"New York Jazz Scene, 1917-1920"

Jazzbo Jazz: Jazz de Luxe (Earl Fuller's Fatuous Jazz Band): Johnson Jazz Blues: Umbrellas To Mend (Frisco Jass Band): Footwarmer: B-Hap-E (Louisiana Five)/Bluin` The Blues: Peggy (Lopez and Hamilton's Kings of Harmony Orchestra): Clarinet Squawk: Yelping Hound Blues (Louisiana Five): Patches: Bo-La-Bo (Lopez and Hamilton's Kings of Harmony Orchestra). Riverside Q RLP8801 (12 in., 32s. 3d. plus 5s. 3d. P.T.).

This is undoubtedly an interesting and valuable historical document—or rather a remarkably accurate `Verifax' copy of a collection of such documents, all taken from Edison Blue Amberol cylinders of the first four years of jazz recording. How much they will appeal to any but dedicated collectors and devotees of things as they were near the beginning is open to doubt. For there are precious few 'names' on this record, and it is generally `names'—never mind how bad the performances —that sell nowadays. We don't even know who the men in the Frisco Jazz—pardon, Jass—Band were, but I have very strong doubts as to the truth of the story given in the sleeve-note, viz., that Joe Frisco, the dancer who 'discovered' Tom Brown's band in New Orleans in 1913, was the leader. I think it at least as likely that the band was named after Lou "Frisco" Chiha, the stunt xylophonist and drummer, who actually appears on the reverse of one of the band's other records (an Edison Diamond Disc, a quarter of an inch thick and almost microgroove-recorded), or, even more likely, after the Californian city which, according to at least one contemporary account (1917), cradled "jass".

While on the subject of the sleeve-note, I see that "the quality of sound ... is beyond anything done in that period". This is utter nonsense. No recording of the 1917-1920 era compared with that of Victor. Good heavens, the splendid Victors by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band are common enough, and by their clarity and natural sound they prove that the Victor Talking Machine Company had, in 1917 and 1918, developed the science of acoustic recording as finely as any firm could have done. These Edisons are quite good, be it said, but they take a very poor second or third place behind Victor, both musically and technically. Reading on, we discover that "the cylinders made it possible to extend the playing time to a little more than four minutes per record". In view of the monotony of some of the performances, particularly those by Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band, this can only be regarded as a distinct disadvantage. Jazz De Luxe is the slightly superior track, not quite so frenzied as Jazzbo Jazz. (By the way, the sleeve-note, perhaps in an attempt to cover up the absence of the ODJB from this set—which, after all, is nobody's fault, for they just never recorded on Edison—says that the Dixieland Band played all their numbers at top speed. This, too, is utter nonsense, as anyone can prove by listening to Livery Stable Blues, Mournin' Blues, Ostrich Walk or Bluin' The Blues.)

Talking of Bluin' The Blues, this number is one of four included here by the Lopez and Hamilton Kings of Harmony, and is, we read, "a very tasteful copy of the ODJB version, and perhaps the most jazz-like of them all". But that is to true. It lacks the colossal joie de shire—even in slow tempo—of the classic ODJB recording, but compared with the other three titles by the band it is jazz of a high order. Frankly, I could quote a dozen other records of the period that have weathered the half-century or so better than these. And I wouldn't include many of the Louisiana Five's records in that dozen, although the four included here are very pleasant, giving, as they do, the usual prominence to Alcide Nunez's agile but rather thin clarinet playing. Still, they are not exactly world-beaters. Even less so are the titles by the mysterious Frisco Jass Band. They remind me of the sort of thing that Joseph C. Smith played on dozens of Victor records about that time, with a dash of early-jazz spirit added. (Johnson Jazz Blues includes a chorus of Oh! which became a popular song in its own right about two years later.) Actually, this unknown bunch produce rather smoother rhythmic patterns than Earl Fuller did a year later, and there is a pleasingly countrified sound that is at least different. The trombonist seems a bit off-pitch in the 'blues' title, but the drum-breaks in the last-chorusbut-one of Umbrellas are quite forward-looking, not so much for the way they are played as the fact they are played at all!

As a hopeless addict of the very earliest jass/jazz—even when it's not played by the ODJB—I find much to interest and amuse me in this set. But the LP also proves just how great a distance there was between the maligned Dixielanders and their imitators. B.R.