[Dixielandjazz] Condon at Town Hall

[Stephen G Barbone]

List mates:

Just want to share some comments that fellow Philadelphia area reed  
man Bob Rawlins made about Condon & Town Hall. His note was to several  
musicians in the Northeast USA where the thread was also discussed.

Bob is a wonderful trad player as well as chairman of the music  
department at  Rowan University Glassboro NJ. They have a fine jazz  
program. He plays clarinet in several local trad bands and we've done  
some gigs together with him on Tenor, notably at gthe Showboat Casino  
in Atlantic City in Paul Grant's "New Orleans Swing" band.

While I never saw Condon at Town Hall, I did see him often at his  
joint in Greenwich Village and Bob's comments about the various  
players brought back some great memories. Love his take on Pee Wee  
Russell. How lucky I was to see/hear all of them live.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

Guys,
This link just got to me and I love this stuff so much I wanted to  
comment.   (Don’t mean to barge in on your email lists.)  Yes, I have  
this collection—the “Town Hall” concerts (though not all were at Town  
Hall).  It’s a 24 CD collection.  Most CD’s contain two concerts.   
That’s a whole lot of music!

These are among my favorite Condon recordings.  I don’t like his  
1950’s Columbia recordings.  I find they are over-arranged,  
commercialized, and the mix and sound are all wrong.  Everything is  
too crisp, separated, and “modern” sounding.

To me, the Town Hall concerts sound to me the way the music is  
supposed to be.  I’m also happy with the mistakes and on-site  
arrangements.  As the announcer keeps saying, only Eddie Condon knows  
what’s going to happen next, and I’ll bet he wasn’t too sure either.

I learned a lot from listening to these concerts.  For one thing, the  
rotating personnel gives you a good chance to compare and contrast.  I  
think Muggsy was the cornet player on the first few concerts, but  
since they were on Saturday afternoons, he didn’t want to miss the  
game once baseball season started.  So several others might appear— 
sometimes on the same concert—Max Kaminsky, Hot Lips Page, Bobby  
Hackett, Billy Butterfield, Wild Bill, and maybe a couple of others  
I’m not thinking of.  I’ve found that Muggsy and Wild Bill are my  
favorites for driving the band.  Bobby Hackett is my favorite  
soloist.  Nobody plays a ballad like Billy Butterfield, and Max and  
Hot Lips could certainly hold their own.  What this points up is that  
these guys each had such strong and individual personalities and you  
really can’t compare them.  They’re simply unique.  Even Pee Wee  
Russell on clarinet—and acquired taste to be sure.  At times it sounds  
like his clarinet is going to kill itself in protest of how it’s being  
played.  And other guys come in like Ed Hall and Joe Marsala who can  
play rings around Pee Wee—technically—yet when he’s not there (Pee  
Wee) you miss him.  I never bought the idea that Eddie just hired him  
because he was a drinking buddy.  I’m sure that’s the sound he wanted.

Another thing about these recordings is that you get so used to four  
in the bass drum that you miss it when drummers don’t do it.  Who was  
it, Eddie Thigpen I think, who said that drummers should always play  
four on the bass drum as long as it was under the bass.  Maybe not a  
bad idea, at least in this kind of music.

Maybe the best aspect of these recordings is that you can hear Eddie!   
He  might not have ever soloed, but his time was rock solid and could  
swing hard.  Guys who played with him said there was nobody like him.   
Eddie Condon—quite possibly the most underrated jazz musician of the  
20th century.
RR