Podcasts about Stuff Smith

Jazz Grooves – mit møde med Alex Riel 1: Dette programs vært, Hans Barfod, arbejdede tæt sammen med Riel om udgivelsen af bogen 'Manden bag trommerne' og har derfor været inde i næsten alle kroge af Alex's musikliv. Det første program om Alex Riel har focus på 60'erne – årene i Jazzhus Montmartre: NHØP, Kenny Drew, Roland Kirk, Bill Evans, Ben Webster, Stuff Smith, Palle Mikkelborg. 

En 1929, con tan solo diecinueve años de edad, Thomas había aceptado la posibilidad de convertirse en músico profesional cuando el pianista y arreglista Horace Henderson, hermano de Fletcher, estaba en la ciudad en busca de un saxofonista alto. Con José Manuel Corrales.

“JOE VENUTI AND EDDIE LANG” “JOE VENUTI AND EDDIE LANG” New York, September 29, 1926Stringing the blues, Black and blue bottomJoe Venuti (vln) (g) STUFF SMITH “BILTMORE HOTEL” New York, January 6, 1937Honeysuckle rose, Stomping at the SavoyStuff Smith (vln) Clyde Hart (p) Bobby Bennett (g) John Kirby (b) Cozy Cole (d) Ella Fitzgerald (vcl) EDDIE SOUTH “PARIS” – November 25, 1937Fiddle blues (1,2)Eddie South (vln) Stephane Grappelli (vln-1) Django Reinhardt (g) Paul Cordonnier (b-2) “AND DUO” – Hilversum, Holland, March 13, 1938Black gypsyEddie South (vln) Dave Martin (p) STEPHANE GRAPPELLI “VIOLINS NO END” Paris, May 4, 1957Don't get around much anymoreStephane Grappelli, Stuff Smith (vln) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brown (b) Jo Jones (d) JEAN-LUC PONTY “UPON THE WINGS OF MUSIC” Los Angeles, CA, January, 1975Upon the wings of musicJean-Luc Ponty (vln,el-vln,violectra,synt) Patrice Rushen (p,el-p,org,clavinet,synt) Dan Sawyer (el-g) Ralphe Armstrong (el-b) Leon “Ndugu” Chancler (d,perc,tom-tom) BILLY BANG “TRIBUTE TO STUFF SMITH” New York, September 20, 21 & 22, 1992Lover manSun Ra (p,synt) Billy Bang (vln) John Ore (b) Andrew Cyrille (d) REGINA CARTER “ELLA : ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE” New York, December, 2016All my lifeXavier Davis (p) Marvin Sewell (g) Regina Carter (vln) Chris Lightcap (b) Alvester Garnett (d) JENNY SCHEINMAN “THE RABBI'S LOVER” Brooklyn, NY, 2001The rabbi's loverRuss Johnson (tp) Adam Levy (g) Jenny Scheinman (vln) Greg Cohen (b) Trevor Dunn (b-1) Kenny Wollesen (d) Continue reading Puro Jazz 21 de octubre, 2024 at PuroJazz.

“JOE VENUTI AND EDDIE LANG” “JOE VENUTI AND EDDIE LANG” New York, September 29, 1926Stringing the blues, Black and blue bottomJoe Venuti (vln) (g) STUFF SMITH “BILTMORE HOTEL” New York, January 6, 1937Honeysuckle rose, Stomping at the SavoyStuff Smith (vln) Clyde Hart (p) Bobby Bennett (g) John Kirby (b) Cozy Cole (d) Ella Fitzgerald (vcl) EDDIE SOUTH “PARIS” – November 25, 1937Fiddle blues (1,2)Eddie South (vln) Stephane Grappelli (vln-1) Django Reinhardt (g) Paul Cordonnier (b-2) “AND DUO” – Hilversum, Holland, March 13, 1938Black gypsyEddie South (vln) Dave Martin (p) STEPHANE GRAPPELLI “VIOLINS NO END” Paris, May 4, 1957Don't get around much anymoreStephane Grappelli, Stuff Smith (vln) Oscar Peterson (p) Herb Ellis (g) Ray Brown (b) Jo Jones (d) JEAN-LUC PONTY “UPON THE WINGS OF MUSIC” Los Angeles, CA, January, 1975Upon the wings of musicJean-Luc Ponty (vln,el-vln,violectra,synt) Patrice Rushen (p,el-p,org,clavinet,synt) Dan Sawyer (el-g) Ralphe Armstrong (el-b) Leon “Ndugu” Chancler (d,perc,tom-tom) BILLY BANG “TRIBUTE TO STUFF SMITH” New York, September 20, 21 & 22, 1992Lover manSun Ra (p,synt) Billy Bang (vln) John Ore (b) Andrew Cyrille (d) REGINA CARTER “ELLA : ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE” New York, December, 2016All my lifeXavier Davis (p) Marvin Sewell (g) Regina Carter (vln) Chris Lightcap (b) Alvester Garnett (d) JENNY SCHEINMAN “THE RABBI'S LOVER” Brooklyn, NY, 2001The rabbi's loverRuss Johnson (tp) Adam Levy (g) Jenny Scheinman (vln) Greg Cohen (b) Trevor Dunn (b-1) Kenny Wollesen (d) Continue reading Puro Jazz 21 de octubre, 2024 at PuroJazz.

durée : 01:58:41 - Le Bach du dimanche du dimanche 30 juin 2024 - par : Corinne Schneider - Au programme de cette 303e émission : le « Bach à sable été 2024 », une playlist estivale à l'écoute de Masaaki Suzuki, Philippe Herreweghe, Dorothee Mields, Guy Cutting, Zachary Wilder, Kei Koito, Paul Lay, Mathieu Dupouy, Jean Rondeau, Marc Hantaï, Barthold Kuijken, David Linx, Stuff Smith… - réalisé par : Emmanuel Benito

Garner was known primarily as a solo pianist or by working in a trio, but early in his career he played as a sideman with several groups (strange, given that he didn't read music). Here we hear him small groups led by Wardell Gray, Don Byas, Charlie Parker and Lucky Thompson (also with Stuff Smith) and a big band led by Georgie Auld (with Dizzy Gillespie, Trummy Young, Al Cohn and Al Killian). --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

"Reefer Man" - Don Redman; "Knockin´ Myself Out" - Lil Green; "Wacky Dust" y "When I Get Low, I Get High" - Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb; "Kickin´ The Gong Around" y "Minnie The Moocher" - Cab Calloway; "Sweet Marijuana Brown" - Barney Bigard; "Onyx Hop" - Frankie Newton; "Texas Tea Party" - Jack Teagarden with Benny Goodman; "Take A Whiff On Me" - Leadbelly; "Lotus Blossom (Sweet Marijuana)" - Julia Lee; "I'm Feeling High & Happy" - Helen Ward with Gene Krupa; "Here Comes The Man With The Jive" - Stuff Smith; "Jack, I´m Mellow" - Trixie Smith Todas las músicas extraídas de la recopilación "Reefer Madness - A Collection Of Vintage Drug Songs, 1927-1945" (Buzzola, 2004).Escuchar audio

We continue our music series this week! This is part 1 of Professors Joseph Ewoodzie and Tyler Bunzey gracing the pod to talk gender in hip hop.Samantha talks everyone through alternative representations of masculinity in hip hop.How does including classical instruments in hip hop impact our view of the genre?How does the advent of rappers with different sexualities and gender performances into the mainstream impact hip hop now?Is it probable that there were LGBTQ rappers at the inception of hip hop? Dr. Joseph Ewoodzie weighs in…We continue to examine which voices who are valued in hip hop by zooming out and considering all of its historical influences.Tyler Bunzey offers some important cultural context around Southern rappers and the performance of gender in hip hop – how do different US cultures shape that performance within the genre?He also breaks down how gender and sexuality are racialized – why is queerness considered to be a white thing if Marsha P Johnson was at the forefront of LGBTQ rights movement?Referenced on this episode:Interview with Black ViolinBlack Violin's “Stereotypes”Tyler Bunzey's Hip Hop Sublime theoryDr. Ewoodzie's seminal book Break Beats in the BronxBig Freedia challenges hip hop as we know itDaphne Brooks's Liner Notes for the RevolutionCheck out our last Beneath the MASK

Bebop meets R&B . . the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet (Dizzy, Bill Graham on baritone sax, Wade Legge, Milt Jackson or Wynton Kelly on piano, Al Jones on drums, Percy Heath on bass) with Milt Jackson on vibes, Joe Caroll and Melvin Moore singing, and Stuff Smith on violin. 1951 recordings for DeeGee and Savoy and live at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, 1953. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

Most jazz fans know Dizzy Gillespie's crucial role in the creation of bebop and every good collection should have at least a few tracks from his glory days of the forties.  The man wrote "Night in Tunisia" for heaven's sake!  But what happened later on, after his partner Bird was gone and the listening public had moved on from ooh-bop-sh-bam madness?  In this episode we look at five recordings from the following decade and ponder why a genius-level player like Dizzy struggled after the bebop revolution.  Dizzy Gillespie: SONNY SIDE UP;  HAVE TRUMPET WILL EXCITE; AFRO;  DIZZY GILLESPIE WITH STUFF SMITH;  A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON.

On tonight's show: Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Ahmad Jamal, Gerry Mulligan, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Giuffre & Jim Hall, Zoot Sims & Bob Brookmeyer with Big Miller on vocals, Duke Ellington & Johnny Hodges, Stuff Smith, Duke Ellington & Ella Fitzgerald, Vince Guaraldi & Bola Sete, and Abbey Lincoln.

Tonight's Jazz Feature is our first for 2023 and it spotlights the talents of Dizzy Gillespie and Stuff Smith. Dizzy Gillespie is of course a Jazz pioneer and the major voice of Modern Jazz trumpet. Hezekiah "Stuff" Smith is a a rarity in Jazz, a master violinist. Stuff has that raw sound derived from the blues and a deep swing and a style that is very adaptable. Producer Norman Granz was right when he brought Stuff and Dizzy together as their outgoing musical personalities meshed and they lit a fire under each other. Dizzy chose the rhythm section wisely. Pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul West and swinging drummer J.C. Heard. There are only four tunes but they all allow the musicians to say their say. The first combines blues and exotica and is by Gillespie and is called "Rio Pakistan", the second is a bouncy standard familiar to all called "It's Only a Paper Moon" and the third is a minor key blues by Stuff and Dizzy called "Purple Sounds" and the last which begins with a rhapsodic intro by Stuff then launches into an up tempo swinger is Irving Berlin's "Russian Lullaby". Happy New Year from Stuff, Dizzy and company and from The Jazz Show!

En julklapp i form av ett MYCKET fullmatat avsnitt! Robert lyfter fram den nyligen hädangångne Jerry Lee Lewis utmärkta kåntryplattor och spelar lite rykande aktuell antropofagia av Os Mutantes. Love introducerar den förmodade onanisten C Duncan och håller en snabbkurs i Divine Comedy. Robert har gjort en mycket akademisk djupanalys av det norska progmetalbandet Leprous användning av polyrytmik. Love presenterar premiären för det nya fasta inslaget "Skiva sammanfattad som en spänstig och fräsch mix" genom att ge Komeda den uppmärksamhet de förtjänar. Robert presenterar i sin tur sina högstadiepersoner, i synnerhet en som bevisar att det går att vara besatt av Donovaan och Kenneth & the Knutters nästan samtidigt. Love har gjort såväl en hyllad låt som en mashup på Julian Cope och Magnetic Fields. Robert gör en DJ-mix med generösa doser öststatsfunk, turkadelica, HARD DRIVING ROCK och maoism. PJ Proby, Alan Hawkshaw, Tolkien, Iron Maiden, Moonspell, Kim Fowley, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, The Keffat Liv, Clark Gable, Joe Venuti, Stephane Grappelli, Kurt Weil, Burt Bacharach, Disney och Jussi Björling namecheckas och tungor talas i. I Bisarra hörnan hörs The Crooked Yet Fabulous Onions "vi vill vara Residents"-musik och urval från den avdankade storbandssångaren John Arcesis egenutgivna och mycket personliga lounge-psych-LP under artistnamnet Arcesia. Dessutom hörs valda stycken av The Carter Family, Billie Holiday, Ulf Dageby, Malicorne, Four Tet, Meatloaf, Black Sabbath och Ulf Ekman. ERRATA 1: Robert menade såklart "tenor" fastän han, på tal om Jussi Björling, råkade nämna en helt annan stämma. ERRATA 2: Robert tar tydligt avstånd från sitt underlåtande att nämna Stuff Smith när kända jazzviolinister kom på tal. Gör oss sällskap på Discord: https://discord.gg/Cywtq7vaqZ Gilla, kommentera och recensera på The Facebook: https://facebook.com/musikensmaktpodcast/ Bidra till Loves fysiska överlevnad och få lite bonusmaterial: https://www.patreon.com/musikensmakt

En julklapp i form av ett MYCKET fullmatat avsnitt! Robert lyfter fram den nyligen hädangångne Jerry Lee Lewis utmärkta kåntryplattor och spelar lite rykande aktuell antropofagia av Os Mutantes. Love introducerar den förmodade onanisten C Duncan och håller en snabbkurs i Divine Comedy. Robert har gjort en mycket akademisk djupanalys av det norska progmetalbandet Leprous användning av polyrytmik. Love presenterar premiären för det nya fasta inslaget "Skiva sammanfattad som en spänstig och fräsch mix" genom att ge Komeda den uppmärksamhet de förtjänar. Robert presenterar i sin tur sina högstadiepersoner, i synnerhet en som bevisar att det går att vara besatt av Donovaan och Kenneth & the Knutters nästan samtidigt. Love har gjort såväl en hyllad låt som en mashup på Julian Cope och Magnetic Fields. Robert gör en DJ-mix med generösa doser öststatsfunk, turkadelica, HARD DRIVING ROCK och maoism. PJ Proby, Alan Hawkshaw, Tolkien, Iron Maiden, Moonspell, Kim Fowley, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, The Keffat Liv, Clark Gable, Joe Venuti, Stephane Grappelli, Kurt Weil, Burt Bacharach, Disney och Jussi Björling namecheckas och tungor talas i. I Bisarra hörnan hörs The Crooked Yet Fabulous Onions "vi vill vara Residents"-musik och urval från den avdankade storbandssångaren John Arcesis egenutgivna och mycket personliga lounge-psych-LP under artistnamnet Arcesia. Dessutom hörs valda stycken av The Carter Family, Billie Holiday, Ulf Dageby, Malicorne, Four Tet, Meatloaf, Black Sabbath och Ulf Ekman. ERRATA 1: Robert menade såklart "tenor" fastän han, på tal om Jussi Björling, råkade nämna en helt annan stämma. ERRATA 2: Robert tar tydligt avstånd från sitt underlåtande att nämna Stuff Smith när kända jazzviolinister kom på tal.

Toe-tapping jazz tonight: Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson, Gene Krupa, Stuff Smith, Ben Webster & Johnny Hodges, Sergio Mendes, Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Hodges & Septet, Billy Taylor, Duke Ellington, Boots Randolph, Mongo Santamaria, New Orleans' Own The Dukes of Dixieland, Louise Tobin with Peanuts Hucko, Zoot Sims, and Dal Richards & His Orchestra.

Toe-tapping jazz tonight: Ken "Snakehips" Johnson, Gene Krupa, Stuff Smith, Ben Webster & Johnny Hodges, Sergio Mendes, Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Hodges & Septet, Billy Taylor, Duke Ellington, Boots Randolph, Mongo Santamaria, New Orleans' Own The Dukes of Dixieland, Louise Tobin with Peanuts Hucko, Zoot Sims, and Dal Richards & His Orchestra.

THE JAZZ FIDDLER! - some of the hottest and earliest recordings of fiddle jazz. From Joe Venuti, Eddie South , Stuff Smith , Emilio Caseres to the Mississippi Sheiks! From 1926-38! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/american-grooves-hour/support

1920年代的美國大麻還不違法，引領流行文化的爵士樂手們就是宣傳大麻的最佳代言人。捲煙、測量器、煙紙、雜草等等，都是爵士樂歌手演唱大麻歌曲時使用的俚語，這些詞彙後來也成為了至今仍被廣為使用的流行用語。 為什麼大麻和爵士樂之間有著這麼深的羈絆？大麻與爵士樂在美國黑人種族迫害中又被迫扮演了什麼角色？來聽聽大麻和爵士樂之間宛如苦命鴛鴦的愛情故事，以及污名化大麻的罪魁禍首安斯林格 (Harry Anslinger) 是怎樣一口氣衝康黑人、爵士樂和大麻的。 真是謝囉安斯林格^_^ Zoe 愛的大麻爵士樂歌單： “Hit That Jive Jack” by Nat King Cole (1940-41) “All The Jive is Gone” by Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy (1936) “When I Get Low I Get High” by Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb and His Orchestra (1936-37) “Reefer Man” by Cab Calloway (1932) “Viper Mad” by Sidney Bechet (1938) “The Reefer Song” by Mindless Drug Hoover (1997) “Sweet Marijuana Brown” by The Barney Bigard Sextet (1945) “Mellow Stuff” by Lil Johnson (1937) “Here Comes The Man With The Jive” by Stuff Smith (1936) “Save The Roach For Me” by Buck Washington (1944) 聽完這集之後就知道，懂 chill 的不只是饒舌歌手，還有爵士樂手啊～ ➖

In this episode violinist James Sanders and I discuss ground breaking jazz violinist Stuff Smith.

    ALPHONSO TRENT AND HIS ORCHESTRA – Richmond, Indiana, October 11, 1928 Black and blue rhapsody, The nightmare Chester Clark, Irving “Mouse” Randolph (tp) Snub Mosley (tb,vcl) James Jeter, Charles Pillars, Lee Hilliard (as) Hayes Pillars (ts,bar) STUFF SMITH (vln,vcl) Alphonso Trent (p,dir) Eugene Crooke (bj,g) Robert “Eppie” Jackson (tu) A.G. Godley (d) – […]

My birthday was April 7th..in thinking about what that Sunday's show could be I explored the zillions of songs about a man named JOE! - zillions of them- thus this episode! From Rosetta Crawfords' STOP IT JOE, Louis Armstrong LITTLE JOE, Butterbeans & Susie's UNCLE JOE and Stuff Smith's OLD JOE's HITTING THE JUG the songs of Joe abound!

Electric string instruments can give new energy to familiar classical pieces and also give familiar pop and rock songs a new classical-inspired twist. Join host Liz Lyon as she touches on the history of electric string instruments, and listen to some pieces performed on electric strings. Episode 75 playlist Stuff Smith: How High the Moon — Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith, better known as Stuff Smith, was an American jazz violinist credited as being the first performer to use electric amplification techniques on a violin.LISTEN — Stuff Smith: How High the Moon Stuff Smith: How High the Moon by John Adams: A New Day — Electric violin soloist Tracy Silverman refers to his type of instrumentation as “progressive string playing” — classical string playing that weaves in contemporary music genres like rock, jazz, and hip-hop. Here he is playing “A New Day,” by John Adams.LISTEN — John Adams: A New Day John Adams: A New Day by 2CELLOS: Eye of the Tiger — This cellist duo from Croatia are classically trained musicians who play instrumental arrangements of well-known pop and rock songs. They also play classical and film music and have even been featured on several TV series episodes.LISTEN — 2CELLOS: Eye of the Tiger 2CELLOS: Eye of the Tiger by Deborah Henson-Conant: Nightingale — Deborah Henson-Conant wrote this piece in memory of her mother's voice. “Nightingale” is her most-requested tune in concert. She often plays on an electric acoustic pedal harp, which can be used with an amplifier or played like a normal pedal harp. LISTEN — Deborah Henson-Conant: Nightingale Deborah Henson-Conant: Nightingale by You can now search and listen to YourClassical Adventures where podcasts are found. Explore more from YourClassical Adventures! What are you curious about? You must be 13 or older to submit any information to American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about things like our programs, products and services. See Terms of Use and Privacy.

First - an apology; I played the wrong Shakespeare song; it was meant to be 'Come Unto These Yellow Sands' but, instead, I played 'Come Away Death' which has nothing to do with sand at all. And I can't promise you Wilson, Betty & Keppel or Sandy Shaw, but I can offer plenty of sandy songs. Moon Hooch, The Chordettes, One Thousand Violins, Kirsty McGee, The Left Banke, Pat Boone, Delia Derbyshire, Stuff Smith, The Martin Best Ensemble and Medeski Martin And Wood, as well as many others, all ready to give you an absolute beach of a show!

Tonight on Jazz After Dark: Lester Young & The Kansas City Six, Lester Young & the King Cole Trio, Helyne Stewart, Les McCann Ltd. & Lou Rawls, Gene Ammons, Stuff Smith, Ramsey Lewis Trio, Lucky Thompson, Stephane Grappelli & Barney Kessel, Stephane Grappelli, Esther Satterfield, Stanley Cowell, Les Paul, and Luiz Bonfa.

Incursionamos en otra visión del jazz, esta vez por instrumentos. Ante la sugerencia de un seguidor, y en forma poco ortodoxa, en lugar de comenzar por saxos o trompeta, empezamos por el violín. En dos episodios recorremos los más salientes ejemplos. En el episodio de hoy vamos desde Joe Venuti en Chicago, pasando por Eddie South, Stuff Smith, Grappelli (por supuesto, el más grande), Hernán Oliva en el jazz tradicional y el rol de Jean-Luc Ponty en la electrificación del instrumento y la fusión, junto con Sugar Cane Harris.

Songs include: Jack O Diamond Blues, A String of Pearls, Lover's Gold, Sapphire. Ruby My Dear and The Moon Is a Silver Dollar. Performers include: Lawrence Welk, Glenn Miller, Lionel Hampton, Sippie Wallace, Stuff Smith and Carol Channing.

Music of Cole Porter tonight on Jazz After Dark. Prolific composer of the 20th Century, many of his songs became jazz standards thanks to vocal albums by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Julie London. We'll also hear instrumental versions from Stan Getz with Gerry Mulligan, Duke Ellington, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Stephane Grapelli, and Stuff Smith, as well as contemporary vocal covers by Dianne Reeves and Diana Krall. 

Reference recording for the tab posted--view my tabs here. This is my arrangement of this early jazz tune by Stuff Smith and popularized by the likes of Fats Waller in the 1930s and 40s. I learned this tune 40+ years ago and kind of forgot about it until it came up in a thread recently on BHO. I was working on a video demonstration to go with this until my camera decided it didn't want to cooperate anymore so until I figure that out this will have to do. It's a fun tune to play ... especially if you can find like minded musicians :)

Reference recording for the tab posted--view my tabs here. This is my arrangement of this early jazz tune by Stuff Smith and popularized by the likes of Fats Waller in the 1930s and 40s. I learned this tune 40+ years ago and kind of forgot about it until it came up in a thread recently on BHO. I was working on a video demonstration to go with this until my camera decided it didn't want to cooperate anymore so until I figure that out this will have to do. It's a fun tune to play ... especially if you can find like minded musicians :)

Violinist Stuff Smith: Once you hear his fabulous, swing-era playing, it's hard to forget. WNYC's Sara Fishko and guests celebrate Smith in this Fishko Files. (Produced in 2017)      Music: “Minuet in Swing”The Stuff Smith TrioStuff Smith, violin; Jimmy Jones, piano; John Levy, bassThe Stuff Smith Trio: 1943“Tain’t No Use”Burton Lane/Herbert MagidsonStuff Smith, violinThe Complete 1936-1937 Sessions “After You’ve Gone”Turner Layton/Henry CreamerStuff Smith, violinThe Complete 1936-1937 Sessions “Artistya”Mariam DoumbiaRegina Carter, violin; Gary Versace, accordion; Chris Lightcap, bass; Alvester Garnett, drumsReverse Thread (2010) “A Ghost of a Chance”Victor Young/Ned Washington/Bing CrosbyStuff Smith, violin; Jimmy Jones, piano; John Levy, bassThe Stuff Smith Trio: 1943 “Humoresque”(After Dvořák Humoresque)Stuff Smith, violin; Jimmy Jones, piano; John Levy, bassThe Stuff Smith Trio: 1943 “Rio Pakistan”Dizzy GillespieDizzy Gillespie, trumpet; Stuff Smith, violin; Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul West, bass; J.C. Heard, drumsDizzy Gillespie & Stuff Smith (1957)   Fishko Files with Sara Fishko Assistant Producer: Olivia BrileyMix Engineer: Bill MossEditor: Karen Frillmann

You'se A Viper - Stuff Smith and His Onyx Club Boys. Great Vocalion, Commodore and live sides featuring this busy 52nd street band and some of the hottest music of the era. Jazz violin never sounded so good backed up by Jonah Jones, Cozy Cole, Clyde Hart, Ben Webster and Buster Bailey --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/john-clark49/support

Have you or anyone you love struggled with porn or addiction?  Most of us know someone who has had serious struggles with it.  My guest today, Smith Alley, is a 17 YEAR OLD who has gone through the wringer.  Now he strives to help families protect their tech and their kids from the dangers the internet produces. This is a must-listen for parents.  Remember to follow me on Instagram @bulliesbe.gone for your daily dose of positivity.  Also hit up Smith  www.protechtstrong.com @protechtstrong on insta --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Paying tribute to musicians who died in 1967. These include: Ida Cox, Nelson Eddy, Paul Whiteman, Woody Guthrie, Pete Johnson, Billy Strayhorn, Muggsy Spanier, Moon Mullican and Stuff Smith. Music includes: I've Got You Under My Skin,  One Hour Mama, Concerto In F, Dive Bomber, Chelsea Bridge and Rose Marie.

Dr. John, Erja Lyytinen: Danger Zone; Harry Allen: New York State Of Mind; Stuff Smith, Oscar Peterson: It’s Wonderful; Dubbelaar: Ella Fitzgerald, the Delta Rhythm Boys: It’s Only A Paper Moon; Nat King Cole: It’s Only A Paper Moon; Kandace … Lees verder → Het bericht All That Jazzz – 30 juni 2020 – part 2 verscheen eerst op Jazzpodcast.nl.

STANDARD SEMANAL.- “Moment's Notice”.-JAZZ RECUERDO ANIVERSARIO.-Ronnie scott - the couriers of jazz!( & tubby hayes) (1958).-JAZZ ACTUALIDAD .- Ander Garcia Trio con su álbum “AMAHIRU” PROG.Nº 648.- Dos horas para el análisis y repaso a la historia y actualidad que generan esta música americana . Todo en el tono que acostumbra este programa, en dos secciones JAZZ ANIVERSARIO y JAZZ ACTUALIDAD importantes novedades y diferentes canales de comunicación que se ofrecerán al oyente. STANDARD SEMANAL.- “Moment's Notice” JAZZ RECUERDO ANIVERSARIO.-Ronnie scott - the couriers of jazz!( & tubby hayes) (1958) Ronnie Scott & Tubby Hayes - The Couriers Of Jazz* ?– The Couriers Of Jazz Sello: Carlton ?– LP12-116 Formato: Vinyl, LP, Mono País: US Publicado: 1958 Género: Jazz Estilo: Bop Lista de Títulos A1 Mirage 5:20 A2 After Tea 7:50 A3 Stop The World, I Want To Get Off 3:40 A4 In Salah 3:50 B1 Star Eyes 4:10 B2 The Monk 4:35 B3 My Funny Valentine 4:45 B4 Day In, Day Out 5:30 Créditos • Bass – Jeff Clyne • Drums – Bill Eyden • Piano – Terry Shannon • Tenor Saxophone – Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes Ronnie Scott OBE (nacido Ronald Schatt , 28 de enero de 1927 - 23 de diciembre de 1996) era un saxofonista tenor inglés de jazz y propietario de un club de jazz. [1] Cofundó el Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club , uno de los clubes de jazz más populares del Reino Unido, en 1959. Ronnie Scott nació en Aldgate , East London , en una familia judía. Su padre, Joseph Schatt, era de ascendencia rusa, y la familia de su madre Sylvia asistió a la sinagoga portuguesa en Alie Street. Scott asistió a la Fundación Central Boys 'School . Scott comenzó a tocar en pequeños clubes de jazz a la edad de 16 años. Su reclamo a la fama fue que "el suegro de Vera Lynn le enseñó a tocar". Estuvo de gira con el trompetista Johnny Claes de 1944 a 1945 y con Ted Heath en 1946. Trabajó con Ambrose , Cab Kaye y Tito Burns . Estuvo involucrado en la cooperativa banda y club Club Eleven de músicos de corta duración (1948–50) con Johnny Dankworth . Scott se hizo conocido del arreglista / compositor Tadd Dameron , cuando el estadounidense trabajaba en el Reino Unido para Heath, y se informa que actuó con Dameron como el pianista, en un concierto de Club Eleven. Scott fue miembro de la generación de músicos británicos que trabajaron en el transatlántico Cunard Queen Mary de forma intermitente desde 1946 hasta alrededor de 1950 para visitar la ciudad de Nueva York y escuchar la nueva forma de jazz llamada bebop en los clubes de allí. Scott fue uno de los primeros músicos británicos influenciados por Charlie Parker y otros músicos de jazz moderno. En 1952, Scott se unió a la orquesta de Jack Parnell y de 1953 a 1956 dirigió una banda y quinteto de nueve integrantes que incluyó a Pete King , con quien luego abrió su club de jazz, Victor Feldman , Hank Shaw y Phil Seamen . Co-dirigió The Jazz Couriers con Tubby Hayes de 1957 a 1959 y fue líder de un cuarteto que incluía a Stan Tracey (1960-67). De 1967 a 1969, Scott fue miembro de la Big Band Kenny Clarke / Francy Boland , que recorrió Europa e incluyó a Johnny Griffin y Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis . Simultáneamente, dirigió su octeto, que incluía a John Surman y Kenny Wheeler , y un trío con Mike Carr en los teclados y Bobby Gien en la batería (1971–1975). Las otras bandas de Scott a menudo incluían a John Critchinson en los teclados y Martin Drew en la batería. Hizo un trabajo de sesión ocasional, que incluyó tocar el solo en " Lady Madonna ", el sencillo de 1968 de los Beatles , tocar en la partitura de Roy Budd para la película Fear Is the Key (1972) y tocar el solo de saxo tenor en " I Missed Again ", el sencillo de 1981 de Phil Collins . Charles Mingus dijo de él en 1961: "De los niños blancos, Ronnie Scott se acerca al sentimiento del negro y azul, como lo hace Zoot Sims ". [9] Scott grabó con poca frecuencia durante las últimas décadas de su carrera. Sufría de depresión. Mientras se recuperaba de una cirugía para implantes dentales, murió a la edad de 69 años de una sobredosis accidental de barbitúricos recetados por su dentista. La viuda de Ronnie Scott, Mary Scott, y su hija, Rebecca Scott, escribieron las memorias A Fine Kind of Madness: Ronnie Scott Remembered , con un prólogo de Spike Milligan. El libro fue publicado en 1999 en Londres por Headline Book Publishing. Scott es quizás mejor recordado por su cofundación, con el ex tenista de saxo tenor Pete King , Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club , que abrió el 30 de octubre de 1959 en un sótano en 39 Gerrard Street en el distrito Soho de Londres , con el debut de un joven alto El saxofonista llamado Peter King (sin relación), antes de mudarse a un lugar más cercano en 47 Frith Street en 1965. El lugar original continuó operando como el "Old Place" hasta que el contrato de arrendamiento se agotó en 1967, y fue utilizado para actuaciones de la nueva generación de músicos nacionales. Scott actuó regularmente como el genial Maestro de Ceremonias del club, y se destacó por su repertorio de bromas, comentarios y frases ingeniosas. Una introducción típica podría ser: "Nuestro próximo invitado es uno de los mejores músicos del país. En la ciudad, es una mierda". Otro anuncio memorable fue: "La próxima semana estamos orgullosos de tener un cuarteto con Stan Getz y el violinista Stuff Smith. Se llama el" Cuarteto relleno de Getz ". Ronnie solía usar en los últimos días los servicios de John Schatt para reservar bandas de rock para Ronnie. Scott está arriba. Después de la muerte de Scott, King continuó dirigiendo el club durante otros nueve años, antes de venderlo al empresario de teatro Sally Greene en junio de 2005. En septiembre de 2013, mientras se redecoraba el club, se colocó un acaparamiento de 12 metros cuadrados en la fachada de la calle Frith como un homenaje a su fundador homónimo, con una fotografía gigante de Ronnie Scott por Val Wilmer , junto a una de su legendaria -liners: "Me encanta este lugar, es como estar en casa, sucio y lleno de extraños". Además de participar en orquestas de nombre, Scott dirigió o co-dirigió numerosas bandas con algunos de los músicos de jazz más destacados de Gran Bretaña del día. JAZZ ACTUALIDAD .-Esta semana vamos a tener al contrabajista Ander Garcia Trio con su álbum “AMAHIRU” Cuando los ingredientes son sobradamente conocidos, tendemos a pensar que los resultados también serán los habituales. Y aunque a menudo es así, cuando esos mismos ingredientes caen en manos de un artitsta valiente, obstinado y brillante como Ander Garcia la sorpresa puede ser mayúscula. Y este bello y excitante nuevo trabajo que se presenta bajo el nombre de Ander Garcia Trio sin duda lo es. En ese sentido, son especialmente destacables sus discos en solitario “Ttun Kurrun” y “Hiru”, ampliamente aclamados por la crítica especializada. Pero en el caso que nos ocupa, el del trio que forma junto al piano de Jorge Castañeda y la batería de Mikel Urretagoiena, nos encontramos con el Ander Garcia mas explorador y aventurero. En este proyecto Ander utiliza las métricas y melodías de ancestrales bailes y bersos euskaldunes para desarrollar sus improvisaciones, y al mismo tiempo los moldea y adapta a nuevos contextos musicales creando un espacio de intercambio limbre entre ellos. De este modo el ritmo de la ezpata dantza se convierte en danza latinoaméricana, y partiendo del de los zortzikos llega a un híbrido rítimico absolutamente contemporáneo y desconocido, o se lanza a llevar el ritmo del tamboril a la batería para diseccionarlo en un abánico de variantes deslumbrante. Las oportunidades para la sorpresa son infinitas en este disco.

If you want to buy any of the books and CDs mentioned by Anthony in this episode you can do so via his website at ... http://www.abar.net or by emailing him directly at ... ab@abar.net You can become a patron of the podcast on Patreon by following this link https://www.patreon.com/Jazzviolinpodcast Becoming a patron of the podcast means that you are directly helping the podcast continue. This is a chance for you to help out with the running costs of the podcast, if you feel like you get a lot out of my interviews you can be a part of it by donating a small amount of money. I will be creating one extra monthly show specifically for my patrons. This is either an interview with a musician I know from the jazz scene or I also create episodes where I listen back to previous shows and chat about some key points that my guests bring up. There are so many great ideas and concepts that these amazing musicians bring up and I would like to share with you some of my favourites! Anthony Barnett Anthony Barnett is a writer, poet, jazz historian and owner of AB Fable recordings. He has dedicated most of his life to researching and publishing material around jazz violin legend Stuff Smith as well as many other jazz violinists. He is the leading expert on Stuff Smith and has issued many rare recordings of Stuff and other violinists.  The music at the beginning of the episode is Stuff Smith - Midway & Stuff Smith and Dizzy Gillespie - Purple Sounds The outro music is my band Latchepen playing Benny Golson's 'Whisper Not' https://www.latchepen.com/ I feature English violinist Olivia Moore with a unnamed trio playing here piece 'Triangles'  

Welcome to episode forty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. This one looks at “Rock With the Caveman” by Tommy Steele, and the birth of the British rock and roll industry. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a bonus episode available. This one’s on “The Death of Rock and Roll” by the Maddox Brothers and Rose, in which we look at a country group some say invented rock & roll, and how they reacted badly to it  —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. This double-CD set contains all Steele’s rock and roll material, plus a selection of songs from the musicals he appeared in later. This MP3 compilation, meanwhile, contains a huge number of skiffle records and early British attempts at rock and roll, including Steele’s. Much of the music is not very good, but I can’t imagine a better way of getting an understanding of the roots of British rock. Pete Frame’s The Restless Generation is the best book available looking at British 50s rock and roll from a historical perspective. Billy Bragg’s Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World is one of the best books I’ve read on music at all, and covers Steele from the skiffle perspective. Fings Ain’t What They Used T’Be: The Life of Lionel Bart by David & Caroline Stafford gave me a lot of information on Steel’s songwriting partner. Steele’s autobiography, Bermondsey Boy, covers his childhood and early stardom. I am not 100% convinced of its accuracy, but it’s an entertaining book, and if nothing else probably gives a good idea of the mental atmosphere in the poor parts of South London in the war and immediate post-war years. And George Melly’s Revolt Into Style was one of the first books to take British pop culture seriously, and puts Steele into a wider context of British pop, both music and art. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Let’s talk a little bit about the Piltdown Man. Piltdown Man was an early example of a hominid — a missing link between the apes and humans. Its skull was discovered in 1912 in Piltdown, East Sussex, by the eminent archaeologist Charles Dawson, and for years was considered one of the most important pieces of evidence in the story of human evolution. And then, in 1953, it was discovered that the whole thing was a hoax, and not even a particularly good one. Someone had just taken the jaw of an orang-utan and the top part of a human skull, and filed down the orang-utan teeth, and then stained the bones to make them look old. It was almost certainly the work of Dawson himself, who seems to have spent his entire life making fraudulent discoveries. Dawson had died decades earlier, and the full extent of his fraud wasn’t even confirmed until 2003. Sometimes researching the history of rock and roll can be a lot like that. You can find a story repeated in numerous apparently reliable books, and then find out that it’s all based on the inaccurate testimony of a single individual. The story never happened. It was just something someone made up. [Excerpt: “Rock With the Caveman”, Tommy Steele and the Steelmen] We talked a little while ago about the skiffle movement, and the first British guitar-based pop music. Today, we’re going to look at the dawn of British rock and roll. Now, there’s an important thing to note about the first wave of British rock and roll, and that is that it was, essentially, a music that had no roots in the culture. It was an imitation of American music, without any of the ties to social issues that made the American music so interesting. Britain in the 1950s was a very different place to the one it is today, or to America. It was ethnically extremely homogeneous, as the waves of immigration that have so improved the country had only just started. And while few people travelled much outside their own immediate areas, it was culturally more homogeneous as well, as Britain, unlike America, had a national media rather than a local one. In Britain, someone could become known throughout the country before they’d played their second gig, if they got the right media exposure. And so British rock and roll started out at the point that American rock and roll was only just starting to get to — a clean-cut version of the music, with little black influence or sexuality left in it, designed from the outset to be a part of mainstream showbusiness aimed at teenagers, not music for an underclass or a racial or sexual minority. Britain’s first rock and roll star put out his first record in November 1956, and by November 1957 he was appearing on the Royal Variety Show, with Mario Lanza, Bob Monkhouse, and Vera Lynn. That is, fundamentally, what early British rock and roll was. Keep that in mind for the rest of the story, as we look at how a young sailor from a dirt-poor family became Britain’s first teen idol. To tell that story, we first have to discuss the career of the Vipers Skiffle Group. That was the group’s full name, and they were just about the most important British group of the mid-fifties, even though they were never as commercially successful as some of the acts we’ve looked at. The name of the Vipers Skiffle Group was actually the first drug reference in British pop music. They took the name from the autobiography of the American jazz clarinettist Mezz Mezzrow — a man who was better known in the jazz community as a dope dealer than as a musician; so much so that “Mezz” itself became slang for marijuana, while “viper” became the name for dope smokers, as you can hear in this recording by Stuff Smith, in which he sings that he “dreamed about a reefer five foot long/Mighty Mezz but not too strong”. [Excerpt: Stuff Smith, “You’se a Viper”] So when Wally Whyton, Johnny Booker, and Jean Van Den Bosch formed a guitar trio, they chose that name, even though as it turned out none of them actually smoked dope. They just thought it sounded cool. They started performing at a cafe called the 2is (two as in the numeral, I as in the letter), and started to build up something of a reputation — to the point that Lonnie Donegan started nicking their material. Whyton had taken an old sea shanty, “Sail Away Ladies”, popularised by the country banjo player Uncle Dave Macon, and rewritten it substantially, turning it into “Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O”. Donegan copyrighted Whyton’s song as soon as he heard it, and rushed out his version of it, but the Vipers put out their own version too, and the two chased each other up the charts. Donegan’s charted higher, but the Vipers ended up at a respectable number ten: [Excerpt: The Vipers, “Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O”] That recording was on Parlophone records, and was produced by a young producer who normally did comedy and novelty records, named George Martin. We’ll be hearing more about him later on. But at the time we’re talking about, the Vipers had not yet gained a recording contract, and they were still playing the 2is. Occasionally, they would be joined on stage by a young acquaintance named Thomas Hicks. Hicks was a merchant seaman, and was away at sea most of the time, and so was never a full part of the group, but even though he didn’t care much for skiffle — he was a country and western fan first and foremost — he played guitar, and in Britain in 1955 and 56, if you played guitar, you played skiffle. Hicks had come from an absolutely dirt-poor background. Three of his siblings had died at cruelly young ages, and young Thomas himself had had several brushes with ill health, which meant that while he was a voracious reader he had lacked formal education. He had wanted to be a performer from a very early age, and had developed a routine that he used to do around the pubs in his early teens, in which he would mime to a record by Danny Kaye, “Knock on Wood”: [Excerpt: Danny Kaye, “Knock on Wood”] But at age fifteen he had joined the Merchant Navy. This isn’t the same thing as the Royal Navy, but rather is the group of commercial shipping companies that provide non-military shipping, and Hicks worked as wait staff on a cruise ship making regular trips to America. On an early trip, he fell in love with the music of Hank Williams, who would remain a favourite of his for the rest of his life, and he particularly loved the song “Kaw-Liga”: [Excerpt: Hank Williams, “Kaw-Liga”] Hicks replaced his old party piece of miming to Danny Kaye with a new one of singing “Kaw-Liga”, with accompaniment from anyone he could persuade to play guitar for him. Eventually one of his crewmates taught him how to play the song himself, and he started performing with pick-up groups, singing Hank Williams songs, whenever he was on shore leave in the UK. And when he couldn’t get a paid gig he’d head to the 2is and sing with the Vipers. But then came the event that changed his life. Young Tommy Hicks, with his love of country music, was delighted when on shore leave in 1955 to see an advert for a touring show based on the Grand Ole Opry, in Norfolk Virginia, where he happened to be. Of course he went along, and there he saw something that made a huge impression. One of the acts in the middle of the bill was a young man who wore horn-rimmed glasses. Tommy still remembers the details to this day. The young man came out and did a three-song set. The first song was a standard country song, but the second one was something else; something that hit like a bolt of lightning: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, “Peggy Sue”] That song was young Thomas Hicks’ introduction to the new music called rock and roll, and nothing would ever be the same for him ever again after seeing Buddy Holly sing “Peggy Sue”. By February 1956 he had finished working on the cruise ships, and was performing rock and roll in London, the very first British rock and roller. Except… There’s a reason why we’re covering Tommy Steele *before* Buddy Holly, the man who he claims as his inspiration. Buddy Holly *did* perform with a Grand Ole Opry tour. But it didn’t tour until May 1956, three months after Thomas Hicks quit his job on the cruise ships, and about a year after the time Tommy claims to have seen him. That tour only hit Oklahoma, which is landlocked, and didn’t visit Norfolk Virginia. According to various timelines put together by people like the Buddy Holly Centre in Lubbock Texas, Holly didn’t perform outside Lubbock until that tour, and that’s the only time he did perform outside West Texas until 1957. Also, Buddy Holly didn’t meet Peggy Sue Gerron, the woman who gave the song its name, until 1956, and the song doesn’t seem to have been written until 1957. So whatever it was that introduced young Tommy Hicks to the wonders of rock and roll, it wasn’t seeing Buddy Holly sing “Peggy Sue” in Norfolk Virginia in 1955. But that’s the story that’s in his autobiography, and that’s the story that’s in every other source I’ve seen on the subject, because they’re all just repeating what he said, on the assumption that he’d remember something like that, something which was so important in his life and future career. Remember what I said at the beginning, about rock and roll history being like dealing with Piltdown Man? Yeah. There are a lot of inaccuracies in the life story of Thomas Hicks, who became famous under the name Tommy Steele. Anything I tell you about him is based on information he put out, and that information is not always the truth, so be warned. For example, when he started his career, he claimed he’d worked his way up on the cruise ships to being a gymnastics instructor — something that the shipping federation denied to the press. You find a lot of that kind of thing when you dig into Steele’s stories. In fact, by the time Hicks started performing, there had already been at least one British rock and roll record made. He wasn’t bringing something new that he’d discovered in America at all. “Rock Around the Clock”, the Bill Haley film, had played in UK cinemas at around the time of Hicks’ supposed epiphany, and it had inspired a modern jazz drummer, Tony Crombie, to form Tony Crombie and the Rockets and record a Bill Haley soundalike called “Teach You To Rock”: [Excerpt: Tony Crombie and the Rockets, “Teach You To Rock”] However, Crombie was not teen idol material — a serious jazz drummer in his thirties, he soon went back to playing bebop, and has largely been written out of British rock history since, in favour of Tommy Steele as the first British rock and roller. Thomas Hicks the merchant seaman became Tommy Steele the pop idol as a result of a chance meeting. Hicks went to a party with a friend, and the host was a man called Lionel Bart, who was celebrating because he’d just sold his first song, to the bandleader Bill Cotton. No recording of that song seems to exist, but the lyrics to the song — a lament about the way that old-style cafes were being replaced by upscale coffee bars — are quoted in a biography of Bart: “Oh for a cup of tea, instead of a cuppuchini/What would it mean to me, just one little cup so teeny!/You ask for some char and they reckon you’re barmy/Ask for a banger, they’ll give you salami/Oh for the liquid they served in the Army/Just a cup of tea!” Heartrending stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. But Bart was proud of the twenty-five guineas the song had earned him, and so he was having a party. Bart was at the centre of a Bohemian crowd in Soho, and the party was held at a squat where Bart, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, spent most of his time. At that squat at various times around this period lived, among others, the playwright John Antrobus, the actor Shirley Eaton, who would later become famous as the woman painted gold in the beginning of Goldfinger, and the great folk guitarist Davey Graham, who would later become famous for his instrumental, “Angi”: [Excerpt: Davey Graham, “Angi”] We’ll hear more about Graham in future episodes. Another inhabitant of the squat was Mike Pratt, a guitarist and pianist who would later turn to acting and become famous as Jeff Randall in the fantasy detective series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Hicks, Bart, and Pratt started collaborating on songs together — Hicks would bring in a basic idea, and then Bart would write the lyrics and Pratt the music. They also performed as The Cavemen, though Bart soon tired of playing washboard and stuck to writing. The Cavemen became a floating group of musicians, centred around Hicks and Pratt, and with various Vipers and other skifflers pulled in as and when they were available. The various skiffle musicians looked down on Hicks, because of his tendency to want to play “Heartbreak Hotel” or “Blue Suede Shoes” rather than “Bring a Little Water Sylvie” or “Rock Island Line”, but a gig was a gig, and they had to admit that Hicks seemed to go down well with the young women in the audience. Two minor music industry people, Bill Varley and Roy Tuvey, agreed to manage Hicks, but they decided that they needed someone involved who would be able to publicise Hicks, so they invited John Kennedy, a PR man from New Zealand, to come to the 2is to see him. Hicks wasn’t actually playing the 2is the night in question – it was the Vipers, who were just on the verge of getting signed and recording their first single: [Excerpt: The Vipers Skiffle Group, “Ain’t You Glad?”] While Hicks wasn’t scheduled to play, at the request of Varley and Tuvey he jumped on stage when the Vipers took a break, and sang a song that he, Bart, and Pratt had written, called “Rock With the Caveman”. Kennedy was impressed. He was impressed enough, in fact, that he brought in a friend, Larry Parnes, who would go on to become the most important manager in British rock and roll in the fifties and early sixties. Kennedy, Parnes, and Hicks cut Varley and Tuvey out altogether — to the extent that neither of them are even mentioned in the version of this story in Tommy Steele’s autobiography. Hicks was renamed Tommy Steele, in a nod to his paternal grandfather Thomas Stil-Hicks (the Stil in that name is spelled either Stil or Stijl, depending on which source you believe) and Parnes would go on to name a whole host of further rock stars in a similar manner — Duffy Power, Johnny Gentle, Billy Fury, Marty Wilde. They had everything except a record contract, but that was why Kennedy was there. Kennedy rented a big house, and hired a load of showgirls, models, and sex workers to turn up for a party and bring their boyfriends. They were to dress nicely, talk in fake posh accents, and if anyone asked who they were they were to give fake double-barrelled names. He then called the press and said it was “the first high society rock and roll show” and that the girls were all debutantes. The story made the newspapers, and got Steele national attention. Steele was signed by Decca records, where Hugh Mendl, the producer of “Rock Island Line”, was so eager to sign him that he didn’t check if any studios were free for his audition, and so Britain’s first homegrown rock idol auditioned for his record contract in the gents’ toilets. A bunch of slumming jazz musicians, including Dave Lee, the pianist with the Dankworth band, and the legendary saxophone player Ronnie Scott, were brought in to record “Rock With the Caveman”: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, “Rock With the Caveman”] The single went to number thirteen. Tommy Steele was now a bona fide rock and roll star, at least in the UK. The next record, “Elevator Rock”, didn’t do so well, however: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, “Elevator Rock”] That failed to chart, so Steele’s producers went for the well-worn trick in British record making of simply copying a US hit. Guy Mitchell had just released “Singing the Blues”: [Excerpt: Guy Mitchell, “Singing the Blues”] That was actually a cover version of a recording by Marty Robbins from earlier in the year, but Mitchell’s version was the one that became the big hit. And Steele was brought into the studio to record a soundalike version, and hopefully get it out before Mitchell’s version hit the charts. Steele’s version has an identical arrangement and sound to Mitchell’s, except that Steele sings it in an incredibly mannered Elvis impression: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, “Singing the Blues”] Now, to twenty-first century ears, Steele’s version is clearly inferior. But here was the birth of something particularly English — and indeed something particularly London — in rock and roll music. The overly mannered, music-hall inspired, Cockneyfied impression of an American singing style. On Steele’s subsequent tour, a nine-year old kid called David Jones, who would later change his name to Bowie, went to see him and came away inspired to become a rock and roll star. And we can hear in this performance the roots of Bowie’s own London take on Elvis, as we can also hear a style that would be taken up by Anthony Newley, Ray Davies, and many more masters of Cockney archness. I don’t think “Singing the Blues” is a particularly good record compared to Mitchell’s, but it is a prototype for something that would become good, and it deserves recognition for that. Mitchell’s version got out first, and went to the top of the charts, with Steele’s following close behind, but then for one week Mitchell’s record label had a minor distribution problem, and Steele took over the top spot, before Mitchell’s record returned to number one the next week. Tommy Steele had become the first British rock and roll singer to get to number one in the UK charts. It would be the only time he would do so, but it was enough. He was a bona fide teen idol. He was so big, in fact, that even his brother, Colin Hicks, became a minor rock and roll star himself off the back of his brother’s success: [Excerpt: Colin Hicks and the Cabin Boys, “Hollering and Screaming”] The drummer on that record, Jimmy Nicol, later had his fifteen minutes of fame when Ringo Starr got tonsilitis just before a tour of Australia, and for a few shows Nicol got to be a substitute Beatle. Very soon, Tommy Steele moved on into light entertainment. First he moved into films — starting with “The Tommy Steele Story”, a film based on his life, for which he, Bart, and Pratt wrote all twelve of the songs in a week to meet the deadline, and then he went into stage musicals. Within a year, he had given up on rock and roll altogether. But rock and roll hadn’t *quite* given up on him. While Steele was appearing in stage musicals, one was also written about him — a hurtful parody of his life, which he claimed later he’d wanted to sue over. In Expresso Bongo, a satire of the British music industry, Steele was parodied as “Bongo Herbert”, who rises to fame with no talent whatsoever. That stage musical was then rewritten for a film version, with the satire taken out of it, so it was a straight rags-to-riches story. It was made into a vehicle for another singer who had been a regular at the 2is, and whose backing band was made up of former members of the Vipers Skiffle Group: [Excerpt: Cliff Richard, “Love” (from Expresso Bongo)] We’ll talk about both Cliff Richard and the Shadows in future episodes though… Tommy Steele would go on to become something of a national treasure, working on stage with Gene Kelly and on screen with Fred Astaire, writing several books, having a minor artistic career as a sculptor, and touring constantly in pantomimes and musicals. At age eighty-two he still tours every year, performing as Scrooge in a stage musical version of A Christmas Carol. His 1950s hits remain popular enough in the UK that a compilation of them went to number twenty-two in the charts in 2009. He may not leave a large body of rock and roll work, but without him, there would be no British rock and roll industry as we know it, and the rest of this history would be very different.

Welcome to episode forty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. This one looks at “Rock With the Caveman” by Tommy Steele, and the birth of the British rock and roll industry. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a bonus episode available. This one’s on “The Death of Rock and Roll” by the Maddox Brothers and Rose, in which we look at a country group some say invented rock & roll, and how they reacted badly to it  —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. This double-CD set contains all Steele’s rock and roll material, plus a selection of songs from the musicals he appeared in later. This MP3 compilation, meanwhile, contains a huge number of skiffle records and early British attempts at rock and roll, including Steele’s. Much of the music is not very good, but I can’t imagine a better way of getting an understanding of the roots of British rock. Pete Frame’s The Restless Generation is the best book available looking at British 50s rock and roll from a historical perspective. Billy Bragg’s Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World is one of the best books I’ve read on music at all, and covers Steele from the skiffle perspective. Fings Ain’t What They Used T’Be: The Life of Lionel Bart by David & Caroline Stafford gave me a lot of information on Steel’s songwriting partner. Steele’s autobiography, Bermondsey Boy, covers his childhood and early stardom. I am not 100% convinced of its accuracy, but it’s an entertaining book, and if nothing else probably gives a good idea of the mental atmosphere in the poor parts of South London in the war and immediate post-war years. And George Melly’s Revolt Into Style was one of the first books to take British pop culture seriously, and puts Steele into a wider context of British pop, both music and art. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Let’s talk a little bit about the Piltdown Man. Piltdown Man was an early example of a hominid — a missing link between the apes and humans. Its skull was discovered in 1912 in Piltdown, East Sussex, by the eminent archaeologist Charles Dawson, and for years was considered one of the most important pieces of evidence in the story of human evolution. And then, in 1953, it was discovered that the whole thing was a hoax, and not even a particularly good one. Someone had just taken the jaw of an orang-utan and the top part of a human skull, and filed down the orang-utan teeth, and then stained the bones to make them look old. It was almost certainly the work of Dawson himself, who seems to have spent his entire life making fraudulent discoveries. Dawson had died decades earlier, and the full extent of his fraud wasn’t even confirmed until 2003. Sometimes researching the history of rock and roll can be a lot like that. You can find a story repeated in numerous apparently reliable books, and then find out that it’s all based on the inaccurate testimony of a single individual. The story never happened. It was just something someone made up. [Excerpt: “Rock With the Caveman”, Tommy Steele and the Steelmen] We talked a little while ago about the skiffle movement, and the first British guitar-based pop music. Today, we’re going to look at the dawn of British rock and roll. Now, there’s an important thing to note about the first wave of British rock and roll, and that is that it was, essentially, a music that had no roots in the culture. It was an imitation of American music, without any of the ties to social issues that made the American music so interesting. Britain in the 1950s was a very different place to the one it is today, or to America. It was ethnically extremely homogeneous, as the waves of immigration that have so improved the country had only just started. And while few people travelled much outside their own immediate areas, it was culturally more homogeneous as well, as Britain, unlike America, had a national media rather than a local one. In Britain, someone could become known throughout the country before they’d played their second gig, if they got the right media exposure. And so British rock and roll started out at the point that American rock and roll was only just starting to get to — a clean-cut version of the music, with little black influence or sexuality left in it, designed from the outset to be a part of mainstream showbusiness aimed at teenagers, not music for an underclass or a racial or sexual minority. Britain’s first rock and roll star put out his first record in November 1956, and by November 1957 he was appearing on the Royal Variety Show, with Mario Lanza, Bob Monkhouse, and Vera Lynn. That is, fundamentally, what early British rock and roll was. Keep that in mind for the rest of the story, as we look at how a young sailor from a dirt-poor family became Britain’s first teen idol. To tell that story, we first have to discuss the career of the Vipers Skiffle Group. That was the group’s full name, and they were just about the most important British group of the mid-fifties, even though they were never as commercially successful as some of the acts we’ve looked at. The name of the Vipers Skiffle Group was actually the first drug reference in British pop music. They took the name from the autobiography of the American jazz clarinettist Mezz Mezzrow — a man who was better known in the jazz community as a dope dealer than as a musician; so much so that “Mezz” itself became slang for marijuana, while “viper” became the name for dope smokers, as you can hear in this recording by Stuff Smith, in which he sings that he “dreamed about a reefer five foot long/Mighty Mezz but not too strong”. [Excerpt: Stuff Smith, “You’se a Viper”] So when Wally Whyton, Johnny Booker, and Jean Van Den Bosch formed a guitar trio, they chose that name, even though as it turned out none of them actually smoked dope. They just thought it sounded cool. They started performing at a cafe called the 2is (two as in the numeral, I as in the letter), and started to build up something of a reputation — to the point that Lonnie Donegan started nicking their material. Whyton had taken an old sea shanty, “Sail Away Ladies”, popularised by the country banjo player Uncle Dave Macon, and rewritten it substantially, turning it into “Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O”. Donegan copyrighted Whyton’s song as soon as he heard it, and rushed out his version of it, but the Vipers put out their own version too, and the two chased each other up the charts. Donegan’s charted higher, but the Vipers ended up at a respectable number ten: [Excerpt: The Vipers, “Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O”] That recording was on Parlophone records, and was produced by a young producer who normally did comedy and novelty records, named George Martin. We’ll be hearing more about him later on. But at the time we’re talking about, the Vipers had not yet gained a recording contract, and they were still playing the 2is. Occasionally, they would be joined on stage by a young acquaintance named Thomas Hicks. Hicks was a merchant seaman, and was away at sea most of the time, and so was never a full part of the group, but even though he didn’t care much for skiffle — he was a country and western fan first and foremost — he played guitar, and in Britain in 1955 and 56, if you played guitar, you played skiffle. Hicks had come from an absolutely dirt-poor background. Three of his siblings had died at cruelly young ages, and young Thomas himself had had several brushes with ill health, which meant that while he was a voracious reader he had lacked formal education. He had wanted to be a performer from a very early age, and had developed a routine that he used to do around the pubs in his early teens, in which he would mime to a record by Danny Kaye, “Knock on Wood”: [Excerpt: Danny Kaye, “Knock on Wood”] But at age fifteen he had joined the Merchant Navy. This isn’t the same thing as the Royal Navy, but rather is the group of commercial shipping companies that provide non-military shipping, and Hicks worked as wait staff on a cruise ship making regular trips to America. On an early trip, he fell in love with the music of Hank Williams, who would remain a favourite of his for the rest of his life, and he particularly loved the song “Kaw-Liga”: [Excerpt: Hank Williams, “Kaw-Liga”] Hicks replaced his old party piece of miming to Danny Kaye with a new one of singing “Kaw-Liga”, with accompaniment from anyone he could persuade to play guitar for him. Eventually one of his crewmates taught him how to play the song himself, and he started performing with pick-up groups, singing Hank Williams songs, whenever he was on shore leave in the UK. And when he couldn’t get a paid gig he’d head to the 2is and sing with the Vipers. But then came the event that changed his life. Young Tommy Hicks, with his love of country music, was delighted when on shore leave in 1955 to see an advert for a touring show based on the Grand Ole Opry, in Norfolk Virginia, where he happened to be. Of course he went along, and there he saw something that made a huge impression. One of the acts in the middle of the bill was a young man who wore horn-rimmed glasses. Tommy still remembers the details to this day. The young man came out and did a three-song set. The first song was a standard country song, but the second one was something else; something that hit like a bolt of lightning: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, “Peggy Sue”] That song was young Thomas Hicks’ introduction to the new music called rock and roll, and nothing would ever be the same for him ever again after seeing Buddy Holly sing “Peggy Sue”. By February 1956 he had finished working on the cruise ships, and was performing rock and roll in London, the very first British rock and roller. Except… There’s a reason why we’re covering Tommy Steele *before* Buddy Holly, the man who he claims as his inspiration. Buddy Holly *did* perform with a Grand Ole Opry tour. But it didn’t tour until May 1956, three months after Thomas Hicks quit his job on the cruise ships, and about a year after the time Tommy claims to have seen him. That tour only hit Oklahoma, which is landlocked, and didn’t visit Norfolk Virginia. According to various timelines put together by people like the Buddy Holly Centre in Lubbock Texas, Holly didn’t perform outside Lubbock until that tour, and that’s the only time he did perform outside West Texas until 1957. Also, Buddy Holly didn’t meet Peggy Sue Gerron, the woman who gave the song its name, until 1956, and the song doesn’t seem to have been written until 1957. So whatever it was that introduced young Tommy Hicks to the wonders of rock and roll, it wasn’t seeing Buddy Holly sing “Peggy Sue” in Norfolk Virginia in 1955. But that’s the story that’s in his autobiography, and that’s the story that’s in every other source I’ve seen on the subject, because they’re all just repeating what he said, on the assumption that he’d remember something like that, something which was so important in his life and future career. Remember what I said at the beginning, about rock and roll history being like dealing with Piltdown Man? Yeah. There are a lot of inaccuracies in the life story of Thomas Hicks, who became famous under the name Tommy Steele. Anything I tell you about him is based on information he put out, and that information is not always the truth, so be warned. For example, when he started his career, he claimed he’d worked his way up on the cruise ships to being a gymnastics instructor — something that the shipping federation denied to the press. You find a lot of that kind of thing when you dig into Steele’s stories. In fact, by the time Hicks started performing, there had already been at least one British rock and roll record made. He wasn’t bringing something new that he’d discovered in America at all. “Rock Around the Clock”, the Bill Haley film, had played in UK cinemas at around the time of Hicks’ supposed epiphany, and it had inspired a modern jazz drummer, Tony Crombie, to form Tony Crombie and the Rockets and record a Bill Haley soundalike called “Teach You To Rock”: [Excerpt: Tony Crombie and the Rockets, “Teach You To Rock”] However, Crombie was not teen idol material — a serious jazz drummer in his thirties, he soon went back to playing bebop, and has largely been written out of British rock history since, in favour of Tommy Steele as the first British rock and roller. Thomas Hicks the merchant seaman became Tommy Steele the pop idol as a result of a chance meeting. Hicks went to a party with a friend, and the host was a man called Lionel Bart, who was celebrating because he’d just sold his first song, to the bandleader Bill Cotton. No recording of that song seems to exist, but the lyrics to the song — a lament about the way that old-style cafes were being replaced by upscale coffee bars — are quoted in a biography of Bart: “Oh for a cup of tea, instead of a cuppuchini/What would it mean to me, just one little cup so teeny!/You ask for some char and they reckon you’re barmy/Ask for a banger, they’ll give you salami/Oh for the liquid they served in the Army/Just a cup of tea!” Heartrending stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. But Bart was proud of the twenty-five guineas the song had earned him, and so he was having a party. Bart was at the centre of a Bohemian crowd in Soho, and the party was held at a squat where Bart, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, spent most of his time. At that squat at various times around this period lived, among others, the playwright John Antrobus, the actor Shirley Eaton, who would later become famous as the woman painted gold in the beginning of Goldfinger, and the great folk guitarist Davey Graham, who would later become famous for his instrumental, “Angi”: [Excerpt: Davey Graham, “Angi”] We’ll hear more about Graham in future episodes. Another inhabitant of the squat was Mike Pratt, a guitarist and pianist who would later turn to acting and become famous as Jeff Randall in the fantasy detective series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Hicks, Bart, and Pratt started collaborating on songs together — Hicks would bring in a basic idea, and then Bart would write the lyrics and Pratt the music. They also performed as The Cavemen, though Bart soon tired of playing washboard and stuck to writing. The Cavemen became a floating group of musicians, centred around Hicks and Pratt, and with various Vipers and other skifflers pulled in as and when they were available. The various skiffle musicians looked down on Hicks, because of his tendency to want to play “Heartbreak Hotel” or “Blue Suede Shoes” rather than “Bring a Little Water Sylvie” or “Rock Island Line”, but a gig was a gig, and they had to admit that Hicks seemed to go down well with the young women in the audience. Two minor music industry people, Bill Varley and Roy Tuvey, agreed to manage Hicks, but they decided that they needed someone involved who would be able to publicise Hicks, so they invited John Kennedy, a PR man from New Zealand, to come to the 2is to see him. Hicks wasn’t actually playing the 2is the night in question – it was the Vipers, who were just on the verge of getting signed and recording their first single: [Excerpt: The Vipers Skiffle Group, “Ain’t You Glad?”] While Hicks wasn’t scheduled to play, at the request of Varley and Tuvey he jumped on stage when the Vipers took a break, and sang a song that he, Bart, and Pratt had written, called “Rock With the Caveman”. Kennedy was impressed. He was impressed enough, in fact, that he brought in a friend, Larry Parnes, who would go on to become the most important manager in British rock and roll in the fifties and early sixties. Kennedy, Parnes, and Hicks cut Varley and Tuvey out altogether — to the extent that neither of them are even mentioned in the version of this story in Tommy Steele’s autobiography. Hicks was renamed Tommy Steele, in a nod to his paternal grandfather Thomas Stil-Hicks (the Stil in that name is spelled either Stil or Stijl, depending on which source you believe) and Parnes would go on to name a whole host of further rock stars in a similar manner — Duffy Power, Johnny Gentle, Billy Fury, Marty Wilde. They had everything except a record contract, but that was why Kennedy was there. Kennedy rented a big house, and hired a load of showgirls, models, and sex workers to turn up for a party and bring their boyfriends. They were to dress nicely, talk in fake posh accents, and if anyone asked who they were they were to give fake double-barrelled names. He then called the press and said it was “the first high society rock and roll show” and that the girls were all debutantes. The story made the newspapers, and got Steele national attention. Steele was signed by Decca records, where Hugh Mendl, the producer of “Rock Island Line”, was so eager to sign him that he didn’t check if any studios were free for his audition, and so Britain’s first homegrown rock idol auditioned for his record contract in the gents’ toilets. A bunch of slumming jazz musicians, including Dave Lee, the pianist with the Dankworth band, and the legendary saxophone player Ronnie Scott, were brought in to record “Rock With the Caveman”: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, “Rock With the Caveman”] The single went to number thirteen. Tommy Steele was now a bona fide rock and roll star, at least in the UK. The next record, “Elevator Rock”, didn’t do so well, however: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, “Elevator Rock”] That failed to chart, so Steele’s producers went for the well-worn trick in British record making of simply copying a US hit. Guy Mitchell had just released “Singing the Blues”: [Excerpt: Guy Mitchell, “Singing the Blues”] That was actually a cover version of a recording by Marty Robbins from earlier in the year, but Mitchell’s version was the one that became the big hit. And Steele was brought into the studio to record a soundalike version, and hopefully get it out before Mitchell’s version hit the charts. Steele’s version has an identical arrangement and sound to Mitchell’s, except that Steele sings it in an incredibly mannered Elvis impression: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, “Singing the Blues”] Now, to twenty-first century ears, Steele’s version is clearly inferior. But here was the birth of something particularly English — and indeed something particularly London — in rock and roll music. The overly mannered, music-hall inspired, Cockneyfied impression of an American singing style. On Steele’s subsequent tour, a nine-year old kid called David Jones, who would later change his name to Bowie, went to see him and came away inspired to become a rock and roll star. And we can hear in this performance the roots of Bowie’s own London take on Elvis, as we can also hear a style that would be taken up by Anthony Newley, Ray Davies, and many more masters of Cockney archness. I don’t think “Singing the Blues” is a particularly good record compared to Mitchell’s, but it is a prototype for something that would become good, and it deserves recognition for that. Mitchell’s version got out first, and went to the top of the charts, with Steele’s following close behind, but then for one week Mitchell’s record label had a minor distribution problem, and Steele took over the top spot, before Mitchell’s record returned to number one the next week. Tommy Steele had become the first British rock and roll singer to get to number one in the UK charts. It would be the only time he would do so, but it was enough. He was a bona fide teen idol. He was so big, in fact, that even his brother, Colin Hicks, became a minor rock and roll star himself off the back of his brother’s success: [Excerpt: Colin Hicks and the Cabin Boys, “Hollering and Screaming”] The drummer on that record, Jimmy Nicol, later had his fifteen minutes of fame when Ringo Starr got tonsilitis just before a tour of Australia, and for a few shows Nicol got to be a substitute Beatle. Very soon, Tommy Steele moved on into light entertainment. First he moved into films — starting with “The Tommy Steele Story”, a film based on his life, for which he, Bart, and Pratt wrote all twelve of the songs in a week to meet the deadline, and then he went into stage musicals. Within a year, he had given up on rock and roll altogether. But rock and roll hadn’t *quite* given up on him. While Steele was appearing in stage musicals, one was also written about him — a hurtful parody of his life, which he claimed later he’d wanted to sue over. In Expresso Bongo, a satire of the British music industry, Steele was parodied as “Bongo Herbert”, who rises to fame with no talent whatsoever. That stage musical was then rewritten for a film version, with the satire taken out of it, so it was a straight rags-to-riches story. It was made into a vehicle for another singer who had been a regular at the 2is, and whose backing band was made up of former members of the Vipers Skiffle Group: [Excerpt: Cliff Richard, “Love” (from Expresso Bongo)] We’ll talk about both Cliff Richard and the Shadows in future episodes though… Tommy Steele would go on to become something of a national treasure, working on stage with Gene Kelly and on screen with Fred Astaire, writing several books, having a minor artistic career as a sculptor, and touring constantly in pantomimes and musicals. At age eighty-two he still tours every year, performing as Scrooge in a stage musical version of A Christmas Carol. His 1950s hits remain popular enough in the UK that a compilation of them went to number twenty-two in the charts in 2009. He may not leave a large body of rock and roll work, but without him, there would be no British rock and roll industry as we know it, and the rest of this history would be very different.

Welcome to episode forty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. This one looks at "Rock With the Caveman" by Tommy Steele, and the birth of the British rock and roll industry. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a bonus episode available. This one's on "The Death of Rock and Roll" by the Maddox Brothers and Rose, in which we look at a country group some say invented rock & roll, and how they reacted badly to it  ----more---- Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. This double-CD set contains all Steele's rock and roll material, plus a selection of songs from the musicals he appeared in later. This MP3 compilation, meanwhile, contains a huge number of skiffle records and early British attempts at rock and roll, including Steele's. Much of the music is not very good, but I can't imagine a better way of getting an understanding of the roots of British rock. Pete Frame's The Restless Generation is the best book available looking at British 50s rock and roll from a historical perspective. Billy Bragg's Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World is one of the best books I've read on music at all, and covers Steele from the skiffle perspective. Fings Ain't What They Used T'Be: The Life of Lionel Bart by David & Caroline Stafford gave me a lot of information on Steel's songwriting partner. Steele's autobiography, Bermondsey Boy, covers his childhood and early stardom. I am not 100% convinced of its accuracy, but it's an entertaining book, and if nothing else probably gives a good idea of the mental atmosphere in the poor parts of South London in the war and immediate post-war years. And George Melly's Revolt Into Style was one of the first books to take British pop culture seriously, and puts Steele into a wider context of British pop, both music and art. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Let's talk a little bit about the Piltdown Man. Piltdown Man was an early example of a hominid -- a missing link between the apes and humans. Its skull was discovered in 1912 in Piltdown, East Sussex, by the eminent archaeologist Charles Dawson, and for years was considered one of the most important pieces of evidence in the story of human evolution. And then, in 1953, it was discovered that the whole thing was a hoax, and not even a particularly good one. Someone had just taken the jaw of an orang-utan and the top part of a human skull, and filed down the orang-utan teeth, and then stained the bones to make them look old. It was almost certainly the work of Dawson himself, who seems to have spent his entire life making fraudulent discoveries. Dawson had died decades earlier, and the full extent of his fraud wasn't even confirmed until 2003. Sometimes researching the history of rock and roll can be a lot like that. You can find a story repeated in numerous apparently reliable books, and then find out that it's all based on the inaccurate testimony of a single individual. The story never happened. It was just something someone made up. [Excerpt: "Rock With the Caveman", Tommy Steele and the Steelmen] We talked a little while ago about the skiffle movement, and the first British guitar-based pop music. Today, we're going to look at the dawn of British rock and roll. Now, there's an important thing to note about the first wave of British rock and roll, and that is that it was, essentially, a music that had no roots in the culture. It was an imitation of American music, without any of the ties to social issues that made the American music so interesting. Britain in the 1950s was a very different place to the one it is today, or to America. It was ethnically extremely homogeneous, as the waves of immigration that have so improved the country had only just started. And while few people travelled much outside their own immediate areas, it was culturally more homogeneous as well, as Britain, unlike America, had a national media rather than a local one. In Britain, someone could become known throughout the country before they'd played their second gig, if they got the right media exposure. And so British rock and roll started out at the point that American rock and roll was only just starting to get to -- a clean-cut version of the music, with little black influence or sexuality left in it, designed from the outset to be a part of mainstream showbusiness aimed at teenagers, not music for an underclass or a racial or sexual minority. Britain's first rock and roll star put out his first record in November 1956, and by November 1957 he was appearing on the Royal Variety Show, with Mario Lanza, Bob Monkhouse, and Vera Lynn. That is, fundamentally, what early British rock and roll was. Keep that in mind for the rest of the story, as we look at how a young sailor from a dirt-poor family became Britain's first teen idol. To tell that story, we first have to discuss the career of the Vipers Skiffle Group. That was the group's full name, and they were just about the most important British group of the mid-fifties, even though they were never as commercially successful as some of the acts we've looked at. The name of the Vipers Skiffle Group was actually the first drug reference in British pop music. They took the name from the autobiography of the American jazz clarinettist Mezz Mezzrow -- a man who was better known in the jazz community as a dope dealer than as a musician; so much so that "Mezz" itself became slang for marijuana, while "viper" became the name for dope smokers, as you can hear in this recording by Stuff Smith, in which he sings that he "dreamed about a reefer five foot long/Mighty Mezz but not too strong". [Excerpt: Stuff Smith, "You'se a Viper"] So when Wally Whyton, Johnny Booker, and Jean Van Den Bosch formed a guitar trio, they chose that name, even though as it turned out none of them actually smoked dope. They just thought it sounded cool. They started performing at a cafe called the 2is (two as in the numeral, I as in the letter), and started to build up something of a reputation -- to the point that Lonnie Donegan started nicking their material. Whyton had taken an old sea shanty, "Sail Away Ladies", popularised by the country banjo player Uncle Dave Macon, and rewritten it substantially, turning it into "Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O". Donegan copyrighted Whyton's song as soon as he heard it, and rushed out his version of it, but the Vipers put out their own version too, and the two chased each other up the charts. Donegan's charted higher, but the Vipers ended up at a respectable number ten: [Excerpt: The Vipers, "Don't You Rock Me, Daddy-O"] That recording was on Parlophone records, and was produced by a young producer who normally did comedy and novelty records, named George Martin. We'll be hearing more about him later on. But at the time we're talking about, the Vipers had not yet gained a recording contract, and they were still playing the 2is. Occasionally, they would be joined on stage by a young acquaintance named Thomas Hicks. Hicks was a merchant seaman, and was away at sea most of the time, and so was never a full part of the group, but even though he didn't care much for skiffle -- he was a country and western fan first and foremost -- he played guitar, and in Britain in 1955 and 56, if you played guitar, you played skiffle. Hicks had come from an absolutely dirt-poor background. Three of his siblings had died at cruelly young ages, and young Thomas himself had had several brushes with ill health, which meant that while he was a voracious reader he had lacked formal education. He had wanted to be a performer from a very early age, and had developed a routine that he used to do around the pubs in his early teens, in which he would mime to a record by Danny Kaye, "Knock on Wood": [Excerpt: Danny Kaye, "Knock on Wood"] But at age fifteen he had joined the Merchant Navy. This isn't the same thing as the Royal Navy, but rather is the group of commercial shipping companies that provide non-military shipping, and Hicks worked as wait staff on a cruise ship making regular trips to America. On an early trip, he fell in love with the music of Hank Williams, who would remain a favourite of his for the rest of his life, and he particularly loved the song "Kaw-Liga": [Excerpt: Hank Williams, "Kaw-Liga"] Hicks replaced his old party piece of miming to Danny Kaye with a new one of singing "Kaw-Liga", with accompaniment from anyone he could persuade to play guitar for him. Eventually one of his crewmates taught him how to play the song himself, and he started performing with pick-up groups, singing Hank Williams songs, whenever he was on shore leave in the UK. And when he couldn't get a paid gig he'd head to the 2is and sing with the Vipers. But then came the event that changed his life. Young Tommy Hicks, with his love of country music, was delighted when on shore leave in 1955 to see an advert for a touring show based on the Grand Ole Opry, in Norfolk Virginia, where he happened to be. Of course he went along, and there he saw something that made a huge impression. One of the acts in the middle of the bill was a young man who wore horn-rimmed glasses. Tommy still remembers the details to this day. The young man came out and did a three-song set. The first song was a standard country song, but the second one was something else; something that hit like a bolt of lightning: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, "Peggy Sue"] That song was young Thomas Hicks' introduction to the new music called rock and roll, and nothing would ever be the same for him ever again after seeing Buddy Holly sing "Peggy Sue". By February 1956 he had finished working on the cruise ships, and was performing rock and roll in London, the very first British rock and roller. Except... There's a reason why we're covering Tommy Steele *before* Buddy Holly, the man who he claims as his inspiration. Buddy Holly *did* perform with a Grand Ole Opry tour. But it didn't tour until May 1956, three months after Thomas Hicks quit his job on the cruise ships, and about a year after the time Tommy claims to have seen him. That tour only hit Oklahoma, which is landlocked, and didn't visit Norfolk Virginia. According to various timelines put together by people like the Buddy Holly Centre in Lubbock Texas, Holly didn't perform outside Lubbock until that tour, and that's the only time he did perform outside West Texas until 1957. Also, Buddy Holly didn't meet Peggy Sue Gerron, the woman who gave the song its name, until 1956, and the song doesn't seem to have been written until 1957. So whatever it was that introduced young Tommy Hicks to the wonders of rock and roll, it wasn't seeing Buddy Holly sing "Peggy Sue" in Norfolk Virginia in 1955. But that's the story that's in his autobiography, and that's the story that's in every other source I've seen on the subject, because they're all just repeating what he said, on the assumption that he'd remember something like that, something which was so important in his life and future career. Remember what I said at the beginning, about rock and roll history being like dealing with Piltdown Man? Yeah. There are a lot of inaccuracies in the life story of Thomas Hicks, who became famous under the name Tommy Steele. Anything I tell you about him is based on information he put out, and that information is not always the truth, so be warned. For example, when he started his career, he claimed he'd worked his way up on the cruise ships to being a gymnastics instructor -- something that the shipping federation denied to the press. You find a lot of that kind of thing when you dig into Steele's stories. In fact, by the time Hicks started performing, there had already been at least one British rock and roll record made. He wasn't bringing something new that he'd discovered in America at all. "Rock Around the Clock", the Bill Haley film, had played in UK cinemas at around the time of Hicks' supposed epiphany, and it had inspired a modern jazz drummer, Tony Crombie, to form Tony Crombie and the Rockets and record a Bill Haley soundalike called "Teach You To Rock": [Excerpt: Tony Crombie and the Rockets, "Teach You To Rock"] However, Crombie was not teen idol material -- a serious jazz drummer in his thirties, he soon went back to playing bebop, and has largely been written out of British rock history since, in favour of Tommy Steele as the first British rock and roller. Thomas Hicks the merchant seaman became Tommy Steele the pop idol as a result of a chance meeting. Hicks went to a party with a friend, and the host was a man called Lionel Bart, who was celebrating because he'd just sold his first song, to the bandleader Bill Cotton. No recording of that song seems to exist, but the lyrics to the song -- a lament about the way that old-style cafes were being replaced by upscale coffee bars -- are quoted in a biography of Bart: "Oh for a cup of tea, instead of a cuppuchini/What would it mean to me, just one little cup so teeny!/You ask for some char and they reckon you're barmy/Ask for a banger, they'll give you salami/Oh for the liquid they served in the Army/Just a cup of tea!" Heartrending stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. But Bart was proud of the twenty-five guineas the song had earned him, and so he was having a party. Bart was at the centre of a Bohemian crowd in Soho, and the party was held at a squat where Bart, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, spent most of his time. At that squat at various times around this period lived, among others, the playwright John Antrobus, the actor Shirley Eaton, who would later become famous as the woman painted gold in the beginning of Goldfinger, and the great folk guitarist Davey Graham, who would later become famous for his instrumental, “Angi”: [Excerpt: Davey Graham, “Angi”] We'll hear more about Graham in future episodes. Another inhabitant of the squat was Mike Pratt, a guitarist and pianist who would later turn to acting and become famous as Jeff Randall in the fantasy detective series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Hicks, Bart, and Pratt started collaborating on songs together -- Hicks would bring in a basic idea, and then Bart would write the lyrics and Pratt the music. They also performed as The Cavemen, though Bart soon tired of playing washboard and stuck to writing. The Cavemen became a floating group of musicians, centred around Hicks and Pratt, and with various Vipers and other skifflers pulled in as and when they were available. The various skiffle musicians looked down on Hicks, because of his tendency to want to play "Heartbreak Hotel" or "Blue Suede Shoes" rather than "Bring a Little Water Sylvie" or "Rock Island Line", but a gig was a gig, and they had to admit that Hicks seemed to go down well with the young women in the audience. Two minor music industry people, Bill Varley and Roy Tuvey, agreed to manage Hicks, but they decided that they needed someone involved who would be able to publicise Hicks, so they invited John Kennedy, a PR man from New Zealand, to come to the 2is to see him. Hicks wasn't actually playing the 2is the night in question – it was the Vipers, who were just on the verge of getting signed and recording their first single: [Excerpt: The Vipers Skiffle Group, “Ain't You Glad?”] While Hicks wasn't scheduled to play, at the request of Varley and Tuvey he jumped on stage when the Vipers took a break, and sang a song that he, Bart, and Pratt had written, called "Rock With the Caveman". Kennedy was impressed. He was impressed enough, in fact, that he brought in a friend, Larry Parnes, who would go on to become the most important manager in British rock and roll in the fifties and early sixties. Kennedy, Parnes, and Hicks cut Varley and Tuvey out altogether -- to the extent that neither of them are even mentioned in the version of this story in Tommy Steele's autobiography. Hicks was renamed Tommy Steele, in a nod to his paternal grandfather Thomas Stil-Hicks (the Stil in that name is spelled either Stil or Stijl, depending on which source you believe) and Parnes would go on to name a whole host of further rock stars in a similar manner -- Duffy Power, Johnny Gentle, Billy Fury, Marty Wilde. They had everything except a record contract, but that was why Kennedy was there. Kennedy rented a big house, and hired a load of showgirls, models, and sex workers to turn up for a party and bring their boyfriends. They were to dress nicely, talk in fake posh accents, and if anyone asked who they were they were to give fake double-barrelled names. He then called the press and said it was "the first high society rock and roll show" and that the girls were all debutantes. The story made the newspapers, and got Steele national attention. Steele was signed by Decca records, where Hugh Mendl, the producer of "Rock Island Line", was so eager to sign him that he didn't check if any studios were free for his audition, and so Britain's first homegrown rock idol auditioned for his record contract in the gents' toilets. A bunch of slumming jazz musicians, including Dave Lee, the pianist with the Dankworth band, and the legendary saxophone player Ronnie Scott, were brought in to record "Rock With the Caveman": [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, "Rock With the Caveman"] The single went to number thirteen. Tommy Steele was now a bona fide rock and roll star, at least in the UK. The next record, "Elevator Rock", didn't do so well, however: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, "Elevator Rock"] That failed to chart, so Steele's producers went for the well-worn trick in British record making of simply copying a US hit. Guy Mitchell had just released "Singing the Blues": [Excerpt: Guy Mitchell, "Singing the Blues"] That was actually a cover version of a recording by Marty Robbins from earlier in the year, but Mitchell's version was the one that became the big hit. And Steele was brought into the studio to record a soundalike version, and hopefully get it out before Mitchell's version hit the charts. Steele's version has an identical arrangement and sound to Mitchell's, except that Steele sings it in an incredibly mannered Elvis impression: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, "Singing the Blues"] Now, to twenty-first century ears, Steele's version is clearly inferior. But here was the birth of something particularly English -- and indeed something particularly London -- in rock and roll music. The overly mannered, music-hall inspired, Cockneyfied impression of an American singing style. On Steele's subsequent tour, a nine-year old kid called David Jones, who would later change his name to Bowie, went to see him and came away inspired to become a rock and roll star. And we can hear in this performance the roots of Bowie's own London take on Elvis, as we can also hear a style that would be taken up by Anthony Newley, Ray Davies, and many more masters of Cockney archness. I don't think "Singing the Blues" is a particularly good record compared to Mitchell's, but it is a prototype for something that would become good, and it deserves recognition for that. Mitchell's version got out first, and went to the top of the charts, with Steele's following close behind, but then for one week Mitchell's record label had a minor distribution problem, and Steele took over the top spot, before Mitchell's record returned to number one the next week. Tommy Steele had become the first British rock and roll singer to get to number one in the UK charts. It would be the only time he would do so, but it was enough. He was a bona fide teen idol. He was so big, in fact, that even his brother, Colin Hicks, became a minor rock and roll star himself off the back of his brother's success: [Excerpt: Colin Hicks and the Cabin Boys, "Hollering and Screaming"] The drummer on that record, Jimmy Nicol, later had his fifteen minutes of fame when Ringo Starr got tonsilitis just before a tour of Australia, and for a few shows Nicol got to be a substitute Beatle. Very soon, Tommy Steele moved on into light entertainment. First he moved into films -- starting with "The Tommy Steele Story", a film based on his life, for which he, Bart, and Pratt wrote all twelve of the songs in a week to meet the deadline, and then he went into stage musicals. Within a year, he had given up on rock and roll altogether. But rock and roll hadn't *quite* given up on him. While Steele was appearing in stage musicals, one was also written about him -- a hurtful parody of his life, which he claimed later he'd wanted to sue over. In Expresso Bongo, a satire of the British music industry, Steele was parodied as "Bongo Herbert", who rises to fame with no talent whatsoever. That stage musical was then rewritten for a film version, with the satire taken out of it, so it was a straight rags-to-riches story. It was made into a vehicle for another singer who had been a regular at the 2is, and whose backing band was made up of former members of the Vipers Skiffle Group: [Excerpt: Cliff Richard, "Love" (from Expresso Bongo)] We'll talk about both Cliff Richard and the Shadows in future episodes though... Tommy Steele would go on to become something of a national treasure, working on stage with Gene Kelly and on screen with Fred Astaire, writing several books, having a minor artistic career as a sculptor, and touring constantly in pantomimes and musicals. At age eighty-two he still tours every year, performing as Scrooge in a stage musical version of A Christmas Carol. His 1950s hits remain popular enough in the UK that a compilation of them went to number twenty-two in the charts in 2009. He may not leave a large body of rock and roll work, but without him, there would be no British rock and roll industry as we know it, and the rest of this history would be very different.

In my conversation with jazz violinist, Zach Brock, we talk about his musical upbringing and how he straddles the line between classical training and improvisation. Snarky Puppy What it means to take risks and be vulnerable. How Zach and I met at Mike Block String Camp and what how challenging and vulnerable that was for me. How some classical musicians embody a sort of cultural musical superiority complex and how some can experience that as social violence. How some people are socially and economically blocked from access to the upper echelons of classical music. How it seemed like I was having a great time at Mike Block's camp but was having "the worst time" because I was uncomfortable and being stretched creatively. Why vulnerability is the most important thing PERIOD if you're going to be a performing artist. Nathan Milstein Fritz Kreisler Why people want to see performers being open and vulnerable. How vulnerability is a way to show that you don't care what people think or say about you. How vulnerability empowers the performer. How the vulnerable performer gives permission to others to aspire to greatness because "this is in you, too." Maria Callas Jeff Buckley singing Dido's Lament How vulnerability amplifies our humanity. Stuff Smith and Stephane Grapelli How we can become more open-minded as we grow older and why we are necessarily more judgemental when we are aquiring information. "Arts" versus "Crafts": When are you being an "artist" and when are you being a "craftsperson" and why we need to be both. Kid Logic: This American Life Pee-Wee's Big Adventure How classical musicians can practice improvisation. How improvisation connects you more immediately to your instrument and musical voice. Facing the void when you first start improvising and why we need to wait and listen and allow for nothing to come back. How improvising enables us to make musical choices with more authority. Why you can't think you're a "schmuck" if your first improv attempts don't sound like a "double fugue by Bach." Why being an improvisor is not profound. Why we should trust our internal musical voice and trust that is it there. Why the concept of "play" needs to come back into our own playing and how improvisation can do that for us. Why enjoyment, experimentation, being silly and feeling joy in playing the violin is worthwhile. The importance of finding creative partners. How institutions are always the last to evolve and why we have to fight for change from the bottom up. Seth Godin Noa Kageyama and Bulletproof Musician Why we shouldn't "give up and float just because we think it's too late." The mental game of performing: why he thinks performers need to get serious about meditation. How improvisation lights up different parts of our brains than classical playing. The importance of mastering our minds.

I de næste 3 timer vil du høre musik fra københavnske scener med Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Johnny Griffin, Steps, Max Roach Quintet, den svenske Radiojazzgruppe, Bill Evans Trio, Louis Armstrong All Stars, Tom Lehrer, Seven Sounds, Stuff Smith, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Johnny Griffin & Dexter Gordon, Roland Kirk, Jan Johansson, Tom Prehns Kvartet, Finn von Eybens Workshop og Contemporary Jazz Quintet. Det hele præsenteres af Radio Jazz studievært Ole Matthiessen. Sendt i Radio Jazz i 2017 Der er mere jazz på www.radiojazz.dk

In my full interview with Jean Luc Ponty for the Creative Strings Podcast, we explore key points in his development, musical conception, elements of his violin playing, the state of the music industry in general, and more. For example, how he started playing jazz on violin, the influence of Stuff Smith, the role of the bow arm in improvisation, changes in the world of classical violin, attitudes about touring and music as a career, ways in which the music business has changed, and much more. View the full show notes at www.christianhowes.com/

The story of extraordinary jazz violinist Stuff Smith, who recorded with many musical greats, including Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Oscar Peterson. When Stuff Smith died in 1967, he left behind a rich catalogue of recordings, along with some tantalising mysteries.

The story of extraordinary jazz violinist Stuff Smith, who recorded with many musical greats, including Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Oscar Peterson. When Stuff Smith died in 1967, he left behind a rich catalogue of recordings, along with some tantalising mysteries.

A sketch for a new piece by 20th century jazz violinist Stuff Smith has surfaced. As WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us in this Fishko Files, it may be a small work, but it's a reminder of Smith's big influence on music. The Stuff Smith concerto can be heard at Le Poisson Rouge this Sunday, November 5. For details on this Composers Concordance concert, visit lpr.com.  Jazz violinist Regina Carter performs at NJPAC as part of Ella & Dizzy: The Centennial Celebration on Sunday, November 12. For tickets, visit NJPAC.org. Limited edition and rare Stuff Smith recordings, including his unfinished concerto, are available through Anthony Barnett's AB Fable Archive. The Savory Collection Volumes 1-3 are available exclusively on Apple Music and iTunes. Special thanks to Loren Schoenberg and Dave Soldier Music: “Minuet in Swing”The Stuff Smith TrioStuff Smith, violin; Jimmy Jones, piano; John Levy, bassThe Stuff Smith Trio: 1943“Tain’t No Use”Burton Lane/Herbert MagidsonStuff Smith, violinThe Complete 1936-1937 Sessions “After You’ve Gone”Turner Layton/Henry CreamerStuff Smith, violinThe Complete 1936-1937 Sessions “Artistya”Mariam DoumbiaRegina Carter, violin; Gary Versace, accordion; Chris Lightcap, bass; Alvester Garnett, drumsReverse Thread (2010) “A Ghost of a Chance”Victor Young/Ned Washington/Bing CrosbyStuff Smith, violin; Jimmy Jones, piano; John Levy, bassThe Stuff Smith Trio: 1943 “Humoresque”(After Dvořák Humoresque)Stuff Smith, violin; Jimmy Jones, piano; John Levy, bassThe Stuff Smith Trio: 1943 “Rio Pakistan”Dizzy GillespieDizzy Gillespie, trumpet; Stuff Smith, violin; Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul West, bass; J.C. Heard, drumsDizzy Gillespie & Stuff Smith (1957)   Fishko Files with Sara Fishko Assistant Producer: Olivia BrileyMix Engineer: Bill MossEditor: Karen Frillmann

Homenaje al violín en el jazz en HDO de la mano de Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, Svend Asmussen, Stephane Grappelli, Jean-Luc Ponty y Ray Nance en forma de cuatro grabaciones reeditadas digitalmente por el sello MPS. HDO (Hablando de oídas) es un audioblog presentado, editado y producido por Pachi Tapiz. © Pachi Tapiz, 2015 Toda la información en http://www.tomajazz.com/web/?p=19608

To mark jazz violinist Stuff Smith's centenary year in 2009, Alyn Shipton meets fiddle player Chris Garrick to celebrate one of the most unusual instrumentalists in jazz. They chart a course through the available recordings, from the 52nd Street days of Stuff's Onyx Club Boys to his latter-day triumphs as a soloist in Europe, and also present new releases of previously unavailable material.

1. Bix Beiderbecke - Bless You Sister 2. The Mills Brothers - Funiculi Funicula 3. Louis Armstrong - That Rythm Man 4. Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli - Love's Melody 5. Louis Arstrong & Velma Middleton - That's My Desire 6. Alberta Hunter - My Castle's Rockin’ 7. Lizzie Miles - Bill Bailey Come Home 8. Fred Astaire - I'd Rather Charlestone 9. Lionel Hampton - Jivin' The Vibes 10. Stuff Smith & his Onix Club Boys - You'se a Viper 11. Fats Waller - Dinah 12. Helen Mogan - You Remind Me Of A Naughty Springtime Cuckoo 13. The Antlers - In The Hills Of Kentucky 14. The Cats & The Fiddle Swing The Scales 15. Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli - After You've Gone 16. Glenn Miller & Louis Armstrong – Basin Street Blues 17. Boswell Sisters - Forty Second Street 18. Paul Whiteman Orchestre - Dardanella 19. Tommy Dorsey ft. Frank Sinatra - Without A Song 20. The Boswell Sisters o/Jimmie Grier - The Object Of My Affection