Lunch with John Hammond

For at least two years, John Hammond and I saw each other on a daily basis, but only once was our conversation recorded—this is it. I had recently started work on my biography of Bessie Smith and John was one of the many people I interviewed. If our exchange seems to lack the kind of depth one might expect, it is because John and I had so many conversations about Bessie that I pretty much had it covered. 

John and Aretha Franklin at Columbia's 30th Street studio, 1960.

 (Columbia publicity photo)

So, while you probably will not learn much from this taped lunch conversation, it will at least give you an idea of what John sounded like when not standing on a stage or at a lectern. If you have read my previous posts on John Hammond, you might have the impression that we did not get long, but we actually did. Yes, there were some nasty bumps along the way, but neither of us carrie a grudge for long. John was prone to exaggerate his own accomplishments, which he certainly did not need to do, and sometimes his need to live up to an embellished image got in the way of his consideration for others. Somehow, annoying as that could be, one tended to shrug one's shoulders and fluff it off as John being John. We all knew that he had, indeed, played a major role in shaping jazz history, and that earned him a large measure of respect that made the negative aspects of his personality more tolerable.

The tape was made in November, 1970, in a midtown Manhattan luncheonette. There is background noise and there are a few times when the cassette machine cuts out or slows down for a few seconds, but these are fleeing glitches that did not seem to warrant a fix.

Karl Emil Knudsen and N.O. fever hit Copenhagen

We were romantics, young Danes who saw early 20th Century New Orleans and its amazing musicians and singers almost in the same light as we had just a few years before seen Ali Baba, Tarzan, that flute-playing guy from Hamelin, and H.C. Andersen's steadfast tin soldier. We didn't grow up with Batman, Superman, or Mary Marvel—our childhood heroes were much older. But then we grew a little and for some odd reason, quenched our thirst for heroes by turning to legendary jazz players and their music. It was real, but still sufficiently distant from our world to trigger the imagination: An old, toothless man of color, rescued from a rice field and led into the spotlight to play a donated horn through donated teeth. It allowed our imagination to wonder how his music had sounded before dire circumstances silenced it. There was the key. Past personal calamities were important factors, that fueled our need to romanticize and made any comeback all the more stirring. Promotion people took full advantage of that human trait and, although we were smart enough to know what they were doing, we fell in line and did as hyped.

It was amazing, when you think about it. Young people in a Nordic land embracing and fantasizing over a culture that couldn't be more different from their own, and it came complete with a musical score. We loved these sensuous, rhythmic sounds that made our bodies move like no Danish music ever had, and our new pied pipers conjured up all kinds of fantasies. We found magic in such names as Kid Ory, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. Some of us became as familiar with the street names of New Orleans as we were with our own. We wanted to be there, to stroll through Congo Square, breathe in the air of what had once been the Storyville district, or just walk down Toulouse Street and make a right  on Dauphine.

Some wanted to take the new obsession beyond fantasy. No, there weren't any attempts to start rice fields, nor did ornate iron balconies alter the look of our neighborhoods, but there were upstart local bands that tried to capture the right sounds, fluffs and all. The relatively sedate Trumbauer-inspired Swing Sweet and Hot Club Band had satisfied a certain need, but it lacked the nitty gritty of newer groups, like the Ramblers and the Bohana Jazz Band, two foot-stomping groups that gave us reasonable simulations of New Orleans music, sans the surface noise.

Karl in my cluttered computorium on one of his visits to NYC.

And then there was Karl Emil Knudsen, a young employee of the Copenhagen telephone company (KTAS), who perhaps was more smitten than the rest of us, but somehow managed to maintain his composure as he made tangible his own fantasies. His first step was to start a record label. Storyville Records made its inauspicious start with three or four re-re-reissues. We are talking 78s here, and, physically, these were about as thick they come, and the sound as bad as it gets, but if you listened carefully, there was Ma Rainey, her voice barely penetrating the surface noise, and James P. Johnson on a roll, a piano roll that someone had pumped at the wrong speed, and there, too, were Louis and Sidney Bechet  with Clarence Williams, drowning out the voice of Alberta Hunter as they all played their derrieres off in glorious sub-fi.

When I said that these were re-re-reissues, I meant it. Karl had simply lifted them from Riverside Records, a new American label that had achieved the seemingly impossible: making the sound quality of Paramount and Gennett 78s twice as muddy as anything we had heard before. It didn't matter to us, not back in those early postwar years. We loved what was coming out of those grooves, even though we only heard the half of it. 

Karl's next step was to find a place where we all could let our hair down and defy our genes with slightly artificial body motion. Take a look at any early, all-white American Bandstand kinescope and you will see what I mean—some of  us just ain't got rhythm. Karl found the perfect spot on Hambroesgade, a dinky Copenhagen street in a dock area. The one-story structure looked like it might have been a place where dockworkers assembled. With its well-worn wood floors, drab cement walls and general lack of color, the place was about as uplifting as a Bozie Sturdivant lament, but, like Bozie's singing, it also had an unmistakable inner beauty. I mean, we wouldn't have wanted it to look like the Copa, or even the Cotton Club—the place was almost tailor-made and Karl made it come alive on Saturday nights.

Diplom's 1953 Winter catalog. The cover was designed by yours

truly, GA, the "G" standing for my middle name, Gunnar.

There were no roving searchlights, furs or shiny limos on the November night in 1952, when it all started. Word had quickly spread about this new club, a place where one could actually dance to live New Orleans music, dress casually, and spend no more than a tram fare. Tax laws required 24-hour advance membership enrollment, which took place at record shops, like Diplom Radio, a favorite hangout where Bent Haandstad guzzled beer, burped, and passionately recommended records.  It cost but a pittance to become a member, and the price of admission to the club was equally affordable.

To give you an idea of the interest in Karl's Storyville Club, I signed up immediately and became member number 299. On opening night, I pointed my bicycle in the direction of Hambroegade, where I added it to a fast-growing tangle of wheels and handlebars. We never talked about it, but I think Karl and his fellow entrepreneurs must have been overwhelmed by the initial turnout—I know that I was. Although I had been consumed by a love for jazz for almost five years, I did not know anyone who shared my interest, and I was too shy to strike up a conversation when I attended lectures on the subject. In fact, I always found a seat way in the back. It's hell to harbor a burning interest in something and not be able to share it with anyone, so I found this new club to be more than just a place to spend Saturday nights, it was a wonderful remedy for my loneliness. Oh, I had friends from art school and work, but they saw my passion for jazz as a passing fancy that surely would dissipate with maturity. My mother thought so, too—when she felt a need to explain why I seemed glued to my HMV gramophone, she assured visitors that it was something I would soon get over. Of course, the real reason for my physical attachment to the old machine was that the spring had broken and I could not afford to have a new one made (the world had moved on to electrically powered turntables). There is an old Danish saying that "the naked woman soon learns how to weave" (i.e. necessity is the mother of invention) and it didn't take me long to realize that I could play my records at the correct speed, 78 rpm, by placing my index finger on the label and pushing as hard as I could, making a circular motion. Of course, this meant that I could not walk away from the machine without the music stopping, but there was also an advantage to my unpatented, manual method: I was forced to give every note of the music my undivided attention. Soon, all my record labels were worn, some to a point where the information could no longer be seen, but I recognized matrix numbers and the visual character that audio frequency lends to a disc. For example, the surge of brass that follows Francis Wayne's vocal on Woody Herman's "Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe" tried the limits of the groove's ridges and made that particular side readily identifiable. Yes, it's silly, and so is the fact that I had a callus in the middle of my index finger from passing over the spindle 78 times per minute.

A re-enactment sixty years later.

Getting back to Hambroesgade and the jazz hub that Karl spearheaded into existence. It wasn't the Mocambo, Stork or Cotton Club, but the glitter was there. No, a photo would not have captured it, for it was in our eyes and minds: a glow of anticipation and excitement that lit up this  dreary dockside place on opening night. If there were stars, they were the members of Copenhagen's inner circle of jazz, men (pictured below) whose love for the music drove them to plan great things for the rest of us. Others—not pictured here, but certainly at the forefront of things—were Torben Ulrich, a tennis star who handled a clarinet with as much ease as he did a racket, Arnvid Meyer, his trumpeter and a future jazz archivist of great importance to jazz in Denmark, and Børge Roger-Henrichsen, a fine pianist who headed the Danish Radio's jazz department. There were others, like Anders Dyrup, and the circle was ever growing—the spark that seven years later would ignite the almost legendary Jazzhus Montmartre had been lit.

Of course, the Montmartre became known throughout the world, it was a place that began with New Orleans clarinetist George Lewis on the bandstand but soon became a venue that booked top contemporary players, like Dexter Gordon and Stan Getz. As we stood in line and slowly moved toward the entrance to Karl's club, we couldn't have imagined players of such stature paying Copenhagen more than a quick concert visit. But we weren't even thinking of such things, our minds were on this new adventure. The entrance, as I recall it, was a nondescript wood door, probably one step up from the street. It led to an outer room with a table on which sat a membership roster and a small cash box. A couple of people checked names and sold admission while Karl paced nervously and supervised the mounting of a crude sign over the door. It identified the room beyond as the "Storyville Club."  If I remember correctly, there was also a hastily drawn sign with a magic two-letter word: "ØL" That means beer, which was about all any of us could afford, but it was also a drink of choice. Here it was sold by the bottle, straight out of the wooden box.

The room itself was fairly large, with tables and chairs scattered about and a raised platform with an upright piano. So far, it was all anticipation, but that was thick enough to cut with a knife. Then something began to happen, guys were turning the raised platform into a bandstand. A month earlier, Karl had quietly entered the record business by recording trombonist Chris Barber with a young Danish group, The Ramblers. The four selections were released on a new label, Memory Jazz, around the time of the club opening. The band's leader was trumpeter Jeppe Esper Larsen, who quickly became the hottest local musician round, and now he was mounting that raised platform, instrument case in hand. Chris Barber was there, too, so you can imagine the excitement. I think I saw Karl smile, but I can't be sure.

Soon we all felt that we were, indeed, down by the riverside. At the time, I was working as an apprentice in the art department of Fona, a chain of music stores that covered the country and had several branches in Copenhagen. There were thus many display windows to be made attractive, and we did the artwork, which rotated among the branches, excluding the two huge windows of the main store, which were given special consideration.

One of our assistant branch managers was a guy named Eyvind Lindbo, nicknamed "Fesser". I had seen him a few times, when he came through the art department, but we never spoke, Imagine my surprise when I saw him at the Storyville Club opening, not just as a member, but as one of the "in" people. It took me a while, but I finally got up enough courage to approach him at the club and suggest that a more professional sign would look better over the entrance. He suggested that I make one.

The following Saturday, having spent a good part of the week working on it, I brought the club a new sign. Now the smile on Karl's face was unmistakable and he liked it so much that he asked if I might be able to come up with something to liven up the drab walls. This proved to be my ticket to the inner sanctum.

The inner circle.  On the far left is Boris Rabinowitsch, he was our first post war "modern" pianist, today he writes about the music. Behind him stands Jeppe, whose band performed with Chris Barber at Storyville's opening. That's Karl Emil Knudsen in the center and Bent Haandstad standing behind him, holding his magazine, Jazz Parade. The man seated on the left is J. A. Lakjer, he owned a jazz record shop and published a magazine called Jazz Revy. This was a December, 1952 summit meeting and I was still very much an unknown outsider.

Next week I will conclude this recollection of Karl and reminisce about the time when he brought to Denmark the Ken Colyer Jazz Men band, which I recorded for Storyville's first original release. I will also recall the "Riverboat Shuffle" that Karl created on Øresund, the sound that separates Denmark and Sweden at their closest point (there is now a bridge).  

Here is the first recording I made of the Colyer band, April 11, 1953, when it made a one-time appearance at Lorry's 7-9-13 Club, part of a Copenhagen entertainment complex that featured Alberta Hunter and other notables in the 1930s. This tape was not meant for release, I was really just testing the equipment (a B&O home recorder and a single ribbon microphone), but Karl and I found it worthy of distribution. 

Enjoy "Tiger Rag":

L to R: Monty Sunshine, Lonnie Donegan, Ken Colyer, Ron Bowden, Chris Barber, Jim Bray

Elmer Snowden's Harlem Banjo

I have brought this post back up front because I added another selection by this Elmer Snowden quartet. Here they are  Doin' the New Lowdown, which was quite different from doing the Down Low, as we know it today. I also found the only photo I have from the session, the quality is not the best, but it was scanned from Se & Hør, a Danish TV/Radio magazine that probably no longer exists. (BTW, the depicted packet of guitar string is from Elmer's shoebox)

If you have done some browsing on this blog, you may have come across the name of Elmer Snowden. He was the listener who called me during a show at WHAT and informed me that Lonnie Johnson was in Philadelphia. I subsequently recorded Lonnie and Elmer for the Prestige label and they appeared on my WHAT-FM show.

Elmer's name is not as well known as Lonnie's, but he was a man without whom the history of jazz would be different. That is mainly because it was Elmer who brought Duke Ellington to New York, from Washington, D.C. and eventually allowed him to take over his band, The Washingtonians. That was nearly ninety years ago. More recently, fifty years ago, I suggested to Bill Grauer—my boss and founder of Riverside Records—that we do an album with Elmer.

Bill had a passion for early jazz and Elmer's name was one of those mystical once people read after blowing the dust away. Thinking of him as an old man who hadn't been heard from in several years and at this point probably had only his memories to offer, Bill suggested the kind of album one was most likely to find on Moe Asche's  Folkways label. "Have him talk about the old days and strum a few examples," he said. I knew that we could come up with an album that would surprise and delight him, so I just nodded and began thinking of a suitable group.

Click on image to enlarge

It wasn't as easy as I had thought it would be. It seemed logical to have Ray Bryant on piano, for Elmer had been a mentor to him and his older brother, Tommy, back in Philadelphia. "Elmer always booked me when he had a gig," Ray once told me. "We played weddings and all kinds of parties, and when there was no piano, Elmer had me banging on the bongos." As it turned out, two sessions with Ray's working trio didn't work out. I added Garvin Bushell and Gene Sedric on one of them, but the sound I had in mind just wasn't there, so I aborted both sessions, leaving six hitherto unissued tracks. They are probably boxed in some dark corner of a Concord Records vault. 

Then I remembered that Elmer had spoken of The Red Hot Eskimos, a trio or quartet  that he led and did rent party gigs with during the Depression. That led me to the idea of having Cliff Jackson play piano, Elmer's eyes lit up. "That's it!", he said, "Cliff knows what to do." He explained that he used to hire Jackson to front a Snowden band back in the days when business was booming and he had as many as four running concurrently. Before long, we had Tommy Bryant, Ray's older brother, on bass, and Jimmy Crawford the old Lunceford drummer moving it all along. This was the group we did our third session with, and it worked—we hit our stride, so to speak.

A few months later, I did get Elmer and Ray into the studio for a successful session, with Bud Freeman and another Snowden alumnus, Roy Eldridge, as well as Tommy on bass and Jo Jones on drums. I also did a solo album with Cliff Jackson (whose wife was Maxine Sullivan) and we did a couple of Prestige sessions at Rudy Van Gelder's studio. 

Getting back to the Riverside album, I named it "Harlem Banjo!" and Bill Grauer was, indeed, happily surprised when he heard it.  I have to confess that I never cared much for the banjo as a jazz instrument, but I had never before heard it played the way Elmer did it—he took it to another level. Well, you be the judge. Here is Running Wild from that session. I would really like to hear what you think, so please leave a comment.

Here is the second selection, Doin' the New Lowdown:

My interview with Bill Evans - 1972

This interview with Bill was taped in 1972, when he brought his trio to my weekly TV show, The Jazz Set. Bill and I first met at Riverside Records in 1960. Back then, he looked more like an accountant than a jazz musician, but times change and we try to keep up by adopting trendy looks that eventually become laughable. Here, our long hair is a dead giveaway and my outfit is cringe-inducing. For some reason, I am not smoking during this interview, but most of the shows (we did 26, I think) show me puffing away on that Tareyton with the smoke all but obscuring the face of my guest. Giving it up about 35 years ago was one the wisest decisions I ever made.

The clip I originally posted here came from somebody's account on YouTube. It was subsequently withdrawn due to the uploader's copyright infringements, I think. Thanks to my good friend, John Francis, that situation has now been remedied. He managed to find a copy and gave me my very own. This is from a Japanese DVD release and it looks like it is legitimate, although I was never contacted. At least the credits are correct. One problem, however, I still have not figured out how to post properly synced videos from a DVD. On my computer, video and audio are perfectly matched, but when I get it here, there is a problem. Hope you can enjoy it, anyway. If anyone can tell me what I am doing wrong, please don't hesitate.

Ruby Walker: The Van Vechten party

This relates to a previous post wherein I include a segment from my Bessie Smith biography that describes a party that Bessie and Ruby attended at Car Van Vechten's midtown apartment. You can read that post here: Ruby and Bessie Meet Carlo,  so I won't repeat that, but here is that party described by Ruby in the series of interviews I did for the book, forty years ago. It is one of four recollections that I studied and from which I pieced together my own account of that festive, surprise-filled April evening in 1928. 

Before you listen to Ruby's account, read Van Vechten's own description of Bessie's appearance, which is taken from a 1947 issue of Jazz Record magazine and, understandably, leaves out a few details:

George Gershwin was there and Marguerite d’Alvarez and Constance Collier, possibly Adele Astaire. The drawing room was well filled with sophisticated listeners. Before she could sing, Bessie wanted a drink. She asked for a glass of straight gin, and with one gulp she downed a glass holding nearly a pint. Then, with a burning cigarette depending from one corner of her mouth, she got down to the blues, really down to ‘em, with Porter at the piano. I am quite certain that anybody who was present that night will never forget it. This was no actress, no imitator of a woman’s woes; there was no pretense. It was the real thing—a woman cutting her heart open with a knife until it was exposed for us all to see, so that we suffered as she suffered, exposed with a rhythmic ferocity, indeed, which could hardly be borne. In my own experience, this was Bessie Smith’s greatest performance.

Porter Grainger

You will hear Ruby mention Porter Grainger several times. He was Bessie's pianist and musical director at that time and he was anxious to get in with the Van Vechten crowd, so Bessie made her appearance as a favor to Porter, who she had regarded with more than professional interest. Mr. Grainger was flexible, but he did have his preferences. I should point out that Ruby had never met Carl Van Vechten, but when I mentioned his name, it triggered her memory of the party. In her mind, the event had taken place at one of the posh midtown hotels—"the Waldorf or the Astor"—because Ruby had never seen a private home so luxuriously appointed. This was also the first time she saw a white maid, it shocked her.
Here's how Ruby remembered the Van Vechten party.