Videos: Harry James 1965 Band

[JSngry]

...this should be a LOT worse than it is.

Check it out:

Yeah, ok, I know, of course it is. But when it's NOT, hey, just some groovin' riffology designed to get the feets and asses moving, and I confess, it had me sitting here nodding my head and such in a non-casual manner. You gotta think that if catching a groove is THIS easy, then every motherfucker could do it. But the world shows us otherwise...

Again, just a nice groove, and look at all those Typical White Folk dancing! And at the end, in the Gene Krupa Breakspot...

BUDDY RICH'S HEAD EXPLODES AND SPEWS BLOOD ALL OVER EVERYBODY!!!

I mean, hey, this is not at all a bad band...

[Larry Kart]

Harry James at his best was a very creative player and a helluva player of the instrument too. Interesting in this later period how he's assimilated some Navarro and Clifford Brown, though no doubt he had some influence on Navarro initially. Last night I was listening to a Doris Day collection that includes two ballads with her and James and a small group from 1950 in conjunction with "Young Man With a Horn" -- "The Very Thought of You" and "Too Marvelous For Words." Lovely playing and singing; Day was so good. From that same era, her performances of ""It's Magic" and "That Old Feeling" are remarkably sexy and IMO as subtle time-wise and timbre-wise as, say, Stan Getz on "Early Autumn."

[AllenLowe]

somewhere there's a late 1930s session with James and basie-ites including Hershal Evans, maybe Jo Jones - and don't forget James's 1950s band with perhaps the GREATEST bebop trombonist I have ever heard - Carl Elmer, as great a bebopper as Knepper IMHO, as a matter of fact I think I have an excerpt somewhere in one of my devil tune box sets -

[Ted O'Reilly]

Yeah, Carl "Ziggy" Elmer, with Krupa and James and.... what else? And where did he get to? Did he die in the '50s?

[DukeCity]

Thanks for posting those. Dig the Wurlitzer electric piano on Green Onions!

Are those clips from a TV series? I remember seeing some other videos several years ago of the Lionel Hampton band and Duke's band, and it looks like they're all filmed on the same set.

[JSngry]

Thanks for posting those. Dig the Wurlitzer electric piano on Green Onions!

Are those clips from a TV series? I remember seeing some other videos several years ago of the Lionel Hampton band and Duke's band, and it looks like they're all filmed on the same set.

There's also some Basie shows from that same set/format, so I gotta think that yeah, they are. But I've searched in vain to find out moreinfo. They were out on VHS, though, & are known as the "Swingtme videos".

Since this thread is getting all the action, let me bring in it's orphaned cousin: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=41748

In 1965, it seems that the Harry James band was actually ahead of its time in handling "jazz-rock"!

[Swinging Swede]

Shouldn't a Mosaic box of Harry James's 1959-64 MGM recordings be a given at some point? They already released his preceding 1955-58 Capitol recordings in the now OOP Krupa/James box, and an MGM set would be a nice follow-up.

While they're at it, they could throw in the 1965-67 Dot recordings too, since they also are Universal-owned. Green Onions is the title track of James's first Dot album, and Sunday Mornin' from the other thread was on that album as well.

AFAIK, none of James's MGM and Dot albums have been on CD before. Rarely has a Mosaic box been more needed.

[Chuck Nessa]

AFAIK, none of James's MGM and Dot albums have been on CD before. Rarely has a Mosaic box been more needed.

I have this very nice collection

[JSngry]

"Cubano Chant" Japan, 1964, again w/Rich on drums: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah_qnY0hQxs

I mean, shit, who was managing this band that they apparently worked steadily (mostly Vegas, as I understand it), but went virtually unheard on record or in the press?

[Swinging Swede]

But James was still recording regularly at that time. I count 9 MGM albums in 1959-64 and 5 Dot albums in 1965-67. Cubano Chant was on his second Dot album The Ballads And The Beat. But it's possible that those albums didn't create a lot of fanfare at the time. They certainly haven't in the CD age!

[Swinging Swede]

AFAIK, none of James's MGM and Dot albums have been on CD before. Rarely has a Mosaic box been more needed.

I have this very nice collection

Yes, I have another compilation, Compact Jazz, and there is also the later Jazz Masters 55. I now see that there hardly is any duplication between them. Perhaps one or more albums can be cobbled together from them? I'll have to check that.

I should also mention that "the Andorrans" recently has put out two MGM twofers: New Swingin' Band/Requests On The Road and Harry James Today!/Harry James Plays Neal Hefti (plus three tracks from The Spectacular Sound). They are however mastered from LPs and a Mosaic release would sound so much better.

Edited April 4, 2008 by Swinging Swede

[JSngry]

But James was still recording regularly at that time. I count 9 MGM albums in 1959-64 and 5 Dot albums in 1965-67. Cubano Chant was on his second Dot album The Ballads And The Beat. But it's possible that those albums didn't create a lot of fanfare at the time. They certainly haven't in the CD age!

14 albums?

Wow, I had no idea...

[BruceH]

But James was still recording regularly at that time. I count 9 MGM albums in 1959-64 and 5 Dot albums in 1965-67. Cubano Chant was on his second Dot album The Ballads And The Beat. But it's possible that those albums didn't create a lot of fanfare at the time. They certainly haven't in the CD age!

14 albums?

Wow, I had no idea...

Yeah, not only alive but kickin' like hell, too.