[Dixielandjazz] Pensacola & Archaejazzology

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fylxor4zo0w
Art Tatum plays Chopin (Valse in C# Minor, Op. 64, No. 2)

I'm not saying Tatum had necessarily much to do with Pensacola --
but this sort of operation with Chopin or whoever had something to do with certainly the son of the Father and Son team of Paul Seminole and, well, Paul Seminole, of the under-recorded or even unrecorded generations of pre-jazz to pretty well pre-bop piano, as represented inadequately on disc by Clarence Profit and Donald Lambert, or not at all. I finally did track down a recording on which one of the legendary Seminoles plays, I can't remember whether he is audible, but that's only because he played ...banjo rather than piano ... not the instrument I was interested in.  It would be interesting to know what relationship there was between some of the raggier items Speckled Red recorded when prior to the now recently deceased and evr to be admired Paul Oliver's amazing 1960 filed-trip to the USA the also ever to be admired Bob Koester had made recordings of Speckled Red, raggy barrelhouse pianist and a man who learned from the elder Seminole, who seems to have reached New York when Stride piano was starting to hit its kick .
It's an amusing business jazz archaeology, and probably a few recordings exist which would be relevant, people playing really new things of maybe a mickey mouse level of interest after other people had found in them new things which exposed their lack of interest other than for some novelties which really did feed the rise of jazz as better music. Of course with the rise of commercial pressures the improvements were gradually taken in hand and musical standards were allowed to degenerate into more lucrative Mickey Mouse.  And thus although it should be clear to anybody knowledgeable about stride piano that Blanche Merrill was a considerable stride pianist, the signs of her extraordinary competence are mere markers for the cognoscenti and cancelled out very much as music qua music by the misuse of the music (what else was a doctored piano for) not to mention the services of Milt Hinton on bass and the guitarist/ banjoist (alas restricted to banjo, though he did a very nice CD on that implement) in whose band Ellington was the piano player -- Elmer Snowden, who is considerably more interesting on his duo recordings with Lonnie Johnson than Johnson was capable of being by the time Prestige was further inflating his discography. 
Well, at least I mentioned Elmer Snowden's recordings with Lonnie Johnson on which nobody sings and Snowden takes the guitar lead, just lovely guitar jams . But when Pensacola was mentioned, I remembered mentioning the Seminoles before, and their extensive touring milieu, and why not represent the early player and his son who died young by making an excuse to play Donald Lambert's Beethoven, and maybe Speckled Red's "Wilkins Street Stomp"?  
"Dad's Piece" be unto you too!
Robert R. Calder