Eddie Condon Archives - Paul – and some of that Jazz

From the Record Shelves #293 – The Sheik of Araby – More from Eddie Condon today! This LP contains 1944 recordings for World, a company that offered specially recorded music to radio stations. On the two LPs we get, in addition to the released takes, unissued ones (…) read more and listenread more and listen

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 Record Shelves #202 – Rose of Washington Square – Milt Gabler had a record shop since 1926 in Manhattan, across the street from the Commodore Hotel. In the thirties, he sold mostly reissues of the jazz classics from the 1920s, and one day he said to (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #157 – Sugar – In Eddie Condon’s book We Called It music (1947) it’s said, not by him but by his co-author Thomas Sugrue: “the white musicians that went to the Lincoln Gardens, the Sunset Café or the Nest knew that however (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #132 – Farewell Blues. There are many similarities between this 1923 recording and the one that King Oliver’s Dixie Syncopators made a couple of years later, especially in the attitude of the hot final choruses. Isham Jones played tenor sax (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #112 – My Baby Came Home. It’s not a generally agreed upon judgement, but to my ears and taste Red McKenzie had a wonderful voice and his expression of sentiments is fine with me. On this compilation of singers from the jazz age (…) read more and listenread more and listen

Kiki remarked that the song is sad, but I said “so what?”. I’ve always liked sad songs even when I’m not feeling that way. First of all they remind us of the fact that not everybody is happy. Then it can make you remember times when (…) read more and view videoread more and view video

From the Record Shelves #95 – Don’t Give Me Sympathy. According to Edmond Hall himself, this nice little song was one that they often sang and played at home when he was small, and it stems from the 1890s. Home was in Reserve, Louisiana but Edmond (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #85 – Indiana. When I hear this I can’t help thinking about a passus from Eddie Condon’s book We Called It Music. In a chapter called “Young Man with a Cap” it reads: “The next day we got up as the train came into Cleveland (…) read more and listenread more and listen

From the Record Shelves #48 – Bugle Call Rag. As I remember it, it was quite a shock when I put on this record for the first time. I didn’t expect such playing in 1932 with a small group playing a free improvised ensemble. I suppose that Eddie Condon plays (…) read more and listenread more and listen