[Dixielandjazz] Their were saints

[Don Ingle]

Good mate Bill:

The followed started with a couple recent questions that came my way

I was asked  one recent day what I thought was Benny Gooman's best solo. 
That was an easy pick.
The 1929 Red Nichols (bigger) Five Pennies recording of China Boy. As 
the young Goodman, playing deep down into gut and heart on
the solo, played it was fire and brimstone. No smoothed-out, Reginald 
Kelled double lip sound of later years, it was a husky, almost growling, 
grunt sound, but
it was the hottest damn clarinet solo I ever heard anyone play since,  
and because it was youth, talent, and burning desire to play merging at 
the same point it was electric.
That is my opinion, but I am not alone in sharing it.

In the same conversation I was asked who I thought played the best tenor 
sax. "Other than my dad when he was on," I said with a son's familial 
prejudice,
I'itwould be either Eddie Miller,or the Prez." Both played unique styles 
and sound and rank high with me. The thing about favorites is that it is 
always a personal
thing based on what the ears hear, the style that stands out, and some 
inner tug of the heart that says..."this is it."

Since we got off on this sort of thread with Miff Mole, the mater of 
trombonists is also a matter of my ears and experience. I loved Jack 
Jenny with Shaw - Stardust is a model of great
modern day trombone; but to deny my admiration for Teagarden would be 
foolish. I also loved the work of valve trombonist Brad Gowens, with a 
similar good regard for the less known Frank Orchard. Certainly 
Brookmeyer later was a find, and Bob Evoldsen made the stationary 
sackbutt worth a listen any time.

Cornet - Bix of course - his ideas flow as fresh today as when he 
recorded them - a modernist long before so-called modern jazz arrived.  
Hackett ?  A given.  For unknown geniuses on the horn add Bobby 
Anderson, who came out of Fond Du Lac, WI, recorded a few Jump sides, 
and seemed to disappear after that. Add Rico Valese, another guitartist 
turned cornetist who had a very Hackett like sound who also appeared on 
several dates on Clive Acker's Jump label.  And on trumpet I'd add Chuck 
Mackay, again one serveral Jump sides,and also on several of the Red 
Ingle sides for Capitol.

Wow! Getting started is tough to stop as more of the lesser-known but 
outstanding jazz men of the almost legenday variety keep popping up to 
mind. I owe it to them to remember them so others might find them and be 
likewise delighted.

Obviously others with have their  picks and I will no doubt agree with 
many of them, but this is just a personal view about my favorite "ear 
candy."

I would add that the late Clive Acker kept a young wannabe's record 
collection composed of  quality if  not quanity at the time when the 
major labels did little to expand the opportunities
for a young player to be exposed to good playing.  Like the Commadore 
label, such sides were eagerly looked for in a desert of mundane teen 
dance music.
There were saints - and Saint Clive was one.

G'day and g'night, good mate,
Don Ingle