Red Hot Hottentot
78 rpm Gazell/New Orleans 1014
Jazz clubs in Europe sometimes started record labels (or vice versa), and this is an example of that. They would make rarities available to their audience and thus promote the original jazz from the 20s.
In this case, the Swedish Gazell has chosen a very rare recording from the QRS label by J.C. Johnson’s Five Hot Sparks. It’s not only rare, but it is also very good virtuoso small-band jazz from 1929. The guesswork on the label regarding the personnel is most probably wrong. Later sources would not have Clarence Williams on piano but the mythical Mabel Horsey, in spite of the fact that the band bears the name of another piano player, who is also the composer of the spectacular composition. Furthermore, the cornet work is by Walter “Jock” Bennet, which is supported by a few other recordings that I have, and the banjo work is more in the style of Ikey Robinson than Buddy Christian. But he was working in Chicago at the time, and the QRS recording was made in Long Island, New York.
The trombonist should be J.C. Higginbotham, which sounds possible, but another candidate is Henry Hicks. Concerning the reed player on alto sax and clarinet, Brian Rust has put a question mark in Jazz Records. Some sources say Darnell Howard in place of Omer Simeon, who is on the Swedish label, but I think that both these two also were playing in Chicago in the spring of 1929. I wonder if Charlie Holmes (or eventually Albert Nicholas) could be the man?
But then when I listen to the fabulous recording by Fats Waller and his Buddies of Minor Drag, recorded the same month, I find similarities in the attitude of the sax (tenor in this case) and trombone and wonder if Arville Harris could be considered and if Charlie Irvis still isn’t the trombone player.
As you see, there are some things to think about, and with a record like this, it’s worth it.