Oh Play That Thing - Pee Wee Erwin

 

Yak Hula Hicky Dula

Oh Play That Thing!

Pee Wee Erwin's Dixieland Eight

London Records Jazz Series SAH-T 6011

1960

Pee Wee Erwin - Trumpet

Kenny Davern - Clarinet

Lou McGarrity - Trombone

Dick Hyman - Piano (appears by arrangement with MGM Records)

Tony Gattuso - Banjo and Guitar

Jack Lesberg - Bass

Harvey Phillips - Tuba

Cliff Lehman - Drums

From the back cover: About these selections on this record Pee Wee Erwin said, "We wanted to get numbers that haven't been done too much, to get a repertoire that wasn't too common, but that was good. I didn't have to go out of my way to choose most of them. I just picked things I knew and liked. But to get copies and arrangements for some of them I had quite a search".

George "Pee Wee" Erwin was born in Nebraska, raised in Kansas City, and got his first trumpet and his first instructions from his musical father. He has worked in many dance and jazz bands since the middle twenties, becoming best known while he was with Benny Goodman (replacing Bunny Berigan) and Tommy Dorsey, and then with his own groups large and small. Since 1949, his sextet has been (with an occasional leave of absence) one of the house bands at Nick's in Greenwich Village.

This is no place for an account of that New York club. Suffice to say that it was a haven for displaced "Chicagoans" in the thirties and they were usually led by Eddie Condon. Their repertoire might have included such and Original Dixieland Jazz Band piece as Sensation Rag sandwiched between a couple of pop tunes from the late twenties or early thirties, but the rest of the tunes on this LP probably wouldn't have made the Nicksieland music of those days.

There are five pieces here associated with Ferdinand Jelly Roll Morton, his own Kansas City Stomps (named for a bar in Tiajuana, not the city where Erwin was raised), Black Bottom Stomp, Grandpa's Spells, Georgia Swing (which is Morton's revision of Santa Percora's She's Crying For Me) and an arrangement based on Morton's version of Mel Stitzel's The Chant.

Erwin reports "I had heard these tunes on a couple of "bootleg" LP's a few years ago, and I liked them very much. Of course I had known more famous Morton pieces like Wolverine Blues, Milneburg Joys, King Porter Stomp, etc. for years, but I hadn't heard some of these for a long time. When I was picking things for this record, I thought of them, but I didn't have any music. I could have worked from the records, but I decided to try to find copies of the scores. They were originally published by the Melrose Company and are now owned by Mayfair Music. Through the help of a secretary over there, I got into their warehouse to look around. They were all there – some only in piano scores, some in orchestrations copied off the old records. For a couple of them, there was only one copy left and they wouldn't let me have it. I had to take out paper and go to work right there in the warehouse.

"Kenny Davern, our clarinetist, already knew Omer Simeon's work on those records well, and based some of his own playing on Simeon's. He is one of the few men I know, aside from Simeon and Edmond and Herbert Hall, who really has the power it takes to play in an ensemble like ours against trumpet and trombone. He switched to an Albert system clarinet – the knot most of the New Orleans players used to use. I think that has a lot to do with the power. He loves Johnny Dobbs and George Lewis too".

It was Darern's interest in George Lewis that gave the set two other numbers. Yaka Hula Hicky Dual is a 1912 pseudo-Hawaiian number which Lewis recorded originally with Bunk Johnson in 1942 and which has been in his repertoire since. And this Big Pond Rag was inspired by George Lewis' version of a traditional, standard tune.

When you hear the tune, the reason for the new title will be clear to you. Incidentally, notice that there is a clear 4;4 time here; this is not "two beat".

Both Davern's interest in Johnny Dodds and the title of this set are reflected in Dippermouth Blues. The original 1923 recording of this King Oliver piece featured solos by Johnny Dodds (on which Davern has based his improvisation), three famous choruses by Oliver (on which Erwin has based his two), and the shout, "Oh, play that ting". Incidentally, those Oliver choruses are not only almost a permanent part of this tune (also known as Sugarfest Stomp) but seemed to show up often in the thirties in other numbers when a trumpet player's or a composer's inspiration was a bit weak.

Two of the remaining numbers come from an earlier period in America music. Both Charles Johnson's 1906 Dill Pickles and Henry Lodge's 1909 Temptation Rag were a result of the ragtime movement and, like all true rags, were originally piano compositions.

Jazz Frappe, the only new piece on the record, is named for the fact that it is based on motifs and materials used in ragtime and jazz compositions through the twenties.

It was the San Francisco "revivalists" who really began digging back into neglected Morton pieces and rags and it was the "rediscovery" of Bunk Johnson and the subsequent reputation of George Lewis which brought back other tunes here. Nicksieland now includes these numbers. And for his next LP, Erwin is considering spiritual and gospel tunes!

At this rate, it may be quite a while before Sweet Sue and Dinah get a chance at an honest strut through Nick's again. – Marin Williams, Co-Editor Of The Jazz Review, Record Reviewer for Down Beat Magazine

Kanas City Stomp

The Chant

Yaka Hula Hicky Dula

Temptation Rag

Black Bottom Stomp

Dippermouth Blues

Grandpa's Spells

Dill Pickles 

Sensation Rage

Big Pond Rag

Jazz Frappe Rag

Georgia Swing