[Dixielandjazz] Early Rex Stewart

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

The one early Rex performance I remember well was "Singin' the Blues" with Fletcher Henderson...  very much BIX.  But that wasn't very early (teenaged!) Rex.  Rex performances from his early twenties are listed by the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazzlibrary/pip/d5lon/

Rex was said to have been less impressed than others by Duke Ellington, because he knew and heard Duke before many people had known or heard of either of them...  I suspect Rex's nearest counterpart in his earliest years might have been found in an English brass band, and just listen to his rapid but duly inflected many-note playing in various Ellington performances! For various complex reasons he took longer to arrive at his mature recorded best than the only slightly younger Jabbo did, at a style considerably different and presumably on a basis of wider experience.

Certainly in one interview in print, Sweets Edison waxed eloquent about another 1920s trumpet master, Russell Smith, and Russell's distinction as the most gifted schooled trumpeter of the best (white) teacher in North America, but not it seems a jazz musician, rather a guru as master and teacher of phrasing.  His younger brother Joe was the jazzman, highly esteemed as a lyrical player, with Fletcher Henderson and on blues accompaniments which many years later Count Basie was recommending Sonny Cohn to study.  Sonny much more recently was recorded with a blues band more of the Muddy Waters style, for Delmark. 

Joe Smith deserves a mention as a Henderson sideman after Louis, or beside him, and even trading fours with Tommy Ladnier on some stomping 1927 Henderson. It wasn't quite Bix trading fours with Louis, but with tendencies in that direction.  One of our most estimable listmates did a little while back respond to another 1927 recording, Clarence Williams' "Senegalese Stomp" by lauding above all other members of that band Tommy Ladnier,  as undated and as fresh and modern as ...  well, if Ladnier was around, our friend would book him anytime.   

Ladnier was of course from New Orleans, without the problems or questions associated with having grown up learning the sort of legit. counter-idiom of people brought up in the north-east and with a more legit training.  Or musicians brought up in a white musical environment. 
Only one of whom was Bix, just as only one of the New Orleans men was Tom Ladnier, who of course before 1927 had been in Europe with the undervalued band of Sam Wooding. 

I must find time to listen to some older wonderful music again. 

Robert R. Calder






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>Does anyone have a youtube or other link to Rex Stewart recordings before 1930? The impressive Jabbo Smith materials were from 1928 or 1929, and his conception, range, and improvisation skills were among the best IMO when the pre-jazz and early jazz styles
 were transitioning to a looser, more fluid, swing-like expression. (That's not intended as a value judgment but a rough historical description.) Many players made notable transitions during the 30s or later. The early gold standard, to me, is strongly represented by players such as Louis, Bix, Hines--and Jabbo. I'd like to hear some pre-30s Stewart to see how he fits into my schema.
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