Jazz Focus

Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt with the seven and eight piece bands they led c. 1950 - bop, rhythm and blues and pop songs featuring Junior Mance, Benny Green and Art Blakey among others. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

Boston Bari - the Boston recordings of Serge Chaloff in 1949 and 1954/5.  These groups were mostly working units in the Boston area and presented a great mix of Bebop, Swing, Cool and blues in sophisticated arrangements with great solo work - Chaloff, Herb Pomeroy, Boots Mussullli, Charlie Mariano, Ralph Burns, Dick Twardzik and Ray Santisi are featured. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

Hot Chicago Clarinets . . .several clarinet players active in Chicago in the 1920's (Johnny Dodds, Jimmy O'Bryant, Junie Cobb, Albert Nicholas, Vance Dixon and Benny Goodman) recording in trio format - no other horns, just rhythm and clarinet! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

WETF show - Dizzy Gillespie and His Orchestra live from the Spotlite in NY, May 1946.  Great big band Bebop featuring Dave Burns, James Moody, Ray Abrams, Howard Johnson, Milt Jackson, Kenny Clarke and a rare (maybe unique) appearance by Thelonious Monk as a band pianist --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

WETF show - Frankie Newton and Pete Brown - a great tandem of trumpet and alto sax who appeared together on numerous sessions in the 1930's . . Newton's Uptown Serenaders, Midge Williams, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Buster Bailey, Jimmy Noone and Jimmie Gordon.  In addition to Newton, Brown, Noone, Bailey and Smith, hear Sammy Price, Edmund Hall, Cecil Scott, Don Frye, O'Neil Spencer and Teddy Bunn . ..some of my favorite small group sides of the Swing Era. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

God Is In The Band - Art Tatum in the rhythm section of several different bands from the 1930's and 40's - Art Tatum and His Band/Swingsters (Joe Thomas on trumpet, Edmond Hall, Oscar Moore, John Collins, Billy Taylor, Marshall Royal, Guy Kelly and Big Joe Turner), Barney Bigard and His Sextet (Joe Thomas on trumpet and another Joe Thomas on tenor sax), Coleman Hawkins and the Esquire All Stars (with Cootie Williams and Big Sid Catlett) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

New Orleans - 1927 . . some of the "road trip" sessions made by Victor and Columbia to record local bands, in this case in the spring of 1927 with Louis Dumaine, Wingy Manone, Papa Celestin, Sam Morgan and others - great NO dance music and jazz --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

Ellington was an influence on other musicians as early as the late 1920's - here are bands from 1927-1938 playing his tunes (Creole Love Call, Black and Tan Fantasy, Mood Indigo, It Don't Mean A Thing, Old Man Blues, Solitude, Sophisticated Lady, etc.) and sometimes his arrangements as well . .Cab Calloway, Don Redman, Benny Goodman, the Washboard Rhythm Kings, Mills Blue Rhythm Band, Clyde McCoy, Red Nichols, Jimmie Lunceford (playing two tunes composed but unrecorded by Ellington), Bert Firman, McKinney's Cotton Pickers and several territory bands --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

When the big band era went bust, Count Basie held on longer than most - not disbanding until late 1949, at which point he tried out several combos playing a mix of swing, bebop and R&B before finally settling on this Octet with arrangements by Neal Hefti and others.  Featuring among others Clark Terry, either Buddy De Franco or Marshall Royal on clarinet, Wardell Gray on tenor, either Serge Chaloff or Rudy Rutherford on bari sax, Basie, Freddie Green and Buddy Rich! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

Edmund Hall was one of the most distinctive and accomplished clarinetists in the Trad Jazz style from 1940 until he passed away in 1967.  This podcast focuses on the recordings he made for Blue Note in the 1940's under his own name and with James P. Johnson, Art Hodes and Sidney DeParis.  The Hall sessions feature more swing-oriented groups with Charlie Christian (playing acoustic guitar!), Meade Lux Lewis (on celeste!), Red Norvo and Teddy Wilson while the others utilize the talents of Sidney DeParis, Max Kaminsky, Vic Dickenson, James P. Johnson, Art Hodes, Carl Kress, Jimmy Shirley, Everett Barksdale, John Simmons and Sid Catlett, among others. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support