Julia Lee on rare Foremost 105

As long time readers of this blog know, I am interested in Leavenworth KS saxophonist Big Bob Dougherty. So about two years ago I acquired Bear Family’s Julia Lee 5cd box “Kansas City Star”, because I knew that Dougherty played on Lee’s last session for Capitol Records and on her later recordings done for small Kansas City labels Damon and Foremost.

Bear Family’s 5-CD box was supposed to contain all of Lee’s recordings, but unfortunately, as the liner notes say “despite a 2-year search we have not been able to find a copy of Foremost 105”.

And  – I can happily add – it took me another two years to finally get a copy (see above) – though it is rather rotten, as you can hear:

 

Note that this is a promotion copy, but there are regular copies as well. I noticed one on ebay two weeks before I spotted my DJ copy.

Both “Blues Discography” as well as the discography to the booklet of the Bear Family Julia Lee box set have “probably same” personnel for the four tracks recorded for Foremost as for Julia Lee’s 1954/1955 Damon session. This would be Big Bob Dougherty, ts; possibly a second unidentified ts; Ted Williams; g; Howard “Jack” Lewis (b); Richard “Corky” Jackson; dms. Bear Family also notes Gene Carter on alto saxophone for the Damon session, but there is no alto to be heard. Instead there may be a second ts.
Now on the Foremost session (or sessions, there may have been two) there are definitely two tenor saxes to be heard on all  tracks. If Dougherty was one of the saxes he probably brought his band along. But I find it hard to say whether Dougherty is there or not and the coarseness of the scratched record does not make it much easier.

Foremost 104 was announced in the Billboard of march 3, 1957.  The standard discographies give the date as 1957. Note though that the foundation of Foremost records was announced in Billboard of August, 18 1956. There Julia Lee is mentioned in the “talent line-up”.  On September 22, 1956, two fifths of a Billboard page  are covered by a Foremost ad announcing among others a new release by Julia Lee: “’She’s  Shoutin’ Those Blues Again” – Her Newest Comin’ Soon”. From then it took half a year until Billboard announced the release of Foremost 104 in the march 23 issue of 1957. Foremost 105 was not mentioned in the trade press, nor was there an ad for it.

The composer of “Saturday Night” (matrix no. FB-3123) is given as one “Rita Swift”. This may not be so, since Swift is also given as the composer for Richard M. Jones’ famous “Trouble In Mind” (matrix no. FB-3122) on the other side of Foremost 105.

Of course you are probaby not here for all that discographical mumbo jumbo but for some music. So here – exclusively for readers of my blog – is my not-on-youtube christmas special:

Julia Lee doing “Trouble In Mind”

Enjoy!

The Sam Lazar discography

Sam Lazar

Organist Sam Lazar from St. Louis is a mysterious figure about whom not very much is known. His (very small) fame among jazz fans is based on the fact that guitarist Grant Green’s first recordings were done in groups led by Lazar.

Lazar, who was born around 1933, vanished from the scene at sometime in the early sixties and nobody seems to really know what became of him (and I am 99 percent sure that the – unsourced – stories about his later life in Lazar’s Wikipedia entry are bogus (so I do not link to that entry) – or are they?

Anyway, since I think it’s worth to listen to Lazar also if Green is not part of the proceedings, I decided to make an illustrated discography of Sam Lazar’s recorded works. Some of the entrys are linked to audio files or youtube videos – just in case you want to listen to Lazar while reading about his works.

Enjoy!

Grant Green with Sam Lazar and more on Cawthron

Again Uptown Records have done the world a great favor by releasing rare jazz recordings of great historical importance with this CD:

“Grant Green / The Holy Barbarian, St. Louis, 1959”, features a concert by the Sam Lazar Quartet with Grant Green, Sam Lazar, tenor saxophonist Bob Graf and Chauncey Williams on drums at the Holy Barbarian Coffee House on December 25th 1959 and February 20 1960.

This is one of the first recordings with Grant Green – playing with Sam Lazar’s integrated group with saxophonist Bob Graf and drummer Chauncey Williams. It was recorded at an interesting club with a mixed clientele the short history of which is recounted (in detail as always with Uptown) in the accompanying booklet.

Do not get me wrong, this is a great recording of a classical organ-tenor-guitar-band. Green is playing fine here and the overall sound of the source material is marvellous. But in a way the repertoire they play and the way it is played is not as special as the music Lazar made on his first LP for Argo, “Space Flight”, also with Grant Green.

On the “Space Flight” – a must for organ freaks – Lazar in my ears plays different compared to the Uptown CD and also compared to his later two LPs for Argo after which he disappeared (one still does not know, what became of him). On the Space Flight LP (there are excerpts on youtube) the whole band plays rhythmically much more aggressive and the rhythms seem to me more staccato-like (I guess that might the wrong term, I am no musician). The pieces are much shorter here than on the live session from Uptown records and than on Lazar ‘s later LPs. But although that may sound like the “Space Flight” LP is more commercially oriented than Lazar’s other two this is not true. It’s the Lazar LP I am leaving at home when I am DJing, because the rhythm of the tracks, that sound like they could be dance floor killers at first listening, turn out too be just a bit to complicated when it’s time to move your legs!

Already before Lazar’s first LP was recorded in spring 1960 he had recorded a 45 rpm in late 1959 for small St. Louis label Cawthron. I had already presented this beauty in another posting, but here it is again:

The liner notes to the Grant Green CD on Uptown mention Lazar’s Cawthron 45 rpm, but by reading them you do not get the impression, that Grant Green was a part of this recordings. But he was – as can clearly be heard.  It would have been nice if Uptown could have added Lazars “Space Flight Parts I and II” from the Cawthron 45rpm to their “Holy Barbarian” CD – but I guess the master tape would be very hard to find, or not even exist anymore.

After I had put up above video on youtube some folks asked me to also make available Part II of the “Space Flight” 45rpm. So here is “Space Flight Part II”. This tune was rerecorded for the Argo LP , receiving a new title, “Big Willie”.

I was not really in the mood to fumble around with the video camera so you just get this fabulous blasting sound (all known copies have this totally overdriven sound)

As some of the visitors to this blog already know I am always doing a little research on Cawthron, C&C and Allegro, all very small labels owned by a traveling meat inspector named Dunlap J. Cawthron. I have made a discography of the Cawthron catalogue and to gain your interest (if you like most obscure labels) I am finishing this blog with some pics of recently acquired records that are connected with Dunlap J. Cawthron. More info about them in the Cawthron, C&C and Allegro discography.

Enjoy!

The Chaunteurs with King Kolax (1961)

Twelve years ago I went to Paris for a week. One reason for my trip was to meet with Gil Petard of reissue label Chronogical Classics and the well known jazz, r’n’b and soul researcher Kurt Mohr.  I had a CD with me that held a lot of tracks by Chicago tenor saxophonist. Tom Archia (the resulting CD, “Tom Archia 1957–1948” was released in 2011). I was also hoping to get a glimpse of Kurt Mohr’s files on several artists from Chicago and have Robert Campbell add them to the pages of the Red Saunders Research Foundation.  At that time Mohr had basically given up research and two months before had given his archives to Soul Bag Magazine. I called up the magazine and was allowed to look through Mohr’s files for an hour on the next day.

Indeed I could gather some details we had not known before about different recording sessions. I also found an intriguing entry noting a record that the band of trumpeter King Kolax – on whom there is an entry at the Red Saunders Research Foundation – accompanied Chicago vocal group The Chaunteurs for drummer and producer Armand “Jump” Jackson’s own tiny label La Salle around 1961.

This was intriguing: How was I ever to hear that record? Now a while ago someone put one side of that record, the euphoria inducing “Wishin’ Well”, on youtube – but only for a hot moment, then it was gone again. A few weeks later a copy of this very rare 45rpm finally appeared on ebay. So I tried my luck – and won!

So here are the Chaunteurs accompanied by King Kolax and his Band doing “Wishin Well”. According to Robert Ferlingere’s Discography of Rhythm and Blues and Rock ‘n Roll Vocal Groups, (2nd ed., Vol. 1, 1992) and Bob Pruter’s Doowop: The Chicago Scene, the Chaunteurs  consisted of  Sollie McElroy (lead tenor, formerly of The Flamingos); Eugene Record (1st tenor); Robert Laster (2nd tenor); Clarence Johnson (baritone); Eddie Reed (bass). Besides King Kolax (heard only faintly here) and Jump Jackson the personnel is completely unidentified. I really wonder who the tenor saxophonist is and who is playing the organ.

Get ready:

Enjoy!

 

R.I.P. Red Holloway

Red Holloway and Norbert Schneider, March 26, 2010.
Photo: © Armin Büttner

With sadness i received the news of tenor saxophonist Red Holloway’s passing yesterday, aged 84 (details can be found here). I met Red three or four times during the last fifteen years, as he was playing in Europe every other year. In the last ten years or so he was playing with the Blue Flagships band (look here for a video clip from 2002 with Jimmy Coe and Red Holloway). I remember Red Holloway as a very sweet gentleman. I fondly think of one afternoon in the mid nineties when Red was playing in Basel or some place near Basel – I guess with the Frank Muschalle Trio.

Elmer Gill on 45rpm

In the ususal discographical sources there are only very few entries for Canadian pianist and vibist Elmer Gill who used to play with Lionel Hampton for a while in the early fifties, in the period after Milt Buckner had left Hampton’s band. The listings of records under Gill’s name usually start with The Three Sides Of Elmer Gill, the rare LP Gill recorded with bassist David Friesen and drummer Al Johnson around 1968 in Vancouver for Canadian label Aragon (the third side of Elmer Gill is his singing).

Elmer Gill, 1995 probably
in Otto Flückiger’s garden

I met Elmer Gill when I portrayed him for the no longer existing swiss cultural magazine Stehplatz, that must have happened around 1997. Someday I will look up in the attic if I can find a copy to present it here.

I also witnessed Gill at some place in Switzerland, where he was playing with his son, drummer Donald Gill, and a bass player I cannot recall.

My friend Otto had befriended Elmer Gill who was splitting his life between Vancouver and a place in Switzerland, that I seem to have forgotten. Otto gathered a lot of material about Elmer Gill which I am going to present here sooner or later.

Meanwhile, while going through the 45 rpm records in the archives, I discovered two 45rpm records by the Elmer Gill Trio that were recorded much earlier than Gill’s earliest discographical entries– at least one of them. I present them here for your listening pleasure. Please excuse the slight hum, my amplifier is being revised, and it’s replacement – well it hums! The first record is an EP on Chet Noland’s Celestial label, based in Seattle.

Andrew Hill on Ping 1003: “After Dark”

In this entry that I posted about a year ago from I offered you the Andrew Hill Combo with Von Freeman and Pat Patrick playing “Down Pat”. Since it turned out that a lot of people seem to be interested in Andrew Hill’s early work, I decided to put up a clip of the flipside as well.

Here you get the Andrew Hill Combo playing “After Dark” for Ping Records in October 1956. The musicians are: Von Freeman: ts, Pat Patrick: bars, Andrew Hill: org, Malachi Favors: b, Wilbur Campbell: dr.

Unfortunately not much can be heard of Hill’s organ work here as he is way behind in the mix. But do not be too much disappointed, a great early Von Freeman solo will make up for this. Enjoy!

For more Information about Ping (and this record) go to: http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/ping.html

John Young Trio: You Go To My Head

I finally found the time to update my discography of Chicago pianist John Young. I added some sessions that I found in Tom Lords Jazz Discography as well as some scans of records and CDs I managed to acquire after the last update. Like for example the LP that trumpeter Bobby Bryant recorded for Vee Jay in 1961 (though it was only issued at some time in the 1970s):

or the Joe Venuti LP from 1976 (released in 1978) for Flying Fish:

or Eddie Johnson’s Nessa Lp which also has John Young on it:

And finally I have put up a video of my red wax copy of Chance 1144, featuring John Young’s interpretation of “You Go To My Head”:

Another early Johnnie Pate 45

Dan Kochakian was so nice as to send me a scan of one side of a DJ copy of Johnnie Pate’s Gig 300 (Things Ain’t What They Used To Be b/w Will You Still Be Mine ) which was taken from Johnnie’s Subtle Sounds LP, (Gig GLP-100). Thanks, Dan!

from the collection of Dan Kochakian

I have added this scan to my discography of Johnnie Pate’s early works (Pate started to write his name “Johnny” instead of “Johnnie” at sometime in the early sixties). From the Delta numbers in the wax of Dan Kochakian’s copy (17356 / 17357) we know that this 45 rpm was pressed at the Monarch pressing plant in august or in september 1957.

Not much is known about the Gig label. It could well be that some of its 45s only ever saw the light as DJ copys. This might for example also be the case for Gig 375 by the Billy Wallace Trio, a 45rpm with two tracks from Wallace’s very rare LP B.W. (Gig GLP-100):

from the collection of Armin Büttner

Delta numbers in the wax of this beauty (17360/17361) again point to a pressing date in august or in september 1957 – possibly on the same day.

For those of you who like some very nice (and very rare) piano trio music from the Chicago of the fifties i have put up sound files of the Johnnie Pate track as well as the Billy Wallace track:

Johnnie Pate: Things Ain’t What They Used To Be (taken from Gig LP-100)

Billy Wallace Trio: Good Bait (Of course this was not composed by Count Basie but by Tadd Dameron!)

Enjoy!

Early Johnny Pate update

Click here to listen to the Johnnie Pate Trio playing Stay in the Know.

I am sorry that nothing much happened here during the last weeks, simply because I did not find the time to put anything up. But here comes a nice addition to the discography I have made featuring the early recordings of Johnnie Pate, later to become Johnny Pate. If anyone knows more about the Gig label, I would be happy to hear from you.

P.S.: I have also added several scans of Johnnie Pate’s Federal 45 rpms.