[Dixielandjazz] What is a 'musician's musician'?

[Charlie Hooks]

on 7/11/02 5:55 AM, Jazzjerry@aol.com at Jazzjerry@aol.com wrote:

> Little Brother Montgomery,
> Cripple Clarence Loften, etc. etc. and would indeed rather listen to them
> than Tatum which you might find strange!


    Playing with Tatum can never have been easy, and I don't think that even
Buddy Defranco quite made it (on "Flying Fingers" back in the early 50s); on
the other hand, playing with Little Brother Montgomery--which I have done
many times--was not all that easy, either; but from the opposite
perspective: Little Brother always seemed about to give up as he unsteadily
felt his way along.  I once apologized for him the Jim Beebe, saying, well,
Little Brother has had a stroke, hasn't he?  And Beebe said, yes he has, but
then he always played that way.

    Don't know about Cripple Clarence, although with a name like that, he
must have been one helluva bluesman.  Like Blind Lemon?

just threw that in,
Charlie