[Dixielandjazz] DJML (Larry note& Lu Watters), Vol 8, Issue 43

[anichols]

>Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 19:11:30 -0400
>From: lswain at penrose.com
>To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>,
>              "tito martino" <tmartino at terra.com.br>
>Cc: 'Butch Thompson' <butcht at sihope.com>
>Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] RE: 2 beat, 4 beat
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>References: <E19rrPa-0001R2-00 at ml.islandnet.com>
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>Message: 7
>
>> Hi, Butch,
>>
>> Great contribution, IMHO it's exactly that. And that's is one of the
>> great "secrets" of making a band swing like hell, with a combination
>> of very carefully sparsely applied "spanish tinge" on the piano left
>> hand and/or on the bass beat.
>>
>> Please don't be quiet!  ;-)
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Tito Martino
>
>        The "spanish tinge" suggestion from Butch Thompson is especially
>intriguing when one considers the influence of Louis Moreau
>Gottschalk on the origins of ragtime.  Gottschalk made his relatively
>short-lived reputation (he died at the age of 40) on his compositions
>that were stongly influenced by his experiences in South America.
>
>I'm not a Gottschalk scholar; just an ardent fan of his music. More
>about this composer's life and works can be found at
>
>        http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/gottschalk.html
>
>and
>
>        http://cpa.feynsinn.de/eng/gottschalk/Gottschalk.htm
>
>There's lots more out there about this remarkable composer.  If you
>listen to any of his stuff, remember when you here one that smacks of
>ragtime that he died in 1869.
>
>Larry Swain
>
>
>L. R. Swain
>
>Penrose, Inc.
>Professional Real Estate and other Web presence creation
>http://www.Penrose.com
>617 571 7885

>Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 17:06:56 -0400
>From: Stephen Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
>To: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
>Subject: [Dixielandjazz] The Yerba Buena Jazz Band was 2 beat / 4 beat
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>
>Following is an EXCERPT from an article published in 1999 in The San
>Francisco Traditional Jazz Society Newsletter. It is about the formation
>of the Yerba Buena Jazz Band. Even though excerpted, it is very long.
>DELETE NOW IF NOT INTERESTED. For the full article, click on:
>http://www.sftradjazz.org/lu-watters.html
>
>For jazz heads like me, it is a great article and very insightful,
>written by a man a man who was there. Several lessons to be learned
>here. Note that this was audience participation muisic, for dancing as
>well as for listening. And note especially the last sentence in Mr.
>Stanton's remembrance.
>
>Cheers,
>Steve Barbone
>
>Lu WattersÌ Yerba Buena Jazz Band
>by Jerry Stanton
>
>Before I start I should say that on this subject The Source, capital S,
>is Bob Helm. Of those of us from the dinosaur days still around, heÌs
>the one who lived and knew it all. He has to: heÌs ten or more years
>ahead of me, as Wally was, and knew Lu in the bandÌs formative stage in
>the late 1930s.
>
>When did I come into the movie? It seems like a movie now looking backÛa
>long one and a very memorable one. I came in the summer of Î39 . . .
>
>I left the close of the daily Benny Goodman big band open air concert in
>the Temple Compound on the south side of the island and strolled along a
>road full of fairground attractions. Across from one of them, Sally
>RandÌs Nude Ranch, was another: The Corral. Drinking, eating, and jazz
>from a trio consisting of Bob Helm, pianist Forrest Brown and Freddy
>Higuera drums. I stayed, of course, then introduced myself, and that was
>the start of friendships which in BobÌs case have lasted sixty years to
>the present writing.
>
>I didnÌt talk long enough to Bob that day to hear what was coming in the
>Bay Area jazz sceneÛmaybe LuÌs plans werenÌt quite finalized. But a
>couple of months later, September or October, l939, the equivalent of a
>musical atomic bomb detonated Bay Area, CaliforniaÛmake it all of U. S.
>A.: righteous jazz. The Yerba Buena Jazz Band opened at the Dawn Club,
>20 Annie Street in San Francisco.
>
>Nothing like it had ever hit town before. ItÌs true that the King Oliver
>Band played The City in the mid-1920s, maybe more than once, on their
>West Coast tours. But they werenÌt there long enough to make the impact
>they deserved, and anyway by 1939, with the advent of the big band era
>and hundreds of smaller bands the classic Oliver sounds were forgotten,
>if theyÌd ever been remembered long in rousting, live-it-up San
>Francisco balling the livelong nights.
>
>The Dawn Club changed all that, because Lu had really done his homework.
>The band was brilliant, without making a fuss about being that way. It
>was highly professional, disciplined, with a fabulous repertoire
>including LuÌs originals and arrangements, yet still gave you the
>feeling they were fresh on the scene and playing for your New YearÌs Eve
>party. Spontaneity was in the air, not least because Lu had selected the
>Dawn Club for its spacious dance floorÛthe Î30s on the way out had been
>a great dancing era all over America, in thousands of clubs, halls,
>ballrooms, hotels, fairgroundsÛyou name it. They even got up and did it
>in theater aisles when the band on stage got hot enough. Me included . .
>.
>
>Brass players stayed constant in the band, both before and after World
>War Two: Lu, Bob Scobey and Turk, but clarinet duties were divided
>between Ellis Horne and Helm, more Ellis in Î39 and Î40, and more Helm
>in Î41, Î46 and Î47. Wally, too, was a constant, though Forrest Brown
>was in before the war on piano awhile at the Dawn. Bill Dart was a
>constant on drums, Dick Lammi on tuba and string bass as well, but there
>were several banjo men on duty: the inimitable and unforgettable Clancy
>Hayes, doing his great jazz singing, and Harry Mordecai and Russ
>Bennett.
>
>The Dawn Club, as you no doubt know, was not invented suddenly in 1939.
>It had a pretty riotous life as a Prohibition speakeasy, or ÏSpeak,Ó all
>through the Î20s and early Î30s behind it. The long brass rail bar was
>one of the longest, if not the longest in San Francisco. . . .
>
>The atmosphere with the band was infectious at the Dawn, and it was
>always full of dancers and listeners. There was a lot of dark wood there
>and a mellow dim decorÛ plenty of tables and oodles of atmosphere in the
>style of the times. The whole cast of Dashiell HammettÌs ÏThe Maltese
>Falcon,Ó that director John Huston was filming on location in The City
>was often there: Huston, Humph Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sidney
>Greenstreet etc. Probably not only for the music but because they felt
>they hadnÌt left the movie sets: the Dawn was just like one of them.
>
>After the war in 1947 Orson Welles was often there, with his current
>flame Rita Hayworth. Welles loved the music. I can remember seeing and
>hearing him cry out ÏThatÌs the Black and White Rag!Ó when Wally was
>playing it, then grab Rita and swing her high, wide and handsome around
>the floor. And he shouted: ThatÌs-a-Plenty! Great!Ï
>
>A whole lot of other notable people, not only Hollywood but from the
>professions, big business and politics etc. came regularly to the Dawn.
>And of course Herb Caen, a legend in his own lifetime. He often put some
>anecdote about the club in his columns, in the Examiner and the
>Chronicle (he shifted gears several times in his life). Everybody
>danced. Lu said the foundation of everything was to have people dancing,
>and when he moved the band in 1948 to El Cerrito he stayed firm to that
>principle.
>
>A word must be said at this point about Lu Watters the man, because he
>was as well put-together as a human being as he was as a jazz musician.
>You could call him the Rock of Gibraltar: while all the waves and storms
>and winds lapped and whirled around him, he was always unflappable and
>unruffled. HeÌd gone through the rough-and-tough mill of the orchestra
>business as it was in the Î20s when he started at 16 with his first job
>as second or third trumpet in a section, Anno Domini 1926. He toured the