Sam's Pretty Blues
Jonan Jones"
Baronet Records Inc.
B-103
1963
From the back cover:
About The Musicians
Jonah Jones has been around long enough to know what it takes to win the affection and respect of varied audiences. Although night-clubbing New Yorkers and sophisticated Parisians seem to have taken credit for "discovering" Jonah, the true jazz afficiendo is aware that he is a veteran of just about every jazz organization that you can think of. A genuine and outstanding trumpet stylist in his own right, the great wonder to many, is why the so-called "discovery" took so long.
"Wailing Jonah" was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1909. He played his first job with a local band in 1927 and then went on to work with Horace Henderson, Jimmie Lunceford, Stuff Smith, Lil Armstrong, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Fletcher Henderson and Cab Calloway. In the past few years he has gained further stature as a soloist with his own groups and as a free-lance recording artist. Aside from the invaluable attribute of nearly faultless technique, Jonah Jones' trumpet work is characterized by exuberance, humor and, when the occasion demands, deeply felt and highly organized musical thought.
Same Price, to those who know, is just about the greatest blues pianist extent. Hailing from Honeygrove, Texas where he was born in 1908, Sam learned his way around the "ivories" by watching and following the keys of the player piano as they stomped out the rhythm intricacies of the ragtime piano rolls made by the forgotten greats... Tom Turpin, James Scott, etc.
Apart from his extensive recording activities, Sam led a band in New York's Cafe Society, worked with Sidney Bechet, Stuff Smith and Hot Lips Page, was a disc jockey on WPEN in Philadelphia, and was the leading participant in the International Jazz Festival held in Nice. This recording offers jazz fans their first opportunity to savor the extraordinary vigor of Sam Price's piano playing in a setting unrestricted by time limitations.
On trombone we have Vic Dickenson, a musician accepted as a master by his colleagues in all schools of jazz. Almost completely self taught, Vic was born in Xenia, Ohio in 1906. His family moved to Columbia where he began to find jobs with local bands as early as 1922. During the Roaring Twenties, Vic toured extensively throughout the Middle West with various now-forgotten bands. In 1931 he joined Blanche Calloway, then worked with Claude Hopkins, Benny Carter, Count Basie, Sidney Bechet, Hot Lips Page, Frankie Newton and Eddie Heywood. In the past few years, Vic has had his own band and has become a fixture in New York and Boston jazz circles, recording extensively and always ranking high in the annual polls of instrumentals run by musicians' trade papers.
We come next to Pete Brown, whose rollicking alto sax made New York's 52nd Street a happier place to visit in the years when jazz flourished there. Pete is from Baltimore, where he studied violin under the guidance of his parents, both professional musicians. After playing the fiddle in a local theater pit orchestra, he switched to alto sax and augmented his income by playing in local bands. Pete moved to Harlem in 1927 and settled down at the Capitol Club, where he doubled on soprano sax and trumpet. From then until now, New York has been Pete's main headquarters – working both uptown and down with dozens of small jumping groups, making scores of records, many of them under his leadership.
On drums we have one of the masters, Cozy Cole. Born in 1909 in East Orange, New Jersey, Cozy did not begin his musical studies until he was eighteen. Later on, incidentally, one of his teachers was Saul Goodman, timpanist with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra. Cozy began his professional career with Wilbur Sweatman in 1928, his own band shortly afterwards, and then worked with Blanche Calloway. Before retiring from road work and opening his own successful drum school in New York, Cozy toured for several years with Louis Armstrong's All-Stars, holding down the solo and ensemble spotlight with the great Satchmo.
Milt Hinton, who holds down the bass spot on this record, was born in 1910 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and began his career in Chicago in 1922, first with Eddie South and then with Erskine Tate. He was with Cab Calloway from 1937 to 1942, and since then has been one of the most active and "in demand" bass players in the business, recording with modern, swing, dixieland and what-have-you groups as well as with combos under his directions.
Jumpin' On 57th
Sam's Pretty Blues
If I Could Be With You
Pete's Delta Bound
Jonah Whales Again
Stormy Weather
Walkin' And Shoutin' The Boogie
Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
Manhattan Blues
