Trombonist Albert Wynne and his Creole Jazz Band recorded this wonderful jazz stomp in 1928 and I would say it’s a New Orleans classic, but it was recorded in Chicago! Wynne and the band were based in Chicago for their whole career, although they toured all of America and Europe. But no matter, this is indeed a very NOLA sound, for all time probably, and especially back then.
Features the little-known New Orleans hero, Punch Miller, on trumpet and scat singing solo. Although little-known in the wider world of jazz, he is a cult favorite of jazz 78s collectors. R. Crumb the comic artist and famous 78rpm record collector adored Miller’s many sides and even paid tribute to him by painting his portrait for one of his 36 Early Jazz Greats, a set of trading cards.
Getting his start playing clarinet in Glenn Miller’s big band in 1921, Boyd Senter eventually moved to Chicago in 1923 and managed to make several recordings with Jelly Roll Morton’s Steamboat Four. Soon thereafter he struck out alone as the “Jazzologist Supreme” (sometimes with his band, the Senterpedes) and recorded a string of sides for various labels in the 20s and 30s, all in the hot jazz/New Orleans idiom that was the rage during those decades. Sometimes the playfulness of his approach, especially the “laughing” or “whining” phrasing that became a signature of his clarinet style, was criticized by some as gimmicky, but he sold a lot of sides and was very popular in the public nevertheless.
What makes this 1927 trio take of “Down Hearted Blues” (a Lovie Austin/Alberta Hunter tune) so great is the guitar playing of the iconic Eddie Lang, an innovator who really raised the bar on guitar approach and its place in popular music, and also paved the way for giants like Django, Lonnie Johnson and Wes Montgomery. This performance is just so beautifully toned and nuanced, and to my ears sounds like he was playing from about 15-20 years into the future. Lang’s genius was very unfortunately cut short at 30 years old, a bad surgery in New York in 1933 seeming the culprit. His impact on Jazz cannot be underestimated.
Boyd Senter left music in the late 30s after his popularity waned, became a sporting goods salesman, settled down, and lived into old age, retiring to Oscoda, Michigan, and finally giving up the ghost in 1982 at 84 years old.
This Velvet Tone 7070 is a reissue copy of the original Okeh pressing, matrix no. W81001.
Time Travel at 78rpms 