Chris Albertson, R.I.P.

[JSngry]

Iceland, it was.

[Д.Д.]

10 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Finland, iirc.

Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Albertson   

[JSngry]

Albertson was born in Reykjavík, but his father left the family before he was a year old. Yvonne, his mother, married three more times.^[1] He was educated in Iceland, Denmark and England before studying commercial art in Copenhagen.

In 1947, while living in Copenhagen, Albertson listened by chance to a Bessie Smith recording on radio; it led to an abiding interest in jazz and blues music. "We found magic in such names as Kid Ory, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey", he wrote on his Stomp Off blog in 2010.^[1] On his home tape machine, Albertson recorded visiting British New Orleans revivalists Ken Colyer, Chris Barber and Lonnie Donegan in 1953. These recordings were subsequently released on the Danish Storyville Records and British Tempo Records labels.

[Dmitry]

8 minutes ago, Д.Д. said:

Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Albertson   

He was a Dane, I think. Anyone interested in 20th c. European history, knows that until 1944 Iceland was under the Danish rule. I will ask Lew Tabackin when I’ll see him. I believe Chris and him were very good friends.

[EKE BBB]

1 hour ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Finland, iirc.

He was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, but grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark. 
I miss Chris a lot. So sad that he didn’t finished neither his memories nor his Lil Armstrong bio.

[GA Russell]

I'm struck to see this thread revived today, because Chris was the first person I thought of when I saw that Marilyn Bergman had passed away.

As I recall, he disliked the Bergmans personally, and made a nasty comment here about them!

[Teasing the Korean]

Bump.  I came across an old thread of mine to which Chris chimed in.  I miss Chris's contributions to the board.

[Larry Kart]

On 1/9/2022 at 1:28 PM, GA Russell said:

I'm struck to see this thread revived today, because Chris was the first person I thought of when I saw that Marilyn Bergman had passed away.

As I recall, he disliked the Bergmans personally, and made a nasty comment here about them!

Chris's negative attitude toward the Bergmans may have stemmed from Alan's appropriation of the credit for Lew Spence's "That Face" -- Spence wrote both the music and lyrics for "That Face"  in one afternoon after meeting and falling for the woman whose face inspired the song, actress Phyllis Kirk. There was a big fuss about this on the now defunct Songbirds site after Alan claimed that it was he who wrote the song as an ode to the alleged beauty of Marilyn's punim. More than a few members of the L.A. song-writing community knew better. Spence  wrote many songs, including the Sinatra anthem "Nice and Easy."

1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Bump.  I came across an old thread of mine to which Chris chimed in.  I miss Chris's contributions to the board.

I miss him too. A truth-teller Chris was, witness his view of John Hammond. (See the posts linked to below  from  Chris' blog "Stomp Off.")  

MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2010

Demythifying John Hammond

Writer and record-producer Chris Albertson has been at work demythifying John Hammond:

"[M]any of John Hammond’s accomplishments were genuine and important enough to earn him the place he occupies in jazz history, which is why I found it so puzzling that he was making things up.

Discovering John Hammond: A Closer Look: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five (Stomp Off in C)

"Other people too make things up: a 2005 PBS American Masters episode about John Hammond credits him with “discovering,” among others, Bessie Smith, Pete Seeger, and Robert Johnson. Oy. Hammond produced Smith’s final recordings in 1933. He signed Seeger to Columbia Records (first Columbia Seeger LP: 1961). And Robert Johnson was already dead when Hammond tried to find him for the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert “From Spirituals to Swing."

[AllenLowe]

Chris was one of the few absolutely honest people in the music business, which is why he died basically poor, if not impoverished. He was a great man and, for all his occasional mishugas, I miss him.

[mikeweil]

3 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

Chris was one of the few absolutely honest people in the music business, which is why he died basically poor, if not impoverished. He was a great man and, for all his occasional mishugas, I miss him.

[gmonahan]

On 5/2/2022 at 0:59 PM, AllenLowe said:

Chris was one of the few absolutely honest people in the music business, which is why he died basically poor, if not impoverished. He was a great man and, for all his occasional mishugas, I miss him.

Ditto.

 

 

gregmo