Its
blog time again.
How
did you all get on with Eddie Condon? In last weeks blog I put in a link to
Eddie Condon’s 1940’s broadcasts.
Reading
some donated magazines this past week I came across this, which may help you
understand a bit more about Eddie Condon.
If you're not
familiar with the music of Eddie Condon, now is a good time to check him out!
Eddie
Condon was a jazz guitarist who seldom took guitar solos. He did not sing and only wrote a
couple of songs. But, despite that, he was one of the most important figures in classic jazz.
He helped form and
formalize what came to be known as Dixieland, even
though he never liked the name. Dixieland music carried some negative
connotations when played by white
musicians.
What
he believed in was old-time jazz, the brash and exuberant kind with some of the "bark" left on it.
Jazz that came originally
from New Orleans by way of Chicago, Kansas City or Detroit.
Condon
once gave a colourful description of the
excitement he felt as a youth when he hung
around the Chicago joints where the
New Orleans jazz masters played. "Notes I had never heard were
peeling off the edges and dropping through
the middle; there was a tone from the
trumpets like warm rain on a cold
day," he said. "That music
poured into us like daylight running
down a dark hole. The choruses rolled on like high tide, getting wilder
and more wonderful."
Condon was one of
the Austin High Gang, an informal group of
young, up-and-coming white musicians who frequented the jazz clubs in Chicago, learning from the likes of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band
and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. This historic gang of upstarts included drummer Gene Krupa, clarinetist Frank
Teschemacher, tenor saxophonist Bud
Freeman and cornetist Jimmy McPartland.
Condon
quit high school early and joined Hollis Peavey's Jazz Bandits to play Odd Fellows dances in
Chicago and one-night stands in lakeside dance pavilions in Iowa, Minnesota and
Wisconsin.
For
the rest of his life, he remained loyal to hot jazz. He said, "Hot jazz was the child of ragtime, with
some of the bristle left in."
Eddie
Condon stood up for the traditional music that he believed in. He made witty comments.
Music
has always had the purpose of helping us get through
our day. Jazz continues to sweep us up and shake out the bad stuff.
Somewhere,
I once read, "When you bring New Orleans your sad story, New Orleans will put a beat to it."
This
was culled from an advertising article for “The Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe” in the
September 2019 edition of the American magazine “Downbeat”. The original text
is attributable to John Osler.
Not
on the recordings from the 1940’s, one of the best examples of the Condon style
produced, I think in 1955, was “How Come You Do Me Like You Do”. It lasts
nearly 13 minutes, and some of the players are introduced by Mr Condon himself together
with occasional comments on their performance!
Personnel on this
track are :-
In
last weeks link ( http://tinyurl.com/bao26ea ) there are 50 or so ½ hour broadcasts. If you do click the link, you
can save the file, and convert each file into CD’s (2 broadcasts per CD). Most
PC’s have the ability to burn CD’s and there are a number of online and free
bits of software that will enable it all to happen. Try Ashampoo Burning Studio
Free.
NEW
MUSIC
In
this weeks blog I am placing another DropBox link to a CD of music that I got
from the late Ken Rankine.
 |
| Ken Rankine at Ealing Jazz Festival 2012 |
Ken
was one of the founding players at The Ealing Jazz Festival, and in 1985 played
a set with some names that you will know. Some from Hedsor, and some from other
jazz venues! The session was recorded by the sound engineer, and Ken had a tape
of that performance. I turned it into a CD some years ago, and think now would
be a good time to let more people hear it.
The
titles and performers are listed in a file alongside all the music, all you
have to do is download and play that music:-
In
1985 I was at The Brecon Jazz festival in August, and had the late great Slim
Gaillard lean on me to help him down the stairs on to the stage! Veroony!
I
have never forgotten that one of the local dignitaries welcoming everyone to
the festival called him “Slim Whitman”, upon which he really broke up! Ah, the
days when I was young!
Well,
that’s it for now. Keep playing the music. One day we will meet again.
Then
we will make Jazz Live again.
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