Jazz Focus
Exploring the highways and byways of Classic Recorded Jazz - from the Ragtime era to the day before yesterday!
Episodes
Early sessions produced by Norman Granz for his Clef label featuring great Swing Era Stars - the Gene Krupa Sextet has Charlie Shavers, Bill Harris, Ben Webster, Teddy Wilson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and the leader while the various Hodges groups have Emmett Berry, Lawrence Brown, Hodges, Webster, Leroy Lovett, Cal Cobbs, Osie Johnson and others all playing standards and originals!
The original wild man of jazz - Purvis was an extraordinarily gifted trumpet player who spent time with most of the great white players of the pre-swing era and led several dates. Here he is with his own groups (with J.C. Higginbotham, Coleman Hawkins, Frank Froeba and Adrian Rollini among others), Hal Kemp and His Orchestra, Ben Selvin and His Orchestra, Rube Bloom's Bayou Boys (with Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman) and Frank Froe...
Three sessions all featuring Art Hodes, with Bechet on two . . the Art Hodes Blue Five with Max Kaminsky (tpt), Mezz Mezzrow (clt), Pops Foster (sb) and Danny Alvin (drums), the Hodes Hot Five with Wild Bill Davison (c), Sidney Bechet (clarinet and soprano sax), Foster and Freddie Moore (d) and the Sidney Bechet Blue Note Jazz Men with Davison, Hodes, Walter Page (sb) and Moore. Terrific New Orleans-Chicago-New York dixieland!
Uncharacteristic sessions from two musicians unfairly pigeon-holed as dixielanders . . here playing superb mainstream Jazz with much more modern-sounding rhythm sections . .Russell's clarinet is heard with Buck Clayton (trumpet), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Wendell Marshall (bass), J.C. Heard (drums) and Freeman is on tenor with Shorty Baker (trumpet), Claude Hopkins (piano), George Duvivier (bass) and Heard.
Rex Stewart and His Orchestra - a septet of fine musicians touring France, Sweden and Germany in late 1947 through 1948. Great arrangments fo swing tunes, novelties, some dixieland and even some bebop with Stewart, Sandy Williams (tbn), John Harris (clt and alto), Vernon Story (tenor), Don Gais (p), Fred Emelin and Ladislas Czabanyck (bass), Ted Curry (drums) and Stewart and Honey Johnson on vocals
Some of the New Orleans trumpet player's first recordings after being rediscovered . . with Kid Ory's band (Mutt Carey on cornet, Kid Ory on trombone, Wade Whaley on clarinet, Buster Wilson on piano, Frank Pasley on guitar), Ed Garland on bass, Everett Walsh on drums), Lu Watters Yerba Buena band (Watters on trumpet, Turk Murphy on trombone, Ellis Horne on clarinet Burt Bales on piano, Pat Patton on banjo, Squire Girsback on bass, ...
Clarence Williams records not released under his name . . The Dixie Washboard Band, Bluegrass Feet Warmers and Seven Gallon Jug Band. .featuring Ed Allen, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Buster Bailey, Carmelo Jari, Cyrus St. Clair, Floyd Casey, Benny Moten, Jasper Taylor, Arville Harris and others!
Three great mainstream sessions featuring the great Texas/Basie tenor sound of Buddy Tate (and clarinet on one number) with Claude Hopkins and Tommy Flanagan on piano, Emmett Berry, Joe Thomas and Clark Terry on trumpets, Wendell Marshall and Larry Gales on bass, J.C. Heard, Osie Johnson and Art Taylor on drums
Great small group sides made by the New Orleans pianist and entrepreneur Williams featuring many great black Jazz players of the day including Bubber Miley, Ed Allen, Tommy Ladnier and Louis Metcalf (trumpet), Joe Nanton and Charlie Irvis (trombone), Arville Harris, Ben Whitted, Don Redman, Buster Bailey and Coleman Hawkins (reeds), Leroy Harris and Buddy Christian (banjo), Cyrus St. Clair (tuba) and Floyd Casey (drums) with Eva Ta...
Drawn from three albums for Delmark and GHB, these records capture this classic trad band at its peak . . originating as a campus band at Purdue in the late 1940's, the Salty Dogs became the Original Salty Dogs by the mid 1950's and were one of the top two or three groups in the genre for decades. Here, Lew Green (cornet), Jim Snyder (trombone), Kim Cusack (clarinet and alto), John Cooper (piano), Bob Sundstrom (banjo and vocals),...
Recordings by the Clarence Williams Blue Five and Red Onion Jazz Babies featuring Louis Armstrong during the year he spent in New York with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. Also involved are Charlie Irvis and Aaron Thompson (tbn), Sidney Bechet, Buster Bailey, Don Redman and Coleman Hawkins (reeds), Lil Armstrong (piano), Buddy Christian (banjo) and Eva Taylor, Alberta Hunter and Clarence Todd on vocals
Some of the early New Orleans Revival recordings by Kid Ory's band - for Exner and Decca in 1945 and Columbia in 1946. Featuring Mutt Carey (c), Ory (tbn), Joe Darensbourg and Barney Bigard (clarinet), Buster Wilson (p), Bud Scott (bjo and guitar), Ed Garland (sb), Minor Hall or Alton Redd (d), vocals by Ory, Cecile Ory, Darensbourg and Helen Andrews.
Louis' regular band in Chicago recorded several dates in January and April of 1933 for Victor with tunes he had popularized as well as come new pop material. In addition to his singing and playing (definitely at a peak, despite reputed chops trouble), we hear Keg Johnson on trombone, Scoville Brown on alto, Budd Johnson on tenor, Teddy Wilson and Charlie Beal on piano, Mike McKendrick on guitar and Yank Porter, Sid Catlett and Har...
Some sides for Hi-Lo and Dee Gee by the Milt Jackson Quartet at the beginning of the career of the Modern Jazz Quartet followed by the actual group in one of its first recording sessions for Prestige - with Milt Jackson on vibes, John Lewis on piano, Percy Heath and Ray Brown on bass, and Kenny Clarke and Al Jones on drums, standards an originals!
Great series of recordings featuring the legendary trumpet player (also on trombone and vocals) with a seasoned bunch of Southside Chicago jazz players - Omer Simeon, George James, Cassino Simpson, Earl Frazier, Banjo Ikey Robinson, Hayes Alvis and Lawson Buford. All tunes by Jabbo Smith!
Great and largely forgotten alto player in his first recordings under his own name (for Blue Note) with Horace Silver, Blue Mitchell, Gene Ramey and Art Taylor and live at the Birdland with the Art Blakey Quintet, with Clifford Brown, Silver, Curley Russell and Blakey creating some of the best late period bebop.
Hal Kemp led an excellent student band at the University of North Carolina in the early 1920's that stayed together after graduation, travelling to England in 1925 and making their first recordings. By late 1927 the band was a professional unit in New York, highly regarded for its precision ensemble work and hot dance stylings - while there were no significant soloists (although trumpeter Bob Mayhew, reed players Joe Gillespie and...
Two early sessions for the Jazzology/Circle label - the 1949 session was in fact the first for that label, featuring Tony Parenti's New Orleanians, with the New Orleans clarinetist leading Davison on cornet, Jimmy Archey on trombone, Art Hodes on piano, Pops Foster on bass and Art Trappier on drums. The 1955 session has Davison in charge with Parenti and Foster and joined by Lou McGarity on trombone, Hank Duncan on piano and Zutty...
Bunk Johnson's New Orleans Jazz Band as they were performing at the Stuyvesant Casino in November 1945-January 1946 . . Johnson on trumpet, Jim Robinson on trombone, George Lewis on clarinet, Alton Purnell on piano, Lawrence Marrero on banjo, Slow Drag Pavageau on bass and Baby Dodd on drums recording for Decca, Victor and AFRS.
Great if largely unheralded sax player and arranger whose career stretched from Louis Armstrong through Quincy Jones is here featured on tenor, baritone and soprano on several sessions, including under his own name (with his brother Keg Johnson on trombone), pianist Claude Hopkins (with Bobby Johnson on trumpet and Vic Dickenson on trombone), Jimmy Rushing (with pianist Dave Frishberg and tenor sax Al Cohn), and Milt Hinton (with J...
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