[Dixielandjazz] Big Sid Catlett /Louis armstrong

Wed Jan 14 23:50:12 PST 2009

Hello Ken,  Does your address indicate that you are over in the British 
Isles and our correspondence got back and forth that quickly??  Amazing!!  I 
am on a long, narrow island (Whidbey) in Puget Sound, 30 miles north of 
Seattle.  You asked if Sid Catlett did anything unusual in the way of 
showmanship??  Looking back 60 years I don't remember that he did.   He 
certainly played his game, took his solos, a strong performance.  That was 
the amazing thing about the performance.  Each of these legends got all the 
room they wanted in this ensemble set-up.  They smiled, kidded and talked to 
each other.  Barney and Arvell were probably the quietest.  Louis, Jack and 
Earl were the most voluable.  They played the tune, made adjustments in 
route to a very audience-satisfying finish all night long,  either 4 or 5 
nights that I was there.  On this vacation, down from Seattle, I also caught 
Jimmie Dorsey and Pee Wee Hunt as back up band at the Palladium  and Frankie 
Laine who was just hitting his stride and a good band down at the Rondevous 
Ballroom on Balboa Beach.  It was  a great musical vacation.    Regards, 
Thad McArthur
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ken Mathieson" <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk>
To: "Thad McArthur" <wthadmc at whidbey.com>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: 01/14/2009 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Big Sid Catlett /Louis armstrong


> Hi Thad and Listers,
>
> Many thanks for your reminiscences of the All-Stars at Billy Berg's in 
> 1947. I interviewed Humphrey Lyttelton at some length about that band as 
> he had heard them at the Nice Jazz Festival in 1948 and had jammed with 
> some of them. His abiding memory of them (apart from the excitement of 
> hearing "the source" and the sheer brilliance of the musicians) was that 
> they didn't play loud. The volume was always under control, so when they 
> decided to let rip in the out-chorus, it really stood out from everything 
> that had gone before.
>
> You make the point that "Louis was undoubtedly the leader" and it wasn't 
> just his mastery of his horn and historic importance in the music that 
> made him so. I was privileged to work with and know Benny Carter, and he 
> once told me that the most powerful personality that he had ever met in 
> his entire life was undoubtedly Louis Armstrong. Given that Benny knew 
> everyone and had worked with everyone (Fats, Dizzy, Ella, Sarah, Duke, you 
> name them), that's quite a statement. Benny said "if Louis walked into a 
> room, he didn't have to say a word; he was automatically the focus of all 
> attention, no matter who was there." People like that don't have to exert 
> authority: it's just invested in them and when Louis turned on the "1,000 
> killerwatt smile", everyone was on his side.
>
> I made the point in another post that only those who saw him perform can 
> describe Big Sid's showmanship. It's obvious from audience reactions in 
> some of the live recordings that he's doing some visual "business", but it 
> doesn't interfere with the musical logic of his performance. If you can 
> remember any of his "visuals", that would be a great help to me in writing 
> his biography, as it's often through things like that that a personality 
> can be described.
>
> Thanks again for sharing your memories with me and the rest of the list, 
> as there aren't too many people around now who actually witnessed these 
> giants at work, and if anything else comes to mind, I'd be indebted to 
> hear from you.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ken Mathieson
> www.classicjazzorchestra.org.uk
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Thad McArthur" <wthadmc at whidbey.com>
> To: "Ken Mathieson" <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk>
> Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 11:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Big Sid Catlett /Louis armstrong
>
>
>> Hi Ken,  I am responding to your post re Dream Performances you wished 
>> you
>> had seen--a 1947 concert in Chicago featuring Louis Armstrong--I picked 
>> up
>> this info from an Ed Coltrin response to your "Dream" post which I didn't
>> receive and am contacting you thru your Sid Catlett post which in this 
>> case
>> seems appropriate.
>>
>> If you thought you might enjoy the Chicago 1947 Armstrong outting you 
>> would
>> have been quite ecstatic over his engagement in the Summer of 1948 at 
>> Billy
>> Berg's, Sunset and Vine, Hollywood, CA, which I attended at least 4 or 5
>> nights.   The engagement was for several weeks or more as I remember it. 
>> It
>> was hailed as the rebirth of Traditional Jazz.  It featured all the guys 
>> you
>> would really like to see and hear, including Sid Catlett, Jack Teagarden,
>> Barney Bigard and Earl Hines.  The only junior member of the club was 
>> Arvell
>> Shaw on bass, whose talent as you know, propelled him to a long and
>> acclaimed career.  Berg's was a fairly large and open club and the 
>> musicians
>> sat/stood at floor level in an informal and changing arrangement toward 
>> the
>> south end of the club with the patrons very close to them on three sides. 
>> I
>> have never been so close to performing first line musicians in any venue
>> (Stan Kenton once came up to the fraternity house and worked on our 
>> Steinway
>> for two hours, another interesting afternoon).   The program was set but
>> somewhat flexible.  They played a lot of the standards, little or nothing 
>> of
>> the unknown or obscure, at appropriate tempos, they didn't rush.  Strong
>> ensemble openings, solos, solos with back-up riffing, two or three great
>> out-choruses.  The people went wild, there was no doubt you were in the
>> presence of greatness.  One of the things that you look back on in later
>> years is how well it all went together.  The audience was so close, there
>> were so many talents to be accommodated, they were so nice to each other,
>> everybody got heard, a lot.  Louis was undoubtedly the leader and 
>> probably
>> only he could make the musician relationships so easy and the performance
>> flow like it did.   The audience heard and experienced exactly what they 
>> had
>> hoped for.   All this, and it was very reasonable, otherwise I wouldn't 
>> have
>> been able to enjoy it that many nights.
>>
>>               Thad McArthur
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Ken Mathieson" <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk>
>> To: "Thad McArthur" <wthadmc at whidbey.com>
>> Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
>> Sent: 01/09/2009 2:40 PM
>> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Big Sid Catlett & All the other drummers!
>>
>>
>>> Hi Bill,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the heads up on this site. The narrative is fairly minimal, 
>>> but
>>> the photos are great. I'll take some time to check out some of the other
>>> drummers, or at least some of those that I've heard of!
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Ken Mathieson
>>> www.classicjazzorchestra.org.uk
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>>
>
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