[Dixielandjazz] Albert's Albert

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

as I recall, during an extended interview with BBC radio between his  farewell return to USA and the surgery he didn't survive, Albert Nicholas recalled that he had switched to Boehm when problems prevented him using his Albert, and that after a delay in recommissioning or replacing the Albert he had simply stayed with the Boehm, and never bothered with the older system again. The switch had at anyrate been a matter of circumstance, no deliberate choice on his part.
 
He too had something like a growl, and as I probably mentioned before Evan Christopher after a first set doing his Bechet lecture-recital switched through something very much Albert Nicholas and then indeed Ed or Herb Hall at the start of the second set when he wasn't trying to echo anybody.  There's some wonderful playing by Herb Hall guesting on a track on a CD by the Texas barrelhouse and blues pianist who went by the name Gray Ghost.  Wonderful playing 
 
HAPPY 2012 !!!
 
Robert