This channel mainly contains original slideshows related to American Jazz, social history and culture. Some rare historical live action clips are posted. These are utilized in my online publications and zoom university extension courses about Jazz, Swing and Blues for Osher Institute .
Dave, thank you so much for these thoughtful episodes you've put together. I find myself, as a professional saxophonist in Los Angeles, going BACKWARDS in time to study more music. Digging deeper into the 1920's Dixieland and 1930's early jazz, or as I often call it "Pre-Bop" because you can hear so many connections that were passed down to the Bop stars in the 40-50s.
Thanks Jason. Find the other 80% of my work on my website: www.jazzhotbigstep.com and Syncopated Times column: syncopatedtimes.com/the-legend-is-true Best wishes, Dave R
I saw her sing with Turk Murphy at Earthquake Magoons in San Francisco, and then I was off to Korea. Many years later I saw her at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee and I met her and told her that Turk was asked whatever happened to Pat Yankee? And Turk said that she married a Spanish Count and moved to Spain. I thought that was something that you did not hear every day. And it tuned out that Turk had embellished a story. She did marry, but not to a count, and did move, but then she returned and sang again with Turk. And she was the Empress at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. Like Sophie Tucker, the last of the Red Hot Mammas, she had the same realistic, almost raspy, mature voice that could sing sophisticated jazz. No one has ever done it better. God Bless.
I was born in Tulsa in 1950 and my mother used to talk about Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. She was born in 1926 in Muskogee. I think Cain’s ballroom might still be there. I know I saw a couple of concerts there in the early 1970’s. Very historic place in Tulsa.
It was a shame that, if you were female and a serious musician of jazz and popular music, the only way you could get a job was to be in an "all female band" and paraded like a curiosity.
My aunt has a Martin guitar Lee Morse used to play - a '44 Martin D-017. It was given to her by "Babe" Cahill, a friend of Lee's from her time as a comedienne on the vaudeville circuit. My aunt said Lee and another woman, Mabel Clark, who my aunt described as an operatic singer from that era, what she can remember, would come up from NYC to visit Babe on occasion. My aunt rented a room from Babe back in the 50's when she went to work for Kodak in Rochester NY. My aunt is approaching 91, and I can't wait to show her this video.
A lot of it, was heroin especially in jazz circles , TB, appendicitis, sometimes poisoned (that was a thing back then) and just poor health conditions. People waited things out (mistake) and used home remedies back then.
I first heard of snoozer Quinn in 1990 when Leo Kottke told a story about him in a performance. There was no internet yet, so I had to remember the name and ask anybody I could, but for years I had only a humorous anecdote by a semi-obscure guitar player to go by. Finally I can hear what all the fuss was about.
Thanks for that. You can read more at this recent article about Quinn and reviewing the book. If you’re a guitarist recall there’s a batch of tablature lead sheets in the book carefully transcribed from the Wiggs session. syncopatedtimes.com/restoring-edward-snoozer-quinn-to-the-jazz-guitar-pantheon/ You should be able to access at least one free ST article before the publication paywall.
Au contraire, Leon McAuliffe's steel is plainly heard on the arpeggiated intro twin-guitar ensemble with acoustic guitarist Eldon Shamblin present on this recording which was omitted from the video. Leon was a HUGE fan of Big Band bandleader and steel guitarist extraordinaire Alvino Rey whose steel guitar style was both forward thinking and front running and so highly influential that he led the pack of top-notch steel players such as McAuliffe, Noel Boggs, Joaquin Murphy and Jerry Byrd in the 40's who were so inspired by his style and musical excellence and command of the instrument, that they literally took their cues from his recordings and radio shows. Leon told me in an interview back in the late 70's, "Once we heard Alvino Rey's steel guitar innovations, everything we had learned from Bob Dunn went out the window. Alvino Rey re-wrote the book on the steel guitar and everybody who came along after is indebted to him." Also worthy of note is Eldon Shamblin's brief but deft Eddie Lang inspired chord melody acoustic guitar solo which he ably utilized as an inventive turnaround to modulate the key from Bb to F where Tommy Duncan sang the new lyrics crafted for the updated Big Band version of the old fiddle tune 'Maiden's Prayer'. Eldon's Big Band chords are also nothing to sneeze at. He demonstrated during the Big Band period of Wills career that he was a more than capable Big Band and Swing guitarist owing very little if anything to country music. This period of Bob Wills and his Tulsa Big Band era lasted until WWII broke up the Texas Playboys band when Wills went into the Army towards the end 1942 where he spent about 7 months in the service of Uncle Sam. Upon his discharge in July of '43 Bob tried to recapture the past glory of those Tulsa years with another Big Band which he assembled in CA made up of 22 pieces, but it was short-lived and never recorded commercially. At the time McAuliffe was in the Navy training fighter pilots. Shamblin was away in Europe as a Captain in Patton's 3rd Army leading an Armored Division in the Infantry on the front lines during the Battle of the Bulge and other notable conflicts. He returned to Wills in the fall of 1946 to a much smaller band made up of strings and the occasional horn. McAuliffe tried his best to put together a Big Band in Tulsa during Bob's absence, but the crowds and dancers wanted to hear 'Steel Guitar Rag' and other string band staples that were a Whitman's sampler of some of the greatest hits of western swing. He capitulated to their demands, fired the horns except for one or two and had a stunning string band he called the Cimmaron Boys with him as DeFacto leader directing the band from behind his ever-present steel much in the same vein as Alvino Rey.
1907 to 1949. At 42 he died so young, like so many other Jazz players of that time. WTF was up back in those day where every great musician died so goddamn young? Was it the dirty prohibition booze? Or the epidemic of good old pure heroin? Crazy how all the greats died all so soon. Yet, still we love them for what they gave.
Yes, Shaw had a nervous breakdown as described in the video. He recovered quickly upon discharge. post-trauma would be later after the fact. There is no evidence he was later troubled by the wartime experience.
What a wonderful surprise!!! I used to Study with her in San Francisco in the 90's when she was in her 90's. Hours were spent each lesson listening to stories, life lessons, some piano and voice coaching and it always ended with her signature goodbye "Stay Wonderful!"
Thanks for uploading this. I wondered how he would play it himself and to get some historical perspective on him. No doubt greatly influenced by Fats Waller!
Many thanks Dave for all the informations about Goudie in your links. "You in my arms..." is my favorite Goudie's solo : Very well built, high inspiration, and very original sound.
Quite a number of bandleaders joined up during WW2, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Claude Thornhill, Orrin Tucker, Eddie Duchin to name a few. These musicians were at the peak of their careers and didn't have to go. In contrast, name one rock star who was in uniform during the Vietnam War. I was against that war, but none the less, what was it that kept out? There were of draft age, living openly hedonistic lives, they weren't college students. How did they manage to avoid the draft?
