From the Studio #13 – Honeymoon Hotel – Today I needed to warm up my clarinet, so I played a couple of choruses on a tune that is not a jazz tune but a song from a 1937 Busby Berkeley musical comedy with Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler. It’s a long sequence (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #12 – Sweet Substitute – This tune has long been a favorite of mine. At the end of his life, Jelly Roll Morton started a publishing company with a friend, and some of the songs that he then wrote are as sad but attractive as this one (…) read more and listenread more and listen

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 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 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 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 Studio #7 – Through – Today, it became a clarinet and muted cornet duet. After that, a solo with a saxophone background. It’s a nice song, and I could have made a vocal effort, but for once the lyrics don’t appeal to me (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #6 – C’est si bon – C’est si bon was recorded by Yves Montand and had, as far as I know, a moderate success in France, but when Louis Armstrong did his version, “C’est si bon, people say that in France,” (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #5 – Here Comes the Sun – This song has such a positive title that it has been used for several ones. It’s not the one by George Harrison, but he might have heard and liked it since he played the ukulele and was a fan of 1920s songs (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #4 – Alexander’s Ragtime Band – I don’t know if it is this, White Christmas, or maybe another tune that was the most successful in the eyes of their composer, Irving Berlin (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #3 – Squeeze Me – When I have the time and energy, it’s fun and instructive to attempt to record a big band arrangement. In the 1920s, ten or nine, even 8 piece orchestras were considered big bands, normally consisting of three saxes and a brass section (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Studio #2 – Say It Isn’t So – I play and record some in my home studio. Sometimes it’s a quick jam session thing, sometimes I get inspired to do a little bit more, and then as third mode I feel that I need to do a whole arrangemen (…) read more and listenread more and listen