Archive for the Jazz Category

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The Original Peaky Blinders Jazz Band

Posted in History, Jazz, Television with tags , , , , on April 15, 2026 by telescoper

I’ve been greatly enjoying the boxed set of six seasons of Peaky Blinders that I received as a gift recently. I may do a sort of review when I get to the end, but until then I thought I’d throw in a few tangential things. This post is an example. Here’s another one. This clip is from Episode 2 of Series 1, when the Shelby family are celebrating the reopening of the Garrison pub after it was destroyed by a firebomb earlier on. Listen to the background music at the start.

The music being played is Livery Stable Blues by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a record I blogged about here. Released in 1917, it is no exaggeration to say that this was the first every commercial jazz record; I blogged about the 100th anniversary of its release.

The band was originally called the “Original Dixieland Jass Band“. A few months later they changed the “Jass” to “Jazz” – it is claimed because people kept defacing their posters by removing the letter “J” – and the new name stuck. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band is usually referred by Jazz buffs as the ODJB.

Led by cornettist Nick LaRocca and clarinettist Larry Shields, the ODJB was a group of white musicians from in and around New Orleans who had picked up their musical ideas from listening to musicians there, including playing for the pioneering mixed-race band led by Papa Laine, before moving to Chicago which is where they were spotted by representatives of the Victor label. Although the sound quality isn’t great, it gives a good insight to what ealy jazz drummers were like – thumping bass and tom-toms but little use of the cymbals – and shows Larry Shields was a dab hand at glissandi…

Series 1 of Peaky Blinders is set in 1919 (mainly in Birmingham but also with scenes in London). Not a lot of people know that the ODJB actually visited England in 1919. They performed in review at the Hammersmith Palais and then did a command performance in front of King George V, who (apparently) particularly enjoyed their version of Tiger Rag. There is no evidence that they visited Birmingham, but we get a glimpse before the above clip of a band decked out to look like them, playing live in the Garrison pub. I very much enjoy little details like that!

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Fat Tuesday – Bourbon Street Parade

Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags , , , on February 17, 2026 by telescoper

Today’s  the day folk in England  Shrove Tuesday, when one is supposed to get “shriven” by doing a penance before Lent. Another name for the occasion – favoured in Ireland – is Pancake Day, although I’m not sure what sort of penance it is to be forced to eat pancakes. Further afield the name for this day is a bit more glamorous. Mardi Gras, which I translated for the title of this post as Fat Tuesday using my schoolboy French, doesn’t make me think of pancakes but of carnivals. And being brought up in a house surrounded by Jazz, it makes me think of New Orleans and the wonderful marching bands that played not just during the Mardi Gras parades but at  just about every occasion for which they could find an excuse, including funerals.

The Mardi Gras parades gave rise to many of the great tunes of New Orleans Jazz, many of them named after the streets through which the parade would travel, mainly in  the famous French Quarter. Basin Street, South Rampart Street, and Bourbon Street are among the names redolent with history for Jazz fans and musicians around the world. The New Orleans Mardi Gras has on recent occasions sometimes got a bit out of hand, and you probably wouldn’t want to take kids into the French Quarter for fear they would see things they shouldn’t. Personally, though, I’d love the chance to savour the atmosphere and watch the parades.

Anyway, the clip I’ve chosen to mark the occasion of Fat Tuesday is Bourbon Street Parade. The one and only time I went to New Orleans I felt a real thrill walking along this Bourbon Street, just because I’ve heard the tune so many times on old records.  I didn’t go in Mardi Gras time, however, but in the middle of summer. The heat was sweltering and the humidity almost unbearable, but the air was filled with music as well as moisture. It was impossible to sleep in the heat, so I stayed up moving from bar to bar, drinking and listening to music until I was completely exhausted.

The tune was written by the late Paul Barbarin, who died in 1969 during a street parade in New Orleans. What a way to go! He also plays on the clip I included here. I picked this particular version because it features a much underrated British musician, Sammy Rimington. My Dad once played with Sammy Rimmngton and I remember the unqualified admiration with which he (my Dad) spoke of his (Sammy’s) playing.

P.S. This year Pancake Day coincides with both the Lunar New Year and the start of Ramadan. Best wishes to all who celebrate any of these!

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Time After Time – Chet Baker

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on February 14, 2026 by telescoper

It seems an appropriate evening for a romantic love song. Lyrics by Sammy Cahn, music by Jule Styne, vocals and trumpet by Chet Baker. Baker’s singing is quite unlike most jazz singers, and many jazz fans don’t like it very much, but I think his intimate, tender, and somewhat melancholic vocal performance together with his spare yet lyrical trumpet playing combine make this a classic.

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The Girl from Greenland – Chet Baker

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on January 20, 2026 by telescoper

One reason this track caught my eye is probably obvious given current events, but another is that the tune was written by another superbly individual yet largely forgotten pianist from the 1950s, Dick Twardzik. Sadly Twardzik died of a drug overdose just a few days after this was recorded, in October 1955 at the age of just 24. Chet Baker – who had his own share of problems with narcotics – became very popular for his very attractive singing voice as well as his “cool” trumpet tone, but this one is purely instrumental. The other members of the quartet are Peter Littman (drums) and Jimmy Bond (bass).

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De-Dah – Elmo Hope Trio

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , on January 14, 2026 by telescoper

I’m in the middle of marking examinations so I will only do a brief post, while I take a short break, to follow up on the one about Hampton Hawes I did a couple of days ago. When I wrote that one it struck me that there are rather a lot of great musicians, especially pianists like Hampton Hawes, who were never appreciated as much as they should have been. Another that springs to mind is Elmo Hope, for whom Thelonious Monk seems to have been a great influence and who therefore provides an interesting contrast with Hampton Hawes who was perhaps more influenced by Bud Powell. Elmo Hope died young, largely because of a bad heroin habit, which also affected his career through his erratic behaviour and the criminal record he acquired for narcotics offences. He was a really fine musician and composer, though, with a very original voice and idiosyncratic sense of time. This track was recorded in 1953 with Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, both of whom were to find fame with Miles Davis a few years later.

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Carioca – Hampton Hawes Trio

Posted in Film, Jazz with tags , , , on January 11, 2026 by telescoper

The tune Carioca was a big hit in 1933 as a result of the film Flying Down to Rio (which, incidentally, saw the first pairing on screen of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers). There is a dance that goes with the tune, which involves the two dancers pressing their foreheads together, which always seem to me to risk an accidental headbutt (or present an opportunity for non-accidental one). Incidentally, “Carioca” is a slang term for a native of Rio de Janeiro.

Anyway, the popularity of the tune meant that many swing bands did versions: Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Woody Herman all had a go at it; the Artie Shaw version being particularly good. Later on, after the end of World War 2 and the arrival of the bebop era, many jazz musicians began to incorporate Latin-American rhythms and melodies into their work and this tune survived in various forms. There’s a very nice version by Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan, for example.

My favourite is this marvellous up-tempo rendition by the shamefully underrated pianist Hampton Hawes and his trio recorded in 1955 with Red Mitchell on bass and Chuck Thompson on drums.

The pre-eminent modern piano stylists of the early fifties were Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell; Hawes was closer to the latter in approach, but it always seemed to me that he was the pianist paid the most direct musical homage to the great Charlie Parker; his solo on this is full of bebop licks and is taken at such a breakneck pace that even the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire wouldn’t have been able to keep up.

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O Tannenbaum – Vince Guaraldi Trio

Posted in Jazz, Television with tags , , , on December 22, 2025 by telescoper

A jazz version of an old song from an album called A Charlie Brown Christmas may not seem a very promising concept but I like it, so there. The original lyrics of O Tannenbaum don’t refer to Christmas at all, incidentally, but it has become a Christmas standard. This version is by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and it was recorded 60 years ago in 1965. Vince Guaraldi was a fine jazz pianist who had an interesting solo career as well as playing with bands led by Woody Herman and Carl Tjader, among others. He is best remembered, however, for composing the music that went with TV adaptations of the Peanuts cartoons written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz of which this is a nice example.

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Blue Christmas Again

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on December 12, 2025 by telescoper

I’ve had a very busy penultimate week of term and am out of energy so instead of attempting a new post I thought I’d repost this “festive” classic. I posted this one during the “festive” season” in 2013 and haven’t posted it since. Until now. The band is led by none other than Miles Davis; the other members are Frank Rehak (trombone), Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums), and Willie Bobo (bongos); the arrangement is unmistakably by Gil Evans. The vocalist is the legendary Bob Dorough who also wrote the lyrics.

“Bah Humbug” never sounded so cool!

 P.S. I’m not particularly blue myself, just tired…

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One Hundred Years of the Hot Five

Posted in History, Jazz with tags , , , , , , , on November 12, 2025 by telescoper

Exactly one hundred years ago today, on 12th November 1925, five musicians gathered in the Okeh studios in Chicago to create musical history. The band was Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five and they were about to embark on a series of recording sessions that would result in a rich treasury of 20th century music in the form of 33 sides recorded between November 1925 and December 1927.

The band (pictured above) consisted of Louis Armstrong (on cornet on this track, although he switched to trumpet by the time of the later sessions). Kid Ory played trombone Johnny Dodds Clarinet. Lil Hardin (who was married to Louis Armstrong at the time and credited as Lil Armstrong) played piano and Johnny St Cyr played banjo or guitar. For many people, the collective imagination and sheer drive of Armstrong, Dodds and Ory made them just about the perfect front line. The way they take this one out at the end is a great example.

I won’t even try to write a detailed analysis of this historic record. I’ll just make a couple of points about the Hot Fives.

First, this band never played together as such in live concerts; they were strictly a studio band. In fact, they always sounded like a bunch of friends getting together to have fun making music, which is no doubt because that’s what they were. Most of the records they made were done in a single take, too.

Second, the line-up was unusual because it didn’t have a full rhythm section. At least part of the reason for this was that, at the time, drums were very difficult to record. In Louis Armstrong’s recorded reminiscences he talks about the fact that drums would often make the needle jump when cutting a record if they were were positioned close to the recording equipment. On the other hand if they were too far away to avoid that happening then they often couldn’t be heard at all. The low-frequency response of old fashioned recording systems made bass lines largely inaudible too. Anyway, it was decided that the excellent combination of Lil Hardin’s piano and Johnny St Cyr’s banjo would provide a sufficient framwork. So they were, though later on, in May 1927, a brass bass and drums were added to create the Hot Seven who made a further 11 sides, including the all-time classic Potato Head Blues.

Finally I’ll just remark that according to Satchmo’s memoirs, this track Gut Bucket Blues was the first to be recorded. It does sound like it too, as he introduces the members of the band. I wonder if they knew at this first session what a sensation these records were going to create?

P.S. I know it’s a bit scratchy, but it’s 100 years old. It’s amazing to me that you can hear anything at all.

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Autumn Leaves – Cannonball Adderley

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on October 23, 2025 by telescoper

It’s been a cool autumn day so this seems appropriate. It’s from the classic 1958 album Somethin’ Else which was Cannonball Adderley’s first as a leader, and one of Miles Davis’s last as a sideman (also a rare recording for Miles on the Blue Note label). Adderley went on to play alto sax with the great Miles Davis sextet that recorded Kind of Blue, and Miles obviously influenced this album enormously, but the rhythm section here is different from that band’s – Art Blakey on drums, Hank Jones on piano, and Sam Jones on bass. Miles Davis was also responsible for this arrangement of the standard Autumn Leaves, which he based on a version by Ahmad Jamal.

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