GOING PLACES indeed! Louis, Maxine Sullivan, Johnny Mercer. There’s that Louis fellow again! Ecstatically with Trummy Young (and an invisible Barrett Deems) at top, with Danny Kaye in THE FIVE PENNIES (1959) below. C Higginbotham, both middle Forties if the suits are evidence. Late Twenties, early Fifties, perhaps for Ben Pollack? Jack Teagarden and Benny in the first photo, perhaps Charlie Teagarden (and the Pick-A-Rib Boys) in the second. This portrait of the John Kirby Sextet lets us see the diminutive O’Neill Spencer in action - something more unusual than seeing Charlie Shavers, Russell Procope, Buster Bailey, and a pianist who’s not Billy Kyle.Ĭlockwise: Benny Carter in a familiar publicity pose a small band featuring Fats Waller’s reliably swinging drummer Slick Jones, and a famous shot from the Columbia studios, 1940, of John Hammond’s noble experiment melding the Basie and Goodman stars in what might have been the world’s finest small jazz band.Ī famous Chicago studio portrait from 1936 but still gratifying: the rhythm section of Fletcher Henderson’s Grand Terrace Orchestra: Israel Crosby, bass Bob Lessey, guitar Horace Henderson, piano Sidney Catlett, drums. The beautiful double-breasted suits say “late Thirties,” but that’s only a sartorial guess. The top portrait is just amazing to those of us who are deeply immersed in this art - an autographed picture of Kaiser Marshall in 1938, in Europe (wow!) the second is listed as guitarist Jimmy McLin and saxophonist Earl Bostic, when and where I can’t tell. and Gus (they both swung)!Ĭirca 1937 or 38 - Teddy, Hamp (concentrating hard), and Benny (paying attention): Gene got cut off, but we know he was having fun, too. Whatever Glen said to her must have been delightful! Who’s the pretty lady with the astounding hat sitting with Glen Gray on the right? Looks like Miss Mildred to me, grinning happily. I have to say very quietly that I am less interested in Glenn Miller and his many orchestras than many people: what interests me here is not the ghost band below, but the top portrait that has a portly Irving Fazola sitting in the reed section on a gig in Texas, early in Miller’s bandleading career. Are the two other musicians Scoops Carey and Shorty McConnell? Probably Chicago? Earl Hines, Billy Eckstine on trumpet, Budd Johnson on tenor saxophone. Įllington in the Forties (the first band shot has Ben Webster, Sonny Greer, probably Junior Raglin - 1943?) the second is twenty years or so later, with Lawrence Brown, stalwart, on the far left. Below, circa 1948: is that Wardell Gray to the extreme left in the saxophone section?Įarly Thirties, on the West Coast - CREOLE REVUE. More interesting is a very thin Bobby Hackett on the right, working hard, with someone I can’t identify standing behind him, looking quizzically at the invisible photographer.Īt top, the King of Swing, possibly at the Madhattan Room - on the air for CBS. On the left, Al Hirt (possibly during his fame in the Sixties). The segment ends incompletely, which is my fault, but it means that when Dan and I meet again I will ask him about Cecil Scott, a hero of mine. YouTube offers videos of Brunis with Art Hodes in 1968 and with Bobby Hackett, Eddie Condon, and Pee Wee Russell thirty years earlier. Here’s Brunis’ “two Irishmen” version of IN THE SHADE OF THE OLD APPLE TREE, featuring Max Kaminsky: Here he is in concert in 1947 - his own blues, which gives a very good idea of his ebullient personality (along with Joe Sullivan, Pops Foster, and Baby Dodds): Still more from our friend and hero Dan Morgenstern, recalling those days when the boundaries between “styles” weren’t quite so high or solidly built: the “Dixieland” scene in New York of the late Forties and the Fifties, with quick portraits of George Brunies (or Georg Brunis) but also Steve Lacy.īrunis is legendary - from the New Orleans Rhythm Kings to Ted Lewis to Muggsy Spanier’s Ragtime Band and Eddie Condon, as well as his own groups, but he’s not often heard.
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