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October 23, 2004

I learned with enormous sadness Tuesday morning of the sudden and unexpected passing on Sunday, October 24^th of David French, the producer of the Frog record label. I was about to E-mail David to tell him about the enthusiastic reception for his Territory Bands CD during our membership campaign earlier this month. More than 120 listeners pledged for a copy during the course of the week, and I know David would have been thrilled. He was very supportive of "Hot Jazz Saturday Night" and I was anticipating a much longer personal association. There are plans to keep Frog Records going in David's spirit, but he is going to be sorely missed. As you will note below, Saturday's program opened with a title from David's newest release, with a selection from the last volume of David's Bessie Smith project included in the evening's first set. It gives me a good feeling to know that I was talking about his record label and his work the night before he died.

If you pledged for this CD, these developments may delay shipment. As we areinformed, we will keep you informed.

Earl Hines and his Orchestra launched the program with "Sweet Ella May," recorded in February 1929 and included on a welcome reissue on Frog DGF55 that features Earl Hines' earliest recordings with his orchestra, made for Victor. Some rare alternate takes from among the 1932-1933 Brunswicks are here, too, supplementing the recent Hines release, Hep 1003.

Jan Savitt and his Orchestra were on the air in August 1939 for "Back to Back," taken from one of two full-length broadcasts on JazzBand TMCD-2188. From the eighth and last volume, Frog DGF47, in Frog's definitive Bessie Smith reissue, we heard "Keep It To Yourself" from late March 1930. Position the eight CDs next to one another in order, and you'll see a composite of Bessie's face along the tray card spines. From August 1934, Russ Columbo sang "Let's Pretend There's A Moon" from Take Two TT409. Errol Garner's recorded "Pavanne" for Atlantic in July 1949; it's on Classics 1182. From late June of 1945 and Volume 7 in the reissue of Duke Ellington's Treasury broadcasts of the mid-forties, we heard Jimmy Hamilton featured on "Honeysuckle Rose," issued on DETS 903 9007, from Storyville.

While in an Ellington frame-of-reference, we noted another installment in the welcome series from Columbia/Legacy of Duke Ellington's LP 1950s-1960s catalogue for that label. Tonight, we heard titles from "Piano in the Foreground," one of the comparatively rare opportunities to hear Ellington the pianist. Accompanied by Aaron Bell and Sam Woodyard, Ellington plays a mix of originals and a few standards. We opened the set with "So." Eddie Lambert wrote of this title, "it combines a comprehensive and individual command of the traditional language of the blues with original invention, beautifully detailed playing, and a simple but effective formal unity. Duke's sensitive touch, in which every note of a chord has just the right weight, is caught perfectly... ." This selection was followed by "I Can't Get Started" and a brief track "A Hundred Dreams Ago." Bell theorizes that this was an Ellington variation on the 1933 song, "A Hundred Years Ago," from "Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1933." Pat Willard has been writing fresh annotations for this reissue series, and they're good reading. (The original liner notes are reproduced, too.) This release is Columbia/Legacy CK87042.

We noted the third volume from Archeophone in its dedicated reissue of the recordings of Bert Williams. This third volume is actually the first in the chronology, owing to the rarity of the recordings and the aggressive search for these very obscure recordings. Each volume in the series has a booklet with outstanding notes and photographs (this is the Archeophone norm); this volume of Williams' earliest recordings includes photos of many of the labels from the discs used in the production.

From October of 1901, we heard Williams and his partner, George Walker, on "Good Morning, Carrie." From 1906, Bert Williams sang "He's A Cousin Of Mine" and " "Here It Comes Again." The set closed with a title from 1915 included in Archeophone's second volume of Williams recordings, "I'm Neutral." Visit the Archeophone website for information on Archeophone 5004 and 5003.

The program's opening hour ended with Vincent Lopez and his Orchestra and "I'm Pixilated Over You," recorded in 1936 and released on ARC 6-07-08. The title may have been inspired by the dialogue in "Mr. Deeds Goes To Town."

The second hour opened with a lively version of the "Bugle Call Rag" from May 1923 by Joseph Samuels and his Orchestra, released on Regal 9514 [78].

Here's the rest of what we sampled during the balance of the evening, not necessarily in the order in which it was presented:

We heard some hot dance music recorded for Edison in 1927 and 1928, opening the set with Al Lynn's Music Masters and "Whisper Sweet and Whisper Low" from April 1928 and including a brief, but unmistakable solo by trombonist Jack Teagarden. In the same set were the California Ramblers (recording as the Golden Gate Orchestra) and "Yes She Do, No She Don't;" Harry Reser's Rounders with "Hello Cutie," and the Yale Collegians (with Rudy Vallee) and "You'll Do It Someday (So Why Not Now?)." The original Edison releases, respectively, were Edison 52270, 52014, 52034 and 52108.

Collectors Choice Music has released an hour-long CD of radio performances by the Ink Spots. It includes some selections from a 1939 broadcast when the foursome were still doing some of the hotter numbers that would become less and less a part of their repertoire as time went on. From July 1939, we heard "No Wonder" and "It's Funny To Everyone But Me." Titles from 1945 were "Put Your Arms Around Me Honey," "How Many Hearts Have You Broken?" and "Shoo-Shoo Baby." These and more are on CCM-481.

Hep Records has issued a Claude Thornhill CD including additional tracks (not included on earlier Hep releases) from a June 1949 Thesaurus transcription series, along with sessions recorded in 1953 for an album on the Trend label. From the earlier sessions, we heard "Oh, You Beautiful Doll." "Moonlight Bay," and a version of "When You Wore A Tulip" that quoted a lick from the Gil Evans arrangement of "Buster's Last Stand." Four titles were featured from the April 1953 sessions: "Now That Summer Is Gone," "Poor Little Rich Girl," "Deep Purple," and "Rose of the Rio Grande." This is all on Hep 80.

The Louisiana Washboard Five planted the seed for the Jabbo Smith evening earlier in the month because the group has included several titles from the Rhythm Aces recordings in its new CD on the Stomp Off label, Stomp Off CD1398 [H/L to jazzbymail.com). The group is a fine one, led by Steinar Saetre, and joined on this CD by guests pianist Keith Nichols and reedman Matthias Seuffert. The latter joins Ketil Saetre in creating some nice reed voicings throughout. We heard four selections, "After Awhile," "Crazy Chord," "Every Evening," and "Bandbox Stomp."

The final portion of the program profiled the Six Brown Brothers, a pioneering saxophone ensemble whose story is told in fascinating detail in Bruce Vermazen's "That Moaning Saxophone: The Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of A Craze" published earlier this year by Oxford . About the same time of the book's appearance, the Archeophone label issued Archeophone 6002 a CD comprising about half of the brothers' recordings from 1911 to 1920. The story of the Brothers is really fascinating because their history passes from the Ringling Brothers circus in 1906, to minstrelsy, vaudeville and Broadway. The brothers' background in the circus and vaudeville prepared them well for being effective as a stage entertainment when they reached the Great White Way.

The "craze" referenced in the title of Bruce's book is to the vogue that developed about the saxophone sometime in the early 1910s. The popularity of the saxophone, still a relatively new instrument in the early twentieth century, probably tracked the growing popularity of social dancing. We have to consider that the sound of a mellifluous saxophone ensemble was something people had not heard, so this was something very new on record.

Sadly, the Brothers' best years were relatively short. By the late 1910s, the emergence of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and its imitators and successors, as well as the emerging dance orchestra styles of leaders like Art Hickman and Paul Whiteman, rendered the Browns an anachronism. Tom Brown, the leader, went back to vaudeville, building on the original novelty by creating a 30-piece saxophone orchestra, the Six Brown Brothers and their Augmented Orchestra. By the end of the 1920s, vaudeville was really dead this time and the bookings dried up. Tom Brown had established a music school and music company, but eventually, these folded, and Brown eked out a bare existence for much of his remaining years. Most of his brothers had dropped out earlier to establish more secure careers.

Included in Archeophone's CD devoted to the story and music of the Six Brown Brothers is a special rarity, the soundtrack disc for a Vitaphone filmed in early May 1927 with the Augmented Orchestra. It provides an opportunity to hear Tom's conception of the Augmented Orchestra. But, it is also valuable for the opportunity to hear (and maybe, someday, see!) Tom's signature "abandoned bride" routine. Tom, who always appeared in blackface and engaged in pantomime, would don a veil and show a plainly expectant mid-section. His saxophone would dialogue with the full orchestra in music quotations from popular songs that were commonly known. The audience could themselves supply the unspoken lyrics and appreciate the humor in the exchange between Tom and the band. (The Vitaphone soundtrack runs over 9 minutes; I edited it some.)

Whether or not the story of the Six Brown Brothers' whets your interest, let me recommend Bruce Vermazen's book if you've any interest in getting a picture of the entertainment world of the circus, vaudeville, minstrelsy and Broadway during the first two decades of the century. While the book is ostensibly the story of the Brown Brothers, the story would have much less dimension were it not for Vermazen's vivid conjuring up of the texture of the entertainment settings in which the Browns worked from 1906 on. The book as much illuminates the times as it does the Six Brown Brothers, which only serves to make the Browns' story all that more authentically real.