August 2024 - Paul – and some of that Jazz

From the Record Shelves #292 – Panama – This is probably one of the best Dixieland sessions ever made. Four tunes were recorded on November 27, 1943, and this is one of them. The group was called “Wild Bill” Davison and his Commodores. Extatic, exiting (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #53 – Stairway to the Stars Out of my home studio comes this: a couple of choruses on a tune that I’ve never had the chance to play in public. Behind it are two musicians of great fame from the 1920s: violinist Matty Malneck and pianist Frank Signorelli (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #291 – Then I’ll Be Happy – The LP starts with 1923 and Fletcher Henderson had a good and interesting orchestra already. The brass instrumentalists play with conviction and feeling and the saxophone team of Don Redman and (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #52 – Waiting at the End of the Road I saw the King Vidor 1930 film Hallelujah on TV once. It must have been in the 1960s or early 70s. Irving Berlin composed wonderful music for this early talkie, and the theme that goes through it is (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #290 – I Love a Piano – This double LP with more or less well-known tunes from the great Irving Berlin contains a rarity. It is very unpretentious, and that is the point here. Just a man with a piano love song (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #289 – She’s Just My Size – I was lucky to be able to hear the two most famous big bands in the world when I was very young. Duke Ellington and Count Basie had in common total control over their orchestras (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #51 – Bill Bailey Now, this time I just wanted to give some air to my instruments and play a simple (nothing is simple in jazz, let’s rather say uncomplicated) tune to see what it makes. If someone wants to learn and practice playing traditional jazz with solos and (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #288 – What Kind O’ Man Is You? – There are a few entries in the discographies of this wonderful Hoagy Carmichael composition. A couple are made in modern times, and among them is a version with my band, because we were (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #50 – Deep Night Sometime in the late 1960s, I arrived at the last moment at the cinema. The movie had just started. The film was Bonnie and Clyde, and it started with the original version of this fascinating song, written and performed by Rudy Valley (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #287 – All the Whores Like the Way I Ride – This happens sometimes. I’m not very inspired to listen to something, but I put on a record anyway with a very familiar sound, like with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars or, very differently (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #286 – Sho’ Is Hot – In the beginning, the voice sounds like a radio announcer of New Orleans jazz in the 1940s, but then it evolves into something else: a kind of vaudeville number with a good trumpet playing in the back and sometimes (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #49 – Song of the Wanderer Here is a song that is not so complicated and thus fits well for use in a collective ensemble format. The lyrics are, as you see, utterly basic, and life is not easy for the wanderer… (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #284 – The Terror – On the label, it reads “Marvin Smoley and his Syncopaters.” Many record collectors coming across this very hot record may have scratched their heads wondering who this obscure band leader was. In fact, he wasn’t one (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #48 – Wasting My Love on You I need to practice a song that will soon be featured in a concert, so I played the verse, the melody in 1920s style, and a solo chorus. I don’t sing it myself, but if you want to give it a try, I give you the lyrics below (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #284 – Riverboat Shuffle – As always when he is present, Bix Beiderbecke, with his cornet, is the protagonist here. There are several facets of his genius, and here on this session with Frankie Trumbauer’s Orchestra in 1927 (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #283 – Doin’ the New Low Down – Today I enjoy an album with music from a show called “Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1928.” After having successfully produced an album with music from “Showboat,” Jack Kapp at Brunswick Records continued (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #47 – If I Could Be with You –
This song has been in my mind always, it seems, but more precisely since I, as a teenager, heard it with McKinney’s Cotton Pickers as sung by their saxophone player George Thomas. He had (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #282 – New Vine Street Blues – This beautiful mood piece is a remake of an early Benny Moten recording from 1924. Now we are in the depression, and it’s 1930. The number is not a conventional 12-bar blues but has an unusual 24-bar structure and (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #46 – What a Girl! What a Night! –
This song expresses the kind of happiness that a man or woman can feel when bitten by the love bug. The Coon Sanders Orchestra of Kansas City made a version that I immediately liked (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #281- You Call It Madness – I have about five or six favorites among tenor sax players, and Don Byas (1912–1972) is one of them. He had big band experience from Lionel Hampton’s, Don Redman’s, Andy Kirk’s, and Count Basie’s great orchestras (…) read more and listenread more and listen