The record changer (Jan-Dec 1950)

47 CONGRATULATIONS LOUIS CARL KENDZIORA CONGRATULATIONS LOUIS Barbara S Stuart Johnson menced to notice how valuable a first chair man is. Vic had tone and he had punch ; he was all but a hot man in that band. You've got a good band when you've got a good first chair sax and a first chair trumpet. When you've got a bad first chair trumpet, your band is bad." Self-respect apparently lies behind Louis' high regard for accuracy and precision. "If you're serious about music and know your horn," he remarks, "you don't have to worry about some cat making a fool out of you." And in that connection, there are a couple of anecdotes from the past that he tells : "I was playing an act at the Dreamland in Chicago one time, and I was playing something in seven sharps for the act — so help me ! Well, Johnny Dunn was the big thing in New York then, with that jive he was playing. He was tearing up New York, CONGRATULATIONS LOUIS JOHN F. MANGAN playing the Palace and everything (Of course, a lot of those people who went for him, they hadn't even heard of Joe Oliver). He came out to Chicago with one of those big shows, and he came up on the bandstand where I was playing and says 'Give me some of that.' I gave him that trumpet, and every valve he touched was wrong. Those sharps just about ate him up. So he gave me back my horn, directly. And finally ' when I looked around, he done just eased away." In the other story, it was the man on the bandstand to begin with who had bitten off more than he could chew. That was Louis Metcalf, who was on trumpet with Luis Russell's band in 1928, and decided that he was "King." According to Armstrong, Metcalf "had the town sowed up, and he'd wear his crown every night — he had a little paper crown he'd made, and nobody would take it off." Armstrong, who hadn't been in New York in four years, was invited in for a guest appearance with Russell. "So they all commenced debating : 'what's he going to play like ; who's heard him' ; they were all wondering. They tell me Jimmy Harrison got up and said : 'Well, all I can say, if he comes with a trumpet, I don't know, but if he comes with a cornet — look out!'" CONGRATULATIONS LOUIS " DR. JAZZ " CONGRATULATIONS LOUIS READING JAZZ SOCIETY Louis came with a trumpet, but after he had finished sitting in with the Russell band, "some cat comes up to Metcalf and just snatched that crown off his head." All of which probably serves to point up Louis' emphasis on the value of playing "top form" at all times, even, for example, on the first show of the day at some movie house, with a sparse audience — who probably came just to see the movie, anyway. "You have to play the same at all times ; that's the way' it's supposed to be ; that's what' the man hired you to do. If you look out there and say, 'I ain't going to play much today,' and you say it tomorrow and the next day, then in a crowded house, when you got to play, you're rusty. If you played right every day, you'd know just where to hit that note — and that's what you've got to know." i3mc£ dwsbij mcoird of "WHY DO I LIKE YOU" made exclusively on Decca label for St tytdwA *%04frCfal BUILDING FUND Limited number of copies $5.00 donation for each record Send donation to: SAINT JOHN'S HOSPITAL BUILDING FUND Saint John's Hospital SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA JOHNSON'S JAM RECORDS "Cleveland's Dixie Dandies are equal to best jazz units now playing. . . . Band reached jazz world zenith in their rendition of the classic "High Society Blues." From Full Page Feature Review — Downbeat — Nov. 5, 1947. JUST ISSUED— Their First Records: • Royal Garden Blues At the Jazz Band Ball • High Society Blues Orlie's Blues ON OUR BREAK-RESISTANT "JAM" LABEL We ship these records anywhere, 99c each including packaging and postage. Johnson's Music Store 15 Second Street WILLOUGHBY. OHIO