Five Early Blues and Jazz Reissues

Back in 2008-09, I posted five albums of early blues and jazz recordings dating from 1917-40. Three 10-inch LPs and an EP came from RCA Victor's short-lived "X" label, with another 10-inch LP taken from the then-new Riverside label.

All the records were produced by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer, Jr. - freelancing for "X" and producing the other record for their start-up Riverside, which would become an important force in modern jazz for a time.

Orrin Keepnews

The "X" transfers were made from Victor's masters, with many of them being previously unissued takes. Most of these are early electrical recordings. In these new remasterings, some of them have a startling level of realism. 

For the Riverside reissue of Jimmy Blythe's piano recordings, the producers worked from commercial 78 issues from the long-gone Paramount label because the master recordings no longer existed. The sound is not as good as the Victors, but good enough.

In addition to my new remasterings in ambient stereo, these sets now have complete scans, performer images and recording information. Details and links to the individual albums are below.

Ida May Mack and Bessie Tucker

Two blues singers from Dallas made a long journey from Texas to Memphis for a Victor recording session on August 29-30, 1928. The producers carefully label Ida May Mack as an urban blues singer, and Bessie Tucker as a country blues artist. Nearly 100 years after the session, they seem more alike than different to me.

Ida May Mack and Bessie Tucker

Both are powerful and confident singers, who could well have become more popular than the obscurity that befell them. 

You will notice when you listen to the records that pianist K.D. Johnson sounds off in the distance, but when the vocals begin, the presence and realism is almost eerie. Electrical recording had begun just a few years before this session.

Little is known of Ida May Mack. This was her only recording session - the LP includes four of her six recorded songs. We do know that Bessie Tucker was born in about 1906 and lived until 1933. She made 24 recordings in this session and a later one in Dallas.

LINK to Ida May Mack and Bessie Tucker

Jim Jackson, Furry Lewis, Frank Stokes, Ishman Bracey

Almost all of the songs on the Kings of the Blues LP were recorded in Memphis in the few days before and after the Mack and Tucker sessions. The participants were all polished performers, who had longer careers than Mack and Tucker.

Jim Jackson (1876-1933) had already recorded a hit record by the time he caught on with Victor. His music has been influential - as I noted way back when, both songs featured here were remade by folk-rock bands in the 1960s - "Wild about My Lovin'" by the Lovin Spoonful and "This Morning She Was Gone" by the Youngbloods (as "Grizzly Bear").

Jim Jackson, Furry Lewis
Frank Stokes, Ishman Bracey

The career of Furry Lewis (1893/1899-1981) was revived by the folk music scene of the 60s, with the singer coming out of retirement to resume his career.

Frank Stokes (1877/1888-1955) was a minstrel show performer (and sometimes blacksmith) who generally appeared with guitarist Dan Sane, as he does here, sometimes as the Beale Street Sheiks. He recorded 38 sides for Victor and Paramount.

Ishman (or Ishmon) Bracey (1899/1901-1970) was a Delta blues singer who first recorded earlier in 1928 for Victor, returning in October. He eventually recorded 16 songs. He performed until 1951, when he became a Baptist minister.

Like the LP above, this record is quite good - the performances and sound are splendid.

LINK to "Kings of the Blues"

Jimmy Yancey

The boogie-woogie pianist Jimmy Yancey (c1895-1951) was a influential artist who made relatively few records. This LP includes eight of his 11 Victor recordings, made in Chicago in 1939 and 1940. His recorded output also includes a few more numbers, plus one Atlantic LP made with his wife Estelle, as "Jimmy and Mama Yancey."

Jimmy Yancey

Yancey had a distinctive and unusual style, generally ending his numbers in E-flat, even if he started in another key.

The producers wrote, "But perhaps the greatest of them all [i.e., boogie-woogie pianists] was the smallish, unassuming Jimmy Yancey-Рара Jimmy, who was hardly ever a full-time musician, but who commanded all the power and the beauty of rough-hewn blues piano in a way that few have even approached."

LINK to Jimmy Yancey

Jimmy Blythe

Jimmy Blythe

Jimmy Blythe (1901-31) had a short life, but even so he made a great number of piano rolls and then records in the 1920s. He was Chicago-based, like Yancey, yet their styles were contrasting. Here's Keepnews on the pianist, comparing him to Yancey and others: "Whether he [Blythe] is being lively or sensitive, and without ever being the least bit watered-down or effete, it is always an educated, a knowledgeable style."

These sides were made by Paramount, which maintained an extensive blues catalog in the 1920s. Most of them are acoustic recordings, beginning with 1924's "Chicago Stomp" and "Armour Avenue Struggle," two of his most famous records.

On two songs, Blythe accompanies vaudeville blues singer Sodarisa Miller, who recorded quite a few numbers for Paramount. And on two others, he is the leading light of the instrumental group the Dixie Four.

As mentioned above, the Paramount recordings were not as clean as the Victors that compose the rest of this post.

LINK to Jimmy Blythe

The Original Dixieland Jass Band

The Original Dixieland Jass Band (or Jazz Band, as it soon became) certainly had the most popular success of any of the artists featured here. Its first record - "Livery Stable Blues" - was supposedly the first jazz record. The band's sound was very popular, and before long there were "jazz bands" everywhere.

Tony Sbarbaro, Edwin "Daddy" Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Larry Shields, Henry Ragas

What of the music? As I myself wrote back in 2008, "The ODJB was a sensation in its time, and you will find it sensational too if you go for hectic ensembles, barnyard effects and clattering percussion. It's easy to scoff at this stuff 90 [now 108!] years later, but it was the precursor of much great music."

This is the only EP - i.e., a seven-inch record with four songs - in this batch. I've posted it twice before, but thought I might do so again to round out the collection.

LINK to the Original Dixieland Jass Band

The ODJB's First Recordings at 100

Sunday marks 100 years since the Original Dixieland Jass Band took their instruments into a loft studio on New York's West 38th Street to record what many experts consider the first jazz records - the "Livery Stable Blues" and the "Dixieland Jass Band One-Step."

I was reminded of this anniversary the other day by a typically informative piece on Marc Myers's blog, JazzWax, and of my own transfer of those recordings by a discussion of "X" Records in the comments section of my last post, on arranger George Siravo.

The original ODJB 78 came out on Victor Records, and was reissued by Victor subsidiary "X" Records in the mid-50s, together with a 1918 coupling of "Skeleton Jangle" and "Tiger Rag." I transferred that "X" Records EP back in the early days of this blog.

1917 ad

To mark the centenary of the ODJB's first session, I decided to see how much I could improve the sound of those 1917-18 acoustic recordings. I won't suggest that the results will transport you back to that loft in New York 100 years ago, but it will give you a good impression of the goings-on that day.

To adjust the sound, I corrected the pitch, which was quite sharp, addressed some of the peaks that gave the records an unpleasantly shrill sound, and added some heft at the lower end to balance things out.

These recordings were a marvel in their day, but don't expect musical revelations. As a friend of mine recently observed, the records may be more significant for their repertoire than the performances themselves. The ODJB's Nick LaRocca, Eddie Edwards, Larry Shields, Henry Ragas and Tony Sbarbaro were mainly important as pioneers.

As I myself wrote back in 2008, "The ODJB was a sensation in its time, and you will find it sensational too if you go for hectic ensembles, barnyard effects and clattering percussion. It's easy to scoff at this stuff 90 years later, but it was the precursor of much great music."

One final note for those who may be curious. The name of the band on the first record was given as "Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band." By the time of the 1918 sessions, they had become known as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. I've followed the spelling on the "X" Records EP.

1918 promoional card: Tony Sbarbaro, Eddie Edwards, Nick LaRocca,
Larry Shields, Henry Ragas

The Original Dixieland Jass Band

The first side of this EP contains what is usually cited as the first jazz record, made by the Original Dixieland Jass (later Jazz) Band in February 1917. The claim is debatable, not least because this music (in common with all other types of music) is an outgrowth of earlier styles. The Wikipedia article about the ODJB (as the band is often called) notes that the first item on this record is actually a version of a ragtime tune written in 1909.

These records are by no means obscure, and actually I've included them to continues the series derived from the "X" label's Vault Originals series, a jazz/blues reissue program from the mid-50s. As before, the RCA engineers did a fine job on the transfers. These are some of the best acoustic recordings I've heard. (Pre-1925 acoustic recordings were made through a recording horn instead of a microphone.)

Similar to the previous "X" recordings seen here, this has a cover by Paul Bacon, much more to my taste than the previous items. Bacon worked in several different styles, and this scratchboard drawing is a evocative rendering of a 1917 promotional photo that you can see on Wikipedia's ODJB page.

The ODJB was a sensation in its time, and you will find it sensational too if you go for hectic ensembles, barnyard effects and clattering percussion. It's easy to scoff at this stuff 90 years later, but it was the precursor of much great music.