The record changer (Jan-Dec 1951)

14 bunk johnson and the yerba buena (azz band when i move to the sky nobody's fault but mine the girls go crazy ory's Creole trombone More material from the "lost" Bunk Johnson session of 1944 with the wartime remnants of the Lu Watters band. Murphy, Ellis Home, Bales, Clancy Hayes, and Squire Girsback are on hand, and the star of the first pair is Sister Lottie Peavey, a gospel singer with a tremendous voice and a fine (though non-jazz) style. The first side is Sister Peavey all the way, with the band boiling away, Gersh bowing his bass, Bunk pitching in the fills with Murphy right there too (Home's clarinet, unfortunately, comes through only once in a long while). The tempo doubles for Nobody's Fault and the band starts off on its own; Sister Peavey barrels in two choruses, and the boys come back again before her last two. The band's closing two choruses are just about as fine ensembles as Bunk (not, in my book, an outstanding ensemble player) ever laid down on wax. The Girls Go Crazy is perhaps the best Bunk Johnson record since American Music's New Iberia Blues — bedrock beat and loaded with fine stuff all the way (even though Bunk almost muffs the start of the fourth chorus — it's a tight-rope situation but he stays with it). The sound of the record is great considering the fantastic business that Les Koenig had to go through with vinylite pressings made from dubs taken from pressings with high surface, which were then taped a couple of times, put through equalizers, surface noise suppressers, echo chambers, and "de-popped" (a painstaking process of snipping an eighth or a quarter of an inch of tape each time a click shows up). But the real miracle is Ory's Creole Trombone. Let Les Koenig's own words tell this unique story: "After a few trips to San Francisco I managed to get a dusty package of glass-base acetates from Dave Rosenbaum. marked "NG masters." They were incomplete takes, or takes with mistakes, bad balance, etc., on three numbers. I took them into a studio here (Los Angeles), washed them with' water and cotton, transferred them to tape, and then discovered that the tempos on Ory's Creole Trombone were close enough so that by editing the tapes, I was able to piece together one good, clean, exciting record. After I got through editing, I played a reference dub for Turk, who couldn't tell where any changes had been made. That's really reaching back into the past for a record!" (Les, you can say that again! *) Koenig adds that 64 clicks and noises were also edited out of the Ory's Creole Trombone master that was finally patched together. This is the kind of work which I've done a great deal of with engineers at Columbia, and I don't think the average person quite realizes what a difficult and time-consuming job it is, especially when the result is as clean as this one. Les had the many breaks in the tune working in his favor, of course, but the result is still a milestone in jazz. By the way, the music is great, too. (Good Time Jazz 37, 38) (G. A.)' * "That's really reaching back into the past for a record!"— L. K. turk murphy's jazz band after you've gone a closer walk with thee canal street blues down by the riverside More fine sides by the most consistent band in recent years. The Murphy ensemble is practically unbeatable ; every man knows just what he's about, and each part is woven into the whole in a delightfully logical and fascinating way. The rhythm section invariably plays with a solidity that swings first before it does anything else. In this it is helped no end by Skippy Anderson's everenergetic fill-ins and intelligent use of the harmonic subtleties that all the great tunes contain if one only wrings them a little bit. Not many pianists have this quality, and it isn't necessarily one of style, either. Such divergent keyboard men as Jelly Roll Morton and Earl Hines have it, and of course Joe Sullivan and Fats Waller, too. Dig Skippy all the way through After You've Gone, for example. Taken in a relaxed, easy tempo, Turk sings the verse and chorus, and later comes back for another chorus after Don Kinch and Bill Napier turn in some nice eyes-half-closed solos. Turk's break — "You've lost the bestest pal that you've ever had" — is one of those things that happen just right, with the word "pal" coming out in such a way that the whole song is summed up in the inflection of the one word alone. This is something that used to happen on Bessie Smith's records, too, but it's the kind of accident that can only happen to certain people. Closer Walk is done real pretty, with an unexpectedly lacv intro going into a Murphv solo supported for the beginning of each phrase by Napier's sub-tone clarinet and after each phrase by Kinch's horn. Kinch, incidentally, gets better all the time without seeming to work at it. It just comes. If there's any doubt in your mind after the light treatment of this side that the Murphy band can't still get down on the sidewalk and rassle with the best of 'em, the second disk should take care of that. Both sides dig all the way, with George Bruns contributing some mighty tuba-blowing on Canal Street. This is one of the finest readings the Oliver gem has ever had, though it lacks the sheer animal spirits of the original Gennett. Riverside has some gang singing that reminds one of the band's stablemates, the Firehouse Five, and Turk's "ain't gonnas" are too often for comfort. But what Murphy can do with that klaxon throat is demonstrated in a fantastic blending of his rasping gullet and the band in the coda of After You've Gone. This is a voice? (Good Time Jazz 39, 40) (G. A.) burt bales and the gin bottle 4 down among the sheltering palms cake walkin' babies Joe Darensbourg (clarinet), Bales on piano, George Bruns (bass), and Minor Hall (drums) constitute the quartet on the first side ; the second is labeled G. B. 3 because Darensbourg is absent. Palms, a pop which has great possibilities (as Earl Hines and Kid Ory have shown in the past), doesn't quite come off, partly because the tempo was set too slow and the boys sense it — by the time the last chorus is reached, they've upped it to where it should have been at the start. The last chorus is really the show, with Darensbourg carrying the lead over a solid beat from the rhythm section. From out of nowhere, Bruns pops up with a trombone break as a coda. One suspects a dubbing job ; Bruns certainly couldn't shift that fast from string bass to trombone. (To complicate matters, the label says he plays tuba.) Cake Walkin' finds Bales building up from simplicity to a rash of improvisations that contain rag overtones, an occasional dash of Waller, and even Morton toward the close. Ends up digging like mad. But as with Palms, one has the feeling that more could have been done with such great material. Maybe the trouble with Cake Walkin' is that Bessie Smith recorded it — of many fine versions in the past, this one still kick* the most for my dough. (Good Time Jazz 36) (G. A.) jeanne gayle and the gin bottle 4 angry doodle-doo-doo Miss Gayle, it turns out, is the beauteous wife of triple-threat George Bruns (one of the better west coast trombonists, he's been plucking bass and oomping tuba for Turk Murphy, who also plays a passable slide horn). Possessed of a rugged low-pitched voice, she sings both of these old favorites fairly straight, but they're good enough tunes not to require a flock of vocal tricks. Personally, I'd rather have more freedom of expression, but then Muggsy Spanier once told Ted Lewis to go get himself a piccolo player. The Gin Bottle 4 (which has a single record by itself — see above) boils away at all times, with clarinetist Darensbourg and pianist Bales keeping the home fires burning. The format that Turk Murphy used on After You've Gone (opens with a vocal verse-and-chorus, then a vocal last chorus) is used again for these sides (except that the G. B. 4 plays a chorus of Angry first on that side), and it's a good and different format for a vocal record. GTJ's Les Koenig writes that I'd better approve — he tried it after my suggestion from a step-ladder in the midst of GTJ's moving into 707 North Irving last year. (Good Time Jazz 35) (G. A.) firehouse five plus two just a stomp at twilight sobbin' blues who walks in when i walk out fire chief rag The original Good Time boys are back again with more clean boyish fun and a fair passel of dixie. Never sell the boys short on the jazz department — they may clown around, but they can play, too. And the clowning is funny almost every time. The building-up technique which the boys have mastered comes off fine in Just a Stomp, which is the old song at twilight, starting off with Frank Thomas on harmonium and a second chorus with Dick Roberts (substituting for regular ban joist Harper Goff, who was off to Europe on a vacation *) plunking away in keeping with * Comes the next Dixieland revival, we all go to Europe on vacation. his background as a former vaudeville performer. The fourth chorus finds the tricks stripped away and the boys are off and winging. Thomas tags a couple or four