Bird quotes Satchmo

When Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie burst into the jazz scene in the mid-1940s, much was made of the presumed animosity between the new and the older generations of musicians. Although there were some noises in that direction, let's just say that jazz journalism paid too much attention to celebrity status, fans and gossip.

Back in 1928, Louis Armstrong recorded this classic cadenza as the opening for his "West End Blues":

Charlie Parker must have been listening, since he used it twenty years after Armstrong, at least twice on record, both times while playing the blues, one at Carnegie Hall on Christmas day, 1949:

the other at St. Nicholas Arena in New York (St. Nick's), a couple of months later:

PS 2022-03-25: And a third one, on May 30, 1953, at Birdland with Bud Powell on piano and Charles Mingus on bass.

Billie Holiday, Club Bali... and the Internet

It’s funny how some people sometimes long for the great filters of olden days, when there was no internet, from record producers and publicists who had some influence on what music was commercially released or not, to professional journalists and editors who produced well-written, fact-checked copy. Those filters were by no means perfect, but they had their role.

Consider this picture. It was, probably still is, one of the first results when you type “Ray Bauduc”, “Walter Page” or “Claude Hopkins” on the world’s most-used search engine (owners of the blog-platform you’re reading this on). Those are minor names in the great scheme of Western culture. If you type “Billie Holiday”, you’ll probably see this picture too sooner than later.

Thing is, those are not Ray Bauduc, Walter Page or Claude Hopkins.

Free historic materials, plenty of videos, and some Satchmo news...

The Internet is like a huge highway with few reliable signposts. You can drive everywhere, but how can we know which places are worth a visit?

Not that I know the answer, but Franz Hoffmann and Mark Cantor have demonstrated along the years that their work is detailed, reliable and done with the utmost care. The fact that it has been used time and time again with a lot of researchers, writers, and other people interested in jazz, is the best proof we can have.

So, why are Hoffmann and Cantor known for? 

Franz Hoffmann, from Germany, has compiled several collection of adverts from several American newspapers—New York Age, Baltimore Afro-American, New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, The New York Times, Pittsburgh Courier, and The (New York) Village Voice, 1901-1967—and made them into books and sell them (they're available on CD-ROM from Norbert Ruecker's Jazz Book Shop). The idea is simple, but by executing it he has made available a staggering  amount of precise information about gigs and other news, and he has also revealed a well-defined picture of the extraordinary musical life in America. He's also the author of bio-discographies of Henry 'Red' Allen and J.C. Higginbotham, as well as other assorted research, such as Art Ford's jazz TV programmes.

The good news is that now all that is available free, on line. The ads are here, and the Allen/Higginbotham, as well as other bits, are here. He also has his own channel on YouTube, where he has uploaded over 400 rare recordings, mostly accompanied by relevant images from his ad collections. The channel is Kanal von Hoffmannjazz.

As for Mark Cantor, when it comes to old music films, mainly jazz, but also other genres, he's just the man everybody calls. In brief, any serious work with old footage in it is likely to have Cantor on board. One of the things that distinguishes him is his knack for identifying everyone on screen and unveiling every possible tidbit of information. Mark's introduction to his website is here, and a healthy selection of his work can be found here. 

This, for instance, is a great example of what Mark does:

Jack Teagarden playing "Lover" was one of the highlights of a classic Louis Armstrong recording at Boston's Symphony Hall in 1947. That was the year that the rest of Satchmo's life began, so to speak, and it also marked the launch of the All-Stars in earnest. We also have the Town Hall concert from that same year, but the gig in Boston is my favourite, and the sort of record everyone should have at home (here it is on Spotify, MySpace, and iTunes).

The good news from the jazz grapevine is that Universal and the Louis Armstrong Museum in Queens are working on a complete edition of that concert, with previously unissued material. It will come out as a Hip-O Select set and it promises to be something else. 

Satchmo on Sunday

There's always something special in duets between a vocalist and an instrumentalist. Neither has anywhere to hide, but they do have more space to stretch out and more flexibility to accommodate each other. 

Whatever your taste, Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson and Herb Ellis are phenomenal musicians. Hearing them in this setting is just a delight. Both duets come from the 1957 Verve album Louis Armstrong meets Oscar Peterson (Verve/Universal 0602498840283).

Louis Armstrong (vocals) & Oscar Peterson (piano): "What's New?" (on MySpace / on Spotify)

Louis Armstrong (vocals) & Herb Ellis (guitar): "There's No You" (on MySpace / on Spotify)

PS: Go here for a more thorough post on "There's No You" by wunderkind Satchmologist Ricky Riccardi, whose book on Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World, is out now on paperback.