[Dixielandjazz] Dukes of Dixieland etc

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I've really no memory of any DoD recordings I ever heard, but I can remember 
that when Paul Oliver interviewed some St. Louis musicians in 1960 Singleton 
Palmer's clarinetist, I think Norman Mason, was unhappy about the standard style 
in which the band was expected to play, which involved him in playing in a way 
wholly different from what he thought of as the St. Louis style.
The only Singleton Palmer LP I have suffers from the tameness I would complain 
about in rather too many US recordings of more or less dixieland, record 
producer disease possibly: never allow anything on record which could be 
mistaken for a mistake. 

Some readers will know the story Bob Wilber told, of Eddie Condon coming into 
his club when Bob was practicing and urging him to "make some mistakes!"
And Albert McCarthy said long ago that in trying to produce some Mainstream 
recordings c. 1960 he found it difficult to get some veteran musicians to play 
things not tailored toward a mass market sub-version of music. Not so long ago 
when I picked up some cheapo Harry James for 29 cents (Euro) per CD I was 
appalled by the excruciating schmaltz into which some tracks descended. There 
were also some fine things with Willie Smith, and James himself, and others, but 
I couldn't believe the strength of saccharinity. 

The opposite extreme is of course the Don Ewell band on the Delmark CD with the 
too nearly entirely legendary St. Louis trumpeter Dewey Jackson, and issued 
under Jackson's name. That was a live set performed for teenagers in 1951 and 
seriously wild. I'm not sure about the story Miles Davis's middle name Dewey 
came from Jackson, but like Clark Terry and Joe Thomas he certainly knew Jackson 
-- whose flowing style was fine playing the fancy clarinet passage in High 
Society but not suited to an economic stock dixieland lead. He was probably too 
idiosyncratic for the commercial dixieland some commercial record producers had 
in mind. He was a stylist absolutely.