Davenport Blues
LP Brunswick BL 54010
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 Jack Teagarden and Benny Goodman. According to Art, it seemed that Goodman, already an experienced and much-desired studio musician at 25 years of age here, was not very happy to only receive 25 dollars, which was union scale at the time.
Adrian, who was mostly playing vibraphone at the time, decided to concentrate on his big bass sax, the instrument that, more than anyone else, had won him fame during the twenties.
For the repertoire, they also went back in time a little and chose to honor their late friend Bix Beiderbecke by playing his composition Davenport Blues, which Bix had recorded for Gennett in 1925.
Mannie Klein played trumpet on this Rollini date, and George Van Eps who played guitar, did the arrangement.