Saturday Jazz Performance! "Wild Cat Blues" - Chris Barber Jazz Band!

Wild Cat Blues was written by Thomas "Fats" Waller when he was in his early twenties. Clarence Williams who published the music in 1923 is also credited as a composer, however, this was a standard practice with some publishers and Williams seems to have been notorious for giving himself credit as a composer on other peoples tunes. He may have edited the work or contributed, but we are talking about Fats Waller here and I doubt Williams had to do anything apart from publish it. This was however one of Waller's earliest compositions to be published, so he probably would have gone along with any type of arrangement just to get published.

Clarence Williams' Blue Five was the first band to record the tune the same year the music was published in New York on July 30th.

In this jazz performance trombonist Chris Barber and his Jazz Band plays Wild Cat Blues on apparently October 6, 1985.

Chris Barber in 2010.

Donald Christopher Barber was born in Hertfordshire, England on April 17, 1930. It was in the 1950s that Barber began his rise to fame when he and Monty Sunshine formed a band in 1953 featuring trumpeter Ken Colyer. In April of that year they debuted in Copenhagen, Denmark and made their first recordings while there.

After Colyer's departure from the group in 1954 the name was changed to the Chris Barber Jazz Band. They had a hit with their recording of Petit Fleur in 1959 which made it to No. 3 on the UK Charts during a 24 week reign on the UK Singles Charts. The group ultimately awarded a gold disc for this recording. During this year they toured the United States.

Barber expanding his musical interests arranged tours of many famous American Blues musician to the United Kingdom and eventually added blues guitarist John Slaughter to his bands line-up in 1964.

In 2008 Chris Barber, Eric Clapton as well as others formed co-operative record company, Blues Legacy. As of 2018 Chris Barber is still musically active.

The band is still in operation. In this 1985 performance the band is comprised of leader Chris Barber on trombone with a special appearance on the bass, both Ian Wheeler and John Crocker on clarinets, Pat Halcox on trumpet; Norman Emberson, on drums; Vic Pitt on bass;  Johnny McCallum on banjo; and Roger Hill on guitar.

The Chris Barber Jazz Band

Here now is the first recording of Wild Cat Blues by Clarence Williams' band featuring Sidney Bechet...

Clarence Williams' Blue Five, Wild Cat Blues, July 30, 1923.

Jazz Performance Saturday! "On the Sunny Side of the Street" - Downtown Dixieland Jazz Band of Canada

For this jazz performance we travel by way of video to Toronto, Canada 2013! The Downtown Dixieland Jazz Band plays their rendition of  On the Sunny Side of the Street was composed by Jimmy McHugh with lyrics by Dorothy Fields. The tune was first introduced to the public in 1930 during Lew Leslie's International Revue.

Not much is known about the Downtown Dixieland Jazz Band apart from the fact that in 1988 they played at the first Beaches International Jazz Festival in Toronto in 1988. It is not known whether the band is still performing.

In this video Myrna Van Weerdenburg vocalizes, Nick Van Weerdenburg is on clarinet, Al Cox plays trumpet, Harris Mark Lusher is on guitar, Ron Johnston is on bass, Jim Nevins plays the trombone, and it appears to be Lenny Van Bruggen on drums. Garry J. Asseltine was the videographer.

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Toronto, 2013 Video by Garry J. Asseltine.