Roots of jazz; New Orleans renaissance

The following tape recorded program is a presentation of the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is to this program. By 1940 Swain had retired the old Chicago boys who had continued their jam sessions all through the 20s and 30s but continue them in privacy. If bars and small clubs can be called private they had become popular enough now to find a few recording dates. Bob Crosby is Bob Katz issuing forth from the depths of a large swing orchestra and

plucked a responsive chord and the blues and Dixieland seem to begin a rebirth with the Bobcats. So he made sure you feed one of those had recalled for us the dirty lowdown and occasionally wild emotions of a New Orleans long since quiescent finally Muggsy Spanier and his Ragtime Band had formulated the heretofore Hit or Miss Dixie Land style into a finished product. This wedding of New Orleans and Chicago influences seemed to many people do back in some of the real music of New Orleans old time as jazz collect as an authority he's made pilgrimages to the Delta city but found little of genuine interest. Louis Armstrong was still the most notable link with the past but he was fronting a larger swing group. He said he was sure he was a link also but everyone felt that there must be somewhere in New Orleans the possibility of hearing the real thing.

I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am.

In 1939 Harcourt Brace and company published the book jazzman edited by Frederick Ramsay Jr. and Charles Edward Smith. The purpose of this book was announced by the editors on the first page of their introduction. It was to relate the story of jazz as it has unfolded about the men who created it. The musicians themselves and to testify to the editors success Rex Harris said that Jasmine was a landmark in the history of jazz appreciation. William Russell while gathering information for his contribution to this book was interviewing Louis Armstrong and Louis suggested that Russell should look up bunk Johnson who would know all about the early days of jazz in New Orleans.

Here are the words of one Robur ago as he wrote them in his introduction to a study on the diffusion of jazz entitled jazz pre-history and bunk Johnson with the aid of the local post office. Russell located bank in New Iberia a small Louisiana town west of New Orleans. Then Russell began a fruitful correspondence with bank parts of which and live in the opening pages of jazz man. Bunker often claimed that he could play again if only he had a good set of teeth. Some of the jazz men contributors skeptical of the old man's claims but wanting to help him anyway raise the money for a set of plates that Leonard Bushay Sydney's brother made for Bonk in the spring of 1942. Two groups of collectors from the east and west coast converged upon bonk at about the same time to record him with a band of veterans New Orleans musicians the west coast group issued the recordings on the Jazz Man label but the recording equipment was inferior inferior quality

on not. Here is the jasmine recording of bunk Johnson's original superior band playing jazz with a Negro spiritual entitled down by the river. This was recorded in New Orleans June 1948. However. I meant. To add. That. I add. Ins. I met. My

ISP. Thank. You as. I. Get. It Right. Thank you. I know. I. Am. Thank you.

Thank you. And now we go back to the woods of Dr. Berger and the story of bunk Johnson. Later in the summer of 1942 Eugene Williams One of the bunks east coast admirers made some records of bunk that were technically better than the others and released them on the Jazz information label. For a brief period in one thousand forty four bunker tried Los Angeles he recorded with a pick up band. But these transcriptions were never placed on sale since they were made for the exclusive use of broadcasters. After returning once more to New Iberia bunk recorded for William Russell in 1944 on the American music. This is a recording that is

usually played as a march back to Barry. Didn't he ram over the work. Record of the bank's New Iberia Louisiana for him. Focusing this program on bunk Johnson makes the picture of the renaissance of New

Orleans a little distorted because while bunk was the fountain head of this revival a great many other only Meehan's had come forward and are now producing a continuous flow of that city's peculiar brand of happiness while Bunky himself is now debt to correct this distortion entirely would be beyond the possibilities of the series. But the record can be partially set straight by mentioning one group of white musicians from San Francisco who seem to have attempted a one band revival all by themselves even before will want to hear. Rex Harris tells about Lou Waters and the jazz band the flame of jazz which had been dying since the Depression years had flickered occasionally during the empty thirties and then suddenly flared up in San Francisco just at the beginning of the war in 1939. Lou Waters had played with dance bands for several years and was a skilled arranger. Nevertheless he wanted to play like Oliver or Armstrong and out of his 12 piece band which was

playing in suites ballroom across San Francisco bay in Oakland. He formed a small jazz group. Encouraged by a small nucleus of jazz supporters waters group gained an experience some of them playing at the Golden Gate International Exposition. Then late in 1040 the hot Music Society of San Francisco asked the band to play at their monthly jam sessions held at the dawn club. The water is your boy in a jazz band was not an immediate success among the members of the society who preferred the riffs and every man for himself style of jam music a start had been made by a band in which the individual was subservient to the needs of a group. Soon after this the waters group came to an arrangement with the manager of the Dawn club and they started playing one night per week regular day. Again they were not successful and Lou Waters needed all his stubborn powers of perseverance to keep going.

The men played as a team the instrumental lineup being close to that of Oliver's Creole band. Still the attendances at the dawn club showed little improvement and it was reported that Waters was making up losses out of his own pocket. Finally however the round of adverse reception came to an end. Students from the university had been swelling the audiences and even swaying fed people found they could listen to this style of jazz. Furthermore a local radio announcer named Howe MacIntyre did his best to publicize the band over the air the year Boeing has started broadcasting and made their first records for Dave steward's jazzman label this session. One of the most important in jazz history and here is one of those recordings Lou Waters and as you have a Bueno jazz band and Irish black bottom. Yes.

I. Am. There were other people who participated in this rebirth Carey who was

living in Los Angeles and the old time trombonist Kid Ory had a good group in L.A. almost an ear buds got mine a hall. George Louis Jim Robinson and Bob Wilbur were some of those who contributed. But there were many others. But bunk Johnson and Lou Waters remain the style of traction the most unlikely occurrence to expect is that the great trumpeter already in his 60s would play whether you have a brain a band. And yet this actually happened in 1943. Bunk was in San Francisco to illustrate some lectures on this by Rudy butch. He stayed in San Francisco and made records with some of the Lou Waters band. He was one of those disks entitled kid Henri's creo trombone with bunk on trumpet and Turk Murphy playing the tailgate trombone.

And. Max Jones reef debunks trumpet work in the following quotation

is conception of the correct role which a trumpet player should fill. Cut through that carefully worked up called of great soloists exposing it for what it is. A publisher demands creation aimed at enhancing box office returns. There is no doubt that the trend toward soloist in front of a band as opposed to a musician within a band is one which is essentially inimical to the production of jazz. And after the September 1945 opening at the Stuyvesant Casino in New York City of Buck Johnson's New Orleans band route Stooges had this to say. When Louis melts your heart with his magnetic personality overpowering strength and his vast flights of inventiveness bunk substitutes a subtle mastery of melodic know how and endless play of searching understatement which relentlessly guides the other instruments along a secure path and directs Horace said in his book jazz. When a man reaches the age

of 69 and still plays jazz for a living it is not a pessimistic assumption that he won't be around playing jazz for very much longer. Yet when bunk died on July 7th 1949 at his home in New Iberia where he retired in 1948 the whole of the jazz world was profoundly moved. The impact of such a personality across the years from New Orleans in 1900 to New York in 1945 was one which had a greater effect upon the consciousness of the musical world than any number of young revivalist groups. However authentic and sincere they may have been bunk was New Orleans jazz. He was not just a crumpet player. He represented the music itself. Jazz has gone cold cycle from the days of its origin in New Orleans through its golden age in the 20s in Chicago into swaying on the big bands that played it to take a flier

into Bach and returning at last like an errant child to the Delta city. Here is one of the oldest Masters of the odd Kid Ory and his Creole Dixieland band in a number called Blues Jimi. 1939 of the present revival of interest in Norway

has maintained there has fortunately developed a coterie of devoted appreciators who insist that nothing else will do. This is unfortunate because they restrict the range of their joint. There are wonderful moments of Arc in one's mind but in other styles there are also individuals who give us equally exciting. In the middle 40s somewhat as a reaction to this emphasis on swing music. A small group of musicians in New York City began exploring and experimenting with some new musical ideas new that is to the jazz fans are. The product of that experimentation became known as Bach. And on our next program we will explore its history. This is on the 25th. Program on the roots of jazz. Stay.

With. Greta. Sounds good. On cue. The program was tape recorded. This is the end of a radio network.