Rex Stewart and his Dixielanders-(Live in Boston 1953)Featuring Herbie Nichols !!!
heres a nicely recorded document of some stomping Dixieland revival, those who like Aki Takase's Wonderful Enja discs of pre war Jazz ,will love this....I certainly do!
the real Surprise is Herbie Nichols , who despite various stories about how depressed he was at having to make his Living playing in Dixieland revival groups (where incidentally he made the acquaintance of both Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd)
his playing here is fresh, and he sounds, (as does the entire band)like he's having a wail of a time!!
The great trumpeter Rex Stewart is best known for his stint of a decade or so with Duke Ellington's Orchestra , (1934-45), later in life he toured and recorded with Norman Granz's JATP, and there after recorded prolifically under his own name ,with the Ellingtonians
and a great many dixieland revival outfits such as this, under the names..the feet warmers, the Dixielanders. etc..also becoming a Jazz historian,critic and Lecturer.
Clarinetist Albert Nicholas of Creole descent was a veritable New Orleans legend having started his career in 1910,with King Oliver ,Buddy Petit,and Manuel Perez.
Perhaps its some form of retroactive wishful thinking/Selective Memory ,but i have vague recollections of reading an anecdotal report years ago in some book or other, about A.Nicholas and Don Byas ,at the club Montmartre Copenhagen night after night in the early sixties admiringly watching Albert Ayler
not only Recognizing his mastery, but saying they had always wanted to play as freely as that!
Its not hard to see why ,indeed listening to Ayler's recordings of Spirituals and all the stunning Hallucinatory marching band hybrid tunes , one imagines he would have fit right in...
Many of the tunes on this document are taken at an exhilarating break neck tempo, at times threatening to fall apart as they lope over some imaginary precipice, Herbie Nichols is extraordinary playing Ragtime style syncopated Melodies with the right hand and walking bass lines with the left,
occasionally spicing it up by accenting with odd mildly dissonant stabs.. though of course not to the extent one finds on his own blue note sessions 2 years later.
this is obviously originally an edited radio broadcast , probably unauthorized as many live sessions of this vintage, released on Musidisc seem to have been, America records which put out so many great free jazz lp's was itself a subsidiary of Musidisc.
at a cursory glance (a few pages of google) there doesn't appear to be much by way of a mention let alone detailed info regarding this record...
ps
Although i now see t(having checked the booklet to the H.Nichols Mosaic lp box) that this was actually released on the Jazztone label, probably as a series of 10 inch singles.
SESSION DETAILS
Rex Stewart and his Dixielanders, live in Boston(June, according to the H.Nichols Mosaic boxset) 1953, venue unknown
Rex Stewart-Tpt
Albert Nicholas-Cl
Fernando Arbello-trb
Herbie Nichols-piano
John Dengler-Bari Sax
John Feild-db
Tommy Benford-Dr
A-
thats a plenty
Basin Street Blues
High Society
Tin Roof Blues
Dixie land One Step
B-
South Rampart street Parade
Weary Blues
Apex Blues
Wolverine Blues
When the saints go marchin' inENJOY!!!!!!
PPS, cant find any evidence that this has been reissued , i could well be wrong!