This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And it's instrumental time today here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, and the reason why I dedicate a show on them every now and then is that I do play 'em as background filler for my talking, but they deserve more exposure. So no witty lyrics today - just great music from the time when they knew how to make it. And I start with a great and rocking instrumental of Sonny Thompson and his band that he cut for the King label in 1957. Here is the Gum Shoe.
01 - Sonny Thompson - Gum Shoe.mp3
02 - Ace Harris - After Hours.mp3
Pianist Ace Harris and his band with his version of After Hours when he stepped out on his own from Erskine Hawkins' band - and he'd been playing that before with Hawkins, in '46, a year earlier.
And I want to go on with Lucky Millinder and a recording he did with his band in 1942 and what a band he had. Just a few names in the line-up - he had the greatest on board. How 'bout Dizzie Gillespie on the trumpet, together with William Scott and Nelson Bryant. Tab Smith on the alto sax - later the great star of United records. And add to that, Bill Doggett on the piano, the man who would specialize on the Hammond organ later.
Now Millinder is such a great name that you would nearly forgot that he took over leadership of his band just four years before, in '38, from his pianist Bill Doggett. Doggett wanted to focus more on his playing and arranging, rather than leading a band and he gave Millinder supervision of the band. As Bill said: "we'll settle for a coke", and that, according to Lucky Millinder, was the best deal since the Indians sold Manhattan.
From 1942, here is the Little John Special.
03 - Lucky Millinder - Little John Special
04 - Buddy Tate - Kansas City Local.mp3
(jingle)
05 - Cootie Williams - Floogie Boo.mp3
06 - Saunders King - C-Jam Blues.mp3
And that were four in a row, a whole lotta non-stop music with after Lucky Millinder's Little John Special the Kansas City Local of the band of Buddy Tate and the funny thing is, I found this on a CD titled the Kansas City Jump billed as Emmett Berry - with the identical playlist of an LP on the Fontana label where all Emmett Berry Tracks were listed as Buddy Tate's. Now Berry did play the trumpet on this one, but it's more likely that Tate led the band of this 1947 recording, that also featured Bill Doggett on the piano, trombonist Ted Donnelly and Charlie Price on saxophone.
Then on the Hit label recorded in 1944 Cootie Williams and the title of that one was Floogie Boo. I never before encountered this label while making a playlist for this program, and when I look at the discography I probably won't either - it released an odd allsorts of music, popular classical, Latin, polkas and waltzes, a military band, and popular tunes on four-hand piano. Not of any interest for me.
And Finally, the C-Jam Blues, a jazzy piece originally of Duke Ellington played by Saunders King and his band.
Next a piano solo of one of the greatest boogie woogie pianists of the pre-war era. Recorded in 1938 for Vocalion, here is the Bear Cat Crawl of Meade Lux Lewis.
07 - Meade Lux Lewis - Bear Cat Crawl
08 - Albert Ammons - Boogie Woogie Stomp
And we stayed with the boogie-woogie greats with this Boogie Woogie Stomp of Albert Ammons. It's from 1939, recorded in New York and it came on a 12 inch 78 of the legendary Blue Note label. These 12 inch records must have been a problem to play on a lot of phonographs 'cause on most of them nothing more than ten inch would fit. The flip was 3 minute 40 long, so that explains for the extra size required. This one though didn't exceed three minutes and if it were for this tune, an regular 78 would have fit.
Ammons had been a close friend of Maede Lux Lewis and of course they shared interest in the boogie woogie. When he moved from Chicago to New York in 1938, he teamed up with another boogie woogie great, Pete Johnson. Now the boogie-woogie had been around as far back as the early 1870s and some even point out that a part of the 32nd piano sonata of Beethoven has all characteristics of the style.
Now if there's a connection between Beethoven's 32nd and the style that emerged in late 19th century Harrison County in Texas, I think that's unlikely - it was a typical African American style played in the lumber and turpentine camps of Northeastern Texas.
But it was in '38, some 65 years after the start of boogie-woogie that a concert in Carnegie Hall of Ammons and Johnson initiated the boogie woogie craze that hit the music scene at the turn of the decade. The boogie woogie figure, of course, is ubiquitous in the Rhythm & Blues and Rock 'n Roll, and around 1945 it had its crossover into hillbilly. Now there's a lot of history written about the birth of Rock 'n Roll but in my opinion most of them don't do justice to the important role of boogie-woogie - yet another African American musical style. And I promise you, listeners, that someday soon I will dedicate a show to the roots of boogie woogie, and the boogie woogie craze of the forties.
For now an instrumental classic of Johnny Otis, the man who chose to be part of the African-American culture though he was born out of Greek parents. Otis was drummer and vibraphonist, band leader, talent scout and promotor of Rhythm & Blues in one, and for sure in segregated America he has been able to achieve things that would have been impossible for Black musicians.
Here he is with the Blues Nocturne that he recorded in 1950 for the Savoy label.
09 - Johnny Otis - Blues Nocturne.mp3
10 - Sam Price - How 'Bout That Mess
From 1940 on Decca Sam Price and his Texas Bluesicians and you heard How 'Bout That Mess. Goodtime music from the Swing era and the recordings he did with this combo definitely are the highlight of his career.
And we stay with the late pre-war swing with Skeets Tolbert & His Gentlemen Of Swing, another regular on the Decca catalog. From 1939 here is his Bouncing Rhythm.
11 - Skeets Tolbert & His Gentlemen Of Swing - Bouncing Rhythm
12 - Jay McShann - McShann Stomp
Well I already got you some piano tinkling today with Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons - this is just another great pianist. You got the McShann Stomp of Jay 'Hootie' McShann. His style is pretty much what we know as the Kansas City sound - one of the hotbeds of jazz. Kansas City was MO on a crossroads of cultures, but most fruitful was the rule of Tom Pendergast, an influential politician these days. Nightclubs florished when liquor laws were completely ignored and the music played there was a loose, improvising mix of jazz and blues.
The style got popular in all of the country when Count Basie got in the national spotlights - but more greats came from K.C. such as Andy Kirk, Hot Lips Page, Joe Turner, Pete Johnson, Jimmy Rushing, Bennie Moten, Colman Hawkins and Charlie Parker - and Jay McShann whom I just played.
For the next one I take you to Los Angeles in 1950 with Texas born guitarist Pee Wee Crayton. Here is his Huckle Boogie.
13 - Pee Wee Crayton - Huckle Boogie.mp3
14 - Buddy Tate - Blowin' For Snake.mp3
Buddy Tate was that with Blowin' For Snake recorded in December of 1947 for the Supreme label. I did a show on this label just a few weeks ago and indeed, this was a leftover of that show.
And for the next one I go a whole decade later with Lloyd Glenn. He recorded his Cute Tee for the the Aladdin label in 1957.
15 - Lloyd Glenn - Cute Tee.mp3
16 - Clarence Williams - Chocolate Avenue.mp3
And we made a jump back into the thirties with this Chocolate Avenue of Clarence Williams that he did for the Vocalion label in 1933. New Orleans born Williams by then was an influential pianist, songwriter,manager of artists and producer in New York and and he claimed to be the originator of jazz and boogie-woogie - well, he wasn't known for being a modest man. By 1943 he had a catalog of 2,000 songs that he sold to Decca for some 50,000 dollars - that was an awful lot of money.
There's time for one more to play and that'll be from 1938 arranger and band leader Don Redman with the Down Home Rag that he did for the Bluebird label in 1938. He'd been the musical director of McKinney's Cotton Pickers when he started leading his own band in 1931. From him you get the Down Home Rag.
17 - Don Redman - Down Home Rag.mp3
And Don Redman's Down Home Rag from '38 on the Blueburd label ends this episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and today it was all instrumentals that I did. And I hope you liked them - after all that's what I'm playing them for. Let me know - you can e-mail to rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. And then, the stories that I told you today and the playlist, you can read them back at my website. The easiest way to get there is to search the web for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman - Google knows I'm out there and they'll direct you straight to my site. This show is number 147 in that long, long list of episodes that I already did.
For today I'm done and so enjoy the background instrumental that I always play when I end this show. See you next time here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!