Famous as much for his gargantuan appetite (for food, drink and female company) as for his musical abilities, Waller’s success as a popular entertainer and singer tended to mask his brilliance as a pianist and organist, let alone as the composer of dozens of tunes, many of which became hit songs.
Blake was a significant ragtime and early jazz composer, initially writing formal rag compositions but subsequently turning his band to popular songs.
Beiderbecke made a tremendous impression on everyone who heard him in the flesh from the beginning of 1924 onward, when he began working throughout the Midwest with the Chicago-based Wolverines. Eddie Condon, for example, initially heard him playing piano; “For the first time I realized that music isn’t all the same”, he wrote. When he finally heard Beidersbeck’s cornet, “The sound came out like a girl saying yes”.
Somehow, Armstrong manages the almost impossible feat of continuing to provide a swinging, forceful lead while actually holding the excessive zeal of his rhythm section in check. What Armstrong brought to small-group jazz was a sense of swing ; a relaxed, yet even more dramatic and original way of interpreting a melody than that of trumpeters like Keppard and King Oliver.
Let’s go back to the real New Orleans Jazz. Recenlty I found a vinyl album where Claude Luter plays New Orleans Jazz. So prepare for some nice Dixieland Jazz from Bechet and other great jazz performers.
Album release: 1974
Andy Kirk was a jazz bass saxophonist and tubist best known as a bandleader. He started his musical career playing with George Morrison’s band, but then went on to join Terrence Holder’s Dark Clouds of Joy.
In 1929 he was elected leader after Holder departed. Renaming themselves Twelve Clouds of Joy they set up [...]