BUCK CLAYTON – 1953 | The Chronogical Classics – 1394 (2005) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

The third installment in the Classics Buck Clayton chronology documents the trumpeter's European adventures with recordings made between April 2 and October 21, 1953. Clayton had toured Europe in 1949, and after savoring the social atmosphere in the U.S. was happy to head back to France in February 1953 with drummer Kansas Fields, pianist Red Richards, and trombonist Big Chief Russell Moore, a Native American whose Pima heritage places his ancestral turf within the Gila and Salt River valleys in southern Arizona. In addition to playing live gigs with Mezz Mezzrow, the North Americans made phonograph records. On April 2, the Buck Clayton Quintet cut five sides for the Vogue label; "Patricia's Blues" is a particularly attractive example of Clayton at his most subtle, sensual, and soulful. A concert performance by this band led by Mezzrow with Gene Sedric in the front line took place at the Theatre de Champs-Elysee near the end of May. The recordings made at that event have been reissued under Mezzrow's name. Buck Clayton and Kansas Fields participated in four different recording sessions in Brussels, Belgium, between August and October, 1953. These would be the only records ever released under the name of Marion Joseph "Taps" Miller, a trumpeter and rowdy vocalist who became marginally famous for a minute when Count Basie named a tune after him in 1944. The heavy-handed Belgian musicians who participated in these sessions made enough noise to match Miller's extremely boisterous vocals. "Hot Dog," with its repeated demands for mustard and pickles, epitomizes Miller's approach to entertainment. Fortunately, tracks 16-23 find Clayton sitting in with a big band led by Django Reinhardt session man Alix Combelle, an intelligent, hip, and sophisticated tenor saxophonist whose complete chronological recordings occupy their own niche in the Classics Chronological series. arwulf arwulf  
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MEZZ MEZZROW – 1953-1954 | The Chronogical Classics – 1449 (2007) FLAC (tracks), lossless

Volume eight in the Mezz Mezzrow department of the Classics Chronological Series contains selected recordings cut for the Vogue label between March 1, 1953 and November 21, 1954 in Paris, France. Mezz sounds entirely at home as leader and participant in 17 relaxed rituals of old-fashioned jazz, including ten minutes of the "Basin Street Blues" and a nine-minute romp through the changes of "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." Like volume seven, this is an exciting and entertaining if technically incomplete representation of the artist's professional activity during the designated time period. The first two tracks are excerpts from matinee and evening concerts given at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees on March 1, 1953. Although other excerpts appeared at the end of volume seven, the omission of numerous titles from these gigs leaves a gap in the Mezzrow discographical timeline that is uncharacteristic of the Classics reissue label. Tracks three-nine were recorded in Paris on April 2, 1953, ten-fourteen from a little known session featuring Fats Waller's chief saxophonist Eugene "Honeybear" Sedric (without a doubt some of the best Sedric ever preserved on record!) and the final three jams were taped at the Salle Pleyel concert hall on November 21, 1954 with pianist Claude Bolling, drummer man Freddie Moore, trombonist Jimmy Archey, and one of the first trumpeters ever to make records with Jelly Roll Morton, the great Lee Collins. Other key participants in this excellent collection of traditional New Orleans/Chicago styled jazz and swing are trumpeter Buck Clayton, trombonist Big Chief Russell Moore, pianist Red Richards, bassist Pierre Michelot, tap dancer Taps Miller, and primal jazz and blues drummer Kansas Fields. Once again, Mezzrow's amazing homegrown ability to surround himself with legendary jazzmen yields honest and intimate good-time music that comes across friendly and for real. arwulf arwulf  
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SKEETS TOLBERT AND HIS GENTLEMEN OF SWING – 1931-1940 | The Classics Chronological Series – 978 (1997) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

As a boy in Charlotte, NC, Campbell A. Tolbert acquired the nickname "Skeets," which was short for "Mosquito." Proficient on the alto saxophone -- his sound has been compared to that of Johnny Hodges, Louis Jordan, and Pete Brown -- Tolbert made his first recordings with Taylor's Dixie Orchestra, and listeners are fortunate to have two recordings from 1931 as examples of his tenure with this grand old "territory band." Harry Prather blows fine tuba and the vocalists are excellent. Tolbert made his way to New York shortly thereafter and gigged with Fats Waller. He soon formed his own Gentlemen of Swing, a tight little group that performed in Greenwich Village and on 52nd Street rather than uptown in Harlem. In addition to Tolbert's homie Harry Prather -- now playing the upright string bass -- this band had trumpeter Carl "Tatti" Smith, famous for having participated in the very first recordings ever made by Lester Young. That historical 1936 "Smith-Jones, Inc." session was also Count Basie's first date as a leader. Another strong player is tenor saxophonist Lem Johnson, who struts his stuff nicely on "Bouncing Rhythm" and sings bawdy lyrics during "The Stuff's Out." Johnson's vocal on "Railroad Blues" is relatively sobering, as is Clarence Easter's delivery on "Harlem Ain't What It Used to Be," a slow, serious evocation of economic hardship, strained living conditions, and an apparent need for rent control. Yet most of the material heard here was meant to entertain and amuse. "Papa's in Bed with His Britches On" is possibly even better than Una Mae Carlisle's version, recorded six months later. "W.P.A.," a send-up of the Works Progress Administration programs of the late '30s, makes fun of the entire concept with references to being lazy and the refrain "I'm so tired...but I can't get fired." Still and all, the most useful tunes here are the solid instrumentals like "Swing Out" and "Jumpin' Jack." This disc also contains a handful of sides which represent the recording debut of pianist and vocalist Charles "Red" Richards. arwulf arwulf
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SKEETS TOLBERT AND HIS GENTLEMEN OF SWING – 1940-1942 | The Classics Chronological Series – 993 (1998) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Skeets Tolbert led a tidy little swing band from the late '30s to the mid-'40s. This group's recorded legacy consists of 40 sides originally released on the Decca label and reissued for the first time on compact disc in the late '90s by the Classics Chronological series. This second volume opens with a novelty bounce dedicated to the topic of a butcher and the various meats available from "Sammy's Choppin' Block." Yack Taylor sings a "Sugar Boogie" and delivers a slow, bluesy attempt at seduction on the flip side, sounding a little like Bertha "Chippie" Hill. On Tolbert's last session of 1940, Taylor returned and sang "Those Draftin' Blues," a cousin of Hot Lips Page's "Uncle Sam Blues." Let it be known that Skeets Tolbert composed "Hit That Jive, Jack," a humongous hit for Nat King Cole's trio in late 1941. Three Johnny Dunn tunes (credited to publisher Clarence Williams and Perry Bradford) are trundled out and performed with immaculate ease. The third of these, "Uncle Eph's Dream," introduces pianist Buddy Johnson, soon to become established as an influential bandleader. Tolbert, in fact, is said to have written arrangements for two Buddy Johnson hits, "Stop Pretendin'" and "Please, Mr. Johnson." The catchy "Big Fat Butterfly" is Tolbert's hopped-up Steve Washington-styled treatment of the popular ballad "Poor Butterfly," and was used on a 1945 Melodisc recording by a group calling themselves the Flennoy Trio. "Jumpin' in the Numbers" carries on in a Slim Gaillard bag while "The Rhumba Blues" showcases Hubert Pettaway's percussive talents. Tolbert used several different pianists, opting for Charles "Red" Richards on his "Messy Boogie" and Herbert Goodwin on "Delta Land Blues." The band's final instrumental, "Fill Up," a steamy strut using a lick from "Hold Tight Want Some Seafood Mama," was committed to wax in January of 1942. Tolbert featured quite a number of vocalists, with the novelty and blues-oriented acts seriously outnumbering the sentimental pop singers. His last pair of records were topical novelties: "C.O.D." makes light of the financial aspect of interpersonal relationships and "Hey Man! Hey Man!" is a takeoff on the spiritual "Amen! Amen!" By the middle of the 1940s Tolbert bailed out of bandleading and retreated to Houston, TX, where he worked for the musician's union, as a teacher, and as the proprietor of a music store. The rest of his story has yet to be told. arwulf arwulf
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MUGGSY SPANIER – 1949-1954 | The Classics Chronological Series – 1405 (2005) FLAC (tracks), lossless

About two-and-a-half years transpired between Muggsy Spanier's September 1946 session for the Disc label (see Classics 967, Muggsy Spanier 1944-1946) and the Jazz Limited recording date of February 1949, which resulted in the two tracks that open this fourth volume in the Classics Muggsy Spanier chronology. Based in Chicago, the small-time Jazz Limited record label was an offshoot of Jazz Ltd., a Windy City Dixieland club at 11 East Grand Avenue run by cute little Ruth Reinhardt and her husband, Bill, who can be heard blowing his clarinet on these first two selections. Muggsy Spanier & the Dixieland Band recorded on four separate occasions for the Mercury label in Chicago between March 1950 and May 1952; the first of these groups (tracks three through six) had perhaps the most intriguing lineup in George Brunies, Darnell Howard, Floyd Bean, Truck Parham, and Big Sid Catlett, who was destined to die of a backstage heart attack almost exactly one year later. Aside from the session of August 29, 1951, during which an oddly tense Buddy Charles sings "Moonglow" and "Sunday" with a bit too much vibrato, these sorts of good-time old-fashioned blowing sessions were typical of Spanier's recorded output throughout the years. At the beginning of September 1954 Spanier, who had switched to the trumpet in 1950, was recording for Decca using the old cornet and billing his group as a "Jazz" rather than "Dixieland" band. These recordings, particularly the slower-paced numbers like Hoagy Carmichael's "Judy" and a ten-and-a-half-minute take of "Careless Love," are elegant and majestic in ways that bear comparison with Spanier's best recordings. arwulf arwulf  
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