BOOK: That’s Got ’Em – The Life and Music of Wilbur C. Sweatman. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010). American Music Series, ISBN 978-1-60473-099-9. Price: $50 but available from www.amazon.com at $45 and £32 at www.amazon. co.uk. 230 pp, hard bound, 26 photographs (some of which previously unpublished), 3 appendices, discography, bibliography, index. www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1214

Wilbur Sweatman? Go and check your shelves. How many 78s of his do you have? When did you listen to them last? If you are an average jazz fan and record collector, the answers are likely to be – well, unimpressive. And yet Sweatman (1882-1961) must be one of the most important figures in the history of jazz. And there is no excuse for remaining ignorant because writer, collector, auctioneer, researcher (and VJM&BM co-editor) Mark Berresford had Sweatman’s recorded output re-issued on a Jazz Oracle double CD BDW 8046 (it had been enthusiastically reviewed – and rightly so - by Malcolm Shaw in VJM issue … ). The 58 tracks had been accompanied by a 44 page booklet. The "liner notes" have now been expanded to a full length clothbound book.

Sweatman composed and recorded ragtime pieces from 1916, he made jazz clarinet solos that predate the ODJB records, and he concluded his recording career in 1935 with rollicking, swinging blues titles. How could his achievements have been overlooked for almost 100 years? One possible explanation might be that the early writers on jazz were Europeans who had no access to the discs. Only three records were in European catalogues: the WWI era Joe Turner Blues/A Bag of Rags on Pathe(UK) 1046, the 1918 Regretful Blues/ Everybody’s Crazy ‘Bout The Doggone Blues on Columbia (UK) 2908 and lastly the 1935 Hooking Cow Blues/What’cha Gonna Do? on French Brunswick. But those who were aware of his records looked at him in derision as a vaudeville clown (yes, he could play three clarinets at the same time), closed their ears to the aural evidence and eliminated his name from jazz histories and dictionaries. Berresford devotes an entire chapter "In Defense of Wilbur Sweatman – A Response to His Critics" – to this aspect. To-day there are no excuses to continue the disregard and downgrading as the music is readily available for evaluation and enjoyment.

With "That’s Got ’Em" Berresford provides the first in-depth biography of this unjustly forgotten pioneer of ragtime, instrumental blues and black vernacular music in general. He reminds us that Sweatman was the first African American musician to be offered a long-term recording contract; that he was an important composer with over 50 titles to his credit (of which the 1911 Down Home Rag is perhaps the best remembered); that his groups were breeding grounds for such future stars as Ellington, Hawkins or Lunceford; that he was a pioneer in recording with racially mixed groups; that he was one of the first black artists to be nationally known from coast to coast; that he was among the first blacks to appear on stage in ordinary dress (thus breaking the racial stereotypes of the minstrel traditions). In 1917 he was admitted as a member to the ASCAP – the first African American working in popular music, and decades before such as Duke Ellington, Clarence Williams, Jelly Roll Morton, or Scott Joplin.

Sweatman’s background and professional career are yet further evidence that the standard belief, copied from one author to the next, of jazz originating in New Orleans, then travelling north to Chicago and New York is "patently untrue". The son of a barber, Sweatman was born in Brunswick, Missouri. His first musical instrument was piano, which he was taught by his elder sister. He later taught himself to play violin, then clarinet (as well as other instruments: bass clarinet, trombone, organ). In the 1890s Sweatman was a member of the N. Clark Smith Pickaninny Band, as was legendary trumpeter Crickett Smith with whom he recorded later. The Smith orchestra toured Australia with the M. B. Curtis & Ernest Hogan Minstrel Troupe and it is possible that Sweatman was in that party. At any rate, by 1901 Sweatman, now 18 years of age and an experienced musician, can be traced near Kansas City from where he moved on to St. Louis later that year. He played in clubs for dancing.

In April 1902 Sweatman joined P. G. Lowery’s Concert Band as orchestra leader and violinist, as well as playing clarinet in the larger concert band. This orchestra toured widely with the Forepaugh and Sells Brothers Circus. At the end of the season Sweatman joined the Mahara’s Minstrel troupe as assistant orchestra leader, doubling violin and clarinet (the full band was directed by W. C. Handy). It is clear that Sweatman, despite his young age, must have been not only a competent soloist but also an excellent reader and an authoritative leader.

It seems that, after leaving Mahara, Sweatman organized his first group to play the Minneapolis Palace (dime) Museum. During this time, about 1903, Sweatman’s instrumentalists made recordings for the Metropolitan Music Company in Minneapolis; the two wax cylinders, Maple Leaf Rag and Peaceful Henry, are considered lost. If found, they would be the first ever recordings made by a black instrumental group. In the spring of 1908 Sweatman relocated to Chicago to become musical director of the Grand Theater. Sadly no recorded evidence exists from that period but, judging from contemporary accounts, Sweatman’s trio was "nothing short of sensational". It was during his three years in Chicago that he wrote his hit, Down Home Rag.

From late in 1911 Sweatman entered vaudeville, which was THE mass indoor entertainment until the advent of radio and movies, as a musical entertainer. He toured the country as a class act and became so popular with both white and black audiences that he was offered the position as orchestra leader at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem in 1914. In December 1916 he cut the first jazz records ever for the Emerson company: two solo clarinet versions of his own Down Home Rag. Berresford offers several explanations why Sweatman’s Emersons had not received the honour they deserve, not least because he "does not fit the image of a jazz musician as espoused by a number of authors and critics. Sweatman was not from New Orleans – absolutely essential for recognition as a jazz pioneer by the majority of twentieth-century jazz writers – and he earned his money at the time performing in vaudeville." By February 1917 he added the word "Jass Band" to his label credits.

There is no space here to go into further details. Suffice to say, Berresford follows Sweatman’s career in detail dealing with his recordings, his sidemen, his competitors, his imitators, his contemporaries, his admirers, his critics. A fascinating story.

And there is more: In Appendix 1 Berresford undertakes the difficult task of chronicling Sweatman’s compositions. Difficult because, of the likely hundreds of compositions, few were copyrighted and had to be documented from the scant secondary sources such as contemporary newspaper accounts. A car accident in the mid-50s forced Sweatman to retire from his playing career, but he continued to compose. His own Wilbur Sweatman Music Publishing enterprise, established in 1924, continued up to at least 1959 (he died three years later of a heart attack).

Appendix 2 represents the day-to-day account of the 1902 US and Canada tour of the Forepaugh and Sells Brothers Circus which featured Sweatman as assistant orchestra leader of the legendary P. G. Lowery’s sideshow band. The fascinating Appendix 3 was contributed by Ron Geesin, a professional musician who had shared many musical experiences with English pianist Billy Jones (who had played with the ODJB in London in 1919). Entitled "The Speeds And Pitches of Wilbur Sweatman’s Recordings" it is a discussion of the music and a summary overview of all matrices with their correct keys and speeds. In Appendix 4 Berresford provides details, based on surviving Columbia files, of the quantities of records shipped to Columbia record dealers. In 1920 Bert Williams, then one of Columbia’s top stars and no doubt the best-known African-American performer of his age, had a total of a million records; Sweatman, by comparison, accounted for exactly 927,100 records shipped in 1919, the largest seller with 180,300 being Kansas City Blues on Columbia A2768 (coupled with The Alcoholic Blues by the Louisiana Five). Another very useful section is the 21-page annotated discography which, as a matter of course, also details the titles issued anonymously on the Little Wonder label. Some of these were first identified by Berresford who points out that, in the absence of recording files, further titles may have been recorded.

This is an essential and ground-breaking addition to jazz literature, and refreshingly different from those umpteen publications telling you that Armstrong, Ellington, Parker, Coltrane are great jazz musicians (which undoubtedly they are, but we all know that). Not a rehash of previously published opinions, but original research providing insights into the still obscure transitional period from pre-jazz to hot jazz. Berresford details how Sweatman’s talent absorbed genres of black music – including pickaninny bands, minstrelsy, chautauqua, circus sideshows, both black and white vaudeville and ragtime – transported them to mainstream audiences and transformed them to what was eventually to become jazz.

Mark Berresford’s "That’s Got ‘Em! The Life and Music of Wilbur C. Sweatman" is a meticulously researched contribution to Black Music research. Exposing prejudiced opinions it profoundly changes our understanding of the history of jazz, at the same time doing overdue justice to an unsung recording pioneer.

Well written. Essential reading. Highly recommended.

RAINER LOTZ

From the (probable) demise of 78 Quarterly (although it was 13 years between issues #2 and #3 so one never knows if it’s really down) rises a wonderfully illustrated, multi-media package put out by Frog Records, one of the best of the 78 - reissue labels.

The Annual is a collection of articles about jazz, blues and related artists "from the 78 era" which most of us take to mean the 1920s, though as we all recognize in our hearts if not our heads, that era actually ran until the mid-1950s.

This maiden issue is generally tilted toward blues with full articles about the Graves Brothers, Henry "Ragtime Texas" Thomas, jug bands and a piano blues survey. On the jazz side, there are profiles of Thomas Morris and Chicago cornettist Bernie Young, a report on Arnold Wiley and another go-round on the possibly apocryphal Big Charlie Thomas. There is also a survey of 1920s New Orleans blues recordings and a discussion of early Black vaudevillian Opal Cooper

Like most contributor-based publications, the articles vary widely in content and research,. One of the best is Fred Cox’s pioneering research into the Louisville KY-area jug bands. Fred had the foresight to interview surviving members of these groups, including Carl Reid, when many of them were still alive in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of this material appeared in Storyville back then but it’s great to see it all in one place. His gives us a fascinating and detailed account Reid’s work with the Tub-Jug Washboard Band which accompanied Ma Rainey on some 1928 recordings, then recording several other sides on their own. It’s difficult to believe that rag-tag ensemble we hear on San and behind Ma Rainey on Black Cat Hoot Owl, (okay, so I’m not a great fan) played the lobbies of some reasonably swanky hotels in the Midwest but they did. Not long after the records, Reid and several members joined Phillips Louisville Jug Band which recorded for Brunswick/Vocalion in 1930; again finding unlikely venues as several sides were issued in the UK and pressed in India as well.

The Henry Thomas article gives us an extensive portrait of a "bluesman" who, along with Richard Rabbit Brown, offers the deepest backward look at rural African-American music. Actually, "recreational" music might be a better term since Henry (about the same age as Uncle Dave Macon, born 1873) played for dancing and entertainment. This article by Terry Heath offers few details and insights beyond Mark McCormack’s extensive notes in the 1970s double Yazoo album of his works. Thomas, who played African reed pipes, learned most of his repertoire in the 1890s and early 1900s and apparently entertained railroad passengers in the days before Ipods and DVD players. His Railroadin’ Some, included n the CD is evidence of those days. The other track, Don’t You Leave Me Here (which he also recorded under the original title of Alabama Bound) was a 1906 ragtime song first recorded that year by Prince’s Band and later recorded by Jelly Roll Morton.

Despite the fact that Thomas Morris was one of Harlem’s most in-demand trumpet players during the 1920s, recorded some 150 sides, little is known about him. He dropped out of sight after 1929, joining the Father Devine religious sect. The article by Richard Rains collects probably all that is known about him into one space but since all of his music associates are long gone – it would be a near-impossible job to go much further.

Morris provides an important window into what jazz trumpet was like in New York before Louis came to town in 1924. While Johnny Dunn pretty much stopped recording then, Morris continued recording prolifically, with bands and behind blues singers, well into the electric era without radically changing his style.

One selection offered here, The Mess (1926), still has an earlier ragtime atmosphere about it. Morris is credited with the composition, but it was probably arranged by someone like Gus Horsley or Hershel Brassfield both of whom did many arrangements for Dunn and Perry Bradford.

Some may take issue with the second "Morris" offering on the CD, George McClennon’s Jazz Devils’ Home Alone Blues on the grounds that the trumpeter’s participation remains questionable. With over 150 known Morris sides to choose from, it’s a bit strange to go with one on which there’s doubt…Well, the article does touch on McClennon as a fellow supporter (with Morris) of back-to-Africa activist Marcus Garvey. And the disc is a major rarity not often heard and not bad listening, so enjoy anyway.

There’s also a brief article about Oscar "Bernie" Young whose band cut several sides of Paramount in 1923 and who later appeared on the Arthur Sims Okeh, but unrepresented on the accompanying CD.

Another New York trumpeter who may be several New York trumpeters is Big Charlie Thomas, the name ascribed by John R.T. Davies to a fine, hard-punching player. Who was otherwise unidentified The article revisits speculation over the identity of the musician(s) who might be responsible for some of the tracks he was said to play on, including Charlie Gaines (who did have documents for some unspecified sessions for the same labels around the same time) and June Clark who was a journeyman New Yorker but little recorded. The author, Richard Rains again, concludes…well, buy the book for yourself.

Few collectors probably recognize the name Arnold Wiley who made a few 1920s record dates. His relative obscurity belies the fact that he and sister Irene enjoyed a long vaudeville and stage career.

The label of Arnold Wiley’s Windy City Rag (Brunswick) was subtitled "sensational trick piano" which was neither, actually, but shows a player who surely learned it by rote as a specialty piece being rather stiffly played like a piano roll. Wiley and his then wife Bertha recorded two sides for Vocalion in 1927, 1930-1 Paramount and Columbia dates with sister Irene, then both vanished into obscurity for almost 20 years before resurfacing in sessions made for several independent labels. One here, Boe Hog Blues from around 1950 was on the Diamond label whose customary fare was mood music. While the material certainly goes back to the couple’s old vaudeville days – the 1931 Columbia, the strident style shows they tried to keep their act current.

Other articles include Alex van der Tuuk’s look at the brief period in which the American Record Company revived the Paramount label in 1935 and the story of the Graves Brothers; Chris Hillman story of R.Q. Dickerson/ Missourians and Cab Calloway; Howard Rye’s fascinating piece on Opal Cooper (would that the music were as interesting) in England, John Collinson’s The Golden Age of Blues Piano and a survey of 1920s New Orleans recordings by Chris Hillman – interesting but there’s an Internet document with all of this information, plus the Cajun and country material.

All in all, the main goal of this collection appears to be to delight record collectors – like the old 78 Quarterly. (Will we see a revival of the Rarest 78s A-Z column hat seemed to be the most-read section of that publication?) As noted, some of the material was previous published but having all of it in one place (as opposed to scattered through a number of issues of Storyville or liner notes to several reissue albums) is handy and introduces this information to a new audience.

And the delight is considerable, especially the pages of illustrations of blues and jazz adverts and posters from the period – the Jack Pettis & His Pets poster with the bandsmen as saxophone keys is a standout beauty.

The whole production is beautifully-produced on extremely high quality paper so the illustrations pop out at you…and the CD transfers are excellent. It’s all first class, as is the price – about £30 – but worth it.

Here’s another set of rarities, never before released, and available now partly because of the foresight of Jonah Jones and Edgar Sampson, in commissioning airchecks of the broadcasts they took part in; partly because the Edgar Sampson material has been made available by the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University - what a wealth of archive material they must have!; and lastly, because of the determination of Anthony Barnett in getting these rare and unheard tracks onto CD.

These programmes were broadcast from the Biltmore Hotel on Station WMCA, NYC, ("at the top of the dial") to promote the launch of a new product: Lucidin eye-lotion. Thankfully, there’s loads of music and a dearth of adverts, the reason for which the announcer acknowledges in programme 2, asking: "Which would you rather hear…music or commercial talk? Don’t answer - we know!" The band then swings into a stunning version of Make-Believe Ballroom. Although it was nominally under Stuff Smith’s leadership, he seems not to play on all titles, and the arrangements were by Sampson, who learned his trade in the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra (amongst others), and was at this time with Cab Calloway. He produced for the Lucidin programmes a set of charts to equal anything issued on commercial discs of the period. These sides swing magnificently: the band is a 14-piece outfit, but several tracks sound to me as though only half that number were actually playing. Fitzgerald appears on at least two tracks per programme, and was clearly featured as a ‘draw’: her style at this time is an infectious combination of youthful vigour and mature control, and she sings several numbers she never recorded commercially in the 30s – an added bonus! She was, apparently, a last-minute substitution for an ‘indisposed’ Helen Ward, but Ward never appears in the later broadcasts, though one in which she did take part, with the Teddy Wilson Orchestra, is included on an earlier re-issue: ABCD1-015.

The first programme set – from 6^th January 1937 - is from one of the Jonah Jones acetates, and the sound is rather muddy, as these were analogue transfers made many years ago; the originals then disappeared after Jones’ death, so weren’t available for an up-to-date treatment. Nonetheless, the basic recording quality is very good and your ear will soon adjust! Ella Fitzgerald offers a superb opener in Did You Mean It?, which also features the first of many fine solos by trombonist Sandy Williams. Here is a man who was up there with the best of them, but is too often forgotten, perhaps because his name rarely appeared on the record labels. He’s the featured soloist in several of these Lucidin programmes: his version of World Is Waiting For The Sunrise in this and Blue Prelude in programme 2, are models of how to play lyrical yet hot trombone; his tone combines the heat of JC Higginbotham with the smoothness of Jack Teagarden. Jonah Jones’ trumpet playing throughout is nothing less than stratospheric – but entirely without the screeching overtones that marred some of his contemporaries’ work. His solo on Stardust here is perfectly pitched. Stuff Smith makes his first solo appearance on Stompin’ At The Savoy, which also features more fine work from Jones. Tenor-sax giant Ben Webster takes his first solo bow on Take Another Guess; and it’s worth mentioning here his tenor colleague, Walter ‘Foots’ Thomas, who emerges in these programmes as a great talent, not in any way in Webster’s shadow. I should also mention that one of the joys of these sets generally is the wide technical range of the recording, in particular how well both John Kirby’s bass and Cozy Cole’s drumming come over.

Programme 2 is from an Edgar Sampson acetate, digitally re-mastered, and the sound quality is immediately better. It opens with a stomping version of I Got Rhythm, on which the front-line stars – Smith, Jones, Webster – and pianist Clyde Hart all take excellent solos; Hart also provides a sympathetic backing to Williams’ solo on Blue Prelude. Fitzgerald’s vocal on Goodnight My Love is uncharacteristically restrained, though none the worse for that; and on Copper-Coloured Gal, Ben Webster shows just why he was ranked right up beside Coleman Hawkins by this time. The programme ends with trailers for the next broadcast…and I’m delighted that all the announcements have been left in, giving an authentic flavour and context to the music.

A fragmentary programme follows: Ella sings a good-ish version of Love Marches On, which is most noteworthy for a short, tight-muted Jonah Jones solo: Organ Grinder’s Swing is the only other extant track here, and what a superb rendering it is! Jones is again to the fore, with a beautifully modulated muted solo, and Sandy Williams likewise plays fine trombone. A third complete programme comes next, opening with a great arrangement of I Found A New Baby: Clyde Hart and Stuff Smith turn in good short solos, but Jones and Webster are the stars here, and Ella gives one of her best vocals of the CD on Oh Say! Can You Swing? There follows one of the few disasters of these recordings, as Sandy Williams drags his way through a really terrible, slushy version of Roses of Picardy, which can’t make it’s mind up whether it’s a waltz or a foxtrot! Ella’s spirited version of It’s D’Lovely, is subtly altered to advertise the sponsor’s product ("It’s De-Lucidin"), with a good Ben Webster solo; and on the next track, Old Grey Bonnet, it’s Walter Thomas’ turn to show what a fine – and under-rated – player he was (though the second tenor solo here is, I’m sure, by Webster).

The next programme is, again, a Jones acetate, and starts very badly, with a lot of rough surface noise; fortunately, it settles down in time for a Jones solo version of Basin Street Blues, which is probably my top musical pick from the whole CD. Edgar Sampson’s own composition That Man Is Here Again features a really swinging vocal from Ella Fitzgerald, but the sound quality begins to deteriorate somewhat here into ‘muddiness’. Stuff Smith has his only dedicated solo spot next, on Clouds, in which he treats us to the whole gamut of his violin voicings: from understated tremolo to swinging vibrato. The acetate is less damaged here, but there’s a lot of noise behind Ella’s pleasant vocal on Chapel In The Moonlight, which is otherwise given a fairly straight full orchestral treatment. Honeysuckle Rose, which rounds out the session, has Sandy Williams returning to excellent form with a muted solo in an excellent Sampson arrangement; surface noise is, regrettably, again a problem here.

The CD rounds out with a couple of incomplete sessions, of much better technical quality: Ella sings a fine swinging version of This Is My Last Affair, whilst Clyde Hart shows how good a pianist he was on Shine and a second version of Make Believe Ballroom, which is in some ways even better than on its first outing. The CD closes with an (incomplete) Copper Coloured Gal.

As I’ve already indicated, the quality of transfers is not always as good as on some of AB’s earlier releases: the original acetates from Jonah Jones’ own archive were clearly in poor shape when they were dubbed, and AB has done his best with them. The Sampson material is of much better technical quality and has been transferred digitally. But don’t let this problem detract from the pleasure of listening to these tracks: there’s a wealth of first-class jazz here, and you won’t get it anywhere else. There is also, apparently, a lot more in the AB archives, but unfortunately, there may not be much more of it forthcoming: as I write, I’ve just received an email, explaining that the problem of illegal downloads is beginning to take its toll, even on this kind of niche music, and a major policy re-think is under way. How very, very sad…

It’s not that often that the arrival of a CD in the Berresford household is greeted with such an enthusiastic welcome. As anyone who has spent time at my place, or those who have sat in at our regular Friday night 78-spinning sessions (30+ years and still going strong!) will know, I have a penchant for female vocalists. Be it raunchy, cheeky Connie Ediss on a 1900 Berliner, singing about how much she likes Society, the perky Trix Sisters backed by George Fishberg’s romping ragtime piano on a 1921 HMV, or a smoochily sophisticated Frances Day singing a long-forgotten Vivian Ellis song from a 1930s London revue, I’m a sucker for them all. So this CD had a head start before I even hit the ‘play’ button. I was not disappointed, and neither will you be.

Chris Ellis has assembled 24 tracks together that give a wonderful overview of that fine genre, the (white) girl vocalist with hot backing groups. The selection, although it is limited to white American singers, is a cross-section of vocal styles, from the theatrical declamatory style of Ethel Levey - heard on a previously unissued English Columbia test of Kansas City Kitty, with hot backing from The Gilt Edged Four - to the sweet close harmony of the Ponce Sisters’ Fit As A Fiddle, with wonderful Venuti-Lang accompaniment. Chris has been careful in his selection, providing several tracks that were never issued in the USA, some of which have never been reissued before, and which make this all the more a Must Have issue.

Betty Morgan (although Chris doesn’t say so in his excellent liner notes) is thought to be a Pathe pseudonym for radio pioneer Vaughn De Leath - and it certainly sounds like her. The two tracks included here by her have a small, unidentified, but hot group backing, particularly effective on Tonight’s My Night With Baby, which features a good trombone solo. Esther Walker’s Hard To Get Gertie has long been a favourite of mine, since I junked a copy as a teenager. Again the band is anonymous, but probably based around Rube Bloom, and with good trumpet and - unusually for 1926 - a string bass player.

Two tracks by Peggy English bring us to readily identifiable sidemen, playing impeccably gorgeous jazz. Although fairly unremarkable, nay lifeless, as a singer, Peggy is backed on the mundane ditty High, High, Up In The Hills by an on-form Red Nichols, Eddie Lang at his sparkling best, Rube Bloom and string bassist Joe Tarto.

Jane Green, a Victor regular for several years in the 1920s is accompanied by a typical Victor studio group who, whilst lacking great solos, make up with verve and enthusiasm - I’m Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now is the best.

Helen Morgan is best-known for her stage career, most notably as Julie in the original production (and first film) of ‘Showboat,’ but in 1927 she spent some months in London in cabaret, where she recorded a few extremely rare sides for the infant British Brunswick company. Luckily, Brunswick had just appointed the enfant terrible of British jazz, Fred Elizalde as a recording director, so the accompaniments, using members of Bert Ambrose’s orchestra are of considerable interest. The excellent trumpeter on Lazy Weather and Nothing But was long-thought to be American visitor Henry Levine, but he told me himself that he never recorded with Helen Morgan. It is now thought that it is Britain’s own hot trumpet star of the period, Jack Jackson, who takes the two fine solos, firmly played in the Nichols style.

Irene Beasley, ‘The Long Tall Gal From Dixie’ didn’t have a prolific recording career, but here she is in the august company of Benny Goodman, earning some extra cash away from Ben Pollack. Her distinct ‘country’ style is a far cry from many of the others on this CD, but none the worse for it; Goodman, of course, is superb.

Zelma O’Neal was a young, vivacious American singer and dancer, who sprung to prominence in the 1927 college-themed musical ‘Good News’ and ‘Follow Through,’ but who then relocated to England for several years. She recorded her hit from the latter show I Want To Be Bad both as a ‘guest vocal’ with Ben Bernie’s Orchestra, and also as a solo with a studio group that featured trumpeter Mannie Klein, which is the version heard here - and very fine too!

American duettists Helen and Josephine Trix were old stagers by the time they recorded Pickin’ Cotton in London in 1928 - Helen had started recording as a teenager in 1905, and Josephine made her recording debut with her sister in 1921. Distasteful as the song’s lyrics may be, the Gilt Edged Four (a generic name for small hot studio bands on English Columbia) provide good backing, especially Max Goldberg’s Bixian trumpet.

Ruth Etting’s Button up Your Overcoat needs no introduction to most readers - suffice to say it still sounds fresh enough to have been recently used on a British TV advert!

No CD of 1920s and early 1930s girl vocalists could be complete without the inclusion of the ultimate exemplar of the genre - Annette Hanshaw. Here she is heard on two of my favourites of hers - I’ve Got "It" and Telling It To The Daisies, both made on one magical day in May 1930, when the Dorseys and Adrian Rollini were at the peak of their powers. These two tracks alone are worth the price of the CD.

The same lineup, more or less, add magic to Lee Morse’s fine rendition of ‘Tain’t No Sin; she can be such a variable singer, but here she is at her witty best, with even her kazoo blowing fitting in with the band! I love the reference in the lyrics to television phones in the bathtub!

Frances Williams had the misfortune to have all three of her 1933 Columbia recordings rejected - not that they were ever intended for release in the USA, as they were recored in the mysterious 265000-series matrices, paid for by the British Columbia company. Their loss is our gain, as we have Hey! Young Feller and Underneath The Harlem Moon (but why, oh, why, not the third - Try A Little Tenderness??), with sensitive backing from a small studio group which included Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang (and a good but subdued Goodman-esque clarinet, which isn’t noted in the discography (or in Ray Mitchell’s book on Lang ‘Feeling My Way).

The last two tracks alone are reason enough to buy the CD - Aileen Stanley, in cabaret in London in 1934, sings a raunchy Who Walks In When I Walk Out, with a small jazz band led by Ray Noble and featuring some fine trombone playing from Ted Heath. Both this, and the final track, Marion Harris’s remarkable Singing The Blues, are real collectors’ items, as they were never issued in the USA. On Singing The Blues Marion ditches J.Russel Robinson’s music and Sam Lewis, Joe Young and Con Conrad’s lyrics completely and replaces them her own words set to Bix and Tram’s solos off their 1927 OKeh record - thirty years before Lambert, Hendrix and Ross ‘invented’ the style!

Harry Coster has produced fine, clean transfers and Chris Ellis’s informative liner notes and the accompanying selection of photos round out a first rate production from Retrieval. All we need now is another volume of the same, but with some black singers as well!

There’s tons of great music here, as well as some pretty fine and enjoyable singing, so I have no hesitation in recommending it to VJM readers.

This book on the New Orleans clarinetist is long overdue; considering how many obscure jazz musicians have been the subject of biographies (or "autobiographies") over the years.

Noone was an excellent technician with a sweet fluid tone: the opposite of his contemporary Johnny Dodds. In most eyes, his primary legacy was being cited at the primary influence for Benny Goodman; though both shared the same clarinet teacher, Franz Schoepp.

Williams produces a lot of excellent research to give us Noone’s lineage and actual birthplace along with a bit of personality profiling on his personality and life. The book opens with an assessment of his place in early jazz history, offering a balanced assessment of his legacy and influence, from his detractors to assessments of his brilliant solos and innovative brassless front line.

The main section of the book chronicles his career from the Original Creole Band - through his final job with Orson Welles radio show in 1944, with whom he died on the job in April 1944. Noone’s career during the 1920s is well-documented recording with Ollie Powers and King Oliver (yes it IS him and NOT Buster Bailey on the Columbias even though Noone disavowed them and Bailey claimed it was him). His work with Doc Cook is well documented on record, then, with his own Apex Club Orchestra which recorded a long series of discs for Vocalion’s race series.

By contrast, Noone’s 1930s activities were not well documented. As one suspected, the Depression hit him hard and he spent much of the decade scuffling in low-paying gigs in out-of-the-way venues; punctuated by occasional recording sessions. Williams does an admirable job of piecing these together from fragmentary notices in newspapers and trade magazines. Strangely, he omits the 1940s Decca session that produced the great New Orleans Jazz set and the Bluebird session of that year. It would have been nice to know what critics of the day said about the hideous bellowing of his vocalist Ed Thompson (or why such a no-talent got in front of the mike) that pretty much negates Noone’s lovely playing.

Indeed, if ever a jazz musicians was cursed by vocal assassins, it was he. Noone played on three of Lillie Delk Christian’s discs and then backed a wheezy yodeler named Stovepipe Johnson. May Alix (who apparently believed volume was the cure for being off-key) appeared on a number of his Vocalions and then the aforementioned Ed Thompson.

The author rightly points out that Noone’s recorded legacy is a good number of schmaltzy pop tunes mixed in with excellent jazz. But his records probably more closely resemble the actual repertoire of his group than most other jazz groups of the time. (Fletcher Henderson wished he could record the waltz medleys he featured while Bennie Moten played tangos, polkas and schottishes on his dates. The others chapters discuss his technique and the Albert clarinet system, then a full discography of his work.

Our thanks to Jim Williams for his research and producing this work.

I’ve remarked before in these pages on the debt that Jazz and American music as a whole owes to the racist governments of late 19th- and early 20th-century Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, who drove millions of Jews (amongst others) to the New World. Without them, there would have been no George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Sam Lanin, Artie Shaw or Benny Goodman, not to mention, in a different context, Aaron Copland, Darius Milhaud and Leonard Bernstein. But these glitterati, as this new book reveals, are only the knaidl in a deep and luxurious musical broth. The roll-call of Jewish musicians in the jazz worlds not just of the USA, but of Britain, Western Europe, and even the former USSR, is nothing less than staggering.

Why so? That is one of the questions Mike Gerber sets out to answer. His way was not smooth, and the book has been ten years in the writing: an initial request for help from Jim Godbolt, editor of Jazz at Ronnie Scott’s, led to an editorial dismissing the project as useless; Artie Shaw had strong misgivings (though, unlike Godbolt, he did grant an interview). These and other obstacles notwithstanding, Gerber has produced a balanced and revealing investigation into this fascinating aspect of Jazz: Shaw’s reservations are given as much space as the opinions of those, who enthusiastically supported the project.

Central to the book are two theses: that Jews have a right to be proud of their contribution to jazz music; and that their experiences as settlers in the slums of America’s big cities were not dissimilar to those of the black population. Both were excluded and deprived communities, but with strong musical traditions, so music – and the entertainment industry generally – was to be a passport out of the ghetto. Black music, of course, was the bedrock of black musicianship and its impact on the staid world of quadrilles and two-steps undeniable. But what about Jewish music? This is the tricky part of the equation, along with the not unjustified accusation that Jews, as part of the white population, more than sometimes exploited black music for their own ends. This was to sour relationships between black and Jewish musicians in the USA at several points, as Gerber’s long and painstaking story shows. The point he makes is that Jews could disguise their Jewishness, if they so wished (and many, including Artie Shaw, did), which gave them both a musically and a socially competitive edge. But then, there are cases like Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith, who claimed not only to be Jewish (and proud of it) but also bar-mitvah’d! In spite of these tensions, Jews and blacks did co-operate and support each other, not least through organisations like the Community Symphony Orchestra, which did much to break the colour bar in Hollywood.

A major issue of contention this book explores, is the extent to which Jewish music – klezmer and cantorial chant, for example – fed into the jazz that Jews played. This is where Artie Shaw disagrees fundamentally with those who claim they can hear echoes of the shtetl and the synagogue in Shaw himself, Goodman and many others (although he earlier had stated that it was no accident that he played clarinet the way he did). Suffice it to say that the examples Gerber adduces made me leap up to grab the records off the shelf to check them out; in many cases, he’s right – in Shaw’s own case, there’s his signature tune Nightmare, cited by Jewish critic-musician Richard Sudhalter as showing clear Jewish influences - and even Shaw himself admitted to using a hora theme on Dr Livingstone, I Presume. There are other cases, though, where I think the author is wrong. His assertion, in the chapter on Soviet jazz Jews, for example, that Adi Rosner’s solo on Caravan is "unmistakably cantor-like", doesn’t stand up – it’s just the way Ellington and Tizol wrote it. But there’s no doubt about the passion this debate arouses, no less vehement than that concerning the Jewish input to ‘black’ jazz. As Gerber explains, in the bop and post-bop eras in particular, when black musicians were asserting their individualism and inventiveness to a much greater degree than before, the earlier alliance of interests often broke down. But even then Jews played central roles in the cutting-edge bands of the day: Red Rodney and Stan Levey with Charlie Parker, Paul Bley and Steve Lacy with Ornette Coleman. And yet again, in the post-war bop boom, jazz was to prove a way out and up for a new generation of Jews: Lee Konitz, Stan Getz, Serge Chaloff, Terry Gibbs (and no, I didn’t realise he was Jewish either!). West Coast ‘cool’ was centred around a group of - mainly – New York Jews: Shelly Manne, Shorty Rogers (né Ragonsky), André Previn, and many more.

Jewish musical influence is perhaps at its strongest, though, in the songs written by Jews, by Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen and many, many more. Here Gerber indisputably makes a key point, that these song-writers pushed at the boundaries and "erected the harmonic latticework from which jazzmen swing"; he notes that Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm is probably "the most important [musical] form in American history next to the Blues", as the basis of thousands of variations, from Don’t Be That Way to the scores of bop re-workings under as many different titles. He shows how Jews were at the forefront of other experiments in jazz, such as Steve Cohn’s use of the shofar, which he describes as playing "like a kazoo", and Fred Katz’s world jazz fusion of Afro-American-Hebraic music.

Then there were the men behind the music: the Jewish promoters, critics, record-producers and record-company owners. All played their part, not just in advancing the cause of fellow jazz Jews, but as Gerber points out, also that of black jazzmen. I confess that I had only a sketchy idea of the depth of Jewish influence here, but the Savoy, Blue Note, Prestige, Contemporary and Riverside labels were all founded by Jews – and think how many fewer progressive black (and white) musicians would have got on wax without them.

There are chapters on Jazz Jews in Europe, Israel, the old Soviet Bloc and in pre-war Germany: all full of new research and fascinating detail. But of especial interest to UK readers is the chapter devoted to Jazz Jews in Britain, and here again I must confess that I had no idea how many pre-war players and bandleaders were Jewish. But so many disguised the fact, in the face of the anti-Semitism and more general racism that pervaded even the left-wing British press of that period: Gerber cites a disgraceful review of Louis Armstrong’s London debut, by Hannen Swaffer: "…[an] untrained gorilla…uncouth…like a drunken bull…the ugliest man I have ever seen on a public stage….there was an enthusiastic response from…the Jewish elements." Jazz and Jews were seen alike as immoral and world-weary; no surprise then, that Bert Feuermann and Harry Lipman became Bert Firman and Harry Roy, Gerald Bright metamorphosed to the exotic Geraldo, and Benjamin Baruch Ambrose preferred to be known simply by his – apparently very English - family name. Pre-eminent amongst the pre-war Jewish contingent was Sid (né Isador Simon) Phillips; his nephew, John Altman, gives Gerber a telling account of the way Jewish musicians were treated in those days…although Phillips and his contemporaries earned fabulous money and drove Bentleys, they were "…socially below the waiters on the pecking scale at the Mayfair Hotel. I can’t say it’s changed much." Altman is a name you may not have registered, yet he’s a prolific composer for commercials and film-music and a fine sax-player, a British Jazz Jew of the post-war generation, as successful in his own field as Ronnie Scott was in his.

Mike Gerber’s conclusion is that, whether they like it or not and whether they deny it or not (as very many did until the last decades of the 20th century), there is so often something different and personal in the style and tonality of the way Jews play jazz, that marks them out. And that, he feels justifies the whole enterprise. But even if it didn’t, there is no denying the place Jews have in the jazz firmament, as musicians, composers, arrangers, promoters…you name it, they’ve been there and still are. Read this book, with your record collection to hand, and listen again to some of the tracks you’ve perhaps taken for granted all these years. You may be surprised…you’ll certainly find a whole bran-tub of surprises in every chapter.

Rivermont’s recent reissues have shown that there is a market for 1920s and 1930s music beyond the hard core jazz and blues reissues, which tend to dominate this small and specialised sector. Their latest CD, dedicated to New York club bandleader Lou Gold, is no exception, for although there are plenty of tracks that fit the description of ‘hot dance,’ others are just well-played dance music redolent of the era they were made in, and which at the time were considered as ‘jazz music’ too.

Gold was a night club bandleader who, like many similar groups, augmented their predominantly brassless personnel when opportunities arose to record. In Gold’s case, this was, from 1925 to 1930, very often. However, like the Tommy Christian band which is featured in this issue of VJM, he had the misfortune to record for the cheaper, ‘dime store’ end of the market, so not only are his records hampered by vocals - sometimes of extraordinary awfulness (listen to Alabamy, with the unidentified singer’s "glimpsh of the Mayshon-Dixshon Line" to see what I mean!), but much of his output was made for those twin pillars of technical ineptitude - Pathe and Harmony. So, an extremely forgiving ear and a penchant for Irving Kaufman’s dulcet tones are essential...

The selection on this CD is fairly representative of Gold’s prodigious output, and no effort has been made to filter the wheat from the musical chaff; thus for every It’s Tight Like That (more growling Oiving Kaufman) or Everybody Loves My Baby, there is a Dixie Vagabond or If You See Sally. By and large most of the tracks have short solos - the earlier sides have a particularly good alto sax and a baritone sax (mistakenly identified as bass sax in the otherwise excellent liner notes by Randy Skretvedt) who has a hot tone but pedestrian ideas. Red Nichols, who in 1926 must have had a camp bed in every New York studio, also features on many tracks.

My only criticism is that more of Gold’s hotter output could have and should have been used - his Everything Is Hotsy Totsy Now is a storm, whilst Somebody Like You, with its two trumpet solos from a teenage Mannie Klein is a minor masterpiece - but you’ll search in vain for them here. However, from a historical perspective, the material selected could almost be a lexicon of 1920s American popular music - Black Bottom, Varsity Drag, You’re The Cream In My Coffee, If I Had A Talking Picture Of You, Breakaway and many more.

Bryan Wright’s transfers are models of clarity and crispness - even the Harmonys are almost bearable (praise indeed!), and the accompanying booklet has lots of label shots, as well as previously-unpublished photos of gold and his family.

As a CD to be eagerly snapped up by jazz collectors, it falls some way behind ‘essential,’ but as a social document of the time, and a source of well-played, peppy dance music, ideal for sticking in the car’s CD player, it’s unbeatable.

CD: THE BIG BROADCAST VOLUME 5. Rivermont BSW-1151. Rivermont Records, P.O. Box 3081, Lynchburg, VA 24503, USA. www.rivermontrecords.com

Dedicated to Mary Conaty and Les Paul, this "collation" comes as a surprise; it’s compiled by Rich Conaty, so you know going in, it’s going to have some interesting stuff in it. But the delight of it is that it is a voyage of discovery. The effect is that of going to a friend’s house for an evening to spin a few and down a couple. But just as we all have a couple of "unknown" gems that don’t appear in the discographies, that we like to surprise our friends with and usually stick on the turntable and smugly ask: "OK, tell me who’s on this…," (a habit my wife absolutely despises,) all but a few of these were unknown to this sexy sexagenarian. Several of them are expatriate recordings by Americans; some are out-of-context recordings by names most of us know; one is a hot recording by an all-girl band whose records I have never even dreamed of picking up. Go buy it, and be amazed.

Well, now, not so fast, you’re supposed to read the rest. It starts with Gene Rodemich… and it’s 1921. Hmmmm… But it’s an unissued, undocumented test of I Never Knew. And it’s absolutely charming. Margaret Young follows, with Oh Gee Georgie, a tune not unlike many of the "hands off the goods" pouty female vocals of the 20s up to and including Betty Boop, but when you first hear it, the first thought is "Geez, that’s the Georgians behind her, but on Brunswick?" ’Course, it isn’t; it’s a Br studio group of the Fenton variety, but it’s gorgeous for those of us who dig entertainers. Now for jazz; Go Joe Go, from Phil Napoleon is a complex tone poem, probably meant to complement the Red and Miff session from the prior month. Stunning. Then, Dick Robertson, in London, does Ain’t She Sweet with only a piano. Got a copy? Me, neither.

For personality, there’s none bigger than Noble Sissle. I say that with a brimming tear, having just sold my shiny London HMVs to fund "the book," but here he’s with Harry Revel doing Westward Bound, a tune I’ve never heard recorded outside the UK. It’s a classic blackface minstrel show tune, and you can hear a veteran performer dominate the material as few others could. OK; now, the Whoopee Makers… Goodman and Teagarden, no? No, it’s actually Fred Hall, as the amateur talent night scat vocal denotes, but with a novelty quartet on Columbia in 1928, and highly entertaining. Belle Mann with Shilkret doing Wishing And Waiting shows Victor’s policy of being trite unless otherwise instructed. Shilkret is fine; somehow the need to pronounce the g’s in the participle for the vocalist detracts from the purpose, for me. Now, on the other hand… Frances Williams responds to the drive of the accompaniment from McConville and Jimmy Dorsey plus four on It’s Unanimous Now, a great tune also recorded by Joe and Dan Mooney. Frances gives the tune everything she’s got, and boy, she’s got a lot. There’s a picture of her in the booklet… it serves to make one wish one could peel back the years; she’s breathtaking!

Keepin’ Myself For You by Paul Specht is fairly hot after the vocal, then comes Why Am I So Romantic? from Lanin, with Scrappy Lambert, on a late Harmony. This piece features both the Dorseys with the classic "Bros. Orchestra" sound. Scrappy sounds, as usual, overly tight-panted, but the Brothers D are, as always, superb together.

A contrast is the wonderful "early-Goodman-Melotones" sound of At Last I’m Happy albeit on Victor with Red’s Big Ten and thumping solos from Babe Russin (yet another favourite) and Sid Stoneburn. By My Side follows, as if to confirm the musical transition caused by radio and film; a Tom Gerun version and a very Goodmanesque clarinet, in the hands of one Daar Gensal.

Unissued 1931 Gennett test, anyone? Henry Lange beats the crud out of Hot Piano Stomp from the first bar. Having gone from the piano chair with Whiteman, Lange was gigging in the Midwest at the time of this recording, which tears along until it disappears down the hole in the middle. Another "transitional" piece is How’s Your Uncle?, a run-of-the-mill Shilkret-as-Troubadours vehicle featuring Chick Bullock, but also happily, Joe Venuti in fine form.

I’ve always had a soft spot for vocal duets and trios doing hot pieces. The Rondoliers don’t disappoint on I Need Lovin’. After all, it’s a James P. Johnson song, and features an unknown piano who swings to hell and gone. No less swinging is the Glen Gray that follows, All Of A Sudden. Clarence Hutchenrider dazzles on clarinet, as does Pat Davis on ts. Then another big shift; to the sound of the small black novelty group, in the form of the Three Keys. Somebody Loses, Somebody Wins has always been common enough on Parlophone; we just never listen to it!

There’s A New Day Coming, from the first chorus, shouts "Billy Cotton;" a prolific and variable British bandleader. This is one of his finest, leading off with a violin break worthy of Joe V, and following with good solos all through. And widely unheard, the Tom Coakley band, out of San Francisco, rocks Clean As A Whistle along. The film it’s from, incidentally, starred Jimmy Durante and the Three Stooges, and its setting was a girls’ changing-room. Damn the Hayes Code!

Garland Wilson, temporarily in Paris, plays Mood Indigo, and nicely done… then another surprise, at least for me. Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears kick out the jambs with And I Still Do, with a vocal from reedwoman Ruth Bradley. Proof enough, that women do know how to drive. And also, there’s a cameo pic of Miss Hutton... but there I go, again.

Jack Shilkret on ARC brings the album toward its close with a swinging performance, combining Artie Shaw and Stan King in the lineup, of There Goes My Attraction, gentle and pleasant. And to close, a transcription. It’s Hal Kemp and the Carolina Club crew, with Limehouse, Black Bottom and Hallelujah! If you’ve seen the Eddie Peabody YouTube video featuring the orchestra, it’s similarly romping, stomping and hot. If you haven’t, you should.

Somewhere, there is someone who won’t enjoy this CD at all. In my case, now that I’ve heard number 5, I have to get my hands on the other four. Rich, Bryan Wright and a bunch of contributors have done a great job getting little-known, largely-ignored and rare material to light, here. They have my profound thanks and admiration. And they thoroughly deserve your custom, for an extraordinarily fine product.

MALCOLM SHAW

BOOK: THE ORIGINAL JELLY ROLL BLUES, BY William J. Schafer. Paperback, 247pp., Flame Tree Publishing, Crabtree Hall, Crabtree Lane, Fulham, SW6 6TY, £12.99 list or $24.99; available online at www.amazon.com for less.

I always have high hopes when I find a book I haven’t read about the major figures; Bix, Louis or Morton. I picked both this volume and the "Bix: The Davenport Years" book by Rich Johnson up at the Racine festival in March, hoping to add to my awareness of the Morton and Beiderbecke sagas, each unique in different ways. No doubt I’ll get to the Bix book, but not yet. That’s because I’ve spent two months getting through this one, given that the male of the species, once shackled in matrimony, usually has but ten to fifteen minutes of solitude each day behind a locked door, in which to indulge a fondness for the literary muse, and that right early in the day, barring the unexpected and unwanted.

What we have here is a tome that seeks to dissect Jelly in every way possible, since it already has probably been done in every way possible but this one, already. Chapters cover Morton’s music, the sounds of his recordings, his performances, audiences, his milieu, personal relationships, his public versus private persona and his legacy. However, if you want to discover anything new about our favourite eccentric but amazing pianist idol, you will not find it here.

Jazz literature on the pre-war era is falling, in our time, into two broad divisions: one of which shares new angles, new aspects and new learnings; and the other, which extracts concepts from prior efforts of earlier researchers whose works are quoted as authoritative then distilled piecemeal as new offerings, in order to present a new placement of the pieces of the jigsaw. This one falls into the latter. It is not a matter that there is nothing new to find out about Ferd Morton, discussed and dissected as his story has been. Heaven knows, Phil Pastras showed that with "Dead Man Blues." Rather it is that there are those who feel they have a unique and cogent insight into the life of a remarkable character, which they back up based not on personal research, but through interpretations of the prior insights of those people who have trodden the path before. Invariably, the reader reaches a point after 100 pages, or maybe 15, where he asks what the point is, and where we are going. eBay UK, now that I check, has new copies for £7.99, and goodreads.com features the books, but has zero ratings and zero reviews to offer. My surprise level is minimal.

It is not that the narrative is banal or irrelevant. It is just old hat. It also contains a fair amount of my favourite commodity; what I call "bixing," where if you don’t have facts, you add a little colour to impress. And if your material is weak, you use longer words. May I quote? Gennett’s facilities in Richmond are described as "gimcrack studios" in 1923, and its history as a piano manufacturer turned phonograph manufacturer with an added recording facility are outlined. Fair enough. But bear in mind that, before Jelly showed up, some immensely popular and saleable recordings had emerged. Nonetheless, Jelly’s arrival is described as a "union presided over by the smiling fates… Gennett wanted to make piano recordings to show that its new technology could capture and reproduce the elusive and diverse sounds of the instrument…" So what was the new technology? This was no Marsh Labs; the technology was still essentially Emile Berliner’s. And why did Harry Gennett wait from 1917 until 1923 for the messianic arrival of a peripatetic Creole to reveal the wonder of the piano on wax, when his company had produced piano records for years? The assertion simply has no basis beyond opinion.

Tellingly, on page 99 of the work, a paragraph ends halfway through a thought, without a full stop, then picks up in a totally new paragraph. One has to ask: did anyone proofread this and how did they miss it? Bear in mind the remark about the 100 pages in the third paragraph of this review. Someone’s eyes, presumably the publisher’s, were possibly as glazed at that point as mine.

I could go into great detail about the work, but it would bore you as it began to do with me. It might be, perhaps, an exculpatory assertion to say that, as all of us do, people need elementary, factual texts to work their way into this music, and that this might serve as one. One such, for example, would be Sudhalter & Evans’ "Bix, Man and Legend," for all Dick’s insertion of putative verbatim quotes for the hero; a habit that grates, but does not detract from Evans’ solid research forming the basis for the work. But this is no statement of facts, chronology or even original critique. It is opinion, backed with third-party authority, and tends if anything to obfuscate precepts clearly stated in earlier works, by attempting to re-analyse and restate relatively simple concepts clothed in presumed linguistic erudition.

That’s fine when you’re at college, and trying to guess what a professor wants to read in your Teutonic Lang final paper on Gothic digraphs. He wants to see you parrot what his book says on the subject, preferably verbatim. God knows, I got a degree that way, borrowing Max Easterman’s notes the night before finals, having attended none of Dr. Bruford’s lectures (I don’t believe I ever said thanks, Max!) But there is nothing so engaging as simple first-hand work put together using first-hand material, using clear, familiar words and short, simple sentences. Laurie Wright and Phil Pastras both illustrate this equally well, each in his own realm, in the case of Jelly Roll. There is an example in this issue of similarly seminal work on Wilbur Sweatman, by the European editor. I’d say that either fifteen quid or twenty-five bucks could be better spent on any one of their works to cut your teeth on, rather than this effort.

MALCOLM SHAW

CD: ISHAM JONES and his ORCHESTRA, "Song of the Blues": 1923 – 1932 Original Recordings. 25 tracks. Rivermont BSW-1146. Rivermont Records, P.O. Box 3081, Lynchburg, VA 24503, USA. www.rivermontrecords.com

Isham Jones can hardly be an ‘unknown’ to readers of these pages, but his recorded output was vast, and I, for one, continue to find interesting sides of his that have so far escaped me. There are several on this CD. Jones was a multi-faceted character, who produced a fair number of recordings likely to interest the hot-dance collector. He was one of the few bandleaders of his day, who regularly played in his own groups and was equally well-known as a composer. He also appears to have been either indecisive about his own role, or perhaps somewhat mercurial, as he frequently disbanded to concentrate on composing, only to reform in order to keep on playing…which he presumably had to do, as he had a long-running contract with Brunswick – though with a number of long gaps in it too!

Doo Wacka Doo, which opens the CD (but isn’t the earliest track: they’re not presented in chronological order) is one of those frustrating tunes, which is often given a hot treatment, but only in part and is equally often garlanded with tricksy effects. There’s a refreshing absence of the latter here, though it’s by no means the hottest of Jones’ own recordings, nor indeed the hottest version of this number; but the ride-out – led by cornettist Frankie Quartell - is stylish and rhythmic. Land o’ Lingo Blues, by contrast, is a fine performance throughout, dominated by the vibrato of Louis Panico’s cornet. Spain and The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else are both Jones compositions; the former is, frankly, utterly forgettable both as a tune and as a performance…and while the latter is sometimes given a hot treatment, it’s played dead straight here (the reverse of this on the original issue, Wop Blues, is on the other hand an excellent side).

Frankie Quartell again distinguishes himself on Riverboat Shuffle, though his phrasing is noticeably stiffer than many of his contemporaries (compare his solo here with that of, say, Herb Carlin (?) on the Benson Orchestra version of this number); however, the first electric recording in this set, Ida – I Do, gives him the chance to redeem himself with a pleasant, flowing solo, and pianist Roy Bargy, who was in the band by this time, gets a brief spot as well. But even Brunswick’s poor quality microphones are good enough to point up the lumpy rhythm section and the staccato nature of Jones’ arrangements. He must have noticed this himself, as things begin to improve by the end of 1925, and his version of I Love My Baby is smoother in this respect than the better-known issue by Waring’s Pennsylvanians.

Susie’s Feller and Meadow Lark come from two sessions held while Jones was taking time off to compose and didn’t apparently have a regular band, and include Frank Siegrist on trumpet with Alfie Evans and Izzy Friedman on reeds and Harry Reser on guitar on the second title - according to American Dance Bands on Record and Film, he is not present on the first - which is bouncy and hot-ish; but the second suffers from too many appearances by an unidentified flautist! By the time another pick-up band recorded another Jones original, The Cat, in February of 1927, their style had loosened up considerably, and this is perhaps the first title in this set that really swings. There’s no outstanding solo work, but the arrangement is excellent and it’s worth a place in anyone’s collection. Together We Two has a lovely vocal by the Keller Sisters (without Lynch!) and a brief alto-sax solo; both this and the following track – What’ll You Do?, which features some excellent trumpet work from Frank Siegrist (?) – were issued in non-vocal versions in continental Europe, and it would be interesting to know if they have even more solo work in the substitute choruses.

I’m Happy When You’re Jealous launches a series of tracks from much later in Jones’ time with Brunswick, 1931 - 1932. These discs, issued in the teeth of the Depression, are much rarer and less well–known. A young Pee Wee Erwin led the trumpet section, and he delivers a well-timed, punchy solo on the above title, one I’ve not heard before and one to have in any ‘hot’ collection. The next two tracks from these later Chicago sessions are very disappointing: they’re not only played straight, but the arrangements are pedestrian: these are for Jones completists. But then comes Sweet Lorraine, with Pee Wee Erwin back to deliver a blistering statement of the melody in a thumping version of this standard, with an unidentified but excellent vocalist. The same can’t be said for Billy Scott, whose vocal on My Silent Love ruins a perfectly good performance (though they probably loved it back then!); Dick Robertson makes up for this on Keepin’ Out Of Mischief Now, where Saxie Mansfield (who was to be such a mainstay of the band over the following years in the Victor studios) has a good solo. Two more of Jones’ own compositions follow (If You Were Only Mine, I Can’t Believe It’s True), which seem to show that he was running out of inspiration: neither is, frankly, helped by the vocals, but the tunes themselves lack that certain something, which he had earlier displayed. The final two tracks – Please Handle With Care and Strange As It Seems – whilst fairly straight, are nonetheless good performances, with the band swinging along very nicely.

I realise that at various points above, I’m displaying my own penchant for the hotter end of the dance-band spectrum in my comments about these performances. But that said, there are several tracks here that I’ve not heard before, and would certainly want to add to my own collection. This CD fills a number of gaps in the Jones story and for the modest price it costs (compared to bagging the originals), you can hear some of the rarer and better sides from Isham Jones’ output. You may not like them all, but, equally, you won’t be disappointed by more than a few.

MAX EASTERMAN

DVD and CD: THE PANIC IS ON. The Great American Depression As Seen By the Common Man. Shanachie Records, Dept. WWW, 37 E. Clinton St., Newton, NJ 07860 USA. www.shanachie.com

As the world economy struggles to recover from one of the worst downturns in many years, people have been looking back at the grim days of the Great Depression of the 1930s. This set, in film and song, presents a bratty, realistic picture that contracts with the gaiety of films such as 42nd Street, The Big Broadcast and International House.

Joe Lauro supplied some marvelous footage of a social crusader nicknamed Mr Zero, operating a soup kitchen ("Thick soup, not the dishwater found elsewhere…"), the ineffectiveness of many relief organizations seen through the eyes of an unemployed man, plus some song and dance from the likes of the Boswell Sisters, Jimmy Durante and Fannie Brice on behalf of a number of relief causes. One silent feature, The Jazz Age shows a number of jazz and dance groups – black and white—in full cry. It would be fascinating if anyone could identify them.

The CD, of course, features Depression-themed recordings of the period. Art Kassel’s OK America leads it off with a Ted Lewis style vocal and reasonably hot arrangement. Other dance band titles feature Dick Robertson (who must have spent the entire Depression in the recording studio) on If I Ever Get a Job Again, and several titles by Crosby imitator Charlie Palloy – his rendition of Brother Can You Spare a Dime is excellent. Ted Lewis, one of the era’s biggest cheerleaders, is featured in Headin’ For Better Times, with a nice Muggsy Spanier spot.

The blues range from Bessie Smith’s Depression anthem, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out to the obscure Hezekiah Jenkins doing the song that named this set. Sonny Boy Williamson’s protest about treatment at relief stations (Welfare Store Blues) and Charley Jordan’s powerful Starvation Blues, with a dark, brooding piano by Peetie Wheatstraw.

The Depression hit the rural areas hard, complicated by the Dust Bowl, floods and flatlining farm prices. They are all here in songs by Bill Cox, Woody Guthrie, Roy Acuff and W. Lee O’Daniel.

The accompanying booklet includes poignant letters written to Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt by ordinary citizens pleading for jobs, relief from foreclosure or simply a place to stay.

In all, it’s an excellent mini-documentary of a very difficult time that, in some lesser measure, we are reliving today. Well recommended.

RUSS SHOR

It’s just now starting to strike me as funny, just how many "current" rather than "vintage" CDs our favourite editor chucks me to review, when I consider how long I was the ultimate mouldie fygge about "recreated," "trad" and "Dixieland" styles, and in large part, still am, when it comes to "we’re trying to sound like New Orleans in 1903." Have bands got better at this, or have my ears mellowed over the decades? I think it’s a combination, but this music and many of the creations I seem to review every issue are so musically and artistically lofty, compared to the Ball, Barber and Bilk striped-waistcoat-and-bowler-hat offerings that I was continually informed I should be nuts about as a teenager, that I fear my ears are still where they always were, stuck there on each side of my nut, and it is the bands who have the ten-league boots.

I’m biased, also, in favour of this particular band. Chicago-based, their musical sound is that of the city of the broad shoulders, and is always listenable, but there is nothing mundane about it. It’s crisp in execution, smart, beautifully arranged, complex and fast-moving. I’ve also experienced the players in person, in Racine and Kenosha, where the comely Leah LaBrea and various band members were a fixture at the Bixfest many a year. They are as entertaining here, as they are in the flesh.

Several leitmotivs run through the musical selections; eight of the tunes are Henderson standout classics; but the CD starts with an overture of tunes from the Fox film after which the disc is titled, and there are several well-performed pieces from the early talkies. There is also a variety of selections from the pop world, a Gus Arnheim "Spanish-Tinge" composition, La Rosita, even a waltz medley. Lest this seem a drawback, let me say that this disc is, as are so many offerings by the modern-day protagonists, top-quality throughout, where one may stick the CD in the slot for the drive from home to a destination, listen to the whole, and never have a moment where it is not beautiful to listen to. It is a band "programme," such as one might have heard in the 20s or yesterday; tasteful, varying but never banal, with light moments, humour, skill and a dash of kitsch combined into an extremely pleasant hour-and-a-quarter.

After the Sunny Side Up medley intro, two beautifully-executed Henderson offerings, Variety Stomp and Have It Ready take the listener off into the mood. The arrangements are fresh; in no way imitative of Smack Henderson, yet fully as inventive as was he. The melodies are beautiful in themselves; the one lively, the other ruminative and brooding. The band is tight and crisp and handles the changes of the latter title skillfully. Down On The Farm breaks the tension with a whimsical piece of comedy vocal. Then, a favourite of mine: St. Louis Shuffle, again with lovely arranging, call-and-answer choruses and delightful inventiveness, throughout. Leah evokes Alice Faye, with Wake up And Live. She has an easy-on-the-ear blend of Etting and Hanshaw in her style. Stockholm Stomp, another favourite, rocks along easily, followed by a light foxtrot Dance Medley. And so it goes, with Hot Mustard, Rocky Mountain Blues, Hop off and Tozo tipping the hat worthily to Henderson; Too Bad as a tribute to the King, Rhythm King for Bix and Bing, and a foot in the door from Harry Reser with Send For Our Free Booklet (incidentally, hilarious!) The tune with the most curious story is undoubtedly I’m Gonna Float My Boat Right Back To Terre Haute. A city song competition winner from 1921, it’s one of the many "booster" songs towns in the Midwest would either adopt or sponsor to put themselves on the map, for prospective entrepreneurs, after the westward migrations of the 19th Century. The song is far jollier than the town. Terre Haute, how shall I put it, is the first town in Indiana I reach, after driving 400 miles across the plains of Eastern Colorado, 500 over the plains of Kansas and 400 more across the plains of Missouri, if I haven’t fallen asleep at the wheel and ended up in the Mississippi. I then know I only have 500 miles of corn (maize, to you lot in Europe) fields to go, before I get to my wife’s relatives in Akron, a place she herself states it’s great to be "from," as in "far." Get the picture?

Terre Haute’s most recent claim to fame was as the place of internment and finally, elimination by (thankfully) lethal injection, of Timothy McVeigh, who blew a pile of innocents including a day-care centre full of infants to Kingdom Come in Oklahoma City. The song is still the town’s official theme. Enough said; in fact, more than enough.

There is something for everyone here, and most of it for most of us. Musically, it’s a joy. Selection-wise, it’s wonderfully varied, with "purist" elements, vaudeville, pop and film pieces. There isn’t a boring moment, and yet it’s not all frantic excitement. It’s just delightful and interesting listening. I couldn’t ask for more. A Consumer’s Digest "Best Buy," I’d call it.