Like Big Band? Want To Blow Your Ears with Real Dynamics?

[posvibes]

 

[Soandso]

Don Bestor (1889-1970) started composing when 16 years old and 1st recorded in the early 1920s. He had an 11-piece orchestra which is credited as doing the first remote music broadcast when in Pittsburg ran a wire to radio station KDKA from their nearby hotel venue. From the late 1920s vaudeville circuit a friend who N.Y.C. NBC broadcast Sunday nights in the early 1930s as the "Jack Benny's Radio Show" there too Bestor's Orchestra performed egged on by Benny with "Play, Don, play."

 

[CapMan]

I have the Buddy Rich LP - "Class of '78".

Unbelievable drummer, band and performance

It's a direct to disc studio recording - a single, uninterrupted 15 minute take that bypasses the tape machine and goes straight to the cutting head on the master lacquer !

 

[Soandso]

… Buddy Rich…

I get a kick out of the Buddy Rich Big Band song "I've got news for you."

"You phoned that you'd be late,
'cause you took the wrong express.
And then you walked in smilin'
With your lipstick in a mess.
Oo, wee - I've got news for you.
…
And you said that when we met,
Your life was awful tame.
When I took you to a nightclub,
My whole band knew your name."

 

[Soandso]

… Unbelievable drummer

Hi Cap, - I've a question for you: who might that drummer be in your member icon?

 

[CapMan]

Hi Cap, - I've a question for you: who might that drummer be in your member icon?

That, my friend, is "Baby" Dodds - one of the grandfathers of jazz drumming

 

[Soandso]

"Baby" Dodds - one of the grandfathers of jazz drumming

I thought so. Here's some of his work for others interested.

The first recording is just Warren "Baby" Dodds (1898- 1959) showing his stuff in 1946 and the other 2 are from when he briefly had a trio band whose piano player was the legendary "Jelly Roll" Morton with the clarinet played by his older brother the renown jazzman Johnny Dodds. "Baby Dodds" started his childhood drumming journey accompanying his brother by beating on a discarded can of lard with iron nails stuck into it.

 

[Vuki]

 

[Vuki]

 

[CapMan]

I thought so. Here's some of his work for others interested.

Thanks for posting the LPs - I hadn't heard Talking and Drum Solos - its a real history lesson and his press roll is like butter

 

[Soandso]

… his press roll is like butter …

Here are 2 early photos from Baby Dodds own collection maybe little seen outside the family. He's probably first more commonly shows up in early 1920's photos posing with the famous "King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band".

The 1st photo shows him seated wearing the largest crowned hat sitting at the "Mente's Bag [sisal] Factory". He recalled it being around 1912 making him about 14 years old working where he says made the money to buy his first real drums.

The 2nd photo from 1919 is him at around age 21 standing on the far left wearing a pocket watch chain along with fellow musicians who called themselves the "Jaz-E-Saz Band" performing aboard the Mississippi river boat "St.Paul". [That's a young Louis Armstrong seated on the bottom right with "Fate" Marable off to his side wearing the tipped over hat and then George Copper wearing eyeglass; standing to the right of Baby Dodds are Joe Howard, bassist "Pop" Foster, Johnny St. Cyr, David Jones and standing off at farthest right is Sam "Honore" Dutrey (who'd go on to play with both of the Dodds brothers and Armstrong in King Oliver's Creole Band)].

 

[Soandso]

Wake up!

 

[Soandso]

Calm yourself down a bit -

 

[Soandso]

Time to get going -

 

[Soandso]

You need a pace-setter already?

 

[Soandso]

Put yourself on auto-pilot -

 

[Soandso]

Charge your battery -

 

[Soandso]

Don't give up just yet!

 

[Soandso]

Another one? Alright then -

 

[Soandso]

Get back!