Continued: CD Reviews

The enclosure of seven original pieces by the performer distinguishes this one from any typical stride collection. His own compositions were developed from personal reflections on friends past and present, and even the location and month of one composition became the title "In August at St. Germain des Pres," one of the more famous promenades in Europe. He notes that he has previously recorded some of his pieces, but those discs are either out of print or he went for fresh interpretations.

The newer pieces are tonally far from the core roots, regardless of titling or program music concepts. One is subtly warned in the first track: "You've Got to Be Modernistic." What may be of some interest, and this is always a valid point of critical evaluation, I think, is that one can learn to make connections from the older forms to the modern pieces. A good example is the last section of his "Significant Ladies Suite," called 'Surprises.' In one short (1:40) breath, clustering dissonant harmonies resolve to a simple right hand then left hand melody, and finally to a very stride-like passage, ending on an ascending ladder of perfect fourths. To be sure, Mazetier is very economical. Sometimes, phrases with nothing more than hints of the melody or rhythm are followed by one-pass renditions of a familiar riff, then quickly molded into an improvisatory excursion.

For those who insist on an economical critique offering a one-word description of the overall effect of the recording, I'd have to go with "lounge," but quickly add that I don't mean some hackneyed, stale, late-night tedium; it's instead in the more positive sense of light, airy, quickly changing and non-aggressive. There are some rather humorous in-joke musical moments, but I won't give those away.

Disc price is $15. Find the humor and all the other ingredients in this French meal through www.arborsrecords.com.

KING OLIVER, THE COMPLETE 1923 BAND RECORDINGS (Off the Record ARCH OTR-MM6-C2)
Just Gone; Canal Street Blues; Mandy Lee Blues; I'm Going Away to Wear You Off My Mind; Chime's Blues; Weather Bird Rag; Dipper Mouth Blues; Froggie Moore; Snake Rag; Sweet Lovin' Man; High Society; Sobbin' Blues; Where Did You Stay Last Night; Jazzin' Babies Blues; Alligator Hop; Zulu's Ball; Working Man Blues; Krooked Blues; Chattanooga Stomp; London Café Blues; Camp Meeting Blues; New Orleans Stomp; Buddy's Habit; Tears; I Ain't Gonna Tell Nobody; Riverside Blues; Sweet Baby Doll; Mabel's Dream; The Southern Stomps.

Reviewed by William J. Schafer

While everyone even cursorily interested in early jazz must own the records by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, this complete collection is a new, superbly engineered restoration that makes the ancient tracks sound if not new at least wholly listenable. For the first time you can hear clearly every speck of music picked up by the crappy equipment and amateur engineering of those old-timers at Gennett, OKeh, Columbia and Paramount, so you need to replace any earlier reissues you own. At last, it's all hear!

These 37 sides are absolutely essential to an understanding of black New Orleans jazz as it first reached a mass audience. King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band was the most seasoned and skilled group in Chicago, playing music that came to fruition in New Orleans during the years around WWI and which defined a generation of veteran African-American players. Oliver's band harbored masters like Oliver himself, a majestic blues player with a bottomless bag of mute tricks, Johnny Dodds, a prototypical New Orleans clarinetist, Honore Dutrey, a skilled, subtle trombonist, and other important veterans like banjoists Bill Johnson, Bud Scott and Johnny St. Cyr. It brought to the world's attention Louis Armstrong and Lil Hardin.

Oliver's band was celebrated and thoroughly integrated as a jazz band with brilliant soloists but an especial métier as an ensemble. It represented the peak of such a style, in many ways the epitome and summary of the don't-take-down, all-out jazz band that played for dancing. Oliver would go on to bigger bands, as would Armstrong, but Louis would also set up an academy for small jazz and hot solos called the Hot Five and Seven. Oliver was at the zenith of his career, Armstrong just crossing the threshold into an amazing jazz life. In 10 years, Oliver was broke and out of work, Armstrong was king of the world. The other band members reigned in their own venues in Chicago, but only "little Louis" would survive for long after the sessions, fetched up from New Orleans to Chicago by his mentor, Papa Joe, in 1922 in time to cut these imperishable discs.

My first reissue of some of these sides was the old Riverside 12-inch LP that sold them by using Louis Armstrong's name as the come-on: "Louis Armstrong 1923." Someone once asked Armstrong what jazz was, and he famously replied, "If you don't know, I can't tell you." The same is true of these musical landmarks: they are deep blues like "Jazzin' Babies Blues," "Workingman Blues," "Riverside Blues," pop tunes like "Just Gone" or "Tears," pure jazz vehicles like "Snake Rag," "London Café Blues," "New Orleans Stomp," dance novelties like "Alligator Hop," or "Buddy's Habit," marches like "High Society" or "Dippermouth Blues," other indefinable movers like "Weather Bird Rag" and "Chattanooga Stomp." If you don't know what this music is, I can't tell you.

November 2008 issue | © 2008 The Mississippi Rag

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