[Dixielandjazz] Country Washburne and tuba
Dan Augustine
ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu
Fri Mar 18 19:36:05 PST 2005
DJML and others--
I must preface this exemplary disquisition by saying that i just
got back from our usual Friday afternoon happy hour, so my usual
eloquence may be somewhat blunted (those who say 'enhanced' are
nabobs of negitivism). However, since i'm (one hopes) talking to
fellow musicians, this defect may not be readily noted, and in fact
may be applauded. Whatever.
My friend Jim Washburn, whom i've known and quaffed many a beer
with for over 20 years, reminded me of his lineage tonight. He is in
fact a nephew (or something like that) of Joe 'Country' Washburne,
the fine tuba player with Spike Jones and other luminaries of the
1930s and after. He told me tonight that he actually MET Country
Washburne on a number of occasions (in the Los Angelees area, for
one, before Country died in 1973), and that he still possessed a
number of Country's original hand-written manuscripts of original
music, plus a number of his 78-recordings.
I thought my reserve upon hearing this fabulous intelligence was
impressive, as i only lost consciousness three times while making
sterterous inhalations. I asked Jim if perhaps i could copy these
manuscripts and recordings for posterity, and he agreed.
This information was dear to me because i seem to be in the
process of compiling information (to what end is unknown) about
tuba-players in the 1920s through 1950s, who have not been (or so it
seems to me) very assiduously documented. I especially admire
Clinton Walker (for example) as a very agile and rhythmic player, but
the recordings he has played in seem to be very few (so far)(but i
have downloaded several from www.redhotjazz.com). I have a number of
Country Washburne's songs that he plays on, but not much textual nor
biographical information about him. I suspect it was he who played
tuba on the Freddy Morgan LP called "Mr. Banjo" (Verve MGV-2065), but
no players other than Freddy Morgan on banjo are listed (although i
believe Spike Jones was the producer).
Anyway (the cervisial fog starting to lift), it seemed to me that
some of those among us (Don Ingle principally) might know more about
Country Washburne and his life, times, recordings, and whatnot, and i
would appreciate all such information were it sent to me.
Signing off now, i advance to the rear in search of aspirin....
Dan
--
**--------------------------------------------------------------------**
** Dan Augustine Austin, Texas ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu **
** "Most Texans think Hanukkah is some sort of duck call." **
** -- Richard Lewis **
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