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 so the only singing will be the saxophones, guitars and pianos and the only words will be from my blabber mouth. There was so much great instrumental music back in the forties and fifties, and I don't want that just be as the background music of my talking, so why not start off with a great double sider of Noble Watts. From the Baton label released in 1957 here is Easy Going.
01 - Noble Watts - Easy Going Pt 1
01 - Noble Watts - Easy Going Pt 2
02 - Memphis Slim - Midnight Jump
Memphis Slim and his House Rockers with the Midnight Jump and that was on the Miracle label and it must have been somewhere between 1947 and 49. And we're going back in time some good ten years more with Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy with a great swing number. Here is Bear Down.
03 - Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds Of Joy - Bear Down
04 - Harlem Hamfats - Growling Dog
And a greater contrast between instrumentals is hardly thinkable. From the big band swing to the small combo sound of the Harlem Hamfats. It looks like the tune is made to spotlight each of the instrumentalists of the band - though this was first of all the showcase of Herb Morand who could growl his trumpet as gritty as his own voice was. Then you heard "Papa" Charlie McCoy on the mandolin, Odell Rand on the clarinet, Horace Malcolm on piano and that guitar was "Kansas" Joe McCoy. This is from 1936 and several of the instruments would soon grow out of fashion in African American music - the mandolin already was a rarity and the clarinet didn't survive the forties either. I told it before in the previous show, this combo that was put together by producer J. Mayo Williams as a studio band soon became the blueprint for the small jump blues combos. They had a vast output but only a few of'em were instrumentals. They only existed for some four years but they are pretty much underrated for their importance for the making of Rhythm & Blues.
Still most instrumentals were from the swing bands and they lasted well into the early forties. So let's get some more of that. From 1943 here is Lucky Millinder with the Shipyard Social Function.
05 - Lucky Millinder - Shipyard Social Function
06 - Lionel Hampton - Red Top
Lionel Hampton and his Red Top from 1947. While looking up information on this one, I found out that BMI credits both Gene Ammonds and Ben Kynard for this. Kynard played in Hamp's band and Red Top was said to be his wife, but the same story goes for Ammonds. Copyright disputes were pretty common these days and they weren't always a happy ending for the rightful owner.
We're moving up to 1953 with Todd Rhodes who was already in his mid-fifties when he got the most fame. Rhodes does the ivories and the saxes are Holly Dismukes, Louis Stevens and Robert Ford. Here is the Chicken Strut.
07 - Todd Rhodes - Chicken Strut
08 - Albert Ammons - Tuxedo Boogie
Recorded in Chicago in the end of 1947 for Mercury that was Albert Ammons with the Tuxedo Boogie and actually this was one of his last recordings - he died in 1949 at the age of only 42 years old. Now if you want to see something really special and extraordinary, I suggest you do a you tube search for the Boogie Doodle. It was an experimental short movie, a drawn-on-film music clip that was done on music of Albert Ammons and drawn by Norman Mclaren released by the National Film Board of Canada in 1941. And I can imagine that back in 1941 this was played before the main in the movie theatre and that the drawings, that may be a little petite on that you tube screen, will have come to life and impressed the audience. It's a great boogie woogie that it was drawn on and I could have played that instead, but this is one of these occasions that radio as a medium misses out on the visual aspects. So I'd say after my show you go and see it - the Boogie Doodle.
In the meanwhile I play some more great instrumentals. Straing from a pretty smooth Okeh 78 from 1951 here is Arnett Cobb with Walking Home.
09 - Arnett Cobb - Walkin' Home
10 - Leo Parker & His Mad Lads - Leo's Boogie
From Chicago on the united label, released in 1953, great honking on the baritone sax played by Leo Parker and that violin on it is definitely an oddity that you didn't see much in Rhythm & Blues anymore. Like I said when I played the Harlem Hamfats earlier in this show, quite some instruments grew out of fashion in African American music during the late thirties and forties, and the violin was definitely one of them. You could find them in pre-war big bands and I have some twenties and thirties country blues that include a fiddler.
Now in the history of Rhythm & blues we've lost many colourful instruments. The trumpets and trombones were virtually gone with the demise of the big bands. The saxophone lasted longest, and especially the tenor that brought us that typical sax break that spiced up the songs of the vocal groups and the rocking songs of the fifties - until finally white rock 'n roll also threw that in the junk yard and concentrated on the guitar only. Soul and funk brought a modest revival of the horns but since then, wind instruments have become totally uncool except maybe in latin and caribbean music.
My son learnt to play the baritone trumpet - a typical instrument of the marching brass band, and he had a real talent for it. But there just isn't any music anymore appealing to these kids that have grown up with electronically produced music - and he left his instrument for that little studio program on his computer that he produces beats with that accompany local rappers and he gets appreciation with, within the small world of dirty house musicians. He's pretty good at it and I think it's more important that he uses his creativity with something that his heart is with.
Well - popular music has gone through a fast evolution and maybe I lost track with it even before I was born - for as far as that is possible. But just none of the music of my youth or later ever really appealed to me. And the music that I play on here, there's no-one to doubt that it was the major factor that shaped popular music ever since.
11 - Jim Wynn - J.W. Bop
12 - Hen Gates and his Gaters - Swinging To The Rock And Roll
(jingle)
13 - Eddie Chamblee - Back Street
14 - Lynn 'Turbanhead' Hope - Eleven Til Two
That was a whole lotta music after that long speech of mine so let me just account for all of'em. Before the jingle you got Jim Wynn with the J.W. Bop and Hen Gates and his Gaters with Swinging To The Rock And Roll. Then on the Miracle label from 1948 saxophonist Eddie Chamblee, with Back Street and finally Lynn 'Turbanhead' Hope with Eleven Til Two, recorded in 1951 for the Alladin label. Lynn Hope had formed his own band of family members who by then all were converted muslims and they had taken muslim names, but that wasn't what they got known by. It did bring him his nickname, because ever since he was only seen with that turban on his head.
Next Bumps Meyers - and just in case you might not know who he was, back in 1934, with the big band of Buck Clayton he was the sensation of the Canidrome Ballroom... of Shanghai! The big band sound brought musicians all over the world, and these cats stayed two years in this Chinese city to play the packed jazz clubs out there. Back in Los Angeles he played with several orchestras including Lionel Hampton's, and later worked as a free-lance session musician, but in the late forties he did his own sextet. From then, the Memphis Hop, recorded in 1949 in Los Angeles.
15 - Bumps Meyers Sextet - Memphis Hop
16 - Little Willie Jackson - Jackson's Boogie
Little Willie Jackson, the blind saxophonist of Joe Liggins band the Honeydrippers, here with his own orchestra on the Modern label from 1948, with the Jacksopn's Boogie. And there's still time for one more, so here it goes, from 1957 on Mercury Red Prysock with his Pog Wog.
17 - Red Prysock - Pog Wog
And Red Prysock marks the end of yet another show of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman, today dedicated to the instrumentals that there were so many of in the Rhythm & Blues era. Great music to play loud, for on the road or to dance on. That is - well that's why I like 'em. Of course I love to know what you think of it so why don't you let me know and send me an e-mail. The address is rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or visit my web site, just do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. As for now, byebye and have a wonderful day. Or have a rocking day. See you next time on air with the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!