The record changer (Jan-Feb 1945)

ESQUIRE 1943 1 by nesuhi erteguti Having just received my copy of the Esquire Jazz Book for 1945, I don't have jtime to review it properly in this issue. J would like to recommend it, however, for its many wonderful photographs and j useful biographies of musicians. The articles are something else again. I will 'discuss them in the next issue of the Record Changer, with special emphasis upon Paul Eduard Miller's aesthetics. ' I— THE ESQUIRE JAZZ CONCERT '■■ All those interested in good jazz .will be deeply grateful to Esquire : a coast,to-coast audience of jazz followers was (allowed to hear the best music that has jbeen played over the air since Kid Ory, Mutt Carey and their group of New (Orleans jazzmen were featured on the j Orson Welles program. J This portion of great music lasted perhaps twenty-five seconds, perhaps thirty. It came at the very end of the broadcast originating from New Orleans. Before that, the Prima band with Fazola had played a little Dixieland, and not very well either; there had been a curious version of Perdido Street Blues, with Higginbotham playing horribly, Armstrong playing badly and Bechet playing superbly; Louis had sung some nice blues; James P. Johnson had interpreted his Arkansaw Blues; Louis had sung Confessin' ; and there had been a shockjingly bad and interminable solo by Higiginbotham {Dear Old Southland). The half -hour allotted to New Orleans jazz (sic) was almost over and then the j great moment came. Bunk Johnson and j Louis Armstrong formed a wonderful I trumpet team and began playing Basin [Street Blues. It had lasted hardly eight j measures when Louis went into a vocal. Bunk's playing behind the vocal was of i incredible beauty. But the vocal, too, j ended abruptly; Higgy took one of his (sensational breaks right into the mike, (drowning out everything else, the concert (from New Orleans was over and there jwas Benny Goodman plaving from New I York. Bunk's playing was heard over the air for less than half a minute. It was enough to convince musically sensitive listeners that he was a great artist and that he played the best jazz on the entire broadcast. There was absolutely nothing else worth listening to, except some wonderful moments by Bechet, and Louis when he played with Bunk. This half -hour program was presented to a vast radio audience as illustrating New Orleans jazz. Such falsification of reality, such a monstrous caricature of a beautiful form of music, is one of the most shocking events in the annals of jazz exploitation. All the readers of the Record Changer should write Mr. Arnold Gingrich, editor of Esquire, and ask him either to let New Orleans music alone or to present something which actually resembles it. We are sick and tired of such deliberate misrepresentations and willful distortions. Those who are interested in real New Orleans music cannot tolerate any more of these grotesque pseudo-New Orleans concerts. Higginbotham is allowed to play a meaningless solo, taking up three or four minutes of air-time. He never played a New Orleans trombone to begin with. I cannot imagine what strange and inconceivable reasoning could have prompted the organizers of the concert to bring him all the way from Chicago and to present him as a famous exponent of the New Orleans style, when there were so many trombone players in New Orleans who could have revealed to the radio audience what a tailgate trombone should really sound like. Anyway, Higginbotham played a long solo which had as much in common with New Orleans music as Dave Rose has with Debussy. Then, Armstrong sang Confessin' . I am very fond of Armstrong singing Confessin', but 1 would much rather hear something which is a little closer to New Orleans music on a program which is supposedly devoted to it. When a good jazz tune was played, Higginbotham automatically ruined the ensembles. Thanks to his immense talent only Sidney Bechet was able to play in a manner which could satisfy a critical listener until Bunk 3