[Dixielandjazz] Link to Bill crow's article-To Russia WithoutLove

Fri Jul 4 20:53:57 PDT 2008

Dear Randy,
Crow, Bill. Jazz Anecdotes. New York, Oxford University Press, 1990. xiv, 
350 pp., index.

A book like Jazz Anecdotes often lists the number of entries it contains, 
but not this time--there are too many to count. Even the "Preface" has about 
fifteen anecdotes, the first group of which is these "musical jokes":

"How late does the band play? About half a beat behind the drummer. Or,

What's the difference between a bass and a cello? A bass burns longer. Or,

How can a jazz musician wind up with a million dollars? Start out with two 
million. Or,

What sort of people hang around musicians? Drummers.

(There are some longer musicians' jokes in Chapter 43)."

Joe Venuti, the "Royal Jester of Jazz", is a prime contributor to this 
volume. One version of the famous "bass fiddle" story is told by Milt 
Hinton: "It was in Hollywood, California. And it was tuba players. 
He...called up all these tuba players and told them he had a gig for them 
and to be at Sunset and Vine, and he sat around and watched all them guys 
show up...But when he played Chicago, about twenty five bass players decided 
to show up for fun. So that's how that story got out".

The first 24 of the 43 chapters of Jazz Anecdotes range from Wild Scenes 
(#1) to Nicknames (#24). Chapters 25 through 42 describe incidents in the 
careers of individual jazz musicians from Louis Armstrong (#25) to Miles 
Davis and John Coltrane (#42). As promised in the "Preface", Chapter 43 has 
a few more "musicians' jokes". The word "classic" is greatly abused but Jazz 
Anecdotes is a "near classic" of jazz literature. A second edition, with 
additional material, is Jazz Anecdotes Second Time Around (Oxford University 
Press, 2005). For those who own the original volume, is it worth buying this 
bonus? Possibly.

The author made the selections from his "monthly column of musicians' 
anecdotes in 'The Band Room' which still runs [from 1983] every month in 
Allegro, the official publication of Local 802, American Federation of 
Musicians (Local 802 website). Bill Crow is a bassist who was born in 1927 
and tells his own personal stories of the jazz scene in From Birdland to 
Broadway (Oxford University Press,1992).

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Randy Fendrick" <jfendrick at bak.rr.com>
To: <drjz at bealenet.com>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Link to Bill crow's article-To Russia 
WithoutLove

> Bill Crow has written a couple of books re: humor among musicians, Go to 
> his web site and order them,  they are some of the best I have read  re: 
> musicians
> I have loaned both to other folks so cant cite the names just now, but 
> look on his web site, they are well worth the money and useful for one 
> liners on your gigs. (tax deductible in the US).  One I remember right now 
> is Frank Rehak coming into an early morning gig looking like he had stayed 
> up all night and the conductor wanted to make an example of him, so he 
> asked Frank to tune the orchestra.  Rehak took out his trombone and, with 
> no warm up,  played a perfectly in tune A two octaves above his tuning 
> note.  That shut the conductor up.
> later,
> rf
>
> On Jul 3, 2008, at 5:31 PM, Norman Vickers wrote:
>
>> This is a discussion list etc.
>>
>> To:  Musicians list and DJML
>> From:  Ken Dryden via Norman
>>
>> Ken Dryden, jazz writer from Chattanooga,  sends this note with link to 
>> Bill
>> Crow's long article about the trip to Russia with Benny Goodman
>>
>> Thanks, Ken.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ken Dryden [mailto:Ken-Dryden at utc.edu]
>> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 10:45 AM
>> To: nvickers1 at cox.net
>> Subject: Re: Jazz Ambassadors from NYT
>>
>> Norman:
>>
>> I think that I sent you the link to Bill Crow's To Russia Without Love (a
>> memoir of a horrendous tour with Benny Goodman, though it is a scream as
>> well!). Here it is:
>>
>> http://www.billcrowbass.com/Writing/To%20Russia.htm
>>
>> After reading it, there should be no doubt as to why many musicians who
>> worked with Benny Goodman despised him.
>>
>> Ken Peplowski is a rare exception.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Ken Dryden
>> _____________________________________________________________________
>>
>> Norman writes:  Yes, I think that guitarist Howard Alden and Dan Barrett
>> were also in that last band Benny organized for the TV special.  These
>> younger guys were grateful for the interest Benny showed them.  Also, I
>> don't know but suspect that Benny had mellowed by that time and was 
>> thinking
>> about his legacy.
>> --end--
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
> Randy Fendrick
> Southside Chicago Seven
> Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, ret
>
>
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