Bill Doggett: Honky Tonk (Live 1978)

[Revision note: Thanks to Ehsan Khoshbakht and Dani Gugolz the complete personnel has been identified.]

Bill Doggett (1916–1996) started out on piano. In 1947, he took Wild Bill Davis’ place in Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five and slowly became famous for his organ playing in this band. He started his own band in 1951, first as a trio, later with one or two saxophones and a guitar added. Up to the late fifties Doggett made a series of LPs for King Records, followed in the early sixties by albums on Warner Bros. and Columbia after which the spotlight turned away from his as his brand of organ playing fell out of fashion with the dance as well as the jazz crowd.

But Doggett kept on playing and in the mid-seventies he became quite popular in France, where Black and Blue records published a couple of LPs with Doggett.

So here is another clip from the July 1978 Newport Jazz Festival on tour in the Cimiez Gardens in Nice which was filmed by a french TV station. It’s Bill Doggett on organ, the legendary David “Bubba” Brooks on tenor, guitarist Pete Mays (he is also singing on other tracks from this gig), Larry Trott on electric bass and Howard Overton on drums playing Doggett’s 1956 megaseller “Honky Tonk”.

 Enjoy!

Ornette Coleman Prime Time Lugano 1991

Yes, I know, the Free Funk Universe that Ornette Coleman has created with his Prime Time Band is not to everybody’s taste. I myself like almost everything Ornette ever did, so it’s a pity I did not get to see him play during the last twenty years or so, since he never made it to a town close to me.

But happily today I found a TV broadcast of the Prime Time Band’s appearance at the Estival Jazz in Lugano on  July 4, 1991 on one of Otto’s VHS cassettes. So right away I am presenting you the track Spelling The Alphabet, which was the last tune of Ornette’s set on this evening.

The personnel: Ornette Coleman: alto; Dave Bryant: keyb, p; Ken Wessel: eg; Chris Rosenberg: eg; Al MacDowell: eb; Badal Roy: tabla, perc; Denardo Coleman: dr.

Enjoy!

Milt Buckner Acetate: Flying Home

Here is another track from the mysterious set of KAKE acetates featuring a 1953 Lionel Hampton concert as well as some solo piano tracks by Milt Buckner. Here you get Milt playing Lionel Hampton’s classic “Flyin’ Home” in a wonderfully agitated solo piano version. If anyone does know anything set about these mysterious acetates, do not hesitate and tell me!

Enjoy!

Jo Jo Adams with Tom Archia – and in person

Jo Jo Adams (circa 1918–February 27, 1988) was one of the most colorful persons on the R’n'B scene of post war Chicago. A short biography by Dave Penny can be found here. Adams recorded for small labels like Hy-Tone, Aristocrat, Parrot, he also worked as MC in different clubs in Chicago.

One of my favorite sessions by Jo Jo Adams is the one he did with almost forgotten Chicago tenor saxophonist Tom Archia in July 1947 (read more about Tom and this session on the Tom Archia page of the Red Saunders Research Foundation). Here’s Jo Jo singing “Drinking Blues” on a copy of Aristocrat 801:

Adams was mostly known for his flamboyant personality, his risqué songs and his colorful dresses – with long coat tails that he swung around while dancing. Here you get a chance to see Jo Jo in action as part of William Alexander’s 1949 movie “Burlesque in Harlem (sometimes dated as having been made in 1953 or 1954, but Alexander had moved to London in 1950). Unfortunately Adams is only accompagnied by a piano – and how I wish it would be Tom Archia’s Combo! And sound and video are slightly asynchroneous on my source.

But hey: Better Jo Jo Adams with a piano and asynchronous sound than no Jo Jo Adams at all!

Enjoy!

Wild Bill Davis / Jimmy Tyler / Dickie Thompson (1986)

As soon as he could afford the equipment, my friend, the late Otto Flückiger, used movies of musicians that he was fond of and that he himself or somebody else had filmed and made nice little movie clips from the footage. One example would be this short movie featuring the Wild Bill Davis Quartet at an unidentified location (possibly in switzerland). In between the footage of the band, Otto cut some N.Y.C. footage that he himself had filmed sometime in the mid-80s.

Personnel of Wild Bill’s quartet on this occasion: Jimmy Tyler (1919–1998) (as), Wild Bill Davis (1918–1995) (org), Dickie Thompson (1918–2007) (g), Clyde Lucas (1943–2010) (dr).

Enjoy!

Little Jimmy Scott: I’ll Close My Eyes (1952)

One of the greatest evenings in my life as a jazz fan was spent at a concert that singer Little Jimmy Scott (born July 17, 1925) gave at the Widderbar in Zurich, Switzerland in – I guess – spring 2001. I went there with my girlfriend Iris and with Otto Flückiger and the swiss poet Ewald Kaeser. Those of you who ever saw or heard Scott sing know, what this can do to you. When I told Otto that Scott would be performing in Zurich, he could not believe that at first, because he thought Scott passed a long time ago – he only knew Scott from the late 1949 Lionel Hampton recording of “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” – a rather big hit in 1950.

Amazingly I have no video, not a bit of sound nor even a photograph from that event. I remember somehow having the feeling of this being a very special occasion and that filming or recording it would keep me from remembering IN MY MIND how it was. Now I wish I would have at least made a photo.

But here is something else: Little Jimmy Scott singing “I’ll Close my Eyes” on an old Roost 78 rpm:

According to Tom Lord Roost 603 was recorded on March 20, 1952, and the personnel is Little Jimmy Scott (voc), Terry Gibbs (vib), Howard Biggs (p), Hy White (g) and Louis Bellson (dr).

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.

Dallas Bartley with Bill Martin: You Fine And Healthy Thing (1945)

In 1940 bassist Dallas Bartley (1916–1979) joined Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five. After he left Jordan in 1943 he formed his own band, Dallas Bartley’s Small Town Boys. With his band he recorded for Coral (September 1944), Cosmo (1946) and National (1947). His band also can be seen in a couple of soundies filmed in 1945.

Here they are playing “You Fine And Healthy Thing”:

The reason why I exactly choose this Dallas Bartley clip to present here, is my interest in Chicago trumpet player King Kolax who in jazz circles is mostly known because young John Coltrane played in his big band for a while in 1947 – you can find more about Kolax at the Kolax page at the Red Saunders Research Foundation. While googling around for Kolax material, I found out that it was composed jointly by Bartley and Kolax!

But what about the personnel?

Although different discographies say that the trumpeter player and singer is Walter Fuller, it definitely is Bill Martin, about whom you may learn more on the Hy-Tone page of the Red Saunders Research Foundation.

What about the alto player?

Les Fancourt’s and Bob McGrath’ “Blues Discography 1943–1970″ suggests that it is Porter Kilbert. Below you see a picture of Kilbert taken from a 1961 Quincy Jones concert clip. I would say it is well possible that it is the same man – 16 years later.

“Blues Discography 1943–1970″  does not mention the tenor player:

Who can this be? A possibility would be Joshua Jackson, who according to ”Blues Discography 1943–1970″ recorded with Bartley for Cosmo. Does anyone have a photo of Jackson and could compare it to the one above?

Following “Blues Discography”, the pianist is Bob Mosely, is that true?

Unfortunately I can not extract a better picture from the clip. So what about the drummer?

According to ”Blues Discography 1943–1970″  this is Jack Parker. But if you look  at the bass drum you see a logo that seems to be made from the letters H, L and B. This points to the drummer being Hillard L. Brown, who according to this page, was a member of Bartley’s band in 1945. He later had his own band, which Bill Martin joined later.

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.

Muddy Waters/Clark Terry: Stormy Monday Blues (Nice, 1977)

Here is another clip from the same TV series (La Grande Parade Du Jazz) that the Gatemouth Brown clip comes from. This time you get the Muddy Waters Blues band featuring guest trumpeter Clark Terry playing T-Bone Walker’s classic “Stormy Monday Blues”. This was filmed in Nice, Southern France on July 10, 1977. Besides Clark Terry, Muddy’s band consists of Bob Margolin (eg), Guitar Junior (e.g.), Pinetop Perkins (p), Calvin Jones (eb) and Willy “Big Eyes” Smith (dr). Harmonica player Jerry Portnoy was also a member of Muddy’s band at that time, but he is not featured in this number.

Enjoy!