Interracial Jazz Recording (#45): Mound City Blue Blowers w. Hawkins and Foster

Red McKenzie and Eddie Condon were two of the great organizers of combinations for recording in the late 20-'s-early 30's. Often putting together interracial sessions.  

Pops Foster

Red Mackenzie

This Victor session features great playing by several players. McKenzie is always convincingly hot playing his comb-and-paper, a comb with a piece of paper, often newspaper, placed over it. Russell and Hawkins are great as usual and even Glenn Miller takes a convincing turn. Apart from Hawkins, the other black performer was New Orleans stalwart Pops Foster on bass.

Mound City Blue Blowers: Glenn Miller (tb) Pee Wee Russell (cl) Coleman Hawkins (ts) Eddie Condon (bj) Jack Bland (g) Pops Foster (b) Gene Krupa (d) Red McKenzie (comb,vcl) New York, November 14, 1929.

• Hello, Lola- Vic V38100, RCA (F)FXM1-73245, 741103;
• If I could be with you one hour tonight- Vic V38100, LPV501, (G)LPM501, RCA (F)FXM1-7325, 741103

All entries are from my book “As Long as They Can Blow. Interracial Jazz Recording and Other Jive Before 1935.”

An Hour With Bunny Berigan

The DuPlex Mystery Jazz Hour of 11.2.17 featured the stellar trumpet and vocals of Bunny Berigan. He had great range, power, flexibility and ideas.

LISTEN HERE

PLAYLIST

Roy Bargy "Raisin' the Rent" 1933 on Victor

The Boswell Sister "Everybody Loves My Baby" 1932 on Brunswick

Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra "Troubled" 1934 on Victor

Bunny Berigan · Gene Gifford and His Orchestra "Nuthin' But the Blues" 1935 on Victor

Benny Goodman & His Orchestra "Sometimes I'm happy" 1935 on Victor

Benny Goodman & His Orchestra "King Porter Stomp" 1935 on Victor

Glenn Miller Orch w. Berigan "Solo Hop" 1935 on Columbia

Bunny Berigan and his Blue Boys "Chicken and Waffles" 1935 on Decca

Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra "On Your Toes" 1935 on Victor

Bunny Berigan and his Blue Boys "Swing Mr Charlie" 1936 on Brunswick

Bunny Berigan "i Can't Get Started" 1936 on Vocalion

Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra "A Melody From the Sky" 1936 on Vocalion

Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra "Black Bottom" 1937 on Victor

Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra "Prisoner's Song" 1937 on Victor

Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra "Song of India" 1937 on Victor

Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra "Jazz Me Blues" 1939 on Victor

Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra "Ain't She Sweet" 1939 on Victor

Bunny Berigan and His Orchestra "Me and My Melinda" 1942 on Victor

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