Swing Music

Most of this CD consists of recordings made by Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy, including Mary Lou Williams on the piano. Instrumentals include Lotta Sax Appeal, Mess-a-Stomp, Blue Clarinet Stomp, Cloudy, Somepin' Slow and Low, Snag It, Sweet and Hot, Mary's Idea, Corky Stomp, Gettin' Off a Mess, and best of all, Froggy Bottom. Mary Lou Williams also does Margie as a piano solo. We also get some really fine songs, the best of which have Billy Massey doing the vocals: I Lost My Gal From Memphis, Loose Ankles, Honey Just For You, Once or Twice, and You Rascal You. Once or Twice is a fun song, written in response to the song, Four or Five Times, performed by Earl Hines. Later, Cab Calloway recorded an answer to both songs, called Six or Seven Times. The rendition on this album of You Rascal You is in the hokum style and makes an interesting contrast to the way it's done by Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway. Toward the end of the album, we are treated to the dynamic Blanche Calloway and her Joy Boys. Blanche, Cab's big sister, was the first woman to lead an all-male band. She sings I Need Lovin' and There's Rhythm in the River. Both bands perform Casey Jones Special. This is a treasure of a CD!

Every one of the Classics Discs of Ethel Waters, covering her recordings from 1921-1947, is worth owning for different reasons. If I had to pick a favorite, though, this one might be it. Although it has none of her best known hits, it has some of the finest singing she ever did, and in this reviewer's opinion, that ranks as some of the finest singing ever put on record. Waters diction, dramatic skill and unerring sense of timing are all well in evidence here, but what comes across particularly strongly in this record is her sheer ebullience and confidence. Nothing seems out of her power or range, and on this disc she does it all, from rather treacly ballads like "Three Little Words" and "Memories of You", which she transforms into something touching, to swing numbers like "I Got Rhythm" and "Second Handed Man", from humor in "I Like The Way He Does It" and "Better Keep an Eye on Your Man" to real heartbreak in "When Your Lover Has Gone", and everything in between. No one else (except possibly Ella Fitzgerald) expressed the sense of joy Waters brings to songs like "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" or "Do I Know What I'm Doing", and no other singer has ever had the combination of rhythm, melodic sense, improvisation and sly humor that make songs like "Second Handed Man" and "I Like the Way He Does It" still delightful, and far more than just double entendre leftovers. Confidence? In "Long, Lean and Lanky Mama", this black woman sings, in the late 1920's, "Blondes, brunettes and redheads, too, Of each I've had, quite a few, And now I want the world to know, I'm looking for a brand new beau...." (!) One can argue about the degree of parody in "Memories of You" or that "Without that Man" is a little too weepy, but with those possible exceptions, the disc is a treasure from start to finish. Of particular note in a disc full of gems are "Second Handed Man", "I Like The Way He Does It", "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" (wondrous), "When Your Lover Has Gone" and "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone". Her version of "I Got Rhythm" is the highlight of a brilliant disc - she shows Merman who's got rhythm, playing with tempos and words with each verse, bending the melody, scatting marvelously, doing a duet with Manny Klein on trumpet and clearly having a ball with a superb band that includes Klein and the Dorsey brothers. Great, great stuff - still a revelation after all these years.

Most of this CD consists of recordings made by Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy, including Mary Lou Williams on the piano. Instrumentals include Lotta Sax Appeal, Mess-a-Stomp, Blue Clarinet Stomp, Cloudy, Somepin' Slow and Low, Snag It, Sweet and Hot, Mary's Idea, Corky Stomp, Gettin' Off a Mess, and best of all, Froggy Bottom. Mary Lou Williams also does Margie as a piano solo. We also get some really fine songs, the best of which have Billy Massey doing the vocals: I Lost My Gal From Memphis, Loose Ankles, Honey Just For You, Once or Twice, and You Rascal You. Once or Twice is a fun song, written in response to the song, Four or Five Times, performed by Earl Hines. Later, Cab Calloway recorded an answer to both songs, called Six or Seven Times. The rendition on this album of You Rascal You is in the hokum style and makes an interesting contrast to the way it's done by Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway. Toward the end of the album, we are treated to the dynamic Blanche Calloway and her Joy Boys. Blanche, Cab's big sister, was the first woman to lead an all-male band. She sings I Need Lovin' and There's Rhythm in the River. Both bands perform Casey Jones Special. This is a treasure of a CD!

Most of this CD consists of recordings made by Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy, including Mary Lou Williams on the piano. Instrumentals include Lotta Sax Appeal, Mess-a-Stomp, Blue Clarinet Stomp, Cloudy, Somepin' Slow and Low, Snag It, Sweet and Hot, Mary's Idea, Corky Stomp, Gettin' Off a Mess, and best of all, Froggy Bottom. Mary Lou Williams also does Margie as a piano solo. We also get some really fine songs, the best of which have Billy Massey doing the vocals: I Lost My Gal From Memphis, Loose Ankles, Honey Just For You, Once or Twice, and You Rascal You. Once or Twice is a fun song, written in response to the song, Four or Five Times, performed by Earl Hines. Later, Cab Calloway recorded an answer to both songs, called Six or Seven Times. The rendition on this album of You Rascal You is in the hokum style and makes an interesting contrast to the way it's done by Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway. Toward the end of the album, we are treated to the dynamic Blanche Calloway and her Joy Boys. Blanche, Cab's big sister, was the first woman to lead an all-male band. She sings I Need Lovin' and There's Rhythm in the River. Both bands perform Casey Jones Special. This is a treasure of a CD!

Pelo fato de ter sido uma pessoa absolutamente normal durante toda sua longa carreira, Carter não costuma ser muito festejado nos meios jazzísticos. Sem a ira dionisíaca de um Charles Mingus, sem a excentricidade esquizofrênica de um Thelonious Monk e sem o sorriso perigoso de Duke Ellington, Carter dificilmente é citado como um dos maiores músicos do jazz. É grande o engano ou flagrante a injustiça colocá-lo no segundo escalão.

Carter é, entre outras coisas, o melhor arranjador da transição entre as décadas de 1920 e 1930, época em que Heisenberg proclamava o princípio da incerteza na Física. Tendo aprendido o ofício da orquestração por conta própria, chegou a rivalizar e até mesmo superar alguns mestres da época, como Don Redman. Fugindo ao modelo de sucesso fácil oferecido pelo swing, estilo que assolava o EUA nesses tempos, Carter construiu uma obra genial com humildade, independência e sensibilidade. Sua obra somente pode ser comparada à montanhesca criação da dupla Ellington & Strayhorn. Ao contrário do trabalho de Ellington, essencialmente instrumental, as composições de Carter são extremamente `cantáveis', característica que comprova sua veia de grande solista.

Além do trabalho como arranjador e compositor, Carter era um exímio instrumentista, capaz de cantar, tocar piano, trombone, trompete e os saxofones soprano, alto e tenor. Embora excelente trompetista, foi com o sax alto que Carter se destaca como um dos mais importantes improvisadores do jazz: suave, doce e tranqüilo, nem mesmo a velocidade assustadora imposta por Charlie Parker foi capaz de ofuscar a beleza de seus solos. Sua sonoridade única influenciou vários mestres do saxofone, entre eles Sonny Rollins. Carter era o tipo de pessoa que, assim como o inigualável Lester Young, apesar de negro, nunca teve vergonha ou malícia em negar a profunda influência recebida de Frank Trumbauer, um excepcional saxofonista branco renegado no jazz por sua cor. Para Carter a beleza da música estava acima do racismo irracional.

Carter provou com seu trabalho que nem toda música doce e agradável é necessariamente música de elevador ou de consultório dentário. Sua obra comprova que a música pode ser inteligente e complexa sem ser necessariamente chata e inaudível. Ele sabia, mais e melhor que todos nós, que o sucesso obedece cegamente ao princípio da incerteza, principalmente When Lights Are Low. Mas o mestre, é claro, não se importava com isso.

Somewhat spotty because of the inclusion of too many dreadful tunes of the day, this CD, the first on Red in the Classics series, also has two of Red's very best sides: "It should be you" and "Swing out." Just having these two recordings is worth some of the dregs that are also here.

I've waited for this reissue for over 20 years. I found Joe Robichaux's "Stormy Weather" on 78 at a house sale, and the vitality and drive of the recording kept me wanting more. It was one of the best jazz bands I'd ever heard--New Orleans meets Swing for the first (and probably last) time.

There was an LP set, which was way out of print by the time I discovered it. Then, about five years ago, I found the Document CD--which I was thankful to have. But the people at Document tend to truncate the frequencies, and I knew there was much more music in the grooves than on that reissue. (The Document CD does contain two alternate takes not available on the Jazz Oracle, which keeps it from becoming obsolete).

You can imagine my delight when, by sheer chance, I managed to find an advance copy of the new Jazz Oracle reissue on eBay. Very shortly before, I'd complained on my RADIOLA! program about the inadequacy of the Document remasters and begged for a label such as Jazz Oracle to reissue the recordings as they should be heard. Well, in the new reissue, I've gotten everything I wanted. Ted Kendall, a protege of the great John R. T. Davies, has managed to transfer the full range of music to this disc. It's the next best thing to having the original shellac records and the proper stylus and equalization to play them--and a great deal less expensive.

You hear the pulse of life here, and experience the deep joy of being a human being on this planet with each selection. I would have loved to have heard this band live--but this CD will more than suffice. Yowzah!