if you want to think about the meaning of the words. So that’s what I did, and the words in this case are simple and nice. (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #42 – Pardon Me Pretty – I thought that this tune deserved a more ambitious arrangement and an interpretation in the late 1920s style (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #41 – Basin Street Blues – Sometimes it’s interesting to play and record a typical jam session tune. Not to try to prove how it should sound; that would be too pretentious and too much work. But more importantly, how it could sound if not everyone was stepping on (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #40 – Out of Nowhere – Here’s another rendition of a beloved tune, inspired by the more or less classic versions that I’ve heard and, as always, by life itself (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #39 – Sonny Boy – Al Jolson made a dramatic interpretation, and the dance bands played it normally. We used to play it with my arrangement for The Absalon Orchestra, but it fell out of the repertoire. I think that I was influenced by a critic who said (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #277 – You Can’t Be Mine – The year is 1930, and both the tune and the opening sound point forward in my mind. The tune, because it was recorded a few years later by Billie Holiday, and the sound, because the tune opens with a flute solo (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #276 – Firebird – Distinguishing the sound of the master and his disciple can be difficult. There are the cases of King Oliver and Dave Nelson (Sweet Liker This), Bix Beiderbecke and Andy Secrest (Raisin’ the Roof), and Louis Armstrong and Red Allen (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #38 – Sleepy Time Gal – There was already an instrumental version of the song in 1925 by Fletcher Henderson, and many singers sang it, among them Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards. While it was often either instrumental or vocal in the 1920s, I do a bit of (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #275 – I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle – Before leaving New York for Chicago at the end of 1925, Louis Armstrong had one last session. The leader was the very busy pianist, composer and manager Perry Bradford, who called his studio band (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #274 – Davenport Blues – When Adrian Rollini got a contract for a session with the newly started Decca Company in October 1934, he had help from his brother Art, the tenor saxophone player, to get together a really good line-up, including (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #273 – Precious Lord – I listen to a compilation with a band that was assembled by Alan Jaffe and well recorded at Sea Sant Studios in New Orleans at different sessions between 1976 and 1988. The home of the group was, as the name says (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #37 – Thanks to You – My life once dragged along without… One happy day… It seems I never had… Those things that make folks glad… But now that’s all been changed about… Since I met you… I have things to be glad about too… Thanks to you dreams came true (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #272 – Harlem Blues – Do I like this album? Yes! Do I prefer other earlier versions of the Ory band and other musicians at his side? Yes! But still, I’m glad that he could make a classy and swinging album this late in his life. I think that I have the same (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #271 – Am I Blue – The orchestra of Ben Selvin has many pages in Brian Rust’s “American Dance Band Discography.” They had an enormous number of sessions between 1919 and 1934. Rust says “I have had the great good fortune to receive some (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #36 – The Japanese Sandman – Once in Paris, I was asked to sit in with a very fine big band. They wanted to play this tune, and I had to refuse since I didn’t know it. Well, of course I was familiar with a recording by Frankie Trumbauer’s Orchestra with Bix (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #270 – Trouble in Mind – Bertha “Chippie” Hill was a very good singer, and she had a good accompanist in Louis Armstrong, with the result of some classic numbers. But it’s also interesting to hear another quite different version that she did (…) read more and listenread more and listen