[Dixielandjazz] Eddie Condon

[Steve Voce]

Sorry, I meant to send this to everyone but accidentally sent it only to 
Maryk.

Steve Voce

  Still Clinging To the Wreckage
  By Steve Voce
  If you take yourself to http://tinyurl.com/bao26ea you’ll find a quite 
extraordinary library of Eddie Condon Town Hall concerts from the ‘40s. 
There are almost 50 half hour broadcasts.
    The sound quality is surprisingly good considering the age of the 
material, and in any case one’s ears soon adapt to it. Condon’s concert 
series ran weekly from 21 May 1944 until 7 April 1945. There was the odd 
gap in the broadcasts and so the set above is, if not complete, almost 
so. In this version each programme in the list is identified by its 
opening number.. If you mouse click on a programme, it will begin to play.
    The wartime concerts were broadcast on the Blue Network before a 
live audience that was admitted free. Because of the popularity of 
Condon’s music there was a capacity audience each week with many turned 
away. Condon drew on musicians working in the New York clubs (he had the 
band at Nick’s).  So Max Kaminsky and Gene Schroeder were regulars, but 
the pianists who played in the bands included Joe Bushkin, Art Hodes, 
Cliff Jackson, Norma Teagarden and Jess Stacy. These three were 
tremendously effective. Featured in more specialised roles were James P 
Johnson, Willie The Lion Smith and Earl Hines. The brass involved Bobby 
Hackett, Muggsy Spanier, Wild Bill Davison,  Yank Lawson, Rex Stewart, 
Wingy Manone, Hot Lips Page, Jack Teagarden, Tommy Dorsey, Miff Mole, 
Benny Morton and, oddly, Bill Harris from the Herman band. Herman 
himself starred in one of the programmes, as did another bandleader of 
the time, Gene Krupa. Condon used musicians from the staff of radio 
studios like Billy Butterfield and Ernie Caceres. Pee Wee Russell was 
the clarinettist on most programmes and Condon ribbed him throughout, 
referring to him as ‘The commando’ and introducing him as ‘Miff Mole is 
the one with glasses, Pee Wee Russell is the one who needs them.’ Pee 
Wee’s contributions to these sessions are highly regarded, but I regard 
them as a handicap, the vagaries of his playing becoming tiresome after 
a while. Much more satisfying was the work of Caceres who occasionally 
played clarinet in the ensembles, but more often took a feature number 
with Bushkin the dependable Wettling, who was used in most broadcasts. 
Cacere’s baritone playing is seriously good and has an authority to 
rival Carney’s.
   The absentee who one would have expected to find in any Condon 
session was Bud Freeman. His omission was probably because of an 
incident from 1939. Bud’s Summa Cum Laude band with Condon had been very 
successful in the musical ‘Swingin’ The Dream’. After its short run, Bud 
was asked to take the band on tour. He dropped Eddie from the band 
because Eddie was drunk most of the time and Bud thought he would spoil 
the tour. Condon held a grudge for the rest of his life, although it 
melted a bit as they both got older.




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