JAM Magazine: February/March 1999 Issue: Scrapple From The Apple

by Russ Dantzler

The Most Interesting New Recording You Can't Have
Chicago big band bass veteran Truck Parham, trombonist/ music director Dan Barrett from Los Angeles, and drummer/music contractor Trevor Richards, gathered in New Orleans last September to meet other musicians for an unusual recording. They'd met there just 18 months prior to do the fifth Legends of the Swing Era recording project. The result of this most recent session was one incredible CD of music, and another of get-it-while-you-can oral history. For the sixth edition, they again gathered great big band survivors and sprinkled in spectacular younger musicians. (In addition to the above, musicians for the last project included Don Vappie, Red Richards, Doc Cheatham and Benny Waters.)

Jay McShann, Claude Williams, tenor player Franz Jackson from Chicago, vocalist Laurel Watson from New York, and a brilliant horn player named Tom Baker completed the band. Tom is from Los Angeles, lives in Australia, and plays "most anything you can blow into, except French horn." The tenor saxophone and trumpet contributions he brought to the recordings were warm, witty and tasteful. In after-hours jams at Fritzel's European Jazz Pub, he'd lend Barrett his trumpet and borrow his trombone, making it sound as if it were his own.

Claude Williams had purchased an acoustic guitar to please the producer, who wanted the big band rhythm style that Claude had not played in many years. So Claude switched between guitar and violin for these sessions. Aside from the obvious Kansas City history represented by McShann and Williams, Truck Parham, Franz Jackson and Laurel Watson are all veterans of 1930s Roy Eldridge Big Bands, and much more.

Three days of satisfying recording was followed by a sold-out night performing at the lovely Palm Court Jazz Cafe in the French Quarter. As Tom Jacobsen noted in the Mississippi Rag, "...the band members were indeed in top form. This swing was, I guarantee you, the real thing!"

Unfortunately, the only currently planned use of the resulting package, which will have many old and new pictures with German text, is as a corporate gift in Germany. Herman Leonard, a jazz icon in his own category, was engaged to take the new photos. The executive producer owns an advertising agency, and gives these recordings to his clients. And it's not impossible that these recordings could be bought by a label in the U.S.

Comments and responses welcome at: hotjazz@idt.net

RETURN TO FEBRUARY/MARCH 1999 MAIN INDEX

-------------------------------------------------
© Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2001. All rights reserved.






	Search our site:		by Russ Dantzler The Most Interesting New Recording You Can't Have Chicago big band bass veteran Truck Parham, trombonist/ music director Dan Barrett from Los Angeles, and drummer/music contractor Trevor Richards, gathered in New Orleans last September to meet other musicians for an unusual recording. They'd met there just 18 months prior to do the fifth Legends of the Swing Era recording project. The result of this most recent session was one incredible CD of music, and another of get-it-while-you-can oral history. For the sixth edition, they again gathered great big band survivors and sprinkled in spectacular younger musicians. (In addition to the above, musicians for the last project included Don Vappie, Red Richards, Doc Cheatham and Benny Waters.) Jay McShann, Claude Williams, tenor player Franz Jackson from Chicago, vocalist Laurel Watson from New York, and a brilliant horn player named Tom Baker completed the band. Tom is from Los Angeles, lives in Australia, and plays "most anything you can blow into, except French horn." The tenor saxophone and trumpet contributions he brought to the recordings were warm, witty and tasteful. In after-hours jams at Fritzel's European Jazz Pub, he'd lend Barrett his trumpet and borrow his trombone, making it sound as if it were his own. Claude Williams had purchased an acoustic guitar to please the producer, who wanted the big band rhythm style that Claude had not played in many years. So Claude switched between guitar and violin for these sessions. Aside from the obvious Kansas City history represented by McShann and Williams, Truck Parham, Franz Jackson and Laurel Watson are all veterans of 1930s Roy Eldridge Big Bands, and much more. Three days of satisfying recording was followed by a sold-out night performing at the lovely Palm Court Jazz Cafe in the French Quarter. As Tom Jacobsen noted in the Mississippi Rag, "...the band members were indeed in top form. This swing was, I guarantee you, the real thing!" Unfortunately, the only currently planned use of the resulting package, which will have many old and new pictures with German text, is as a corporate gift in Germany. Herman Leonard, a jazz icon in his own category, was engaged to take the new photos. The executive producer owns an advertising agency, and gives these recordings to his clients. And it's not impossible that these recordings could be bought by a label in the U.S. Comments and responses welcome at: hotjazz@idt.net RETURN TO FEBRUARY/MARCH 1999 MAIN INDEX ------------------------------------------------- © Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors 1996-2001. All rights reserved.