The record changer (Jan-Dec 1949)

13 GEORGE AVAKIAN BUCKLIN MOON PAUL BACON records noted Castle Jazz Band Sugar Blues Original Dixieland One Step Loveless Love Sweet Georgia Brown The best semi-pro jazz band in the land does it again with four corking sides. Does it again, did I say? Hell, these are better than the last batch ! Granted that Sweet Georgia Brown and maybe Original Dixieland are too fast, it's still a remarkable session. Castle's recording seems to improve as time goes on, too. This batch is up to the standard of any independent. Where this gang gets its punch, I'm not sure. One suspects that a saliva test might be in order, because seven gents named Jose from Oregon have no business playing jazz like this. It's clean without being too scrubbed, and even though it's derivative as hell — as what good jazz isn't these days — the boys have that wide-eyed quality that helps explain it to some extent. These guys just don't know that they have no business playing jazz, so like the unscientific humming bird, they just go ahead and fly. As so often happens, there's one side that's better than the rest. In this case, it's' Loveless Love, and if you don't keep this one up on the turntable, then you haven't been a Changer subscriber long enough. Everything seems to be perfect about this one. The tempo, for instance, is so right that it brings tears to strong men's eyes. One might say, with justice, that almost any tempo is right for this great tune, but here it seems righter than any other time, especially for this gang. The rhythm section shows that it can really get a relaxed beat (something you can't prove by the other titles) and the ensemble work is so superb that if you don't know the cakewalk you'll be a master before the last chorus is half over. There's a very cute and effective coda which is like a master's spotting of a maraschino on the whipped cream. It had to be done perfectly or else, and the boys did it perfectly. There are no heroes in this band, which is one of the best things about it. Every man is damn good, and the improvement in some of the veterans is very reassuring. Monte Ballou, I assume, sings Sugar Blues (there's no credit on the label), but except on this side you're scarcely aware of soloists as such. And that Loveless Love is just too much. I hope that my opening remark about a "semi-pro" band is going to get shoved aside by somebody. What's the band doing now? It should work at least three times a week somewhere, even though the chances are that its fifty faithful followers will go broke in the process. Well, anyway, you just get that Loveless Love and love it, that's all. {Castle 5, 6) (G.A.) Tony Parenti's Ragpickers Cataract Rag The Entertainer's Rag Nonsense Rag Redhead Rag Crawfish Crawl The Lily Rag This seems to be Ragtime Week at Circle and that's all right with me, for though ragtime certainly fell within the recording era there are, aside from a few piano solos, no pure examples of that almost forgotten art which had such an effect not only on America but on the whole world. Nor was it limited to the piano; it was even introduced to Europe via the old John Philip Sousa band. A while, back Circle introduced Tony Parenti and his Ragtime Band, a seven-piece unit which recorded many of the purest examples of that highly original music. But exciting as those records were, they sound pale to me alongside of the closely knit texture of this trio composed of Tony Parenti, Ralph Sutton and George Wettling. I'm all for this kind of music and I wish we. could have more of it, Circle's Ragtime Concert, which I had the misfortune to miss, was really something if my spies are to be trusted, and they usually are. It would be wonderful indeed if that concert could travel to other cities, or broadcast over a nationwide hook-up, for this is not only wonderful music to listen to but a really important slice of Americana. But barring that, it's good to have albums like this. And I think one of the best things is that these records have no ghosts to haunt them and thus have a real freshness. Ragtime was a separate thing from Jazz, though Jazz borrowed something from ragtime, and now the shoe is on the other foot. In this newest revival much of Jazz is being carried over into ragtime, which is all to the good. Ragtime is gay and happy and what I like about these records is that the players sound as though they were having a hell of ball making these six sides. I think you'll have a ball listening to them. {Circle S-21. $3.95) (B.M.) Ralph Sutton: St. Louis Piano Dill Pickles St. Louis Blues Whitewash Man Carolina in the Morning If there is a better piano player around these parts than Ralph Sutton I have yet to hear him. There may be some who could cut him one time, or others who look flashier to that strange breed of listeners who are so busy watching that th'ey never, somehow, have time to use their ears, but for my money you can have them and I'll take Sutton — now, tomorrow, and from then on. Them's strong words, Buster, but I mean them. Every now and then we hear the old argument about how the old Jazz is dead and we go on imitating the same old sounds in the same old way but get nowhere because the environment of the player of today is not the same as the environment of the oldtimers, and so on far into the night. Often that is true, but for my money (there isn't much of it the way I'm throwing it around here) this album knocks that theory bassackwards. And it does so for a very good "reason. If Sutton wanted to play like Jelly, or Fats, or even your Aunt Ida he could do it and then everyone would say : Gee, ain't that wonderful, he sounds just like him. The only trouble is that Sutton wants to sound like Sutton ; in fact I gather he's a little bit stubborn about it, the ungrateful wretch. And yet he always sounds, underneath, as though he had been born under an upright in some East St. Louis honky tonk, where he took on by a sort of lamination process — maybe the way old buildings take on years ol cooking odors — evePything that had ever been played on a jazz piano. No, I know the guy couldn't be that good, but listen to these four sides. Play those two fine old rags — Dill Pickles and White