From Wild Bill Davis to Jimmy Smith

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thanks - mystery cleared up - there's no Hank Crawford in there

It's not stuff I'd recommend to someone getting interested, or experimenting. Not that it's bad, but I'm seriously hooked.

MG

[Dan Gould]

Gotta say I'm intrigued by the idea of more Conrad Lester.

and I have to strongly second the recommendation of the Dream Team and Starting Five; the Junior Parker is straight up blues and well worth hearing as long as you can get past the fact that every second phrase out of Junior's mouth is "everybody say YEAH!"

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Gotta say I'm intrigued by the idea of more Conrad Lester.

and I have to strongly second the recommendation of the Dream Team and Starting Five; the Junior Parker is straight up blues and well worth hearing as long as you can get past the fact that every second phrase out of Junior's mouth is "everybody say YEAH!"

Oh yeah!

Dan IS quite right about that

Well, that's showbiz. If anyone's interested, you get the same in West Africa

MG

[bdamusic]

I disagree, Jimmy McGriff was a great jazz organist, his timing & classy comping & solos were influenced by Count Basie’s band..

Check # 10,Yard Bird Suite, his solo is masterful.

In the above LP, some tracks have Buddy Rich, who he was working with in 74-75. I was working at a nearby club & had a drink with him in 75 ,when he worked for the Buddy Rich quartet, he told me they worked Vegas & even backed Sinatra.Anyone who Buddy Rich hired had to be the best.

[robertoart]

I disagree, Jimmy McGriff was a great jazz organist, his timing & classy comping & solos were influenced by Count Basie’s band..

Check # 10,Yard Bird Suite, his solo is masterful.

In the above LP, some tracks have Buddy Rich, who he was working with in 74-75. I was working at a nearby club & had a drink with him in 75 ,when he worked for the Buddy Rich quartet, he told me they worked Vegas & even backed Sinatra.Anyone who Buddy Rich hired had to be the best.

Actually I think I bought it to hear Yardbird Suite. You're not wrong in what you say. I definitely identify the conception of this music as Basie era. There is a lot of interesting Organ configurations that cross-polinate that Ellington/Basie era minded players with hard bop-boogaloo players. Perhaps that further makes George Freeman sound extra funny on some of these tracks. Freeman whom I love by the way.

Indeed wasn't Jimmy Lewis from one of the Basie bands?

Perhaps these tunes are better served in vibe and atmosphere on their original vinyl releases - or in a club back in the day

Nothing wrong with the playing itself. How could there be

Edited August 1, 2013 by freelancer

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I disagree, Jimmy McGriff was a great jazz organist, his timing & classy comping & solos were influenced by Count Basie’s band..

Check # 10,Yard Bird Suite, his solo is masterful.

In the above LP, some tracks have Buddy Rich, who he was working with in 74-75. I was working at a nearby club & had a drink with him in 75 ,when he worked for the Buddy Rich quartet, he told me they worked Vegas & even backed Sinatra.Anyone who Buddy Rich hired had to be the best.

Actually I think I bought it to hear Yardbird Suite. You're not wrong in what you say. I definitely identify the conception of this music as Basie era. There is a lot of interesting Organ configurations that cross-polinate that Ellington/Basie era minded players with hard bop-boogaloo players. Perhaps that further makes George Freeman sound extra funny on some of these tracks. Freeman whom I love by the way.

Indeed wasn't Jimmy Lewis from one of the Basie bands?

Perhaps these tunes are better served in vibe and atmosphere on their original vinyl releases - or in a club back in the day

Nothing wrong with the playing itself. How could there be

Yes, the classic album for getting the atmosphere (apart from the two McGriff's I mentioned above) is Jimmy Smith's 'The boss', done at Paschals Lounge in Atlanta. Two of the tracks seem to have been recorded early in the evening, before the party crowd got there. Once the place had filled up, it became clear that the purpose of the music was to accompany the party.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

Finally, there’s Dayton Selby, who only made one recording that I’ve ever come across; “The rocking tenor sax of Eddie Chamblee” (Prestige 7321) was recorded as late as February 1964 and shows not a trace of Jimmy Smith’s innovations. But it shows how an organist of the Wild Bill persuasion could equally well boot a tenor player beyond the stratosphere into pure hysteria or provide a soft, romantic cushion under a ballad.

Er... discuss.

MG

Some VERY belated input as I had been made aware of this thread only now:

There is at least one other LP by him:

"The Feminine Sax" - The Dayton Selby Trio featuring WiIlene Barton (Design DLP 37).. recorded some time in the late 50s (so the discographies say).

Will have to give it a closer listen again ...

According to discographies, four more tracks by Dayton Selby (org) and Willene Barton (ts) were on an RCA Victor LP in 1957.

UPDATE:

Ha - just checked that RCA Victor LP online, and it is one I actually have:

"Teenagers Dance" (Victor LPM 1540, a compilation party-type LP to cash in on the teen r'n'r craze, also featuring studio (?) group obscurities "The Kids" and "Jimmy Sedlar"). Not earth-shaking but a nice document of its times that goes fairly well with the "Big Beat" R'nR of those years. The Selby-Barton tracks come across like the RCA in-house version of Bill Doggett and the "Big Beat" sax blowers like Sam The Man Taylor, Plas Johnson, Al Sears, etc.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Finally, there’s Dayton Selby, who only made one recording that I’ve ever come across; “The rocking tenor sax of Eddie Chamblee” (Prestige 7321) was recorded as late as February 1964 and shows not a trace of Jimmy Smith’s innovations. But it shows how an organist of the Wild Bill persuasion could equally well boot a tenor player beyond the stratosphere into pure hysteria or provide a soft, romantic cushion under a ballad.

Er... discuss.

MG

Some VERY belated input as I had been made aware of this thread only now:

There is at least one other LP by him:

"The Feminine Sax" - The Dayton Selby Trio featuring WiIlene Barton (Design DLP 37).. recorded some time in the late 50s (so the discographies say).

Will have to give it a closer listen again ...

According to discographies, four more tracks by Dayton Selby (org) and Willene Barton (ts) were on an RCA Victor LP in 1957.

UPDATE:

Ha - just checked that RCA Victor LP online, and it is one I actually have:

"Teenagers Dance" (Victor LPM 1540, a compilation party-type LP to cash in on the teen r'n'r craze, also featuring studio (?) group obscurities "The Kids" and "Jimmy Sedlar"). Not earth-shaking but a nice document of its times that goes fairly well with the "Big Beat" R'nR of those years. The Selby-Barton tracks come across like the RCA in-house version of Bill Doggett and the "Big Beat" sax blowers like Sam The Man Taylor, Plas Johnson, Al Sears, etc.

Goodness, now you mention it, I seem to remember my friend had an EP from that RCA LP, just featuring the Barton tracks.

And, to pinch a phrase from James Brown, 'Good Gawd!' - never HEARD of that Design album!

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

Well, since you wondered in that "other" thread what this album is like - am just listening to it right now.

I'd say it is rather in the Lockjaw-Shirley Scott bag. A bit more conventional, maybe, and some might argue that the "change of genders" is discernible.

Not bad, though.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

Willene Barton made an album? I gotta get that, good lord, that woman could PLAY!!!!

Start it @ 5:52

This is the only thing I've ever heard of hers, caught it on A&E ca. 1986 or so, but I've never forgotten it or her. That's some damn fine tenor right there!

[JSngry]

Probably old news to you guys, but I just found this about Willene Barton: http://bluesandrhythm.co.uk/documents/BR289-Willene-Barton.pdf

[Big Beat Steve]

No, not really old news. My "collection" of Blues & Rhythm is rather spotty. So - thanks for the link.

Makes you wonder if maybe this would be the time to buy another load of back issues from the publishers.

B&R is a goldmine of information but the discography to THIS ONE leaves me slightly puzzled:

1) Is that initial LP on that Gateway (?) label really a different recording from the Design LP listed further down the list? Re-recording the same tunes with the same (sometimes provisional? cf. Blues #xxx) titles TWICE? Did they do an aural comparison to establish that these are two different recordings? Really odd ...

Hollywood was a budget label with relatively hissy pressing quality (with nice cheesecake cover pics, though) that issued or reissued various R&B and jazz tracks throughout the 50s. I have several of them (some featuring R&B, maybe sometimes retitled à la Crown, some featuring - of all places - SWEDISH jazz recordings). Design was a budget label too so who knows who shifted which masters where ...?

2) That RCA session: The EP should be the one that MG mentioned earlier. The way the LP contents are presented is rather strange, though. The way the personnel and tunes are listed this reads like it is Selby and Barton all the way, with some vocalists comng in here and there. I've listened through the LP yesterday, and unless the backing musicians changed their playing radically the tunes featuring the "Kids" and "Jimmy Sedlar" sound like different sessions and musicians (decidedly white sound, like white cover versions of R&B tunes). Will listen closer again when I get around to it but I have my doubts.

I received an excerpt from another discography (Lord??) when inquiring about this Design LP and there the only RCA tracks listed among the Dayton Selby entry are the 4 feature tunes from the LP (which also make up the EP). This sounds more credible to me.

Oh yeah, and lest it be overlooked: Dan Kochakian managed to sneak in a colossal blunder in the opening paragraph of that article: Vi (Elvira) Redd never was with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. That Sweethearts' Vi (for whom "Vi Vigor" was penned) as Vi (Viola) BURNSIDE (as mentioned further down in the article).

Edited October 10, 2014 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I hardly ever bought Blues & Rhythm - mostly I was a poverty-stricken young parent in those days. Bought a few in the early 80s, when things were looking up. So the article is very much news to me.

A few interesting things in there.

The Wolverines - who are referenced as having backed LaVern Baker's earliest material for OkeH - are the same band that backed Johnny Ray's first single (also for OkeH) - 'Whisky & gin'/'Tell the lady I said goodbye'. Ray's singing on those cuts was very much like that of Amos Milburn. Course, he and LaVern both sang at the Flame Bar in Detroit.

The Gloria Bell, who was photographed playing bass with Myrtle Young & her Rays is better known as Gloria Coleman or 'Auntie Gloria' as she was usually known in Newark. I never knew she played bass first. But like Brother Jack, who also started as a bass player, she always had a good bass line.

Really nice pic of the entire personnel of Eddie Chamblee's Prestige LP.

Thanks very much for unearthing that, Jim.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

No, not really old news. My "collection" of Blues & Rhythm is rather spotty. So - thanks for the link.

Makes you wonder if maybe this would be the time to buy another load of back issues from the publishers.

B&R is a goldmine of information but the discography to THIS ONE leaves me slightly puzzled:

1) Is that initial LP on that Gateway (?) label really a different recording from the Design LP listed further down the list? Re-recording the same tunes with the same (sometimes provisional? cf. Blues #xxx) titles TWICE? Did they do an aural comparison to establish that these are two different recordings? Really odd ...

Hollywood was a budget label with relatively hissy pressing quality (with nice cheesecake cover pics, though) that issued or reissued various R&B and jazz tracks throughout the 50s. I have several of them (some featuring R&B, maybe sometimes retitled à la Crown, some featuring - of all places - SWEDISH jazz recordings). Design was a budget label too so who knows who shifted which masters where ...?

article).

I read the article as saying that the Design LP was a reissue of the Gateway album with one track missing.

Twelve of the thirteen numbers

on ‘Thar She Blows’ were reissued as ‘The Feminine Sax’ on Design

Records – a division of the budget label Pickwick Records of New York.

The discography puts it differently, I see, but the text seems quite right.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

As you can see, MG, I had not read the entire article yet.

Just the beginning and the very end.

The discography, then, is an even bigger mess if the entries are presented like that and this recording session is made to look like two.

Uncommon for B&R.

By the way, MG:

I hardly ever bought Blues & Rhythm - mostly I was a poverty-stricken young parent in those days. Bought a few in the early 80s, when things were looking up. So the article is very much news to me.

Blues & Rhythm started out in early 1985 or so.

Could it be that it was BLUES UNLIMITED (of Mike Leadbitter fame) that you did not buy?

Edited October 10, 2014 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

On my browser, there's a new page beginning right after the video clip of Willene. Just want to make sure that that clip gets its rightful viewership. I think its pretty awesome (in the old,meaningful sense of the world).

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

On my browser, there's a new page beginning right after the video clip of Willene. Just want to make sure that that clip gets its rightful viewership. I think its pretty awesome (in the old,meaningful sense of the world).

I haven't seen the video clip of Willene. All I've got when I hit your link is a pdf file, which is the few pages from B&R. Am I doing something wrong here? I'm not thinking or seeing very straight lately because I've had a headache for a fortnight, so I just might not have noticed what I'm supposed to have noticed. (Seen doc & optician today and it's apparently just Hi blood pressure.)

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

It's in JSangrey's post BEFORE the one (with the B&R excerpt) you refer to, MG.

It's y 14-minute clip of a documentary on women in jazz hosted by Marian McPartland.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Ah, got it now. Yes, that's some rather nice playing. I only heard her EP with Dayton Selby once but I don't think she was playing ANYTHING like that in the late fifties.

Pity she didn't record in the eighties. I think I'd have died if Joe Fields had put out a cut like that 'Pennies from heaven' (Pennies from fuckin' heaven, yet!) on Muse. And this was the era of smooooooooooth jazz!

Thank you, Jim.

MG

[JSngry]

a cut like that 'Pennies from heaven' (Pennies from fuckin' heaven, yet!)...

Yep. Exactly. That's the kind of thing that leaves an impression!

[JSngry]

it's apparently just Hi blood pressure.)

MG

Take care of yourself, sir. Please!

[JSngry]

Willene clip now on its own, by itself:

 

 

[Dan Gould]

I missed all this discussion when it happened but discovered over the weekend how much Willene Barton kicked MF-ing ass. So much that I decided to spring for the EP plus a 45 on this label from recordbyemail, not this one, one that followed:

The There She Blows LP is available as a d/l on Amazon for $6.

And I sprung for a CD named Jazz Sisters, on the very off hand chance that its the same group that Barton played with in the 70s/early 80s. Absolutely no other info could be gleaned that I could find.

 

[mikeweil]

On 12/19/2012 at 1:45 PM, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

Jackie Davis

Jackie’s debt to Wild Bill Davis is obvious. He first recorded in about 1951. Later he worked with Dinah Washington and Louis Jordan (in the late fifties). He recorded as a leader for Capitol for about sixteen years (it appears that many of those albums have little jazz content and most aren’t listed in jazz discographies).

To me it looked like a bag he was put in (or put himself in). There are two cheapo 5-albums-on-2 CDs compilation of some Capitol albums (with overlaps) that make for a nice listen:

That he was able to play good organ jazz can be heard on a track he recorded with Harold Land for a Pacific Jazz compilation.

https://www.discogs.com/master/921874-Various-This-Is-The-Blues-Volume-1

https://www.discogs.com/master/488486-Various-Blowin-The-Blues

Edited May 22, 2023 by mikeweil