1945 - December 15

Jamming in Jazz - December 15 1945 

 

Program Notes Sunday Afternoon, December 15th, at 5:30 o’clock BLUE NOTE presents: JAMMING IN JAZZ with America’s Great Jazz Men ART HODES, piano; SIDNEY BECHET, Soprano Sax and Clarinet; SIDNEY DE PARIS, Trumpet; SANDY WILLIAMS, Trombone; ALBERT NICHOLAS, Clarinet; SANNY ALVIN, Drums; WELLMAN BRUAD, Bass Singing the Blues: “PIGMEAT” MARKHAM, COW COW DAVENPORT SIDNEY CATLETT, Drums; FRANKIE NEWTON, Trumpet; SAMMY BENSKIN, Piano; JIMMY SHIRLEY, Guitar; BILLY TAYLOR, Bass. Program Narration by FRED ROBBINS, M.C. of WOV’s “1280 Club”, 7:30-10 P.M Monday through Saturday ART HODES AND HIS HOT SEVEN: De Paris, Williams, Bechet, Hodes, Shirley, Braud, Alvin St. Louis Blues Shine Call of The Blues (add Albert Nicholas)

Royal Garden Blues Everybody Loves My Baby SIDNEY BECHET QUINTET: Bechet, Hodes, Shirley, Braud, Alvin Dear Old Southland SIDNEY CATLETT QUARTET featuring SAMMY BENSKIN: Newton, Benskin, Taylor, Catlett The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise FRANKIE NEWTON QUINTET: Newton, Benskin, Shirley, Taylor, Catlett All Of Me Blues My Baby Gave To Me ART HODES TRIO featuring ALBERT NICHOLAS: Nicholas, Hodes, Braud COW COW DAVENPORT singing the Blues: With Newton, Nicholas, Hodes, Shirley, Braud That Ain’t Right SIDNEY DE PARIS SEXTET: De Paris, Bechet, Benskin, Shirley, Taylor, Catlett Call of the Blues ART HODES Piano Solo Yancey Special Unspecified Blues ART HODES AND HIS HOT EIGHT: De Paris, Williams, Bechet, Nicholas, Hodes, Shirley, Braud, Alvin Royal Garden Blues Interval “PIGMEAT” MARKHAM singing the Blues: With De Paris, Williams, Bechet, Hodes, Shirley, Taylor, Catlett SANDY WILLIAMS AND HIS BLUE SEVEN: Newton, Williams, Nicholas, Hodes, Shirley, Taylor, Catlett Lowdown Blues JAMES P. JOHNSON Liza SIDNEY CATLETT SWING ENSEMBLE: Newton, Benskin, Shirley, Taylor, Catlett After You’ve Gone ART HODES AND HIS HOT EIGHT: De Paris, Williams, Bechet, Nicholas, Hodes, Shirley, Braud, Alvin Everybody Loves My Baby

The Jazz Record - January 1946

The Blue Note concert in Town Hall on December 15 struck a fresh note in jazz presentation. Several variations on currently established themes of jazz on stage were both noticeable and welcome.  

To begin with, there were some new faces. The "Americondon" (what sort of jazz jingoism is this, anyway?) mob has strutted about its roost for so long, and with such repetition of personnel, that jazz concert-goers were beginning to get the impression that no other jazz talent existed. Far from it. Very often that same jazz talent which appeared on the B.N. show has been penned up somewhere in Town Hall's back room, waiting for a chance to go on during one of the Condon shows. But for some obscure reason the wicket holding them back from the rodeo hasn't been raised so frequently for them as for others. Blue Note gave us an open-handed sampling of what can happen when these spirited jazzmen get a free field.  

Participants in the cocktail-hour show included Art Hodes and Sammy Benskin, piano; Sidney Bechet, soprano sax and clarinet; Danny Alvin and Sidney Catlett, drums; Wellman Braud and Billy Taylor, bass. Jimmy Shirley played an electric guitar with a green tassel on the handle, while Pigmeat Markham and Cow Cow Davenport came in for vocal interludes. Fred Robbins contributed a running narrative.  

Art Hodes and his Hot Seven (DeParis, Williams, Bechet, Shirley, Braud, Alvin) opened the show with a lively version of St. Louis Blues. It was an easy transition to Shine, and by the time Sidney Bechet had warmed up the tone of his soprano sax for a solo on that number, heads were bobbing and feet tapping in the audience. By way of encore, they gave Bechet a spotlight with his own quintet, which turned out to be the Hot Seven minus the other two horns. Dear Old Southland is a Bechet showpiece, and all of his customary technique was on hand for this workout.  

For the next selection, a Fifty-second Street delegation took over, with Big Sidney Catlett at the drums. Benskin, Taylor and Catlett ran through World Is Waiting For the Sunrise, making with the mop and sparkle that sets customers along Fred Robbins' 'Street 92, right here on the island" to tinkling their glasses with swizzlesticks. The glass-tappers were absent, however, and that provided a far better opportunity for Sidney to be heard. Drum virtuosity is out of place in solidly knit hot jazz, but it comes in as perfectly understandable showmanship when Catlett takes over. The only trouble with this sort of thing as an influence is that Catlett's capable work on long solos is so good as to inspire lesser drummers to diddle around interminably while bandmen sit on the stand and yawn and the customers wonder how late it's getting.  

Frankie Newton then came on to join this group with his latest addition to a long line of gadgets, this time a bass cornet. In size and formation, this instrument suggests a newborn tuba, and sounds like a cross between a valve trombone and a cornet. Frankie played All of Me, then shifted to his more familiar trumpet and felt-hat mute to run through Blues My Baby Gave To Me. I wish Frankie could feel, or appear to feel, that he likes to play trumpet, because when he does, he can play very well. As it is, his public performances are quite often only a tantalizing specimen of the music he can produce in surroundings that interest him.  

A pleasant, gem-clear moment came with return to the platform of the Hodes group, featuring the return to jazz of Albert Nicholas. Nick's clarinet has been in the closet for the past two or three years, but it seems to work just as well now as on that distinguished Victor Jelly Roll recording session of September, 1939. Although his volume is not quite up to its former level, Albert's tone and expression place him in the front rank of today's clarinetists. The audience was delighted with his playing; a father and son sat directly in front of me, and at the conclusion of Nicholas' selection, the father leaned down and said to his boy: "That's execution, son!” And the boy looked as if he might have a surprise or two for his music teacher when next lesson-time came around.  

Cow Cow Davenport is no new name to followers of record labels, but this Town Hall concert undoubtedly presented him to a wider audience for the first time. It's to be regretted that because of union snags he couldn't play piano for his own accompaniment, because his own boogie woogie keyboard work is highly talented and original. This noted composer, pianist and singer of blues dusted off the classic, That Ain't Right, running through a descriptive catalog of activities that someone believed should be confined to week-days. On Sundays, according to this song, it's not right to backbite, shimmy, play the blues, and get drunk, "when you got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday." I liked his description of a character as "too dog-gone dressed up to shout." Cow Cow has a very special talent for making the toughest possible statements in the gentlest manner.  

Sidney de Paris came on following Cow Cow for a session with his trumpet. Using a brilliant red mute, he played his Call of the Blues. In this selection and on this stage, he was heard to much better advantage than in night clubs, thereby confirming a rule with an exception. Sidney's sensitive, idea. filled choruses defy classification in any tight category, for although there's much straightforward, Armstrong-like statement of theme in his playing, there is also a tendency to lob some soaring stunt-note out over the audience.  

Art Hodes next with two selections, Yancey Special and a Blues suggesting Montana Taylor’s Detroit Rocks. Art has made this music his province more than any other white piano player. His playing reflects a serious temperament and a sincere effort to learn from his favorites. 

A Hot Eight consisting of De Paris, Williams, Bechet, Nicholas, Hodes, Shirley, Brand and Alvin next through a fast Royal Garden Blues to ring down the curtain on the first half. 

The big moment of the second half came right at the beginning with singing by Pigmeat Markham. Again, his work won't be classified. It's not altogether blues in the old tradition; it's gay singing stylized by Pigmeat's own great stage presence. Like a man on a wire, he dances through his numbers, taking a trick bow with one foot thrown 'way up over his shoulders at the conclusion.  

Sandy Williams and his Blue Seven appeared after Pigmeat, playing a Lowdown Blues that gave Williams a chance to slide around in a mellow manner, producing a tone that a cat might give off when licking cream, if a eat sing and if there were any cream available. 

The real surprise of the evening was James P. Johnson's unscheduled appearance. His sparkling version of the Gershwin evergreen, Liza, was a welcome solo bridge for the two concluding selections which followed. Catlett's ensemble with Newton leading on trumpet rendered After You’ve Gone, while the show ended with Everybody Loves My Baby in a version featuring Nicholas, de Paris, and Williams in the Hodes Hot Eight.  

The general impression created by the concert was that of a well-integrated, carefully planned presentation in which each performance grew naturally out of the one which had preceded it. The small band aspect of hot jazz was well preserved in that each group was carefully chosen and balanced. Variety and interest were maintained by spotting the different groups so as to avoid repetition of styles or content.  

There was no attempt at a super-colossal finale. In too many of this season's concerts, every man whose name has appeared on the program, plus a few who couldn't be squeezed in somehow prior to the last moment, gets out on the stage and blows, pounds and plucks for all he's worth on the last stretch. The effect is of little jazz blown up oversize; a big band that ought to go home and practice some more, if it really wants to be a big band. But that's not supposed to be the point of the "barefoot" concerts. Well, it wasn't the point of this concert, and no one tried it. It wasn't a barefoot bash; nor was it stuffy or pompous. The Hot Eight just rode through the last selection, the red velvet curtains rang down, and it was time to put on hats, gloves, coats, and go..

Art Hodes Editorial: 

Blue Note Records threw a concert at Town Hall that was successful, both musically and financially. Having taken an active part in both the planning and the playing, I’m in a position to know what a job this was. Why should Blue Note have become involved? Simply because they want to see what they believe in receive just recognition. 

* See the excellent Christer Fellers site: here