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Jim Europe’s Society Orchestra

Posted in History, Jazz with tags , , , , on April 30, 2014 by telescoper

More than a few people have commented on the fact that my musical tastes are a little old-fashioned, but here’s a piece that’s a bit old even by my standards. It’s by a band from the immediately pre-Jazz era called Jim Europe’s Society Orchestra. Led by James Reese Europe this band pre-dated the much more famous Paul Whiteman band in popularity, playing at the Carnegie Hall for example long before Whiteman’s ever did which, for a group of black musicians, was quite remarkable at a time of racial segregation in the United States.

When World War 1 started, Jim Europe enlisted in the 369th Infantry Regiment, which fought with immense distinction on the Western Front. The regiment, comprised of African-American and Puerto Rican soldiers, was dubbed the “Men of Bronze” by the French army and as the “Hellfighters” by the German army, on account of their legendary toughness. In the latter stages of the war, Jim Europe formed a military band to which he gave the name “The Harlem Hellfighters”. He died in 1919, after being stabbed in the neck by one of his own musicians.

This particular record was made over a century ago, on December 29 1913. As you might expect, the recording quality is not particularly good (to put it mildly) but it always strikes me as absolutely amazing that we can hear anything at all that was recorded so long ago. The line-up is very unusual by modern standards: two pianos, five banjo mandolins, three violins, clarinet, cornet, and a drummer. That’s on this particular tune. No personnel information is available except that it is certainly Jim Europe himself who delivers the encouraging shouts.

It’s pretty basic stuff from a musical point of view, in that everyone plays in unison and there’s no improvisation or any other development of the tune, but it’s certainly a performance full of energy and fun as well as a valuable piece of Jazz prehistory. The tune is Downhome Rag, which was written sometime in 1913 by Wilbur C Sweatman, is still performed by traditional jazz bands today. But not like this!

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The Wolverines

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on April 27, 2014 by telescoper

Well, after a busy afternoon trying to get some work done in the office at the same time as worrying about whether there would be serious violence at today’s “March for England” I don’t have the energy to post anything other than a bit of music which I’ve been saving up for an occasion where a small pick-me-up was needed.

This lovely old record was made on June 10, 1927. It was issued by the Victor label with the title Wolverine Blues, by which name it’s been known ever since, but in fact it’s  a tune called The Wolverines which was written way back in 1906 by Jelly Roll Morton, who plays the piano on this track.  Anyway, it starts off as if it’s going to be a solo performance by Jelly Roll Morton on piano but then he’s joined by Johnny Dodds and his brother Warren “Baby” Dodds on clarinet and drums respectively. At first, Jelly Roll Morton just comps along quietly behind Johnny Dodds but he was never one to stay in the background for long and at about 1m 58s he springs into life to joyous effect. Listen out too for the absolutely superb work by drummer Baby Dodds who, despite having the crudest kit imaginable, lays down a carpet of infectious rhythms. Deep joy.

 

 

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Yeh Yeh

Posted in Music, Television with tags , on April 22, 2014 by telescoper

By way of celebrating the end of my holiday I thought I’d post this bit of musical entertainment by the legendary Bob Downe singing a medley of the Georgie Fame hit, Yeh Yeh. If only all Australian men were as butch as Bob Downe…

 

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Matzo Balls

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , on April 14, 2014 by telescoper

This evening sees the start of the Jewish Festival of the Passover (Pesach) which made me think of posting this piece of inspired silliness by the legendary Slim Gaillard to wish you all a Chag Sameach.

Slim Gaillard was a talented musician in his own right, but also a wonderful comedian and storyteller. He’s most famous for the novelty jazz acts he formed with musicians such as Slam Stewart and, later, Bam Brown; their stream of consciousness vocals ranged far afield from the original lyrics along with wild interpolations of nonsense syllables such as MacVoutie and O-reeney; one such performance figures in the 1957 novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

In later life Slim Gaillard travelled a lot in Europe – he could speak 8 languages in addition to English – and spent long periods living in London. He died there, in fact, in 1991, aged 75. I saw him a few times myself when I used to go regularly to Ronnie Scott’s Club. A tall, gangly man with a straggly white beard and wonderful gleam in his eye, he cut an unmistakeable figure in the bars and streets of Soho. He rarely had to buy himself a drink as he was so well known and such an entertaining fellow that a group always formed around him  in order to enjoy his company whenever he went into a pub. You never quite knew what he was going to do next, in fact. I once saw him sit down and play a piano with his palms facing upwards, striking the notes with the backs of his fingers. Other random things worth mentioning are that Slim Gaillard’s daughter was married to Marvin Gaye and it is generally accepted that the word “groovy” was coined by him (Slim). I know it’s a cliché, but he really was a larger-than-life character and a truly remarkable human being.

They don’t make ’em like Slim any more, but you can get a good idea of what a blast he was by listening to this record, which is bound to bring a smile even to the  most crabbed of faces….

 

 

 

 

 

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Cornet Chop Suey

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , , , on April 11, 2014 by telescoper

Just time for a short lunchtime post in between loads of end-of-term business and travelling up to London for this afternoon’s meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. I’m a bit tired, to be honest, largely owing to a late night last night at the Sussex University Mathematics Society Ball, but this is an excellent pick-me-up. You can dip into the classic “Hot Five” recordings at any point and come up with something wonderful, but I think this is one of the very best. Recorded in Chicago on February 26, 1926, Cornet Chop Suey was written by Louis Armstrong and features him on trumpet, at the centre of the amazing front line that also included Kid Ory on trombone and Johnny Dodds on clarinet. Johnny St. Cyr plays banjo and on piano is the superb Lil Armstrong (née Hardin), Louis’ first wife, who plays a very fine solo on this track.  Above all, though, it’s a vehicle for Louis Armstrong himself who is on absolutely superlative form, especially in the stop-time choruses from about 1:47 onwards. The ending’s pretty good too…

Enjoy!

 

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Introduction and Polonaise Brillante

Posted in Music with tags , , , on March 27, 2014 by telescoper

Yet another very busy day with no time for a proper post. However, I did notice this morning that today was the birthday of the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (who died in 2007) and that gives me the excuse to post this recording, which I’ve loved for years and which gets played very frequently on my iPoD, especially in times of stress. The Introduction and Polonaise Brillante is a very early piece by Frederic Chopin; it’s his Opus 3 in fact and was composed when he was about 20 years old. He later dismissed it as “a bit of froth for the salon ladies”. It may not be an enormously profound piece of music – and I’ve heard many insipid versions that have almost put me off it entirely – but I think this performance is great. The combination of Rostropovich on cello with another iconoclast Marta Argerich on piano was never going to produce insipid music, and it’s abundantly clear that, though it’s not a particularly challenging piece, they both had a whale of a time recording it!

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Hampton Hawes – The Trio, Vol. 1

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on March 25, 2014 by telescoper

The old blog has been generating far too much traffic over the last couple of weeks so I thought I’d try to calm things down by posting something about Jazz (which usually scares the traffic away). I was listening this album the other day and thought I’d write about it because the pianist concerned Hampton Hawes is so underrated.

The Trio – Vol. 1  was Hawes’s first LP under his own name and it proved to be the start of a long and successful association with Contemporary Records. Hawes’s playing has been described as a more-or-less literal keyboard transcription of Charlie Parker and indeed his lines do sound more like Parker than those of Bud Powell, the archetypal bebop pianist. Indeed Hawes stated that Powell had never really been influence, or at least not as much of an influence as he had been on the rest of his generation of jazz pianists. Like Charlie Parker, Hawes had a great gift for playing the blues and even when not actually playing standard 12-bar blues material he somehow managed to make almost everything he played sound like the blues; a great example from this album is the ballad Easy Livin’ which Hawes augments by inserting some blues phrases into the melody. There are three “orthodox” blues tracks on the album, although one of them Feelin’ Fine is based on an altered chord progression.

Fast tempi gave Hawes very few problems. On the album he seems completely comfortable maintaining the logic and continuity of his improvisations even while playing at about 80 bars to the minute.  I Got Rhythm is taken at a very brisk pace but Hawes is always master of the situation. The track I’ve picked from Youtube, the great Jerome Kern standard All The Things You Are, the chords of which lurk underneath a great many bebop tunes, is very different, with an out-of-tempo introduction picking up into the jaunty medium pace “bounce” that’s very characteristic of the bebop era.

Throughout the 50s and 60s, Hampton Hawes was head and shoulders above most of his competitors. Red Mitchell (bass) and Chuck Thompson (drums) remained his colleagues for years, which is no doubt why their playing is so together.

 

 

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Bach – Vivace!

Posted in Music with tags , , on March 19, 2014 by telescoper

I heard a recording of this movement from Trio Sonata No. 6 in G Major by J.S. Bach this morning on BBC Radio 3 and thought it was so lovely I couldn’t resist finding a version of it to post on my own organ, as it were. This, the first movement, appropriately enough marked Vivace, has a bouncy exuberance that I find totally wonderful. I hope you like it too.

 

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Charlotte Church and Physics

Posted in Music, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on March 14, 2014 by telescoper

I just noticed an interesting news item about popular vocal artiste Charlotte Church. Apparently she is thinking about doing a degree in physics. She is quoted on the BBC Website as saying

“I just think it’s important to keep the brain active and keep educating yourself.

“I have an interest in it and I should try to follow it. It’s something I’ve been interested in for the last year or two.”

I hope she does it, as it will set an excellent example. In the article, however, she also says “I will have to do an A-level in physics and maths first though”. That’s not necessarily the case, actually. It is possible instead to opt for a physics degree programme with a Foundation year. Many universities run such programmes. We have one here at the University of Sussex but there is also one at Cardiff University, which happens to be in Charlotte Church’s home town.

These courses are specifically designed for people who didn’t do the traditional mix of A-level subjects for a Physics degree and I always recommend that students who are coming to the subject late in life give them serious consideration rather than assuming they should go via the usual A-level route. Widening participation in higher education by offering such access courses is something many universities work very hard at and do very well.

In fact, as I’ve pointed out before, that the current A-level Physics courses are part of the reason why we have so few female physics students; the fraction is a meagre 20%. That might start to change if high-profile women like Charlotte Church lead the way, but in the mean time it’s definitely worth thinking about alternatives to A-level such as those I’ve described.

In any case, and whatever Charlotte Church does decide to do in the future, I’m sure I speak on behalf of the vast majority of physicists when I express thanks to her for putting such a nice story about physics into the news!

POSTRSCRIPT: I wasn’t aware of this when I wrote the above piece, but it seems a former colleague of mine from Cardiff University, Edward Gomez helped get Charlotte Church interested in physics.

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Frühling

Posted in Music with tags , , on March 11, 2014 by telescoper

I thought I’d post this recording of Frühling (“Spring”) which I heard  on the radio at the weekend; it seems appropriate enough for the season and for the lovely weather we’re currently enjoying. It features the gorgeous voice of Gundula Janowitz,  wonderfully bright and clear like finest crystal. I have so far posted two of the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss; this makes it three.

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