[Dixielandjazz] Charlie Panelli

[Jim Kashishian]

>What can you tell me about the trombonist Charlie Panelli - now forgotten
but often recorded and seems to me a first class Dixielander.
Richard

I YouTubed that name & got the following, showing that Charlie Panelli was,
for a short period, a member of the OIF.  The song played is "By The
Babbling Brook":


The Original Indiana Five is so-named after the example set by the Memphis
Five and other Dixieland-styled groups of the early '20s. Neither the band
nor its members were from the state of Indiana; it appears that the group
was initially formed in Pennsylvania sometime before 1923. After that time,
the Original Indiana Five were based in New York City. 

Their first recording session was held in Long Island City for the tiny
Olympic label in April 1923 under the name the Original Indiana Syncopators.
At this point the leader of the band was pianist Newman Fier, with trumpeter
Johnny Sylvester, trombonist Vincent Grande, clarinetist Johnny Costello,
and drummer Tom Morton rounding out the "OI5." By their second session in
May, clarinetist Nick Vitalo was added; he would become a mainstay of the
group. Banjoist Tony Colucci also was present for the second session. While
never officially a member of the OI5, Colucci would appear on many of their
recordings. 

By September 1923, when the group began to record for Pathé, Newman Fier was
out of the band and Sylvester had assumed the helm as leader, with pianist
Harry Ford replacing Fier. Costello was likewise gone, leaving the sax and
clarinet duties in the OI5 to Vitalo, and he would fulfill this role in the
band until its end. At this point, trombonist Grande was replaced by Charlie
Panelli. This configuration of the OI5 proved short-lived -- by their first
session for Gennett they had ousted Sylvester and replaced him with
trumpeter James Christie, and drummer Tom Morton would take over leadership
of the band. Morton would continue to lead the band until its demise in
1929. 

By September 1925 and the OI5's first sessions for OKeh, Panelli was out and
trombonist Pete Pellezzi came in - this would prove to be the beginning of
the "classic" lineup of the OI5 and would remain stable until trumpeter Tony
Totormas came in to replace Christie in October 1926. The lineup with
Totormas, an excellent player with a style similar to that of Bix
Beiderbecke, would result in the OI5's greatest recordings. 
Little is known about the Original Indiana Five's career as a live dance
band, outside of the fact that they played Rosemont in Brooklyn and the Blue
Bird and Cinderella ballrooms in New York City. It was on records, however,
that they had their main impact. 

The group spent practically its entire recording career (110 78-rpm sides in
all) working for budget record labels, including Emerson, Plaza, Cameo, and
Bell, in addition to those already mentioned. The best-known recordings of
the group were made for Columbia's cheap Harmony subsidiary and also
marketed on records on Harmony's budget sister labels, Diva and Velvet-Tone.
As Harmony utilized acoustical recording equipment, even as late as 1930,
this means that most of the OI5's recorded output is preserved in acoustical
sound. Thankfully, the engineers at Harmony knew what they were doing, and
the sound quality of the OI5's Harmony recordings is excellent, if a little
acoustically boxy. 

These records were immensely popular with the public, and survive in decent
numbers 80 years on, though they are routinely found in nothing less than
"played to death" condition. The OI5's sound is more or less uniformly
joyous and uptempo -- they recorded relatively few originals and were most
often called upon to cut numbers that had proven successful for other bands.
Their earlier recordings reflect the sound and style of the Original
Dixieland Jazz Band, but later ones are closer to the more advanced music of
contemporary groups associated with Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, and Adrian
Rollini. 

After their 1929 breakup, the members of the Original Indiana Five, minus
Morton, kept in touch, and starting in 1949 held a series of reunion gigs.
This lasted at least until the death of Tony Totormas in 1952, and on one
occasion the Original Indiana Five are said to have appeared backing up ace
saloon singer Frank Sinatra. If anyone saw fit to record the Original
Indiana Five in this later incarnation, the evidence has not yet turned up.


Original Indiana Five - Beside A Babbling Brook (1923)

Categoría:
Música

Etiquetas:
Original Indiana Five 1923 20s