Paul Whiteman’s “An Experiment In Modern Music” at Aeolian Hall on February 12, 1924 is well known for the premiere of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue. Yet it also placed an American popular music ensemble in a concert setting, at a venue typically associated with classical artists, to perform several original works that challenged preconceptions of both jazz and classical (fourteen years before Benny Goodman’s Carnegie Hall concert and several decades before “crossover” entered the lexicon).
Critics have weighed in on the merits of the rest of the program as well as Whiteman’s supposed aim to refine jazz. Now there’s an opportunity to hear all of the music live and judge for oneself.
To celebrate the ninetieth anniversary of this event in American music, Vince Giordano And The Nighthawks will perform the entire program, with conductor Maurice Peress directing the band on his meticulously researched transcription of Rhapsody In Blue, featuring pianist Ted Rosenthal.
Peress’s transcription draws upon several original sources as well as insights from members of the Whiteman orchestra. He notes that “…during the [Whiteman band’s] road tour, which immediately preceded the recording sessions, some of the jazz embellishments added by the players or Gershwin became ‘frozen,’ such as the little bundles of turning notes that flavor a phrase and klezmer-like whoops and hollers that clarinetist Ross Gorman introduced here and there, not only into the familiar opening.” On February 12, 2014 at New York City’s Town Hall, concertgoers can experience a performance of Gershwin’s work “chock-a-block with details never written down in the score or parts.”
The audience also gets to enjoy Whiteman’s own dance music performed with the Nighthawks’ distinct blend of energy and understanding, as well as pianist Jeb Patton playing Zez Confrey’s whirlwind piano pieces. If you are in or around New York City on February 12 (and let’s face it, anywhere on Earth might as well be around New York City), don’t miss this music.
Tickets and more information are available online here.
This is the second part of a discussion about reedman and discographical ubiquity Larry Binyon. For why, read here. For who, read on.
Lawrence “Larry” Fiffe Binyon was born in Illinois on September 16, 1908, the younger of Claude and Josephine Armstrong Binyon’s two children (their first child Hugh was born in 1905). Census records show the Binyon family renting one unit of a two-family home in Chicago’s twenty-seventh ward in 1910, with Claude Binyon listed as an unemployed funeral director and somehow still employing a live-in servant. By 1920 the family was renting a single home in the city of Urbana, about 150 miles south of Chicago. Claude now worked as a secretary for an oil company. Josephine was now also employed as a music teacher working out of the Binyon home, now servant-less.
Urbana was a much less densely populated city, and census records show more white-collar jobs among the Binyons’ neighbors in Urbana than those in Chicago. Perhaps quality of life was a factor in their move. Maybe Urbana was simply where Claude could find another steady paycheck, albeit now supplemented with a second income. If there was financial hardship, it could have influenced Larry’s understanding of the value of a dollar. Claude’s death in 1924, when Larry was just sixteen years old, certainly would have put a financial strain on the family. Larry might have developed his later well-documented work ethic at an early age.
It’s unclear how early Larry Binyon started playing music, but safe to assume that his mother shared at least some of her musical knowledge. By age eighteen, Binyon was at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, listed on E flat (soprano) flute in the school’s concert band as well as (standard) flute and piccolo in its first regimental band during the 1926-27 school year.
Binyon would only spend one year at college. By 1927 he was already playing professionally in Chicago as part of Beasley Smith’s band, which also included drummer Ray McKinley and clarinetist Matty Matlock. Drummer and future swing era star Gene Krupa was playing across the street from Beasley in Joe Kayser’s band, and Binyon would have encountered an even wider pool of talent in the jazz mecca. Flute may have been Binyon’s first instrument, or at least his primary one at school, but tenor sax would have by now become his main horn for dance bands.
Later on that year drummer, bandleader and talent incubator Ben Pollack came back to Chicago after an unsuccessful gig at the Venice Ballroom in California. His third saxophonist and arranger Fud Livingston had left the band earlier that year (to work with conductor Nat Shilkret in New York City). It’s unclear exactly when or how Binyon hooked up with Pollack, but he was with the Pollack band on December 12, 1927 when it returned to the Victor’s Chicago studio after a five-month hiatus. He even got to solo!
On the final bridge of “Waitin’ For Katie,” Binyon stays pretty close to the melody on the first take and loosens up slightly for the second one. Both takes find Binyon jumping in on a break and ripping into the upper register (here is the issued first take):
Like many jazz musicians from this period, Binyon “routines” his solo but still has something unique to offer. His reedy tone and declaratory, trumpet-like phrasing are very different from Coleman Hawkins’s metal and rapid-fire arpeggios. Binyon has been compared to Bud Freeman, but Freeman generally played in a more agitated style at this time. Binyon sounds more relaxed even at faster tempos. Stated bluntly, he just played fewer notes than those guys.
Apparently Pollack liked Binyon’s notes; his tenor saxophone gets another solo on the session’s other issued side, “Memphis Blues,” where Binyon once again varies things just slightly between two takes (the issued first take follows):
He sounds tentative playing counterpoint in the introduction, and his brief solo might not seem like a model of construction. Yet he doesn’t get much room to stretch out on the W.C. Handy standard. Fud Livingston’s arrangement inserts some snappy chord substitutions from the band into the middle of Binyon’s chorus, which Binyon leaps into with a beautiful, well-executed lick. His preceding improvisation/routine is closer to an earlier, pre-Armstrong tradition that emphasized variety over contiguity. It’s also the work of a nineteen-year old cutting his first record. Better things were still to come but this was an admirable start.
Pollack’s band was filled with young talent, including eighteen-year old Benny Goodman and twenty-year old Jimmy McPartland. They usually got more solos, and have certainly received more ink since this session, but Binyon got to play alongside them and make the Pollack band possible. He must have been doing something worth talking about.
The next installment of this Larry Binyon story, which might not be the next post, will talk about Binyon’s career during the late twenties and early thirties, highlighting some of his best recordings. Hope you (continue to) enjoy it!
And we’re back! Curious how I spent my holiday vacation? Read on…
Reality television notwithstanding, ubiquity and fame are two very different accomplishments. Just ask Larry Binyon. More practically, Google him: he appears on dozens of record dates (150 jazz sessions alone according to Tom Lord), usually listed alongside some legendary names. Yet that’s all most historians and musicologist have to say about him. Larry Binyon is all over jazz history but not a well-known part of it.
He must have been an impressive musician to get work so consistently, especially with the likes of Benny Goodman, Fats Waller, Red Nichols, the Boswell Sisters, the Dorsey Brothers and other famous names. He also doubled several instruments, mostly playing tenor saxophone but contributing on flute when it was rarely heard in a jazz context. Binyon could also improvise in addition to read and double. Given the company he kept, he got to read and double far more often than he got to take a solo.
Years later and with very few solos on record, sidemen like Binyon can seem like historical packaging material. They surround the names we know best, provide musical as well as personnel background but otherwise end up padding the “real” artistic goods. After all, isn’t jazz “really” about improvisation? Weren’t there “better” improvisers around? Didn’t other musicians double? Couldn’t “anyone” have read the chart, as Binyon did?
Perhaps, but only from the luxury of listening decades later. To musicians, someone who could do all three (and maybe even show up on time and in uniform) would be a precious resource. There must have been a reason why Larry Binyon got to play so often. He also recorded quite a bit, even some of those improvised solos that jazz purists like to hunt down between all the written stuff, which Binyon also made possible. That sounds like far more than filler, and it definitely sounds like an important part of the music.
So holiday vacation was spent researching Larry Binyon. It began with sheer curiosity, and the hope of writing one blog post. A few thousand words later, I decided to spare the reader’s attention and give myself even more time for research, so I’m going to explore the life of this musician, and more importantly his music, over a few blog posts. There isn’t a ton of material out there on Binyon, and (goodness knows) it’s not all in one place, so I figure he warrants a couple of entries on my modest blog. The next post will cover Binyon’s earliest days, from growing up in Illinois to his first jazz record.
Musician and historian Chris Tyle has reported on Facebook that producer and early jazz advocate George H. Buck has passed away.
Buck is perhaps best known for his Jazzology family of record labels, which keep (present tense intentional) so many unique works of prewar jazz and jazz by musicians of the prewar era on the record, in every sense of the term. This is a tremendous loss to the musical community as a whole.
I offer my condolences to Mr. Buck’s family. Thank you for all you continue to do, and rest in peace, George H. Buck.
They’re not a proper account of the landmark moments in jazz history, but these records do make for fascinating comparison and enjoyable listening (especially if you’ve already taken one or two Jazz History courses)…
“Livery Stable Blues,” made famous by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band as the first jazz record, played by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings:
The NORK’s “Tin Roof Blues,” best known for trombonist George Brunies and clarinetist Leon Roppolo’s solos, referenced by Miff Mole and Jimmy Lytell on the Original Memphis Five’s recording:
“Singin’ The Blues,” forever associated with Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer, given rhythmic tribute by the Fletcher Henderson band:
“West End Blues,” synonymous with Louis Armstrong, in its restrained inaugural recording by composer and Armstrong mentor Joe “King” Oliver:
Duke Ellington, best known as a composer, with a simple but highly personal arrangement of the WC Handy standard “St. Louis Blues” for backing Bing Crosby:
Meanwhile, across the pond, British bandleader paying homage to Ellington’s music by getting people out on the dance floor:
Jelly Roll Morton revisiting Scott Joplin’s ragtime staple “Maple Leaf Rag” on his own pianistic terms:
Morton’s “King Porter Stomp,” perhaps the most popular Morton tune when it comes to distinct approaches by bands, soloists and arrangers, becomes a swinging guitar partita in Teddy Bunn’s hands:
Count Basie’s “One O’Clock Jump,” for many the apotheosis of the riff-based, blues-soaked Kansas City sound, live at Carnegie Hall in 1938 with the Benny Goodman band expressing their admiration as well as their own unique sound:
Finally, Basie’s innovations in the scope and sound of the rhythm section, the prominence of the soloist in an ensemble setting and the very concept of “swing,” taken to turbo-charged abstraction on Gil Evan’s arrangement of the Basie staple “Lester Leaps In”:
These are just a few ways to mess with a jazz history syllabus. They might not be innovative recordings but they do show musicians listening and learning from one another while expressing themselves. That has to count for something in jazz, or music.
About ten dollars and eleven pages worth of bookshelf space is a small price for pedagogy by one of your favorite musicians. So I didn’t hesitate to grab my credit card when I saw Buster Bailey’s edition of the Feist All-Star Series of Modern Rhythm Choruses on eBay:
The same friend who revealed the availability of this volume also explained how Feist would invite some of the biggest names in popular music of the swing era to perform Feist-owned tunes at their studio, then transcribe those solos for young fans who were eager to play like the pros. A glance at the back cover and some help from Google revealed the wideselection of instructional legends-to-be offered by Feist:
Initially I planned on doing copious research to find out more about when these books were printed, how Feist selected and transcribed the solos, what the musicians may have thought about the work and whether any of their solos could be found on other recordings.
Then, it occurred to me: since most of the original purchasers were probably geeking out at the thought of owning something straight from the minds and fingers of Bunny, Hawk, Pee Wee and others, why not stay historically accurate and take a moment to gawk at what Buster Bailey made?
The publishers describe Bailey’s tone and technique as “academic,” referring to Bailey’s extensive classical schooling. Critics would later dismiss Bailey as “academic” in the sense of studied and impractical, calling him a skilled technician unsuited to the serious expressive work of jazz music. Yet after reading this foreword, and holding a published set of transcriptions by none other than Bailey himself, that particular criticism seems stranger than ever when applied to a musician who remained steadily employed with some of the most influential names in jazz over a fifty-year career.
I haven’t had a chance to run through these solos to see how they compare to the sound of Bailey on record. There’s nothing notationally strange on paper, which suits Bailey’s clean, transparent style. The seesawing lines and sudden upper-register syncopations look like they’re part of his aesthetic. Yet transcription can be a difficult process, which even in its most precise moments might still miss the personal inflections and rhythmic nuances that make a jazz solo distinct. Besides that, who knows if Bailey was phoning it in to make a quick buck?
For me, even Bailey trying to make a buck is worth a listen. Whether it’s for educational or commercial purposes, prepackaged or woodshedded, transcription always comes down to hero worship. That’s probably why the Feist series started in the first place, or why Charlie Parker Omnibooks are still selling and Jamey Aebersold is so busy. Overtly this was an educational purchase, but the truth is, I’m a fan. Yet that’s okay, because Buster Bailey knew that and left something for his fans.
Sure, why not?
Nine decades and a few stylistic light-years after it was recorded, the Benson Orchestra of Chicago’s “Wolverine Blues” may sound like (to paraphrase one online commenter) a lesson in how not to play Jelly Roll Morton’s composition:
The Benson Orchestra seems to lack the “plenty rhythm” that the composer deemed crucial for jazz. Instead, it has its own firm, broadly stepping two-beat rhythm, with clipped syncopations and a bright, violin-infused sound that looks back to ragtime (but not as far back then as now). The Benson Orchestra rags a bit, promenades more and to some ears might also do some marching. They don’t do much stomping, and definitely do not swing.
This seventh-ever recording of “Wolverine Blues” from September of 1923 is far removed from the medium to fast tempo jams that the Morton standard now typically inspires from early jazz ensembles. Yet it’s also very different from the looser, at times downright raucous inaugural recordings that the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Albert E. Short’s Tivoli Syncopators gave “Wolverine Blues” back in March of the same year. The composer himself offered a swinging solo piano rendition in July. Gene Rodemich’s dance band sounds comparatively unhinged back in June, and Frank Westphal’s orchestra played a similar arrangement with a slightly agitated rhythm section and busy solos in late March. (I still can’t find an online version of Harry Raderman’s May recording, but any help would be greatly appreciated!)
The Benson Orchestra is less visceral and more vertical than any of its recorded predecessors. Pianist/leader Don Bestor’s piano filigree and the trumpeter’s blue note counterpoint during the final chorus do have their own antique charm, but the Benson recording just doesn’t have the same energy and variety of the NORK’s improvised polyphony or Morton’s occasionally Latinized piano. Other musicians were obviously giving “Wolverine Blues” their own distinct treatment before the Benson’s record, treatments that jell much better with contemporary expectations of the tune. The Benson Orchestra’s approach is less a historical template than an example of one band’s style.
It is tempting to dismiss the Benson style as stiff and outdated (and to some, stereotypically “white,” even if both African American and European American musicians were already playing the tune in equally distinct, differently bombastic ways). Yet it is a style, one unlike any other on record at that time, or since: no modern band would ever think to play Morton’s warhorse like the Benson Orchestra does, except in outright imitation or parody.
The sound of the Benson Orchestra on “Wolverine Blues” remains so refreshingly archaic, so far removed from even a vestigial hint at what is “current” that it’s both very personal and oddly subversive. In its contemporary context, the Benson Orchestra’s outdatedness might even seem ballsy. It may not suit everyone, but it’ll never be wrong. Assuming that Morton and his jazz brethren’s ultimate mission was to encourage individuality in music, then the Benson Orchestra fulfills that legacy in spirit, if not style or (far more slippery) taste.
Picasso, Man With A Pipe (1915), Art Institute of Chicago.
The Capitol Palace in Harlem was a late-night, after-hours club that is now (in a delicious bit of municipal irony) the site of a playground. At least some of the music of its house band lives on through records.
Bandleading brothers Lloyd and Cecil Scott started out in their hometown of Springfield, Ohio, competing with the nascent McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and eventually making their way from the Buckeye State to the then-jazz capitol of the world. The band developed a significant fan base there by subbing for some of the best-known groups in the city. Those jobs were early enough in the evening for the band to make its regular gig at the Capitol.
Sides from the group’s first record session capture a late-night air of experimentation and inebriation that must have made the Capitol a very interesting place to play. “Symphonic Scronch,” for example, sounds like something Salvador Dali might have composed had he skipped art school and opted for a career in hot dance music:
Trumpeter and historian Randy Sandke points to the clarinets voiced in creaky major seconds in the introduction, as well as the sudden interpolation of 5/4 meter (in 1927!) during the succeeding chorus for banjo, piano and drums. Sandke also admits he can only “approximately transcribe” that passage, yet the whole chorus is barely even hummable. It just bumps along, refusing to tell a little story, before the brass transition into a sax chorus that feels like it’s going to topple or explode at any moment. Kenneth Roane’s muted trumpet sounds similarly disembodied. Sometimes he floats on the clockwork backbeat, other times he sardonically leans into his phrases. Dicky Wells, appearing on his first record session, reprises Charlie Green’s ominous vamp from “The Gouge of Armour Avenue.”
“Symphonic Scronch” might be a reference to the Scott brothers’ earliest band, the Symphonic Syncopators. Phil Schaap explains that a “scronch” is a type of dance step. Yet the title as well as all of those dissonances and jagged rhythms also suggest some uncanny mutation of Paul Whiteman’s “symphonic jazz.” Whatever the meaning, it’s fun to imagine perplexed Harlemites making sense of this arrangement on the dance floor.
“Harlem Shuffle” (with an arrangement by Roane) smoothens the rhythm yet includes quirky touches like the fluttering, slightly off-kilter brass introduction and some unexpected double-time tantrums:
Hubert Mann’s banjo and Lloyd Scott’s drums are a huge part of the band’s sound. Lloyd’s press rolls accent Don Frye’s piano solo, and Mann is both rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment as well as a textural foil underneath Cecil Scott’s massive baritone sax. He’s also a reminder not just of the banjo’s ability to slice through a group without amplification, but of the unique flavor that the instrument can bring to an ensemble (when the audience isn’t distracted by straw hats or hokey music, that is). Cecil’s sound is refreshingly archaic: metallic, angular and visceral, like Pharoah Sanders thrown backwards in time. The baritone sax faded as a solo instrument during the swing era, only to come back much faster, lighter and higher during the bop era. Cecil’s baritone comes from an earlier approach to the instrument, one that stressed a thick, dark tone and percussive attack (also listen to Jack Washington in Bennie Moten’s band or Coleman Hawkins’ flirtation with bass sax in the Fletcher Henderson orchestra).
Chameleon-like, on “Happy Hour” Cecil contributes both his gutty baritone and his piercing clarinet. On the smaller horn, he winds out the band’s first chorus like a man who gets this chart’s title all too well:
The arrangement revolves around a repeating two bar vamp for the rhythm section, an eight bar blowing section and a four-bar, seven-chord descending theme. Don Frye’s arrangement mines a lot of variety from its three sections and ten players:
First, the vamp and theme mirror themselves around Scott’s clarinet, then the theme alternates with ensemble sections and solos. The offbeat accents during the brass chorus followed by the stop-time feel for Wells’ solo make for a clever touch of orchestral déjà vu.
The four-bar theme in turn captures that magic moment in the evening when it’s too late to catch the train, there’s no more liquor left to be poured and the last girl on the dance floor isn’t asking but telling people to dance. It’s a musical depiction of a scene that the Scott brothers had probably witnessed far too often on the job. The record closes with saxes chanting over the vamp. Two drum hits in Charleston rhythm cut things off but it feels as though the band could go on vamping into other, still stranger episodes.
This first session and these three charts (two with alternate takes) were the only recordings made under Lloyd’s name before he moved from drumming to managing the band. The band would continue as Cecil Scott and His Bright Boys, recording sporadically but continuing to play throughout New York and counting Wells, Frankie Newton (who can be heard on this session), Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges and other legends-to-be in its ranks. Yet aside from historical dates and famous alumni, this session yielded some of the most original, atmospheric music of its time or any other. Just another night at 575 Lenox Avenue.
Charlie hears a lot of music in his house: twenties jazz, Baroque concertos, swing, eighteenth century opera, early bop, early Romantic, tuba solos, bassoon concertos, motets for contralto, scat numbers, Duke Ellington, Charlie Johnson, Mozart, Cimarosa, Benny Goodman, Ben Pollack, legendary bands, obscure bands, old bands, new bands, still more old bands, several old and obscure bands, Sebastian Bach, Christian Bach, Wilhelm Bach, Bernard Bach, Ke$ha (it’s a long story and don’t judge) plus much more. Yet he rarely notices any of it.
These are the speakers that play most of the music in Charlie’s house:
If Charlie happens to wander into the room with the speakers and the music, he’ll either trot right out or, if he wants a change of floor, plop himself down and resume the above position. Either way he remains oblivious to all that lyricism and rhythm.
If there is music coming from the room with the speakers, then one of the humans who lives with Charlie and feeds him, plays with him, takes him for those amazing walks and (for some reason unknown to Charlie) occasionally bathes him will also be in the room with the speakers. Specifically, it will be the male human.
Usually the male human is thumbing through tiny booklets with words like “Frog” or “Naive” on them. Other times he’s just sitting there, with his eyes closed. Both activities have nothing to do with Charlie, so Charlie will bark at the male human or jump on his lap so that the male human will scratch Charlie behind his ears or toss Charlie’s favorite plush squirrel; that’s what Charlie likes. As for the music, occasionally a very high note gets him to perk up one ear ever so slightly, but that’s as far as his interest goes.
This is the record player that was recently placed inside of the room:
and this is the part of the record player that paints the room with music:
The record player also plays a lot of music. Yet when the record player plays music, even music that Charlie has already heard from the two speakers, Charlie actually notices it. This is Peggy Lee singing “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” with the Benny Goodman Sextet:
and this is Charlie, transfixed by that music as it flows out of the record player:
He may have even tilted his head during Lou McGarity’s trombone solo!
Charlie doesn’t seem to care that the record player doesn’t play as loud as the speakers or that the music it plays sometimes hisses and pops. In fact, Charlie seems to like that about the music on the record player. Maybe a zoologist could explain what Charlie’s sensitive canine ears detect in the record player’s music that’s missing from the speakers. While Charlie will never be able to explain it to the male human, somehow the male human understands, and he is grateful for the lesson.
Decades of historical and discographical research have spoiled fans of classic jazz. It’s easy to find out who played third saxophone for Duke Ellington at any given time, or the true identity of “Blind Willie Dunn.” With a few exceptions, the details have been researched, debated and revealed by someone somewhere and piped into our shared electronic synapses.
Hot jazz lovers can now skip their heroes’ commercial recordings and head straight to the improvised solos. Wild moments from even tame acts like Ray Noble and Guy Lombardo have been cherry-picked and cataloged. Whole discs of jazz and jazz-oriented works from the prewar era are available, with complete personnel listings and informative liner notes but none of the waltzes and novelty numbers.
There’s also no longer any need to stop at just a song title, band name and company logo on a wax disc. There’s so much more “out there” on the web. Look hard enough and one can find out why Sonny Dunham sounds so defiant on the 1939 Metronome All Star Band session or Pee Wee Russell’s favorite cocktail. Harder to find is the imprint of eager fingerprints: the records are collectors’ items and it’s hard to hold an MP3 without “chemical assistance.” CDs are incredible vessels, often featuring crystalline sound and loads of information, but they’ve also helped eliminate the mystery and excitement of inconvenience.
So, when a good friend recently gifted me a turntable and a stack of 78s, I decided to skip Lord’s discography (another miracle of modern times) and head straight to the sound of the Broadway Bellhops’ “Barcelona.”
I knew that the Bellhops were a subgroup of Sam Lanin’s popular dance band, which featured talented jazz musicians but didn’t always play jazz. Their records ran the gamut from Bix Beiderbecke and Joe Venuti making sweet, swinging hash out of “There Ain’t No Land Like Dixieland” to the mechanical beat and merman vocals of “Collette.”
So “Barcelona” wasn’t as exciting for who might be on it as what might be on it. Maybe some tasty Red Nichols lead trumpet or a hot eight-bar bridge from Miff Mole? Perhaps some other instrumentalist, new to me and neglected by historians? It could be a hot dance number, low on improvisation but with plenty of rhythm, or even a wide-open chart with plenty of room for solos, capped by a high-flying, collectively improvised ensemble!
Wrong on all counts: instead, just “the Broadway Bellhops,” whoever they might be:
There was really no way to tell who comprised the group of musicians traipsing through the peppy faux-Spanish theme with lockstep stock arrangement efficiency, or if there were any “real jazz musicians” who might have been rolling their eyes as they stated and restated the melody. The only certainty was me, on the edge of my seat, waiting for something besides the sound of guys earning a paycheck. No liner notes advising “no jazz content” or a telling omission from Rust: just me, finding it all out on my own, and in 2013!
The tuba player’s beat, a flip cornet and the clarinet obbligato on the reverse side, “Someone Is Losin’ Susan,” were just as amazing to find (if much more enjoyable to hear):
As I suspected, none other than Joe Tarto on tuba and Nichols’ cornet. As for the clarinet, Lord’s says it’s either Dick Johnson, Lucien Smith or Chuck Muller, three reedmen who are all new to me. It’s good to be right, great to hear jazz and remarkable to explore something unknown these days.
Paul Whiteman’s “An Experiment In Modern Music” at Aeolian Hall on February 12, 1924 is well known for the premiere of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue. Yet it also placed an American popular music ensemble in a concert setting, at a venue typically associated with classical artists, to perform several original works that challenged preconceptions of both jazz and classical (fourteen years before Benny Goodman’s Carnegie Hall concert and several decades before “crossover” entered the lexicon).
The Pop of Yestercentury 
