Jazz Focus

Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra 1933-34

From Sept 1933 through the end of January 1934 (when the band left for a European tour), the Calloway Orchestra recorded for RCA Victor, redoing some earlier hits (like "Minnie" and "Scat Song") and premiering some great jazz numbers by trombonist and arranger Harry "Father" White ("Fatha's Got His Glasses On," "Harlem Camp Meetin'," "Evening" etc).  Featuring Ed Swayzee, Lammar Wright and Doc Cheatham on trumpet, White and DePriest Wheeler on trombones, Eddie Barefield on alto, Arville Harris on clarinet, Andrew Brown on bass clarinet, Walter Thomas on tenor and bari sax, Bennie Payne on piano, Morris "Fruit" White on guitar, Al Morgan on bass and Leroy Maxey on drums - all with Calloway singing!

Show - Ben Webster 1944-47

Great mid 1940's sides featuring the tenor sax player soon after his tenure with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.  All these recordings feature Webster as the only horn with stellar rhythm accompaniment under his own name (with John Simmons, Al Haig, Johnny Guarnieri, Oscar Pettiford, Bill De Arrango and David Booth) and with Sid Catlett (with Marlowe Morris and Simmons).

Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band - live, 1941-2

Live airshots, mostly from the Dawn Club in San Francisco of Lu Watter's first Yerba Buena band, featuring himself and Bob Scobey on trumpet, Turk Murphy on trombone, Ellis Horne on clarinet, Forrest Brown and Wally Rose on piano, Clancy Hayes and Russell Bennett on banjos, Dick Lammi on tuba and Bill Dart on drums . . .a bonus wartime date during the summer of 42 without Watters, but with Benny Strickler on trumpet, Bill Bardin on trombone, Horne or Bob Helm on clarinet, Burt Bales on piano, Bennett and Clancy Hayes on drums

Show - Hilton Jefferson 1958, 60, 61

Three great (and vastly different) mainstream sessions featuring the alto of Hilton Jefferson, who was known more popularly as a lead alto player for Calloway, Henderson and Ellington.  Here he is featured with Rex Stewart on a Feltsted album with Garvin Bushell on clarinet and bassoon and Everett Barksdale on guitar; the Swingville All Stars with Al Sears, Taft Jordan and Don Abney and a different Swingville All Stars date with Joe Newman, J.C. Higginbotham, Jimmy Hamilton, Coleman Hawkins, Claude Hopkins and Tiny Grimes.

Bass Clarinet Jazz 2!

A wide ranging survey of 1920's, Trad and Swing recordings featuring bass clarinet - with the Cotton Club Orchestra, PIccadilly Players, Monette Moore, Wilbur Sweatman, Anglo-American Alliance, Hoosier Hotshots and bands led by Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Ray Noble, Marty Grosz, Bob Scobey, Turk Murphy, Jean Morel, Humphrey Lyttleton and Ted Weems!

Show - Taft Jordan 1960 and 1961

Selections taken from two lps featuring Taft Jordan playing Ellington tunes with a quintet including Kenny Burrell and Richard Wyands and the Swingville All Stars with Al Sears, Hilton Jefferson and Don Abney.

Billie Holiday on Clef 1955

Two great sessions from August, 1955 with Billie Holiday backed by the same band - Harry "Sweets" Edison, Benny Carter, Jimmy Rowles, Barney Kessel, Ray Brown and Larry Bunker.  Holiday was at the tail end of her career, but the top-shelf accompaniment inspired her to some of her best singing - rerecording tunes for Clef in 1955 that she had done twenty years earlier for ARC and Brunswick.

Show- Clarence Williams Washboard Band 1927-29

Out and out jazz sessions led by the New Orleans pianist and entrepreneur Williams featuring mostly his own compositions/publications.  Ed Allen and King Oliver play cornet, Buster Bailey, Arville Harris, Russell Procope, Benny Moten and Carmelo Jejo play reeds, Cyrus St. Clair on tuba and Floyd Casey on washboard, giving the group its name!

Ben Webster on Clef - 1951, 53

Some of the first feature recordings made by Norman Granz on his various labels.  This represents three sessions led by Ben Webster (the last two of which were issued on LP as "King of the Tenors").  The first is 1951 with Maynard Ferguson on trumpet, Benny Carter on alto, Gerald Wiggins on piano, John Kirby on bass and George Jenkins on drums.  The others are from 1953 and feature Oscar Peterson on piano, Barney Kessel on guitar, Ray Brown on bass and J.C. Heard on drums on the first, with the second substituting Herb Ellis on guitar and Alvin Stoller on drums, with Harry "Sweets Edison and Benny Carter added on trumpet and alto.

Show - Jabbo Smith the Sideman

Great records featuring the iconoclastic trumpeter playing with other groups, including Charlie Johnson's Paradise Orchestra (with Charlie Irvis, Benny Waters, Ben Whitted and Monette Moore), Duke Ellington (with Joe Nanton, Rudy Jackson, Otto Hardwick and Harry Carney), Charles Lavere and His Orchestra (Joe Marsala, Preston Jackson, Zutty Singleton, Boyce Brown), Banjo Ikey Robinson (Omer Simeon, Lawson Buford), the Louisiana Sugar Babes (with James P. Johnson, Fats Waller and Garvin Bushell), and Eva Taylor (Clarence Williams, Charlie Irvis).