BELATED HAPPY 80th ANNIVERSARY BENNY GOODMAN & FRIENDS AT CARNEGIE HALL, January 16, 1938!

While some folks think that all has been said about this significant event in jazz history, here are some things you might not know.

One of my fellow bloggers, Mr. Eric Bogart, has detected one of two little details, only known to the folks with big ears who had the time to listen closely to a) the very first LP-release of this concert, and b) who have purchased the official CD-release (produced by Mr. Phil Schaap in 1999), and can so compare it with the before mentioned LP.

But let’s read what Mr. Bogart wrote in 2000:

“(…) Skeptics might believe that my blue labeled set might just be unusually clean, or mastered louder than later issues, but, there is one crucial difference! A whistle! Just before the opening note by the Goodman band is sounded on the concert’s first song, “Don’t Be That Way,” there is a whistle discernible from somewhere in the audience. This whistle has been deleted from all subsequent versions. (…) Learn more HERE.

By the way, the little whistle right before Don’t Be That Way can also be heard on the old Phillips-LP-twofer with the concert.

The other, more crucial detail is that on the official CD-release, claiming to contain “all” recorded music performed that night, are missing 27 seconds of I Got Rhythm which is posted at JazzTube in its complete version, transferred from the LP (see link).

In this very informative blog entry, written five years ago by jazz critic Fernando Ortiz de Urbina will you learn more about the 34 missing bars (which is one full chorus!) of I Got Rhythm. Señor Urbina is also featuring audio comparisons.

There is another little known fact about the concert. If you listen closely to Avalon, performed by the Benny Goodman Quartet, you can hear Lionel Hampton playing the first two notes of Stompin’ At The Savoy right before the applause is faded out.

I guess that this quartet number, which was eventually played during the 2nd half of the concert, was actually listed on the program as the next piece; but since George Gershwin had passed away in 1937, Benny decided spontaneously to perform The Man I Love, followed by the above posted I Got Rhythm, published in 1930.

Before we continue with another highlight, here comes lovely Martha Tilton and her two features: Loch Lomond and Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen, featuring Mr.-Fralich-in-Swing, trumpet man Ziggy Elman with his inimitable ride.

Please let me introduce to you yet another fellow with big ears who seems to know – and to have! – everything about that famous concert:  Mr. Jon Hancock (who was the first who has noticed the 34 missing bars of  I Got Rhythm).

He has created a lovely video, or rather a collage, combining the only news reel footage of the concert with photos and the 2nd part of Sing, Sing, Sing (With A Swing), the last number of the concert, followed by the two encores If Dreams Come True (this track is *not* from that concert!) & Big John’s Special. — (FB-page of Mr. Hancock with great pictures from the concert and an update of his book about the concert, released in 2009).

This is really a labor of love, and it’s great fun to watch, and I guess it’s the best way to say:

Keep on swingin’ on, Benny Goodman, wherever you may blow your horn!

Update: THE MAIDS OF CADIZ (Les filles de Cadix) – An old French song revisited by Benny Goodman & Miles Davis with Gil Evans

This beautiful melody by French composer Léo Delibes should be the fitting musical preface for the last and late Summer’s versions of “Summertime”.

First comes the Benny Goodman Sextet with an almost forgotten interpretation of the song:

The Maids Of Cadiz (1947).

Benny Goodman (cl), Red Norvo (vib), Jimmie Rowles (p), Al Hendrickson (g), Harry Babasin (b), Don Lamond (d) – Hollywood, June 6, 1947.

Miles Davis & Gil Evans must have loved the pretty tune with that Spanish touch very much; otherwise they wouldn’t have included the song on their highly praised first album which became a classic: Miles Ahead (1957).

Here’s the carefully remastered CD version:

Les filles de Cadix

After listening extensively to the promo-pressing of the album (he was obviously very enthusiastic about it), Dizzy Gillespie ordered a new copy directly from Miles, ’cause he played the album so often that it was kaputt after a few weeks of excessive spinning.

Blog owner’s remark: I can only guess what kind of heavy-weight stylus Dizzy must have used then, or how many times he must have played the disc?

This is the cover for the later issue of Miles Ahead. — The original LP from 1957 sported a straw-hatted white woman and a little boy on a sailboat. — Miles never liked that, he actually hated it so very fondly that he forced CBS to use his portrait for the later reissue:

— Blog owner’s note for the lovers of old vinyl:

You either should go for the original LP from the late 1950’s, or for the Japanese mono pressing with the white-girl-on-board-with-kaput-straw-hat cover, or the above pictured reissue (which is in stereo!).

Beware the 1980’s reissue with the blue framed cover which appeared on SONY-CBS. — That one sounds crappy, and it doesn’t feature the tracks from the original album but some alternates without mentioning it in the liners.

As a grande P.S., the original, as sung by one of the most beautiful sopranos of all times: Victoria De Los Angeles. — Exceptional!

Here’s a real girl (les filles = the girls) singing it, Deanna Durbin when she was only 15. — Charming!

AND, probably the purest version: Cecilia Bartoli, accompanied by pianist Myung-Whun Chung in 1996

Get this beautiful CD HERE, @anazoom 😉

Another P.S., sung in German:

Update: SONNY ROLLINS’ “AIREGIN” is about “ORIGIN” is about “OXYGEN” is about “NIGERIA”

I guess that headline sums it up what Sonny subconsciously wanted to tell us with “Airegin” which is one of his greatest hits beside “St. Thomas”, “Oleo”, and “Doxy”.

Here it is in its initial performance, as played by the Miles Davis Quintet from 1954, featuring the composer Sonny Rollins on tenorsaxophone, Miles Davis on trumpet, Horace Silver on piano, Percy Heath on bass, and Kenny Clarke on drums; the whole affair can be found on the album “Bags’ Groove”, and it was recorded in Rudy Van Gelder’s Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey on June 29, 1954.

Take a deep breath of fresh & jazzy air, even if you’re not exactly from Nigeria!

The later Miles Davis Quintet with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers & ‘Philly’ Joe Jones speeded it up virtuously in the very same studio on October 26, 1956:

->>—> Learn more about “Oleo”, the song on the famous margarine HERE.

P.S. — See & hear what the other master improvisors Chet Baker & Stan Getz did with “Airegin” – backed by Jim McNeely (p), George Mraz (b) & Victor Lewis (d) – in Stockholm on February 18 1983:

->>—> Here’s their whole concert at JazzTube, the fabulous encore “Line For Lyons” included, as it happened exactly 30 years + 1 day ago:

2nd P.S. — Not to forget the other fantastic treatment of Sonny’s ageless jazz hit:

— Blog owner’s addition: Here’s yet another fantastic version of “Doxy”. Guess who?

->>—> AAAND… last but not least *THEE* mother of all vocal versions of “AIREGIN” with the fascinating, the unique, the one & only Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, kindly recommended @ Rifftides by Mr. Mark Stryker:

Update for my students: “But, Man, That Sh__ Is So Boring!” ∽ Freddie Hubbard

FLASH

… bis er “Flashes” gesehen hat 🙂 (ist übrigens ein Stück über ‘Oh! Lady Be Good’); Buddy Rich sitzt am Schlagzeug.

Den Cartoon hat mir mein Jazz-Blogger Kollege & Freund Doug via E-Mail geschickt; höchstwahrscheinlich, um mich zu motivieren. Er hat das Bild HIER gefunden 😉

P.S. — Die beiden Herren auf dem Photo sind übrigens Miles Davis & Harry James Anno 1963, backstage @ Monterey Jazz Festival.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2018, ALL YOU DEVOTED READERS!!!

OK, dear folks, I will come by here more often in the future. Promised!

Cheers to you: May you increase in wisdom, health & wealth 😉

DIZZY’s big P.S. to his kinda BOSSA NOVA – 1966

Another fantastic rendition of “No More Blues” (a.k.a. Chega de Saudade) has been broadcasted by BBC2 as part of their “Jazz 625” series in August 1966, featuring Dizzy Gillespie (tp) James Moody (as/ fl) Kenny Baron (p) Christopher White (b) Rudy Collins (d):

DIZZY GILLESPIE’s “NEW WAVE”, or: THE REAL BIRTH OF BOSSA NOVA

This is Dizzy, ‚live‘ at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1961, giving the real birth to bossa nova, months before Stan Getz’s and Charlie Byrd’s Jazz Samba, and more than a year before the most famous bossa nova album got released, Getz/ Gilberto, OuKay?

Have fun, witnessing yet another musical revolution, non violently kicked off by the one and only John Birks Gillespie.

Dizzy Gillespie (tp, voc) Leo Wright (as, fl) Lalo Schifrin (p, arr) Bob Cunningham (b) Chuck Lampkin (d) Joe Carroll (voc) – Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey, California, September 23, 1961.

Here’s my absolute favorite among Dizzy’s bossa nova albums, entitled „New Wave“ which means just that: „Bossa Nova“ 😉

Though chronologically out of order, here’s the other Dizzy-nova-album, a mixture between ‚live‘ and studio tracks, partly „enhanced“ with canned applause 😉

It’s entitled “Dizzy on the French Riviera”, and it begins with the sounds of happy kids and an incoming sea wave.