This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And for this time no witty lyrics, no dirty blues and no love songs - we're going instrumental today. There are thousands of insturmentals still to be played in this program, and mostly they don't get any farther than the background music behind my talking. So every now and then it's time to give them some more exposure - so here it goes. And we're starting with a pretty late one, from 1957, on the RCA label. Rock to the trumpet of Cootie Williams with the Block Rock.
01 - Cootie Williams - Block Rock.mp3
02 - Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds Of Joy - Blue Clarinet Stomp.mp3
And just like that we made a jump back to 1929. The Blue Clarinet Stomp was released on the Brunswick label and that was a composition of the regular pianist, composer and arranger of Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy, Mary-Lou Williams and of course this was the band of Andy Kirk that you heard. Mary-Lou Williams was a very talented piano player, a child prodigy and at the age of seven she already performed in public in her home town Pittsburgh. It was her husband John Williams, who played in the Twelve Clouds of Joy, well he introduced her to Andy Kirk, first as a songwriter and later also as a pianist. This was recorded in Kansas City - the home base of the Clouds.
Next a pianist whom I mentioned just last week when I played a thirties recording of Mabel Scott - Bob Mosely. He had toured Europe with Mabel and together they recorded two sides for the British Parlophone label. The war brought them back to America where they settled at the west coast - Mosely joined Jack McVea's band but on the Apollo label where McVea was under contract he also did a few piano solos under his own name.
So here is Bobbie's Boogie.
03 - Bob Mosley - Bobbie's Boogie.mp3
04 - Ike Quebec - I.Q. Blues (Blue Harlem).mp3
(jingle)
05 - Bill Doggett - Smokie.mp3
06 - Jack Surrell - Detroit Boogie.mp3
And that were four in a row, after Bob Mosley's storming boogie woogie you got the I.Q. Blues of Ike Quebec and that was from August 1945 released on the Savoy label. Now this is one of the instrumentals that I've tried to play on my own saxophone but I never been able to master the tune - just way too complex for me. Ike has a warm style that I anyhow never could have come close to. Actually listeners, I'm a lousy sax player I'm afraid and I get way too little opportunity to practice here in that small late twenties apartment in a crowded Dutch city.
Well then you got the jingle and after that Bill Doggett with Smokie on the King label and finally Jack Surrell pounded his Detroit Boogie on the piano, and he recorded that for the Sensation label that was one of the few small recording companies in the Motor City. Detroit definitely had a thriving Rhythm & Blues scene but unlike Chicago there were no major record labels active there. So there's no such extensive coverage of the legends that played the local clubs as there was in Chicago, or Los Angeles or New York. It wasn't until Berry Gordy stirred things up and founded his Motown label that African American talents got their way to nationwide fame, but then we're talking 1959 and a whole generation of Rhythm & Blues artists had remained undiscovered.
Next alto saxophonist Tab Smith whose career started with Lucky Millinder and Count Basie but from the forties he had his own combo. He did quite some sides for J. Mayo Williams' independent labels Harlem and Ebony but this music is quite rare now as Mayo Williams' labels didn't sell and hardly any of this material has been re-released. His output on the United label from the fifties is much easier to get. This is from in between and released on the Manor label. It's a bit of an unusual high tempo jazzy side where a lot of Tab Smith's output is eh... I think somewhat on the cheesy side. Well, here is the Red Rider.
07 - Tab Smith - Red Rider.mp3
08 - Jay Mcshann Orchestra - Bucktown Boogie.mp3
The Bucktown Boogie of Jay McShann recorded in 1947 for the Mercury label. McShann made his best impression during the war years when he led his own big band, but in '44 he was drafted into the army. He got his discharge that same year but the band had broke up and the big band days were over. For the rest of the forties he led smaller combos and this was one of his efforts of these days.
And for the next one we go back to Detroit with Todd Rhodes and his combo the Toddlers. For the Sensation label he had done a series of instrumentals featuring the "Red Boy" in the title - starting the Blues for the Red Boy. That one was leased to the Chicago based Vitacoustic label, that suddenly had become hot and promising because of a major pop hit they had with the Harmonicats, a band playing harmonica music. On their ambitious race series that they wanted to launch, this instrumental was a good addition, but the label went bankrupt due to financial mismanagement and the Red Boy master ended up at the King label in Cincinnatti that made it the hit sensation of 1949. King signed Rhodes but they got troubles with the Sensation label where he also was under contract, so Rhodes had to wait for his contract at Sensation to be expired before he could go to King. And so the sequel Red Boy at the Mardi Gras was released by Sensation and another sequel, The Red Boy Is Back again made it as a King release.
So listen to that last one, the Red Boy Is Back
09 - Todd Rhodes - Red Boy Is Back
10 - J.T. Brown - Blues Blues Boogie
Great party music - or how it grew on me, playing it loud in my car from a CD on J.T. Brown of the Classics series. You heard the Blues Blues Boogie. And I continue with Orville Fats Noel, a New York based sax honker and his instrumental Duck Soup that was released on the Herald label in 1953.
11 - Fats Noel - Duck Soup
12 - Big Al Sears - Here's the Beat
Here's the Beat and you heard Big Al Sears on the Groove label that was a subsidiary of RCA. This one is from 1956. Al Sears already had a career behind him when he led the band of the rock 'n roll shows of Alan Freed, the famous fifties disc jockey from Cleveland who was one of the great promotors of Rhythm & Blues for a national, interracial spotlight, promoting it as Rock 'n Roll. As he preferred to showcase the original black performers instead of the white artists that did the covers of Rhythm & Blues on his Big Beat TV show, ABC cancelled it - they only wanted white acts for this show that also was broadcasted in the segregated Southern states. That was in 1957 and it started the deep fall of Alan Freed who got hit further by the payola scandal - record companies paying DJ's for playing and promoting their records. It also ended Big Al Sears most succesful years. After that he became incolved in the ABC Paramount record business - and in the civil rights movement.
The city of Macomb, IL, where Sears was born, honors him with an annual jazz festival.
For the next one we go to the southernmost Rhythm & Blues record label - Rockin' from Miami and that was in operation from October 1952 to August of '53, when Syd Nathan of King records bought it and integrated it with his DeLuxe label. The label is noted especially for a session of Ray Charles that he did after his time in Seattle and before he got his contract with Atlantic records. But it got more and so here is the band of George Lawson with Honkin' The Blues.
13 - George Lawson - Honkin' The Blues
14 - Art Shackelford Sextette - Guitar Stomp
Recorded in December of 1947 this is one of these many recordings to anticipate the strike of the American Federation of musicians. You heard the Guitar Stomp of the Art Shackelford sextette and it was recorded for the Modern label.
Also from December '47 is this goodie of pianist Lloyd Glen and his band the Joymakers. Here is the Joymaker's Boogie also known as the Soldier's Hop.
15 - Lloyd Glenn - Joymaker's Boogie (Soldier's Hop)
16 - Sonny Thompson - First Base
From 1955 Sonny Thompson with the First Base and he recorded that for the King label. And I have still time for one more to play, so next up is Gene Ammons with Chabootie, a Chicago recording that was released on both the Aristocrat label in 1950, and later on its successor Chess.
17 - Gene Ammons - Cha Bootie
And Gene Ammons ends this set of instrumentals that I featured today here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. It may all have sounded a bit on the jazzy side, well, that's what instrumentals easily get associated with. Of course the lines between Rhythm & Blues and jazz were thin in the forties where most of the decade no-one even had heard of the word Rhythm & Blues - it wasn't before 1948 that Jerry Wexler coined the term in Billboard's Magazine. Musicians who one day played in an avantgarde bebop combo could well honk their tenor the next day for a blues shouter - many a Rhythm & Blues instrumentalist is also favored with the jazz affectionados.
Some say I play jazz on here, some name it the blues, and others call it early Rock 'n Roll and probably they all are right as the Rhythm & Blues got all of it. In fact the label you stick on it is pretty much unimportant except when I tell people that I produce a radio show and I have to explain what obscure kinda music I play. Well for most people it doesn't ring a bell - it's far gone from our collective memory. Of course that's one of the reasons why I make a program on it - apart from that I think it's just great music. Now you can show your support and let me know what you think of the music and my program - send me an e-mail, the address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com.
And if you want to find out more about the program, read back what I told you today or see what's on the menu for next week, it's all on my web site. Do a Google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and it will show up first in the search results.
For now time's up so have a rocking day. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!