Dixieland Manhattan Style - Billy Maxted

 

I Found A New Baby

Dixieland Manhattan Style

Billy Maxted And The Manhattan Jazz Band

Cadence Records CLP 1013

1956

Photo on cover - Left to Right: Sal Pace, Billy Maxted, Lee Gifford

From the back cover: In this – Billy Maxted successfully combines the intimacy and free-wheeling spontaneity of a small Dixieland combo with the swinging excitement of big band jazz. While the cheerful Dixie beat predominates, Maxted's arrangements contain just enough uptown polish to make this a truly different jazz album.

The history of jazz is studded with landmarks which have become inseparably associated with the music they sponsored. Starting around 1897 there was Lulu White's Mahogany Hall, Countess Willie Piazza's Place and Billy Philip's 101 Ranch in Storyville. Many of the greats, worked in these halls and founded the basis for Dixieland which we today call the New Orleans Style.

Around 1915 jazz moved northward to Chicago. The Dreamland Cafe, The Royal Gardens Cafe and the Perkin Cabaret hosted great names; King Oliver, Jimmy No-one, Paul Barbarian and Louis Armstrong in the forefront. With the later addition of such names as Bud Freeman, Muggsy Spanier, Frank Teschemacher, Bix Beiderdecke and others, the jazz that was brought out of New Orleans evolved into the "Chicago Style."

What we present in this album is the natural result of jazz migrating to the "big city" evolving over a period of years, to what we call Dixieland Manhattan Style.

Pianist-arranger Maxted came by his hybrid musical leanings naturally; having worked as an arranger for such big band jazz greats as Benny Goodman, Ben Pollack, Will Bradley and Claude Thornhill. At the same time he has always been strongly identified with Dixieland.

Arrangements for this album reflect the influence of both schools and are highlighted by the brilliant solo work of drummer Sonny Igoe and clarinetist Sal Pace. In addition to Igoe and Pace, Maxted's group on this album features solos by such seasoned jazz men as trumpeter Chuck Forsyth, trombonist Lee Gifford and bassist Charlie Teager.

The boys play with undiminished vitality and enthusiasm on such hard jazz perennials as "Muskrat Ramble", the old New Orleans classic; "Jazz Band Ball," an original dixieland Jazz Band creations, "Himdustan," and a moving version of Fats Waller's tender hit "Black And Blue". Maxted, whose tasteful piano is a mainstay of the album, registers particularly well on "Black And Blue."

A veteran performer and boogie woogie piano specialist, Maxted broke into the jazz field in 1937 with Red Nichols, and in 1940 he replaced Freddie Slack with the Will Bradley band. Since 1949 he has played practically continuously at Nick's, the Greenwich Village mecca for Dixieland fans, with all the Dixieland greats, including Bobby Hackett, Phil Napoleon, Billy Butterfield and Pee Wee Erwin. Billy has recently taken over the hand and now we hope you enjoy the music of Billy Maxted and the Manhattan Jazz Band.

At The Jazz Ball

Basin Street Blues

Big Crash From China

Muskrat Ramble

Yankee Doodle Dixie

Black And Blue

I've Found A New Baby

Hindustan