Bands Music

Normally I like to have an entire broadcast, with all the ads and everything. But I have the 2 broadcasts of the Crosby Band put out on the Jazz Band label 2159-2, and that's all the complete Camel Caravan I need, thank you very much! It's just like modern TV, just as brain-dead - OK, the music is better...And the fact that it's an archaic version doesn't make it that much more charming. It's scripted to death...Anyway, here is the music and nothing but from 9 Camel Caravan 1939 broadcasts. The most interesting special aspects are Joe Sullivan's pianism and some of Johnny Mercer's vocals. Mr. Savannah, Georgia manages to sing some current riff-oriented Black pop in a strong Southern accent without sounding like a racist in Blackface - a major achievement in itself. And then when New Orleans - born Nappy Lamare joins him American regional speech has a field day! Their version of Calloway's The Jumping Jive has to be heard to be believed - can we get Sting and Paul Simon on Saturday Night Live to sing some Jay - Z hits? Or maybe that's already happened...What makes this even more interesting are the statements by Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart that the Crosby Band resented the pressure, as the '30's changed to the '40's, to add more riff-based music to their repertoire. This puts a whole other spin on what hears on these broadcasts. Is the Dixieland music on this set so much more authentic and believable? Some of the Bobcats tracks sound like routine revivalist stuff, obviously really well played, but in my opinion the best music on this set comes from the tension between the Big Band language and the Dixieland elements - a hard balance to maintain! Bugle Call Rag achieves this, as do a few other tracks. And when the Crosby band is really playing then they're WAILING! I find myself fascinated by this band, although they frustrate me too. They never integrated at all, even after such mainstream icons as Dorsey and Artie Shaw had. They paid endless tribute to Black Music, but what did they think of the racial landscape? Did they think they were above and beyond it? Sudhalter's book Lost Chords denigrates John Hammond as a Crow Jim liberal, but where would we without his and others' conscious efforts to think about race and its relation to Jazz? Whenever I hear the Bobcats great track Call Me A Taxi, I think about how many of their heroes couldn't dream of naming a tune that.