Jacob Rex Zimmerman

Jacob Rex Zimmerman

As his website explains, Jacob Zimmerman is a sax and clarinet player based in Seattle. He's 32, and he has two records out focusing on jazz as it was played in the 1940s. The earlier one, Recording Ban, refers to the stoppage to commercial recording imposed by union boss James Petrillo, starting in August 1, 1942 and ending in 1943-44 (depending on the record label). The title of his latest record, More of That, sounds like a reference to the previous one, delving as it does in music from around those years.

Revivalism in jazz in a tricky subject, open to all sorts of questions, starting with whether it should be done at all. For the epicurean listener who enjoys the records of that kind of music, the chance to hear it re-recorded or, better still, live, will always be welcome, despite the obvious risk for disappointment, proportional to the listener's familiarity with the originals on record.

Notes on Charlie Christian's centennial

Today it's the 100th anniversary of Charlie Christian's birthday. For a special 2h30m programme we've done (in Spanish) in El Club de Jazz, I've spent the last few months re-visiting his complete output (except for a very few items, such as Bill Savory's airchecks housed at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem). My playlist tells me that it's 239 tracks long—about 13 hours straight—including the ones where Christian's presumed to play with Benny Goodman's orchestra. On top of that, I've listened to other guitar players (Bus Etri doing "Flying Home" in 1940, anyone?), plus a generous helping of string music from Texas and Oklahoma also known as Western Swing.

Charlie Christian at the Metronome All-Star session
February 7, 1940. Courtesy of Leo Valdés.

Because it is unavoidable that some of the same old stories will be regurgitated for the centennial, I've jotted down a few notes about CC: