Jazz Focus

WETF Show - the records made by promoter Joe Davis in the mid 1940's . . great small group swing directed by saxophonist Walter "Foots" Thomas featuring Coleman Hawkins, Emmett Berry, Charlie Shavers, Ben Webster, Budd Johnson, Eddie Barefield, Ernie Caceres, Milt Yaner, Hilton Jefferson, Clyde Hart, Thelonious Monk and others!

Before his landmark Free Jazz album of 1960 Coleman recorded two albums for Contemporary (Something Else and Tomorrow is the Question) documenting his progress and evolution.  With Don Cherry, Billy Higgins, Shelly Manne, Red Mitchell, Walter Norris, Percy Heath and Don Payne and the first recordings of "Lorraine" and "Tears Inside" - remarkably tonal music in the bebop tradition with some avante garde touches.

Great sides on the more swing-side done by Bechet's New Orleans Feetwarmers for Victor . . Rex Stewart, John Lindsay, Baby Dodds, Herb Jeffries and Earl Hines on one date; Willie the Lion Smith, Charlie Shavers, Everett Barksdale, Wellman Braud and either Manzie Johnson or Big Sid Catlett on the other two.

The great New Orleans clarinetist Johnny Dodds made three sessions in the spring and fall of 1927 with a band he called the Black Bottom Stompers . .in a trio with Lil Armstrong and Bud Scott and two full bands with Natty Dominique, George Mitchell, Louis Armstrong, Roy Palmer, John Thomas, Barney Bigard, Earl Hines, Charlie Alexander, Bud Scott and Baby Dodds as well as one guest reunion with King Oliver in 1926.  These well-recorded sides show why he was held in such esteem from his earliest performing days until his death in 1940.

Miles on the side - Miles Davis recording as a sideman in the 1950's with Lee Konitz, Al Cohn and Cannonball Adderley - with Sal Mosca, Billy Bauer, Max Roach, Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, Zoot Sims, Sonny Truitt, Hank Jones, John Lewis and others!

The great baritone saxophonist Leo Parker - one of the two bebop bari players (with Cecil Payne) . .a short, but telling career.  Here he is with guitarist Bill Jennings in 1954 and on his two Blue Note LPs recorded in 1961, six months before he died.  Also featuring Dave Burns, John Burks, Bill Swindell, Johnny Acea, Yusef Salim, Stan Connover, Purnell Rice and others

Ellington and others . . The 1929-31 version of Duke Ellington's Cotton Club band in their recordings of non-Ellington tunes!  Cootie Williams, Joe Nanton, Bigard, Hodges, Carney, etc . . great playing on little-issued recordings of the period still sounding distinctive.

Thomas Morris was one of the first call trumpet players in Harlem Jazz circles in the early 1920's.  These are sides he recorded with his Seven Hot Babies and related groups for Victor in 1926 and 1927 .  .some great playing by little known musicians including Ward Pinkett, Charlie Irvis, Geechie Fields, Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Ernest Elliott, Bob Fuller, Happy Caldwell, Mike Jackson, Lee Blair, Buddy Christian, Bill Benford and Wellman Braud

Benny Goodman on the side . . 1929-31 sideman recordings before he became the King Of Swing . .with Jack Pettis and His Pets, Rube Bloom and His Bayou Boys, The Charleston Chasers and the Venuti-Lang All Star Orchestra (with Jack Teagarden, Charlie Teagarden, Mannie Klein, Tommy Dorsey, Bill Moore, Dick McDonough, Adrian Rollini, Frank Signorelli and Eva Taylor)

Nat Gonella - the first popular British jazz artist, here on the first records under his own name.  Very Louis Armstrong-inspired playing and singing with small groups including the under-recorded pianist Garland Wilson, the tenor saxophonist Don Barrigo and many players from the Roy Fox Orchestra of the period (1931-34) before Gonella went out on his own with his Georgians.