South Side Strut
LP Good Time Jazz L-12021
A very good 1957 “Good Time Jazz” release is spinning. It always puts me in a good mood; it is so well recorded and well played, and even the sleeve is funny, with good information on the back.
“Piano Professor” Don Ewell is the protagonist, and four of the twelve numbers are piano solos.
The other eight revive the clarinet trio format that was masterfully introduced by Jelly Roll Morton, and it’s also he who provides Ewell with his main inspiration.
Even if Darnell Howard did not come from New Orleans (he was born in Chicago) and did not ever, as far as I know, play the Albert system clarinet, he belongs to that famous school of early reedmen together with Barney Bigard, Omer Simeon, and Albert Nicholas since their pioneer days in common with King Oliver’s Dixie Syncopaters. In fact, it was Sidney Bechet who got him started in the style and also sold him a curved soprano sax in 1922.
Likewise, in the case of Albert Nicholas, he did not follow Oliver to New York but went on tour in the Orient and left the jazz stage in Chicago to others. He later joined Earl Hines Orchestra when he came back in the 30s.
Howard is a very confident and engaged soloist and lead clarinetist in this trio, where he is also well backed up by the third member, drummer Minor Hall, who was also with Oliver in the 1920s.
I give you the first track, which is a composition by Don Ewell himself.