The Hot Record Society

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Back in the mid 1930s, when jazz itself was as young as most of the musicians playing it, a handful of devoted fans banded together to share their love for this music with others. They were all record collectors who believed that jazz was more than just a passing fad and that its performers were more than mere entertainers.”

- Jack Sohmer, JazzTimes

Looking back through old issues of Down Beat, Metronome, Esquire, Melody Maker, The Jazz Review, etc., I’ve always enjoyed the colloquialisms of the times that were associated with different periods of Jazz. Words like “hot,” “jump,” and “killer diller” come to mind; I’m sure that those of you who have been around the music for awhile can add a few other choice words and expressions to this list.

I’m more from the “cool,” “groovy,” “bopin’ and burnin’” parlance - you dig?

Imagine my fascination, then, when Mosaic Records issued one of its superb boxed sets devoted to the Hot Record Society with the emphasis on “Hot.”

I am particularly indebted to Mosaic for the H.R.S. collection because it was my first significant introduction to Sidney Bechet. Although he is only represented on 10 tracks, I was so taken by his performance on China Boy, that I made it a point to add a number of his recordings to my collection.

If you can get past the nanny goat vibrato [something that held me back from a true appreciation of his playing for many years], you’ll find that Sidney is an inspiring and original soloist with technique to spare such that improvisational ideas flow out of his horn rapidly and flawlessly.

I’ve included China Boy as the soundtrack to the video montage that concludes this feature.

Jack Sohmer tells us more about the H.R.S. in the following review which appeared in the DECEMBER 1999 JazzTimes.

The Complete H.R.S. Sessions: Mosaic Records

By Jack Sohmer

“Back in the mid 1930s, when jazz itself was as young as most of the musicians playing it, a handful of devoted fans banded together to share their love for this music with others. They were all record collectors who believed that jazz was more than just a passing fad and that its performers were more than mere entertainers.

Modeled after discographer Charles Delaunay and critic Hugues Panassie's Hot Club of France, the Chicago Rhythm Club, begun in 1935 by Helen Oakley and Squirrel Ashcraft, was the first to produce racially mixed jam sessions, including the first public performance of the Benny Goodman Trio.

Meanwhile, at the same time in New York, Milt Gabler of the Commodore Music Shop and Stephen W. Smith founded the United Hot Clubs of America (U.H.C.A.). Two years later, in 1937, with an advisory board consisting of, among others, John Hammond, Marshall Stearns, Charles Edward Smith, Wilder Hobson, William Russell, Delaunay, Panassie, and Sinclair Traill (later founder of the British magazine Jazz Journal), Steve Smith initiated the Hot Record Society.

While U.H.C.A. specialized in the reissue of long unavailable jazz classics, H.R.S. concentrated on mail order auctions and sales of original jazz and blues 78s. In 1938, when both Columbia and Victor (on its 35-cent subsidiary, Bluebird) began their highly successful series of classic jazz reissues, Gabler and Smith decided to get into the business of making new records, with Commodore becoming the first and most prolific of the independents. (It was soon followed by Blue Note, Keynote, Signature, and dozens of others.)

In 1939, the same year that the influential book Jazzmen was published, Smith, one of its major contributors, opened the H.R.S. Record Shop in midtown Manhattan, where he sold both new and used jazz recordings, and, of course, copies of Jazzmen, The H.R.S. Society Rag, and the few other jazz books and magazines that were then available. The complete Commodore catalog has already been reissued in three mammoth LP sets by Mosaic, and the present collection represents their efforts on behalf of H.R.S.

After the dissolution of H.R.S., many of the sessions appeared on such LP labels as Riverside and Atlantic, as well as a slew of European bootlegs, but these repressings uniformly suffered from distortion, crackle, over modulation, and limited frequency reproduction, thereby making a less than favorable impression on listeners who had never heard the original 78s.

First reissued on muddy sounding, low-fi Riversides, selected titles were later picked up and "stereo-enhanced" for budget-priced marketing in department stores, supermarkets, and drug stores by even less conscientious labels.

Mosaic, however, has corrected all of these technical problems by having such top-rate remastering engineers as Malcolm Addey, Jack Towers, John R.T. Davies, and others go back to the source recordings and start from scratch, so to speak. The result is a reissue set that recaptures the warm, spacious sound of the originals at the same time as virtually eliminating the surface noise that plagued so many shellac recordings in the 1940s.

H.R.S. recorded 124 performances in 25 sessions between August 1938 and September 1947, and this set includes them all, even the eleven alternate takes that Smith never released. Musically, they run the gamut from the classic Chicago cum New Orleans jazz Pee Wee Russell's Rhythmmakers and The Bechet-Spanier Big Four, through small and big band swing, to the burgeoning modern touches of early bop. Russell's eight-piece jam combo with Max Kaminsky, Dickie Wells, James P. Johnson, and Zutty Singleton opens the set with six band tracks, including two alternate takes, and a majestic coupling by the clarinet/piano/drums trio of Pee Wee, James P., and Zutty. This is classic Pee Wee and should not be missed.

On an equal if not superior level of achievement are the ten 1940 tracks, inclusive of two alternates, by a quartet composed of soprano saxist/clarinetist Sidney Bechet, cornetist Muggsy Spanier, guitarist Carmen Mastren, and bassist Wellman Braud, who had also appeared on the Russell session. Using a handful of time-honored classics, Sidney and Muggsy join their ideally contrasted horns, one broad-toned and sweeping and the other concise and pungent, to produce yet one more example of the many textural varieties inherent in chamber jazz.

The next two sessions were also recorded in 1940 and feature stellar personnels under the leadership of Rex Stewart and Jack Teagarden, with featured soloists including Lawrence Brown, Barney Bigard, Ben Webster, and Billy Kyle. The widely esteemed Dave Tough is the drummer on both. As with the two preceding groups, an equally extended commentary could be made about the excellences of those closely related dates. Between them, they only produced eight titles, but they are virtually all winners.

Because of several already well-known factors, no commercial recordings were made by any label between August 1942 and late 1944, so H.R.S. did not resurface until 1945, when Smith recorded two sessions by a big band under the direction of Ellington-influenced guitarist/arranger Brick Fleagle; an excellent combo date by trombonist Sandy Williams featuring trumpeter Joe Thomas, Johnny Hodges, and Harry Carney; and a single coupling by trombonist J.D. Higginbotham with trumpeter Sidney DeParis and altoist Tab Smith. In light of the then common contractual practice-the production of at least four masters per each three-hour recording session-the absence of two titles poses a question as to the fate of these never listed, presumably flawed performances. (Assuming that all eight musicians were paid union scale for the four-tune date, then the cost for the rejected performances, including studio time, had to be assumed by Smith, no insignificant matter for an independent in those days.)

In 1946, with wartime shortages no longer a major problem, Steve Smith went on to record scads of fruitful combo dates, all of which centered around the mainstream jazzmen currently based in New York. The leaders of these invariably well-conceived and rehearsed sessions were arranger/pianist Jimmy Jones, Joe Thomas, Harry Carney, Dicky Wells, Sandy Williams, Buck Clayton (in a softly winging Kansas City-tinged quartet with Pres-like clarinetist Scoville Brown and guitarist Tiny Grimes), Trummy Young, Billy Kyle, Russell Procope, Brick Fleagle (this time with a quintet fronted by Rex Stewart), pianist Billy Taylor, Stewart once again with his own quartet, and bassist Billy Taylor (no relation to the pianist). Outstanding soloists not already mentioned include trumpeters Pee Wee Erwin and Dick Vance, clarinetist Buster Bailey, altomen Lem Davis and George Johnson, and tenormen John Hardee and Budd Johnson, who is especially forward looking on his quartet date with Jimmy Jones.

Mosaic has arranged this set so as to present almost all of the combo dates in chronological sequence, while reserving Brick Fleagle's uncharacteristic big band offerings for the final disc. One price paid for this admirable decision is the inclusion here of Fleagle's quintet date with Rex, but it is an understandable compromise.

Along with Mosaic's customarily complete discographical listings, Dan Morgenstern's well-researched background notes and session-by-session analysis will provide all of the many details of performance that this brief coverage cannot.”

Sidney Bechet

© -Steven Cerra. Copyright protected; all rights reserved.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles often learns along with its readers regarding the musicians featured on these pages.

Such was the case with Sidney Bechet [1897-1959], about whom we knew very little other than he was one of the early makers of the music and about whom many Jazz musicians had a high regard.

Perhaps it was because Sidney left for France [he lived there from about 1925-1932] so early in his career and was out of the American public’s eye [ear?] during some of the important, formative years of Jazz [Thankfully, before he left town, he did make some wonderful recordings with Louis Armstrong and Earl “Fatha” Hines].

Even after his return, it seems that Sidney’s music never did catch on here and Bechet relocated to France in 1950 after performing as a soloist at the Paris Jazz Fair. His performance at the fair resulted in a surge in his popularity in France. After that, Bechet had little problem finding well-paid work in France. He died there in 1959.

In searching out information about Sidney Bechet, this fine essay by Martin Williams, the distinguished Jazz author and critic, proved extremely helpful as a starting point about Bechet’s music and his importance to Jazz.

Rough and ready and somewhat of a rogue, Sidney would have been the perfect symbol of the USA Jazz Age run riot had he not spent so much of the Roaring Twenties in another country.

Sidney Bechet: First and Last

“Sidney Bechet's earliest recordings come from mid-1923, and they offer a fully developed musician. Fully developed not only because he played with power and authority, but also because we know from his biography that by then he had been a star soloist for some years, and because the elements and resources of his style can be heard on those records, elements that changed very little over the years. Yet Bechet did some of his most challenging recording work in 1957, the year before his death, collaborating with French pianist Martial Solal, effectively interpreting, ornamenting, and improvising on a repertory of standard songs which few of his New Orleans contemporaries would have undertaken in the first place, and which none of them, not even Jimmy Noone, could have handled so confidently.

By the time of those 1923 records, Bechet had taken up the soprano saxophone, had mastered that difficult instrument, and had come to prefer it to the clarinet. At a time when jazz saxophonists were apt to be shallow, fleet-fingered, slap-tongued virtuosi, Bechet's work must have come as a revelation of eloquence, depth, and elegance of musical phrase. On Kansas City Man Blues,, he even used some horse whinneys (derived no doubt from New Orleans cornetist Freddy Keppard) and brought them off with dignity. And within a few months, Bechet had recorded not only passionate slow blues and faster stomps, but an exceptional ballad solo on Old Fashioned Love. There is no question of Bechet's rhythmic verve, confidence, and swing as a jazz player. He understood the relaxed, legato New Orleans phrasing that Armstrong's predecessors introduced so tentatively and that Armstrong himself elaborated so brilliantly. And although there was an occasional fleeting echo in Bechet of the clipped accents of the previous decade, it diminished over the years.

The year of Bechet's earliest recordings is the year in which New Orleans Negro jazz began to be recorded regularly, but Bechet's soprano saxophone style already represents an important step within that music. He based his work on that instrument on a combination of the lead style of the cornet or trumpet and on the clarinet's obbligato in the New Orleans ensemble. Bechet therefore needed to take the lead voice in the polyphonic ensemble, and he gave problems to trumpeters throughout his career. There are two 1924-25 recordings of Cake Walkin* Babies which also feature the young Louis Armstrong. On the first (labeled the "Red Onion Jazz Babies") Bechet is uncannily responsive in polyphony and all poised excitement in his breaks. On the second (by "Clarence Williams Blue Five") Bechet's breaks again are statements in controlled excitement, but the climax of the performance is awarded to Armstrong in solo.

A 1938 session involved Bechet's lead with Ernie Caceres's baritone saxophone in obbligato, and it is particularly successful on What a Dream. Trumpeters were usually wise not to compete with him (but, alas, some of them did), and this is quite evident in some 1940 duets with cornetist Muggsy Spanier. Spanier did not push the limits of his resources but remained his simple self, and some of the resultant interplay between the two horns is exceptionally effective.

A unique expression of sympathetic, integrated New Orleans polyphony can be heard on Blues of Bechet. By an early example of overdubbing (done before the days of tape and therefore done on successive acetate discs by means of full studio playbacks) Bechet himself plays variously clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones, piano, bass, and drums.

We owe Blues of Bechet to Bechet's 1940-41 association with Victor records and his various pick-up groups which were given the unpretentious collective name of the "New Orleans Feetwarmers." There were some earlier 1932 Feet-warmers recordings, but I confess that they seem to me to have more uninhibited energy than ensemble swing or musical success. However, Bechet evidently did find the atmosphere inspiring at least for the first half of Maple Leaf Rag. And in the opening section of Shag he offered the first non-thematic use on records of the I Got Rhythm chord progression.

The 1940-41 Feetwarmers series contributed the plaintive re-make of Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning. And it offered Blues in Thirds with Bechet in the company of Earl Hines, a pianist whose relative sophistication was, of course, no deterrent. Between them, Hines and Bechet also worked out a beautifully paced arrangement of Hines's fine little piece.

The Feetwarmers series also offered at least one ensemble which works because of a subdued trumpeter (I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of This Jelly Roll, with Gus Aiken). The Ellington pieces Bechet did for Victor (The Mooche, Stompy Jones, Old Man Blues, Mood Indigo) may not all be among the best of the series, but they do remind of one of the great losses in the recorded repertory: it was Bechet's passionate presence in Ellington's early Kentucky Club orchestra that helped the pianist find his way as a bandleader and composer, and no aural evidence of that historic association has survived.

Bechet's Victor When It's Sleepy Time Down South has a lovely non-thematic half-chorus on soprano saxophone. Such improvisation was of course not at all beyond his inventive powers; he is equally inventive on Sweet Sue in the Spanier duets, and there is a 1947 showpiece treatment of Just One of Those Things. Indeed, Bechet seems to have loved Cole Porter (he also left us a strong Love for Sale and an eloquently simple reading of What Is This Thing Called Love?), and that, in turn, reminds us of his—and Porter's—understanding of major-minor relationships. Bechet also loved Puccini, and that should not surprise us either.

Bechet recorded intermittently for Blue Note in 1939 and regularly in 1944-45. The results included his affecting showpiece Summertime and his slow blues clarinet masterpiece, Blue Horizon.

Sidney Bechet was not always the sublime soloist he was at his best, of course, and there was a banal, turn-of-the-century sentimental streak in him that occasionally showed in his choice of showcase material (Song of Songs) or in the trite, bravura endings he was so fond of. And if, on the whole, his ornaments and his inventions do not show the sustained originality and imagination of an Armstrong, nor of Armstrong's best successors, one should not expect that of him. He was true to the limits of his style and truly creative within them.

He was an eloquent musician, a musician whose range could encompass the fundamental passion of Blue Horizon, the elegant simplicity of What Is This Thing Called Love?, and the unpretentious invention on Sleepy Time Down South. And he was a pioneer jazzman who could collaborate, late in his career, with Martial Solal with singular success especially on It Don't Mean a Thing, Rose Room, and The Man I Love.

My praise of his eloquence, as well as my occasional reservations about his taste, is ultimately subjective of course. And I will conclude my comments even more personally. It has been said that Bechet's strong, constant wide vibrato is an acquired taste. For me, it was a taste I willingly acquired without thought as a teenager. And it was one night in 1949 or 1950 in Philadelphia when I saw Bechet play, and watched as the man, the instrument, the sounds, the emotion—all of these became by some magic process one thing, one aesthetic whole. I think it was then that I was first in touch with the essential miracle of music.”