[Dixielandjazz] FW: Jack Teagarden

[Stan Brager]

Bill;

First, thanks for taking the time to reproduce Friedwald's article for us.

I'm a fan of both BG and Big "T" and I've noticed on recordings on which
both are featured, Benny's solos are always (yes, I do mean always) hotter
and more charged than when Teagarden is not there.

I recommend the CD "BG and Big T In New York" to hear this effect.

Stan
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Haesler" <bhaesler at bigpond.net.au>
To: "dixieland jazz mail list" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 11:36 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] FW: Jack Teagarden


> Dear friends,
> This well-written piece (via the Australian Dance Bands list) says it all.
> Kind regards,
> Bill.
> _________________________________________________________
>
> Shining a Spotlight on the Perfect Collaborator
>
> Jack Teagarden at 100
> by Will Friedwald
> New York Sun, August 29, 2005
>
> No jazz musician was ever as relaxed as Jack Teagarden. Louis
> Armstrong and Bing Crosby may have been the two coolest individuals
> in the history of music, but when they worked with Teagarden they
> looked almost nervous by comparison.
>
> Teagarden projected the image of the lazy, unflappable Texan
> relaxing in the very rockin' chair he sang about so often. He made
> it seem like the only reason he even picked up his trombone or
> opened his mouth was because it happened to be easier than not doing
> those things. Even when he sang the blues he seemed not to have a
> care in the world. He never broke a sweat while playing trombone
> runs so intricate and difficult that a lesser player would have torn
> his arm.
>
> Jack Teagarden (1905-64) was also the greatest trombonist in
> history. Of his approximate contemporaries Kid Ory had loads of
> personality, Tommy Dorsey had impeccable technique, Lawrence Brown
> had a distinctive tone, and Dicky Wells had boundless imagination.
> But none had as much of everything as did Teagarden. His speed was
> eventually matched by technically prodigious early beboppers like
> J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, yet they couldn't equal his emotional
> resonance. And no jazz musician has sung or played the blues as
> movingly as Teagarden.
>
> He was born 100 years ago this month, yet you'd never know it. The
> jazz world seems indifferent. There is no comprehensive CD reissue
> package -- although there are a few worthy-looking imports from
> England. Not one of the major concert producers in the metropolitan
> area has announced an appropriate Tea Party. The only good news is
> that 2006 promises the publication of the definitive Teagarden
> biography. The Toronto-based archivist and filmmaker Joe Showler has
> been working on this project for more than 30 years and has amassed
> the world's largest collection of Teagarden material. The book will
> be more than 1,000 pages, and Mr. Showler has also made a superb two-
> hour documentary on Teagarden's life, which he hopes will be
> distributed on DVD and shown on PBS.
>
> It's not surprising that Teagarden's centennial should be shouted
> less loudly from the hilltops than that of Duke Ellington in 1999,
> Armstrong in 2001, Bix Beiderbecke in 2003, or Count Basie and Fats
> Waller last year. The trombone itself seems to have lost its star
> quality. Not only is Teagarden absent from the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz
> Hall of Fame -- situated in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Hall --
> but so are all other purveyors of the instrument. I suspect this has
> less to do with the trombone's glorious history than its shaky
> present. While there are some brilliant players around today, like
> Steve Turre, Wycliffe Gordon, or John Allred, there are no big
> trombone stars. Like the clarinet, which has been superseded in
> modern jazz by the soprano saxophone, the trombone is pretty much
> only heard in big bands.
>
> Another reason for the oversight is that Teagarden was the perfect
> jazz collaborator; his career was less a series of star turns than a
> set of partnerships with musicians more celebrated than he. When he
> first blew into New York from his native Texas in 1927, he joined
> the "hot dance" band led by drummer Ben Pollack. This started a
> fruitful collaboration with the slightly younger, equally prodigious
> Benny Goodman; the two would&#65007; record &#65007;prolifically together
in
> the
> years leading up to the swing era. (Except for one guest appearance,
> on the well-titled "You're a Heavenly Thing," Goodman couldn't get
> Teagarden into his breakout band, and so employed a string of Tea-
> influenced trombonists over the years, such Cutty Cutshaw and Lou
> McGarity.)
>
> In fact, Teagarden nearly missed out on the swing era. He was under
> contract to Paul Whiteman and his archaic concert orchestra at the
> beginning of the big-band boom. What saved him was the 11-piece side
> band he formed with his kid brother Charlie on trumpet and fellow
> Whitemanian Frank Trumbauer on sax. The sides they recorded for
> Brunswick -- collected on Mosaic's seven-disc "Complete
> Okeh/Brunswick Bix, Trumbauer & Teagarden" -- showcase the
> trombonist's tremendous swing skills.
>
> Teagarden's most celebrated collaboration was with Armstrong. Some
> regard the blues as the point of division between the races, but on
> recordings like 1929's "Knockin' a Jug" Teagarden and Armstrong made
> it clear that the blues were a place where New Orleans and Texas
> could meet. From 1947 to 1951 Teagarden was officially a sideman in
> the All-Stars, the very popular small band that showcased Armstrong
> in most of his postwar activities. When they sang "Rockin' Chair"
> or "Jack-Armstrong Blues," it was clear that the two men regarded
> each other as nothing less than full-fledged equals.
>
> Teagarden left Armstrong's All-Stars because the constant traveling
> was too much for him, and formed his own group in 1952. But he was
> far less successful as a bandleader than he had been as a
> collaborator. Former sidemen all say that he was a terrible
> businessman, and he never developed a distinct vision of what a band
> should be. He was very good at surrounding himself with first-rate
> players -- he discovered stride pianist Don Ewell and clarinetist
> Kenny Davern -- but he never gave much thought to the context of his
> music or the drive behind a band. He also tried to remain in
> California, where he lived, as much as possible.
>
> Any account of Teagarden's life will also be full of outlandish
> anecdotes about excessive drinking. Once when he was too drunk to
> play, Tommy Dorsey happened to be in the house and was called upon
> to lead Tea's band and play his solos. So excessive and acknowledged
> was the trombonist's drinking that it was even considered droll for
> Teagarden to appear regularly at a San Francisco jazz joint
> called "The Club Hangover." But his drinking was ultimately more
> tragic than funny: It killed him in 1964 at 58, when his powers of
> inspiration were still with him.
>
> Indeed, Teagarden's final years amounted to an Indian summer. He
> made some of the best albums of his career in extensive sessions for
> Capitol, Roulette, and Verve. He formed a great partnership with the
> brilliant cornetist Bobby Hackett on a pair of Capitol
> albums, "Coast Concert" and "Jazz Ultimate." (They are combined on
a&#65007;
> single &#65007;CD from Collector's Choice Music, WWCCM0165x.) He also cut
a
> trio of marvelous LPs in 1961-62 for Verve.
>
> "Mis'ry and the Blues" (1961) is a marvelously eclectic batch of
> tunes with Teagarden and his regular group, as well as one tune
> ("Love Lies") with organ accompaniment. Though Tea had two years to
> go when he taped "Think Well of Me" in 1962, I always think of that
> lovely album as his swan song. His very first recorded solo, waxed
> in January 1928, had been with Willard Robison, and Tea capped his&#65007;
> recording &#65007;career 34 years later with this stunningly beautiful,
> heartfelt collection of Robison's evocative Americana tunes.
>
> Here's hoping Verve next reissues Tea's last studio album, called
> simply "Jack Teagarden!!!" which stretches his repertoire in the
> direction of "Moon River," "All the Way," and "Learnin' the Blues."
> The latter title is an ironic one: It was Jack Teagarden, after all,
> who taught the rest of us how to sing and play the blues.
>
> The Essential Teagarden
>
> Jack Teagarden was one of the most recorded jazz musicians of the
> 1920s and 1930s. His ability to construct brilliant solos in very
> short spaces -- and sing the blues like nobody's business -- was a
> major asset to producers of the era, and he was comfortable both in
> small group jam features and pop-oriented dance bands. The problem
> with trying to assemble a comprehensive collection of early
> Teagarden work lies in that very diversity. His key sessions of the
> 1920s and 1930s are spread across many labels and, unlike Louis
> Armstrong, he did most of his best work as a sideman, making
> comparatively few sessions as a bandleader.
>
> There are two new and promising collections from England. The four-
> CD "Big T" (ProperBox 80) ambitiously samples the first two-thirds
> of Teagarden's career up to 1953, while the wittily titled "One
> Hundred Years From Today" (just released from ASV/Living Era,
> CDAJS2005) goes up to the big-band period.
>
> Teagarden is also one of the most prominent jazz legends in the
> Mosaic Records catalogue, appearing on eight Mosaic boxes, including
> three in which he is prominently featured. There are two collections
> of late-vintage Tea: "The Complete Roulette Jack Teagarden Sessions"
> (218) and "Complete Capitol Fifties Jack Teagarden Sessions" (168).
> Also highly recommended is "The Complete Okeh/Brunswick Bix,
> Trumbauer & Teagarden" (Mosiac MD7-211), which concentrates on
> saxophonist Frank Trumbauer's remarkable partnerships with cornetist
> Bix Beiderbecke in the 1920s and Teagarden in the 1930s. Tea is only
> featured on 51 tracks of this seven-CD set, but who could object to
> having a complete accounting of Columbia's holdings on Beiderbecke
> as part of the bargain?
>
> In 1954, Teagarden recorded a stellar album called "Accent on
> Trombone," accompanied by neo-swing trumpeter Ruby Braff, the Benny
> Goodman-esque Sol Yaged on clarinet, and the tenor saxophonist Lucky
> Thompson. The highlight of the disc is the Teagarden
> mainstay "Lover," which he had been using as a virtuoso showpiece at
> least since his days with the Armstrong All-Stars. He takes this
> rather gentle Richard Rodgers waltz and supercharges it into a
> swinging four. For the most part, Teagarden played melodic, rather
> than harmonic variations, yet on this recasting of "Lover," his use
> of chromatic embellishments parallel Coleman Hawkins's arpeggios,
> breaks, and runs. Teagarden spins three marvelous choruses that
> barely hint at Rodgers's melody -- taking it here and there, this
> way and that way. It's impossible not to feel the&#65007; love &#65007;in
> "Lover" -- 
> and like love itself, you want it to never end.
>
> For the best overall sampler of Teagarden's greatest, it's best to
> stick with the classics. In 1963 -- when Tea himself was still
> around to appreciate it -- producers Frank Driggs, Richard Dupage,
> and John Hammond put together what has stood for the last 40 years
> as the definitive Tea collection, "King of the Blues Trombone."
> Originally released as a three-LP box on Epic, it has been recently
> re-released as a two-CD set (with all 48 tracks) from Collector's
> Choice Music (WWCCM0279x). The package is in need of new mastering,
> and now that BMG is part of the same corporation as Sony, they could
> easily incorporate the tracks from the marvelous Teagarden Victor
> Vintage LP. But even as it stands, "King of the Blues Trombone" is
> still an essential introduction to an essential musician.
>
>
>
>