Happy festivities and a musical suggestion

Part of my friends and readers, those in the Southern hemisphere, are about to celebrate the Summer, not Winter, Solstice (you dirty rats!), and the end of the year it's just a convention, but be it because days grow shorter on this side of the world, or because most of us will be on a break from work, or for cultural reasons, this is a time for reflection or celebration. So do reflect, and whatever you celebrate, have a great one.

I wasn't really planning on recommending any music for this time of the year. Best-of-the-year lists abound, and there's all the Christmas-y stuff. It'd feel like choosing more candy on top of all the candy we're all being shoved down our throats. 

But then I came across the video about Bob Brookmeyer (see previous entry), and I suddenly heard Jack Teagarden. With strings. In a record I didn't have a clue about. It has Teagarden's voice and trombone, arrangements by Claus Ogerman, Brookmeyer, and Russ Case, and, surprisingly, the tunes are by Willard Robison, whose name is probably less known than some of his tunes, like "Old Folks" or "Cottage for Sale".

The record is Think Well of Me (Verve V6 8465 in stereo, V-8465 in mono) recorded and released in 1962. It was reissued as a limited edition on CD (Verve 314 557 101-2, from 1998, there are second-hand copies around), and it's also on Spotify. There are several uploads on YouTube, and I have compiled this playlist:

Jack Teagarden - Think Well of Me on YouTube

Have a great one, best wishes for 2014, and "see" you then.

February 7, 1940: A busy day at the office

So, February 7, 1940. The war is going on in Europe, but Pearl Harbor is almost two years away. At the same time, in Manhattan, Metronome magazine has called in the best jazz musicians according to their readers to wax a couple of tunes, a big band take on "King Porter Stomp", and a blues called "All-Star Strut" by a reduced group of nine, presumably the winner in each instrument category.

This kind of pick-up bands are interesting insofar as they differ from our point of view. Two tenor saxes and no Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young or Ben Webster? (OK, Hawkins was just back from Europe, but "Body and Soul" was already out!) A pianist who's not Art Tatum? Jimmie Blanton is not on bass? Not a single member from the Ellington or Basie bands?!!! Quite a travesty, yes, but besides this being a selection being a different time in history, although the swing years are normally presented as an "era" when jazz was popular, it'd be probably fairer to say that popular music was, often but not always, soaked in jazz.

In any case, the men were (in italics, the members of the nonet):

TRUMPETS: Harry James, Ziggy Elman, and Charlie Spivak;

TROMBONES: Jack Teagarden and Jack Jenney;

REEDS: Benny Goodman on clarinet; Benny Carter, and Toots Mondello on alto sax; Eddie Miller, and Charlie Barnet on tenor sax;

RHYTHM: Charlie Christian on the electric guitar; Jess Stacy on piano; Bob Haggart on bass; and Gene Krupa on drums.

ARRANGER: Fletcher Henderson.

Luckily there several pictures from this session (click on them to enlarge). This one, because Christian is still wearing his hat, and Krupa has his jacket still on, as well as their relative positions, may come from the beginning of the session

Charlie Christian, Gene Krupa
(from Leo Valdés's site)