La prodigiosa guitarra de Blind Blake (1926-32)

Sin duda, uno de los más brillantes e influyentes instrumentistas de los prodigiosos años 20, la guitarra de Arthur 'Blind' Blake fue uno de los secretos mejor guardados de la música americana hasta finales de los 60 y primeros 70, cuando guitarristas como Jorma Kaukonen, Ry Cooder o Stefan Grossman, entre otros, se ocuparon de hacerle justicia y también de divulgar sus trucos entre los aficionados (pero ya hacía algunos años que maestros como Reverend Gary Davis o el virginiano John Jackson se ocupaban de mantener vivo su legado). Blake forma, junto a Lonnie Johnson y Eddie Lang, el triunvirato de oro de la guitarra americana en la década de los 20, y sus discos resultan no sólo indispensables para cualquier aficionado o profesional de la guitarra acústica, sino que son también posiblemente los que ofrecen mayor variedad y consistencia, y los más asequibles del blues de pre-guerra (comparado con Lonnie Johnson, por ejemplo, otro maestro, vemos hasta qué punto la música de Blake admite ser disfrutada en antologías amplias y no sólo en el formato original de dos caras a 78 rpm).
Las grabaciones de Blind Blake (1926 a 1932) han ido siendo oportunamente recuperadas por las compañías Biograph, Yazoo y Document, entre otras, y más recientemente, en una integral de 5 CDs por el sello JSP, reconocidos expertos en remasterización de joyas vintage de jazz y blues.

-Jay Bee Rodríguez

01. Blind Arthur's Breakdown
02. C.C. Pill Blues
03. Black Biting Bee Blues (vo by Leola B. Wilson)
04. Hard Pushing Papa
05. Black Dog Blues
06. Georgia Bound
07. Hastings Street (with Charlie Spand, pno)
08. Skeedle Loo Doo Blues
09. Rope Stretching Blues
10. Chump Man Blues
11. Diddie Wa Diddie
12. Sweet Jivin' Mama
13. Itching Heel (vo by Irene Scrugs)
14. Too Tight Blues No. 2
15. Southern Rag
16. One Time Blues
17. Playing Policy Blues
18. Hey Hey Daddy Blues
19. Sweet Papa Low Down
20. Police Dog Blues
21. Wilson Dam (vo by Leola B. Wilson)
22. Come On Boys, Let's Do That Messin' Around
23. You Gonna Quit Me Blues
24. Let Your Love Come Down (vo by Bertha Henderson)
25. Bad Feeling Blues
26. Righteous Blues
27. Down The Country Blues (vo by Bertha Henderson)
28. Seaboard Stomp

hotjazzandcoolblues

............................

Police Dog Blues
by Blind Blake


This is Blake's only song in open E tuning (that I know of)
Ry Cooder does a faithful rendition on his eponymous first album, and
Jorma Kaukonen does good versions on "Splashdown" and "Quah". Cephas
and Wiggins do an interesting interpretation on "Guitar Man" and
Stephan Grossman has a few versions out.

Open E tuning: EBEG#BE (open D also works)

These are the main chords:

E A E/C# E/C B
-----0----------0----------0-------------0-----------0---------
-----0----------2----------0-------------0-----------0---------
-----0----------1----------3-------------2-----------1---------
-----0----------0----------4-------------3-----------2---------
-----0----------2----------------------------------------------
-----0---------------------------------------------------------


harm.
(12)-------------(12)--------------|--------2------------------------
----(12)-------------(12)----------|-----0-----3-(4)---0-----------
--------(12)-------------(12)------|---------------------------------1
------------(12)-------------(12)--|----------------------------------
-----------------------------------|--0--------------------0--1--2--
-----------------------------------|-------------------------------

(2X) Verse: All my life I've been a travelin man
-0----------------------------||---0-------0--------------------------
-----3--2---0-----------------||--------0------------2-----------------
----------------------0-------||--------------------------1-----------
--------------0----3------0---||------0------0-----------------0----0--
------------------------------||-------------------2--------2--------
------------------------------||--0-------0-----------------------0--

All my life I've been a travelin
--0--------------------0--------0-------------------------------------
-----3--2--0-------------3-(4)-----2---------2--------2------------
--------------------0----------------------1--------1----------1------
------------0---3------0---------------0--------0---------0---------
----------------------------------2---------2--------2---------2------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

man * Stayin' alone and doin' the best I can

---|-0-----------------------------------0-----------------0--------0------
---|----3--2--0--------------------------0-----------------0--------0------
---|--------------0------1----2-------3-----------------2--2-----1-------0-
---|----------0--3---0---2----3-------4-----------------3--------2-------0-
---|-----------------------------------------------------------------------
0--|--------------------------------------------------------------------0--

1st break (2X) harm.
--------7---------------9---||----------(12)-----------------(12)---
-8-(9)---------8-(9)--------||----------------(12)------------------
----------------------------||---------------------(12)-------------
-----------0---------------0||-0------------------------(12)--------
----------------------------||--------------------------------------
-0----------------------0---||----0---------------------------------


--------------------0----3-(4)--0------3p2p0----------0------------
-(12)---------------2--2------------------------2-------0---------
-----(12)--------1-------------------1-----------------------0-----
----------0-----------------------0-------------0----------3----0--
------------1h2---------2-------------2----------------0----------
-------------------------------------------------------------------

return to *

2nd break
-----------------------||--------------------------------------------
-----------------------||--------------------------------------------
------0--1---2---3---0-||----0-1--2--3--0---1--2--3--0--0---0---etc.-
----0----2---3---4---0-||--0---2--3--4--0---2--3--4--0--0---0--------
-----------------------||--------------------------------------------
-----------------------||--------------------------------------------

3rd break
-------------------------------------------------0---------------------
-----------------------------------------------------3--2--0-----------
------------------------------------------------------------------0-etc.
---------------------------------------------------------------3-------
---0----0----0----0----0----0----0-----0------0------------------------
-0----2----3----4----0----2----3----4------0---------------------------


4th break (4X)
-(12)-------------------||----------0------3---0-------3-2--0----0-
------(12)--------------||------------------------------------2----
-----------(12)---------||-------1--1---1-----------1--------------
-----------------(12)---||------------------------0-----------0----
------------------------||-1--2------------2-----------------------
------------------------||-----------------------------------------

-------------------0------------------------------------------------
--0-------------------3--2--0---------------------------------------
-------0---------------------------0------you get the idea----------
-----3--------------------------3-----0-----------------------------
--0-------0-----------------0---------------------------------------
---------------0----------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by MaxxDaddy

.........................................


Blind Arthur's Breakdown
by Blind Blake


Intro:
C A7 D7 G7 C A7 D7 G7
-2--3--4--3--2----0-----3---2----1----0----3----2----1-
-1--2--3--2--1----1-----2---1----0----1----2----1----0-
-1--2--3--2--1----0-----2---2----0----0----2----2----0-
-1--2--3--2--1----2-----2---0----0----2----2----0----0-
----------------3----0--------------3----0-------------
--------------------------2----3--------------2----3---

4x
---0----0----3--3--0-1-2----------3--1----0--||----0-----0-||
---1--4------2--2------1--------0---------1--||----3-----1-||
---0------------2-------------3---------0----||------------||
-----------------------0----------------2----||----2-----2-||
-3---------0--------------------------3------||-------0----||
-------------------2------3------------------||--0---------||

------------3-1---------0-3-1--------5--3---2----------------------------
--------------------0-3---------1----2------1----0---1--2--3---3---2--1--
---------0------0-3-------------0----2-----------0--2--3--4--------------
---------0----------------------2----2------0----------------------------
---0-1-2----------------------3----0-------------------------5---4--3--2-
-3----------------------------------------2----3-------------------------

-3--1----------0-3-------------2----------3--2---1--1--3-2-1-0-
-----------0-3---------3----1--1----------2--1---3--3--------1-
-------0-3-------------1----2--1-------------2---------------0-
----------------------2-----3--1-----------------------------2-
----------------------------3-----3-2-1-0--------------------3-
-------------------0------1------------------------------------

---2-2---3-3--2----1-------------------------------0---0-
---1-1---2-2--1----0--0---------------------3---3--1---1-
--------------------------------------------3---3--3---3-
-1-----2--------0--------------0-3-0---------------------
---------------------------0-3-------3-0--1-------3------
--------------2----3-----1--------------------1------3---

----------------------2--1-1-3-1------------2----0----3--2--1--1-
----------------------1-----------1-----1---1----1----2--1--0--0-
----------------------2-----------3-----2---1----0----2--2-------
---------0-3-3-2-1--0-------------2-----3---1----2------------0--
-----0-3-------------------------3-------------3----0------------
-1-1---------------------3------------1-----------------2---3----

-3---3/5--1-----3/5--1-----0--3/5-0--4--5-3--2--------------------
---------------------------1-----------------1---0-1-2-3--3-2-1-0-
---------------------------0---------------------0-2-3-4----------
---0---------0------0------------------------0--------------------
-------------------------3--------------0-----------------5-4-3-2-
-3--------3-----3-------------3------0------2---------------------

---1-----------0--------------2----3-0----3--2---1--------------------
---0------1--4-----3-----2----1----1------2--1---0--------------------
-------------------1-----3----2-----------2--2---0--------------------
---0------2--------2-----3------0-------------------1-0---1-0---1-0---
--------3--------------------------3----0---------------3-----3-----3-
-3----3----------0-----1----2---------------2--3----------------------

----------------------------3--1-------0-3-1---0------------------3-
-0--1--2-0--0-0--1--2--3-0----------0-3--------1------------------2-
-0-2--3--0--0-0-2--3--4--0-------0-3-----------0------------------2-
-------------------------------0------0-------------------------0---
---------------------------------------------3----0-1-2--0-1-2------
----------------------------3--------------------------3------3-----

---2-----------3---------------------0----------0----
---1--0--1--2--0-----8---8--7-6-5----5----------5----
---------------0---0---0-----------------------------
---0---------------------------------6---6~----7---7-
------3--2--1-----10--10---9--8-7--7---------0-------
-2-------------3-----------------------7--------0----

----------------------------------------3----1---3-0---------0-
-----------------------------------------------0-----1--1-1--1-
-----------------------------------------------------0--1-1--0-
---------------------0-3-4--0-3-4-------0----0----------1-1--2-
-0-3-4--0-3-4--0-3-4--------------0-1-2--------------3-------3-
-------------------------------------------3-------------------

Transcription by Max Daddy.

The Best of the Mississippi Sheiks

The Mississippi Sheiks were one of the most popular string bands of the late '20s and early '30s. Formed in Jackson around 1926, the band blended country and blues fiddle music -- both old-fashioned and risqué -- and included guitarist Walter Vinson and fiddler Lonnie Chatmon, with frequent appearances by guitarists Bo Carter and Sam Chatmon, who were also busy with their own solo careers. The musicians were the sons of Ezell Chatmon, uncle of Charlie Patton and leader of an area string band that was popular around the turn of the century. The Mississippi Sheiks (who took their name from the Rudolph Valentino movie The Sheik) began recording for Okeh in 1930 and had their first and biggest success with "Sitting on Top of the World," which was a crossover hit and multi-million seller. In fact, the song became a national standard and has been recorded by Howlin' Wolf, Ray Charles and many more. The Mississippi Sheiks' popularity peaked in the early '30s, and their final recording session happened in 1935 for the Bluebird label. By the end of their career, the prolific and influential string band had recorded well over 60 songs, including the successful "Stop and Listen." ~ Joslyn Layne

Sony Legacy's remastered update of its out of print 1992 Mississippi Sheiks retrospective sounds much better than its predecessor. Astonishingly, all 20 sides come from between 1930 and 1931. The Sheiks, who appeared in many configurations, were always represented by Walter Vinson (Jacobs) on vocals and guitar and Lonnie Chatmon on fiddle. But here their ranks are added to on numerous selections by either Bo Carter (Chatmon) and Sam Chatmon as well as Texas Alexander. All but two sides here were recorded for the OKeh label ("Please Don't Wake It Up" and the classic "I've Got Blood in My Eyes for You" were recorded for Columbia). While all the titles have been released previously, they've never been issued with sound quality this fine. Tracks include Sheiks favorites such as "The Jazz Fiddler," "Seen Better Days," "Honey Babe Let the Deal Go Down," "Your Good Man Caught the Train and Gone," and the amazing "Bootlegger's Blues." For punters seeking a single volume, this is it; for those seeking an introduction to some of the greatest string band blues ever recorded, look no further.~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

01. Still I'm Traveling On
02. Please Don't Wake It Up
03. Stop and Listen Blues No. 2
04. Sitting on Top of the World
05. The Jazz Fiddler
06. Seen Better Days
07. Driving That Thing
08. Bed Spring Poker
09. When You're Sick With the Blues
10. I've Got Blood in My Eyes for You
11. Things About Comin' My Way
12. Livin' in a Strain [#]
13. Last Stage Blues
14. Frost Texas Tornado Blues
15. Your Good Man Caught the Train and Gone
16. Unhappy Blues
17. Honey Babe Let the Deal Go Down
18. Ramrod Blues
19. West Jackson Blues [#]
20. Bootlegger's Blues

Sam Chatmon (Guitar, Vocals), Walter Vinson (Guitar, Vocals), Alger "Texas" Alexander (Vocals), Bo Chatmon (Violin, Vocals), Lonnie Chatmon (Violin).

hotjazzandcoolblues
............................

Robert Parker's Jazz Classics In Digital Stereo: New York

Robert Noel Parker (24 December 1936 – 30 December 2004) was an Australian sound engineer, jazz expert and broadcaster, well known for his radio series Jazz Classics in Digital Stereo.

Born in Sydney, Australia, he worked for the Commonwealth Film Unit then moved to Britain in 1964 to work in the film and television industry. On returning to Australia, he received a commission from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for a radio series on jazz.

As a collector of records from the age of twelve, he had built up a large collection of vintage music. He developed a system for transferring recordings to digital media, eliminating noise, adding stereo and enhancing acoustics. He first used an analogue machine, the Packman Audio Noise Suppressor, and later digital equipment from CEDAR Audio Ltd to transfer, retouch and enhance recordings.

With these techniques he produced reproductions of jazz records of the 1920's and earlier that are not only free of surface noise but reveal details, subtleties and a sense of presence that were not previously evident on the records, even in LP re-issues.

He used his enhanced 78rpm transfers in a long-running radio programme Jazz Classics in Digital Stereo, first broadcast in May 1982 by ABC Radio and later carried by BBC Radio 2, amongst other stations.

His transfer of "Milenberg Joys" performed by McKinney's Cotton Pickers was adopted by him as the theme tune for his broadcasts.

He settled back in Britain and set up his own studio in Devon, and followed on from his radio show with a series of vintage record transfers under the banners Jazz Classics in Digital Stereo and The Classic Years in Digital Stereo.


This is the third of four CDs in the Robert Parker series that reissues a cross section of early jazz recordings from a regional area. The music ranges from the famous (Jelly Roll Morton, Fletcher Henderson, Bessie Smith and Duke Ellington) to the lesser known (Charlie Johnson's Paradise Ten, Lloyd Scott and Freddy Jenkins). Veteran collectors will prefer to skip this sampler and get the complete sessions elsewhere but listeners just beginning to explore early jazz should find these early recordings (which range from pre-swing to some heated jams) worth investigating. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

Track List

01 Jelly-Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers: Burnin' The Iceberg
02 King Oliver & His Orchestra: Strugglebuggy
03 Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra: Sugar Foot Stomp
04 Bessie Smith Accompanied By James P. Johnson: Lock And Key
05 Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra: San
06 Miff Mole & His Little Molers: Imagination
07 Eddie Condon & His Footwarmers: Makin' Friends
08 Fats Waller & His Buddies: The Minor Drag
09 Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra: East St. Louis Toodle-Oo
10 Charlie Johnson & His Orchestra: Hot Bones & Rice
11 Luis Russell & His Orchestra: Dr. Blues
12 Fess Williams & His Royal Flush Orchestra: Feelin' Devilish
13 Lloyd Scott's Orchestra: Happy Hour
14 Casa Loma Orchestra, The: Casa Loma Stomp
15 Jungle Band, The: Dog Bottom
16 Cab Calloway & His Orchestra: Minnie The Moocher
17 Jimmie Lunceford & His Orchestra: Stratosphere
18 Clarence Williams' Washboard Five: Cushion Foot Stomp
19 Freddie Jenkins & His Harlem Seven: I Can't Dance
20 Eddie Lang - Joe Venuti & Their All Star Orchestra: Farewell Blues

hotjazzandcoolblues

Robert Parker's radio podcasts (recommended!)

.................................

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, 1923

Bueno, si alguna vez hubo unos clásicos del jazz tradicional, ¡aquí están! Remasterizados, por cierto, de forma insuperable, y con una presentación y documentación digna del contenido sonoro.
Joe King Oliver, contemporáneo de Ma Rainey, de Charley Patton, y de algunos otros escogidos padres fundadores, tuvo también un final prematuro y dramático (véase biografía a continuación), pero sus momentos de inspiración y gloria aún dejan sentir su huella, que será ya imperecedera. Canal Street Blues, Dipper Mouth Blues, Mable's Dream o Chimes Blues (y algunas de sus grabaciones posteriores también, por cierto) aseguran la definitiva estatura del maestro de Nueva Orleans. Aunque no hubiera existido Louis Armstrong (Weather Bird Rag, West End Blues).

-Jay Bee Rodríguez

.......................

Joe "King" Oliver was one of the most important figures in jazz. As an influential cornet player and leader of one of the classic early New Orleans jazz bands, Oliver is a link between the earliest New Orleans incarnation of jazz and the achievements of a generation of brass players who developed their style in Chicago in the 1920s, including Oliver's protégé, Louis Armstrong. "By almost any measure," wrote critic Ted Gioia , "he stands out as a seminal figure in the history of the music."


Biography

Joseph Oliver was born on May 11, 1885. Some accounts establish his place of birth as a plantation near Donaldsville, Louisiana, where his mother worked as a cook, while others cite a house on Dryades Street in New Orleans. Little is known of his early years, and of his father. His mother, who may have worked as a servant for various white families, moved her children to several new addresses in New Orleans during Oliver's childhood. His older half-sister, Victoria Davis, took charge of him when their mother died in 1900.

Oliver found employment as butler to a white family in New Orleans when he was about seventeen, a job he kept for the next nine years. He was already active as a musician. Around 1899 he joined a children's brass band, formed by a Walter Kenehan, and performed on the trombone, and later the cornet, at funerals and parades. One of his eyes was damaged during a childhood accident, earning him the early nicknames of "Bad Eye" and "Monocles," and he often played with a hat tilted over the eye to disguise it.
Oliver played in a number of marching bands and, around 1910, started appearing in the nightclubs of New Orleans' red-light district, Storyville, the vibrant heart of the city's musical life. These early years of jazz saw intense competition in the raucous neighborhood's numerous clubs, cabarets and gambling den. As a performer at the Abadie Cabaret, Oliver attracted big audiences, and soon took over the job of his rival, Freddie Keppard, at Pete Lala's saloon club, a notorious meeting place for pimps, prostitutes and musicians. Oliver became leader of the Olympia Band around 1916 and also began playing with acclaimed trombonist and band leader Kid Ory, who claimed to have given Oliver the nickname of "King" as a tribute to his musical prowess.
The young Louis Armstrong was one of Oliver's most avid fans, spending time at Oliver's house and enjoying the cooking of Oliver's wife, Stella. Oliver, known for his good nature and generosity, became a father figure to his young disciple, offering musical advice and professional support, and even giving him one of his old cornets. "I prized that horn and guarded it with my life," said Armstrong, quoted in Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life. Oliver, he said, "was always willing to come to my rescue when I needed someone to tell me about life."

Oliver arrived in Chicago in early 1918, responding to invitations from two bands, Lawrence Duhe's Band at the prestigious Dreamland Café, and Bill Johnson's at the Royal Gardens. In January of 1920 Oliver formed his own band: the initial line-up included pianist Lil Hardin, Louis Armstrong's future wife. They played at the Dreamland Café every night until one a.m., and then at the Pekin Cabaret, a gangster favorite, until dawn. After a year of engagements in California, Oliver returned to Chicago in 1922 to launch King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band at the Lincoln Gardens. He was eager to add a second cornet to his band, so he sent a telegram to New Orleans, summoning his young protégé, Armstrong. Arriving in Chicago, Armstrong went straight from the train station onto the stage of the Lincoln Gardens.

Oliver's new line-up "made momentous musical sense," according to critic Gary Giddons in his book Visions of Jazz. "The band was a sensation, and its most widely noted effects were double-cornet breaks, seemingly improvised on the spot, yet played in perfect unison." Ted Gioia, in The History of Jazz, suggested that the Creole Jazz Band lacked the finesse of some New Orleans-bred, Chicago-based musical ensembles, but "its hot, dirty, swinging sound comes closest to the essence of the jazz experience." Other musicians crowded into Lincoln Gardens to hear them play.

When he invited Armstrong to join his band, Oliver was almost past his prime as a soloist, although his playing was still so powerful he was reputed to blow his horns to pieces every few months. By this time, Oliver's achievements as an individual musician, Giddon contended in Visions of Jazz, were secondary to his great gift as a band leader. Noted for his self-discipline as a player (he claimed to have spent ten years refining his tone) and his tough style of leadership, Oliver made strict demands of professionalism of his band. Driving "an ensemble that specialized in improvised polyphony," wrote Giddons, Oliver "created a music that is at once the apex of traditional New Orleans style and so far beyond its norm that there is little to compare with it."

But there is no doubt that Oliver left an important legacy as a player. Famous for his expressive, blues-inflected style of playing and skill at tonal improvisation, including an innovative use of mutes to create a 'wa-wa' sound and other theatrical effects, Oliver's bold New Orleans sound influenced a whole generation of jazz musicians. "His throaty, vocal sound inspired many imitators," said Gioia, "and represented, both conceptually and historically, a meeting ground of earlier and later jazz styles."


Oliver was slow to embrace the relatively new industry of recorded music. It offered little financial reward for musicians, and the finished product rarely captured the live energy or improvisational fire of its featured performers, because primitive technology meant each song had to be curtailed. On the bandstand, Oliver was wary of the possibilities of artistic theft, removing titles from music to ward off copycat bands attending his shows, and playing with a handkerchief over the valves so other musicians couldn't watch his fingerings. Recordings simply offered more opportunity for rival ensembles to plagiarize his signature sound.But on April 5, 1923, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band made its first recordings in the Gennett recording company's studio in Richmond, Indiana. The band--Oliver and Armstrong on cornet, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Honore Dutrey on trombone, Lil Hardin on piano, Bill Johnson on banjo, and Baby Dodds on drums--spent two days in a hot room with poor acoustics, playing into a giant megaphone. These groundbreaking recordings included a show-stealing Armstrong in his first significant recorded solo (on the Oliver composition, "Chimes Blues"). Oliver's own plunger-muted solo in "Dippermouth Blues," was much imitated; under the title "Sugar Foot Stomp," the song became a jazz standard.

Many of Oliver's own compositions made high technical demands on musicians: Walter Allen and Brian Rust, in King Oliver, suggested that it is significant that, except for "Dipper Mouth Blues," "none of his early numbers were ever recorded by his contemporaries." His biggest hit, "Snag It," was written in the mid-1920s, and he co-wrote a number of popular tunes with his nephew, Dave Nelson, later in the decade, many of which were recorded for Victor. Popular versions of some of his songs were recorded by other artists, like Jelly Roll Morton ("Doctor Jazz"), Fletcher Henderson ("Snag It"), and Armstrong ("West End Blues").The Gennett recording sessions helped build the band's profile, and soon they were recording for rival 'race records' label, OKeh, as well as Paramount and Columbia. But internal dissent over Oliver's paternalistic handling of salaries saw the ensemble splinter. Lil Hardin convinced Armstrong that his mentor was holding him back. In a 1950 interview with Downbeat magazine, excerpted in Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life, Hardin remembered Oliver admitting "that Louis could play better than he could. ... He said, 'As long as I keep him with me, he won't be able to get ahead of me, I'll still be the King.'"

At Hardin's urging, Armstrong left Oliver early in 1925, moving to New York at Fletcher Henderson's invitation. When he returned to Chicago, it was to star billing at the Dreamland Café, across the street from Oliver's new theater, the Plantation Café. The two musicians briefly reunited in 1926, after Armstrong separated from Hardin, but they were no longer close friends. Armstrong's fame had eclipsed that of the man he called "Papa Joe."In the early years of the Depression, with clubs closing and many musicians out of work, Oliver realized he needed a new professional strategy. He formed a new band, the Dixie Syncopators, in 1926 and together they made a number of popular dance recordings for the Vocalion 'race' series, as Oliver tried to adapt his performance style to the emerging big band era.

Oliver, already stricken with the severe gum disease that would end his playing life, was forced to delegate many of the cornet solos. In 1927 he moved his band to New York--in Armstrong's opinion, too late in his career. He worked at the Savoy Ballroom and recorded for the Victor Company in 1929 and 1930. But he lost his savings when a Chicago bank failed and made the error of turning down work at the Cotton Club in 1927 (an engagement that made Duke Ellington famous) because he thought the pay too low. In 1931 Victor canceled his recording contract and Oliver made his last known recordings for Brunswick and Vocalion, before forming a new band to take on the road.

Touring in the depressed South was not an easy way to make money, and Oliver suffered a number of setbacks, missing gigs whenever his moribund tour vehicles broke down. By 1935 Oliver had lost all his teeth and found it difficult to perform. He kept touring with a third-rate band, many of whom mutinied over low pay, avoiding the big cities where he had a musical reputation to maintain. Armstrong was shocked to bump into Oliver in Savannah, Georgia, in 1937, stooped and poorly dressed, working as a peddler in the street; Armstrong and his band gave him money to buy new clothes.For the last few years of his life, Oliver lived in a boarding house and worked fifteen hours a day as a janitor at a pool hall in Savannah. He had separated from his wife, Stella, many years earlier. Letters to his sister testify to his demoralization and extreme poverty, as well as his stubborn pride: he refused to appeal for help to the musical community, and kept hoping to save enough money to return to New York.

Discontinuing medical treatment for his high blood pressure because of the cost, Oliver fell into deep decline and died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 8, 1938. He was just 52 years old. His sister used rent money to pay for his body to be shipped to New York for a funeral attended by many musicians, including Clarence Williams and Louis Armstrong, who always maintained that Oliver died of a broken heart. He was buried without a headstone at Woodlawn cemetery in the Bronx. Despite his neglect by the jazz world during the last years of his life, almost all of Oliver's recordings are available on reissues, testimony to his significant musical legacy.

— Paula J.K. Morris

Track list

01. Just Gone
02. Canal Street Blues
03. Mandy Lee Blues
04. I'm Going Away to Wear You Off My Mind
05. Chimes Blues
06. Weather Bird Rag
07. Dipper Mouth Blues
08. Froggie Moore
09. Snake Rag
10. Snake Rag
11. Sweet Lovin' Man
12. High Society Rag
13. Sobbin' Blues
14. Where Did You Stay Last Night
15. Dipper Mouth Blues
16. Jazzin' Babies Blues
17. Alligator Hop
18. Zulu's Ball
19. Workingman Blues
20. Krooked Blues
21. Chattanooga Stomp
22. London (Cafe) Blues
23. Camp Meeting Blues
24. New Orleans Stomp
25. Buddy's Habit
26. Tears
27. I Ain't Gonna Tell Nobody
28. Room Rent Blues
29. Riverside Blues
30. Sweet Baby Doll
31. Working Man Blues
32. Mabel's Dream
33. Mabel's Dream (take 1)
34. Mabel's Dream (take 2)
35. The Southern Stomps (take 1)
36. The Southern Stomps (take 2)
37. Riverside Blues

Just buy it (you won't regret it)!
................................

Fingerpicking the 1920's: "Mabel's Dream" (You Tube)