[Dixielandjazz] Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I'd imagine the pianist would be Mahalia's regular accompanist of the time?  


Some decades ago (probably more than four!) a so-called Blues and Gospel package came to Glasgow, with the bluesman Albert King but notably a trio of large ladies profusely endowed with what the late Dudley Moore in character as "Dud" referred to as busty substances. Sad to say, in dancing round the City Hall at least one of the three or their senior lady encourager shook hands with every member of the downstairs (non-balcony) audience. The sad thing is that the audience was not so big as to have made that impossible.

Their pianist came on carrying a briefcase, about average height for an adult male of the species he was, but an average twelve-year old first level piano student could well have filled out the shoulders of his jacket it seemed (the girls were BIG).  The same pre-teen piano tyro could have played pretty well everything this accompanist did, I recall not his name but certainly he was introduced as Doctor...  whatever. I have no idea what the quiet Doctor could do on the piano. Briefcase and music sheets, he gave such an impression of diligence while playing for the most part octaves, as can be heard on a lot of musically uninteresting gospel recordings. Not to mention at times from the better than interesting Ray Bryant, whose swing came from church. 


Move on to 1998 and the Humphrey Lyttelton fifty years as bandleader concert in Edinburgh, and three less bulky ladies (Humph used to talk of when he toured well before 1970 with a package including a group of similar personnel, the ladies breezing through hotel corridors decidedly unpackaged and BIG). 

In 1998 there was no slim Doctor Pianist. The lady encourager did it herself, sounding considerably like only any twelve-year-old who could do a decent imitation of McCoy Tyner. 

Mahalia's pianist comes behind that in extent of keyboard digital whatchacallit, but she swung, Hallelujah!  

Hallelujah Again! 

Robert R. Calder