Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 2, No. 6 (1928-03)

March, 1928 The Phonograph Monthly Review 235 Popular Vocal aed Instrumental Okeh leads with a splendid instrumental blues, Crawley Clarinet Moan, coupled with Love Will Drive Me Crazy (85390). Wilton Crawley does his customary shrill playing on the second side, but the first has both pathos and tonal beauty. The brief vocal parts in both are excellent; pre- sumably Crawley does them also. His are real talents! Seeger Ellis is best known as a tenor, but he proves that he can play as well as sing on 40970, piano solos, Poppin’ ’Em Out and Among My Souvenirs. The recording is excellent and the playing good, although by no means as sensational as that displayed by Bix Biederbecke with his recent In a Mist. One still awaits a solo record from Schutt! Les Reis has one of the best vocals of the month with Wait a Little Longer and Without You, Sweetheart (40969). Two good blues records shine for Columbia: Hattie Hudson’s Doggone My Good Luck Soul and Black Hand Blues, with splendid accompaniments by Willie Tyson (14279-D); and Martha Copeland’s Second Hand Daddy (14289-D). The latter is not remarkable for any musical merits, but for the philosophical content of its verses. (Columbia is shortly to release an outstanding jazz work —according to Abbe Niles in the current “Bookman”, Jimmie Johnson’s Negro Rhapsody “Yamekraw” played by that incomparable maestro himself; a bit of record news of import to every blues enthusiast.) From Brunswick we have the Hour Orchestra with Moonlight and Roses on 3735; the Blackstone Trio on 3731; Eddie Thomas in Did You Mean It? on 3725; Sweet William and Bad Bill in a sketch of New York on 3710; Galla-Rini in accordion solos on 3645; the Ritz Quartet Down in the Old Neighborhood on 3546; the Variety Four in I’m Coming Virginia (7025) ; Margaret Whitmire singing That Thing’s Done Been Put On Me and ’Tain’t a Cow in Texas (7024); Wiley and Wiley in a very dull You’d Better Not Go to 25th and State No More (7022); a revival Prayer on 7023; and finally de Leath in he Man I Love (3748), all of which are mediocre at the best. Much better, although hardly out- standing, are two piano disks from Lee Sims: 3758 (Among My Souvenirs and The Song is Ended) and 3764 (Some of These Days and Meditation). Vocalion offers 15640, Char- maine sung in fair fashion by Irving Kaufman; 1132, Furry Lewis again; 1140, Henry Thomas singing about Jonah in the Wilderness; 1411, Luella Miller chanting Walnut street and Tombstone Blues to good accompaniments; and 15639, Elmo Tanner in Tomorrow. For Victor the Happiness Boys sing their familiar version of Henry Made a Lady Out of Lizzie (21174) ; Marvin and Smalle couple a prosaic Rain and After My Laughter (21172) ; Tom Waring displays a nice voice in A Shady Tree'and Away Down South in Heaven (21164); Jesse Crawford does a colorless Dancing Tambourine on the or- gan (21171; and the Dalhart-Robinson-Hood combination is equally colorless with Oh Susanna (21169). Much better is a fine record by Rudy Wiedoeft of Marilyn Waltz and Saxema (21152) one of his best to date; and Edwin H. Lemare’s organ versions of Aloha Oe and Chant de Bon- heur (21121). The only one of the Southern series worth special notice is 21128, whereon Alphus McFayden, a rustic Segovia, does stupendous stunts with Turkey in the Straw and Arkansas Traveler. Others in the Okeh list are Blue Belle’s Boa Constrictor and Sneakin’ Lizard Blues (8538) with a particularly fine accompaniment to the latter; 8537, Lonnie Johnson's Kan- sas City Blues (2 parts) ; the Happiness Boys in Poor Lizzie (40968) ; A1 Bernard in a much touted but decidedly unimpressive version of the St. Louis Blues, accompanied by the Goofus Five (40962) ; 8536 with another good accom- paniment—they’re often better than the soloists!—to Lillie Delk Christian’s Blue Heaven; the Capitol Theater Trio in a dull coupling of Kiss Me Again and The Rosary; and finally—and best— Lee White singing Lindy Lou and Ken- tucky Babe with great gusto and resonance (40965). The Columbias remaining to be mentioned bring the Happiness Boys again, this time with a rather amusing opus, I Love to Catch Brass Rings on a Merry-Go-Round (1245-D) ; William A. Kennedy makes a very fair bid for McCormack’s honors with Little Mother O’Mine, The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls, Minstrel Boy, etc., on 1232-D and 1233-D ; Seeger Ellis sings a good I’ll Think of You (1239-D) ; Ford and Glenn chant an obnoxious—to my ears anyway—Tin Pan Parade (1240-D) ; Art Gillham whisperingly pianos What a Wonderful Night This Would Be (1253-D) ;Sol Hoopii’s Novelty Trio plays Meleanae and Sweet Lei Lehua (1250-D) ; Cliff Edwards offers an inter- esting coupling on 1254-D; Lee Morse does well with A Good Night Kiss (1276-D) ; and the Artist Ensemble plays a very sentimental Blue Heaven on 1246-D. There are several miscellaneous Southern and race releases in addition; one of the former excites curiosity. A1 Craver on 15218-D sings a ballad about Little Marion Parker, her fate, and the lesson it teaches. The question of taste in songs of this sort needly hardly be entered into; such ballads are sanctioned by tradition: this is a characteristic if somewhat gruesome one. Four disks stand out brilliantly in the first batch of March dance records; each is a masterpiece of its particular type of jazz. First is Brunswick 3630, the Original Memphis Five’s Lovey Lee and How Come Ya Do Me Like Ya Do, which appeared under the Vocalion label in January. Again it can be heartily endorsed. Next comes Okeh 8535, the finest disk to date from that musical primitive, Louis Armstrong, and his Hot Seven. Savoy Blues possesses a wealth of orchestral moaning, modulated (for once from Armstrong) to a pitch that is quite bearable. Hotter than That on the reverse is both thin and unpleasant during its instrumental passages, but Armstrong’s insane wah-wah nonsense chorus outshines anything of the sort I have ever heard before. The reliable New Orleans Owls, another band which knows the secret of hot jazz which is strongly symphonic in treatment, are heard on Columbia 1261-D in Goose Pimples and Throwin’ the Horns. The latter piece contains a dialogue chorus which is one of the most de- lightful things since Joe Mannone’s Columbia Up the Country Blues. Finally comes Frankie Trumbauer in two of his invariably ingenious works, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Crying All Day (Okeh 40966). The former is good, with a very strange ending, but the latter is of marked excellence. Joe Mannone, mentioned above, offers his long awaited second release this month: Columbia 14282-D, Cat’s Head and Sadness Will be Gladness, but sad to relate Joe is not heard in one of his inimitable choruses. Cat’s Head is quite good, but the reverse is poor. Leo Reisman, now aspiring to symphonic heights, does not release any Strawinski’s Ragtime or Loeffler’s Clowns (which are to be played by him in concert), but he turns out a good dance piece in For My Baby (Columbia 1241-D) ; Fred Rich’s The Man I Love, on the other side, is disappointing. Other Columbias worthy of praise are : William Nappi’s fast and furious If You Just Knew (coupled with Bob Miller’s Shine On Harvest Moon—only fair, except for the fiddling) on 1262-D; the Knickerbockers’ Back Where the Daisies Grow and Waiting for the Rainbow (1252-D); and Ted Lewis’ Away Down South in Heaven and Sweeping the Cobwebs Off the Moon (1242-D), the latter piece devoted largely to Ruth Etting’s singing. Among the rank and file are 1244-D (Reser’s Ice Cream and When the Robert E. Lee Comes to Town) ; 1243-D (Paul Ash’s Everywhere I Go and I’ve Been Looking for a Girl Like You) ; 1166-D (Cole Me- Elroy’s Honolulu Blues and Lonely Nights in Hawaii— with the usual Hawaiian effects); 1273-D (Paul Specht’s Let a Smile be Your Umbrella and The Grass Grows Greener) ; 1274-D (Ben Selvin’s When You’re in Love with Somebody Else and We’ll Have a New Home—the latter much smoother, if less original, than Shilkret’s Victor version) ; and 1275-D (the California Ramblers’ Mine All Mine and Changes—the chorus in the latter is poqr). For those who can stand, in fact like, Hawaiian guitars and ukuleles, there is a special group: 1247-D and 1249-D are by tVk South Sea Islanders (Call of Ajfoha, Tropical Hulas, etc.) 1248-D is by the Royal Palolo Hawaiians (Kaala Medley Waltz and Hawaiian Love Waltz Medley); and 1251-D presents the Moana Orchestra in Aloha Oe Blues and On the Shores of Honolulu; the recording in all four is good.