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If this is your first visit, welcome to my blog of memories and observations. If you wish to be notified of new posts, enter an e-mail address above, and click on "Submit." As we move through a seventh year of this venture, I thank all who have made regular visits, as well as fellow bloggers who have found Stomp Off worth linking to. Doing this sort of thing is time-consuming, but I try to post fresh material at least once a week—let me know what you think. There is a Commentary option at the end of each post and a Guest Book can be reached by scrolling down and clicking on the quill image. I welcome your observations, reaction and/or suggestions in either spot—or both. As for blog content, the most current posts are on the home page, starting at the top. Earlier items are listed by month, year and title in the archive index. To zero in on a particular key word or subject, use the search option that is located directly beneath the blog's masthead. Most images can be enlarged with a mouse click, and there are links to some of my favorite blogs, etc. Since visitors have come from 150 countries, a translator with numerous languages is located below. You can at any time revert to English with a click at the top left of this page:

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3/27/12

Sam Wooding III


We continue Sam Wooding's audiobiography, as it unfolded over several afternoon sessions in my living room, only 12 feet from where I now work on this blog. The digital era was not quite upon us and almost five years would pass before my IBM Selectric was pushed aside to make room for a computer. Had this taken place today, I would be posting a video interview with Sam—I wish that could have happened, for he was a delight to be with and the stories he told were often highlighted by his eyes and smile.

I hope you have listened to the two earlier parts of this five-part interview, which was conducted for The Smithsonian Institution during an April week in 1975. At the bottom of this entry, you will find links to the previous installments—recollections that go back to his childhood.

In this segment, he talks about his band working in New York City clubs, including the Club Alabam, which turned out to be his band's springboard to Europe and a new career path. He speaks of how the Chocolate Kiddies show came about and describes opening night in Berlin's Admiralpalast. Bear in mind that this was 1925, a time when black performers in America lived a largely segregated existence. It was the year in which Josephine Baker made her splash in Paris, but most Europeans had very little knowledge of black people, whom they mostly thought of as wild, spear carrying African natives. "They were expecting gorillas, chimps and orangutangs," Sam once told me, "but we surprised them—and they loved us like pets." 

Cast members pose with Berlin poster, 1925




Sam at my apartment in November 1982



Here is a link to Part I
Here is a link to Part II

3/22/12

Recalling fountains of youth...


If you are old enough to remember a time when tape recorders became an affordable addition to your hi-fi system, you may well have had some silly fun turning yourself into a newscaster, disc jockey or interviewer. Nobody was immune to such fun, not even those who routinely faced microphones...not even Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Here they are having a good time in a San Francisco hotel room, or so I am told. Click here to enter the room.