[Dixielandjazz] Emmet Ray, amazon and mp3

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I had a query from a friend about the plausibly named Emmet ...
a composite --  many things true of Mr. Allen's rat-shooting Ray of self-doubt have been true severally of many people.  The same is true of many the fictional character, and the film has real research behind it.
It is more profoundly informative than the melodrama or biopic genres it also sends up. 


I came back from a holiday in New York long ago with the CD in my luggage 

and Air France showed the film during the sleepless night back across the Atlantic. 

There were a few Emmet(t)s, the most remarkable and frustrating is Emmett Matthews the great soprano saxophonist   -- who recorded eight titles in the 1930s and merely sang on the other four,. though it feels more like he played on fewer and sang on more.  He plays the terrific rideout on the Waller Big Band Hank Duncan duet piano recording, and there is a terrific St. James Infirmary worth downloading from amazon for the man himself and Cass Simpson on Hinesian Piano -- there is another track with Laura Rucker. The rest of the CD package might not appeal to some the Matthews would impress. 

I remember as a schoolboy being told it was strange to buy records with tracks I didn't like! There were some things which could be had only with a few duff other things. Nowadays in a lot of cases you can buy your own selections 


MP3 tracks

The list of mp3s on an amazon page is there only as a means of buying the music without buying a disc, just downloading either single items or everything on the whole disc -- which will include every item on the list. 

So far as I can make out, you pay less to download all the tracks together, than if you were paying the 69 or 89 cents or pence per track for the selections not available separately.  

While sometimes some of the tracks are available only as part of the download, or as part of the CD, you're not missing anything if you buy an actual disc.  If you wanna buy the CD just ignore all that stuff about mp3s. It's for somebody else. 


There is no report of Emmett Matthews being intimidated by any other soprano player, and no echo of any other in his work, but it would be nice to have word of comparably individual sopranists who were not Bechet. Of course the relative silence of numerous very able acoustic guitarists (Teddy Bunn nb) after around 1940 was a sad business. 


Robert Calder