A few posts back, I reuploaded a 10-inch Blue Note LP collecting some sides that pianist Art Hodes made with various small groups in the 1940s. At the time I lamented that the LP, called
Out of the Back Room, sounded more like "Out of the Bath Room" because of the clumsy reverberation that the engineers applied during the LP mastering.
Frequent commenter Charlot wondered if the original 78s would have better sound, and I speculated that they would. Shortly thereafter, I decided to see if my assumption was true, and acquired 14 Hodes needle drops from Internet Archive, including four of the eight numbers found on the LP.
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| Max Kaminsky |
I found out that the 78s do sound better - much better - and today's post is the proof.
The items I chose generally fall into two camps. The first includes seven blues or quasi-blues riffs with Hodes leading a few small ensembles, all of which included the estimable Max Kaminsky on trumpet. A couple of the records feature trombonist Sandy Williams, once of the Chick Webb band.
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| Pops Foster, Sidney Bechet, Art Hodes and Albert Nicholas |
The second group includes six songs from the standard "Dixieland" repertoire. I selected these because they all feature the wonderful Sidney Bechet on clarinet or soprano sax. Bechet was one of the preeminent jazz musicians of the pre-bop era. Also on these sides are trumpeter Wild Bill Davison and bassist Pops Foster, two more legendary names.
The final song is the only one not issued under Hodes' name, although it was included on the Hodes LP. It is "Feelin' at Ease" from drummer Baby Dodds' Jazz Four. Also on the date along with Hodes were clarinetist Albert Nicolas and bassist Wellman Braud. Beside "Feelin' at Ease," the other songs on both the LP and in the 78 collection are "Blues 'n' Booze," "Low Down Blues" and "Jug Head Boogie."
These sides all emanate from New York and were recorded in 1944 and 1945.
A brief note about Hodes: he was never a virtuoso pianist, but he nonetheless was a leading light among the traditional musicians that the newly ascendant boppers called "moldy figs." (The "moldy" pejorative I get; the fig reference eludes me.) For one thing, for several years in the 40s, he edited a magazine called
The Jazz Record that was devoted to traditional jazz music.
Hodes also had a record contract with Blue Note, and for his sessions brought in many of the stars of the traditionalist movement. They included both musicians who came from New Orleans, such as Bechet, Foster, Nicholas and Braud, and those associated with "Chicago-style" jazz, artists from that city such as Jimmy McPartland and Bud Freeman who were inspired by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings of the 20s.
It is sometimes said that the New Orleans style emphasized ensemble, the Chicago style solo playing. Maybe, but the two greatest soloists who played this music were Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong, both from New Orleans. Hodes himself was from Chicago, and spent most of his career there, except for several years in the 1940s when New York was home base.
