Jazz in the Public Domain

favorites.Clara Smith: Freight Train Blues, Cold Weather Papa, The Basement Blues, The Clearing House Blues. Clarence Williams: Gravier St. Blues. Clara Smith: War Horse Mama (Pig Meat Sweetie), 31st St. Blues. Clarence Williams: My Own Blues. C. Williams Blue Five (Armstrong and Bechet): Texas Moaner Blues. C. Williams: Weary Blues, C. Williams Blue Five (Thomas Morris with Bechet): House Rent Blues. Atlantic Dance Orchestra: Lime House Blues, Henderson (Billy Fowler bass sax): Doo Doodle Oom, C. Williams: Mixing the Blues.Clarence Williams composed Texas Moaner Blues with Fay Barnes, and Charlie Irvis is on trombone. Don Redman is on Clearing House Blues, War Horse Mama and Cold Weather Papa. Charlie Dixon is on banjo and Don Redman plays the goofus on Freight Train Blues. Fletcher Henderson played on several tunes including Freight Train Blues, War Horse Mama and Cold Weather Papa, on which he also plays the whistle. Smith’s vocal with Ernest Elliott and Charles Mattson in WC Handy’s Basement Blues is among the higher points of 1924.Comparable high points were reached by Clarence Williams on his solo piano records and with the Blue Five and also by Henderson’s Orchestra who are included here. Limehouse Blues fits in as one of the hits of 1924 bringing more orientalism or chinoiserie to the fox trot. Henderson played a big role in some of these recordings of Clara and gave her a modicum of the special production support Bessie Smith received in 1924. Clara was at home anywhere but particularly in Henderson’s special world of Redman, goofus and whistle and she makes brrrr noises of her own on Cold Weather Papa. “My razor and your neck are going to connect” in War Horse Mama delivered without losing her usual smoothness, illustrates Clara’s brand: transcendent beauty and calm in the face of anything life deals out. There is more to her 1924 catalogue and these are some personal favorites.

Coleman Hawkins with Clara Smith: Texas Moaner Blues, Deep Blue Sea Blues. Fletcher Henderson Orchestra: Sudbustin’ Blues, He’s the Hottest Man in Town, Doo Doodle Oom, West Indian Blues, You’ve Got to Get Hot, Old Black Joe’s Blues, Charleston Crazy, Houston Blues, Jealous, I Can’t Get The One I Want, My Papa Doesn’t Two-Time No Time, 31st St. Blues.Listening for Hawkins you also hear Redman, Fowler, Chambers. In 1924 Hawkins was still nineteen, in 1944 he was 39 playing bop, in 1964 he charted popular albums. With Clara Smith here he solos at length in his blues style and also with Henderson plays more of a blues attack than of the orthodox straight melodic tone. Billy Fowler is on bass sax on several tunes.Although Prez represented a new direction from the Hawkins style, the opposite is also true. Hawkins developed a unique rhythm-based style distinct from the customary classical tenor leads of Pettis and Krueger. Prez developed the high lead style taken from Tram leading on to Getz and Wardell Gray. Hawk’s explosive approach led to Rollins and Roland Kirk. No sax section had better trained musicians than Redman and Hawkins. But neither messed much with the classical or pop orthodoxy. Together they created a parade of hits. The Redman/Hawkins reed section -supplemented by Billy Fowler - by the results obtained, was among the most successful of the competitive 20’s.Prez from Tram c melody started from the free floating popular dance band alto lead melodic line of Loren McMurray style shaped by rhythm like metered poetry with the band riffing behind him polyphonically. We are left dancing. Hawkins it seems started from within the rhythm section as a basso foundation glued to the beat but shaped by melody, like a bassist soloing, or a drum solo.

Loren McMurray (saxophone) with the orchestras of Eddie Kuhn (1920): You’re Just Like a Rose. Mike Markel (1921): I Wonder If You Still Care For Me, I Wonder Who You’re Calling Sweetheart, Say Persianna Say!, Idola, Blue Eyes Blues, Alabama Blues, Two Wooden Shoes. The Virginians (1922): I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate. Bailey’s Lucky Seven: Homesick. Lanin’s Southern Serenaders: Doo Dah Blues, Shake It and Break It, Eddie Leonard Blues. Eddie Davis: Hot Lips. Mike Markel (1922): Lonesome Mama Blues.This starts in 1920 with a KC band where Mac got his launch. Seven tunes from Markel is maybe a slog but this music is interesting and well recorded for 1921 from a talented society orchestra, McMurray being featured. In the second half the jazz tunes from 1922 pick up the pace. That’s Cliff Edwards eefing on Doo Dah Blues, a sample of what would become widespread two years later. McMurray helped expand the paradigm for the alto as the dominant melodic instrument (as did Bechet for soprano) plus low register slap tongue in rhythm support. McMurray had a busy recording career for about three years 1920-1922 and then he was gone at age 25, leaving the legacy of the alto as a star lead instrument.

Henderson: Somebody Stole My Gal. Nick Lucas: My Best Girl. Gene Rodemich: Shanghai Shuffle. Oriole Terrace Orch.: Off and Gone. Bennie Krueger: Charley My Boy (Voc. Billy Jones). James Blythe: Armour Avenue Struggle. Marion Harris: Jealous. Armstrong (Henderson Orch.): Everybody Loves My Baby. Loren McMurray: Haunting Blues, Charlie Creath: Pleasure Mad. M. Harris: I Can’t Get The One I Want (lyrics by Billy Rose). Arcadia Peacock Orch. (Jules Schneider ts, Chick Harvey voc.): Where's My Sweetie Hiding. Rosa Henderson (with Fletcher Henderson): Papa Will be Gone. M. Harris: Tain't Nuthin' Else. The Texas Blues Destroyers (Bubber Miley, Alvin Ray): Lennox Avenue Shuffle.Jealous is a dream reverie Harris could deliver as in I’ll See You In My Dreams and Tea for Two. The lonely Harris interpretation as she introduced these legacy tunes is a valid starting point as with Tatum who happens on Tea for Two to take Harris’s dreamy approach. Another Harris tune Haunting Blues is here from Loren McMurray in 1922 his final year. James Blythe played early boogie before it took over. The Arcadia Peacock Orch. was from St. Louis as was Charles Creath. Here also is the original Shanghai Shuffle by its composer, borrowing from Limehouse Blues which swept the US in 1924 with Gertrude Lawrence, who contrasts with Harris who started in the US and then went to England. The OTO provide our title, led by Ted Fiorito.

Fletcher Henderson Orchestra: I Can't Get the One I Want, Where the Dreamy Wabash Flows, Say Say Sadie, Prince of Wails, My Papa Doesn't Two Time No Time (Don Redman Voc.), Mobile Blues, Chicago Blues, That's Georgia, Sudbustin' Blues, Copenhagen, Shanghai Shuffle.Many of the late ‘24 tunes with Armstrong are provided separately in the episode titled Pops season 2 episode 11. Here cornetist Elmer Chambers is featured and in a section with Howard Scott. Hawkins’ slap tongue works particularly on Sudbustin which is an uptempo variation of the slow swinging Piron dance tune. Which is telling because any tune Henderson played was reconstructed to a bouncy Henderson fox trot regardless of the lyrics. This Prince of Wails, the Schoebel tune, is the most elaborate version of this tune which Schoebel didn’t record in 1924. Shanghai Shuffle is notable and includes an Armstrong solo, and composer Rodemich’s own version is heard in episode 41. Redman scatting here on My Papa gives syllables to the eefing/kazoo/comb tradition of pure vocalizing that swept 1924 including the goofus guy Redman himself voicing without syllables on Mobile Blues. We also apparently hear a washboard on Chicago Blues.Henderson played in a league with Lanin, the Virginians, the Ramblers, OTO, Krueger, Rodemich, many others and you hear these same tunes and dance ideas circulating on Brunswick and Vocalion and various labels. Redman elaborated on the trends and fads particularly from Irving Brodsky and Adrian Rollini, while also developing the bouncy Henderson style before Ellington put into words about what don’t mean a thing. Ellington took the space opened by Henderson for the African American cultural contribution to the fox trot further into the classical art song. Jazz coming from port city NOLA was inherently global and not possible to segregate. Plessy v. Ferguson to the contrary. Henderson with Redman integrated the national fox trot market by providing the African American difference. And then there was the whole blues market they dominated. Bert Williams had already been the Jackie Robinson of Broadway with Flo Ziegfeld. Henderson competed in the dance band major leagues by providing his own brand led by the unique Hawk and Redman sound. Although Morton invented jazz he was more off in a league of his own with Joplin, Mozart and Monk. A composer’s league somewhat museum quality. Ellington went there also. Redman of the weekly fox trot business abandoned the polyphonic front line for more industrial strength. Bebop brought back a front line with Bird and post bop hits by Silver, Dizzy, Monk adhered to a rhythmic danceable model using virtuoso soloing. Hit tunes have always been central to the jazz formula, particularly understood by Bird.Morton’s New York phase brought New Orleans jazz to a fulfillment as a concert music, but didn’t exactly capture NY dancers and was considered old fashioned, however more like Brahms versus Wagner. Henderson still has a bouncy and free feel with these smaller bands in 1924 although played from across the Rubicon from a Clarence Williams Blue Five which was jazz only. By bringing in Armstrong, like Whiteman with Bix, Henderson spotlighted the talent but didn’t embrace the NOLA front line concept, as did Armstrong to the very end or Clarence Williams with Armstrong and Bechet in 1924.

Frank Trumbauer (cms): with Ray Miller's Orch.: Mama's Gone Goodbye, I Can’t Get the One I Want, Doodle Doo Doo, The Cotton Pickers: Jimtown Blues, Benson Orch.: I Never Miss the Sunshine, Mound City Blue Blowers: San, Red Hot, Lanin’s Arkansaw Travelers: Lost My Baby Blues, Ray Miller; Where is that Old Girl of Mine (Billy Jones Voc.), The Cotton Pickers: Prince of Wails, Ray Mlller: Red Hot Mama, Lotsa Mama, Come on Red, Sioux City Six: Flock of Blues, I'm Glad. Trumbauer solos and performs section work as a sideman from 1923-24. Joined by Andy Sannella and Miff Mole in the Ray Miller Orch. Bix and Miff with the Sioux City Six. Frank Signorelli with the Cotton Pickers. Tram was adept in duets and here particularly with Miff Mole and Andy Sannella.

Henderson: Hard Hearted Hannah, Houston Blues, A New Kind of Man (Redman on goofus), Driftwood, The Oriole Terrace Orchestra, Sobbin' Blues, Oh Mabel (Nick Lucas voc.), Copenhagen, Back Where the Daffodils Grow, Mandy Make Up Your Mind, Isham Jones: Land O' Lingo Blues, Gene Rodemich: Choo Choo, OTO: I Need Some Pettin', Abe Lyman: A New Kind of Man, OTO: That Lullaby Strain, Arnold Johnson: Sweet Lovin' Mama, Bennie Krueger: Wet Yo' Thumb, Abe Lyman: If You Do What You Do.Nick Lucas lays a strong foundation on banjo and guitar. Rodemich gives a fun rendering of the Ellington train song.The durable Brunswick product (Henderson recorded on Brunswick but those are not included here) are of a high level of production quality.Henderson is included here because dance band hit records like these Brunswicks are his niche. Henderson was not so dedicated to New Orleans jazz as were Clarence Williams, Bechet, Armstrong or Mezz. Paul Whiteman and hotel bands dominated the charts that Henderson competed in. Although Henderson was essential to the blues recording craze, and had a hot jazz band on some of those tunes, this apparently did not influence his dance band recording strategy although it made his bands sound more grounded and soulful than bands without that extensive blues commitment. Moten had that blues sound also and on Goofy Dust showed the Redman trademark exposure to humorous bands like the Goofus Five.On “A New Kind of Man” Redman borrows from the Goofus 5 comic model, does a good job with the goofus and Charlie Green makes magic on the trombone. We hear the violin of Allie Ross on Driftwood. Hawkins steps up on these tunes.Perhaps, the arrival of Bailey, Green and Armstrong represented less an evolution of jazz than a way of rising to the level of the nationally popular dance bands like OTO.

James P. Johnson solo piano: Bleeding Heart Blues, Carolina Shout, You Can't Do What My Last Man Did, Harlem Strut, Worried and Lonesome Blues, Weeping Blues, Toddlin', Scouting Around, Keep Off the Grass. C. Williams: Achin' Heart Blues, Texas Moaner Blues, Richard M. Jones: Jazzin' Babies Blues.For your next house rent party. The promise of novelty piano is not a far jump later to Monk and then Jaki Byard. Contemporaneous band tunes are added here in deference to the horns and banjo that gave a pianist like Johnson an orchestra. Assembled therein by Clarence Williams is an All Star lineup of Armstrong and Bechet with Charlie Irvis on trombone for Texas Moaner Blues. Then composer Richard M. Jones delivers his own blues not far afield from Johnson.