Native New Orleans Jazz - Tony Almerico

 

Farewell Blues

Native New Orleans Jazz

Tony Almerico and His Dixieland Jamboree All Stars

Dot Records DLP 3009

1956

From the back cover: Tony Almerico is one of New Orleans fabulous characters. He has successfully resisted every offer to showcase his band around the country. Without ever leaving New Orleans he has won far flung fame and is credited with having done more than any present day New Orleans native in reviving dixieland jazz.

A revival it was, too, for Almerico formed his dixieland band at a time when even the birthplace of jazz was "going pop". In 1948, a few New Orleans jazzmen noted that, with few exceptions, the local bands "were playing pop stuff". Dixieland jazz was being played on request – that is, at the request of the tourist trade. Out of this picture of New Orleans Jazz Club was organized.

The club's aim was to help perpetuate public interest in dixieland jazz.

The club got together with Almerico and put on Sunday afternoon jazz concerts in New Orlean's Parisian Room, 116 Royal Street. The concerts became an immediate success.

It wasn't long before Dixieland jazz once again became king in the home of jazz. Today, attending the jazz session at the Parisian Room is the big thing of a Sunday afternoon.

In 1955, the mayor of New Orleans, his honor deLesseps Morrison, awarded Almerico the city's Certificate of Merit for restoring dixieland jazz to its own home town. And Almerico's Allstar Band was the first dixieland jazz band ever to appear as guest orchestra at the Summer Pops Concert at the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium.

For the record, the Dixieland Jamboree Allstars were organized on October 3, 1948, with Roy Zimmerman (piano), Joe Loyacano (bass), Frank Frederico (guitar), Tony Almerico (trumpet), Johnny Castaing (drums), Pete Fountain (clarinet), Jack Delaney (trombone) and Sam Dekemel (bugle).

DeKemel is known in music circles as "Sam, the Bugle Man". He blows an old regulation army bugle and out of it come some of the wildest riffs ever. He started using the bugle to attract customers to his waffle wagon thirty five years ago!

One thing certain: the jazz you'll hear when Tony Almerico leads his men at the Parisian Room, jazz session is the real thing – unchanged, unspoiled – The same beat, the same tempo, the same feel that characterized the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and The Memphis Five, and Razz's Band before them.

Bourbon Street Parade

I Want To Be Happy

Farewell Blues

I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas

How Many Hearts Have You Broken?

Near You

Big Boy Blue

Woodchopper's Ball

Tail Gate Ramble

Basin Street Blues

I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal  You

I'm Saving Tonight For You

Boy Meets Girl - Sammy Davis Jr. & Carmen McRae

 

There's A Small Hotel

Boy Meets Girl

Sammy Davis Jr. & Carmen McRae

With Orchestra Directed by Jack Pleis

Vocal Duets

Decca Records DL 8490

1957

Happy To Make Your Acquaintance 

Tea For Two

They Didn't Believe Me

You're The Top

Cheek To Cheek

Baby, It's Cold Outside

People Will Say We're In Love

There's A Small Hotel

A Fine Romance

The Things We Did Last Summer

Two Sleepy People

Who Cares

The Blues And Dixie - Jack Teagarden

 

Basin Street Blues

The Blues And Dixie

Jack Teagarden and His Orchestra

Rondo-lette Longplay A18

From the back cover: Jack Teagarden, one of the greats in the history of jazz, was born in Vernon, Texas, August 20, 1905, son of a piano teacher (mother) and a cornetist (father). His mother started him on piano lessons when he was four years of age and he received a baritone horn and lessons when he was five. However, at seven, young Jack's future instrument came to him as a birthday present – a trombone. His family practically made up a band in itself – his father on trumpet and baritone horn, his sister Norma on the piano, Charlie, his brother, trumpeter, Clois on drums and Jack on the trombone. The boy was extremely good for his age, and was the star of the high school band while he was still in grammar school. By the time he was fifteen, young Teagarden was working in roadhouses and honkeytonks and at sixteen he joined Peck Kelly's band.

He led his own band in Kansas City, working with Doc Toss, Willard Robinson and others. In 1927 he came to New York City and made his first record dates with Sam Lanin, Roger Wolfe and his debut as a recording vocalist on Red Nichols' "After You've Gone," February, 1930. He played with the Ben Pollack Orchestra from 1928 to 1933 and then worked with Mal Hallett and freelanced in New York. He then played with Paul Whiteman from the middle of 1934 until late 1938.

From January, 1939 until 1947 Teagarden toured with his own band. This was never really a financial success, but the band produced some sensational music with some of its members including Charles Spivak, Lee Castle, Ernie Cacetes and Dave Tough. In 1947, bad business forced Teagarden to work with a small combo, until later that year when he joined Louis Armstrong's group remaining until 1951. He then formed his own small band, with which he has since toured successfully.

Teagarden's advent on the jazz scene in the late 1920s brought a new style to both jazz singing and to the trombone – this is a style which defies classification but has caused musicians of every school to give vent to unreserved enthusiasm. Teagarden is noted among musicians for his ability to play for long periods of time under the most taxing conditions with no let up in technique or inspiration. He has been termed the "best trombonist of the day" by Miff Mole and Bill Russo has declared that his is a "jazzman with the facility, range and flexibility of any trombonist of any medium or any time; his influence was essentially responsible for a mature approach to trombone jazz." Teagarden has appeared in several films, among them The Birth Of The Blues with Bing Crosby in 1941 and The Glass Wall.

The Blues

Aunt Hager's Blues 

Royal Garden Blues

Basin Street Blues

Shine

King Porter Stomp

Boogie Woogie

Mighty Lak A Rose

East Of The Sun

China Boy

Hindustan

Stereo Dialogue For Brass - The Stereo Brass Choir

 

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

Stereo Dialogue For Brass

The Stereo Brass Choir

Musical Event - An Instrumental Romp of Twelve Dialog Songs

The Most Enjoyable In Stereo History!

Cover Photo: Columbia Records Photo Studio - Henry Parker

Columbia Records CS 8290

1960

Anything You Can Do

Would You Like To Take A Walk

You're Just In Love

The Rain In Spain

Thanks For The Memory

Let's Do It

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Two Sleepy People

Love Is A Simple Thing

Wunderbar

Getting To Know You

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

I Remember - Orrin Tucker & Wee Bonnie Baker

 

Teach Me, Teach Me, Baby

So Tired

I Remember 

Orrin Tucker & Wee Bonnie Baker

The Orrin Tucker Orchestra

Tops Records L 1684

It It True What They Say About Dixie

My Baby Just, Cares For Me

Powder Your Face With Sunshine

Teach Me, Teach Me, Baby

So Tired

Some Of These Days

Side By Side

I'm Gonna Be A Bad Girl

Love Me Or Leave Me

I've Been Waiting For Your Phone Call For 18 Years

The Hot Ones - 11 Of The Greatest Names In Jazz

 

This Can't Be Love

The Hot Ones

11 Of The Greatest Names In Jazz

Available exclusively through your Johnson Sea Horse dealer

Photo: 90 H.P. V-4 Golden Meteor

Columbia Special Products CSP 107

Lover - Gene Krupa

Four Brothers - Woody Herman

Just In Time - Carmen McRae

Tiger Rag - Eddie Condon

Two O'Clock Jump - Harry James

Jumpin' At The Woodside - Count Basie and Duke Ellington

How High The Moon - Lionel Hampton

Hey, Look Me Over - The Dukes Of Dixieland

This Can't Be Love - Dave Brubeck

A Lot Of Livin' To Do - Buddy Greco

Jackpot! - Woody Herman

 

Wailing Wall

Jackpot!

Woody Herman

All tunes recorded on December 1, 1955

Capitol Records T748'

Personnel:

Woody Herman, clarinet and leader, is the young old timer of jazz. A clarinet and sax man, he dates back to the Tom Gerun and Isham Jones bands of the early thirties and his successive Herds have made modern jazz history.

Dick Collins, trumpet, Seattle born, raised in San Francisco, one of the great lead trumpeters in jazz and a veteran of the Charlie Barnet, Stan Kenton, and Billy May bands, is also an arranger of talent

Cy Touff, one of the few bass trumpeters in jazz, had been with Charlie Ventura, the New York City Opera Company and Shorty Sherlock before joining Herman in 1953. Chicago born, he attended Texas A&M and the Chicago Musical College.

Richie Kamuca, tenor sax, is from Philadelphia and has been featured with Stan Kenton and Woody Herman from the past four years.

Norman Pockrandt, piano, is from Chicago by way of Detroit and used to play with Charlie Spivak and Jerry Wald.

Monte Budwig, bass, was born in Nebraska but raised in California and has played with the Red Norvo Trio, the Stan Getz and Chet Baker Quartets and other West Coast groups.

Chuck Flores, drums, is from Souther California, is nicknamed "Wetback," and is a protege and former pupil of Shelly Manne. He worked with Shorty Rogers and Maynard Ferguson prior to joining Woody in 1954 and his pet hate in music – get this – is "long drum solos!"

From the back cover: It's like that with music. Sometimes you try and try and nothing exciting happens. And then another time, you hit the right combination and the results is pure joy– a musical Jackpot!

It was like that with this band. In the autumn of 1955 Woody Herman broke up his big band and took a small, eight-piece group into the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. "I went into it with much misgiving," Woody says, "When you're with a big band, you're used to a lot of horns and when you don't have them, there's a feeling of emptiness. So it was strange at first."

"But after the first three or four weeks, I became completely intrigued with the group. Everything fell into place just right and it was exciting. In fact, it was the first time in years I felt like playing. Because of the small group. I had to play. In a big band it was just spots... eight bars here, eight bars there. But this got me off my rusty dusty. Of course it was also the first time in years I could hear myself and I almost found I could be interested in what I was playing!"

"Seriously, though, the group was terrifically exciting to play with. It had the old time spirit with modern thoughts. We received lots of encouragement in Las Vegas, too. There are thousands of musicians there, you know, and we worked with the graveyard shift. They were all visitor. Even the Lombardos when they were in Las Vegas, were in every night to hear us, en masse. I got a kick out of it, but some of the boys wondered if we were going in the right direction!"

"We originally wanted to record the band just as it was at Las Vegas, but it wasn't possible to work it out and so we cut it in the Capitol Studios in Hollywood. I was a bit worried that we couldn't capture the same great sound in a studio but when we heard the tests, the guys and I were all completely gassed. The sound was just wonderful and it really duplicated the spirit and feel of the group.

From Billboard - August 25, 1956: This is the Herman Octet that worked, Las Vegas in the late 1955. Group has the flavor of the big Herman band, but naturally features more solos by such as Dick Collins, Cy Touff, Richie Kamuca and Woody himself. Good-humored, swinging fare with a modern tone, and with showmanship. Not too much original jazz here, but the sound is commercial. Jocks will like Touff's "Wailing Wall." Eight selections in all.

920 Special 

Bags' Other Groove

Broadway

Jumping' At The Woodside

The Boot

Wailing Wall

Bass Face

Junior

Campus Hop - Dave Pell

 

Forty-Second Street

Campus Hop

Jazz Goes Dancing

Dave Pell Octet

Production: Shorty Rogers

Photo: Garrett-Howard

RCA Victor LPM-1662

1958

From the back cover: By Dave Pell - A fresh new "premise" for an album – songs that can swing and are danceable at the same time – is a tough assignment. But it was no problem at all when we found these wonderful Harry Waren "gems." Although written over two decades ago, their simple lines can be made to sound modern as our times and still have the freshness of not being overplayed by the jazz groups of today. The assignment was a pleasure because these songs fit our particular sound to a "T." The twelve tunes we have chosen here are some of the best things Mr. Warren has written, although I could record at least two more albums of his music, with every song as interesting as these.

Not enough can be said about the individual musicians in the group – Buddy Clark on bass, Mel Lewis on drums, Paul Mer on piano, Tommy Tedesco on guitar, Bob Enevoldsen on valve trombone, the wonderful Jack Sheldon on trumpet and Med Flory on baritone sax.

As before, I have asked the best arrangers on the West Coast, possibly in the country, to write the arrangements for us – Marty Paich, Bill Holman, Shorty Rogers, Med Flory and a bright newcomer to our fold, John T. Williams. Here's hoping you enjoy our combined dance-and-hop Campus Hop.

Java Junciton

You're My Everything

Forty-Second Street

By The River Sainte Marie

I Know Why And So Do You

We're In The Money

Cheerful Little Earful

Would You Like To Take A Walk

Lulu's Back In Town

I'll String Along With You

Remember Me

Summer Night

Chris Connor Sings Gentle Bossa Nova

 

Stranger On The Shore

Chris Connor Sings Gentle Bossa Nova

Arranged and Conducted by Pat Williams

Produced by Ken Greenglass for GLG Productions, Inc.

Cover Design: ARW Productions, Inc.

Liner Design: Joe Lebow

ABC-Paramount ABC 529

A Product of ABC-Paramount Records, Inc.

1965

A Hard Day's Night

A Taste Of Honey

Downtown

Feeling Good

Shadow Of Your Smile

Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)

Can't Get Over The Bossa Nova

Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte

Dear Heart

Baby, The Rain Must Fall

Stranger On The Shore

A Quiet Thing

Inside Sauter - Finegan

 

When Two Trees Fall In Love

Inside Sauter - Finegan

Cover: Flora

RCA Victor LJM - 1003

1954

Four Horsemen

10,000 B.C.

How About You?

Old Folks

Pennies From Heaven

September's Sorrow

Autumn Leaves

New York... 4 a.m.

Wild Wings In The Woods

The "Thundisbreak"

Eddie And The Witchdoctor

Finegan's Wake

When Two Trees Fall In Love