You may have noticed that I have been neglecting this blog in recent months. One reason is that I have been devoting much time to another blog, WBAI-NowThen, which I started about three years ago when I discovered that the station had stagnated and was being run by opportunists who abuse it and have taken the intellectual level way down. My love affair with that station goes back more than fifty years. The chance of it surviving this latest management team is slim—it has already lost the overwhelming majority of its listeners, which is not good for a listener-sponsored radio station.

The other reason for my neglect is that my reel to reel tape decks are not up to snuff—I am working to correct that, In the meantime, I had also shipped several tapes to my friend, Karl Emil Knudsen, in Copenhagen, but he passed away before he could return them, leaving bit of a mess. Karl Emil never took to gadgets, so many details were stored in the computer we all are born with. At first, tracking down the tapes led to —the place where he stored much of his information—was his own memory. We had known each other since the early Fifties, and he used to stay with me when he came to New York on business. So, there was nothing around to guide Karl Emil's family or staff in making the proper disposition of my tapes, and I was in no rush to claim them. This blog eventually changed that, so I began to explore where they might be located and a vague trail led to the Center for Danish Jazz History at Aalborg University. They have a big chunk of Karl Emil's collection, but none of my tapes.

Meade Lux Lewis in the studio, November 1, 1961. (photo Chris Albertson)

Then, recently, Karl Emil's longtime friend, Mona Granager, found them. Mona's name is well known among record buyers, and almost synonymous with Storyville Records, Karl's label, which she helped him run for many years, and continues to manage. It turned out that my tapes were stored at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. Now they are at Storyville, ready to be digitized and sent back to me on discs. Not everything I had hoped for was there, so such things as my interviews with Billie Holiday, Rex Stewart and Willie "the lion" Smith are probably still buried in my tape closet, but there are some goodies that I expect to be sharing with you soon. In the meantime, here's something to caress your ears: Meade Lux Lewis playing "Rough Seas." It's from the session we did at Plaza Sound Studio, above Radio City Music Hall, November 1, 1961.

A Chocolate Kiddie returns...

In 1925, Sam Wooding's orchestra—as part of the Chocolate Kiddies variety show—became the first big band to perform in Copenhagen. To many Danes, this was their introduction to jazz, and the press was intrigued, especially the music critics, who normally covered more conventional concert fare. By 1931, members of The Chocolate Kiddies troupe had long since gone their separate ways, with several moving on to individual success. Sam spent a few years touring internationally with his orchestra, its personnel now slightly different but no less spirited or accomplished. When the band and singer Edith Wilson arrived at Copenhagen's main railroad terminal, the local press was there to welcome them, as were a few hundred Danish fans. 

The Danish press no longer saw a black jazz band as a novelty, but their fascination with Sam had not abated, and he was having his fun with them—he knew what to say and was never at a loss for words. When I translated the following article for him forty years later, he chuckled and said that members of the Hottentots group were, hopefully, not around to read his not-so-kind assessment of them. To enlarge the text, please click on the image.

Central Park: November 8, 2012

Photo by Chris Albertson ©2012

These days, many of the photos we see depicting the New York area focus on the depressing path left my super storm Sandy, so I though I would share with you this contrasting picture of Central Park, as I saw it from my windows this morning. Please click on it for an enlarged view.

Russell Procope - Part 2

Here is the continuation of my 1979 Smithsonian interview with Russell Procope. Here, he recollects being traded to Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, touring in Pennsylvania with Jelly Roll Morton, working briefly with Benny Carter at the Arcadia Ballroom in New York, learning from Coleman Hawkins how to play slow, and from Ellington what could be done with a baritone saxophone, etc. He also talks about widespread dislike for John Hammond, and expresses his own negative feelings regarding rock and roll, the group Supersax, and the use of flutes in jazz. 

Procope interview - Part 2



There is more of this interview, but I have to figure out how to fix a broken cassette before I can bring it to you. I'm working on it.

Elmer Snowden: Saturday Night Fish Fry

Here is another track from the Elmer Snowden Sextet session of February 2, 1962, the second of two lively affairs with this stellar and—some reviewers thought—unorthodox group. It was assembled solely for these two occasions and, until I read it in a couple of reviews, having Roy Eldridge and Bud Freeman together and up front never struck me as "bizarre." Elmer didn't have a problem with it, either.

Roy Eldridge

"Saturday Night Fish Fry" was made popular by Louis Jordan's Tympany Five in 1949, but I think you will agree that it was a perfect party song for Roy, who dominates this rendition. Roy's musical association with Elmer goes back to the early Thirties, when he became a member of Elmer's band at Small's Paradise. He made his celluloid debut as one of the many redcaps in the Vitaphone short, "Smash Your Baggage," a wonderful little piece of history filmed on a set that convincingly replicates Grand Central Station. Elmer's bands were always early stomping grounds for future stars, starting with his bringing to New York Duke Ellington for his 1923 group, The Washingtonians. Duke eventually took over and the Washingtonians morphed into his first orchestra—we all know the rest of that story. Besides Eldridge, the band seen in this 1933 film included long-time Ellingtonian Otto Hardwick, Big Sid Catlett, Al Sears, and Dicky Wells, and some terrific dancing by, among others, Rubberlegs Williams. Four years later, Williams would sing "My Buddy," the song informally known as "The Lesbian National Anthem" at Bessie Smith's funeral, and later still, he would record with Dizzy Gillespie. The lady who in one of the film's segments is heard emphatically pleading that someone "Stop the Moon, Stop the Sun" is believed to be Mabel Scott. You will find this little cinematic gem at the bottom of this post.

Elmer Snowden's Nest Club band. He is seated on left.

Here is "Saturday Night Fish Fry," in which Roy imagines Jo Jones jivin' Bud Freeman's wife and briefly gets lost in the lyrics, but skillfully overcomes. Solos are by Elmer, Bud and Roy, and an impromptu chorus, that includes the voices of Dan Morgenstern and the older John Hammond, assures us that "it was rockin'."

Incidental information: The signatures that appear on the header are not autographs, but rather endorsements lifted from the backs the cheques with which I paid the musicians for the session.

Here is "Smash Your Baggage"...