1954 - May 28

George Lewis And His New Orleans Stompers – May 28 1954

 

Dorothy Tait: George Lewis  - Concert! BLP 1208 Liner Notes –1959 

ONE of the first things heard on this record is the deceptively gentle voice of George Lewis diffidently stating that "After a year or so you may not hear this music any more." It was, to say the least, an understatement. This concert was recorded in 1954 and today, December 24, 1958, the George Lewis band is continuing its phenomenal career without apparent let-up or slow-down, the last of the great New Orleans jazz groups and the only traditional jazz group playing outside of New Orleans with a roster of musicians who, without exception, can claim to be pioneers in the music that's known as jazz. 

Stanley Kubrick and George Lewis (for Look Magazine, 1950)

A comparatively few years ago this jazz was called by one critic the "nothing-to-lose" school of music. The critical remark was not intended as a compliment. Yet today with a deeper understanding by those who listen to it with their hearts as well as their ears, the phrase becomes a definitive description; a brief three-word all-encompassing analysis of a music that defies analysis, yet is fast dying through over-analysis. 

The early jazz musicians played for themselves, for each other and for their people. Jazz has been called a "happy" music, but this is true only in part. Jazz, as it was played by its originators, was a music of the heart, and whose heart — least of all the Negro's in the deep South — is always happy? Jazz was a form of self-expression, a means of articulating emotion by a people who spoke their greatest truths in music. A woman sang the blues when she wakened lonely in the morning; a man sang them in a jail cell; a child thumped a row of tin cans with a stick, or another twanged strips of inner tubing stretched over an empty crate, and each of them made music. The music on this record comes as close to the jazz that grew from these beginnings as any you will hear today. 

George Lewis and his men played this concert without the knowledge that they were being recorded. There was no tension of recording studio, no direction, no worry over acceptance or non-acceptance by critics of the finished product. It was a happy gig, played in their favorite state, California, and the emotional atmosphere of the date is set from the first uninhibited rousing notes of Big Jim Robinson's trombone in Ice Cream. The music speaks for itself. Jazz is a language, and on this record it is the language of musician speaking to musician and communicating with an audience without the knowledge that they were being overheard. Which is as it was in the beginning and always should be, but unfortunately seldom is. 

Too many words have been written about jazz. And that includes these words. Too many books by too many people have been published year in and year out; books whose factual inaccuracies lie half-buried under the weight of academic dissertations about a subject which, in the beginning, was a music of the heart played by a naturally gifted people without a thought of critical acclaim, without the knowledge that the time would ever come when they would be 'discovered' by the critics, the musicologists and the intellectuals. 

Critics have been almost unanimously kind to George Lewis. Critics who have damned with everything but faint praise other traditional bands have, even when pointing out flaws, showed unmistakably that the Lewis clarinet, the Lewis ensemble spirit, have a special quality of clarity and truth that defied their most captious analysis. 

Collectors of George Lewis records will treasure this one in particular for it is the last time George's life-long friend, the great New Orleans - banjoist, Lawrence Marrero, was to be recorded with the band. Some of Marrero's finest recorded solos will be found on these sides. 

It would be impossible to pick out the various high notes in this truly great album. One could mention the magnificent backing of the rest of the band in George's poignant Burgundy Street Blues; the driving piano and rhythm break in Over the Waves; George's grieving, moaning clarinet in Closer Walk with Thee, the vocals by Kid Howard and Joe Watkins, but to each listener the music will have its own message for those who have ears to hear it. 

Lewis himself needs, perhaps, a word of explanation. Some day a perceptive and sensitive writer will do a biography of George Lewis and capture the gentleness and charm of this man who today, at 58, weighs 98 pounds and is, as this is written, packing his bags in New Orleans for a second tour of England and a first tour of Europe. If a champion is one who is knocked to the canvas repeatedly and comes back fighting each time at the count of nine George Lewis deserves the title of "champion". Throughout his life this frail man has been plagued by ill-health. Yet he has played, year in and year out, night long gigs after ten hours stevedoring on the New Orleans docks, for sometimes as little as 75 cents. There were many times when he needed the 75 cents, but there were times when he didn't. He played because he had to play. He played in New York for two months with a severe anemia, collapsing on the stand with pneumonia, in the middle of a number, towards the end of the engagement. He played in San Francisco tortured with angina. Years ago in New Orleans he played a four-hour parade three weeks after a serious abdominal operation, while his wife walked on the sidewalk beside the band in case he "fell out." The answer to the repeated question "Where does George Lewis get his tone" is found here, in the heart and spirit of a mar. who played for 44 years against overwhelming odds, in joy and in heartbreak, but almost always in ill health, who has never given up, or succumbed to trends or commercial opportunism. 

The description of jazz as a "happy" music is most truly applicable to spirituals. Even in the ragtime, the marches and the stomps, a sensitive ear and heart can detect the release of emotions other than happiness. But in an up-tempo spiritual there is true happiness, for no matter how loudly the intellectual agnostic may decry it, here is a faith that cannot be denied or scorned. It is as real as red beans and rice. Without it a people would have perished. When the Lewis band plays Walking with the King it becomes more than a rousing foot-stomping rendition of a hymn. It is a statement of faith, of knowledge, of certainty that on a long, lonely road there is a royal companion. Because of that there is joy. 

In 1957 George Lewis toured England, playing as guest artist with the Ken Colyer band. Altho concerts had been held down to four a week, it was an arduous experience. At the end, following two appearances in France, he was dog-tired. Wherever he went he had been acclaimed by wildly enthusiastic fans; several times the sturdy British 'bobbies' had been pressed into service to protect him. The jazz-minded British spread out the red carpet and handed him the keys to their hearts. No blame could attach to any musician who had completed that tour with an ego considerably larger than when he started. 

At the end of the tour I asked him how he felt. "I'm tired," said George, "but I made it." Then he said something that had within it the essence of the music of George Lewis, and of his band, the secret of the Lewis tone, the revelation of the source of the strength that has kept him going, and the answer to the academicians and the critics of the "nothing-to-lose" school of music. George Lewis needed health and he needed strength; he needed money and security and all the things that most musicians of his calibre have acquired but that he has not attained because — despite the spirit of a lion — frailness of body has kept them away. Yet he was not concerned with these needs. He told me, at the end of that tour, "I guess one reason I made it is because every time I went on the stage in one of them big halls I prayed — like I always do everywhere — that God would stick with me and help me play my very best for these folks who'd been so good to me." 

Cover Design by REID MILES 
Rerecording by RUDY VAN GELDER 

Photo by Stanley Kubrick for Look Magazine

Down Beat 30 April 1959 Volume 26 Issue 9 

This is the first New Orleans traditional release by Blue Note in four years. Where this label used to exist almost entirely on its New Orleans and Dixieland recordings, it has become in recent years the purveyor of consistently fine modern jazz. The music on this disc was played at a concert in California in 1954, It was recorded without the knowledge of the Lewis band. This fact, along with the sound engineering of Rudy Van Gelder, has made for an authentic reproduction of the original George Lewis New Orleans Stompers. The band no longer includes in its personnel Kid Howard, Marrero, or Purnell. As Lewis says in his vocal introduction on side 1, “After a year or so you may not hear this music any more.” Lewis is still playing with an unusually pure tone that has done for clarinet what the late Willie “Bunk” Johnson's playing was able to do for trumpet. There is something unexplainably beautiful and real in the work of these two New Orleans pioneers. 

Lewis’ Stompers here run through several familiar numbers for which New Orleans brass bands were famous. Three — Ice Cream, Burgundy, and Just a Closer Walk —are reminiscent of the early Bunk Johnson American Music sides, made at the beginning of the New Orleans revival, yet show there is progress through experience in New Orleans music. 

This concert took place at just about the peak of the Lewis band’s ensemble performance. This LP has captured for posterity a basic phase of jazz that is rapidly disappearing in live performances. 

Audio Magazine May 1959 

In his prefactory remarks to this concert, held In California in 1954, George Lewis makes the comment that "After a year or so you may not hear this music any more." On his second successful tour of England, at this writing, he is still going strong at fifty-eight and plans to pay his first visit to the continent. But it marks the last time banjoist Lawrence Marrero recorded with the band, and pianist Alton Purnell is now settled In Los Angeles. The performance is relaxed and uninhibited, with no advance notice to the musicians that it was to be taped. Ten of the familiar tunes are played, including Gettysburg March, Red Wing, Ice Cream, Burgundy Street, and Walking With The King. Kid Howard and Joe Walkins share the vocals. The circumstances limit the recording quality and Jim Robinson's trombone is off mike at times. The brilliant Lewis tone is favored, however, and his clarinet is heard clearly as it weaves in and out of ensembles. And that, after all. is the reason for buying the record. 

Photo by Stanley Kubrick for Look Magazine, 1950

Paige Van Vorst – The Complete Blue Note Recordings of George Lewis - Mosaic MR5-132 

The LOOK article helped stir up more interest in Lewis, and he began to get more lucrative local work, and also acquired a manager, Nick Gagliano. The band began to practice under his guidance, and they played Armstrong's Hot Five records over and over, adding several of the numbers to their repertoire. Talbert died in 1950 and was replaced by Percy Humphrey, who in turn was replaced by Howard in 1953 when the band made its first road trip.  

The band developed a strong following in California and worked repeatedly at the Beverly Caverns in Los Angeles and the Hangover Club in San Francisco. Dorothy Tait, a newspaper columnist then living Bakersfield, journeyed to hear the band at the Caverns, and fell in love with the group. She arranged a concert for the Seven Arts Club, a Bakersfield civic forum, and booked some other jobs in the area to make the trip worth their while, and wound up managing the band for several years.  

The Bakersfield concert took place May 28, 1954 and it was recorded without the band's knowledge, along with a radio broadcast done the day of the concert to sell tickets. Part of the concert was issued on Blue Note LP 1208 in 1959, while the rest was issued on the Danish Storyville label.  

This is one of the few professionally-recorded live concert recordings featuring the Lewis band in its prime, and it was the last time Lawrence Marrero recorded with the band.  

It should be noted here that there is some duplication of numbers between this session and the next one. Normally a label would not record the same band doing the same numbers twice but Blue Note actually recorded the final session some years before they acquired the Bakersfield tapes and had no idea when they did the third session that they would wind up with two versions of several numbers. They do serve to show the extent to which the band worked from a fixed set of variations on each number.  

The Bakersfield concert is typical of the music the Lewis band was serving up once they hit their stride. New Orleans musicians are above all practical and Lewis, a pretty good showman, put together a concert that worked well on several levels. There are enough fast flag-wavers to please the Southern California dixieland fans and enough serious New Orleans jazz to please the purists. Lewis biographer Thomas Bethell felt that the story of the Lewis band was one of continual decline beginning right after the Climax session, but if this represents a decline it was certainly a gentle one. The 1954 band was still a potent attraction.  

The session begins with the first of several versions of GETTYSBURG MARCH, taken from the radio broadcast. This begins with a fairly literal reading of the march which, like many of the marches favored by New Orleans brass hands, was in 6/8 time. After a chorus of the straight march, Watkins hits his drum a couple of times, and the band is off.  

They go through an ensemble chorus following Howard's firm lead, then Lewis takes a chorus, showing how full his tone was, followed by an ensemble chorus and out.  

BILL BAILEY comes next, highlighted by Watkins' vocal supported by interjections from Howard in his best Satchmo style. Howard then leads the ensemble through a couple of choruses to take the number out.  

BURGUNDY STREET BLUES was a centerpiece of Lewis' repertoire from the time he first recorded it for American Music in 1944. He was recuperating from a chest injury suffered in his day job as a stevedore and Russell stopped by to make some informal records with Marrero and Pavageau. Lewis' solo is based in part on Louis Armstrong's third chorus solo on SAVOY BLUES, a chorus that also appears elsewhere in New Orleans recordings, but he made the tune his own and recorded it several times. This differs from most of them in that Howard and Robinson play behind quite effectively.  

OL' MAN MOSE is making its first appearance on record. It was in the band's repertoire for of the early 1950s but was not included in any oi their commercial recordings.  Howard seems to relish his role as a Louis Armstrong impersonator, and the band goes right along with hand-clapping and backup singing. 

WALKING WITH TINE KING is another Howard showpiece, with a strong opening chorus on trumpet followed by a couple of vocal choruses. Howard heard this number on the Arthur Godfrey show and taught it to the band. This number, which appears both here and on the next session, all but disappeared from Lewis' repertoire as time went on, probably because it was chiefly a Howard specialty. 

The concert itself begins with a gentle introduction from Lewis, indicating that they are the last New Orleans band, and that after a year or so there probably wouldn't be any more like it. Fortunately he was wrong by at least a couple of decades.  

OVER THE WAVES was first done by Lewis in 1945 with his trio, and like BURGUNDY STREET, was a staple in the band's book. The song began as a Mexican waltz, and it opens in its original tempo, then Lewis takes it into jazz time with two choruses surrounding an ensemble chorus, after which Alton Purnell whips up the crowd with a couple of choruses. The band comes back, really warmed up by now, and tears its way through several choruses.  

CANAL STREET BLUES, a King Oliver number, bears no resemblance to anything Oliver ever did. The band really stomps through this one, as Purnell lays down a steady throughout. Robinson takes a chorus after a couple of ensemble choruses, followed by a couple from Purnell, the second with the band riffing gently in the background. The band comes back in for a couple of choruses coming to a surprise ending. While the band was obviously encouraged by one of their managers to find some traditional numbers, they carne up with their own original, entirely appropriate approach to this number.  

RED WING was one of the most enduring tunes from the ragtime era, and various obscene parodies of the Indian girl's story survive to this day. The song is part of an interesting ragtime genre, including such other Indian songs as HIAWATHA, CHIEF BATTLE AXE, and INDIAN SAUWAU, all of which were used for exciting recordings by New Orleans bands. 

This recording is taken at a breakneck pace, and Howard shows a bit of lip trouble here, though the effects on his playing are minimal. Once again, there are solos for Howard, Robinson and Lewis, followed by Purnell, who was beginning to hit his stride as a crowd-pleasing soloist.  

JUST A CLOSER WALK WITH THEE, which the band had introduced on the Climax session, had been worked into the full-blown concert version, still featured to this day by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and others, by the time of this concert. Lewis introduces this as an example of a New Orleans funeral, after which Howard plays a couple of beautiful dirge solos, with Lewis and Robinson playing gently in the background. Watkins had worked out an emotional vocal on this one as early as 1950, and here he is backed up by some Armstrong interjections from Howard. Howard puts in his mute for another moving solo, backed again by Lewis and Robinson. Watkins takes another vocal chorus, after which they kick up the tempo and play the returning from the cemetery section, with a driving ensemble chorus, a couple of choruses from Lewis, the second backed by Robinson. Purnell contributes a solo, after which Howard and the rest of the band come back for a couple of controlled choruses to end the piece. 

ICE CHEAM was a popular novelty number back in the 1920s with lyrics about a college for Eskimos. When Bill Russell recorded Lewis with Kid Shots Madison in 1944, Madison had to leave early for another job, so Russell suggested they try a couple of numbers without the trumpet. Someone mentioned ICE CREAM, and Jim Robinson cut loose with some tremendous playing. This was an instant classic, and became a feature for Big Jim for the rest of his life. It was the cause of a lot of ill will when he was with Bunk, as the old man didn't like anyone else getting any attention, and Robinson would bring down Ille house every time he played the number, and the more he played it, more it would be requested.  

Lewis recorded the number several times, and this is one of best. Watkins takes the vocal, using the lyrics now associated with the number, which bear only passing resemblance to the original words. Robinson is in shouting form, and we have one of the few solos on these discs from Lawrence Marrero.  

MAMA DON’T ALLOW IT was one of the original crossover tunes, moving from the blues repertoire into both jazz and country music. It is an ideal vehicle for a concert like this, as it gives everyone a chance to solo, and it is a good crowd-pleaser. The recording ends just as we get to Pavagreau, so we don’t hear his chorus or the one that follows, I presume, from Watkins. I had always thought this one was shortened for the album, but it appears now that the tape ran out. 

High Fidelity June 1959 (reviewed alongside “George Lewis of New Orleans – Riverside) 

The Blue Note disc is a well-balanced recording (of a 1954 concert) on which Lewis' band runs through some of the most familiar war horses of its repertory (Ice Cream, Over the Waves, Master Don't Allow It, Bergundy Street Blues, etc.) but plays with such flaring zest and builds to climaxes so fervently rhythmic that the listener is all but overwhelmed. The spirit in the playing and singing of these veterans gives these performances tremendous impact. This is probably the best recorded summation of the core of the Lewis repertory. 

The Riverside disc is a reissue of two sessions made in New Orleans in 1946 by Rudi Blesh and originally issued on his Circle label. On one side Lewis is heard with the Original Zenith Brass Band, a loose, relatively fluent group which became the nucleus of his later hand. The other side is played by the Eclipse Alley Five, an even closer approximation of Lewis' band but lacking a badly needed trumpet. Most of the Five's selections include uninspired vocals by Sister Berenice Phillips and Harold Lewis. Both groups are roughly recorded. 

Session Information 

Studio Radio performance, Bakersfield, CA, May 28, 1954 
Avery "Kid" Howard, trumpet, vocals; Jim Robinson, trombone; George Lewis, clarinet; Alton Purnell, piano; Lawrence Marrero, banjo; Alcide "Slow Drag" Pavageau, bass; Joe Watkins, drums, vocals. 

Gettysburg March 
Bill Bailey 
Burgundy Street Blues 
Walking With The King 

"Seven Arts Club", Bakersfield, CA, May 28, 1954 

Avery "Kid" Howard, trumpet, vocals; Jim Robinson, trombone; George Lewis, clarinet; Alton Purnell, piano; Lawrence Marrero, banjo; Alcide "Slow Drag" Pavageau, bass; Joe Watkins, drums, vocals. 

Over The Waves 
Canal Street Blues 
Red Wing 
Just A Closer Walk With Thee (edited version) 
Ice Cream 
Mama Don't Allow It