This blog has been created in order to provide background for WCBN's Face the Music show. It is also an educational tool intended to illustrate what goes into the making of this broadcast each week.
This list came together during the week as I heard different musical passages in my heart & head. I reworked the second half of the program at 7:20 this morning after realizing that my decision to end with Dodo Marmarosa's "Bopmatism" had originally grown out of a desire to air the Count Basie Orchestra's 1940 recording of Lester Young's "Tickle Toe". To my sensibilities the two pieces seem more than slightly related. Consulting Frank Buchmann-Moller's Lester Young 'solography' "You Got To Be Original, Man!" I encountered this passage describing the origins of 'Tickle Toe': "The theme has its own story, pointed out by Richard Sudhalter. Tickle Toe was a tap dancer and maybe also a drug pusher, but the most interesting thing here is the material used for the composition." Elements include "arpeggios taken from an exercise book for saxophone players which was widely used in the 1920s. Lester may have used that particular book and remembered some of the exercises." There is also a section that is "identical with a solo played by Bix Beiderbecke on a recording of 'When' by the Paul Whiteman band on March 12 1938". Confronted with this delightful evidence, and after listening to the Beiderbecke solo in question, I eliminated a Jay McShann recording from the list in order to make room for Bix & Prez, as it were. This also necessitated a restructuring of the second half of the playlist, so that it "sounded right" to my heart & head. An example of how a show can be cobbled together and tweaked around beforehand.
Face the Music {WCBN 88.3 FM}
ReplyDeletePotentials and Probabilities for 71212
Yes! I’m In the Barrel
Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five [1925]
Jasper Taylor Blues
Original Washboard Band [1928]
Jug Band Quartette
Memphis Jug Band [1934]
Southbound Rag
Johnny Dodds & Blind Blake [1928]
Ham and Eggs
Johnny Dunn’s Original Jazz Hounds [1928]
Bull Blues {E Flat No.1 Blues}
Thomas Morris Past Jazz Masters [1923]
Heebie Jeebies
Lovie Austin & her Blues Serenaders [1925]
Doctor Jazz
Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers [1926]
Just Gone
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band [1923]
Society Blues
Ory’s Sunshine Orchestra [1922]
Scouting Around
James P. Johnson [1923]
Oklahoma Stomp
Duke Ellington & his Orchestra [1929]
Flaming Reeds & Screaming Brass
Jimmie Lunceford & his Orchestra [1933]
One in a Million
Fats Waller & his Rhythm [1936]
Honky Tonk Train Blues
Meade Lux Lewis [1927]
Moten Swing
Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra [1932]
When
Bix Beiderbecke
with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra [1928]
Tickle Toe
Count Basie & his Orchestra [1940]
Bopmatism
Dodo Marmarosa [1946]
This list came together during the week as I heard different musical passages in my heart & head. I reworked the second half of the program at 7:20 this morning after realizing that my decision to end with Dodo Marmarosa's "Bopmatism" had originally grown out of a desire to air the Count Basie Orchestra's 1940 recording of Lester Young's "Tickle Toe". To my sensibilities the two pieces seem more than slightly related. Consulting Frank Buchmann-Moller's Lester Young 'solography' "You Got To Be Original, Man!" I encountered this passage describing the origins of 'Tickle Toe': "The theme has its own story, pointed out by Richard Sudhalter. Tickle Toe was a tap dancer and maybe also a drug pusher, but the most interesting thing here is the material used for the composition." Elements include "arpeggios taken from an exercise book for saxophone players which was widely used in the 1920s. Lester may have used that particular book and remembered some of the exercises." There is also a section that is "identical with a solo played by Bix Beiderbecke on a recording of 'When' by the Paul Whiteman band on March 12 1938". Confronted with this delightful evidence, and after listening to the Beiderbecke solo in question, I eliminated a Jay McShann recording from the list in order to make room for Bix & Prez, as it were. This also necessitated a restructuring of the second half of the playlist, so that it "sounded right" to my heart & head. An example of how a show can be cobbled together and tweaked around beforehand.
ReplyDelete