This week's column could well be entitled "study in superlatives," for it deals with two monumental events in jazz music which have recently come into my life, and which I hope will come into yours just as soon as possible.
The first consists of four twelve-inch sides issued by the Hot Record Society, and which I was unable to review when they were released six weeks ago. The band playing is called Jack Teagarden's Big Eight, and includes Teagarden, Rex Stewart (trumpet), Ben Webster (tenor sax), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Billy Kyle (piano), Billy Taylor (bass), and Dave Tough (drums). The tunes are: St. James' Infirmary, Shine, The World Is Waiting for The Sunrise, and Big Eight Blues.
After I've said that this group has made the finest recorded jazz I've ever heard, there isn't an awful lot that I can add. However, I would like to mention a fact which impresses me as making the date doubly important, and that is the opportunity given to Ben Webster and Billy Kyle, and of which opportunity they made the very best. Needless to say, Teagarden, Stewart, and Dave Tough are their magnificent selves, as you would expect, and as you've heard on pretty nearly everything they've done. However, a musician like Ben Webster, although his work ranks with that of Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry, has never received half the recognition he deserves. Yet what he does on this session (for my money he's far and (away the star) should end all arguments as to his qualifications for the big league. Billy Kyle, who plays piano in a driving rhythmic style which might be described as super-Wilson, has for some inexplicable reason taken a back seat to Jess Stacy, Hines, and Joe Sullivan. However his work on these records (take for example his long chorus on The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise) shows him to be definitely in their class. Consequently, it seems to me that the Hot Record Society deserves some sort of a medal for giving the breaks to a couple of the most exciting musicians you can hear today.
Superlative number two is Roscoe McRae, who plays tenor sax with the Jones Brothers' band at the Savoy on Columbus Avenue in Boston. Now the Savoy is only twenty minutes or so from Harvard Square, and you really should get down there if you want to hear the closest thing to Coleman Hawkins outside of the Hawk himself. As a matter of fact, I was down there the other night with a tenorman whose opinion I respect tremendously, and after hearing McRae on Body and Soul, he remarked that even Hawkins would have to dig hard to keep up with that kind of jazz. Maybe I'm all wet. Maybe they'll be calling him "Miller's Folly," but I may as well go overboard completely and say that Roscoe McRae is the musician of the year, so why don't you do yourself a favor and go down to hear him.
NEWS AND NEW RELEASES. Bobby Hackett will open at the Versailles (ex Southland) on Monday, fronting a ten-piece local band. I heard Bobby last week, and he's right in his prime, so his stay at the Versailles will be welcome to all of us who remember him from Nick's and the Theatrical Club; and will be a pleasant surprise to those who have yet to hear him in person . . . If you have a car, get down to Providence on Sunday, for the afternoon jam session at the Crown Hotel. These sessions have been extremely popular for the past few weeks, and in addition to plenty of exceptional local talent, there are always one or two guest stars. This Sunday it will be Hot Lips Page, as well as Roscoe McRae . . . Speaking of jam sessions, you can hear a pretty good recorded one on the four sides issued by the Commodore Music Shop. Band features Marty Marsala (trumpet), George Brunies (trombone), Pee Wee Russell (clarinet), "Maurice" (known to his best friends as Fats Waller), Artie Shapiro (bass), Eddie Condon (guitar), and George Wettling (drums). Solos don't measure up to the standards set on the Teagarden date, but the musicians have a wonderful talent for getting together on the finish and really making the last couple of choruses jump. Best side is Oh Sister Ain't That Hot.
