The record changer (Jan-Dec 1949)

6 than Decca, an outfit that had just begun packaging everything in sight at the rate of two or three albums a week? My letter to Decca brought an invitation from Dave Kapp to come to New York and discuss the plan. It seemed to be fate — I had just been growing a mustache, and I felt a lot more „ confident about meeting a vicepresident with a mustache to make me look older than my bare 20. Dave Kapp sized up me and the idea, and turned me over to Bob Stephens for the actual preparation. Bob and I went over the details, and decided to cut first with the bunch at Nick's as a starter, with the other two dates for Chicago. Victor recorded the Freeman Band early in July, but' the results were a lot politer than what I was after. Since it was Condon with whom I had been talking about the Chicago revival idea, Eddie was to act as leader for the Decca album's first session. The band, as has been noted, was under Bud Freeman's nominal direction, although it was actually a co-operative organization. Its sub-title, the Summa Cum Laude Orchestra, was a smart sobriquet dreamed up by manager Ernie Anderson (who felt that the boys .were post-graduates in the jazz school), and it gave the group more tone with the college and intellectual crowd that dug it at Nick's and its first Friday Club jazz sessions. One change was definitely made for the session from the regular line-up : Joe Sullivan, the original pianist of the old Chicago discs, was in town, fresh from a recovery in a Los Angeles sanatorium. A good break for the album developed when Dave Tough came out of temporary retirement to replace Al Sidell, who had played drums on the Bluebird date. So the session was set 'for late July with Condon, Sullivan, and Tough in the rhythm section, and a front line consisting of Max Kaminsky, Pee Wee Russell, and Bud Freeman. Floyd O'Brien blew into town, with Gene Krupa's Band, but before he could be nailed down for the date, Decca had to postpone it to August 11, and Floyd was leaving town by then. Condon, who had refused to dig out his four-string banjo for this date ("It went out with the mackinaw"), held out for adding Clyde Lombardi on bass and Brad Gowans on trombone in order to fill out the ensemble sound of the group. The tunes were picked and Eddie and I went over the points that were going to make it strictly a "Chicago" session — the ensemble first end: ings, the "explosions," the treatment of the piano solos, the final ensembles. Only one worry remained. Dave Tough was in' and out of the band every other night, and no one knew when he might retire again. George Wettling and Zutty Singleton were filling in for him on the job, and it was Zutty who hung around a phone on the day of the date until Dave was actually in the studio and set up to play. Treudley, who planned his vacation every year so that he could dig the stuff in New York, was a happy visitor to the studio that day. I think it was one of the easiest dates I've ever watched. The first three sides were cut just like that — two takes each on Changes Made and Friar's Point Shuffle, and Nobody's Sweetheart was cut once without even a run-through for time. The last side was Some Day Siveetheart, and the first take ran over, so rather than cut anybody's solo out, Eddie got the idea of reducing the opening ensemble to the first four notes, leading right into Sullivan's solo. I have always liked this session, and I guess it's my favorite in this album. Perhaps it's because it was the first of the hundred or so I've handled since. For me, it was a snap — once the boys were there and knew what to do, Bob Stephens took over and I just sat back and enjoyed the date. Dave Tough was never better, and Max Kaminsky, I think, played the best horn he has ever recorded on this session. How did the boys take to following the "Chicago style" instructions? They didn't mind at all, and as with all the groups in the album, they rather liked it. They seemed pleased and proud of the whole thing. The next step was to be Muggsy's band, but there was some question as to whether Victor had an option on him after the band cut for Bluebird in Chicago in July. I was planning to drive out to California with Stearns within 10 days after the Condon date, and I intended to work on the idea of recording Muggsy and a hand-picked group under Jimmy MacPartland as I passed through Chicago. The MacPartland band would include his brother Dick, Boyce Brown, Bud Jacobson, Jim Lanigan, and probably Earl Wiley, with Frank Melrose or Dave North on piano. It looked as though Floyd O'Brien, George Wettling, and Jess Stacy might be left out, although we were hoping to get them into the album somehow. As I write all this, it may sound as though everything was scheduled very neatly, but the plan actually was in constant flux as musicians travelled and changed jobs from day to day. There was even a time when the album was going to pay its respects to Louis Armstrong by including at least a couple of sides cut in Chicago with Louis, Earl Hines, the Dodds brothers, and maybe Preston Jackson, Mancy Cara, and Johnny Lindsay or Suttie Reynard. That idea was soon sidetracked as a cityby-city series of albums began to develop in the minds of Boh Stephens and myself. The Armstrong date logically turned into plans for a New Orleans album, to be followed by Kansas City and New York albums. The veterans of the Memphis, Five and the Five Pen'nies were to form , the nucleus for the latter set. In Chicago, Stearns and I stayed at the Hotel Sherman, where Muggsy's band was alternating with Fats Waller's Rhythm. It was a rare treat, and we spent every possible moment at the Panther Room listening to the boys. Muggsy, it developed, was playing footie with J^ictor for more recordings, and the sales of the first two records were to determine the future status of the band. So I concentrated on setting up a MacPartland date. That was nice work, since it also involved a Monday night at Squirrel Ashcraft's with the boys. The MacPartland da'.e went off in Chicago under Bob Stephens while I was back at classes in New Haven in October. O'Brien missed it, so there was no trombone. At the last minute, Jimmy had to fill the piano and drum spots with boys from his own band. It was still a good date, and most of the people commenting on the album to me have said it was the best session of the three. The last session almost wasn't. Muggsy came to New York for the historic run opposite the Freeman band at Nick's. That was a gay old time for us Village regulars, and the Freeman band, which had gone in heavily for manuscript during the summer, (Continued on Page 17) Eddie Condon with the author just before the recordings. Decca Photo