Jimmie Noone with Kid Ory * 1944 * Essential Media Group CD (not numbered) * 2011 reissue

Last year, I stumbled across YouTube recordings of some of the very last performances of Jimmie Noone, from just weeks before he died in 1944, after joining Kid Ory's band on the Orson Welles Radio Show. Today, I'm happy to report that this CD reissue, with no liner notes or mention of the historical importance of the contents, appears to be a remastered collection of air checks dating from the last days of Jimmie Noone.

Jimmie's unique staccato technique and soaring altissimo are immediately identifiable on "High Society", though as I mentioned last spring, his playing of the 'test solo' suggests he might have been having trouble breathing at the time.

Though the cover says this is Noone with Kid Ory, I don't believe for a second that all of the tracks feature Jimmie on clarinet. The second track, "Sugar Foot Stomp" features a clarinetist who can only be considered incompetent compared to a master like Noone. The mystery clarinetist has a rough tone, plays out of tune, and is rhythmically far sloppier than Noone.  

Tracks 3, 4, and 5 feature Noone again on "Muskrat Ramble", "That's A Plenty" and "Panama Rag"--the only recordings of Noone on these standards, so far as I know. The lilting staccato, lightness of touch and velvety roundness of tone without sacrificing power are all there--that unique inimitable quality of Noone's distinctive Creole style. He doesn't take a 'solo chorus' on any of these, Ory opting for the band to remain with a polyphonic approach throughout. True lovers of this style will recognize that Jimmie is actually soloing the entire time, and while the rest of the band has its roughness (the lead trumpet is at times pretty poor), Jimmie is uniformly brilliant--showing an entirely different approach to this music than we often hear.

Track 6 is entitled "Jimmy's Blues" and is actually a version of "Tin Roof Blues. Noone isn't the clarinetist. Whoever it is, he was nowhere near the virtuoso of Noone. His tone is rougher, has none of the distinctive Noone style, and he plays flat. This is likely the clarinetist from "Sugar Foot Stomp." My guess is this was played as an homage to Noone after his passing.

Yet another clarinetist seems to be present on "Savoy Blues." The clarinetist's tone has more of that velvety quality we associate with Creole clarinet, including his altissimo and high clarion notes, but his technical figurations sound less like standard Jimmie Noone and in fact very much like Barney Bigard. Likewise with "Weary Blues." The soloing is very good, but if this is Noone, the soloing style is very different than any other recordings of his.

With "C'est L'Autre Can Can", we're perhaps back in the hands of a mystery clarinetist, but I wouldn't try to guess who. "Blues" sounds like it might indeed be Noone again...but perhaps not.

The transfers on this disc aren't the best quality, and the lack of notes and/or clarity about the personnel make this it bit frustrating, but to have several of the very last performances of Jimmie Noone commercially available at all makes up for most of the frustrations. The search for an audiophile level remaster of these (and more if they exist), with good historical information on the performances remains, but until those are available, Jimmie Noone fans will definitely want this disc.  

   

CD Review: "Chicago Rhythm-Apex Blues" * The Recordings of Jimmie Noone 1923-1943 * JSP926

Perhaps no virtuoso has been more obscured over the decades since his death than the great Jimmie Noone (1895-1944), whose achievement as a jazz clarinetist is unique and in many ways unparalleled. As a player of the Albert system clarinet, his technique was unmatched--none of the 'second generation' New Orleans clarinetists could complete with his executive skills. Sidney Bechet, Johnny Dodds, Leon Roppolo--all of these men were important and foundational to the history of jazz--but none of them could match Noone's mastery, which went beyond the realm of jazz men from that era, surpassing many classically trained 'virtuosi' in the process. It wasn't until a younger crew of jazz clarinetists--Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Buster Bailey--all undoubtedly influenced by Noone, would play in such a way that might even admit comparison to this master's chops.

Like Goodman and Bailey, Noone studied clarinet technique with Franz Schoepp in Chicago. Yet unlike those younger players, he was already an established professional. It is a mark of his seriousness and humility that he would take the highly unusual step (in that day) of bothering with lessons. From the recordings we have of Noone, it's obvious he could have matched up with any clarinetist of his day without them. Some deeper musical reason must have compelled him to press forward and master the instrument further, and because of this he catapulted the art of jazz clarinet.

Noone's facility over the the 'breaks' of the instrument remains one of the marvels of his playing. He was so fleet and flawless that the most difficult of his figurations can sound simple and straightforward, when in fact they are nearly impossible for lesser players to accomplish. I've often wondered if this hasn't hindered appreciation--had he made his passages sound more strained, his virtuosity might be paradoxically praised (this has certainly been true of other, lesser 'virtuosos', whose playing has pulled the wool over the ears of more than one critic). Ultimately, this isn't important, though--what is important is finally recognizing how much we have to gain from a proper look in this master's playing career, and that's what this remarkable box set of CDs put out by JSP Records affords us.

The first disc begins with Noone's earliest recordings as a sideman in little remembered groups such as Ollie Powers' Harmony Syncopators and Cook's Dreamland Orchestra, though quickly enough the set is distinguished by recordings from Noone's seminal Apex Club Orchestra, which twenty years later was compared to Thelonious Monk's early groups at Minton's--"That band at Minton's made an era of it's own," wrote critic Paul Bacon, "much as Jimmy Noone's did at the Apex Club." [The Record Changer, Nov. 1949]. This group's recordings are extremely important to the history of jazz, as they form an impressive body of work by a band leading clarinetist--demonstrating the strength of the instrument as a lead voice, and breaking with the already traditional New Orleans lineup of cornet dominated melody lines. For the next decade and a half at least, the clarinet was to prove the equal or superior of the trumpet/cornet as a lead instrument--from the Apex Club through the Casa Loma Orchestra to the zenith represented by the Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw Orchestras, the sound of jazz clarinet was to lead the way to the mass popularity of jazz in American culture. It is significant that, if Goodman and Shaw presided over the era in which jazz was America's popular music, Noone's revolutionary approach with the Apex Club Orchestra provided the initial proof that it could be done.

This box is dominated by great Apex Club sides, which fill roughly two and half discs of the set. Over the course of those cuts, a significant portion of the jazz clarinet canon was established, with Noone laying down the first important interpretations of such tunes as "I Know That You Know", "Sweet Sue", Four or Five Times", "Sweet Lorraine", "She's Funny That Way", "I Can't Give You Anything But Love", "After You've Gone", "Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave to Me", "Am I Blue", and "Ain't Misbehavin'." Anyone familiar with the work of Benny Goodman, Edmond Hall, Pete Fountain and countless lesser known players can immediately tell how influential Noone's choices were. Speaking personally, as a gigging jazz clarinetist in Cleveland, it is a rare week indeed when I don't play at least one or two of these tunes on a job. Audiences still love them, and they are perfectly suited to our instrument. Over 80 years later, Noone's leadership and soloing at the Apex Club on the South Side of Chicago echoes wherever clarinet is swung.

Having said this, the Apex Club recordings are generally well known to fans of early jazz, and have been available in other collections long before now. More rare, and extremely gratifying are the recordings collected on the last disc, especially the live date of the Jimmie Noone Quartet recorded at Chicago's Yes Yes Club on July 17, 1941. Seven tracks of unsurpassed brilliance await anyone who listens, including essential versions of "A Porter's Love Song", "Body and Soul", "Lady Be Good", "Memories of You" and "Honeysuckle Rose." So many of these tunes had been given unbeatable performances by Benny Goodman that it can seem daunting for a clarinetist to attempt them differently. Noone, of all the clarinetist contemporary with Goodman, was perhaps the only one who could take on the very same tunes and reveal equally compelling, yet entirely different interpretations.

Jimmie Noone's rich chalumeau, which never sacrificed intonation for depth, his clarion and altissimo registers which were never overblown or distorted, while still retaining extreme levels of subtlety and power, was unmatched in his day. He paved the way for Goodman and Shaw, especially, whose music was to unite, for one brief era, jazz with mainstream popularity. This four disc set finally does justice to his work.

Five good reeds.

Jimmie Noone with Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band, 1944

In the spring of 1944, the great Jimmie Noone joined Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band for a weekly gig on Orson Welles's Radio Show in Los Angeles. After only a few broadcasts, jazz lost one of its pioneers, and jazz clarinet one of its greatest geniuses of all time, when Noone suffered a massive heart attack and passed away just days short of his 49th birthday. I've listened to Noone for years, and have reviewed the comprehensive JSP Records box of his recordings elswehere on this blog. 

Until today, though, I'd never heard any of his performances with Kid Ory for Orson Welles, and assumed they just didn't exist. But it turns out some recording were preserved...and they're amazing. They're the only recordings we have of Noone playing the New Orleans standards "Muskrat Ramble" and "High Society" (including Noone's version of the famous 'test solo'). Add to that a blues, where Jimmie plays laid back virtuosic figurations behind the vocalist, and we have a real insight into how this master must have played in front of live audiences. On "High Society", Noone's legendary tone and articulation are there...but you hear him perhaps gasping for breaths at inopportune moments--maybe his heart was giving out even as he was playing this? It's a powerful moment in jazz clarinet history to have recorded and to hear. If anyone knows of any commercially available digital transfers of these performances, I'd be grateful to know about them. Enjoy. 


[UPDATE 1/19/17: I've found a CD remaster of some of these performances, reviewed here.]

Johnny Dodds * Indigo Stomp *1929

Johnny Dodds is a foundational figure by any estimation, not only in the history of the clarinet, but for jazz in general. His recordings with King Oliver's Creole Orchestra and the Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens cemented his place as one of the rare soloists strong enough to play alongside Armstrong without giving up musical ground during his choruses. Most often remembered as part of the early New Orleans clarinet triumvirate along with Sidney Bechet and Jimmie Noone, his unique contribution can sometimes seem obscured by those two giants. Bechet had a explosive soloing creativity and overpowering musical personality: in many ways forming a sort of "primary epic" for the jazz clarinet. By contrast, Jimmie Noone was the first great virtuoso, with a perfectly balanced sound, articulation, and facility: universally admired by clarinetists and so intimidating he was rarely copied, except by the likes of Goodman, whose technique could bear comparison. Dodds is generally considered the gritty, bluesy member of the triumvirate, and while he has his devoted followers, he also had his detractors (among them Barney Bigard, who was sometimes acerbic in his criticism).

Yet Dodds is certainly worthy of his equal place in the triumvirate, for the unique contribution he brought: his range of timbre, power, and blues figurations arranged with precise rhythmic structure and meaning. Benny Goodman called him the clarinetist with the greatest sound in the Chicago of his youth, which is saying a lot, considering Jimmie Noone, Leon Roppolo, Omer Simeon, and many others were active on that scene. We can only imagine what he sounded like in person, especially as he was known to distrust microphones and try to stay away from them in recording studios. Still, the documents he left us over the course of his relatively brief career (like Noone and Irving Fazola, he died in his 40s), shows an unprecedented range of timbre. One moment is he full, rich, smooth in tone, the next he sounds as though the intensity of his core sound will rip the clarinet in half. He commanded the extremes and all points in between. And that's not the sum total of his contribution: his technique was far more polished and fluid than most noticed (and by 'most', I include Artie Shaw, Buddy DeFranco and, somewhat embarrassingly, myself as a young man). His soloing style was baroque, but not mere noodling, and his rhythmic understanding was as influential and subtle as any in jazz history. To listen carefully to Johnny Dodds, and to truly understand what he's doing, is in some ways such a thorough education in the facets of jazz that one will be prepared for almost any future development (up through Monk and Miles). To my more mature ears, it seems that with Dodds, it's all there in embryonic form.

Like Bechet he was a prolific composer of his own tunes, which are idiomatic for our instrument and worthy of study. One great example is Indigo Stomp from 1929...at a time when he was also pioneering the clarinet lead trio. Enjoy.      

The Music of Jimmie Noone @ EARLYJAS in Twinsburg!

Eric Seddon's Hot Club is excited to be returning to the EARLYJAS Society at the British American Club in Twinsburg this Sunday from 2-5pm. Last fall we presented a memorial concert dedicated to the original compositions of the great English Trad Jazz clarinetist, Acker Bilk, which was met with considerable enthusiasm, and encouraged us to pursue similarly themed concerts. 

This Sunday we'll continue our series exploring jazz history with a unique program comprised almost exclusively of numbers recorded by Jimmie Noone's Apex Club Orchestra of the 1920s. Noone's Apex Club Orchestra was pivotal in the history of jazz, introducing a chamber jazz approach focused on improvisational counterpoint and clarity, blazing the way for the likes of Benny Goodman (who was profoundly influenced by Noone's playing), Artie Shaw, Nat King Cole, and countless others. 

Noone's unparalleled virtuosity was coupled with a mellowness of tone and depth of phrasing rarely approached in jazz history: we're grateful for this opportunity to showcase his remarkable art.

Eric Seddon * clarinet
John Richmond * saxophone, clarinet
Jim Davis * cornet
George Foley * piano
Gene Epstein * upright bass
Bill Fuller * drums

tickets: $20

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#6) Jimmie Noone Live

#6 - Jimmie Noone Live at the Yes Yes Club * July 17, 1941 * Honeysuckle Rose

The master of the Albert System, Jimmie Noone set a new technical standard for the jazz clarinet, influencing nearly all who followed, including the likes of Barney Bigard, Benny Goodman, Edmond Hall, Pete Fountain and countless others.

Here is a late live recording demonstrating his beautiful tone, it's warmth, muscularity, and inventiveness.   

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

Jelly Roll Morton 1928-29 (featuring Russell Procope, George Baquet, Albert Nicholas, & Barney Bigard) * CD 322 from JSPCD Jazzbox903 * Remastered by John R.T. Davies

When starting this blog over six years ago, I knew it would take a while before addressing recordings like these. The repertoire is important, because many of the tunes are great and the composer/bandleader was a giant of jazz, but the clarinet playing is generally bad and sometimes awful. My goal for this blog was (and remains) to build a substantial body of reviews demonstrating true greatness of clarinetists throughout the various eras. Unfortunately, the overall recorded catalog of music that was created in the 1920s and 30s, which is arguably the most important era for the clarinet, was a bit indiscriminate as to the quality of players. Many of the greatest virtuosi (Jimmie Noone, Benny Goodman) were recorded right alongside some of the worst clarinetists ever documented in the studio. The poor players are almost universally flat, can't handle high notes especially, their tone is overwraught and weak from overblowing,  they break notes, their tonguing his ham fisted, their rhythm is bad, and unfortunately, they are too often copied as "authentic" by amateurs and doubling professionals alike.

While blues grittiness and pitch inflection are an essential part of playing jazz clarinet, an overall flat and flabby tone is not competent playing, no matter who is doing it. Neither Sidney Bechet nor Jimmie Noone played this way--their styles, while far apart in terms of timbre and instrumental approach, are worthy models of imitation. The same can be said of many Johnny Dodds recordings, such as the sides he cut with King Oliver. But Dodds, like many others, struggled at times with his pitch, and we should be honest about those moments. Now a word of caution: we shouldn't take this too far as no one plays spot on in tune, in a mechanical sense, every time. You can find plenty of examples of variable intonation, especially if you're tracking note to note, in any of the great players--including classical virtuosi who work within even more limited intonational parameters. But as a rule, the great players aren't sagging consistently below pitch, or riding a quarter tone sharp either.

This collection demonstrates the big step down in clarinetistry in Jelly Roll Morton's bands after the initial recordings with Omer Simeon and Johnny Dodds. A young Russell Procope (who had improved somewhat by the time he played with Ellington) plays flat on December 6, 1928's "Red Hot Pepper" and his solo on "Deep Creek Blues" is a real disappointment for such a beautiful tune. We can only imagine what a player like Noone or Bechet would have done.

By July 9, 1929, Procope had been replaced by George Baquet, who isn't any better. His clarinet is particularly bad on the out chorus of "Burnin' the Iceberg" and haunts "Courthouse Bump" and "Pretty Lil" from the same date as well. His intonation is so bad it sounds almost like a drunken parody at times. His low level playing continues on the next day's session, flabbing his way through a solo on "Sweet Aneta Mine" and sticking out horribly for his flatness on "New Orleans Bump (Monrovia)."

The torture continues on July 12, 1929, when Baquet rasps, flabs, and squeaks his way through "Down My Way", "Try Me Out", and "Tank Town Bump." I can't stress it enough: This is not 'authentic' jazz clarinet playing; it's just incompetent. Frankly, this sort of playing is unlistenable for any serious clarinetist, revealing that the standards for our very difficult instrument were sometimes poorly maintained on recordings, even by the most important band leaders. The clarinet playing is so bad the recordings would have better without a clarinet--and unfortunately, perhaps in part because of hideous performances like these, many bandleaders started deciding exactly that.

By November 13, 1929, Jelly Roll had replaced his clarinetist again, this time for a Red Hot Peppers session featuring Albert Nicholas, the childhood friend of Sidney Bechet who was to record successfully with him later in life. These recordings are not Nicholas's greatest recorded work by a long shot--he tends to be on the flat side, and his solos aren't great-- but he's at least a step up from the truly abysmal playing of Baquet.

Even Barney Bigard can't rescue this album, though his clarinet playing is better than most on the disc. The final four tunes, recorded on December 17, 1929, feature the Jelly Roll Morton Trio with Bigard on clarinet and Zutty Singleton on drums. Bigard struggles with his high clarion, altissimo intonation, and his attacks. Even though his ideas tend to be decent (he was a far more competent clarinetist at this point than anyone else on the Jelly Roll Morton sessions from these years) that really isn't saying much. His playing is excruciatingly out of tune on tunes like "Turtle Twist" and "My Little Dixie Home." This isn't good Bigard...it's actually embarrassingly bad for someone who was to play better (if inconsistently) in the future.

So why bother writing a review like this? Well, there are a couple of reasons. One of them is to say there have to be professional standards. If  a player can't handle the instrument on a basic level of musicianship, they can do real damage to the estimation of the instrument overall. Players like Buddy DeFranco and Artie Shaw routinely dismissed or disparaged the early New Orleans players, implying or openly saying they weren't important to the history of the instrument in jazz. If all anyone had heard were these Jelly Roll Morton sides, or some of the Hot Fives session where Johnny Dodds struggled with his intonation, this could be understood as an act of professional self preservation as much as anything else. This disc features such bad clarinet playing, it makes you want to go back in time with a saw and savagely adjust their barrels. But to dismiss all of New Orleans clarinet because of this would be terribly wrong. All one has to do (and should do) is listen to some Jimmie Noone as an antidote.

This disc earns a broken reed for clarinetists.

Jazz Clarinet Timeline to 1961

Jazz Clarinet history, like all others, has certain benchmarks and watershed moments that are of great importance to both the development of the instrument and the overall trajectory of jazz. That this timeline isn't as well known as, say, the jazz trumpet timeline is not because ours is so insignificant--it's mainly because trumpet players have done a better job of educating their audience. The average jazz aficionado knows "Buddy Bolden--King Oliver--Louis Armstrong--Cootie Williams--Roy Eldridge--Dizzy Gillespie--Clifford Brown--Miles Davis--Wynton Marsalis" and can recite similar genealogies with the precision of a Biblical scholar. The clarinet list can be a bit more complicated, but is no less impressive in its own way.

Being familiar with the timeline helps us put artists into context, and understand the importance of the instrument's place in our culture. For the performer, this can give a glimpse into the type of musical symbolism that the horn holds to the greater public.

Some of the important dates on the Jazz Clarinet Timeline are well known. Mention 1938, and most informed jazz fans could tell you about Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall Concert. Others are less well known.

Here is a basic history of jazz clarinet, with an emphasis on recorded efforts:

Pre-1922--Picou and Tio

New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz, and therefore the birthplace of jazz clarinet. The talking style of playing, the richness of the chalumeau, and the emphasis on full, round sound that can also cut when necessary are all legacies of New Orleans. Players and teachers such as Alphonse Picou and Lorenzo Tio shaped the tradition which was to follow, with Tio in particular teaching many of the NOLA masters of the first generation of recorded jazz clarinetists.

Sidney Bechet

Though he first recorded in 1923, a year affer Leon Roppolo, Bechet was a major musical figure in the United States and Europe prior to that session. It's impossible to exaggerate his importance, not only to clarinet history, but to saxophone and jazz history overall. Bechet has been called the first jazz musician to have a fully developed solo style, and Duke Ellington referred to him as the foundation and symbol of jazz. Of particular interest to the clarinetist are recordings such as 'Blue Horizon', and his duo recordings with another great New Orleans clarinetist, Albert Nicholas (on 'Old Stack O'Lee Blues', Bechet takes the second solo). But honestly, his complete recordings are a must for any serious clarinets. We can't can afford to ignore the depth, soul, and humanity of Sidney Bechet's playing, regardless of the era in which we hear him. In addition to his music making, his autobiography, Treat it Gentle, remains arguably the greatest book written on jazz.


1922--Leon Roppolo

Outside of specialists in early jazz, Leon Roppolo is little mentioned these days. As clarinetist for the New Orleans Rhythm Kings his playing was remarkable and foundational for his influence on Benny Goodman. His altissimo flexibility and overall control is generally overlooked today, but speaks to a much longer history of jazz clarinet excellence, even on a technical level, than is generally recognized. His playing had an impact on several players, including Irving Fazola, Benny Goodman, and Pete Fountain.



1925-27--Johnny Dodds records with Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives.

With the recordings of Johnny Dodds, we have access to an important figure in New Orleans jazz. The Hot Fives recordings made with Louis Armstrong are among the most influential in history, not simply because Armstrong was so important, but the ensemble was as well. Dodds's violin-esque flexibility and core sound are apparent on tunes like 'Lonesome Blues'.

And while the Hot Fives recordings remain his most famous recordings, his work with King Oliver was exceptional as well, not to mention sessions he lead himself. 

1926-27--Omer Simeon's Hot Peppers Sessions

Omer Simeon was, in the words of Barney Bigard, an "unsung hero." The sessions Simeon recorded with Jelly Roll Morton displayed a clarinetist with unique polish and subtlety of phrasing ability. (For a good example, check out 'Black Bottom Stomp'). From the outset, the notion of rough, out of tune, unprofessional playing as being somehow the legacy of early jazz is thrown out the window. Simeon's playing proves that soul and technique are not opposed--and like Roppolo, he helped provide a jazz basis for the polished elements, without resorting to a European classical approach.


1928-1930--Jimmie Noone leads a band at the Apex Club in Chicago

Like Simeon and Roppolo, Jimmie Noone's playing is a testament to the unity of technique and soul. Sweet, fluent, and strong at the same time, Noone brought a new level of virtuosity to the jazz clarinet. His chalumeau technique, known for rapid triplet figurations, is rightly singled out, yet perhaps overemphasized, as his flexibility between the altissimo, clarion, and chalumeau was equally impressive. His relentless pursuit of technical mastery lead him to take lessons from Franz Schoepp, teacher of Buster Bailey and the young Benny Goodman, even as he worked as a professional.

Noone's achievement has been too often overlooked. This is partly because he has had few imitators. His playing was at such a high level that few amateurs can approach it, and all too often the New Orleans/Chicago style has been maintained by dedicated amateurs who, admirable as their intent might be, tend to preserve best what they can themselves imitate. On top of this, Noone tends to be overshadowed by the person who learned from him most: Benny Goodman, who not only also studied with Schoepp, but was influenced by Noone's playing in his native Chicago.
   

1935--Benny Goodman on the "Let's Dance" Program

When a young Benny Goodman was chosen to lead one of the three bands featured on the nationally broadcast "Let's Dance" program, it was a major moment in the history of jazz. In the battle between "commercial" sweet bands and driving "hot" bands, Benny's was the vanguard of uncompromising swing. With a trumpet section that often included driving players like Bunny Berigan, Nick Kazebier, and Pee Wee Erwin, a sax section lead by Hymie Schertzer, Gene Krupa driving from the drummer's chair, and Benny himself playing more virtuosic horn than anyone had ever heard in a jazz band, the Goodman sound was crystallized as a hard hitting, driving force.


1935-36--Goodman's Broadcasts from the Congress Hotel in Chicago

These broadcasts, and this band, were singled out decades later as Goodman's favorite. He encouraged jazz fans to give them another listen, and hear how the band played for the love of the music rather than for mere commercial gain or star status. Fortunately, many excellent recordings still exist from air checks and studio recordings of that time. Historically speaking, it was this band that drove a young Artie Shaw to abandon his "first retirement" when he heard his old rival over the radio one night, as he was driving through the Pennsylvania hills to a farmhouse he was soon to sell.

Spring, 1936-- Artie Shaw's 'Interlude in B-flat'

At the Imperial Theatre in New York, Shaw made his first of many returns to the music business with a composition of his own, entitled Interlude in B-flat for clarinet, strings and piano-less rhythm section. Complimented by George Gershwin after the performance, the piece propelled Shaw into the national discussion and still serves as an anthology of early jazz clarinet techniques, a display of liquid virtuosity, and a precursor to what was later called "Third Stream" (though Shaw himself rejected both the term and most of the music later produced under that label).


August 1936--The Goodman Quartet formed

Arguably the most important small group in the history of clarinet jazz, and among a handful of the most important small groups in the history of music. Goodman's Quartet with Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, and Gene Krupa expanded jazz technically, soulfully, and socially.


1937-39-- The Camel Caravan ("Camel Hot Club") Radio Program

Benny's influence over the airwaves continued through the late 1930s. Using his popularity as a bully pulpit for jazz, Goodman put together an entertaining weekly show featuring his band, his quartet, and the songwriting abilities of Johnny Mercer. Central to the theme of the show was the shtick of Benny as a light hearted professor of jazz--but the history lessons, thin though they might seem by today's standards, were real attempts at raising awareness. A young Pete Fountain listened every week to this broadcast.

January 16, 1938--Goodman leads the First All-Jazz Concert at Carnegie Hall

The shot heard round the jazz world. With this, jazz entered the discussion of serious art music--a discussion that has not always benefited jazz musically, but in many ways has helped preserve the art when popular trends pulled a gullible public away. Once again, Benny's penchant for educating his audience was on display, as he presented not only his own band, but a retrospective which included nods to Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Count Basie (who also performed that night with Goodman), and members of the Ellington band. The Goodman band was not perfect on this night, but several performances, chief among them "Sing Sing Sing" were so profound as to demonstrate the range and depth of American jazz. Goodman, Harry James, and Jess Stacy's solos from that number in particular rival anything written by the highly respected classical composers whose music graced the venue.

Christmas, 1938-Artie Shaw performs 'The Blues' at Carnegie Hall

1938 was a high water mark for the rivalry between Goodman and Shaw. Artie took over the charts that year when his arrangement of a little known Cole Porter tune, 'Begin the Beguine' rocketed him to number one in the nation. From that point on, battle lines were drawn in the press and the public imagination. The year that held so many great musical moments for jazz clarinet, beginning with Goodman's triumph at Carnegie Hall, ended with Shaw's own masterful performance in the same venue.

1940-The first Gramercy 5 is formed

In the Fall of 1940, Artie Shaw called together members of his band to form a "chamber jazz" group that would feature his clarinet, plus muted trumpet, guitar, bass, drums, and, of all instruments, harpsichord--one of the most unique combinations of the era. Like Goodman's Quartet, it diverged from the New Orleans line-up popular since the days of King Oliver. Among the first singles recorded, the blues tune "Summit Ridge Drive" (named for Shaw's home address where the group had rehearsed) became a million seller.

The various Gramercy 5s that Shaw was to assemble over the next fourteen years were to feature some of his finest music--and come closest to his own unyielding artistic goals.


1944--Rompin' with Edmond Hall

By 1944, New Orleans clarinetist Edmond Hall (best know for his work with Louis Armstrong) had absorbed the influence of Goodman and Shaw, fusing it with his own inimitable warmth, to produce some of the greatest (and most neglected) swing era jazz clarinet. The recording sessions for "Rompin' in '44" provide a unique glimpse into this rare genius. There are few jazz musicians who have ever transcended their era--growing into different styles beyond their first popularity. Goodman never convincingly grew into a bebop player, nor did Louis Armstrong, for instance. Of the great jazz clarinetists, the two who stand out most in this regard are Shaw (who was able to expand his musical language indefinitely) and Hall, whose unique brand of NOLA swing remains a benchmark for soulful performance. His 1944 sessions produced many masterpieces, among them cuts of "Caravan" and "Besame Mucho" which have never been surpassed.

1947-48--The unlikely career and tragic death of Stan Hasselgård

In 1947, a young Swede named Åke "Stan" Hasselgård relocated to New York, in order to fully pursue his passion for jazz. Possessing a full sound reminiscent of the swing masters, he began immediately absorbing the more cutting-edge bebop language of the day, making him one of the few boppers who maintained a jazz-based clarinet sound, rather than approaching the horn from a classical angle. He was given the rare honor of being invited to join the Benny Goodman Sextet, and we are fortunate to have live recordings of that unique ensemble. On November 23, 1948 he was tragically killed in a car accident outside of Decatur, Illinois, but before this happened he had already pointed a way for modern jazz clarinet.

April 23, 1949--Buddy DeFranco records as a leader. 

One of the longest and most critically decorated tenures for a jazz clarinetist began in 1949, when a 26 year old Buddy DeFranco recorded a set of modern jazz tunes with an orchestra including such luminaries as Lee Konitz, Irv Kluger, and Serge Chaloff. The intelligent, virtuosic approach of DeFranco proved conclusively what the foreshortened career of Stan Hasselgård only hinted at: that the clarinet was a worthy vehicle for modern jazz of all varieties.

Despite the overwhelming evidence he commited to record, his vaste acheivement has yet to be properly assessed. Anyone who thinks the clarinet disappeared after the swing era must simply be ignorant of Buddy's work.      

1953--Buddy DeFranco: Mr. Clarinet

After "The King of Swing" and "King of the Clarinet" the name "Mr. Clarinet" sounds both bold and humble, simultaneously. The boldness is justified, as this, perhaps more than any recordings before it, threw down the bebop gauntlet. The quartet album is crammed with classic takes--including such essential tracks as "Buddy's Blues", "Ferdinando", and "It Could Happen to You", with Buddy joined by Art Blakey, Milt Hinton, and Kenny Drew.

1953 - Tony Scott: The Brunswick Sessions

One of the most unique and wide ranging jazz clarinetists in history, Tony Scott, made his debut recordings as a Quartet leader with his Brunswick sessions. Released under various titles, these sessions gave a new shape to modern jazz clarinet - lyrical, probing, insistent and often extreme in register and volume, Scott might be compared to Miles Davis if Buddy DeFranco was Dizzy Gillespie. Like DeFranco, his existence and long catalog of masterful albums contradicts the narrative that clarinet was no longer represented in jazz after the Swing Era.   


1954--The Final Gramercy 5 sessions

Among the very finest jazz clarinet recordings ever made, these last recordings of the enigmatic Artie Shaw were recorded after weeks of meticulous, paid rehearsal--highly unusual for that era. It seems Shaw deliberately recorded his "whole book" before saying goodbye to the world of creative music making. The four CDs worth of material left to us from those sessions serve as both a retrospective and precursor to much of what followed in modern jazz. 

When these were released in the 1990s, Shaw gave his opinion on the history of jazz since the final Gramercy 5, an opinion that perhaps sheds considerable light on jazz clarinet, and why it might have struggled since then:

"Isn't it interesting--here we are, almost 40 years later, and the records still hold up. [...] Not a lot has happened in jazz since 1954, except that it got more esoteric and hate-filled. I don't know what's going on in the music now. Music is not a political instrument; if you want to do that, you write the 'Horst Wessel Song' or the 'Star Spangled Banner', neither of which has very much to do with music. Look at the Russians with their painting--when it becomes 'socialist realism', come on, you're dealing with caricature." 

For those who can read between the lines, this is a highly compact and bracing indictment of much of the more ideologically driven jazz since 1954. For the jazz clarinetist, it's worth thinking through in particular, as esoteric and angry "hate-filled" music seem even less congruent with a deep understanding of our instrument than others.



1959--Pete Fountain's Tetralogy

In 1959, Pete Fountain came to his famous realization that "Champagne and Bourbon don't mix", decided that Hollywood just wasn't for him, and packed his family for the return trip to New Orleans. But before he left, he cut two very important albums. The first, Pete Fountain's New Orleans, seamlessly blended Pete's New Orleans style clarinet with a cool, West Coast rhythm section. It went on to become one of Fountain's best selling records, and is still available for download over sixty years later. The second, equally impressive despite having sadly slipped into obscurity, is Pete's first collaboration with the large ensemble scoring of Charles 'Bud' Dant, entitled The Blues.

After arriving in New Orleans, Pete quickly recorded two others--Live at the Bateau Lounge and Pete Fountain Day. Both of these are out of print, which is a major problem for clarinetists hoping to get a full picture of Fountain's brilliance as a jazz musician. These four remarkable albums recorded in five months are referred to here as Pete Fountain's Tetralogy.

 

Without question, Pete Fountain was the most successful jazz clarinetist with the general public since the days of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. That he didn't play bebop, and that his commercial success has sometimes been fueled by Nashville arrangements and easy listening albums, has often lead to his neglect by establishment critics. Yet few of his detractors have noticed two very important things: first, that the two biggest criticisms of Pete Fountain's style (that he is either too traditional or not traditional enough) are contradictory, and second, that his fusion of traditional New Orleans jazz with West Coast cool jazz and Nashville were as brilliant as Edmond Hall's fusion of NOLA and 'hot' swing.

 

The Tetralogy in particular forms a body of impressive work that ought to be required listening for all jazz clarinetists. 

 

Pete Fountain's massive recorded output over the next several decades accomplished more than stylistic fusion: he kept alive the tradition of jazz clarinet sound, steeped in both New Orleans tradition (from Irving Fazola's influence) and swing (from Benny Goodman). That the public has preferred this beautiful style of playing is worth noting and carrying forward.  

 

 

1959-61--Bill Smith's Trilogy with Dave Brubeck

In one of the rare blessed moments for a jazz clarinetist since 1954, Bill Smith managed to get three albums of his own compositions recorded with a top modern jazz ensemble: the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The resulting records (The Riddle, Brubeck a la Mode, and Near-Myth) presented some of the most interesting and satisfying jazz clarinet of any era.

 

***

[This is a revision of the original timeline published back in 2013]

[Part 2 of this Timeline will consider the developments in the world of Jazz Clarinet since 1961] 

Barney Bigard on Everyone

Few jazz clarinetists have amassed a comparable resume to that of Barney Bigard, whose career stretched from the 1920s through the 1970s. Born and raised in New Orleans during the crucial transition to the recorded era, and a student of the legendary Lorenzo Tio, Bigard went on to work in what many consider to be the most important of the Chicago-based New Orleans bands (King Oliver), moving to arguably the most creative big band ever assembled (Duke Ellington), before rounding out his triptych with Louis Armstrong's All-Stars.

Fortunately for us, beyond his formidable discography with each of those legendary ensembles (and his own as a leader), Bigard left us some important interviews and a slender, yet informative autobiography. His opinions on early New Orleans clarinetists and everyone else are presented in a clear, concise manner, without frills or subterfuge, and make for an interesting perspective. Many other clarinetists have weighed in on opposite sides of the opinions presented here (Goodman disagreed with Bigard about Frank Teschemacher, for instance), but these thoughts are worth remembering, if only to prevent jazz clarinetists from falling into a rigid orthodoxy of opinion.

All page numbers are from With Louis and the Duke, Oxford University Press, 1986, unless otherwise noted.


on Alphonse Picou:

I was really disappointed with Picou and in later years I found out that he became famous just for that little part in High Society, and in fact he got that from one of Sousa's marches. That was all that made him famous. [13]


on Lorenzo Tio:

On the other hand, the first time that I heard Lorenzo Tio I was not disappointed at all. I heard him on a parade playing his A clarinet. He knocked me out right from the very start. My uncle promised me that he would take me to his house, as he knew him, and ask him to give me lessons. [13]

I started to watch for Tio, where he would play and all. I followed him all over the city of New Orleans. Anytime he would play a parade I would be right there listening to what he was making on that clarinet. Wherever he played I'd go and stand around the bandstand and all my listening was to the clarinet. I didn't care about the rest of it. If I heard a riff of something else that I liked , then I would hum it in my head, and keep humming it. I'd leave the dance and keep humming it until I got home and no matter what time it was when I got home I would get out the horn and try to pick out the notes. I would keep on until I got it down right.

Tio was at that time the best damned clarinet player in the city... [15]

I found out that Albert Nicholas had been taking lessons from Tio before me. Albert was really far advanced and a fine clarinetist. Funny, although we both had the same tutor, we don't have the same style at all. He was also teaching Omer Simeon, and there's one of the real unsung clarinet players.  [16]

[Tio] was a great reader [of written music], even by today's standards. He had real fast execution and he could improvise--play jazz in other words--on top of all the rest. He would even make his own reeds out of some kind of old cane. Yes, Lorenzo Tio was the man in those days in the city of New Orleans. [17]


on Johnny Dodds:

I know for a fact that [Kid] Ory could never read, and Johnny Dodds couldn't either...to tell the truth, when I heard him he never did impress me much. [11]

He was a little what you might call "limited." But what he played was good. He by no means ever impressed me like Jimmie Noone did. [38]


on Jimmie Noone:

I really like his style. In fact, I stole a whole lot from Jimmie. While he was playing with Charlie Cooke he mostly played harmony parts or whatever they had written on paper for him, but after at The Nest he played mostly lead all night because the band was so small.  
     

on Pee Wee Russell, Frank Teschemacher, and jazz critics:

I used to buy DownBeat magazine all the time but once I read that Pee Wee Russell had won a DownBeat poll. That did it. I never read that magazine again. Guys like him and Frank Teschemacher aren't clarinet players to me. But then I suppose even in those days critics were just as ignorant as they are today. I never, ever, played to please the critics. Not once. I never really cared about them at all. Even today I still don't. I mean you can pick up a music paper and read them knocking all of the old-style New Orleans musicians that are currently out there doing their thing. [126] 


on Edmond Hall:

Edmond was a real fine clarinet player, and in fact was a more forceful player than I was. We were buddies because I had met him years ago in New York, but without a doubt he was the "cheapest" man I knew. He used to live in a place where he had to walk up so many flights of stairs to get up there, just to save rent. When Edmond got into the band [Louis Armstrong's All-Stars] they were going on a tour of France so I asked him to pick me up a couple of boxes of reeds that they make over there. He said that he would, and so when the band came back they played out here in California and I went to see them. Edmond said, "Man. I got your reeds." You know that he wouldn't turn loose that little box of twenty-five reeds until I had given him the money. He was like the duck's ass. Water tight. [124]


on New Orleans musicians:

To me it was just beautiful to see those old guys, at their age, coming out on stage and doing a lot of things the youngsters can't do. Most people forget that those guys are the foundation of jazz music. They started it, but naturally everything progresses as it goes along. It's like the Wright brothers' plane. Now you could throw a rock  and knock it out of the sky, but...give them credit for building the first. [125-26]

A lot of those old characters from New Orleans think that anything they do is alright just because they're from New Orleans. They think they can walk on your head if they want to, but it just isn't that way. [88]


on George Lewis:

[In the old days] I never heard of George Lewis. I heard him play once at the Beverly Cavern and once again when Louis Armstrong and I went to see him in New York. This time in New York he was so sick he couldn't play at all. I heard he was a nice enough guy but as to being a legend that people built him into? Willie Humphrey was more of a legend than George Lewis. [88-89]


on Musical Style:

The only thing I say is to play your own self. Don't be copying someone else. Try to create a style of your own and then stick to it. Any of the big names have their own style. You can always tell a Louis Armstrong or a Teagarden or a Hodges, but when you get down amongst the lesser ones it's hard to tell them apart. I tell all the young guys I meet, "It's good to take influence from someone, but don't play note for note like them. You'll never make it in this racket. Play your own way." [126]


on being a Jazz Clarinetist:

I never figured myself as being a "temperamental" musician. I put myself down as easy going and I think that helped my career a lot. I was never one to care about who had top billing, or who played the last act. Some guys, that was all they thought about. I just wanted to be good at what I did. I wanted to get jobs that were in my category. I didn't want to be no symphony man. If I had devoted all my time to that I wouldn't have been a jazz clarinetist. I did want to be a good clarinetist though. Just to read enough music to get me by. That's the way I always felt. I never thought of myself as an artist, or anything like that. Just as a good jazz player that always tried to do his best. Of course I try to live up to my own standards of playing. Sometimes it materializes, sometimes it doesn't, but I keep trying anyway. I would hate to say I was all set on the horn. There is always something more to learn. And you can't stay away from music for long--at least I couldn't.  [126-27]


on Artie Shaw:

What Shaw did to begin with was to make the clarinet sound unusually beautiful in the upper register. He wasn't a low-register guy, but he was more creative than Benny Goodman. Benny did all the popular tunes and standards, but Shaw made up his own and played them so well. The guy could execute like mad. Benny could also execute, and had much more drive than Artie, but I like Artie for the things that are almost impossible to do on the clarinet. [from Stanley Dance's The World of Duke Ellington. p.88]

To me the greatest player that ever lived was Artie Shaw. [quoted in Gene Lees notes to Artie Shaw: A Legacy, p. 5]

on Benny Goodman, Buster Bailey, and Jimmy Hamilton:

Benny is a hell of a clarinetist, really great, but he's not the easiest guy to get along with. [111]

I thought Buster Bailey was one of the fastest clarinetists there ever was. He had his own style, and I could always tell his playing. He was a good musician with good execution, but he didn't have the jazz drive or the soul in there like Goodman and some other guys. In other words it didn't have the oomph to it. Where Buster was great was in a studio or a show. That's the same way I figure with Jimmy Hamilton. He's a terrific clarinetist, but he doesn't have that soul to go with what he's doing. He should have been in classical music. He's got that studio tone to begin with, and he plays straight and fluent, but it's not jazz. [Dance, 89]

on Omer Simeon:

Omer Simeon was a fine musician, an unsung hero, and a great clarinet player. [Dance, 89]

Leon Roppolo and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings (1922-25)

Though little discussed in jazz histories, Leon Roppolo was a foundational figure to the history of jazz clarinet. By 1922, Sidney Bechet had become more focused on soprano saxophone, and many other jazz clarinetists were still struggling with the horn technically. By contrast, Roppolo could lay claim to being the first true jazz soloist to be recorded (as Richard Sudhalter has called him), and in those recordings he set a clarinet style strong enough to influence Irving Fazola, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Pete Fountain.

Recordings of most other 1920s clarinetists reveal a chunky, rough style, often struggling inconsistently. Yet as early as 1922, Roppolo had developed a cool, confident, brooding approach far in advance of many others. Soon, Jimmie Noone was to burst on the recording scene with even more remarkable technique, but the concept of and phrasing of Roppolo were to remain influential.

It is difficult to explain the importance of Roppolo's approach to a non-clarinetist, and this is perhaps why historians, so often drawn from the brass playing ranks, have neglected him. More than any other register, it is the jazz clarinet altissimo--its expressive potential and flexibility--that seperates jazz approach from classical pedagogy. Roppolo's was polished in a way few others were: he had a haunting combination of lightness and power that was to serve as the template for Goodman, Shaw, Fazola--and indirectly for Pete Fountain.

His three recorded solos on Tin Roof Blues demonstrate this powerfully. Below is my transcription of the second of those solos (according to Richard Sudhalter's timeline, p. 42):

The opening altissimo G is both stronger and more hauntingly beautiful than most clarinets of the era, save the virtuosic Noone. Instead of straining, Roppolo is expressive. The plunging glissando downward is important, not for harmonic or melodic, but timbral importance. The way "Rapp" crackles over the break and hits the clarion e-flat was subtly exceptional for its flexibility and usage. This moment means more than a single figure: it is a demonstration of flexibility that one will not learn in classical pedagogy, and effects the rest of one's clarinet approach if mastered--opening up a timbral language (and eventually new melodic possibilities) as a result. It profoundly and decisively influenced Benny Goodman, as did Roppolo's suave approach.

As Goodman was to bluntly write in The Kingdom of Swing:

My idea of a great clarinet player...was Leon Rapollo, who was playing at the Friars' Inn then with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, and I did my best to sound like him. I never heard him play in person more than once, but there were plenty of good records to study up on. [p33]

Later, Ben Pollack, who was to give Goodman his decisive break, was to hire Benny precisely because of his similarity to Roppolo [Firestone, p.38].

In the history of jazz, there have been many crimes. White players often, especially in the early years, stole music and styles from black bands, frequently making more money in the process. The history of jazz criticism has wrestled with the cross currents of creativity: what constitutes stealing, what constitutes creativity, and how do we know which is which? Players such as Goodman, Shaw, and Fountain have always rightly acknowledged their debt to black musicians, and Mezz Mezzrow strongly opined in his own book that the New Orleans Rhythm Kings (N.O.R.K.) were a copy of King Oliver's band of the same era. [Mezzrow p. 54] No historian can afford to overlook this--it would be inaccurate, unfair, and wrong.

With this squarely in mind, Leon Roppolo, arguably the centerpiece to the N.O.R.K., has no recorded precedent of any color, and so far as I can tell should be considered clean of cashing in on another's genius. To put it another way his particular way of playing, and influence in jazz history, seems his own. It has been hypothesized that his style is an Italian classical inheritance. This might explain some of it, but I have studied more than one branch of the Italian-American classical clarinet tradition, and nowhere in it have I ever heard anyone who was similar to Roppolo's approach. He is, so far as I can tell, an original. With a clean conscience, then, we may admire him.

Roppolo's style was important for much more than technical flexibility--his clarinet playing was cooler, more brooding, and smoother than the general sensibilities of the era. Every time I see the word suave in the Copland clarinet concerto, I think this couldn't have been written in the score without Roppolo, whose own suave approach so fundamentally effected Benny's, and therefore influenced Copland's commission.

Pete Fountain has said that Irving Fazola was obsessed with Roppolo's playing, and that while Pete himself hardly heard Rapp's recordings, the similarity of approach is undeniable. But perhaps the most surprising comparison is Artie Shaw. So far as I know, Shaw never went into detail about the effects of the N.O.R.K. on his clarinet concept--perhaps he never acknowledged any influence. Brass playing historians such as Sudhalter have heard the influence of Bix Beiderbecke in Shaw's approach, and late in life Shaw talked about transcribing Louis Armstrong. These are certainly true influences, but Roppolo might also have been an important influence. Anyone who has extensively transcribed Shaw cannot help but run into language seeming directly from Roppolo in Shaw's playing--the falling gliss from Tin Roof Blues, as well as the cool detached approach, appears and reappears in various guises in Shaw.

The recordings of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings from 1922-25 are of importance to jazz clarinetists. If Artie Shaw's final Gramercy 5 Sessions represent a peak, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings recordings represent an important aspect of the foundation, along with Johnny Dodds's recordings with King Oliver and the Louis Armstrong Hot Fives & Sevens, Jimmie Noone's Apex Club recordings and very few others. Five Good Reeds.

Firestone, Ross. Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. Norton & Co. NYC. 1993.

Goodman, Benny & Irving Kolodin. The Kingdom of Swing. Stackpole Sons, NYC, 1939.

Mezzrow, Mezz & Bernard Wolfe. Really the Blues. Barnes & Noble reprint, 2009.

Sudhalter, Richard. Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz 1915-1945.

Jimmie Noone at the British American Club

Just Announced:

Eric Seddon's Hot Club returns to the EARLYJAS Society at the British American Club in Twinsburg, Ohio on Sunday May 22nd from 2-5pm, featuring a program dedicated to the music of Jimmie Noone.

Eric Seddon, clarinet
Jim Davis, cornet
George Foley, piano
Bob McGuire, banjo + guitar
Gene Epstein, upright bass
Bill Fuller, drums

Johnny Dodds by G.E. Lambert * A.S. Barnes & Co. * 1961

That this slim paperback volume, only 88 pages total, put out as part of Barnes & Co's Perpetua "Kings of Jazz" series in 1961, is the only book length study we have of Johnny Dodds, might seem monumentally depressing if not for a couple of facts: First, sad as it might be to say, it's more than we have for Jimmie Noone. Second, while its brevity is disappointing, the content is solid and interesting.

Chapter One give a brief seventeen page outline of Dodds's life and career. Lambert discusses the racial divide in the New Orleans of Dodds's youth, with two distinct musical styles developing: one Uptown, where the black [ or "Negro"] community developed a more blues-based music, the other Downtown which favored more refined Creole orchestras. [pg 4]. Dodds operated between the two communities. As Lambert put it "Dodds himself was a Negro...but by this time a degree of mixing was standard in New Orleans bands. For example, when Johnny took his first full time professional engagement, it was with Kid Ory's band; Ory is [sic] a Creole from La Place, a small town ear New Orleans, who first brought his band into the city in 1913."

In 1920, Dodds replaced Jimmie Noone in King Oliver's Creole Orchestra in Chicago, where he entered the most noted part of his career. The roaring '20s were to be the decade in which Johnny made his mark, recording classics with King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Jelly Roll Morton. And while some of his work from the 1930s, when he was leading bands himself, might feature even more definitive solos for clarinetists to study, it's his work from the '20s that will undoubtedly remain the most famous.

Dodds remained in Chicago even after the center of gravity for jazz shifted to New York in the 1930s, and like so many of his generation of New Orleans style players, his contribution was too quickly neglected. Unlike some of his contemporaries, such as Sidney Bechet, Edmond Hall, Louis Armstrong, and Barney Bigard, he didn't live long enough to get a second wind with the New Orleans revival starting in the 1940s. As Lambert puts it:

"The biography of Johnny Dodds is a tragic one, rising through his quick success in New Orleans, on to the triumphant years in Chicago with the Oliver band, and the many fine recordings he made while leading his own group at Kelly's Stables, only to fade suddenly into the twilight obscurity of the last ten years of his life. He was admired by all the musicians who heard him in the early days--even Benny Goodman, a musicians far removed in style and temperament, has said that he never heard anyone get a finer tone out of the clarinet than Johnny Dodds--while the majority of his 1920 recordings are numbered among the ageless classics of jazz." [pg 16]

Lambert's analysis of Dodds's playing is keen and sensitive to fluxuations and changes throughout Chapter Two, which deals with the recordings.

In the third and final Chapter, the author offers his assessment of Dodds's contribution to jazz, and some of the points he makes are so profound, it's surprising and gratifying that anyone was publishing them in 1961. For example, when discussing the solo breaks Dodds made on the King Oliver recordings, Lambert points out:

"Almost any of the breaks by Oliver or by Dodds on these records are as perfected rhythmically as anything in later jazz, but the emphasis and the style were different, and unless we realize this we cannot help but fall into the error of constantly undervaluing the work of the New Orleans musicians. They were not simply pioneers whose place in jazz history was to pave the way for Louis Armstrong and his successors, but men with a fully developed and valid way of playing. It is true that an approach to this sort of jazz can be made neither with the techniques of the European academy, nor if one wishes to find in jazz a pleasant appendage to European culture." [pg 66-67]  

These observations are no less relevant today then when they were first published. Although it is a very slim volume, it's filled with such insights, pointing towards a reconsideration of this remarkable musician and his playing.

Fortunately for us, it will continue to be available for the foreseeable future, as Amazon now offers it in Kindle format.

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band * The Complete 1923 Recordings * Off the Record * OTR-MM6-C2 (2006)

Disc One

Just Gone 

Canal Street Blues 

Mandy Lee Blues

I'm Going Away to Wear You Off My Mind 

Chimes Blues 

Weather Bird Rag 

Dipper Mouth Blues 

Froggie Moore 

Snake Rag 

Snake Rag 

Sweet Lovin' Man 

High Society Rag 

Sobbin' Blues 

Where Did You Stay Last Night 

Dipper Mouth Blues 

Jazzin' Babies Blues

Disc Two

Alligator Hop

Zulu's Ball

Workingman Blues

Krooked Blues

Chattanooga Stomp

London (Cafe) Blues

Camp Meeting Blues

New Orleans Stomp

Buddy's Habit

Tears

I Ain't Gonna Tell Nobody

Room Rent Blues

Riverside Blues

Sweet Baby Doll

Working Man Blues

Mabel's Dream

Mabel's Dream (take 1)

Mabel's Dream (take 2)

The Southern Stomps (take 1)

The Southern Stomps (take 2)

Riverside Blues

On April 5, 1923, jazz history was made in Richmond, Indiana, when Joe "King" Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band laid down the first five of thirty seven recordings they were to ultimately cut that year in various studios. These first were for Gennett, but the band would also record in Okeh's, Columbia's, and Marsh Laboratories's Chicago studios. All of the recordings are important for their historical value, and a good number of the tunes became permanent in the jazz repertoire, among them "Canal Street Blues", "Weather Bird Rag", "Snake Rag", "Sobbin' Blues", and "Dippermouth Blues (Sugarfoot Stomp)".

King Oliver's band is best known for introducing Louis Armstrong to the world outside of New Orleans. Satchmo was known to have said he wouldn't have left his successful playing career in the Crescent City for any other outfit than Joe's. The way the two cornet players worked together is the stuff of legend now, with their special means of communicating which harmonized riffs to dazzle the audience with during solo breaks, their rapport, and the overall brilliance of performance that helped form Armstrong into one of the most potent and important figures in the history of music. The rest of the band was notable as well, though, comprised of some of the most significant early jazz musicians on record, including Lil Hardin on piano, Baby Dodds on drums, Honore Dutrey on trombone, Johnny St. Cyr on banjo, and most importantly for readers of The Jazz Clarinet, Johnny Dodds, Jimmie Noone, and Buster Bailey on clarinet.

Approaching these recordings without preconceptions, especially the historical weight of who Louis Armstrong was to become, the cornetist's perspective seems a bit exaggerated, actually. The soloing star of the show, to my ear (admittedly biased) is Johnny Dodds. Because the twin cornets of Oliver and Armstrong are muted, and because the clarinet seems to have been balanced or focused on properly in relation to the microphone (which was not always the case in Dodds's career), these remain some of the finest examples of Dodds's playing, and New Orleans style clarinet, on record.

His tone is full and rich, and when he reaches for that special piercing quality he had, it never loses strength and body. His solo breaks are confident and directed; his accompanying arpeggios so strong that one could be forgiven for thinking these tunes were movements of a concerto written for him. Taken as a whole they show the strength and depth of Dodds's playing at this point in his career. The contrast between his richness of tone and the lighter playing style of Leon Roppolo of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings or Jimmie Noone (on "Chattanooga Stomp", the one tune credited to him with King Oliver's band) is striking, and serves to really show us why Benny Goodman would have singled him out as having one of the best tones of the clarinetists in Chicago of the 1920s. The October 16, 1923 session at Columbia Studios in Chicago are the only multiple recordings by another clarinetist with the Creole Jazz Band,  this time Buster Bailey.  Bailey is impressively similar to Dodds in approach, with a substantial, rich sound, but the overall mastery of style and comfort with the ensembles isn't quite at Dodds's level.

In the years that followed, Dodds was to gain perhaps even greater fame as a member of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Sevens. On those records he impresses as being a soloist who could follow or precede Armstrong without musical quality being lost. But on these earlier recordings with King Oliver, it is Dodds who strikes me as the great soloist in the band.  We can hear why Lil Hardin, once she became Lil Armstrong, would hire Johnny Dodds for her husband's most important recording dates as a bandleader.  

This particular reissue from Off the Record in 2006 was an attempt to transfer, without noise reduction from original discs. They took great pride in their work, and the booklet has extensive technical information about the exact speed of transfer, styluses used, and grade of original source record. All of that will be of interest to audiophiles and recording engineers who have an interest in future transfer work. In the notes, it's clear that they hoped to get as clean and original a sound as they could, without adding reverb or cutting out too much sound. The results are quite good.

Five good reeds, of course.