The decade from 1920 to 1929 was without doubt the most tumultuous in the history of the recording industry - at least until the rise of the internet and the almost limitless supply of ‘free’ music almost destroyed the industry business model from the ground up. The industry leaders, who had been go-getting Young Turks in the free-for-all days of the 1890s, had grown fat, conservative, complacent and staid - as had many of their artists, many of whom would barely pass muster in a second-rate vaudeville show, but who possessed that magic ‘something’ in their voice that the primitive and sonically-constricted recording equipment just adored. Despite the technological advances brought about through the imperatives of gaining military supremacy in wartime, in particular radio and amplification, the technical development of the recording process had not advanced not one jot since 1912, when Edison introduced his Diamond Disc records.

Fast forward just nine years and a very different industry was to be found - one committed to technological advance, producing high quality products, with a catalogue of performers catering to all sections of society, ethnicities and musical tastes, and with most of the Old School industry leaders and their former favourite performers such as Billy Murray, Ada Jones and Henry Burr on the scrapheap. What had happened to shake the recording industry to its foundations and change it for the better?

As might be expected, the answers lie in several places, and author Allan Sutton tells the story of the changes and developments that occurred in these years with great clarity and detail.

One of the problems with ‘histories’ of the recording industry in the past has been that their authors have been only too quick to reveal though their writings their partisanship - be it towards phonographs rather than records, opera rather than jazz, or Eldridge Johnson over Tom Edison. Consequently, such books have to be read with a degree of caution bordering on scepticism. Whilst I detect in Sutton’s writing a personal preference towards opera and country music rather than jazz and dance bands, by and large he manages to plough a pretty straight furrow, giving equal, or near-equal coverage to all the musical forms that sprung up on record in the 1920s and subsequently changed the industry’s direction.

The author has set out the chapters in such a way that they can either be read as ‘stand alone’ essays on their subject - such as the challenge of radio, or the segregation of the record market - or as a part of the broader picture of the recording industry in the 1920s. This works very well, in that it clearly focuses the reader onto a specific area; for instance there are four (yes, four) chapters devoted to the introduction of electrical recording - experimental, Western Electric, ‘Light Ray’ and others such as OKeh’s ‘Truetone’ system.

Sutton has gone back to contemporary source material for most of his research, which is, for the mostpart, laudable, although as anyone who has either read or produced a one-industry publication, such as Talking Machine World, Variety, The Stage or Plumbing and Gasfitting Gazette, will know only too well, their outlook on the real world oftimes resembles the Hall of Mirrors one used to see at fairgrounds. By and large, cock-eyed optimism is the name of the game, so reports of multi-million sales or megabuck contracts have to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Also, the datelines of events are frequently skewed by editorial or production constraints - for instance the author, quoting contemporary sources, states that Ralph Peer joined Victor early in 1927, whereas he had already organised Bennie Moten’s move from OKeh and supervised his first Victor record session in December 1926.

The birth of the ‘Race Record’ and country music genres are covered in great detail, with much that was new to me, though I would have to say that more could have been written about the dominant role played in the 1920s record industry by dance music and jazz, and how they themselves in turn developed on the back of the technological advances brought about by electrical recording during these years.

VJM readers in particular will be interested the appendix devoted to record sales in the 1920s - Sutton dispels many of the myths about multi-million sellers, demonstrating that much of the populist histories of the record industry and their quotes on record sales are pure fantasy! In contrast, record dealers in particular will not like to see the sales figures for the Memphis Jug Band’s Stingy Woman Blues and Newport News Blues - 26,454 and 19,943 copies respectively. Compare this to Jelly-Roll Morton’s Victor of Black Bottom Stomp at 22,627 copies and you’ll see what I mean!

Allan Sutton and his publishing company Mainspring Press have a reputation for commitment to serious discographical research and superb quality book production, and this book is no exception; beautifully-printed in a clear typeface, with many illustrations from contemporary publications, and previously-unpublished photographs (including several of recording artists of the period from the astonishing Bain Collection at the Library of Congress (type in ‘Bain Collection’ in Google and prepare to be amazed!)).

I gather from Allan that this book is already into a reprint, such is the demand, and deservedly so; it is without question the definitive account of the recording industry in the 1920s and raises the bar for all future studies of the recording industry. Thus it has to be considered a priority purchase for VJM readers.

Much had changed for Louis Armstrong between his last US recordings (for Victor, 1933) and the opening of this collection. He'd come off a triumphal tour of Europe an international star, only to find that his upper lip had actually split from the rigors of his playing.

Thus, by mid-1935 a new Louis Armstrong had emerged: his playing more measured, closer to the style with which he played as a member of Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra a decade earlier, and without the mad pyrotechnics of, say, Tiger Rag and Chinatown. The "new" Louis signed a contract with the new (for the USA) Decca label and began an eleven-year association that most jazz writers and historians would quickly dismiss as unworthy of the Great One. Their evidence? Records with Hawaiian troupes, the Mills Brothers and novelty ditties like My Musical Family`85 Compared to his 1920s recordings, these - so their conventional wisdom went--were surrender to insipid commercialism (I borrowed that phrase from a writer who dismissed all of Louis' post-1929 output as just that) or complicity to racial stereotyping.

True, most of the fare offered in the 7-disc collection is not the uncompromising hot jazz of the previous decade (which was actually commercial fare for his then-target audience) but the writers who dismissed this body of work listened to the settings but not to LOUIS.

I discovered this years ago from musicians who told me they'd learned Louis' solos and vocals (transposed to their own instruments) on these records by heart. And so, when copies of I'm in the Mood For Love and Solitude came my way, I listened with full ears and open mind. Ah, Glory!

The first disc opens in the fall of 1935 after Louis took over Luis Russell's powerhouse band that still had fellow New Orleanians Pops Foster on bass and Paul Barbarin drums, and the magnificent alto sax of Charlie Holmes - an eloquent soloist who got buried in a big-band lineup.

I'm in the Mood for Love leads off. Following the pattern of many of his earlier recordings, he lets the saxes give out the melody straight and dreamy (he was an admirer of Guy Lombardo, after all) under his muted solo before the vocal, which is rendered the way Picasso rendered his women subjects-the images were squeezed, stretched and rearranged but the parts were all there and fit beautifully in his idiosyncratic way. Then the open horn solo-it's a pure masterpiece of breaking down the melody into building phrase patterns, then letting the listener descend on a magnificent cadenza.

Solitude receives another patented Armstrong treatment - the mood of the piece comes from its relatively limited range which Louis pushes with heightening intensity then shatters with a series of amazing stop-time choruses in his solo. This is the stuff that had all of the musicians crowded around the loudspeakers of their phonographs in those days. All three takes are presented here which gives us triple the wonder.

By mid-1936, the pattern of Louis studio recordings was established - a mix of pop tunes for juke boxes and novelty items designed to display his personality. They vary in quality but Armstrong doesn't-and by then, the sublime had become routine.

For some reason, known only to Decca, some of his sessions were done with studio bands instead of his own working group (Louis was known to wear out musicians with his 7/365 touring schedules). Most likely, Decca recording execs assumed he was the personality everyone wanted to hear and considered the other musicians so much window dressing. We miss Foster and Barbarin on I'm Putting My Eggs in One Basket (from a Fred Astaire film) but the house band, which included Bunny Berigan, was more than adequate on this fine song.

Hollywood took notice of Armstrong's popularity by 1936 and began featuring him as diversion entertainment in a number of feature films and some of his numbers made it onto record- Skeleton in the Closet features more magical Louis breaks and tempo shifts though the kitschy number and Pennies from Heaven with Bing Crosby and Frances Langford is a study in jazz vocal.

Subsequent discs feature remakes of some of his earlier classics - Strutting with Some Barbecue (the title in 1920s-30s parlance meant stepping out with a sexy lady, not running with a plate of ribs), West End Blues, Hear Me Talkin' and Monday Date along side some grass-skirt shakers with Andy Iona's Hawaiians and barbershop ballads with the Mills Brothers. And behind there would always be first class musicians - Sid Catlett, JC Higginbotham, Johnny Simmons and more who can be heard to much better advantage in today's digital transfers.

By 1940, Armstrong's early discs with Clarence Williams and his own Hot Five and Seven, had become the stuff of jazz legend. This prompted George Avakian, then a student at Yale, to conjure an album of "pure" New Orleans jazz which would bring Armstrong back to his roots. The result was the reunion between Armstrong and Sidney Bechet on Perdido Street Blues, 2:19 Blues; Coal Cart Blues and Down in Honky Tonk Town. The session drew a lot of press, some disappointment from critics who wanted to see galaxies collide and new worlds born, and (apparently) some resentment from Bechet who was trying to get his own career back on track after returning from 15 years in Europe only to find Louis grabbing all the attention.

All this palaver stripped away by time, it's a fine session that planted the seeds of Louis' latter-day career when he began touring with various all star groups instead of a large band.

Dan Morgenstern, who authored the liner notes, puts all this music into context - Armstrong was a working musician and celebrity participating in all that passed for entertainment in the 1930s. Also, at this time, Louis Armstrong became the first African-American artist to headline his own radio program back in 1937, so he was going places far beyond what any "pure" jazz musician could expect.

Mosaic, in typical fashion, boxed it into a total quality package, alternate takes, erudite liner notes and a great deal of inside information-and the context of six and seven decades of jazz that has happened since. Of course, it's essential.

These two 3-volume CD sets are but one half of a magnificent four-part set charting the history of jazz in Germany from the end of the Nineteenth century to the present day, masterminded by Rainer Lotz and Horst Bergmeier and produced with the usual lavish quality values associated with anything issued by Bear Family. As the breadth and scope of the material is so diverse, the CDs need to be reviewed in depth, so it was decided, therefore, to review in this issue the first two volumes only, covering up to the end of the Swing era. The following issue will contain reviews of the subsequent volumes.

The first volume covers the period from 1899 to 1919, but in reality, the outbreak of war in 1914 cut off all supply of syncopated music to Germany, either by sheet music, records or performers, so this volume effectively finishes in 1913. As might be expected, the bulk of the performances of this period are by brass bands - albeit of the highest quality, given Germany’s reputation for brass musicians. As such, they are almost exclusively stiff and self-conscious, unlike contemporary performances by the likes of Arthur Pryor or even Sousa. There are some exceptions - Seidler’s Orchester in 1905 play a spirited version of Arthur Pryor’s A Coon Band Contest, even down to the ‘slow drag’ beginning to the last chorus. Giorgi Vintilescu’s Palais de Danse Orchestra is less-brass-dominated, and thus has a more naturalistic approach to The Whitewash Man, though this writer accidentally discovered a 90-odd year error on their version of Red Pepper Rag. Despite being so-labelled, it actually plays J. Bodewalt Lampe’s composition Dixie Girl - something not even the producers had spotted!

Anyone familiar with Rainer Lotz’s writing will know that he is very interested in all forms of dissemination of syncopated music, including metal discs playable on Polyphon music boxes and piano rolls. Both of these formats are represented here - and let me say I’m no fan of Polyphons - but the reproduction of the piano rolls, played on a Welte reproducing piano, specially transported to a church near Stuttgart is nothing short of amazing. These (including a transcription of Hans Hasse’s performance of Jim Dandy by Duke Ellington) are the best piano roll transcriptions you’ll ever hear!

The standout track of CD1 is Coontown’s Ragtime Dance, recorded in Berlin in 1908 by The Georgia Piccaninnies, an African American minstrel troupe who toured Europe extensively prior to 1914. This is of the utmost historical interest, being the only recording of a black American theatrical troupe - even more so since the disc was meant to be synchronised to a film of the performers. The raw energy and sheer excitement of the call and response vocal patterns and harmonies is truly memorable.

Unlike in Britain, where they were lauded and feted by commoners and royalty alike, banjo soloists made little or no impression on the German recording scene - one track even has to resort to a banjo impersonation - but what they did have was the proximity to the Russian Empire and the balalaika. The Wolkowski Balalaika Trio playing a lively and utterly charming version of Temptation Rag, which more than makes up for the absence of banjos in the set.

The end of the Great War in 1918 saw Germany on the brink of revolution and with Armies of Occupation in the Ruhr. Many of these regiments were American, complete with bands, and at least one, the Original Excentric Band, got to record. Their 1919 version of black composer J. Leubrie Hill’s 1903 feature for white drummer James Lent, The Ragtime Drummer, is stiff beyond belief - I wonder what they made of the backing (which doesn’t appear here) - Tiger Rag?

The next 7 or so tracks demonstrate that four years of war had set the German syncopated music scene in cement - right through to 1924 most of the tracks sound more akin to the banjo and violin-dominated bands of 1915 New York or London, with little or no influence to be heard of the ODJB or other American jazz bands. As Rainer Lotz said to me recently, with the rampant inflation that beset Germany after WW1, no foreign musician was likely to work there; consequently, musical developed stagnated. Even The Riverians, an English band led by Harry Phillips fail to ignite Henpecked Blues - brother Sid’s saxophone playing, complete with clucking hen impersonations, is comically stiff - a far cry from his fluid improvisations with Ambrose just five years or so later.

Things liven up no end with the arrival in Berlin of Alex Hyde’s Orchestra, fresh from a vaudeville tour of the eastern seaboard of the USA. The comparison with what has gone before is astounding - all of a sudden a welcome breath of hot air blasts from the speakers - young, well-schooled, hot musicians, hip to the licks of Adrian Rollini, Red Nichols, Trumbauer and Bobby Davis - ready to show off to German listeners. He’s The Hottest Man in Town goes like a bomb - it’s impressive enough in 2009, it must have been earth-shattering in the Berlin of 1925!

Just when your ears are recovering from the last track, in flies Sam Wooding’s Orchestra, tearing Shanghai Shuffle apart - every bit as good as the Fletcher Henderson version (and using the same arrangement).

Thereafter, the next few tracks are something of a mixed bag. Bernard Ette’s Copenhagen is stiff, and Eduardo Andreozzi’s Big Bad Bill marred by a trumpeter who was evidently aiming to get the word’s record for the number of motes played in a bar of music. I Never Realized by Fisbach’s Charleston Orchestra has some rather advanced alto sax playing from the leader, as well as able support from the rest of the band, including a rare-for-the-time bass sax solo from Roger Berson.

Brought up as a teenager to eschew any contact with the Columbias of the New Princes’ Toronto Band, I was pleasantly surprised by their Polydor recording of Hi-Diddle-Diddle, which features trumpeter Art Lousley and hot alto from Art Christmas.

CD2 finishes with a pleasant version of My Regular Girl by John Abriani’s Six, most notable for the vocal by the band’s banjoist, a young South African named Al Bowlly.

CD3 starts in 1928, and by then ideas were not only flowing thick and fast from the USA, but European performers, composers and arrangers were starting to put their own unique imprint onto jazz. This is well-demonstrated by Rene Dumont’s Wladiwostock, written by Belgian multi-instrumentalist David Bee.

The Weintraub Syncopators, directed by Friedrich Hollaender are best-known for accompanying Marlene Dietrich in ‘The Blue Angel,’ but here turn in a surprisingly good version of Jackass Blues.

The Bix and Tram influence arrives with a bang with Ostrich Walk, played by The New Yorkers. This is the Bill Challis arrangement as recorded by Frankie Trumbauer’s Orchestra, and one presumes it slipped into Danny Polo’s sax case off the Goldkette bandstand before he sailed to Europe...

Al Bowlly makes another appearance on Changes, by English bandleader Billy Bartholomew’s Delphians, who made Germany his home until the rise of Hitler.

Die Susi Blast Das Saxophon from an early German talkie has always been a bit of a mystery; labelled on the original German issue as by Marek Weber’s Orchestra, it obviously features a considerable contingent from Lud Gluskin’s Orchestra, including trombonist Emile Christian, alto saxophonist Gene Prendergast and Spencer Clark on bass sax. The Gluskin band proper stomps through their version of Tiger Rag, which features some fine playing Christian, trumpeter Eddie Ritten, Prendergast on clarinet and by Spencer Clark, both in a series of fast breaks, and a solo chorus based on the National Emblem March!

By 1930 the local German bands had assimilated enough ideas, plus ideas of their own, to produce jazz and jazz-inspired dance band recordings of their own, with little recourse to the use of foreign musicians. There follows several tracks by either German bands, or bands of local musicians led by English or foreign leaders such as Bill Barton or American saxophonist Teddy Kline. Whilst most of these are very bit as good as , say, a contemporary recording by Jack Hylton or even Paul Whiteman, none are sufficiently ‘stand out’ to warrant individual scrutiny. The same cannot be said the Jan and Patrick Hoffmann Band version of Congo Love Song - yes, the Tiny Parham tune! Recorded in stunning fidelity in March 1931, it sticks to the Parham version like glue - presumably a stock arrangement - apart from an inserted bass sax solo and - most oddly - a violin duet interpolation of Schubert’s Serenade!

Mention must be made of a German equivalent of a ‘Territory Band’ - a music conservatory jazz class from Frankfurt am Main playing Peter Packay’s Oh My. Stiff, yes, stilted, yes, but oh my, fascinating!

Theo Mackeben is not a name I normally associate with hot music, but his Jazz Band’s version of Funf von der Jazzband is outstanding - an up-tempo romp from 1932 featuring the British clarinettist and alto saxophonist Paul McCarthy, fiery Austrian trumpeter Friedel Clement and Australian trombonist Larry Collins.

Eric Borchard was a veteran of the German hot music scene, recording as early as 1920, but it is his 1932 version of Some of These Days that stands out - a fine vocal, complete with ‘scat singing’ from Borchard himself, plus a great arrangement with a pulsating rhythm.

As might be expected from Bear Family, the production is superb - the accompanying booklet, lavishly illustrated (including the label of every record used), and with extensive biographical and critical notes by Horst Bergmeier and Rainer Lotz, runs to 204 pages! The transfers by Christian Zwarg are beautifully light and airy, and he has managed to get a clean, natural sound out of some pretty ancient material.

I’ve heard comment in some quarters about the choice of tracks, and the preponderance of pre-1925 material (which to a considerable extent reflects the personal taste of one of the compilers), but this has to be a priority purchase for anyone with a liking for what is often called ‘Eurojazz’ , or for collectors ready to broaden their collecting horizon, if not their dateline. It’s superb!

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This part of the collection begins in 1934, after Hitler had come to power. However, he and his National Socialists seem to have been too busy consolidating power in other areas to worry about "decadent" dance band music in clubs and hotels. Romanian-born bandleader James Kok, represented here by Jazz No Crazy, was impolitic enough to criticize "mustachioed" critics in a greeting to British bandleader Jack Hylton, and was invited to leave the country shortly afterward. A number of Jewish musicians followed him out or Germany soon afterward.

However British and American tunes remained a part of German orchestras’ repertoires. Goody Goody (Paul Kley), Christopher Columbus (Teddy Stauffer) and White Jazz (a Casa Loma Orchestra feature done by Heinz Wehner) were American swing his receiving sympathetic treatment on the records presented here. Smaller "hot" groups featured American tunes such as The Music Goes Round and Round (Kurt Engel) and Jammin’ (Kurt Hohenberger) along with local tunes from shows and films.

Band traversing Europe had used Berlin as a recording center for over a decade which is why we see Stauffer (from Zurich), Aaghe Juhl-Thomson (from Denmark, featured in Ellington’s Showboat Shuffle), and Nanni Dal Dello from Italy rounding out disc this disc.

The second part of "Die Swing Jahre" covers the War Years. Considering the official stand of the Nazi government toward jazz, it’s a wonder that the music survived at all. But it did, and even thrived in certain quarters; ranging from clandestine jams to recording made by the Ministry of Propaganda.

Small combos flourished—some of them, such as Benny de Weiille and Franz "Teddy" Kleindin, showed considerable influence from Benny Goodman’s small groups. Helmut Zacharias (purveyor of kitschy Euro-pop during the ‘60s) recorded with a combo inspired by the Quintet of the Hot Club of France,

The big bands that recorded during the war were drawn from a pool from the Deutsches Tanz-und Unterhautungs Ork, of Berlin, which broadcast nightly over state radio. They could mount acceptable swing, if a little too squarely on the beat.

While there were few visiting bandsmen, several from Italy, part of the war Axis, and from occupied Holland and Belgium, did record in Germany then. Several found their war-times recordings coming back to haunt them after the war, when they were accused of collaborating with the Nazis. One of the few foreign groups to record in-toto was Italian saxist Tullio Mobiglia who recorded Pippo Non La Sa.

The propaganda recordings were issued under Charlie & His Orchestra. The two featured here, recorded in the Deutsche Grammophone studios, were I Got Rhythm, an instrumental, and St. Louis Blues which has plenty of propaganda in its rewritten lyrics. While these have been reissued before, the quality of these transfers is vastly superior.

The third part of "Die Swing Jahre," takes us from the war’s end to 1961 when German musicians were trying to keep up with all of the various streams of jazz – bebop, boogie woogie, concert swing (a la Kenton) and New Orleans revival; made even more complicated by the division of the country between east and west.

The Communists in the East (bless their evil little hearts) were not as stridently anti-jazz as the Nazis had been, so a good amount of jazz came out on Amiga, the state-run record label. Titles were another matter. Rex Stewart’s effort with Berlin musicians titled Airlift Stomp, was renamed Amiga Stomp in the East. Some famous names-to-be show up here: Werner Mueller, later a popular bandleader; Swedish singer Alice Babs and Caterina Valente who would become an international star in the ‘50s. Here she does Is You Is Or Ain’t My Baby with Kurt Edelhagen at a 1954 jazz festival, one of the first such "live" recordings.

As with the other volumes in this set, the production quality is extremely high, with copious notes, richly illustrated, and excellent transfers.

VJM readers probably don't need to be told that violinist Bert Ambrose led the Rolls-Royce of British dance bands. From a perch at London's exclusive May Fair Hotel, the band offered a strong beat for dancers and hip arrangements for Saturday night radio listeners, all presented with taste and played with precision.

In 1928, Ambrose was under contract to HMV, where he played second fiddle to HMV's most popular dance band, that of Jack Hylton. Ambrose not only got second choice of the day's popular songs, but also had to compete with Paul Whiteman's hugely popular orchestra for attention on HMV's release lists.

Early in 1929, Ambrose's band jumped ship and became the first dance band to record for the newly-formed Decca Record Company. Starting in February 1929, Ambrose began making test recordings for Decca (including, intriguingly, Louisiana, which apparently has not survived.) Once Decca had a few sides ready for issue, the company took full-page display ads in the music press announcing their release:

These delightful records will be the talk of the month, not only among dancing enthusiasts but also among all those who enjoy modern music. Every member of Ambrose's Band is a master artist on his own. Hear Ambrose, the genie and genius of jazz, on Decca. You will find that the personality of the artist is there. That it is re-creation, not just reproduction!

The band deserved the praise. It impresses me as a close cousin of the classic Jean Goldkette band, with Dick Escott's driving bass in the role of Steve Brown, Eric Siday's violin representing Joe Venuti (superbly), authoritative trombonist Ted Heath in the Spiegel Willcox/Bill Rank chair, and Americans Sylvester Ahola and Danny Polo serving as the band's Bix and Tram. The latter two were especially well qualified to do so, each having worked alongside Bix and Tram (Ahola in Adrian Rollini's New Yorkers, and Polo in the Goldkette band). Drummer Max Bacon also deserves credit for propelling things along. The arrangements of Lew Stone and Bert Read are first-class "modern music" in the Bill Challis vein, accented with the language of jazz improvisation. All of these virtues are apparent even in Decca's early recordings which, despite the promise of "re-creation," sound pinched and grainy as Decca's engineers struggle to find their footing.

Collectors have pursued these recordings for years, on the rare original magenta-label Deccas and, in a search for better sound, on test pressings from the surviving masters on shellac, vinyl and lately industrial plastics! Now, some of the tracks finally have appeared on CD - on three CDs, in fact, all within a matter of months. Collectors can choose from Retrieval ("The Hottest of the Decca 'M' Series"), Vocalion ("Legendary 1929 Recordings," two of which were recorded in 1930), and Sounds of Yesteryear ("Legendary 1929 Sessions," not reviewed here). The Retrieval and Vocalion discs have 11 tracks in common, if you count Walking With Susie, the sole instance I spotted in which the two companies offer different takes of the same tune (take 2 on Retrieval and a different, unspecified take - likely 4 - on Vocalion).

Highlights abound, but let me mention a few favorites. Unissued take 4 of Do Something - apparently Read's arrangement - dispenses with the melody altogether in favor of improvisations scored for the trumpet section, the sax section (with both Polo and Joe Crossman on baritone saxes) and the full band, with admirably fluent Heath and splendid solos by Polo and Ahola. Here and elsewhere on the magenta Deccas, Hooley is more economical than usual. (Incidentally, his solo here must have been worked out in advance. It is virtually identical to his solo on issued take 1 on Decca M31.) Perhaps he felt a little restrained playing in a band that was, as he later put it, "at the top of the profession," but whatever the reason, he solos concisely and eloquently, with Bixian phrases emerging from time to time.

Stone's propulsive chart for Lovable and Sweet (only on Retrieval) chugs along supported by energetic bass from Escott and hip accents from Bacon, with more excellent Ahola and a beautiful coda.

Stone's arrangement of Hittin' the Ceiling (only on the Retrieval CD) is full of good things from start to finish, including a modernistic introduction, sax sections that sound like harmonized Trumbauer, fine baritone breaks from Crossman, flexible Heath trombone, and typically excellent Polo clarinet. Throughout these sessions, Polo's clarinet is by turns smooth (Mean to Me) and spiky (the final bars of Painting the Clouds With Sunshine), always saying something interesting, spirited and swinging. He's at the top of his craft.

You will notice the attention the arrangers have given to the interplay between the sections, and between the soloists and the band. Listen, for example, to the setting for Polo's clarinet solo on Miss Wonderful. The lick that serves to introduce Polo starts in the trombone, is echoed in the trumpet and finally is picked up by Polo himself - a wonderfully clever ascending effect that must have had those who heard it for the first time scratching their heads. And listen to the way Ahola, Heath, Bacon and Polo dart in and out of the ensemble on Happy Days are Here Again. It's exciting stuff.

Even the vocals, the best of which are by Abe Lyman's moonlighting vocalist Phil Neely, are not merely vocals, but occasions for fabulous obligatti, as on Happy Days... (Polo, Joe Jeanette on tenor, and Ahola) and Painting... (Polo). I'll also admit to being fascinated, from a discographical perspective, by the agile baritone sax behind the vocal on I'll Be Getting Along, because Crossman is known to have left the band by this point. Is it Polo, whose clarinet echoes one of the sax's phrases towards the end of the record? Or is it an unannounced visit from Arthur Lally, then working in Ambrose's Blue Lyres?

Although the Retrieval CD is indeed the "hottest," the Vocalion CD has its own exclusive, more mellow charms. How Am I to Know? has Ahola playing a moving obbligato behind the sax section's melody, in the spirit of Bix's work on Tram's Blue River. On Dear Little Caf`E9, a charming Noel Coward period piece, Heath's fleet trombone leads the saxes on the final bridge - shades of Al Grey on Count Basie's HRH. I can picture the Dorsey Brothers being pleased with Who Cares, a polished arrangement that begins with tightly-muted, TD-like Heath sailing sweetly over the sax section and ends with a short but hot sax solo by Polo, with Escott and Bacon digging in behind him.

Both CDs are packed with wonderful music (24 tracks in 71 minutes on Retrieval, 25 tracks in 77 minutes on Vocalion). Both companies have done good jobs of extracting relatively clean sound from problematic source material, with Vocalion sounding more processed and somewhat constricted on top, and Retrieval more open on top but sometimes a bit harsh.

Retrieval has the edge when it comes to liner notes, with 12 pages of notes including a scholarly essay by Nick Dellow that encompasses a brief history of Decca Records, a thorough discography, a track-by-track analysis, excerpts from contemporary reviews, and a couple of nice pictures - everything you could want, in fact, except issue numbers. The listener shouldn't have to do research to find out the record numbers, or to ascertain that Retrieval's take 4 of Do Something is unissued. (Vocalion identifies its Do Something as unissued without giving any take number, but it also is take 4.) In contrast, Vocalion has three pages of notes focusing on the shows and films from which the songs came, plus issue numbers - interesting and useful information - but no take numbers and no pictures. To Vocalion's great credit, however, this is the tenth volume of its Ambrose series.

I know some collectors will be disappointed that Retrieval, having focused its attention on the band's hot sides, did not include more alternate takes. To judge from Rust, Decca recorded plenty of them, and test pressings of them turn up every few months on VJM's auction lists. Undoubtedly the record collectors who comprise Retrieval's primary audience would be glad to have them, in addition to the master takes, even if it meant buying a second CD.

About a year after Ambrose made his first Decca records, his dalliance with Decca was over and he returned to HMV. In the May 1930 Melody Maker, "The Busker" wrote: "It will always be a mystery to those who don't know the inner story - which, incidentally, as it is private I am not going to recount - why Bert ever left the HMV lists." Whatever the inner story, Ambrose's magenta Deccas are an impressive body of work that deserves your attention. If your budget permits buying only one CD of this material and you prefer your dance music hot, go with the Retrieval. But save up for the Vocalion - the band is so good, you ought to have both.

This is the first of three CDs produced by Anthony Barnett (other reviews to follow in the next issue!), dedicated to the memory of violinist Gayle Dixon, who died last year, and featuring a host of hot violins, from the well-known to the totally obscure; in between come many you may vaguely have heard of but not actually heard and know little about. Others you will probably never come across (some at least because they’ve not been commercially released), unless you buy these CDs or risk a few bucks on odd-looking 78 issues.

The violin has always had a somewhat strained relationship with jazz fans and musicians alike: several of the groups featured here are not to be found in Rust’s Jazz & Ragtime Records (or any other major discography), for reasons which I find quite inexplicable: Joe Giordano, for example, is firmly in the tradition of Stuff Smith. But then, in spite of the proven track record of men like Smith and Joe Venuti, I know collectors who won’t listen to them, or indeed anything by the Hot Club of France, much as they like Django Reinhardt, because they can’t stomach St`E9phane Grapelly’s playing. These CDs are not for them! But for those of you who are prepared to take your jazz from wherever it may hail, there are some tasty surprises in store.

The aforementioned Joe Giordano & the Toppers open CD-1, with spirited renditions of a number of standards, including a super version of I’ve Got You Under My Skin, and a fine tune Mister Aristocrat. Joe Spata’s accordion playing on these tracks may not be to everyone’s taste, but squeezeboxes have been around in jazz since the early days (remember the Cellar Boys and Cornell?...and you probably wouldn’t turn down original copies of those!), so listen to these with an open mind, they’re OK – and they should be in Rust! Stuff Smith & his Orchestra follow on, with a set that opens with It’s Up To You, featuring an excellent vocal from Stella Brooks, in her first recording with a jazz outfit. If you don’t know her work, listen and be charmed. They also pick up Giordano’s arrangement of I’ve Got You Under My Skin, in a swinging version that contrasts strongly with the usual low-key renditions of this number. This group, including as it does Jonah Jones on trumpet and the little known but very fine guitarist Luke Stewart, swings much more lightly than Giordano’s group. It also includes another little known name, George Clarke, on tenor-sax, a musician on the evidence here who clearly would have been much better known had he not spent many years outside New York, and thus too far away from the recording studios. The four tracks by this group are all previously unissued second takes (the originals came out on Varsity), and the liner notes suggest they may well have been recorded in Los Angeles rather than New York (as given in the discographies). The notes give exhaustive detail about the provenance of all issues, including re-issues at wrong speeds and the existence of pressing flaws on some originals! A great deal of excellent research has gone into providing a wealth of information about all the groups featured.

Clarence Black, who recorded for Paramount in the ‘20s, is the violinist on the next set, which features the Variety Boys, a group which appears to make an addiction out of ‘doubling’, with leader Bill Sanford playing trumpet, piano, vibes and string bass! They turn in some excellent performances, with Black contributing interesting solos on both Harlem Fiesta and The Chant (not the Mel Stitzel number recorded by Morton et al.), which also has some very forward-looking tenor-sax work from George Oldham. This is the first of three sessions from the Decca Race catalogue; the next two are by the Four Blackamoors, with vocalist Mabel Robinson on some tracks. The violin player is unknown, and there seem to be two of them at several points (there is definitely another string player audible behind the lead violin on Darling You Can’t Have Fifty, though it could be the guitarist playing ‘long’ chords). Romance In The Dark is a terrific version of a number written by Lil Green and Bill Broonzy, and both issued takes are presented here. Whoever, the violinist is, he turns in great solos on both versions, and Mabel Robinson’s vocals are dark, brooding and intense. The other Robinson tracks are all good, blues-tinged performances, but the best is You Don’t know My Mind.

Stuff Smith returns with a trio from a 1944 Savoy session accompanying Rosalie Young on Save All Your Honey For Me, an unissued track that is surprisingly interesting: Young is a singer I had not encountered before, and she gives good account of herself. Smith offers up a marvellous violin interlude. Next are two tracks by Ethel Waters, with violinist Ray Perry in the backing group led by drummer JC Heard. Waters is, as ever, thrilling, and it’s good to hear her singing blues-based material for once; Ray Perry’s violin obbligato on Honey In A Hurry is a textbook demonstration of sympathetic accompaniment, echoing the whimsy of the lyric. Helen Andrews is a lesser known second generation blues singer, accompanied on the next two tracks by a trio led by Johnny Creach; Andrews’ wordless duet with Creach’s violin on Cotton and Corn Blues is magical; Black World Blues is a rather routine performance, though Creach has a good solo. The final tracks on CD-1 are of much more commercial material, by a crooner, Joe Alexander, whose work has not stood the test of time! With A Teardrop In My Eye is at least worth listening to for Ginger Smock’s violin solo and Red Callender’s solid bass work, but neither of these can do anything to rescue Donkey Serenade, which is pure corn. These two tracks also suffer from being transferred from a very poor original – the rest of CD-1 being technically very acceptable.

CD-2 moves into some musically more advanced territory, opening with a pair of 1946 tracks by Stuff Smith (again), but this time in the company of some heavily bop-influenced musicians; Won’t You Take A Lesson In Love has a Monk-ish piano solo from Charles Fox, and an uncharacteristically bop-styled solo from Smith. Eddie South appears for the first time on the next six tracks, which make up a session for the Continental label and which includes two takes unissued on the original 78s. Interestingly, the issued take of Eddie’s Blues is technically less satisfactory than the version that appeared later on LP, with South apparently turning away from the microphone during the vocal. All these tracks have some excellent bop piano work from Don Abney, on Twelve-o-Clock At Night in particular, as well as typically intense violin from South himself on all tracks. Swinging the Blues marches very firmly into bop-land, even on South’s vocal; and although he only solos on this track, Leonard Gaskin’s bass playing is superb throughout (Gaskin died just a couple of weeks ago, by the way).

Ray Nance is the featured violinist on the next track, as part of an Ellington small group accompanying Ivory Joe Hunter, who, in addition to providing the first-class vocal, also takes over Ellington’s piano chair. Nance’s violin is noteworthy for its blues-tinged accompaniment to the vocal, but the real star on That’s The Gal For Me is trumpeter Harold Baker. There follow two unissued takes by the Leon Abbey Quartet, accompanying another crooner, Browley Guy. Guy is better value than Joe Alexander, but that’s not saying a great deal. These tracks (Oh Marie, Out of Nowhere) are best remembered for the excellent guitar work by John Goodloe, and Abbey’s swinging violin phrases – but there isn’t enough of either! You could be forgiven for thinking the next two numbers are sung by Nat King Cole, but they are in fact by pianist Jerome Ty Parsons, with Ginger Smock returning to the violin chair: she is this time given much more freedom and plays excellent solos on both I Couldn’t Take It and Guess I’d Better Knock On Wood, on which Parsons reveals himself as a pianist much influenced by Erroll Garner. A single track by Joe Venuti follows, leading an eclectic group of flute, harp, various percussion, which also features Brother Bones (on bones!) in a swing version of the Danse Macabre (retitled Skeleton at Midnight). It’s OK, but hardly earth (or bone) shattering. The same can hardly be said of the next track, which looks as if it should be pure kitsch: but Emilio C`E1ceres’ Orchestra does in fact turn in a version of Dark Eyes, which, for all its concert-orchestrated bridges, features some of the hottest violin playing on these CDs! C`E1ceres made a few trio sides for Victor in the late 30s, which are also red-hot and well worth picking up if you ever come across them. Runaway Fiddle is the only title here to feature violinist Remo Biondi – mercifully: not because his playing is particularly bad, but because the band is a sad mixture of second-rate jazz and dance musicians. Utterly forgettable.

Two (or the same?) unidentified violinist(s) feature on the next two tracks, as part of a bop big band led by Nate Spencer. Dog Days swings well and the bop violin solo is worth a listen, but I Thought I Found Love Again unfortunately takes us back to the land of third-rate crooners, and this number is dominated by one Al Fats Thomas, whose discs should be left in the junk pile. Another Stuff Smith session, with Jimmy Baby Face Lewis brings us back to some decent violin backing a vocalist who knows what he’s about (on It’s A Good Day). Guitarist Jimmy Bryant overdubbed with violin (Les Paul style) contributes the next two tracks. Jammin With Jimmy shows him to be capable of some excellent playing on both instruments; Two Of A Kind is taken at a cracking pace and Bryant’s solo violin here is fine indeed, showing just how far Joe Venuti’s influence reached.

The Charmer, whose Trinidad Road March (accompanied by Johnny McCleverty’s Calypso Boys) is the next track up, is better known as Louis Farrakhan, of the Nation of Islam, whose ferocious diatribes against Western activities in Muslim countries have led to him being banned from entering the UK. Would that his violin-playing were as intense and inspired (?) as his oratory! A relief then, to turn to Richard Otto, whose solo accompanied by Sarah McLawler on organ, is at least in the jazz idiom : Relax Miss Frisky is good enough, but is immediately eclipsed by Don Sugarcane Harris on the next two titles. This is violin playing of a very high order indeed, and both Fiddlin The Blues and Slummin are fine performances. Harris uses an amplified violin, which gives fantastic bite to his plucked passages, and allows him to develop a real ‘attack’ on the second, slower, tune, which is as good a piece of blues playing as you’ll ever hear. Bo Diddley is not a name usually associated with these pages: but the violin was his first instrument, and the 1958 recording of The Clock Strikes Twelve (in spite of the title, a 12-bar blues) presented here is his only known recording on that instrument`85a great pity that it fades out well before its natural end, for Diddley knew what he was doing on the fiddle and plays some great stuff.

Clarence Gatemouth Brown is again hardly a name associated with either jazz or Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, much of his work being in the nature of routine Country & Western material However, his rendition of Just Before Dawn goes to prove that one should never judge a musician by the company he usually keeps! This is not at all bad. The CD rounds out with a track from Claude Fiddler Williams recorded in 1973 with the Jay McShann Quartet`85which makes a rather similar point. McShann’s boys provide a solid rhythm backing to a solo violin, that draws as much on gypsy influences as jazz or RnB`85but Smooth Sailing is none the worse for that!

All in all, these are fascinating CDs, with, as I said at the start, loads of surprises (not all of them bad, and some indeed very good) and tantalising glimpses into the odder corners of the jazz world. Do not be put off by some of the names and titles: most of these tracks are worth a listen and the majority will make you realise just how broad a church jazz and its related styles are – and how little we know about some of them.

Mention Detroit to the average Classic Jazz enthusiast and two names will spring to mind - Jean Goldkette and Bix Beiderbecke, conjuring up visions of unforgettable music being played in the Graystone Ballroom. As this book proves, however, there was an awful lot of good music being played in Detroit long before and long after Bix and the Goldkette band had their relatively short stay at the Graystone.

Published as part of the celebrated ‘Images of America’ series of books this volume is typical of the series - lavishly illustrated with short but concise descriptions to the photos, the whole being beautifully printed and produced.

Detroit’s connection with syncopated music dates back to the Nineteenth century, when black violinist Theodore Finney led the foremost musical aggregation in town. Detroit was also important as a centre for music publishing, with both Whitney-Warner and Jerome Remick, along with smaller music publishers such as Willard Bryant being based there. Both Whitney-Warner and Bryant employed the brilliant but now almost forgotten black rag composer Harry P. Guy as an arranger, whilst the head of the violin department at the University of Michigan, Frederick Allen Mills moonlighted as the king of cakewalk composers - Kerry Mills.

From the ranks of Finney’s Orchestra several black bandleaders emerged, most notably Leroy Smith, and there are some wonderful, previously unpublished photos of the Smith orchestra, including one gracing the entire front cover.

As might be expected, there is considerable coverage of the activities of Jean Goldkette and his musicians, including McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and the Casa Loma Orchestra. Notable is a photo of the Detroit Athletic Club, where Goldkette’s first Victor recordings, including the Bix feature I Didn’t Know, were waxed in 1924. Despite the sporting connotations of the name, the Detroit Athletic Club was a very grand, palatial, social club, where overfed automobile magnates could hobnob and play bridge.

Although Goldkette is the best-known of the Detroit bandleaders of the 1920s, there were others - William Finzel, Gerald Marks, Earl Walton, Dan Russo and Ted Fiorito, and all are represented here.

The author’s interest in ragtime and music publishing means that local composers and publishers, such as Seymour (All Of Me) Simons, Gene Buck gain, in some respects, the lion’s share of the book, with many reproductions of sheet music covers - a pity that some at least couldn’t have been reproduced in colour.

It’s nice also to see the book covers contemporary figures of the Detroit music scene, either as performers or writers and researchers; thus we have photos of Duncan Schiedt, Stan and Steve Hester, Nan Bostwick and Mike Montgomery.

A fascinating visual overview of a city with long connections to ragtime and jazz, and and one that I heartily recommend.

Yep, just look at the catalogue number... this one has actually been around for a while, but it’s never had a review in VJM. Retrieval has just made it available again, having had it out of catalogue for some time.

So, what differentiates the bands outside of New York and Chicago and maybe Los Angeles, from those of the mainstream? Laughably (for me as a Colorado dweller) even today, the "establishment" in those cities talks about the 99% of the United States beyond their respective city limits as "flyover country." The term is innocuous today in terms of jazz offerings from the 1920s, but always had an air of snootiness about "the hicks from the sticks" when used to describe contemporary artistes. Bu the fact is that territory bands were and are interesting, just because they are different from the everyday, established names in the mainstream. They are the harbingers of change. Just when the music out of the main centres tends toward the formulaic and therefore no longer novel, there comes an injection of new and different talent from the heartland. It happens continually in the music world, not just in jazz.

Contrary to the long-established "jazz came up the river" theory, it happened when the ODJB was inserted into the New York scene. Joseph C. Smith's days of fame were numbered, as well as the turkey-trot and the maxixe, thenceforward. It happened again when Kid Ory and Jelly showed up in LA; when Oliver moved from New Orleans to Chicago in 1922, and when those Hoosier hicks, The Wolverines, played at the Cinderella. Nearer to the timespan of this CD, Goldkette’s orchestra out of Detroit showed up in New York and kicked the crap (by Don Redman’s own admission) out of Henderson’s, no less, in a battle of the bands at Roseland. Twenty-five years after these "hick" bands from Texas and Tennessee appear, an unknown kid from Memphis will show up and unseat Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Patti Page and the figures of the 40’s establishment, and his vogue will hold sway until four interlopers from Liverpool lead a transatlantic invasion. It’s not a one-time phenomenon.

So, what about this music? It’s very orchestrated, very freewheeling and yet fresh and open. What you’re hearing is "local talent" playing what they played night after night on their bandstands and in their ballrooms. To some extent, the cuffs are off, not just because there’s no Eddie King to restrict solos and keep the troops in line; but also this is the band’s "book" and it’s what they know how to play.

We open with a piece most of us are probably familiar with; Sugar Babe, I’m Leavin’ from Blue Steele. It’s lovely and has the Steele tag-line, apparently a feature of every performance, at the end: "That’s Sugar Babe." Similarly styled, Slim Lamar’s Southerners follow, with Happy and Goofus; both pop tunes of the age, featuring acrobatics from cornetist Tony Almerico. Goofus is a composition of leader Bob Nolan, but not the same as the one similarly titled by Wayne King, which achieved mainstream status a couple of years later. Sadness Will Be Gladness from Mart Britt, recorded a week later with a heavy overlap in the personnel, is in the same vein, but features New Orleanian Sidney Arodin. Goose Creek, from the same session, is a reworked Weary Blues, reflecting a habit of territory bands, of simply renaming standards. This occurs again, with Slim Lamar’s Memphis Kick-Up, one of a six-title session following the Britts, which is simply a Panama knock-off. The six, however, are very powerful, with great scoring and plentiful solos, not marred too much by vocalist Lamar’s glottal yodelling. That’s A Plenty shows up under its own name, but the "sui generis" titles, like Mississippi Stomp and Better Than Nothin’ are so beautifully played and scored that they outshine the well-known standard.

Arodin is the only hangover member of the band for the Sunny Clapp session in San Antonio for July 1929. The material is more pop than for the prior session; also the trombone is missing from the lineup in the sleeve note discography; it’s Clapp himself, of course, but it would have been nice to include him. Down On Biscayne Bay is essentially a booster song for the Miami area (this was the era of the Florida real estate boom, as anyone who has seen the Marx Brothers film "The Coconuts" will know), and We Can’t Use Each Other Any More a rather unremarkable tune; both, however, are nicely scored with good solos.

Phil Baxter shows up next, with Down Where The Blue Bonnets Grow and I Ain’t Got No Gal Now; the latter a play on the chords of Clarinet Marmalade, remarkable for their musical attack and solo prowess from Ken Naylor on clarinet and some rather appealing accordion work from Davy Crocker.

After the Baxter session, Blue Steele reappears with two titles not nearly as easy to find as Sugar Babe; All Muggled Up and Shooin’ Flies; both every bit as interesting as the first title. Muggled casts more than a sideways glance at Feelin’ No Pain and like that tune, lends itself to exciting improvisation and hot solos; and then the session mate is just as hot, tight and exciting. To round out, we have a dose of Hoagy, rather lame for my taste, on vocals with Sunny Clapp. Arodin reappears, and both Come Easy, Go Easy Love and When I Can’t Be With You, an Andy Razaf composition rattle along happily with great work from Bob Hutchingson, previously unknown (to me) virtuoso and Arodin trading opportunities to shine.

Unless you’ve gone out of your way to hear them, most of the titles apart from the first will be unknown to most of us. That being so, this needs to be part of anyone’s CD collection. The recordings themselves are remarkably "alive," often a feature of field recordings, and of course these are Victors, so they started off sharp. Add to that the fact that John Davies did the transfers, Chris Ellis did the production and Brian did the notes, and you have a rather nice entertainment package. If you don’t have it, get it.

Hot on the heels of the Mosaic set reviewed in this issue - and covering the period immediately before it - is this 3-CD set from French company Fremeaux. If proof were needed of Louis Armstrong's prodigious recorded output, here it is in the shape of Volume 6 of his complete recordings and they've only reached 1933! A rough calculation suggests well over 300 tracks so far! Whether Fremeaux intend to re-issue just Louis' 78s, or take in the microgrooves as well, isn't stated; whichever, there are still quite a few hundreds to go and no doubt there'll be rarities, surprise extras and newly discovered items along the way! And therein lies possibly for many Armstrong fans the main reason for buying any of these sets: all his commercial 78 recordings have been available in a multiplicity of combinations and formats over the past fifty years or so. And, of course, with a few notable exceptions, most of the material he recorded on 78 under his own name sold well enough for the original 78s still to turn up in reasonably large numbers. But some of the non-commercial stuff appears here for the first time.

This set covers the end of the OKeh period and Louis' first, short association with Victor: there are almost all the alternate takes: Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams, Stardust, and -2 (but not -3) of Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea (OKeh) and That's My Home, I Hate To leave You Now, and Laughin' Louie along with tests of Hobo You Can't Ride This Train, You'll Wish You'd Never Been Born, Mississippi Basin and Tomorrow Night (Victor), plus a test of the second (though listed as the first) part of the Medley of Armstrong Hits (also for Victor): this has been re-mastered in the wrong order: the first matrix is, according to the files, part 2 and is so labelled on my copy of the 78. It's fairly obvious why this take wasn't issued: Louis muffs his trumpet break into the third number, Dinah, and the sound engineer is a bit slow on his faders; otherwise, it's musically in many ways better than the issued take.

In addition to these tests, and most interestingly, there are three film soundtracks: Rhapsody in Black and Blue, I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal, You (made in the USA) and K`F8bnhavn, Kalundborg Og?, shot in Copenhagen; and finally, a couple of (presumably) unauthorised off-air recordings from Sweden and the Netherlands.

In many ways, this wasn't the happiest period in Armstrong's life: his first marriage - to Lil Armstrong - was running into the sand; he had increasing problems with his managers and their hoodlum associates; and, once his residency in Los Angeles with Les Hite finished in mid-1931, he found himself playing with bands and sidemen of less than star quality. This latter situation was made worse by a series of gruelling and exhausting tours of the South and mid-West, interspersed with dashes back to the OKeh recording studios in Chicago and New York, which made for under-rehearsed and sometimes less than happy results. Moreover, his rise to star status produced increasing demands to play everything faster and louder and higher than anyone else. To some extent, this was curbed by the better judgment of the studio A&R men, but not always (as, for example, on Sittin' In The Dark for Victor)`85and the Victor recordings, in particular, are of uneven quality, some even featuring Armstrong shouting from way off microphone; this can give them an almost 'live' feeling, but it doesn't seem to have appealed to the buying public: several sold quite poorly.

Given the amount of time and space devoted to Armstrong's music over the years, both elsewhere and by others much more qualified than I, it seems pointless to cover these CDs in track-by-track detail. Suffice it to say that his playing is rarely less than majestic, even at some of the tempos he was expected to perform at, and often quite stunningly beautiful. The Victor recordings were designed to showcase their new star and all carried the legend "Vocal Refrain and Trumpet Solo by Louis Armstrong" (a similar designation was used with Fats Waller from 1934). But whereas Waller rarely made a bad record, that's unfortunately not the case with Armstrong. Waller's clowning at the studio microphone was instinctive; Armstrong's, at this date, sometimes seems forced (compared to his on-stage presence). Sweet Sue is a classic example of all that was wrong with these sessions: Louis sounds out of breath and muffs part of his spoken introduction, dashes off mike for a quarter chorus into his vocal, which is then reprised at half speed as a duet, with Bud Johnson singing 'Viper's scat': it probably worked on stage but adds nothing to a three-minute 78 intended for dancers. The final chorus reverts to high speed: Louis plays a dizzying solo, but is backed by muddy chords, with the band failing to keep up at one point. That the group was capable of better is immediately apparent on the next track, I Wonder Who, which is not only vintage Armstrong at a relaxed tempo, but also features a lovely, controlled trombone solo from Keg Johnson and swings rather than tumbles along. Incidentally, the sidemen get little chance to shine on these recordings, but Johnson is one who emerges as a real talent.

In contrast to the tight, crystal-clear sound of the OKeh records, which nonetheless required short transition passages to allow Armstrong to get in position for his solos, these Victors have tremendous presence, deriving from a slight echo in the Camden studio, presumably deliberate on the part of the sound engineers, who balanced him very closely on mike for his vocals, allowing him just to step back and project his trumpet solos over the rest of the band. However, they overdo it on occasions, giving the band that muddy sound I mentioned above.

The two American film shorts are frustrating for their distracting 'noises off', especially at the start of You Rascal, You in "Rhapsody in Black and Blue," but there is some fine playing to be heard on them, in spite of the breakneck tempo of Shine, on this same 'short' - the famous (or infamous) one, in which Louis appears in a leopard-skin toga in the mythical land of Jazzmania. The second You Rascal You is the soundtrack from a Betty Boop cartoon; three tunes are featured: High Society, You Rascal, You, and Chinatown. The non-musical passages in between have been excised, with corresponding 'jumps' between the tunes, but the speech over music has had to be kept, so there's quite a lot of incomprehensible chatter, and squeaking from Betty herself! The original cartoon includes several film passages of the Armstrong band in action, in which Mike McKendrick is shown playing what looks very like a 12-string guitar, although the soundtrack seems to feature a banjo: the former played at speed might, though, sound like the latter. Armstrong's fingers are shown at one point moving the valves in exact time with the music`85so it's not clear if the recording and the filming were done at the same time. The audio restoration here is very good.

I must mention at this point that the liner notes are largely in French, with a partial 'adaptation' (Fr`E9meaux' word) into English - a rather curious one at that, and it's sometimes only possible to be sure what the English means by referring to the French. The adaptation is by one Laurie Wright`85is this Laurie Wright, of Storyville fame? If so, I can only assume the CD editors have tried to adapt and improve his English - with some strange results. Much of interest is missing - unless your French is good enough to read Daniel Nevers' originals. In any case, if you're intending to sell into the English-speaking market, a full translation is surely de rigueur!

The Danish 'short' is part of a series covering major musical events each month in that country, and was shot in Copenhagen in October of 1933, using a band with the nucleus of which Louis would record in Paris the following month, including Lionel Guimaraes, Pete DuConge, and Oliver Tines. Armstrong MCs, with more fluency than some of his earlier efforts. The sound quality is variable with a lot of flutter on the higher frequencies but it doesn't interfere overmuch with the enjoyment of this great rarity. I Cover The Waterfront is a fine performance of a tune Louis never recorded commercially; Tiger Rag is what you'd expect this period: Armstrong sails over the thundering rhythm as only he could, but the tempo is pure showmanship. Unfortunately, the sound quality on the two radio air-shots is less felicitous for comfortable listening. The first set was made during a broadcast from Stockholm a week after the Danish film. The sound balance is very poor in places, suggesting the radio station wasn't in charge and this was a live relay. Moreover, only random extracts were recorded: a rather pleasant rendition of You Rascal, You (yes, yet again!) fades out quite early on, whilst On the Sunny Side Of The Street only fades in towards the end of the vocal. But at least we get the whole of Louis' solo, which is almost note for note the same as that he recorded in Paris a few days later. The second set was made in The Hague, Netherlands, about a week after that; the sound balance is better on (yet another version of) Rascal and Dinah, but there's a lot of hiss on these recordings, which it should have been possible to remove without affecting the music. It's not known whether these were recorded during a concert or actually in the Carlton Hotel, where the band was appearing. Dinah is noteworthy for Armstrong's quotes from Lady Be Good and several other tunes!

Overall, the transfer quality on these CDs is good, though I found that, comparing them with my own OKeh and Victor 78s, they are thin on the bass: the originals have a fuller, rounder sound. Even so, if you're looking to fill a few gaps, if you haven't got the alternate takes and if you want the film and air-shots, then this set is worth a look.

It was the 12^th of March, and there we all were at the Bix Bash in Racine, Wisconsin, celebrating 106 years of everyone’s hero (jeez, how time flies, when you’re having fun) when over the air, from Bob Koester’s booth in the record sales area comes this unmistakably German voice announcing: "now we gonna play Come On, Coot An’ Do That Thing, whatever that means," followed by an unbridled, rocking sound that took me back four decades. "Hell," sez I to Dan Levinson, "why is it every German clarinetist can play more like Johnny Dodds than Dodds did?" "Why, " says Dan, "d’you think I keep going over there to hear them?"

This is as rough as white lightning or poteen or Somerset scrumpy, depending on your locale, but God, it’s gorgeous. It’s wide-open, rollicking concert jazz, wrong notes and all, but with the foot-stomping, stand-next-to-the-tuba rapture of the kind they used to call "Holzhacker" (woodchopper) music in the 60s when I lived my finest days in Germany in 1962.

It’s only fitting that I should have got the bug for this new (to me) band in Racine, for this is where Bob Koester turned on the mike for a live performance in 2005, four years earlier, at the same festival. What he caught is pure gold; that wonderful moment for any musician, where the whole becomes greater than the parts and the performance takes on a life of its own, carrying the unbelieving performers along on a vertiginous roller-coaster none of them wants to stop.

These guys carry all of Louis Armstrong’s enthusiasm with the best of his repertoire in a big fat washboard-and-tuba sound, through Weary Blues, Drop That Sack, Georgia Bo Bo, and upwards of a dozen other South Side classics. When you hear it, you don’t want it to stop, either. Gully Low Blues, Willie The Weeper, Lonesome Blues and Put ‘Em Down Blues more than fulfill the need for Armstrong content, but Johnny Dodds is no less present, with Heah Me Talkin’ and My Baby, and there’s a token tip of the hat to the King and Clarence, with Sweet Mumtaz and Beer Garden Blues.

Like another German favourite of mine, the Barrelhouse, the Jazz O’Maniacs were started in the mid-60’s, and still have founding members in the lineup, in particular Roland Pilz, the trumpeter, who was 18 when he started the band, as well as trombonist Ullo Bela and banjoist Owe Hansen. Star turn on clarinet (Mr. Dodds) Claus M`F6ller was a last-minute substitute for the gig, when the regular guy fell sick. So much for serendipity; he sounds as if he was born on the stage with the crew.

If you want to know what the Hot Seven probably sounded like in rehearsal, this may be as close as you get. It sounds as if Bob went out of his way to balance the sound like the OKehs`85 But wait – what the hell is that? It’s a washboard. And that washboard is handled by one G`FCnther Andernach, and he is a maestro. Apparently he plays the beast on an ebony stand, and doesn’t just play it, he dominates it.

There are a few clinkers in the performance; after all, it’s live and unedited; but it just doesn’t come any better for swing, feel and umph. And to round the whole breathtaking sequence out, there’s an augmented session on the last track, with Mike Durham (we missed you this year, Mike) and Norman Field, plus an augmented trombone section, belting the hell out of Willie The Weeper in no less a venue than Meyers’ Ace Hardware store. So what, you ask, is special about playing next to racks of nuts and bolts and tin bathtubs? It’s Meyers’ today, but it once was the Sunset Caf`E9, where Louis fronted Carroll Dickerson’s Orchestra, and then the Grand Terrace, with Earl Hines. Thank God, it was spared the wrecking ball, and the deco murals are apparently still there.

They just don’t come any better; Bob Koester gets a vote of thanks from me for copping this performance; he gets another for releasing it, and the band gets another just for being.

I well remember hearing Ralph Sutton on tour with the World’s Greatest Jazz Band in the 70s; at a memorable – for all the wrong reasons – concert in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, his bad temper very nearly ruined the entire show at one point, as he refused to solo when ‘nodded’ in by Yank Lawson. So it was with a certain degree of trepidation some 20 years later that I bought my ticket for one of his 1994 appearances in the UK. As it happened, I needn’t have worried: he was a model of good humour throughout. I also remember on that occasion being astonished (though why, with hindsight, I’m not sure) at how fluid his playing still was at the age of 72`85why should it not have been?! And that it was, can be heard on every number on this new CD, produced by Nick Campailla. Campailla persuaded Sutton to spend an afternoon playing the Yamaha Disklavier in his (Campailla’s) London bedroom, with a repeat date the following year during another UK tour – hence the CD’s sub-title.

A brief note is perhaps in order here about the Disklavier. This is an electronic version of the old pianola, which records the pianist’s performance on its own internal version of a computer disc, but only replayable on another Yamaha instrument. Unlike a piano roll, though, the Disklavier captures not only the notes and the tempo, but also the nuances of the player’s touch and use of the pedals. So, to all intents and purposes, the playback is as ‘live’, the same as if recorded on disc or tape. The problem, of course, is that you do need another Disklavier for playback. For whatever reason – none is given in the notes – these tracks were not released at the time; and there appears to have been some problem in the interim with finding an instrument to play the recordings back on. A ‘grand’ version was eventually located in a London showroom, and we can now enjoy these previously unissued tracks. There is one other little problem, which I must get out of the way and that is the tonal quality of the Yamaha. Let me say straightaway that I have nothing against electronic or digital pianos per se (I play one myself), but I have played several Yamahas over the years and have always found them to be lacking in bass response. This is to some extent a matter of taste, but, having heard Sutton playing a ‘real’ grand piano, I find the bass line on some of these recordings to be distinctly ‘short’ and plonking, especially on the faster numbers... the sound is somehow just a bit too ‘clean’ and even antiseptic, and doesn’t do justice to the swing he generated in real life.

That apart, the music captured on these recordings is sheer bliss: it has often been said of Fats Waller, one of Sutton’s heroes, that it doesn’t much matter which of his recordings you listen to, they’re all good, and you could say the same of the tracks here. Waller favourites like Clothes-Line Ballet flow from Sutton’s fingers with the same easy fluency as standards like A Hundred Years From Today and lesser known ballads such as This Is All I Ask. There are occasional fluffs, in the introduction to Alligator Crawl, for example, where he suddenly seems less than sure where he’s going, but these are minor cavils in a feast of fine piano-playing. Ring Dem Bells is a particularly swinging version of a tune that’s notoriously difficult to play effectively solo: it cries out for orchestration, but Sutton makes it entirely his own; in quite different vein and tempo, his Ellington ballad Medley is a model of thoughtful interpretation. You are unlikely to encounter a bouncier or more original When I Grow Too Old To Dream than the one presented here: whether its composers, Hammerstein and Romberg, would have approved, I don’t know, but I love it!

By the time these recordings were made, Ralph Sutton had developed his earlier robust Harlem stride style to encompass a much richer vocabulary of polyrhythms and melodic embellishments, as witness his performance of Dinah, to which he gives a rolling eight-beat rhythm, that transforms it to the point where you may imagine you’re listening to a subtly adapted Viper’s Drag! Am I Blue? gets similar treatment in the opening chorus, then metamorphoses into a completely Waller-like rhythmic performance, only suddenly to be given a series of cross-rhythmic ‘jumps’, that Waller would probably never even have thought of. Sutton has a wonderful facility for quoting a phrase here, an arpeggio there, from some other tune, which leaves you clutching at long-forgotten musical straws to remember just where it may have come from`85only to realise, of course, that it hardly matters, as his genius is in the placing, not the origin, of the notes. There’s an especially good example in I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, when he plays a short series of descending fourths, which might be from Alligator Crawl - but, then again, might not. In sum, these recordings are a unique insight into Sutton’s playing, in a relaxed setting, where he may well have assumed they wouldn’t be heard by anyone other than Mr Campailla and his friends. We are lucky indeed now to have them on CD.

MAX EASTERMAN