Browsing the 1927 Victor Catalogue

On the DuPlex Mystery Jazz Hour of 12.1.16 I played a variety of music offered by the Victor record company in 1927-jazz, jug band, blues, country, tango.

LISTEN HERE
All tunes are from 1927, recorded for Victor.

‪Duke Ellington - "East St Louis Toodle-oo"
‪Dixieland Jug Blowers - "Don't Give all the Lard Away!"
Benny Moten's Kansas City Orchestra - "Moten Stomp"
‪Orquesta Tipica Victor - "Tandas" 
‪Julius Daniels - "Ninety-Nine Year Blues"
‪Ben Pollack & His Orch. - "Waitin' For Katie"‬
‪Bobbie Leecan's Need-More Band "Washboard Cut Out"
‪Jelly Roll Morton Trio w.  Johnny Dodds & Baby Dodds‬-"Wolverine Blues"
‪Jean Goldkette and His Orchestra feat. Bix Beiderbecke - "Slow River"
‪Coon-Sanders Nighthawks - "Sluefoot"
‪Elizabeth Smith  w. Rex Stewart-cornet‬ "Police done tore my Playhouse Down"
‪Ross de Luxe Syncopaters- "Believe Me, Dear"
‪Clifford Hayes' Louisville Stompers "Blue Guitar Stomp"
‪Fats Waller & Alberta Hunter "Beale Street Blues"
Jimmie Rodgers - "Blue Yodel"
Louis Dumaine's Jazzola Eight ‬-"Red Onion Drag"
‪Fletcher Henderson "Variety Stomp"

Miles is to Picasso as Who is to Whom

In a well-known interview with Sonny Rollins and Gary Bartz, Miles Davis is likened to Picasso. Like Miles, Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane went through cycles of intense artistic change; less so, other of the musicians in this post: Bix, Red Allen, Hampton and Shepp. And, like Picasso, the artists here sometimes had a dominant style and sometimes went through significant changes (not to mention working in different media). But, since this is pure subjectivity, not scholarly research, I'm using a single well-known work by the musicians and artists to present a simple case for their aesthetic linkage. Look and listen.

Bix and Joan Miro.                            

***************

Coleman Hawkins and John Marin
                     

Get Miff-Ed

Miff Mole was a leading light of early jazz trombone. He played with everyone-check out the playlist-and his playing always shone.

Listen to the show.

Playlist:

Lanin's Southern Serenaders. "Aunt Hagar's Children's Blues  (1921), Paramount

Lanin's Southern Serenaders. "Shake It Break It" (1921), Paramount

Original Memphis Five "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like Sister Kate" (1922), Perfect 

Original Memphis Five "Tin Roof Blues" 1923), Perfect 

Ray Miller and His Orchestra "Mama's Gone" (1924), Brunswick 

Bix & Sioux City Six "I'm Glad"  (Jazz, 1924), Gennett 

The Red Heads "Nervous Charlie" (Jazz, 1925), Pathe 

The Cottonpickers "Prince of Wails"  (Jazz, 1925), Brunswick 

Ray Miller and His Orchestra "Nobody Knows What a Red Headed Mama Can Do" (Jazz, 1924), Brunswick 

The Tennessee Tooters "How Come You Do Me Like You Do?" (Jazz, 1925), Vocalion 

Bix Beiderbecke & Sioux City Six "Flock O' Blues" (Jazz, 1925), Gennett 

Red And Miff's Stompers "Alabama Stomp" (Jazz, 1926), Edison 

Red And Miff's Stompers "The Stampede" (Jazz, 1926), Edison 

Red Nichols & His Five Pennies "That's No Bargain" (Jazz, 1926), Vocalion 

The Arkansas Travelers "Sensation" (Jazz, 1927), Harmony 

Miff Mole and his Little Molars "I Ain't Got Nobody"(Jazz, 1927), Okeh 

The Six Hottentots "The Memphis Blues"(Jazz, 1927), Domino 

"1st Annual Jazz Ghoul-athon" by Steve Provizer

Ah, the elevation of John Lennon to sainthood. He did co-write and write some great songs. He was also occasionally a creep and often ah, not what he appeared to be. That said, my teeth are set on edge by the "where were you when Lennon died" tweets, blog posts, etc.; a ghoulish piggy-backing on boomer nostalgia. Well, two can play at that game, I-gor.



Welcome to the First Annual Jazz Ghoul-athon. Answers are offered, but creative readers are encouraged to submit their own. Entrants become eligible to tour the Brilliant Corners Art Van Damme bow tie collection.

Where were you when Jelly Roll Morton got his nickname?
a. Ridin' the rails between Wichita and Joplin, MO
b. Stuffing twinkies for Hostess
c. Berating a scurrilous tailor

Where were you when Bix died?
a. Bathing in lime jello
b. Polishing my ocarina
c. Rafting down the Mississippi with Ferde Grofe

What were you doing when Miles first started to chew gum?
a. Beating up a cop outside Walgreen's
b. Reaming out Fats Navarro's horn
c. Surreptitiously cutting pages out of Errol Garner's phonebooks

What were you doing when the plunger mute was invented?
a. Spiking my breakfast muesli with prunes
b. Buying condoms in the Village Vanguard bathroom
c. Nuzzling a bottle of Jack Daniels

What were you doing when Chet Baker lost his teeth?
a. Trying to get a wine cork out with a churchkey
b. Experimenting with a Pepto-Bismal tablet
c. Looking for my zippo

What were you doing during the Bird "Lover Man" session?
a. Dodging cymbals
b. Swapping road-kill recipes w. the bus driver
c.  Politely declining a charlotte russe.

What were you doing when Lionel Hampton gave his whole band a raise.
a. Shtupping Anita Ekberg
b. Counting my bullion
c. None of the above

Jung Man With A Horn- by Steve Provizer

When it comes to Hollywood doing jazz bio-pics, I prefer hagiography: The Goodman story, the Dorsey Story, the Miller story-they're just the Lindburgh story, Curie and Young Abe Lincoln stories with swing music. Fonda coulda been Miller and Stewart could been Lincoln. Greer Garson as Marian McPartland? Anyway, it's a nice, comfortable roll in the nostalgic hay. Why do those nut jobs in L.A. go all pseudo-egghead on us and decide they have to "explain" jazz? It's a formula for disaster.

Remember your initial excitement when you heard about "Round Midnight," and about "Bird"? Remember your disappointment after you saw them? Why didn't they let Dexter play anything up tempo!! Why did they make Bird a man-child!! Is every black man a tragic figure and every white man a dolt?

Possibly the most exasperating example of the genre is "Jung Man With a Horn." Sorry-Young Man. The insane ilk of psycho-babble that floats through this movie like celluloid arteriosclerosis is unmatched. Kirk Douglas/Bix Beiderbecke has "one wing" then falls for the broken pseudo-shrink Bacall who has a pet macaw? She smashes your 78's? I hate to see that; even if they're just Caruso on VIctor. You're right, Kirk/Bix, she is "dirty and twisted inside," while you-were-born-to-play-the-trumpet-and-can-only-communicate-through-that-damn-horn. Why, oh why do they try and foist off that juvenile premise: "I want to play the note that no one else has ever played?" Bejasus.

Don't ask me if the same 4th-class Freudianisms befoul the "Dorothy Baker novel of the same name." I can only deal with psychic effluvia in one genre at a time.

"Based on the life of Bix Beiderbecke"? My moldy toenail. Harry James, a fine player, is the film's "music adviser" and dubs the trumpet parts. Kirk Douglas pushes the trumpet valves convincingly and has the appropriate unyielding embouchure and convincing semi-ecstatic gleam in his eye. Unfortunately, Harry James' style bears as much resemblance to Bix's as, well-you finish the analogy. I don't want to sound churlish. Happily, the movie is quite informative for all you trumpet players out there, as there are at least 4 mentions of the loathsome "roll" in this movie. You know, where the mouthpiece gets too low on your lower lip? You better correct it pronto, or I will strap you in this comfy chair and force you to listen to cinematic dialogue about trumpet rolls until your chops fall off. There are good documentaries about jazz. Why is this music such an lousy fit in feature films?

A "Bad" Embouchure

Life, Death, Resurrection and the Cornet-by Steve Provizer

--> During a recent Nat Adderly listening session, I thought “Why play this style on cornet and not trumpet?” I was thinking of the cliched perception of the cornet, as personified by cornet greats Oliver, Bix, Bobby Hackett, Jimmy McPartland et al. The cornet sound is theoretically mellower and rounder than a trumpet’s. The horns have the same length of tubing, but the cornet is squashed together a little more and most important, has more conical tubing than a trumpet, which has a cylindrical bore until it flares approaching the bell. The cornet mouthpiece emphasizes this difference. No scientist I, but I assume the acoustic difference may be that the wave form is less sawtooth and more sine. But think Adderly, Ruby Braff, Thad Jones and Warren Vache. Think Olu Dara and Graham Haynes if you want. To some degree, these guys have all broken the bounds. When they play long tones, you hear the difference in the horns (especially with Vache's vibrato), but essentially, these guys play the cornet like it was a trumpet, with brilliance, fire and a lot of upper register. Adderly emphasizes the blues and funk, Ruby the swing, Thad newer harmony, Daru and Graham the sonics and Vache facility all over the horn.

Herb

The evolution of a horn is an interesting thing. The cornet was the locus of technical innovation through the 19th c. while the trumpet was still thought of as it was in the Baroque period: a long tube with holes and little else. In 19th c. concert bands-feeder for brass-centric jazz-the cornets played the melody (The star was Herbert Clarke, whose technique books trumpet players still use) and the trumpets essentially played fanfare parts. Trumpet manufacturers began to catch on and applied cornet innovations around the turn of the century, but Jazz was an ensemble music and cornet worked better. Louis and Bix both played the cornet, but eventually, Armstrong stretched the limits of the cornet to the breaking point and switched to trumpet in 1927 for the Hot Seven recordings. The cornet lost ground and never caught up, except for "Dixieland" or "trad" players. For brass doublers, the pendulum swung hard to the hyper-mellow fluegelhorn. Me, I would rather hear a cornet. So, in a bizarre way, Nat, Ruby, Thad and company brought the cornet-trumpet cycle all the way back around. Where once Armstrong broke through the limits of the cornet to get to the trumpet, they did the reverse.