This transcript of the radio show is an approximation of what I said in the show. The real spoken parts may differ slightly.
And my legends won't be singing today - so every now and then I devote an entire hour of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman to instrumentals - and this week you'll get 'em again. Instrumentals that never featured the shows before, not even in the background and there's so many of them that I can easily do tons more of this. So let's just jump to the first one for today, and that is from one of my favourite trumpeters of the forties - but this is much later, from 1957 on RCA. They say he'd lost some of his edge in the fifties but he sure still could growl his trumpet like very few could. Here is Cootie Williams and his orchestra with Block Rock.
01 - Cootie Williams - Block Rock
02 - Lucky Millinder - Little John Special
From 1942 Lucky Millinder and his orchestra with Little John Special. Lucky Millinder's band was one of these great orchestras that yielded many great names in jazz and Rhythm & Blues. Just three names that were on this recording: Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Tab Smith on the alto sax and Bill Doggett, who later became famous for his skills on the Hammond organ, here on piano.
Now actually, back in 1938 it was Bill Doggett's band, but his heart wasn't with leading a band, he rather did the arranging and songwriting work, so he gave Lucky Millinder direction of the band, no money involved, or as Bill said, we'll settle for a Coke - and Millinder said that was a better deal then when the Indians sold Manhattan - that is from the viewpoint of the ones who bought the island of course.
Next a real a masterpiece of Duke Ellington - the Happy Go Lucky Local from 1946, one of the parts of his Deep South Suite. Ellington wrote in his autobiography what this composition was about - [it] told the story of a train in the South, not one of those luxurious, streamlined trains that take tourists to Miami, but a little train with an upright engine that was never fast, never on schedule, and never made stops at any place you ever heard about. After grunting, groaning, and jerking, it finally settled down to a steady medium tempo.
This building up of steam and speed takes over 3 minutes when the main theme finally starts. Now in this re-release that I took from a CD they've put it as one take, but on the 78 that came out on the Musicraft label, somewhere they must have made the split even before the main theme ever began.
Later, Jimmy Forrest, who had played in Ellington's orchestra, simply copied the theme for the Night train that became a big hit in 1951. But also Ellington had borrowed the theme - it was originally from Johnny Hodges, a 1940 instrumental titled That's the Blues, Old Man, and also Hodges played in Ellington's band. As usual, the songwriter credits for the Night Train messed up and were registered for Jimmy Forrest, together with the writers of the pretty uninspired lyrics that were written for it, later, that were Lewis P. Simpkins and Oscar Washington, and they apparently wanted to have a piece of the royalties cake.
Now I said a masterpiece - and I mean that, just listen how the Duke made that of his borrowed musical theme. Here is the Happy Go Lucky Local.
03 - Duke Ellington - Happy Go Lucky Local
(jingle)
04 - Tiny Grimes - Pert Skirt
05 - Todd Rhodes - Bop Bop Sizzle
You first heard Tiny Grimes with Pert Skirt and after that Todd Rhodes with the Bop Bop Sizzle, on the Detroit based Sensation label and that brought us back to the year 1945 or 46, depending on what source I have to believe. Rhodes later called his band the Toddlers but this was actually one of his first releases for the label.
Rhodes by then was already some 45 years old and a veteran in the music business, and recovering from a long-time absence from the main spotlights, that he'd been in from the early twenties to the mid-thirties playing jazz with quite some great names, most notably with William McKinney's Cotton Pickers. Now with the Toddlers he had a few notable vocalists to accompany - the tragic Kitty Stevenson of whom I told you the story last time, Connie Allen, Pinocchio James - who'd later make it with Lionel Hampton's band - and of course Lavern Baker.
Next - a rarity that first I coulnd't find out who that was. I have a few LPs on the Plymouth label that are credited to a saxophonist Hen Gates and his band the Gaters. It turns out that the tracks on the album are actually all renamed, and come from several artists. So what was on the album as Hen Gates and his Gaters with Bee Bee Roll, actually is Leapin' On Lenox by Eddie Lockjaw Davis. Here it is.
06 - Hen Gates & His Gaters - Bee Bee Roll (Eddie Lockjaw Davis - Leapin' On Lenox)
07 - Jimmy Forrest - Big Dip
The Big Dip - you heard Jimmy Forrest whom I mentioned before for his most known hit Night Train. The Big Dip was released in 1952 on United where Forrest had most of his hits.
Next pianist Teddy Brannon who mostly did work as a session man for doowop groups and for singers like Billie Holiday, Ruth Brown, Dinah Washington and his cousin Babs Gonzales, and also with numerous jazz artists. Here is his Mixing with Dixon.
08 - Teddy Brannon - Mixin' With Dixon
09 - Buddy Johnson - Boogie Woogie's Mother in Law
And we gone back to 1941 with the Boogie Woogie's Mother In Law, the band of Buddy Johnson and this was on Decca. From the early forties Johnson was very succesful especially with recordings that featured his sister Ella who was, I think, one of the greatest songthrushes of the big band era and at her best in ballads and blues where she sounded both sexy and vulnerable. Unlike most band leaders Johnson managed to survive the Rock 'n Roll craze until the end of the fifties with Rhythm & Blues that remained modern for the time but still very much Buddy Johnson style.
10 - Joe Liggins - Spooks Holiday
11 - Russell Jacquet - Suede Jacket
Bit of a sudden end - that was trumpeter Russell Jacquet and his allstars with the Suede Jacket. Russell was the brother of the better known Illinois Jacquet, tenor saxophonist, and Russell often played in his brother's band but from the mid-forties till the end of the decade he led his own combo. This was from 1948 on King. Before that you got Joe Liggins with Spooks Holiday and that also was from '48 on the Exclusive label, the flip of Darktown Strutters Ball and that was also the title of the LP that I have this on.
From one year before, you'll now get Lester Young. He played the sax and the clarinet in Count Basie's orchestra and with a small combo called the Kansas City Seven backin the thirties. After his clarinet was stolen in '39 he didn't play it for eighteen years. He left Count Basies band in 1940, the story goes that he was fired when he refused to play on Friday the 13nd of December.
This is from his time with Aladdin records in 1946 and 47. Listen to Lester Young with Jumpin' With Symphony Sid.
12 - Lester Young - Jumpin' With Symphony Sid
13 - Paul Bascomb - Black Out
A wonderful easy-going slow instrumental of Paul Bascomb who, just like Erskine Hawkins came from Birmingham, AL and he played in Hawkins' band the Bama State Collegians that later became the Erskine Hawkins band. Black Out was that and it was released on States as the second release, in 1952, of this label and that was a subsidiary of the United label from Chicago. As the masters of both labels later were taken over by Delmark, the music is pretty easy to find thanks to extensive re-issue programs of Delmark.
Earlier - in 1947 he cut one of his most well-known songs, titled Rock and Roll, for the Manor label, and that is one of these many songs that contend for the title of first rock 'n roll record, but actually it's just part of a craze in Rhythm & Blues that had started earlier that year with Roy Brown's Good Rocking Tonight - and definitely not Bascombs best one.
Next Joe Houston and I'm going to play Thunderstorm, and that was from a 1952 session for Imperial that also yielded instrumentals titled Earthquake and Hurricane.
14 - Joe Houston - Thunder Storm
15 - Paul Williams - Free Dice
And how the hour rushed by. We're already at the end of this week's episode of the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and you heard Free Dice of Paul Williams as today's closer. You know, I love these instrumentals and there were many of them back in the forties and early fifties where most of today's music came from.
The big band era may have ended somewhere halfway the decade but the tradition of instrumentals stayed with the smaller combos. There were many talented saxophonists, trumpeters, pianists and guitar men and just put a few of them together and a good instrumental was born.
I hope you liked today's selection and if so or if you have anything to say or ask, then send me an e-mail at rockingdutchman@rocketmail.com. Or find me on the web, do a google search for the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman and my site will show up first. As for now, time's up so have a wonderful and rocking day. See you next time here on the Legends of the Rocking Dutchman!