[Dixielandjazz] Guarnieri Basie

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

It was Artie Shaw's Gramercy Five not a Kenton group Guarnieri played harpsichord in ... 


I presume that when Johnny Guarnieri lit his pipe while playing he was not doing the Basie piano impersonation for which he was once well-known, which would take away the point of the story.  I do know that Basie lit a cigarette during one of his piano excursions in the middle of a number long ago at a concert in Scotland --  amazing how he knew when to hit the single note to break up his pauses.

Smoking is illegal in indoor gigs in Britain now, as I remember when I watch the Jazz 625 performance with Willie the Lion Smith singing Nagasaki without dropping from between his lips the pretty well butt that was all that was left of his cigar (what an embouchure!). Lennie Hastings had a cigarette as he was drumming, and Brian Brocklehurst was smoking a pipe as he played bass.   
The whole show is variously on YouTube, but singing Nagasaki while smoking a cigar?  Obviously a man too intelligent to be President?

anybody got a light?
 Robert R. Calder