nourishing obscurity

Unfortunately, we have struck a problem – there’s high drama with the saxophones this evening.     Tracks 1 and 3 below are not operating.   Track 1 was Navy Blues and was up as part of a long, long series by Atticus Finch.   When I got home just now, I saw that these two tracks were still as code in the post.  I went to the original text as sent by Dearieme and he’d asked me if I could post just the one vid [N1] and not the whole series.

Relatively easy to do, I did it and tested it last evening – it worked fine.  Now I see a notice “this video has been removed by the user”.   If the graphics were put together by Atticus Finch and if the records were his, then obviously he has a right to allow or not allow them to be seen.   When I went just now to the original Atticus Finch series, a lot of his vids had simply disappeared, including many we did not embed.  

Some minutes later, one came back – a California Ramblers number.

Scratching the head here as to what’s going on.  If he doesn’t want us embedding, then there is a facility “embedding disabled”.  However he didn’t use it and therefore we embedded it.  Is it him playing hardball with us or is it youtube playing hardball with him?  At this stage it’s not clear.

The second one removed [N3 below] was not one of his, i.e. it was not one of a series, so that’s another issue altogether.  Don’t know if it will get sorted or not but it’s played havoc with Dearieme’s post.  All I can suggest is he find another version we can embed, especially as the same thing is likely to happen again tomorrow evening.

………..

The jazz kaleidoscope had been shaken up since the days of Red Nichols and Miff Mole recording huge amounts together. Miff was once the head-and-shoulders leading trombonist but Jack Teagarden had arrived in New York. Red dumped Miff, who carried on in different company. Here Adrian Rollini joins him with Phil Napoleon on trumpet and Jimmy Dorsey on clarinet/alto sax. The tune is one I’ve known since boyhood but whose name I’ve only just discovered – Navy Blues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uio6B1WffA

That was recorded on 06/02/1930. Rollini, however, was to face problems. One was that more and more bands were developing individual identities and using arrangements that suited their instrumentation – and people wrote arrangements for string bass in the rhythm section. One solution for Rollini was to copy that rhythm section and play mainly as a frontline instrument. Effectively he replaces the trombone in his 1938 recording of the only leading pop tune (as far as I know) with lyrics by P G Wodehouse: Bill.

I quite like the result, but many bandleaders seem to have felt that the baritone sax melded more easily with the other instruments than the bass sax did. Also, far more people could perform on the baritone – it’s an easier instrument to play, so more arrangements would be written for it. To illustrate, here’s a track from back in ’28 with Jimmy Dorsey imitating Rollini’s style, but on baritone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okm992OcCJI

Adding to Rollini’s problems (according to Vince Giordano) he was suffering more from asthma. These pressures led to a radical solution to his problems. But first let’s remind ourselves of the pleasure of his bass sax played in the best company – here he’s joined by Jack Teagarden (trombone), Benny Goodman (clarinet), George Van Eps (guitar) on Bix’s best composition: Davenport Blues. (23/10/1934)

Filed under: Art, Dearieme, History & Culture, Music