The Penguin Jazz Guide (11 page)

For the most part they were recorded in New York, but Piron’s band was a New Orleans outfit and as such was one of the few to be documented in the ’20s. This splendid reissue is a model of its kind: the sleeve-notes sum up years of research into the performers’ activities, and this latest remastering of a set of terrifically rare originals is excellent. The music, however, comes with a gentle warning for anyone expecting raw, ‘authentic’ New Orleans jazz. Piron’s group was a more genteel, proper orchestra than some New Orleans bands of the time, pitching itself somewhere between ragtime, society music and the glimmers of early jazz: though 1923 is early in jazz recording history, they still sound a much less modern band next to Oliver or Fletcher Henderson from the same year (one should compare their treatment of ‘Doo Doodle Oom’ with Henderson’s 1923 Vocalion version). A few tracks, including the very first, ‘Bouncing Around’, brew up a potent mix of syncopation, with Tio’s wriggling clarinet breaks and Bocage’s urbane lead making their mark over an ensemble rhythm that is almost swinging. No one will claim these as classic jazz performances, but they mark a very important reference point in the evolution of the music, in New Orleans and beyond.

ORIGINAL INDIANA FIVE

Formed 1922; disbanded 1929

Group

The Original Indiana Five: Volume 1

Jazz Oracle BDW 8019

Johnny Sylvester (t); Vincent Grande, Charlie Panelli (tb); Nick Vitalo (cl, as); Johnny Costello (cl); Newman Fier, Harry Ford (p); Tony Colucci (bj); Tom Morton (d, v). May 1923–May 1925.

Trombonist Turk Murphy said (1981):
‘The key is to listen to the trombone and where it sits in the harmony. Not so high up that it’s fighting with the clarinet, and not clashing with the piano, or where later the bass would be.’

The group hadn’t much to do with Indiana, actually formed in Pennsylvania under the leadership of drummer Tom Morton, who remained a constant through various changes of personnel for the remainder of the jazz decade. This, the succeeding volume and a couple of other OI5 reissues were pioneering, as hardly anything of the group had been revived in recent times; this despite an evident popularity, for they made more than 100 titles during the ’20s. The music is a closely argued example of the small-group jazz which several New York groups of the day pursued: perhaps not quite the equal of the Original Memphis Five, given that there were no soloists in the band the equal of Phil Napoleon and Miff Mole, but this is really ensemble music which picks up from the cues of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.

A Frog reissue offers a decent sampler of some of their sessions, but it was trumped by the comprehensive three-disc Jazz Oracle edition, of which this fine first volume will suffice for all but specialist listeners. Not only are the transfers excellent, but the documentation is superb, offering formidable research into the lives of all the leading players in the group, and there are a few ancillary sessions which are not strictly the work of the OI5 but which
are closely related. Even though little of this has a pressing claim on the general listener, enthusiasts will be impressed by the standard of these issues, and may be surprised at the heat which some sides generate.

JOE ‘KING’ OLIVER

Born 11 May 1885, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 8 April 1938, Savannah, Georgia

Trumpet, cornet, voice

King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band: The Complete Set

Retrieval RTR 79007 2CD

Oliver; Louis Armstrong (c); Honoré Dutrey, Ed Atkins (tb); Johnny Dodds, Jimmie Noone (cl); Stump Evans (ss, as); Charlie Jackson (bsx); Lil Hardin, Clarence Williams (p); Johnny St Cyr (bj, v); Bud Scott, Bill Johnson (bj); Baby Dodds (d); Jodie Edwards, Susie Edwards (v). April 1923–December 1924.

Poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin said (1976):
‘If Armstrong was jazz’s Gabriel, then I suppose Oliver was its Lucifer, a proud man who risked everything and owned to no one and nothing superior to himself.’

The third King of New Orleans, after Buddy Bolden and Freddie Keppard, remains among the most stately and distinguished of jazz musicians, although newer listeners may wonder whether Oliver’s records aren’t entirely eclipsed by those of his protégé Louis Armstrong. Joe Oliver was in at the inception of jazz and it’s our misfortune that his group wasn’t recorded until 1923, when its greatest years may have been behind it: accounts of the band in live performance paint spectacular images of creativity which the constricted records barely sustain. Yet they remain magnificent examples of black music at an early peak: the interplay between Oliver and Armstrong, the beautifully balanced ensembles, the development of polyphony. Oliver’s tight-knit sound, fluid yet rigorously controlled, projects the feel of his New Orleans origins, vivified by the electricity of his Chicagoan success. There is the brightness of the young Armstrong, content to follow his master but already bursting with talent, and the magisterial work of both of the Dodds brothers (only the recording stops us from hearing Baby’s work in its full intensity). Ragtime and brass band music still guide much of what Oliver did, but the unsettled ambitions of jazz keep poking through too. If the music is caught somewhere between eras, its absolute assurance is riveting and presents a leader who knew exactly what he wanted.

There are 37 surviving sides by the Oliver (Creole) Jazz Band, including a handful of alternative takes. This two-disc set is the first to include all of them in one place (one disc, the Gennett coupling of ‘Zulu’s Ball’ and ‘Working Man Blues’, is so rare that only a single copy of the original 78 is known to exist) and, while Robert Parker’s stunning remastering in his first Jazz Classics volume, now deleted, doubtless sounded better to some ears, we have happily transferred our number one choice to Retrieval, for whom John R. T. Davies has done his usual outstanding job. The set also includes a pair of 1924 titles by the vaudevillians Butterbeans And Susie, with accompaniment by Oliver and Clarence Williams, and the famous pair of duets by Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. Modern ears are still going to find this primitive in audio terms, but surely the excitement, panache and inventiveness of this incredible band will speak to anyone with even the slightest sympathy.

The Creole Jazz Band sides were the first genuinely important recordings by black musicians. Nothing that followed was half as successful. The Dixie Syncopators failed to reach anything like the same standard and Oliver made a grievous mistake (too proud?) in not accepting a situation at the Cotton Club. But for a shining moment, his group expressed everything that jazz was about, and that music comes down to us untarnished.

FREDDIE KEPPARD

Born 27 February 1890, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 15 July 1933, Chicago, Illinois

Trumpet

The Complete Set 1923–1926

Retrieval RTR 79017

Keppard; Elwood Graham, James Tate (c); Fred Garland, Eddie Vincent, Fayette Williams, Eddie Ellis (tb); Jimmie Noone (cl, as, v); Clifford King (cl, as); Johnny Dodds, Angelo Fernandez (cl); Joe Poston (as); Jerome Pasquall, Norval Morton (ts); Arthur Campbell, Antonia Spaulding, Adrian Robinson, Jimmy Blythe (p); Jimmy Bell (vn); Stan Wilson, Erskine Tate (bj); Bill Newton (tba); Bert Greene, Jasper Taylor, Jimmy Bertrand (d); Papa Charlie Jackson (v). June 1923–January 1927.

Trumpeter Ian Carr said (1990):
‘What did Winston Churchill say about Russia? “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” That goes for Freddie Keppard, too, I think.’

One of the great unanswered questions in jazz is how good Keppard really was. A bandleader in New Orleans at 16, he was touring by 1910, his massive sound shaking up the pre-jazz scene. Secretive about his own playing and alcoholic, he missed the chance to record early and was overtaken by Armstrong. The second ‘King’ of New Orleans cornet, after Buddy Bolden and before Joe Oliver, his handful of records offer ambiguous evidence and suggest a musician who cottoned on to ragtime but never quite got a grip on where jazz was going. He has a big, jabbing sound, when you can hear him, and, cut loose from his surroundings, he can work up genuine excitement. That happens only a few times on the 24 tracks which are his entire legacy, and even then his presence on a few of them is doubtful. The bigger-band sides with Doc Cook and Erskine Tate are often a disappointing lot, and one has to turn to the small-group performances with Jimmy Blythe, Jasper Taylor and Keppard’s own Jazz Cardinals to hear him working at something like optimum level, in the rough-and-ready Chicago jazz of the day.

This Retrieval edition is so well remastered that it made us reconsider our verdict on Keppard. The Doc Cook band numbers have never sounded finer, and even the Erskine Tate tracks from 1923 stand up much better than before. One still needs ears sympathetic to the music of that day, but more than any other previous issue this brings Keppard back to life.

JIMMY BLYTHE

Born January 1901, Louisville, Kentucky; died 21 June 1931, Chicago, Illinois

Piano

Messin’ Around Blues

Delmark DE 792

Blythe (pianola rolls). Early ’20s.

Oscar Peterson, listening to Blythe on record, with tears in his eyes (1982):
‘It’s almost like seeing a Bible scene acted out in front of you, or one of the old myths. Very moving and part of where we all came from.’

Born on the cusp of the new century, Blythe became an integral part of South Side music in the ’20s. His extensive work for Paramount, Gennett and Vocalion mixes a strong blues piano approach with flakes of stride and boogie-woogie, revealing a determined and creative thinker. Not much is known about Blythe’s life, a reversal of those cases where the musician is legendary but the recorded legacy is exiguous. Blythe turned up in Chicago at the end of the war, studied for a time with Clarence Jones and began making piano rolls a
few years later. ‘Chicago Stomp’ from 1924 is reckoned to be the first boogie-woogie recording. He also recorded with Johnny Dodds and a good number of those recordings survive as well. The pianola rolls remastered on
Messin’ Around Blues
come in immaculate sound that must be as close as anyone will now come to Jimmy in the all too frail flesh. Some rinky-dink moments on these pop-blues tunes for the nickelodeon market, but for the most part thoughtfully conceived and executed. A slice of living history.

GEORGIA MELODIANS

Formed 1923

Group

Georgia Melodians 1924–1926

Timeless Historical CBC 1-031

Probably: Ernie Intlehouse, Red Nichols (c); Herb Winfield, Abe Lincoln (tb); Merrit Kenworthy (cl, as, bsx); Clarence Hutchins (cl, ts, bs); Oscar Young (p); Elmer Merry (bj, g); Carl Gerrold (d); Vernon Dlahart (v). July 1924–April 1926.

BM says:
‘I once spent a rather nervous week holed up in a house in Sana’a. It belonged to a Yemeni doctor who every afternoon at around five cranked his wind-up gramophone and played an ancient disc of the Georgia Melodians, “Everybody Loves My Baby”. It seemed to be the only record he had, or liked. I’ve no idea how it came to be there.’

A ‘territory band’, formed by Clarence Hill Hutchins, the Georgia Melodians came from Savannah to New York City, where the Edison Company recorded them. Though Joe Moore’s notes reveal that the band broke up at the end of 1924, they continued to record until 1926. Players like Intlehouse, Kenworthy and Hutchins are about as obscure as any in recorded jazz, and listening to the music reveals why. This is hot dance music with a generous ration of solos (Edison’s vertical-cut discs allowed for much longer playing time than normal 78s) and an honourable intention to swing, but it’s poker-stiff at times. The very earliest tracks, once available on a Retrieval LP, are missing from this otherwise complete edition. Staple numbers such as ‘Spanish Shawl’ and ‘Everybody Loves My Baby’ can be heard better elsewhere, although they do a respectable job on ‘San’. The group broke up in 1929, and nobody thought much about the music until these were reissued in the ’90s. Beautifully clean transfers bring it all back strongly.

FIVE BIRMINGHAM BABIES

Formed 1924

Group

Heart Breakin’ Baby

Frog 58

Red Nichols (c); Frank Cush, Chelsea Quealey (t); Abe Lincoln (tb); Sam Ruby (cl, Cmel); Bobby Davis (cl, as); Adrian Rollini (bsx, gfs); Irving Brodsky, Jack Russin (p); Tommy Fellini, Ray Kitchingman (bj); Herb Weil (d); Stan King (d, kz); Arthur Hull, Ed Kirkeby (v). July 1924–July 1927.

Gerry Mulligan said (1992):
‘I knew Adrian Rollini had played bass saxophone long before I consciously heard him, but it was a shock eventually to hear those records and think: “Damn, I thought
I
invented that.” ’

A little slice of jazz history, the Babies – who had no connection with Birmingham, Alabama – were closely related to the Goofus Five, set up by Ed Kirkeby, who was manager of the
California Ramblers, as a way of playing hot music. Rollini was a kingpin on his big horn and on the melodica-like goofus (he also dabbled in ‘hot fountain pen’, a clarinet with a sax mouthpiece) and his unique sound figures here. It’s a period piece, musically, but there are good breaks on Adrian’s ‘I Know What It Means’ and on ‘Heart Breakin’ Baby’, on which he had to split the royalty with Kirkeby, and how could you fail to love a band where the MC announces ‘and on trombone … Abe Lincoln!’?

LOVIE AUSTIN

Originally Cora Calhoun; born 19 September 1887, Chattanooga, Tennessee; died 10 July 1972, Chicago, Illinois