[Dixielandjazz] Eddie Condon

[Marek Boym]

All, or almost all, Condon's Town Hall Concerts are available on 12
Jazzology double CD albums (volume 11 is a three CD album).
Wonderful music, well remastered, perhaps, together with the This Is Jazz
broadcasts (also on Jazzology), the best representation of traditional jazz
in its peak years, but there is one snag: how many times can one hear
commercials for War Bonds?  Or announcements of war developments?  When the
Jazzology powers that be discussed the reissues, they decided to leave the
broadcasts intact.  OK, it was nostalgia on their part, but having acquired
one album (still on LP), I decided not to buy more - I couldn't take it.

Like Steve, I originally wondered about the inclusion of Bill Harris, whom
I considered a modernist (because of all the bad publicity given to the
Herman Herds - calling the band "modern" was meant, of course, as a
compliment), but he blended very well.  BTW, I heard him in other contexts,
and he always played extremely well, hot and swinging.
Cheers

On 2 November 2015 at 13:33, Steve Voce <stevevoce at virginmedia.com> wrote:

> 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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