This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And again, listeners, a great and wonderful mix of music from the roaring twenties to the rocking fifties - but no witty lyrics today, no songs of heartbreak, poverty, booze or sex - today is instrumentals day. So every now and then I dig through my music collection for instrumentals - and they're plentiful. As so often I start my musical journey through time in the twenties - today with the great jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton.
It's not, as he claimed, that he invented jazz, but he played an important role in bringing the emerging style from New Orleans up north, where the recording facilities were. In 1915 he was the first one to publish sheet music for a jazz composition - a style that highly depended on inprovisation and the up to then secret recipe that was guarded in New Orleans.
His golden years were in Chicago, where he settled for a longer time in 1923 until his marriage and moving to New York in '28. In the Big Apple he found it much harder to find musicians, and when Victor didn't renew his contract in the deepest of the Depression, in '31, his fame quickly faded.
But this is from Morton's very best years. This recording from 1926 on the Victor label, got rereleased twice, on Victor's subsidiary Bluebird in '39, and ten years later on the pirate re-issue label Biltmore. Here are Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers with the Chant.
01 - Jelly Roll Morton - The Chant
02 - Duke Ellington - Jazz Convulsions
The Jazz Convulsions of the band of Duke Ellington from 1929 on the Brunswick label, where he was billed as the Jungle Band. Now this one doesn't feature that prominent his trumpet and trombone acrobats Tricky Sam Nanton and Bubber Miley and they were the ones responsible for the dirty jungle sound that made Ellington the sensation of the Cotton Club.
Ellington's band recorded on all jazz issuing record labels, with deals that were arranged by his partner Irving Mills. It was Mills who brought Ellington to the Cotton Club - and for his services he got well paid. He owned 50% of the Duke Ellington Inc. - that was agreed upon when he took Mills as his manager - just two years after Ellington had started leading a band. Now I guess it's been a favorable for both of them as Mills definitely jumpstarted Ellington's career. Mills also sang on a few of Ellington's recordings. When Victor initally refused to release them, because of the mixed-race production, Mills simply theatened to take all of the artists he managed from the label - and he did manage quite a few.
And we stay in the twenties with the next Chicago Rhythm, also from 1929 and that was released on the Victor label. Here is Earl Hines.
03 - Earl 'Fatha' Hines - Chicago Rhythm
04 - Charlie Christian - Stompin' At The Savoy
(jingle)
05 - Ben Webster - Perdido
06 - Ladnier-Mezzrow Quintet - Gettin' Together
And we made a jump into the forties in this instrumentals special, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. After Earl Hines, that was Stomping At The Savoy, and you heard the guitar of Charlie Christian playing his improvisations in Minton's Playhouse, the club that was the breeding nest of the bebop movement. Now to see bebop become the new change in jazz, Charlie Christian never lived to see that happen - he died in '42 of tuberculosis. But all jazz experts agree that Christian was one of the founders of the new style.
Then after the jingle you got Perdido of Ben Webster, and this is the more well-known 1942 take. I played Perdido just a few weeks ago on a special on the Session label, and that is an all different take.
And then finally you got the combo of Tommy Ladnier and Mezz Mezzrow, a recording from 1938 and titled Gettin' Together and that got a release on the Bluebird label - from the same session as the famous Really The Blues. Now that one didn't get its fame that much from the music, but because of the autobiography that Mezz Mezzrow wrote with that title.
Mezzrow definitely was a colorful person, being the provider for marijuana cigarettes for a large part of the New York jazz scene and declaring himself what he called a "voluntary Negro" - he married a black woman, settled in Harlem and got part of the African-American culture. Clarinettist Mezzrow may not have been the best musician in the scene, but he always was there to help out other musicians and he was 100% devoted to the music.
And for the next instrumental, we go to the year 1947 with a recording for the Decca label of Lionel Hampton. Here is the Hawk's Nest.
07 - Lionel Hampton - Hawk's Nest
08 - Hot Lips Page - Pagin' Mr. Page
Paging Mr. Page - that was the trumpet of Hot Lips Page in a session for the Savoy label from 1944. It's got a real strong section on the saxophones - with Floyd Horsecollar Williams, Don Byas and George Johnson.
And for the next one some quite adventurous jazz on the Capitol label. Quite a combo as it has ten musicians in it, including Dexter Gordon and Cecil Payne on sax, drummer Kenny Clarke and two more percussionist on the bongos and congas. Here is from 1949 the band of Tadd Dameron with Sid's Delight.
09 - Tadd Dameron - Sid's Delight
10 - Jimmy Nolen - After Hours
This is a jump into the fifties with Jimmy Nolen with After Hours - a cover of the 1940 piano classic of Erskine Hawkins. It was recorded in 1955 in Los Angeles and released on the Federal label - a subsidiary of King. Later it got re-released on a King LP that was reprinted several times.
Next a recording of the trumpeter who took the name of King Porter, or better, one of them, cause there must have been at least two. Now - the name of King Porter comes from the King Porter Stomp, a classic of Jelly Roll Morton. The first King Porter probably is the West coast band leader and trumpeter James Poe, and somehow he got in the Detroit scene where he recorded with the local Paradise and JvB labels. The JvB takes made it to a re-release on King, and it's with that label where he did his third session, in their studio in Cincinatti. from that session of June 1949 I'm gonna play Battle Ax.
It's not clear if the recordings of the King Porter and his All Stars for the Four Star label in Los Angeles is the same man - in that case he must have returned to the West coast.
The other King Porter is most likely Vernon 'Jake' Porter and he recorded for the Imperial label. There probably have been other musicians using the stage name of King Porter too.
Well here is on the King label, King Porter with the Battle Ax.
11 - King Porter - Battle Ax
12 - Tiny Bradshaw - Ping Pong
And we stay on the King label with Ping Pong of Tiny Bradshaw. We know him best for his post-war Rhythm & Blues music, but he started in the mid-thirties with a swing band and he had a few releases on the Decca label. This was in 1953, near the involuntary end of his career, a stroke that he had in '54 and that left him partialy paralyzed. His attempt for a comeback in '58 was not succesful and soon after, he died from a second stroke, 51 years old.
Of course his The Train Kept A-Rolling, in hindsight it's his most important record, but it didn't chart back in '51. It became a rock 'n roll classic when Johnny Burnette covered it in '56. His Well Oh Well from 1950 made it to number two in the hit list, but it's much more forgotten.
Next up an unissued recording of Pee Wee Crayton, that is, unissued at the time he recorded it for the Modern label, but later it got on several compliation albums. Here he is with the Austin Boogie.
13 - Pee Wee Crayton - Austin Boogie
14 - Sonny Thompson - Let's Move
From 1953 a great instrumental from Sonny Thompson on the King label titled Let's Move and in case you hadn't noticed, I do instrumentals only, today, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and Sonny Thompson done quite a few good ones.
Thompson had been in Chicago for most of his life, and from 1940 while attending the Chicago Conservatory of Music he started leading his first band. By '45 he played the prestigious El Grotto as a replacement for Earl Hines, and he got nightly radio broadcasts with his 14-piece band featuring singers of Duke Ellington fame, Ivie Anderson and Marie Bryant. Later he had to cut down on his combo, as times had gone hard on big bands.
His debut on record as a leader was for the tiny Sultan label, and soon he switched to the Miracle label with tenor saxman Eddie Chamblee. He went to King in 1950 and somewhere in these years, he married singer Lula Reed - the couple did numerous records together.
Next on the Savoy label the man who always closes this show - Wild Bill Moore. This Rocking With Leroy was recorded in 1949.
15 - Wild Mill Moore - Rocking With Leroy
16 - Buddy Johnson Orch - Doot Doot Dow
And with Buddy Johnson we end todays special on instrumentals - you got Doot Doot Dow on the Mercury label and he recorded that in December of 1955 in New York.
That was a whole lot of instrumental music, listeners, from the roaring twenties up to the rocking fifties, and that last decade brought an awful lot of great instrumental rockers. I hope you liked 'em and of course you can let me know - the address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com.
And the stories I told you today, they are all to be found on the website of the show, and easiest way to get there is to do a Google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman. Once in this was show 275 in the list of episodes that I done up to now.
That was it for today, so I go out as always with the instrumental that always ends my show - the Bongo Bounce of Wild Bill Moore. See you next time, here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!