The record changer (Mar 1945-Feb 1946)

given a distinct separation. Like the playing of Eddie Edwards on the ODJB records. As contrasted to a singing style of trombone like Tom Dorsey when he's playing getting sentimental over you. Good playing alternates slurs and tongueing. Smooth phrases broken up by tongued noted. Jazz didn't need hokum to be great. But hokum is part of jazz, as it is found with it and is so intermingled with it that it can be said to be inextricably mixed with it'. You can't see much hokum over the air, or on records., but think of the hokum you hear recorded. LIVERY STABLE BLUES, the comedy of Pee Wee's spit notes, which always gets a laugh. Bix's funny noise breaks. I can give you endless examples. Double embouchure is not concerned with vibrato. On the contrary. It i s used originally by symphony players who played without vibrato. But if you play vibrato, as you do in jazz, your tone doesn't crack so readily if you use a double embouchure. You don't get the wheezes or squeaks all of us dread. I've made a bunch of sides with a six piece dixieland combination, using string bass . Maybe you can hear them when you come down, and see how this theory of mine works out in actual practice. In order to go into the question of "split" tone, spit notes, growl notes, etc., further, we'll have to get together in person. I'll bring along my clarinet and play all these for you. I'll imitate Pee Wee, and show you how Fazola plays. Incidentally, the other night at Cafe Society Downtown, I was talking with Prince Robinson, who plays Albert System clarinet. He told me he plays double embouchure, and added that Bigard, I think he said Bennie Carter, and some others did also. And he says Johnny Hodges does on alto. He says it's old European technique and essentially legitimate. By the way, with it you get the opposite of a shaky quavery tone. Since the cushion of the lips is even, the tone does not crack, and remains liquid, fluid, and pure throughout. Like Fazola's or Larry Shields' s. Unless you wiggle the instrument so badly with your hands or fingers that you still can't play clean. Nervous ameteurs do this in their tenseness. They grip the clarinet too hard, and beat it with their fingers as if it were a piano, instead of covering the holes, much as a woman who doesn't understand a vacuum cleaner runs it rapidly across a carpet, confusing it with a broom. I don't know how Bechet's tone gets that quality. To me it has a very fast vibrato which is probably more pleasing to the negro than to the legitimate white man who prefers a slower vibrato. But some colored girls sing naturally with a vibrato just like that. Parenthetically, I consider Sidney Bechet one of the greatest figures in jazz, and one of the purest sources, in direct line, of the jazz idiom. He is one of my favorites for phrasing. And his rhythm is terrific. Sidney i_s jazz. But I don't try to copy his tone. I try to copy Fazola's, Larry Shield's and that of the guy, E. Kanter, who plays on Ben Pollack's SONG OF THE ISLANDS on Decca. Get a load of that guy's tone. Terrific. More vibrato than Fazola, and more like Shields. Though Kanter can't improvise or phrase as well as Fazola. Most of the tone you hear which is not legitimate reed tone arises from: shaking the instrument involuntarily thru lack of proper schooling or lack of development of lip musculture through ignorance, using too soft reeds, or imitation of other players' faults, in the latter case a deliberate imitation of a playing fault. Jazz players don't use double embouchure. They may use it by virtue of having learned legitimately, but most jazz players who pick up the instrument play with the teeth touching the mouthpiece. Most teachers teach this way, too. Go to the library and get out all the books you can find on this subject and you'll perhaps locate a resume in some of the old foreign methods, such as Carl Baermann, Jr. Get the German edition, if possible, as it will probably be more complete. They also give an embouchure with the reed on top. No one plays that today. Pee Wee's spit notes are almost noises, and are too fast a vibration to be called a vibrato, which simulates the human voice. This is his so-called "Dirty" tone. It is more distorted even than a growl. It is something I have heard only Pee Wee do. If you heard him on the Saturday concerts today, he did it a lot. It will be heard on a new Spanier record of MEMPHIS BLUES of which Muggsy played me the test yesterday. He does it by blowing a note on the clarinet and at the same time making a sound with his lips exactly the way a cornet player does into his mouthpiece. The vibration of the lips is transmitted to the reed, ut March 15. — With Lena Home at the Capitol Theater were Dick Vance, trumpet, Benny Morton, trombone, Earl Bostic and. Edmond Hall, clarinets, Sid Catlett, Billy Taylor, and Horace Henderson, rhythm. Horace is Lena's arranger and accompanist...Bunk Johnson came to New York last week to join Sidney Bechet's group which took a plane for Boston, March 12th to work at the Savoy for four weeks. In the band are Bunk, Beohet, Pop Foster, bass, George Thompson, drums, and Ray Parker, piano. Bunk and Sidney also appeared at Milt Gabler's jam session Sunday, March 11th. Raymond Scott started rehearsals on March 16th at the former Master Studios, which Scott has taken over for his Universal Recording Co. Raymond said he has a new radio program coming up after a tour of theaters and dance engagements. Only man set at press time was Eddie Delmar, baritone and alto, who will manage the band on the road. Scott's new band opens at the Earle Theater, Philadelphia, April 6th for one week. . .George James trio opened at Sach's Shobar, Detroit, March 3rd for three weeks with George, alto and clarinet, Lynwood Proctor, piano, Sully Warner, bass. The trio expects to go overseas on a U.S.O. tour with Ida James. . .Benny Carter Orchestra opened at the Trocadero, Hollywood, March 22nd for eight weeks. . .Douglas and Wilbur Daniels of the famous Spirits of Rhythm group, in town from the west coast. Wilbur left March 4th, saying he had better prospects in California, but Douglas will stay on to form a trio for work around N.Y. The Melotones Trio with Jimmy Shirley, guitar, Roy Testamark, piano, and Averill Pollard, bass, opened at Tondelayo's Feb. 25th... Fred Moynahan, drummer and brother of Jim, is at sea on U.S.S. Sierra playing in ship's band... Mel Henke, Chicago pianist, left Heidt's band to return to Chi^cago where he will record for the Victor label with rhythm background. . .National records signed Joe Turner and Pete Johnson for two years. . .Billy Taylor replaced Jimmy Butts with Benny Morton's band at the Downbeat Club, while Jimmy joined the Tiny Grimes Trio. Frank Froeba's trio opened at Jimmy Ryan's East Side Club, March 2nd, for a long stay; the address is 55 East 54th terly distorting the tone, and giving it a rasping, rattly, discordant, hoarse, distorted tone like the sound of a clarinet player heard on a badly out-of-order radio whose volume has dropped due to a broken condenser, plus a bad tube. The dirty tone of Pee Wee doesn't have any embouchure distinction between single or double. It's hard enough to keep any tone going with all that air escaping. You just blow the reed and squeeze your side of your lips and blow out through the tightened lips until you get a sound — any sound. That sound will distort the pure reed tone into what Pee Wee sounds like when he's really dispensing. Anybody who plays a wind instrument may use a chest vibrato or whinney. I can't give you examples. Try it yourself on a horn. You can easily see how it's done. Evan a fourth of July horn will do. Or a kazoo, or a comb and papeE It's the sound kids make today imitating a machine gun. Street. . .Mary Williams writes from Hollywood of a new jam session called "The Lamplighter" aired over station KPAS (1110 KC) from 2 to 2:30 PM. Show emanates from Billy Berg's Hollywood Club. First session had Joe Sullivan, Zutty Singleton Vic Dickenson and Howard McGee, and wa shortwaved to the armed forces. Joe an Zutty will be permanent guests. . .Deryc Sampson now at the Three Deuces. Decca released, March 3, Jimmy Lunce ford's GONNA SEE MY BABY and THAT SOME ONE MUST BE YOU, De 18655... Most nigh clubs are now opening at 4:00 PM, Sunday and Saturdays, other days at 6:00 PM. . Toy Wilson replaced Sammy Price at tn Onyx. At Milt Gabler's Session, Sunday, Marc 4th, Frankie Newton, Ferdinand Arbello Sidney Bechet, Ed Dougherty, Pop Foste and Ray Parker opened the session wit a well received SHIEK, which was followe by other numbers of like quality. Th dance floor was covered with chairs an graced by an appreciative audience. I the later sets, Bobby Stark, Sandy Will iams, Mezz, Danny Alvin, Hank Duncan, Jim Moynahan, Ted Sturgis, Wilbur DeParis and brother Sidney, Sammy Price, Al Lucas and Shirley Clay participated. Decca, March 8th, released the first two sides of the Condon concert dates: WHEN YOUR LOVER HAS GONE, Lee Wiley, vocal and WHEREVER THERE'S LOVE, Condon's composition, De 23393. Also a two-sided RUM AND COCA COLA with new lyrics by Wilmath Houdini and oompany, known as the Royal Calypso Orchestra .. .Ray Bauduo's new band with Gil Rodin as manager opens at the Astor Hotel, New York, sometime in May... Shorty Sherok's new band opens at the Trianon Ballroom, Hollywood in May. Eddie Heywood orchestra going very well on the west coast at Shepp's playhouse. All indications favor a holdover for the band... Josh White with Libby Holman doing the vocals, opened at the Wllshire Theatre March 8th... Joe Turner, Peg Leg Bates and Luis Russell's Orchestra have been booked for a series of onenighters through Texas and Louisiana by Mutual Entertainment Agency of Chioago... Hal Mclntyre Orchestra comes back to the Commodore Hotel March 30th for two weeks before going overseas on a U.S.O. tour. BORIS ROSE Dot. B, Bkt. T-441 PVG. GND. DET. A. P. G., MARYLAND and/or 211 E. I5TH ST.. N. Y. C. 3. N. Y. 32