Percy France Memorial Website

[Dan Gould]

 

[Dan Gould]

New photo found of Percy with George Kelly and Leonard Gaskin, prior to their appearance at the Bern Jazz Festival 1987 with Sammy Price's Two Tenor Boogie. 

 

From left to right: Charlie Gabriel (sax), Leroy Jones (tp), George Kelly (sax), Percy France (sax), Leonard Gaskin (cb), Clive Wilson (tp), Lucien Barbarin (tb).

[ghost of miles]

Hey Dan, the Night Lights show about Percy France is mentioned in this morning's Mosaic Jazz Gazette.

[Dan Gould]

20 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

Hey Dan, the Night Lights show about Percy France is mentioned in this morning's Mosaic Jazz Gazette.

Yes, I had pushed for something about the site directly and it took from the summer to now to publish ... including I think about 3 months between the last Gazette update and this one. 

(And, since I mentioned the Night Lights program when it became archived, in the end Michael composed an entry all about that and didn't mention the site at all - I hoped for a two-fer but alas it was not to be.)  

But on the positive side, since you did such a good job promoting the site on the show, I have to believe that yesterday's traffic report of 13 total hits spending an average of over 8 minutes at the site is a very good indication that Mosaic's email and your radio show got people interested. So that is very pleasing.)

[Dan Gould]

I was told by someone on FB that Percy France actually sang sometimes, too. Here's proof.

 

 

[Dan Gould]

New Percys uploaded to youtube:

 

And even though I found out on my last BFT that more than one person around here can't stand "Sweet Georgia Brown":

 

[Dan Gould]

 

[Dan Gould]

I posted this on FB and am getting pushback on what I hear, so maybe should put here too to get other's opinions.  This is a truncated performance of "Honky Tonk" as I had to fade it out on Bob Neloms' solo. I hear a second tenor sax "answering" Percy France in the first 20 seconds.  Others think it's someone "singing along".  I have reason to believe that "Big Nick" Nicholas was in the audience, leading me to the conclusion that its Big Nick doing the playing but maybe its him doing the singing?  I don't know what to say anymore.

 

 

[Dan Gould]

Big John Patton on piano with Percy France, Leonard Gaskin, Wes Anderson

 

[Dub Modal]

On 5/16/2022 at 9:14 AM, Dan Gould said:

I posted this on FB and am getting pushback on what I hear, so maybe should put here too to get other's opinions.  This is a truncated performance of "Honky Tonk" as I had to fade it out on Bob Neloms' solo. I hear a second tenor sax "answering" Percy France in the first 20 seconds.  Others think it's someone "singing along".  I have reason to believe that "Big Nick" Nicholas was in the audience, leading me to the conclusion that its Big Nick doing the playing but maybe its him doing the singing?  I don't know what to say anymore.

 

 

I’m pretty sure it’s someone singing along. The guys there are pretty vocal in the beginning and it flows along from that. 

 

On 5/29/2022 at 0:07 PM, Dan Gould said:

Big John Patton on piano with Percy France, Leonard Gaskin, Wes Anderson

 

Nice find  slow burner of a blues

[Dan Gould]

In 1942 Percy France was a 13 year old clarinetist. Then he heard the Earl Hines Orchestra recording of "Second Balcony Jump" featuring Budd Johnson's arrangement and tenor sax solo. Percy went out and bought himself a tenor sax with his own money. Forty years later in March 1982 in Switzerland, Percy France was joined onstage by his first tenor inspiration, Budd Johnson (and the Oliver Jackson Trio). The first tune of the first night concert? "Second Balcony Jump".

 

[Dan Gould]

Three days to the one year anniversary since the launch of www.percyfrance.info ... 

Percy France left the Bill Doggett group before "Honky Tonk" was recorded (and Clifford Scott became "Mr. Honky Tonk") but he always told friends that it was played first while he was with the group and that he had a hand in the composition. Later he would name one of his groups "Honky Tonk Part 3" and when he toured Europe with the Oliver Jackson Trio in the winter of 1982 and 1983, "Honky Tonk" was one of his features. This is a great 'soundboard' recording.

 

 

[Dan Gould]

Well I am a day or two late (I was in Naples visiting Mom) but it's now one year since www.percyfrance.info launched, and I have some stats to share. In one year's time the site had:

923 unique sessions from 639 unique visitors. Most were from the US (568 sessions), and the UK (98). Visitors came from a total of 32 countries.

Traffic sources were 483 direct, Google 190, Facebook 88, Organissimo 45 and Marc Myers Jazzwax, 35 and many others of less consequence.

Average Duration per visit was 8 minutes, and there was a bounce rate of 42% ("hit" on one page, and left site immediately after).

Regarding bounce rates:

Non-profit sites average a 60-70% bounce rate. 41-55% is considered "good" and the site very nearly beat the bottom range of "good". So - yay.

But - that bounce rate left me wondering about its impact on length of average session. I calculated an approximate time of 20 seconds per bouncer, and recalibrated time spent for what I call "engaged" visitors.

Their average time is 13:35 spent on the site per visit. I think that's very very good.

[mjzee]

Dan, I stumbled across this site, in case you're not aware:

https://pastdaily.com/2022/07/31/oliver-jackson-trio-featuring-percy-france-live-in-madrid-1983-past-daily-downbeat/

 

[Dan Gould]

21 minutes ago, mjzee said:

Dan, I stumbled across this site, in case you're not aware:

https://pastdaily.com/2022/07/31/oliver-jackson-trio-featuring-percy-france-live-in-madrid-1983-past-daily-downbeat/

 

Thanks very much, I am thinking very carefully about how I react to this, for the following reasons.

1. I had this concert uploaded to Dime. He's invented details about the rest of it.  It was a test of sorts, to gauge interest at least.

2. He has stolen from the memorial web page, extensively quoting from a transcript of Phil Schaap's biographical sketch during the Memorial broadcast on WKCR, without attribution either of Schaap or the site.

 

Quite frankly right now I am pissed and inclined to demand a take down as he is not the rights holder.  (And its remarkable that he has a page inviting people to contact him for licensing of his recordings which I will pretty much guarantee he holds no rights whatsoever for any of it.

[AllenLowe]

22 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

Thanks very much, I am thinking very carefully about how I react to this, for the following reasons.

1. I had this concert uploaded to Dime. He's invented details about the rest of it.  It was a test of sorts, to gauge interest at least.

2. He has stolen from the memorial web page, extensively quoting from a transcript of Phil Schaap's biographical sketch during the Memorial broadcast on WKCR, without attribution either of Schaap or the site.

 

Quite frankly right now I am pissed and inclined to demand a take down as he is not the rights holder.  (And its remarkable that he has a page inviting people to contact him for licensing of his recordings which I will pretty much guarantee he holds no rights whatsoever for any of it.

I just tried to post a nasty comment, but for some reason it did not work. Do we have an email for this schmuck?

Actually here he is on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gordon.skene

I just send him a firm FB message, and also posted a complaint on his time line.

Edited August 2, 2022 by AllenLowe

[Dan Gould]

He posts on Facebook to drive traffic to his site:

https://www.facebook.com/gordon.skene/posts/pfbid0cNPo9NPFzTt6Fve1WAjL96UK5w6WADzTSDAZMHo7uSfBg4jTZ7fNJhY7e9kUYxTml

He also has this email:   gordonskene@aol.com

where he invites those who want to license things he has no rights to license to go ahead and contact him. I'm sure the rates are reasonable.

I posted on his FB entry above:

You stole the words accompanying this post from MY website, www.percyfrance.info. You don't even have the integrity to identify that you stole Phil Schaap's words about Percy France (or that you stole the Oliver Jackson profile from AllMusic). On top of which you repeat AllMusic's typo at the end of the Oliver Jackson bio you lifted. As for the music, I'll let the lawyers address your rights, or lack thereof.

 

Of course he can easily remove my post but he knows he is on my radar.

[JSngry]

Oh my! 

[Dan Gould]

Percy France would have turned 94 today, August 15.  Here are some fresh tunes from the Gaskin Papers first some Ellingtonia

 

 

And next the Two-Tenor Boogie play "I Would do Anything For You" - Percy solos second and really tears it up.

 

 

[Dan Gould]

I was going to upload something new to celebrate the publishing of my revision to the Percy France wiki page but Hurricane Ian interrupted ... this is the Sammy Price Two-Tenor Boogie, "Shakin' That Thing" - Percy gets second solo and really wails from about 2:40 to the vocal reprise.

 

[Eric]

Hey Dan, nice article!!

http://nycjazzrecord.com

[Dan Gould]

2 hours ago, Eric said:

Hey Dan, nice article!!

http://nycjazzrecord.com

Thank you! I posted in the Jazz in Print subforum earlier today.  The editor deleted a salient fact and added his own bad error (Oliver Jackson a pianist) but all in all a feather in my cap to be published and mostly to keep Percy France out in front of the jazz audience.

[clifford_thornton]

yeah, I caught that error and let him know. The PDF has been corrected and print will run a correction the following month.

[JSngry]

God's work continues!

[Dan Gould]

Two months since my last youtube upload, how about something special: Percy France with LD's own favorite pianist, Herman Foster?