Carl Halen's Gin Bottle Seven
Carl Halen's
Gin Bottle Seven
Original Tapes: David C. Greer
Tape Mastering: Jack Towers
Annotation: David C. Greer
Cover Photo: Duncan P. Schist
Graphics: Bruce D. Davidson / Music Media
International Association Of Jazz Record Collectors
IAJRC 32
From the back cover: The gravel-voiced folk and skiffle singer, Dave Van Ronk, while passing through Dayton, Ohio in the summer of 1978 was quoted in a newspaper interview:
"At home, Van Ronk listens to classical music and jazz and he interrupts the questioning to inquire about trumpeter Carl Halen: 'You never heard of him? He was one of the hottest jazz trumpet players I ever heard and he's from Dayton. I've got this record he cut in the '50s and it's hot. I'd love to meet him if he's still around.'
Thus are memories fed and legends created.
Carl Halen is still very much alive and well in Hamilton, Ohio, the locus of the Stockton Club where Bix and the Wolverines once played and the "cooling off" spot for many a gangster during the 1920's. An elderly bailiff at the courthouse still fondly recalls the good money he made by modifying guns into automatic weapons for vacationing big shots from Chicago in those frenetic years. Life is a little more civilized, but not much more serene, at present. Carl keeps busy providing psychological services for the Cincinnati school system and tending to the Christmas tree farm on which he and his charming wife Laura live. In recent years he has been an active officer of the Classic Jazz Society of Southwestern Ohio, and his cornet still contains the lyric punch you'll find on the enclosed recordings.
The revival of traditional jazz on the West Coast in the 1940's reached a midwestern flowering in the Dayton-Cincinnati area during the 1950's, and Carl's Gin Bottle Seven was a band with great swing and drive. The music on this record captures the band in full flight at its regular stand at the Hitching Post on South Main Street in downtown Dayton on a night in 1957. The members of the band are its usual contingent with the exception of a substitute for Bob Butters on trombone. The songs captured are typical of the band's working repertoire, and the background noise is typical of the fans who swayed to hot cornet tones popping over the bounce of Jim Campbell's bass sax in those happy days. Here for the first time since they were recorded on a forgotten tape twenty-three years ago are:
Side 1
Shine
Snake Rag
Memphis Blues
Clarinet Marmalade
You're Next
Side 2
Panama
Once In A While
Ugly Chile
Maryland, My Maryland
Sweet Georgia Brown
The personnel consists of Carl Halen, cornet; Roland Sabrowsky, trombone; Martin Kollstedt, clarinet; Jim Campbell, bass sax; Matt Fuchs, piano; Jan Carroll, banjo; Tom Hyer, drums.
A CARL HALEN DISCOGRAPHY
Dixieland Rhythm Kings: Carl Halen, tpt.; Charles Sonnanstine, tbn.; Jim Campbell, clt.; Jan Carroll, bjo.; Gene Mayl, tuba; Tom Hyer, dms. Dayton, Ohio, 1949.
Jazz Disc 1-A Wolverine Blues
1-B When The Saints Go Marching In
2-A I Found A New Baby
2-B Fidgety Feet
3-A Weary Blues
3-B Sinister Bucket Blues
4-A Ancient Bottle Strut
4-B Tin Roof Blues
5-A Steamboat Stomp
5-B Terrible Blues
(Reissued as "The Original Ten" GHB 7)
Dixieland Rhythm Kings: Carl Halen, Dick Oxtot, cts.; Charles Sonnanstine, tbn.; Bill Napier, clt.; Eph Risnick, pno; Jan Carroll, bjo.; Gene Mayl, tuba; Tom Hyer, dms. New York 1951.
Paradox 6002 (10" LP)-Mamma Don't 'Low, Sidewalk Blues, Riverside Blues, Buddy's Habits, Over In The Gloryland, Dirty Bottom Stomp, Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, When The Saints Go Marchin' In. – (Reissued as part of 12" LP's Jazztone J1232 and J2373)
Carl Halen and the Washboard Five: Carl Halen, tpt.; Bob Thompson, wbd.; Bob Vert, pno.; Bob Sand, bjo.; Charlie Paris, gtr. New York, 1951.
Knickerbocker
3 Doctor Jazz
3 Heebie Jeebies
4 Cakewalkin' Babies From Home
4 Willie The Weeper
(Reissued as part of Riverside RLP25002 with four tunes recorded by Gene Mayl's Dixieland Rhythm Kings in New York, 1950-Tiger Rag, Ace In The Hole, Oh By Jingo and Don't Go Way Nobody)
Gin Bottle Seven: Carl Halen, tpt.; Jim Campbell, cit.; George Stell, tbn.; Fred Gary, pno.; Jan Carroll, bjo.; Johnnie Pollack, tuba; Tom Hyer, dms. Yellow Springs, Ohio-Spring 1953.
Empirical EM-101 (10" LP)-Salty Dog, Strut Miss Lizzie, London Blues, Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave To Me, Tiajuana, She's Crying For Me, Wild Man Blues, Corinne Corinne.
Substitute Martin Kollstedt on clt. Halen alternates on tpt. and cnt. Dayton, Ohio, July 3 and November 6, 1954.
Empirical EM-104 (10" LP)-Four Or Five Times, Aggravatin' Mama, Shake That Thing, Nagasaki, Eccentric, Wolverine Blues, Pallet On The Floor, Dallas Blues.
(Reissued as part of Riverside RLP 12-231 "Gin Bottle Jazz"-12" LP, with the following additional sides from the same recording sessions-Angry, Apex Blues, Oh Baby, Milneberg Joys.)
Same, Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1955.
Audiophile AP-24 (12" LP)-Oh Baby, Apex Blues, Don't Leave Me Daddy.
Same: Carl Halen, cnt.; Bob Butters, tbn.; Martin Kollstedt, clt.; Jim Campbell, bass sax; Matt Fuchs, pno.; Jan Carroll, bjo. and vocals; Tom Hyer, dms. Yellow Springs, Ohio, August 26, 1956.
Riverside RLP 12-261 (12" LP)-Once In A While, You're Next, King Porter Stamp, 'Deed I Do, Ugly Chil, Snake Rag, Somebody Stole My Gal, Basin Street Blues, Mabel's Dream, Original Jelly Roll Blues, Copen- hagen, Emperor Norton's Hunch.
Marty Grosz and his Honoris Causa Jazz Band, "Hooray for Bix": Carl Halen, cnt.; Harry Budd, tbn.; Frank Chace, clt. and bass sax; Bob Skiver, ten. sax and clt.; Tut Soper, pno.; Marty Grosz, gtr. and vocals; Turk Santos, second cnt. (on My Pet and Because My Baby) and gtr. (on Lonely Melody); Chuck Neilson, bass; Pepper Boggs, dms. Chicago, Illinois, November, 1957.
Riverside RLP 12-268 (12" LP)-Changes, Cryin' All Day, Lonely Melody, I'm Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now, Sorry, My Pet, The Love Nest, Clemen- tine (from New Orleans), Oh Miss Hannah, Wa-Da-Da, For No Reason at All In C, Because My Baby Don't Mean Maybe Now.
Georg Brunis and His New Rhythm Kings, Jazzology 23. Georg Brunis, tbn.; Frank Powers, clt.; Carl Halen, cnt.; Clarence Hall, pno.; Gene Mayl, bass; Gene Kimmel, dms.
Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None Of My Jelly Roll, Yellow Dog Blues, Big Butter And Egg Man, Someday Sweetheart, Da Da Strain, Everybody Loves My Baby, How Long, How Long Blues, Fidgety Feet, Squeeze Me, Song of the Wanderer.