Benny Moten Orchestra, Thick Lip Stomp, 1926
Benny Moten Orchestra, Moten Stomp, 1927
New Orleans was the birthplace of Jazz, Chicago in the early 20s was its second home, and in the mid to late 20s, New York City became the place to be, but that doesn't mean that great Jazz wasn't played elsewhere. Until prominent Jazz bands became nationally broadcast in the 30s, so-called "Territory Bands" were more common, and the greatest territory band outside of the great capitals of jazz was Benny Moten's Kansas City Orchestra. Getting his start in the early 20s, Benny Moten's band dominated the midwestern-plains circuit. Its earliest recordings in 1923 show a more ragtime based rhythm, but also a focus on the blues that would remain characteristic of the Kansas City Style well into the 30s, and which was one of the elements that made the Basie band the force that brought the living, beating heart back into Jazz in the Swing era, when commercialism and sophistication were threatening to stifle it. By the way, the devil-may-care attitude of Kansas City's Mayor Prendergast and his machine encouraged the proliferation of night clubs with hot music and hotter patrons that made the city the center of vice, accompanied by the swinginest jams ever heard, all through the era.
And, if for no other reason, the Moten orchestra is famous as the birthplace and core of the later Count Basie Band. In fact, Basie got his big break from Moten later in the 20s, and he met a number of later Basie stalwarts, prominently bassist Walter Page, in the Moten band, or in Page's case, even earlier in Walter Page's Blue Devils, later folded into the Moten Band. Basie, and later Goodman, also featured Moten's tune 'Moten Swing' prominently in their playbooks in the 30s. Benny Moten himself, though, wasn't around to hear it. He died prematurely of what should have been a routine operation in 1933, and Basie inherited the greatest territory band that ever was.
We shall hear more of this band as we move through the years...
Monday, March 9, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Louis Armstrong 1924-25
Fletcher Henderson Orchesra with Louis Armstrong, Copenhagen 1924
Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong, St. Louis Blues, Jan 1925
In 1923, Louis Armstrong made his first recordings, with his mentor, King Oliver. In late 1925, he began a series of (studio only) recordings, the Hot 5's and Hot 7's, that utterly transformed the course of jazz forever by establishing the virtuoso solo as the sine qua non for every jazz performance. But what was he doing between these two periods?
In New York City, Fletcher Henderson had by 1924 already established his orchestra as the number one jazz group in town. Of course, these NYC black musicians had very different background than the New Orleans trained performers like Armstrong, no matter whether they were black or white. Henderson had already begun the process of creating written arrangements for jazz tunes, an innovation required for the northern musicians for whom improvisational counterpoint was not part of their training, and which would be brought to new heights later by Don Redman. But he had heard Armstrong and knew that he would be a really exciting addition. Armstrong finally listened to the prompting of his wife at the time, Lillian Hardin Armstrong, to strike out on his own, and accepted Henderson's offer.
The Henderson recording here is not the absolute best for highlighting Armstrong's contributions to the band, but you can hear him strike out with the vigorous and driving tone that certainly woke up the new york musicians, and impelled them to sharpen their sense of rhythm, not to mention the proper application of the blues scale.
(Also, the proud owner of this actual original 78, and a beautiful victrola, has unaccountably chosen to highlight his possesions in a bare room with such live reverberations that they threaten to overwhelm the actual recording. I apologise for being so lazy that I have not yet created my own videos to make up for the lacunae in the You Tube recordings that are currently available. Truly, I am teh lazy blogger!)
The other recording here is a famous one that Louis made with the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith. All through the 20s, Louis would find the time to pick up a few dollars by performing on recordings with singers. (Musicians would only make a flat fee for recordings, with no royalties or residuals, until the successful outcome of the strike they held during WWII. The so-called V-Discs were made by the U.S. Army during this strike to make sure that servicemen would not be deprived of jazz during the strike!)
In this great recording of W.C. Handy's St. Louis Blues, Armstrong can barely restrain himself from playing while Bessie Smith is singing. In fact, he is not really showing good musical manners! However, the result for us is a feast of virtuoso singing and playing that makes this side one of the most rewarding of Bessie Smith's many fine recordings. Bessie was not as pleased as we might be - she told her producers to never hire Louis again, and the remainder of her recordings from this period often feature Louis' replacement in the Henderson band, the unjustly neglected Joe Smith.
(okay, for some insane reason there is some copyright issue with this particular recording. it is still, however, a 'must hear' for fans of pops and the empress of the blues)
Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong, St. Louis Blues, Jan 1925
In 1923, Louis Armstrong made his first recordings, with his mentor, King Oliver. In late 1925, he began a series of (studio only) recordings, the Hot 5's and Hot 7's, that utterly transformed the course of jazz forever by establishing the virtuoso solo as the sine qua non for every jazz performance. But what was he doing between these two periods?
In New York City, Fletcher Henderson had by 1924 already established his orchestra as the number one jazz group in town. Of course, these NYC black musicians had very different background than the New Orleans trained performers like Armstrong, no matter whether they were black or white. Henderson had already begun the process of creating written arrangements for jazz tunes, an innovation required for the northern musicians for whom improvisational counterpoint was not part of their training, and which would be brought to new heights later by Don Redman. But he had heard Armstrong and knew that he would be a really exciting addition. Armstrong finally listened to the prompting of his wife at the time, Lillian Hardin Armstrong, to strike out on his own, and accepted Henderson's offer.
The Henderson recording here is not the absolute best for highlighting Armstrong's contributions to the band, but you can hear him strike out with the vigorous and driving tone that certainly woke up the new york musicians, and impelled them to sharpen their sense of rhythm, not to mention the proper application of the blues scale.
(Also, the proud owner of this actual original 78, and a beautiful victrola, has unaccountably chosen to highlight his possesions in a bare room with such live reverberations that they threaten to overwhelm the actual recording. I apologise for being so lazy that I have not yet created my own videos to make up for the lacunae in the You Tube recordings that are currently available. Truly, I am teh lazy blogger!)
The other recording here is a famous one that Louis made with the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith. All through the 20s, Louis would find the time to pick up a few dollars by performing on recordings with singers. (Musicians would only make a flat fee for recordings, with no royalties or residuals, until the successful outcome of the strike they held during WWII. The so-called V-Discs were made by the U.S. Army during this strike to make sure that servicemen would not be deprived of jazz during the strike!)
In this great recording of W.C. Handy's St. Louis Blues, Armstrong can barely restrain himself from playing while Bessie Smith is singing. In fact, he is not really showing good musical manners! However, the result for us is a feast of virtuoso singing and playing that makes this side one of the most rewarding of Bessie Smith's many fine recordings. Bessie was not as pleased as we might be - she told her producers to never hire Louis again, and the remainder of her recordings from this period often feature Louis' replacement in the Henderson band, the unjustly neglected Joe Smith.
(okay, for some insane reason there is some copyright issue with this particular recording. it is still, however, a 'must hear' for fans of pops and the empress of the blues)
Thursday, February 5, 2009
If You Were Lost I'd Come And Find You (Rough Cut)
so we were sitting around talking on th' eschaton one night and honey bear kelly says
Hecate don't worry. If you get lost I'd come and find you.
HoneyBearKelly | Homepage | 02.05.09 - 9:51 pm | #
and hecate says why that's the nicest thing anybody ever said to me
and i says to myself i says 'if you were lost i'd come and find you' that's a song
so it's kind of rough but what the hell...
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sidney Bechet 1923
Wild Cat Blues
One fine day in New Orleans back before 1910, a band was playing a party in someone's house. From another room they suddenly heard someone playing a wicked clarinet along with the band. I turned out that little Sidney Bechet had picked up his brother's clarinet and just taught himself how to play, that's all!
Bechet kicked around New Orleans in the teens with the rest of the musicians, most of whom, as Louis Armstrong describes in his book My Life In New Orleans, had day jobs. But by the end of the teens things had changed - jazz had become big business, and, ironically, all of the best jazz musicians had left New Orleans. Sidney Bechet was touring Europe with a band, and came across a soprano saxophone one afternoon in a pawnshop in England.
He had always had a ferocious lip, a supernaturally powerful tone, and a scintillating vibrato wide enough to frame the sistine chapel. He also had a nasty temper and tended to get into fights. After one such fracas he was persuaded to leave Europe for a while, so he came back to the United States for a few years, recording this and a few other sides. Discographers joke that he is one band member who can never be mistaken when there is little other information about a rare record: that tone could only be Sidney!
During the 20s and 30s he was in and out of the United States, but soon he settled in France, where he became a national treasure. His innate sense of musical drama, in addition to his tone, sustained many more decades of performing there, and he lived like an aristocrat. He belongs on the roll of true and original New Orleans Jazz geniuses.
One fine day in New Orleans back before 1910, a band was playing a party in someone's house. From another room they suddenly heard someone playing a wicked clarinet along with the band. I turned out that little Sidney Bechet had picked up his brother's clarinet and just taught himself how to play, that's all!
Bechet kicked around New Orleans in the teens with the rest of the musicians, most of whom, as Louis Armstrong describes in his book My Life In New Orleans, had day jobs. But by the end of the teens things had changed - jazz had become big business, and, ironically, all of the best jazz musicians had left New Orleans. Sidney Bechet was touring Europe with a band, and came across a soprano saxophone one afternoon in a pawnshop in England.
He had always had a ferocious lip, a supernaturally powerful tone, and a scintillating vibrato wide enough to frame the sistine chapel. He also had a nasty temper and tended to get into fights. After one such fracas he was persuaded to leave Europe for a while, so he came back to the United States for a few years, recording this and a few other sides. Discographers joke that he is one band member who can never be mistaken when there is little other information about a rare record: that tone could only be Sidney!
During the 20s and 30s he was in and out of the United States, but soon he settled in France, where he became a national treasure. His innate sense of musical drama, in addition to his tone, sustained many more decades of performing there, and he lived like an aristocrat. He belongs on the roll of true and original New Orleans Jazz geniuses.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Young Bix, 1923-4, and the Chicago Style
wolverines, copenhagen, 1924
New Orleans Rhythm Kings
Up in Davenport, Iowa, in the years around 1920, a teenager with a cornet kept on playing his Original Dixieland Jazz Band records over and over, trying to play along with them on his cornet. Aspiring jazz musicians have done the same ever since, playing along with the recordings of their idols, trying to learn the trick of playing and composing at the same time that is what jazz improvisation is all about, not to mention giving it a little bit on what's in your heart so that you are speaking with your own voice.
Bix grew up in a middle class family with a bit of a taste for music, but his father strongly disapproved of jazz, and this fact cast a shadow over Bix's entire life. Nevertheless, he persisted in learning the cornet, and a wise teacher hired by his parents told them that he played all wrong, but that he was not going to interfere because the young man was "getting excellent results". In fact, Bix was perfecting a unique and wonderful cornet style that still stands out, featuring a beautiful bell-like tone, and perfectly formed eighth and sixteenth notes with an miraculously formed attack. His tone has been compared to "BBs hitting a bell", and, most poetically by Eddie Condon, who compared it to "a girl saying yes". Even Louis Armstrong was impressed: "those pretty notes went right through me".
Bix also had a firm grasp of modern harmony, and his solos are just as well known for their beauty and advanced harmonic conception. On famous composition, In A Mist, recorded on the piano by Bix, is really more of an impressionist piano composition than a jazz piece.
Bix was also recorded early on at Gennett records. He was playing with the Wolverines, a small group formed to play in the clubs and summer resorts of the midwest. As the records filtered out, musicians all over the country pricked up their ears when Bix's clear, beautiful tone leapt out. These early recordings of Bix have a charm all their own, but we will return to Bix later on for a look at his career when he was in the big time.
Also included are some Gennett sides by another northern white group, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. They are known for self-consciously including what were considered "black" elements into their playing, chiefly a bluesy sound that contrasted with the ricky-ticky rhythms and straight intonation that characterized some other white groups of the time. It made a big impression on their peers, including Bix.
All in all, these Gennett recordings document the second generation of jazz players, young kids in the midwest who had never been in New Orleans. It was the good luck of Gennett to be the only record company in the midwest at the point in time when the heart of jazz was in Chicago...
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band with Louis Armstrong
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, "Mandy Lee Blues", "I'm Gonna Wear You Off My Mind", "Chimes Blues", 1923
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, "Just Gone", 1923
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, "Canal Street Blues", 1923
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, "Snake Rag", 1923
It was 1922 when the then obscure Kid Ory's Sunshine Orchestra became the first authentic african american jazz band from New Orleans to record. However, these few sides didn't have nearly the impact of the substantial series of recordings that King Oliver's band made for Gennett Records in 1923.
King Oliver was one of the three great Cornet Kings of New Orleans. He was famous for his effects on cornet, where he pioneered the use of mutes, especially the wah-wah style use of the plunger mute. His famous "crying baby" routine was unfortunately never recorded, but you can hear a little bit of his wonderful creamy crying tone especially at the very end of Mandy Leee Blues. (Unfortunately we don't have a You Tube posting of his famous solo on Dippermouth Blues, q.v.) By 1922 he was installed in the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago, where young white aspiring jazz musicians, including eventually a young Bix Beiderbecke, would sneak in and sit transfixed in front of the band stand, watching him in amazement, as well as Johnny Dodds with his incendiary clarinet tone, and his little brother Baby Dodds, who is famous for pioneering the modern trap set.
By 1923, however, King Oliver was suffering from gum disease, and found it difficult to play a complete set. He sent for Louis Armstrong, who around then had been playing on a riverboat on the mississippi. Louis played with a big, open tone, which contrasts with the smaller, plunger-muted tone that King Oliver was still playing at that time. Louis Armstrong's first recorded solo can be heard here on the third cut on the first 'video', "Chimes Blues". It shows his high level of musical training by that point, being a very organised and composed solo, almost like a classical composition exercise.
Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana was the project of the Starr Piano company. The big recording studios were in NYC, and didn't make it out to Chigaco, where the real jazz was happening at that time. Despite being a conservative family of instrument makers with origins in Germany, they knew that african americans were making good music, and they secured their place in american cultural history by being the first to record King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, and Blind Lemon Jefferson.
However, the studios were not up to the standard of Victor or Columbia. The famous story of the King Oliver recording sessions was how the engineers kept on pushing Louis farther and farther back, because his tone overwhelmed the other musicians on the test pressing, until he was standing in the hall. Even with the primitive recording standards, these sides have a wonderful cheerfulness that, along with the amazing hot solos, demonstrates what kept Bix and the others coming back to Lincoln Gardens night after night back in 1923...
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, "Just Gone", 1923
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, "Canal Street Blues", 1923
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, "Snake Rag", 1923
It was 1922 when the then obscure Kid Ory's Sunshine Orchestra became the first authentic african american jazz band from New Orleans to record. However, these few sides didn't have nearly the impact of the substantial series of recordings that King Oliver's band made for Gennett Records in 1923.
King Oliver was one of the three great Cornet Kings of New Orleans. He was famous for his effects on cornet, where he pioneered the use of mutes, especially the wah-wah style use of the plunger mute. His famous "crying baby" routine was unfortunately never recorded, but you can hear a little bit of his wonderful creamy crying tone especially at the very end of Mandy Leee Blues. (Unfortunately we don't have a You Tube posting of his famous solo on Dippermouth Blues, q.v.) By 1922 he was installed in the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago, where young white aspiring jazz musicians, including eventually a young Bix Beiderbecke, would sneak in and sit transfixed in front of the band stand, watching him in amazement, as well as Johnny Dodds with his incendiary clarinet tone, and his little brother Baby Dodds, who is famous for pioneering the modern trap set.
By 1923, however, King Oliver was suffering from gum disease, and found it difficult to play a complete set. He sent for Louis Armstrong, who around then had been playing on a riverboat on the mississippi. Louis played with a big, open tone, which contrasts with the smaller, plunger-muted tone that King Oliver was still playing at that time. Louis Armstrong's first recorded solo can be heard here on the third cut on the first 'video', "Chimes Blues". It shows his high level of musical training by that point, being a very organised and composed solo, almost like a classical composition exercise.
Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana was the project of the Starr Piano company. The big recording studios were in NYC, and didn't make it out to Chigaco, where the real jazz was happening at that time. Despite being a conservative family of instrument makers with origins in Germany, they knew that african americans were making good music, and they secured their place in american cultural history by being the first to record King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, and Blind Lemon Jefferson.
However, the studios were not up to the standard of Victor or Columbia. The famous story of the King Oliver recording sessions was how the engineers kept on pushing Louis farther and farther back, because his tone overwhelmed the other musicians on the test pressing, until he was standing in the hall. Even with the primitive recording standards, these sides have a wonderful cheerfulness that, along with the amazing hot solos, demonstrates what kept Bix and the others coming back to Lincoln Gardens night after night back in 1923...
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