BLP 1209

Albert Ammons/Pete Johnson - Boogie Woogie Classics

Released - 1983

Recording and Session Information

probably WMGM Radio Station, NYC, January 6, 1939
Albert Ammons, piano.

tk.5 (441-5) Boogie Woogie Stomp
tk.6 (GM535-6) Chicago In Mind
tk.7 (1007) Suitcase Blues
tk.8 (442-8) Boogie Woogie Blues

probably WMGM Radio Station, NYC, January 6, 1939
Albert Ammons, piano.

tk.14 (1014) Bass Goin' Crazy
Albert Ammons, Meade "Lux" Lewis, piano.

tk.17 (GM537-17) Two And Fews

Reeves Sound Studios, NYC, December 19, 1939
Pete Johnson, piano; Ulysses Livingston, guitar #1,2,4,5; Abe Bolar, bass #1,2,4,5.

RS653-1 Vine St. Bustle
RS655-3 Some Day Blues
RS658-6 Holler Stomp
RS659-7 Barrelhouse Breakdown
RS660-8 Kansas City Farewell
RS662-10 You Don't Know My Mind

Track Listing

Side One
Artist	Title	Author	Recording Date
Albert Ammons	Boogie Woogie Stomp	Ammons	January 6 1939
Albert Ammons	Boogie Woogie Blues	Ammons	January 6 1939
Albert Ammons	Bass Going Crazy	Ammons	January 6 1939
Albert Ammons And Meade Lux Lewis	Twos And Fews	Ammons-Lewis	January 6 1939
Albert Ammons	Chicago In Mind	Ammons	January 6 1939
Albert Ammons	Suitcase Blues	Hersal Thomas	January 6 1939
Side Two
Pete Johnson	Holler Stomp	Johnson	December 19 1939
Pete Johnson Kansas	City Farewell	Johnson	December 19 1939
Pete Johnson	Vine Street Bustle	Johnson	December 19 1939
Pete Johnson	Barrelhouse Breakdown	Johnson	December 19 1939
Pete Johnson	Some Day Blues	Johnson	December 19 1939
Pete Johnson	You Don't Know My Mind	Johnson	December 19 1939

Liner Notes

Boogie Woogie is perhaps the richest of all piano styles, at least when expounded by two masters like Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson. No other style permits such perfect equilibrium between left and right hand, building up to an irresistible rhythmic climax. This album features some of the highlights of Boogie Woogie, and even what I consider the greatest masterpiece of them all; Ammons' "Boogie Woogie Stomp". I would contend that it ranks among the all-time piano-master-pieces, all styles confounded, including Classical (I'm sure John-Sebastian Bach would have "shouted for joy" if could have heard it!). "Shout for Joy" is the title Albert Ammons gave to a similar number he had recorded the previous week.

Boogie Woogie came up around 1929 as a particular way of playing the Blues, characterised by a "rolling bass" eight notes to the bar. In that year, several hitherto unknown pianists like Pinetop Smith, Meade Lux Lewis, Cow Cow Davenport; Montana Taylor, Charlie Spand and Romeo Nelson recorded some stunning piano pieces for what was then called the "Race Series" (today, we'd say the Black market). * Being released in the midst of the Depression, the records were commercial flops. So much so that the discouraged artists gave up music altogether and tried to make a living by other means.

It took nearly ten years for record collector and promoter John Hammond (father of blues-singer John Hammond, Jr.) to locate Meade Lux Lewis, by then attendant in a gas station, and persuade him to join Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson to perform before New York audiences. An engagement at Café Society proved an overnight success, soon to be followed by a concert at Carnegie Hall and several record sessions (including those featured on this album). Ammons and Johnson also joined Lena Horne for a movie short titled "Boogie Woogie Dream", an impressive visual as well as aural testimony by the two great pianists.

But again, this new Boogie Wave somehow fizzled out: many less dedicated but commercially successful pianists added Boogie Woogie numbers to their repertoire, with the result that Boogie soon became synonymous with monotonous and repetitive. Ammons, Johnson and Lewis each went their own way and continued performing, but they soon drifted from the limelight.

The stylistic impact of Boogie Woogie however never quite faded out. Any pianist closely involved with the Blues likes to make use of the rolling basses of Boogie Woogie. Count Basie, Milt Buckner, Amos Milburn, Fats Domino, Memphis Slim are but a few of the names that come to mind. Each one in his own way has repeatedly proved his mastery of the idiom. There may not be many fully devoted disciples, but for one, France's Jean-Paul Amouroux more than holds his own.

The limitation of Boogie Woogie is of course its close ties with the harmonic structure of the Blues. Ammons first and later on Fats Domino extended the Boogie style to folk and jazz standards (Blueberry Hill, My Blue Heaven, etc.), but somehow pure Boogie style sounds best when applied to the Blues. Both Ammons and Johnson resented being tagged as pure Boogie pianists; pointing out that they could just as well play the traditional repertoire. Perhaps they overlooked that in the Boogie field they were really beyond competition.

Albert Ammons (1907-1949) was mostly active in the Chicago area (in 1928 he lived in the same boarding-house as Pinetop Smith and Meade Lux Lewis). He received his training from William Barbee, a pianist in the Earl Hines vein, and played in several jazz bands (including his own) before being discovered by John Hammond. His son, Gene Ammons, became one of the leading tenor sax stars of the post-war years. Albert Ammons final and impressive testimony on wax is a january-1949 session with Lionel Hampton's Orchestra, featuring a brillant version of Amos Milburn's "Chicken Shack Boogie".

Pete Johnson (1904-1967) was raised in an orphanage and started messing with the piano at the age of 22 and picking up gigs around Kansas City. This is where he teamed up with Big Joe Turner who in 1938 became the vocal adjunct to the famous Boogie Woogie Trio. Unlike Ammons who stayed mostly in Chicago, Pete Johnson traveled quite a bit (mostly in the company of Joe Turner) and has left us a wealth of records on various labels. In 1958 he came to Europe with Norman Grantz' Jazz At The Philharmonic, but already his health was giving him trouble. He finally settled in Buffalo where he suffered a fatal stroke in 1967.

KURT MOHR

• Jimmy Yancey, credited by most Boogie pianists as their main influence, had already dropped out of music by that time. He wasn't rediscovered until 1940, when he was finally given the chance to record a series of unforgettable piano solos.

BLP 1208

George Lewis And His New Orleans Stompers - Concert!

Released - March 1959

Recording and 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

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Ice Cream	Jim Robinson	May 28 1954
Red Wing	Mills-Chattawy	May 28 1954
Mama Don't Allow It	Davenport	May 28 1954
Burgundy Street Blues	Lewis	May 28 1954
Bill Bailey		May 28 1954
Side Two
Over The Waves		May 28 1954
Just A Closer Walk With Thee		May 28 1954
Canal Street Blues	Oilver	May 28 1954
Walking With The King		May 28 1954
Gettysburg March		May 28 1954

Liner Notes

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.

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 tromhone 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."

— DOROTHY TAIT

Cover Design by REID MILES
Rerecording by RUDY VAN GELDER

BLP 1207

The Fabulous Sidney Bechet

Released - 1958

Recording and Session Information

WOR Studios, NYC, November 5, 1951
Sidney DeParis, trumpet; Jimmy Archey, trombone; Sidney Bechet, soprano sax; Don Kirkpatrick, piano; George "Pops" Foster, bass; Manzie Johnson, drums.

BN416-3 tk.3 Original Dixieland One-Step
BN417-0 tk.4 Avalon
BN418-1 tk.6 That's A Plenty
BN419-0 tk.7 Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave To Me
BN420-1 tk.16 Ballin' The Jack

Audio-Video Studios, NYC, August 25, 1953
Jonah Jones, trumpet; Jimmy Archey, trombone; Sidney Bechet, soprano sax; Buddy Weed, piano; Walter Page, bass; Johnny Blowers, drums.

BN518-3 tk.4 All Of Me
BN519-1 tk.6 I'm A Ding Dong Daddy (as Ding Dong Daddy)
BN520-1 tk.8 Black And Blue
BN522-2 tk.19 Rose Of The Rio Grande
BN523-0 tk.20 Sweet Georgia Brown

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Original Dixieland One-Step	La Rocca	November 5 1951
Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me	Swanstone-Morgan-McCarron	November 5 1951
That's A Plenty	Pollack	November 5 1951
Ballin' The Jack	Smith-Burris	November 5 1951
Avalon	DeSylva-Rose	November 5 1951
Side Two
Rose Of Rio Grande	Leslie-Warren-Gorman	August 25 1953
Black And Blue	Razaf-Brooks-Waller	August 25 1953
Sweet Georgia Brown	Pinkard	August 25 1953
All Of Me	Marks-Simons	August 25 1953
Ding Dong Daddy	Baxter	August 25 1953

Liner Notes

THERE ARE a very few jazz musicians who possess and can project so passionate a pulsating power that they can fuel any ensemble, no matter how sluggish, into burning at a higher temperature than its normal capacity. Louis Armstrong could do that, as can be heard especially in his recordings of the thirties when his big bands often sounded like Meyer Davis rejects until Louis' horn awakened the congregation. Charlie Parker was also able to change to some extent the context of his playing — even when squared strings were involved — just by the naked ferocity of his presence. And so powerful is Thelonious Monk's beat that he makes even an ersatz rhythm section swing — or collapse. There are no in-betweens with musical personalities as commanding as Louis, Bird, Monk or Sidney Bechet. You either go their way when you're playing with them, if you can, or you get off the train.

I remember one early Paris morning in 1950 when Bechet was playing in a left bank "cave" with a collection of amiable but stumbling French revivalists who had taken all they could off of various old recordings, all but the living experiences that had produced the records in the first place. For part of a set, Sidney was talking to friends, mostly growling about the rapaciousness of American bookers. The music meanwhile was becoming more and more lugubriously unswinging until in time it might have qualified for Schrafft's. Sidney finally became too exasperated to talk any more. "Excuse me," he grumbled, "I'm going to have to do something about this." He walked on the bandstand, picked up his soprano and somehow, before half a minute had passed, Sidney had blown his cardboard sidemen into a unit of flesh and some bones, had lifted this unit by his own power into the air, and by this push, had given them enough momentum so that they appeared to be swinging until the end of the tune. They must have felt, I imagine, as if they had suddenly become sucked up by a typhoon.

Growing up in Boston, I heard Sidney literally hundreds of times in all kinds of situations, many of them otherwise quite dreary. I never heard Sidney when he wasn't swinging, and swinging hard. (I'd like to hear Bechet with Blakey some time; I wonder who'd ride whom. My bet would be on Bechet.) I never heard him, even when he was bugged — about a women, bread, or Bunk Johnson — play dispiritedly. And I've never listened to him without being moved. At times, hearing him has been an exhilarating experience for me; and even when the performance hasn't been optimum, I've never heard him without being shaken at being put in contact with that much emotion coming out of just one horn.

Bechet's biography has been sketched on previous reissues. It should be added that Bechet's influence has gone beyond the New Orleans idiom. He helped Johnny Hodges's learn the soprano, and although Hodges's ultimate alto conception was quite removed from Sidney's approach to a horn, there remained traces of the Bechet voice. A number of jazzmen who evolved during the swing era may not have been much shaped by Bechet's style as such, but I recall several of them marveling at his drive and abandon; and I expect that the example of Bechet as a jazz musician who opened himself all the way when he played, had an effect on those younger jazzmen who heard him while looking for their own voices.

There's not much to be said about the tunes in the set. They're either venerable offertories from the New Orleans-Dixieland hymnal or standards that have intrigued jazz musicians, particularly of the generation or two represented here. Of the first sessions, it should be noted that this is one of the relatively few recorded appearances pianist Don Kirkpatrick made before his death in 1956. Kirkpatrick had played and arranged for Chick Webb, and had also worked with Elmer Snowden and Don Redman, among others. He had played for a time in the fifties with the perfectionist Wilbur de Paris who noted recently: "He was a very good pianist, out of the Waller-James P. Johnson school, and also a very skilled arranger." Jimmy Archey is the short, dignified King Oliver alumnus who has been freelancing in recent years, mostly with New Orleans-Dixieland combos, and has traveled successfully in Europe. Jimmy plays a punching, non-legato trombone with assertive conviction. Sidney de Paris, who has been in his brother's band for several years, is a considerably underrated trumpet player who in the right circumstances can be a very personal, functionally imaginative soloist. George "Pops" Foster, one of the last of the major New Orleans contributors to jazz, is also one of the most engaging raconteurs and gentle hedonists I've ever known in or out of jazz. Manzie Johnson worked with June Clark, Don Redman, Frankie Newton, Sidney Bechet and many others through the years, and many listeners particularly remember him for his work on the Ladnier-Mezzrow sides of the thirties.

In the second session, Mr. Archey remains and the trumpet is Jonah Jones, a swing era veteran (perhaps best known for his time with Cab Calloway) who made some European hegiras and who recently has found a steady, sizable income in playing muted jazz for such plush conversation rooms as The Embers in New York. The rhythm section on this second date is lighter and more flowing in the swing era sense than is usual on Bechet recordings. Buddy Weed has done many studio dates; Johnny Blowers has been with Eddie Condon, among others; and the late Walter Page, who died in 1957, was, of course, one of the first (if not the first) walking bassists and for many years was part of that Count Basie rhythm section which, as Whitney Balliett put it, "put wheels on the beat."

Bechet has been in France for a decade now, and is likely to live there for the rest of his life. He has been accepted as no other jazz musician ever has in France. His records sell startling amounts at times; he plays not only the jazz clubs and concerts, but the big variety theatres; and he has the time and support to write and perform in projects like his ballet/ La Nuit Est Une Sorciere and more recently, his operetta, New Orleans.

Even the usually embattled French jazz press is more or less united on lauding Bechet. The Grand Inquisitor, Hugues Panassié, writes of Bechet's ample, rich tone, tremendous drive and remarkable melodic sense. In the opposition press, Jazz-Hot, Frank Tenot wrote in 1952 that Bechet makes "his instrument sing with an astonishing lyric force. His hot and large sonority illuminates each of his phrases. However, the grandeur of his playing does not exclude simplicity, the quality of simplicity that the great masters of the first era of jazz possessed."

There have been times through the years when some critics have commented dourly on Bechet's vibrato, finding it too wide and overbearing. This reaction is palpably a matter of taste and temperament. I've never found his vibrato annoying, and find it, in fact, a quite natural vocalized part of his expressiveness. With all that heat coming through a technique and conception that, after all, began in an era when vibrato was the most natural concomitant of jazz imaginable, I'm only surprised that the vibrato — colleagues, sometimes doesn't erupt volcano-like and swallow us all record and listeners alike.

NAT HENTOFF

ADDENDUM

Tracks 1-6, the master takes of the 1951 session, were originally issued on The Fabulous Sidney Bechet And His Hot Six With Sidney De Paris (10" LP Blue Note BLP 7020). Tracks 10-15, the master takes of the 1953 session, were issued as Dixie By The Fabulous Sidney Bechet (10" LP Blue Note BLP 7026). Because of time restrictions, the 1958 12" LP reissue The Fabulous Sidney Becket left off "There'll Be Some Changes Made" (first session), which had been on a previously released Bechet 1211 LP, and "Shine" (second session).

In 1985, The Complete Blue Note Recordings Of Sidney Bechet (Mosaic MRS-110) included all 12 masters, adding five previously unissued alternate takes in process. The alternate take of "Black And Blue" is a very different arrangement the selected master with Bechet playing the melody and taking considerable liberties with it. The alternates of "There'll Be Some Changes Made" and u Rose Of The Rio Grande" rival the chosen masters and have since been anthologized elsewhere.

Both of these sessions, Bechet's last for the label, were recorded during visits from France, where he settled in early 1951. They are his only Blue Note sessions recorded on tape as opposed to disc, giving us a cleaner, clearer sound than his earlier work.

—MICHAEL CUSCUNA

BLP 1206

 George Lewis And His New Orleans Stompers Volume 2

Released - 1955

Recording and Session Information

New Orleans, LA, May 15, 1943
Jim Robinson, trombone; George Lewis, clarinet, flute; Lawrence Marrero, banjo; Jim Little, tuba; Edgar Mosley, drums.

CD103 Don't Go 'Way Nobody (rehearsal)
CD104 Two Jim Blues

New Orleans, LA, May 16, 1943
Avery "Kid" Howard, trumpet, vocals; Jim Robinson, trombone; George Lewis, clarinet; Lawrence Marrero, banjo; Chester Zardis, bass; Edgar Mosley, drums.

CD105 Climax Rag
CD107 Just A Closer Walk With Thee
CD113 Dauphine St. Blues
CD114 Just A Little While To Stay Here
CD118 Milenberg Joys
CD119 Fidgety Feet
CD120 Fidgety Feet (alternate take)
CD123 Deep Bayou Blues

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Climax Rag	James Scott	May 16 1943
Dauphine Street Blues		May 16 1943
Just A Closer Walk With Thee		May 16 1943
Two Jim Blues	Jim Robinson	May 15 1943
Fidgety Feet	Shields-La Rocca	May 16 1943
Side Two
Milenberg Joys	Jelly Roll Morton	May 16 1943
Deep Bayou Blues	Lewis-Marrero	May 16 1943
Fidgety Feet	Shields-La Rocca	May 16 1943
Don't Go 'Way Nobody	Bolden	May 15 1943
Just A Little While To Stay Here		May 16 1943

Liner Notes

This remarkable set of records testifies anew to the eternal vitality of New Orleans music. A living and dynamic art, ifs secret never reduced to a formula, Now Orleans style has eluded definition. The style of GEORGE LEWIS STOMPERS differs from that of any other band, yet in many respects this music is most typical of New Orleans style, and already has been hailed as the very incarnation of the spirit of the "Crescent City." Those records possess in unusual degree the energetic rhythmic drive, the vibrant expressiveness and warmth of tone, the ruggedness of ensemble, and the exuberant, unaffected grandeur so characteristic of New Orleans jazz. Prominent also are "off-the-beat" swing. lack of mechanical precision in attack and phrasing, and the ability to throw caution to the winds — musical qualities of men conditioned by years of nothing-to-lose living.

Although New Orleans dance bands have varied widely in size and instrumentation, the particular line-up used by the STOMPERS has been one of the most commonly favored. The use of the three most effective melodic instruments of the brass band long ago became standard. Rhythm sections have had few restrictions, but the absence of piano from marching bands and advertising wagons, and the fact that few halls owned one, discouraged its use in dance orchestras.

The unique New Orleans ensemble style requires musicians not only of exceptional individual improvising skill but of long and close association, capable of actually feeling music together. That The NEW ORLEANS STOMPERS possess rare ability in this most effective and intricate instrumental style has been amply demonstrated. These records should definitely establish GEORGE LEWIS as one of the greatest clarinetists of all time. Master of a fluent technique, he commands a biting attack and a forceful, driving style as well as a sensitive, highly emotional one, and on occasion can soar to triumphant heights. KID HOWARD, youngest of the group, proves he is well equipped to carry on the tradition of {he long line of celebrated New Orleans trumpeters. If the world's jazziest trombonist isn't JIM ROBINSON that person surely remains undiscovered. Jim does not specialize in subtlety or polished facility but "blows it out" with the finesse of a steam riveter. The 3-piece rhythm section is unusually powerful and has abundant drive to balance the zestful horns, who themselves constitute a rhythm section.

Although the phenomenon of New Orleans style depends more upon the treatment accorded a composition than the tune itself, there exists a distinctive New Orleans repertoire conducive to this unique improvisatory jazz style. The music of these records, consisting of marches, blues, rags. spirituals and stomps, is representative of that time-proven repertoire and indicative of the broad range of musical interests and the vital role played by music in New Orleans life.

Climax Rag not only is most thrilling music but an excellent demonstration of how the New Orleans improvisors were able to remold the St. Louis piano rags in their own orchestral style. When the original piano version came out in 1914, the St. Louis publishers called James Scott "The King of Rag Writers" and stated: "Now we need adjectives in fifteen degrees with a rising inflection. We need letters a foot high and a few exclamation-points the size of Cleopatra's Needle...Furious as a cat fight and will add materially to the gaiety of nations...Scott's name on a rag is like Rockefeller's on a check. It is legal tender...Climax Rag is Scott's latest, but no person will look for the date on a Scott rag. They will go echoing down the corridors of time when the season's hits have a long time been forgotten."

This orchestral adaptation closely follows the formal design and harmonic scheme of the Stark publication except that the trio is greatly extended as the band drives on and on with terrific heat and power. Melodically some of the piano passage work when applied to the various orchestral instruments has been skillfully reduced to more idiomatic and playable phrases. Effective orchestral performances of rags are extremely difficult, hence not every New Orleans band has been able to cut them. The astounding virtuosity with which The GEORGE LEWIS' STOMPERS perform this brilliant rag is unexcelled.

Deep Bayou Blues, an unusually somber and expressive improvisation, evolves entirely from a simple and appealing motive which is constantly elaborated on with increasing intensity. Several ensemble choruses of great breadth are followed by individual variations in which the theme is ably treated by Kid Howard's serious plunger style and Lewis' plaintive and ardent clarinet. In his second solo Lewis presents a unique and more remote development of the basic motive, as he uses blue 9th chords against simple tonic harmony.

A final solemn ensemble, led by Robinson's impassioned trombone, brings the Blues to a dissonant close.

To describe festivities at the historic pleasure resort Milneburg, with its beach, dance pavilion, and Lakeshore Hall one must go back to the memories of the oldest musicians. However, Jelly Roll Morton's masterpiece Milenberg Joys still tells the story musically. Judging by this performance, some gay, wild and noisy times were had at the old Lake Ponfchartrain resort. Ensemble throughout, this piece starts off immediately in exhilarating stomp style. Jim Robinson, who is really wound up, turns loose some of the most hilarious circus tromboning ever recorded. The lead, long a favorite vehicle for trumpet virtuosity, is performed excitingly by Kid Howard. After some of the most terrific breaks ever heard, the piece drives on to close in a frenzied orgy of joyful sound.

Two Jim Blues is surely one of the most extraordinary of all blues. Distinguished by its low-down instrumentation and its melancholic mood, it is one of the finest after-midnight, feet-shuffling slow blues on record. This meanest kind of blues was improvised on some ideas of Jim Robinson, and features his own magnificent trombone, together with the tuba playing of his nephew, Jim Little. Two Jim Blues also contains some of +he most imaginative clarinet playing of George Lewis whose fervent and eloquent blues style is unsurpassed.

The influence of spirituals on New Orleans jazz perhaps has been exaggerated. Certainly African dance and secular music wore brought to the New World as early as religious chants and probably remained less corrupted by European and Puritan influences. Often sacred and secular songs were similar expressions of identical emotions, and cases exist of both religious and "sinful" lyrics written to the same melody. Although real spirituals have plenty of swing in their own right, the actual swinging of spirituals for march or dance purposes is a comparatively recent development. Just a Closer Walk with Thee is one of New Orleans' most popular hymns, and quite understandably, for it is a beautiful melody which lends itself not only to fervent singing but to irresistible swinging. Throughout thirteen choruses the melody is preserved, yet infinite variety is achieved by skillful development and imaginative playing of this great band.

Just a Little While to Stay Here has been used both as a funeral hymn and as a homecoming march after burial. Bunk Johnson, the "father of New Orleans trumpeters," has described such an occasion: "The lodge would come out of the graveyard after the member were put away and they called roll—call in line — and then we'd march away from the cemetery by the drum only until we got about a block from the cemetery; then we'd go right on info ragtime. We would play DIDN'T HE RAMBLE or we'd take all these spiritual hymns and turn them info ragtime...We would have a second line there that was most equivalent to King Rex parade — Mardi Gras Carnival parade. Immense crowds would follow the funeral up to the cemetery just to get this ragtime music comin' back...There would be dancin' in the street, even the police horses would prance. Music done them all the good in the world."

Fidgety Feet, from the standard New Orleans repertoire, also attests to the notable influence of brass-band marches on jazz. The first part sparkles with clarinet fireworks, then leads to a lyrical trio section which is a prime example of a peculiarly New Orleans instrumental style. Trumpet, clarinet, and trombone all play concurrently different versions of the same melody, rather than countermelodies or accompanying figures. Each is saying exactly the same thing, but in a different manner, in his own characteristic instrumental language. The trumpet plays in decisive, full-toned, driving style; the trombone more brusquely accented. smeary, and with greater economy as befits a heavier horn, while the clarinet embellishes the tune more elaborately but nonetheless still sings the theme. To confirm the latter fact, compare Lewis' ensemble parts with his solos and note the identical melodic style. Thus New Orleans ensemble often consists of several instruments playing solos simultaneously, and the result, rather than a polyphony, is a heterophony more related to certain Oriental musics than to European. This system of allowing every musician the freedom and abandon of the soloist contributes no little to the enormous vitality of New Orleans jazz and utilizes maximum instrumental resources. Undoubtedly New Orleans is the most logical and inspired orchestral style ever created.

Dauphine Street Blues imaginatively develops two related traditional New Orleans themes. With uncommon fervor and seriousness, even for the blues, every man contributes his full share in the creation of this beautiful and moving composition. George Lewis' solo variation, evolving directly from his preceding ensemble part, is unusually florid. Here one sees virtuosity not for its own sake, but a facility released under stress of intense emotion, yet under perfect control. Throughout is the relentless beat of a rhythm section not to be denied as it drives on to a triumphant climax.

Of Buddy Bolden's fabulous dances the book JAZZMEN relates: "At night Tin Type Hall trembled with life and activity...High class people didn't go to such low-down affairs, and at about twelve o'clock when the ball was getting right, the more respectable of those who did attend went home. Then Bolden played a number called Don't Go 'Way Nobody, Let's Stay and Have a Good Time, and the dancing got rough. When the orchestra settled down to slow blues, the music was mean and dirty as Tin Type roared full blast." This performance is no staged attempt to re-create the old New Orleans spirit, for these men have never stopped playing jazz. This example of the New Orleans after-midnight style surely must be as rough, wild, and discordantly noisy as King Bolden's music ever got. The freest sort of free-for-all, it recalls the remark of Bolden's Willie Cornish, "When we goin' good, we'd cross three tunes once." The knocked-out performance of this "break" number abounds in typical New Orleans humor. Not even the celebrated King Oliver 2-cornet breaks pack the wallop of some of these ludicrous ensemble ejaculations, and unlike the Olivers these were all unrehearsed.

WILLIAM RUSSELL

Cover Design by REID K. MILES
Remastering by RUDY VAN GELDER