Chicago/Austin High School Jazz In Hi-Fi - Bud Freeman

 

Jack Hits The Road

Chicago/Austin High School Jazz In Hi-Fi

Bud Freeman's Summa Cum Laude Orchestra

RCA Victor LPM-1508

1958

Personnel (China, Sugar, Lisa & Nobody's Sweetheart):

Tenor Sax - Bud Freeman

Trumpet - Jimmy McPartland

Clarinet - Pee Wee Russell

Drums - George Wettling

Bass - Milt Hinton

Guitar - Al Casamenti

Piano - Dick Cary

Personnel (Chicago & At Sundown)

Tenor Sax - Bud Freeman

Trumpet - Billy Butterfield

Trombone - Tyree Glenn

Clarinet - Pee Wee Russell

Drums - George Wettling

Bass - Al Hall

Guitar - Al Casamenti

Piano - Dick Cary

Personnel (Prince Of Wails, Jack Hits The Road, 47th And State, There'll Be Some Changes Made & At The Jazz Band Ball):

Tenor Sax - Bud Freeman

Trumpet - Billy Butterfield

Trombone, Vocals - Jack Teagarden (Courtesy of Capitol Records)

Clarinet - Peanuts Hucko

Drums - George Wettling

Bass - Leonard Gaskin

Piano - Gene Schroeder 

From the back cover: In the waning Twenties, when Chicago was the toddling' town the song said it was, and most of the teenagers there – especially those who were students at Austin High – had gone berserk over the music that Joe Oliver and Louis Armstrong had brought up from New Orleans, two kids named Red McKenzie and Eddie Condon, musicians and entrepreneurs whose enthusiasm for jazz was rivaled in intensity only by their thirst for straight gin, led some contemporaries into a recording studio to make some sides. They might as well have convened in a cave; the facilities were so primitive the engineers feared the drums would knock out the equipment. Somehow, the machines survived and reproduced the irrepressible excitement of those sessions in records that still stand, even in the ears of those who believe that nothing important was blown earlier than 1942, as classic examples of what can happen when a group of exceptionally talented and imaginative and congenial musicians gather to work on some themes they find mutually stimulating.

The music these youngsters played soon became known as "Chicago Jazz"; because so many of them had gone to Austin High School (Bud Freeman, the two McPartlands and Frank Teschemacher among others), they soon became known as the "Austin High School Gang". Ere long, Chicago Jazz and the Austin High School gang became synonymous.

Nearly thirty-years later, only a few of the original Chicagoans are around. Most of them are, as Condon would say, either completely out of breath or out of business. Nevertheless, the Chicago style has been nurtured and maintained by Bud Freeman, Pee Wee Russell, Jimmy McPartland, George Wettling and the ageless Condon himself. Its scope has been broadened by some outlanders who migrated to Chicago and joined the movement, such as Jack Teagarden, and by some converts who were proselytized when the group moved east, such as Billy Butterfield, Peanuts Hucko, Dick Cary and Gene Schroeder. In mid-July of 1957, these advocates, plus a few sympathizers, were invited into a studio where present-day equipment could do justice to the enduring notions and spirit of the early days. The results are indie this sleeve – and if they are a bit more sophisticated, they still are characterized by the same expansive, wild-gesturing vitality, the same humor, and the same overpowering excitement. In the main, these are Freeman's sides; he is playing better than he was thirty years ago, despite what the diehards say. So is Teagarden, whose supple and flexible trombone has not been heard to better advantage in recent years. There are two surprises; the trombone of Tyree Glenn and the piano of Gene Schroeder. Glenn's deft, effortless solos challenge Teagarden's best work, and Schroeder's piano, especially being other's solos, demonstrates that it is only his modest, retiring personality that has kept him from the extravagant praise he so deserves. The tunes are those that have come to be identified with the Chicago school, and in four of them – Nobody's Sweetheart, Lisa, China Boy and Sugar – the musicians follow the lines of their predecessors faithfully, departing only in solos. About the only thing missing is the Condon guitar. It was asked to come, but its owner had injured himself severely in a game of badminton with one of his daughters. Badminton? As that proves – and as these great reproductions of the old Chicago style prove as well – Chicago was never like this. – Richard Gehman

China Boy

Sugar

Lisa

Nobody's Sweetheart

Chicago

At Sundown

Prince Of Wails

Jack Hits The Road

47th And State

There'll Be Some Changes Mad

At The Jazz Band Ball