“Jazz started in New Orleans and traveled to Chicago and Kansas City and New York.”
Historians are starting to come to a more sophisticated – and exciting – view of the music’s origins.
In this program we look at the unheralded role San Francisco played in the creation of jazz. In the second half of the 19th and early 20th century, San Francisco was the biggest and most dynamic city west of the Mississippi River and a place of dazzling diversity.
An international port, a vibrant Afro-American community, a prosperous place that supported a wide variety of live music venues and occasions – old San Francisco and the Bay Area had all the ingredients to be a hotbed for music creativity.
1914 – San Francisco – silent movie
Three years after this was filmed, the first jazz sound recording was made in 1917. It’s pretty clear, here was something going on in San Francisco well before the heralded “Jazz Age” began.
Who’s the band in the film?
The best scholarly guess is Sid LeProtti’s So Different Jazz Band, San Fransisco. Sid LeProtti, piano; Adam “Slocum” Mitchell, clarinet, and Gerald Wells, flute. Probably shot outdoors.
What are they dancing?
A quadrille (a square dance) – but with a difference. How I wish I could hear this music!
(1952) RAW UNEDITED – Turk Murphy interviews San Francisco jazz pianist Sid LeProtti (born 1886) – with music
Other Jazz on the Tube podcasts that touch on the diverse origins of jazz
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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Mr. Oliphant has a special musical gift for all buyers of the book. If you order the book, please save and send Mr. Oliphant a copy of your electronic receipt with a copy of your physical mailing address via email and he will mail it to you. You can reach him here: dave_oliphant AT yahoo DOT com
(Note: You can preview several of the poems below.)
Excerpts from Five Versions of the 12th Street Rag (1967)
Duke Ellington, “Twelfth Street Rag” (Decca, The Original Decca Recordings: Early Ellington), recorded January 14, 1931 (2:58)
Fats Waller and His Rhythm, “Twelfth Street Rag” (Pickwick International Records, Ain’t Misbehaving), recorded June 24, 1935 (2:45)
Count Baise, “Twelfth Street Rag” (Jazz Roots, Jumpin’ at the Woodside), recorded Aril 5, 1939 (3:o8)
From Jazz God and Freshman English (1973)
Dizzy Gillespie, “A Night in Tunisia” (The RCA Victor Encyclopedia of Recorded Jazz, Album 5: Gil to Hig) recorded February 22, 1945 with Don Byas on tenor saxophone (3:08)
Denton (1994)
Euel Box Quintet, “Toddlin'” (Columbia Transcriptions, North Texas State College Jazz Concert), recorded 1957 (3:12)
Shorty Rogers and His Giants, “Planetarium” (Atlantic, Martians Come Back!), recorded March 26, 1955, with Texan Jimmy Giuffre on tenor sax (3:39)
Three Musicians Perform their Freedom (2003)
Charles Mingus, “Ysabel’s Table Dance” (RCA, Tijuana Moods), recorded July 16, 1958 (11:35)
Jazz by the Boulevard (2013)
David “Fathead” Newman, “Hard Times” (Collectibles, Fathead), released in 1958 with Ray Charles on piano (4:43)
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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Ken McCarthy’s Jazz on the Tube interviews filmmaker Abraham Ravett about his film “Forgotten Tenor: A Tribute to Tenor Saxophonist Wardell Gray.”
Tenor saxophone giant Wardell Gray was born February 13, 1921, in Oklahoma City. OK. He was a graduate of the Cass Technical High School, a Detroit school that also lists Donald Byrd, Lucky Thompson, and Al McKibbon as distinguished alumni.
You can order a DVD copy of the film “Forgotten Tenor: A Tribute to Saxophonist Wardell Gray” direct from the filmmaker by writing to aravett AT hampshire DOT edu
Wardell is the soloing tenor on this Count Basie performance
You can order a DVD copy of the film “Forgotten Tenor: A Tribute to Saxophonist Wardell Gray” direct from the filmmaker by writing to aravett AT hampshire DOT edu
– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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Louis Armstrong was a genius – no doubt about that.
But there’s no such thing as a genius in a vacuum.
For some strange reason, the culture and community that gave birth to Louis Armstrong is given short shrift in accounts of his life and art.
In his autobiography and in interviews, Armstrong painted a vivid picture of the world he grew up in, but until now, there has been no in-depth inquiry into what he meant when he said things like “I figure singing and playing is the same,” or, “Singing was more into my blood than the trumpet.”
Now thanks to Vic Hobson’s book “Creating the Jazz Solo” we’re starting to understand what he meant.
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
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The music at the end this interview is “I’m an Old Cow Hand” composed by Johnny Mercer and recorded by Fairfield,Texas-born (1924) Kenny Durham on January 10, 1960. For a unique “discography” of Durham’s work, see Oliphant’s biography-poem KD: A Jazz Biography
A documentary short about Native Texas Poet Dave Oliphant. This documentary was filmed, edited, produced and directed by Kanya Lyons in 2018.
Oliphant was born in Fort Worth in 1939. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from Lamar University and the University of Texas, respectively, and his Ph.D. from Northern Illinois University. His primary reading and writing interest has always been poetry, but he has also written four books on jazz (primarily by Texas musicians).
He has translated poetry from Spanish and was a winner of the Texas Institute of Letters book translation award in 2011. In addition to fourteen collections of his own poetry, among them The Pilgrimage: Selected Poems 1962-2012, he has edited three anthologies of Texas poetry and one of Chilean poetry. For forty years he contributed essays on and reviews of Texas poetry to various state literary magazines, and 55 of those pieces were collected in 2015 in his Generations of Texas Poets.
He retired from the University of Texas at Austin after serving for 30 years in various capacities, from assistant professor to editor of a scholarly journal, senior lecturer, and coordinator of the Freshman Seminars Program. He lives in Cedar Park, Texas with his wife and muse, Maria.
The Jazz on the Tube podcast theme song is “Mambo Inferno” performed by The Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra conducted by Bobby Sanabria from the CD ¡Que Viva Harlem!
At the end of today’s interview, we featured “I’m an Old Cow Hand”, written by Johnny Mercer and performed by Kenny Dorham (Xanadu Records, The Kenny Dorham Memorial Album) recorded January 10, 1960 (4:12)
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
Inspired by Chapter One (pgs. 28-34) of Texan Jazz by Dave Oliphant
Composer Euday Bowman (1915)
Born November 9, 1887, Fort Worth, Texas
Louis Armstrong – Recorded 1927
Benny Moten & His Kansas City Orchestra – Recorded 1927
Duke Ellington – 1931
Fats Waller – Recorded 1935
Count Basie with Lester Young – Recorded 1939
Andy Kirk featuring Mary Lou Williams (piano and arranger) – Recorded 1940
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP0bsxX0TqM
Sidney Bechet – Recorded 1941
This page inspired by Chapter One (pgs. 28-34) of Texan Jazz by Dave Oliphant
– Ken McCarthy
P.S. Our unique programming is made possible by help from people like you. Learn how you can contribute to our efforts here: Support Jazz on the Tube
Thanks.
