TRAVEL JOURNAL ARCHIVES

JELLY ROLL MORTON 5-CD BOX SET (JSP Jazz Box 903) British JSP continues to outclass American reissue programs with this excellent and extremely low-priced set containing Morton’s most important recordings for Victor, the label with whom he made his name. The great remastering by John R.T. Davies makes this the set to get; it has everything that was on the RCA Victor “Centennial” set that came out in 1990, but the sound is infinitely superior. An import, but easy to find on the Internet. Try Amazon.com, World’s Records, or Louisiana Music Factory for starters.

JELLY ROLL MORTON CENTENNIAL: HIS COMPLETE VICTOR RECORDINGS (RCA 2361) A great idea flawed by inferior sound. In 1990, it was the fashion to compress and clean vintage recordings to death and present the result as some kind of miraculous restoration, but the sad truth is that prolonged
listening to these enervated tracks can be depressing, and I much prefer my old LPs. The JSP set listed above is much better. Another problem: this is not Morton’s “complete” Victor discography at all. His work with the novelty clarinetist Wilton Crawley and his accompaniments to singers Lizzie Miles and Billie Young are missing. JSP doesn’t have those, either, but at least the word “complete” doesn’t appear in their title.

MAHALIA JACKSON: LIVE IN EUROPE (CBS 85282) Accompanied only by her longtime pianist Mildred Falls, the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson could fill any large concert hall with beautiful music, as the overwhelming crowd reaction here attests. This CD captures them on tour, and is nothing short of magnificent. For starters, their version of “Down By the Riverside,” which used to be called “I Ain’t Gonna Study War No More,” generates far more momentum than almost any version by a jazz band.
Back to Top
KING OLIVER: VOCALION AND BRUNSWICK RECORDINGS Vol. 1 (Frog CD DGF 34) and Vol. 2 (DGF 35) Joe “King” Oliver was Louis Armstrong’s mentor, and Armstrong played on Oliver’s earliest recordings in 1923. These tracks are from 1926 and ’27, after Louis had moved on. At this point, the band was called King Oliver’s Dixie Syncopaters, and it was full of tremendous New Orleans talent including reedmen Barney Bigard and Albert Nicholas and drummer Paul Barbarin. Still another British release with sound by John R.T. Davies, and very highly recommended. Available on the Internet from Worlds Records.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG: HOT FIVES AND SEVENS (JSP Louis box 100). This four-CD set is a repackaging of four earlier single releases by this British label. No added frills here, but the remastering by the great John R.T. Davies is excellent—far superior to the lavish Columbia/Legacy release listed below—and the price is much more reasonable. Yes, this is an import, but easy to acquire on Internet sites like Amazon.com and Worlds Records.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG: THE COMPLETE HOT FIVE AND HOT SEVEN RECORDINGS (Columbia/Legacy C4K 63527). This four-CD set is lavishly packaged, but don't order it if you want the best sound quality. Producer Phil Schaap writes that the sound has been massaged thoroughly, but as he is forced to admit, "the result is subjective." It is, indeed, and these tracks sound shrill to me, inferior to several other incarnations I've heard—the Columbia LPs of the 1950s, for example, which sound as good or better than most CD reissues to date. The packaging is expensive—a hard-cover booklet with many pages of text, some of it very interesting, and many photos (one headshot is mistakenly identified as clarinetist Jimmie Noone, but it isn't him; it looks more like the eminent reedman/arranger Don Redman). The overall design is impressive, but I don't like the way the discs are stored in slots inside the front and back covers, because they fall out easily.

AMBASSADOR SATCH: (Columbia/Legacy CD CK 64926). Great remastering of a classic mid-50s concert LP by Louis Armstrong and His All Stars in Europe.

SATCH PLAYS FATS: (Columbia CD 64927). Classic '50s tribute to Fats Waller by Louis Armstrong. Excellent remastering, outtakes, and previously unissued material.
Back to Top

Bessie (revised and expanded edition), by Chris Albertson. Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2003. This 1972 biography of the greatest of all blues singers was definitive, setting a new standard for jazz biography, which has still not been matched. This edition incorporates new information on Bessie’s early years and a new chapter on the fortunes of Bessie’s heritage since 1972.

Jelly’s Blues: The Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton, by Howard Reich and William Gaines. Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003. This biography, billed as “definitive,” is not. Instead we have a hastily written expansion of the authors' Chicago Tribune series of December 1999, which was an exposé of Morton's exploitation by music publishers and ASCAP. That might have been a good start, but this book is filled with errors of fact, poorly edited, and strangely naïve in its discussion of Morton's art. Instead, read Phil Pastras' book, which is also listed on this page.

1929, a Novel of the Jazz Age, by Frederick Turner. Counterpoint, New York, 2003. This steamy, compelling novel is a Jazz Age saga of Bix Beiderbecke and his times. Turner takes liberties with the facts, but it’s all in the service a convincing and absorbing portrait of the artist and his times. Along with the musicians – Paul Whiteman, Hoagy Carmichael, and many more including Maurice Ravel – we meet Clara Bow, Machine Gun Jack McGurn, and Al Capone.

JAZZ IN NEW ORLEANS: THE POSTWAR YEARS THROUGH 1970, by Charles Suhor.
The Scarecrow Press, Inc., Lanham, MD and Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, NJ, 2001. Suhor is a writer, educator, and jazz musician (drums) from New Orleans who reported on the local scene for Down Beat and other magazines for years. He covers all facets of jazz, from the most traditional to the avant-garde. It's an extremely informative read, especially in its coverage of local modern jazz history, where a lot of blanks need filling in.

CLASSIC JAZZ: A PERSONAL VIEW OF THE MUSIC AND THE MUSICIANS, by Floyd Levin. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000. For over 50 years, Floyd Levin has been writing some of the best articles on jazz musicians. This collection takes us directly into the world of some of
the most important pioneers – Kid Ory and the members of his 1940s band, George Lewis, Muggsy Spanier, Jack Teagarden, James P. Johnson and a host of others including Louis Armstrong – and is simply required reading if you care at all about the music.

Living With Music: The Jazz Writings of Ralph Ellison, edited by Robert G. O’Meally. Modern Library/Random House, New York and Toronto, 2001. Ellison was a jazz trumpet player, so this is a view from the inside. The perspective of this great African-American writer, whose Invisible Man is a strong candidate as the Great American Novel, is invaluable. “In the swift whirl of time music is a constant,” he wrote, “reminding us of what we were and of that toward which we aspire. Art thou troubled? Music will not only calm, it will ennoble thee.”
Back to Top
Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West, by Phil Pastras. University of California Press/Berkeley, 2001. This important new book reads like a novel, telling the story of Morton's ties to the west coast and to Anita Gonzales, the soulmate to whom he returned at the end of his life. Much new information is included, based on Pastras' careful research and his recent discovery of a 1930s scrapbook and other Morton papers.

Louis Armstrong in His Own Words: Selected Writings, edited by Thomas Brothers. Oxford University Press, New York, 1999. Various letters, memoirs, and autobiographical writings by Armstrong himself; a wonderful self-portrait.

That American Rag: The Story of Ragtime From Coast to Coast, by David A. Jasen and Gene Jones. Schirmer Books, New York, 2000. An overview of the history of ragtime composers and publishers, region by region, across the country. The real roots of the music, showing where the composers were born and where and what they published.

Spreadin' Rhythm Around: Black Popular Songwriters, 1880-1930, by David A. Jasen and Gene Jones. Schirmer Books, New York 1998. Detailed history of some of the most important (but least written about) music of the ragtime-to-jazz era, including composers James A. Bland, Bert Williams, Spencer Williams, W.C. Handy, Eubie Blake, Fats Waller, and many, many more.

Black Bottom Stomp: Eight Masters of Ragtime and Early Jazz, by David A. Jasen and Gene Jones. Routledge, New York and London, 2002. The individual stories of these great African American musicians — Scott Joplin, Eubie Blake, Luckey Roberts, James P. Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong — tell the story of how jazz emerged from the ragtime culture. Beautifully written, this is a worthy addition to the Jasen/Jones canon.

Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, The Early Years, 1903-1940, by Gary Giddins. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, New York, and London, 2001. The first installment of Giddins' tribute to the man Artie Shaw called "the first hip white person born in America." Crosby's jazz roots are carefully and convincingly authenticated in this terrific biography that reads more like a novel.

Back to Top

JAZZ PIANO SHEET MUSIC

Riccardo Scivales, The Soul of Blues, Stride & Swing Piano. Ekay Music Inc., 2001. More wonderful transcriptions from Scivales, this time including everything from stride masters James P. Johnson and Willie "the Lion" Smith to Dick Wellstood, Teddy Wilson, George Gershwin, Nat Cole and Bud Powell. Scivales even includes Johnny Guarnieri's arrangement of Maple Leaf Rag in 5/4 time. Essential.

Dapogny, James, Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton: The Collected Piano Music. Smithsonian Institute Press, 1981. This is the only style book you'll ever need to learn Morton's music. There are 40 Morton pieces here, most of them beautifully transcribed from the original records. This is definitive.

Posnak, Paul, Thomas "Fats" Waller: The Great Solos, 1929-1941. Hal Leonard.Good transcriptions of 15 Waller solos. The typeface makes this music hard to read, but the right notes are there. Posnak likes to transcribe the patented Waller runs in a kind of overly literal fashion, with tiny time divisions that frustrate rather than instruct. Other transcribers of Waller's music (see, for example, Riccardo Scivales' book listed below) write more legibly. Posnak is an accomplished concert pianist, and his CD of these solos is available separately (Naxos Jazz 86012-2),but the Waller originals are a better guide.

Scivales, Riccardo, Harlem Stride Piano Solos. Warner Brothers, 1990. This is an indispensable volume of 26 classic solos by Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, and other greats. Scivales' transcriptions are excellent.

Waldo, Terry, Sincerely Eubie Blake. Edward B. Marks/Hal Leonard. Nine excellent transcriptions of Blake originals, including perceptive analysis by Waldo, who was a Blake protege. This is a nice companion to the Scivales folio above.

Wodehouse, Artis, Jelly Roll Morton: The Piano Rolls, Hal Leonard, 1997. Transcriptions of Morton's "hand-played" piano rolls. These rolls, made in 1924, contain all the notes that Morton played, and he was in top form.
Back to Top

RANTS AND RAVES

no complaints today.

Back to Top

home • solo • trio • big 3 • ragtime orchestra • band • pops • CDs • contact