Composer - Billie Brown (1894 - 1921)

Composer Billie Brown was thought to have been 18 years old when she died of Smallpox in December 4, 1921. In reality she was about 26 years old the fact that she was an accomplished composer and had a total of seven tunes published (two of them posthumously) was still a feat.

 

Published posthumously. 

Her tunes ranging from ballads to ragtime were successful at the time of their publication. Billie Brown appears to have been the adopted daughter of William and Anna (Welker) Brown. According to census data she was listed as being born in June of 1894 as Irene Anderson her father being born in Sweden. Her adoptive father William Brown was a saloon keeper.

 

Over the years her named changed to Willie Anderson and then to Billie Brown. With the help of her mother writing the lyrics to her compositions her music began being published in 1915 with her first known piece called Aloha Oe (Variations).

Further tunes were published including one by her mother Anna Brown, Shower of Kisses (1915) in which Billie did the arranging. Two version of one called The Star and the Rose published in 1918 & 1919, and Dangerous Blues in 1921.

 

In 1921 the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded Dangerous Blues along with several other performers including Eubie Blake and Mamie Smith.


After her death a few pieces were published posthumously including the popular Lonesome Mama Blues in 1922.

Lullaby Moon (1922) and What's on Your Mind (1924) were the only other tunes published under her name.

Follow this link for more information on Bille Brown's short life.

Neville Dickie at the Sherborn Inn, Sherborn, Massachusetts

Neville Dickie

Famed British stride piano player Neville Dickie appeared for the 12th year in a row at the Sherborn Inn last night, joining members of Stan McDonald's Blue Horizon Jazz Band for some high caliber Classic jazz!



Dickie played solo piano several times backed by drummer Dave Bragdon as well as being joined on and off by Stan McDonald on soprano sax and Jeff Hughes on cornet.

Ross Petot

Ross Petot played piano through the intermission, where he was briefly joined by Dickie on one number. Petot played several tunes with the band as well during the second set.

Nagasaki was played by Dickie upon request and proved to be quite popular as did his Boogie-Woogie tunes which he is noted for.

Dave Bragdon

Stan McDonald

Bragdon gave Dickie a run for his money on a couple of tunes especially Nagasaki where he kept up with Dickie's increasing speed. Tunes by Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Fats Waller and Willie the Lion Smith were all on display. Dickie played Smith's tune Finger Buster with alacrity and Stan McDonald and the band played Morton's Tijuana to great effect.

Jeff Hughes

One member of the audience, Freddy, who was celebrating his 70th birthday, got up to sing Somebody Stole My Gal, which he did with gusto while using a couple of different voices!



Stan and Neville swing!

The venue appeared to be quite popular to the full house who applauded and cheered throughout the performances. Neville Dickie told some jokes and kidded with longtime audience members including George A. Borgman's widow Janet. He announced to the audience that George was once asked to write 6 pages of liner notes for his CD Any Time and that George turned in 28! He claimed the booklet was so big it was hard to slide inside the case. The actual number in the booklet is 15.

Neville Dickie and Janet Borgman
 

Dave and Neville after the performance.

 

Ross Petot and Janet Borgman

Neville introduces Ross!

 

Janet and Stan chat after the show.

 

Check out Marce Enright's Posting of this event at her New England Traditional Jazz Plus.

Memories of a Jazz Journalist - Part Three - Mark Shane

Here is a continuation of the series of entries from George A. Borgman's article Memories of a Jazz Journalist from 2004.

 

Pianist Mark Shane (New York) broke me up with his story about playing for a dance at a New Hampshire estate, where the dancers and the bandleader ran outdoors, stripped naked, and jumped into the pool while the bandsmen, even though distracted, played on.

 

Mark Shane has a couple of piano influences that he acknowledges. His primary one is Teddy Wilson although when he plays solo piano he admits that Art Tatem is also up there. Shane started his career playing in dance bands in the New York City area. he has played with a slew of well known jazz and big band artists including Benny Goodman, Doc Cheatham, Wild Bill Davison, Bob Wilbur, Kenny Davern, Peanuts Hucko, and Scott Hamilton among others. He's also performed for the soundtracks of several feature films including The Cotton Club, Working Girl and Biloxi Blues. He has collaborated on several albums with singer Terry Blaine.


Here he plays at Birdland, on March 4, 2009

CHECK OUT PART FOUR

Memories of a Jazz Journalist - Part Two - Buzzy Drootin

Here is a continuation of the new series of entries that come from an article that George wrote in 2004.

Drummer Buzzy Drootin (Braintree, MA), one of the most amusing characters I've ever met, didn't want me to mention in my story that he had told me that several of his jazz all-star colleagues were addicted to alcohol or drugs. When I told Buzzy that they were all dead, he said, "I know, but I don't want people to know I've been talking about them."

Benjamin "Buzzy" Drootin, whose family was Jewish, was born in Kiev, Ukraine on April 22, 1920. The family emigrated to the United States and settled in Boston, Massachusetts when he was five.

His family was musical, his father played the clarinet and both of his brothers also played instruments. Buzzy began playing the drums professionally as a teenager and for the next fifty years would play with some of the leading jazz musicians in America.

 



Jess Stacy

In the beginning though, he earned cash working in bars. He began touring  with the Jess Stacy All-Stars when he was about twenty. After the war he worked as the house drummer at Eddie Condon's in New York from 1947 until 1951.



Wingy Manone

Over the years in the 1950's and 1960's he worked in clubs in Chicago and Boston and played with musicians such as Jimmy McPartland, Doc Cheatham, and Wingy Manone. He also recorded with Tommy Dorsey, Bobby Hackett and the Dukes of Dixieland. Other musicians he played with were Chuck Hedges and Wild Bill Davison.

In 1973, after touring Europe and the States, he and his brother Al formed the Drootin Brothers Jazz Band. He played at the Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festival in the 1980's.

George A. Borgman interviewed Buzzy and wrote a story on him that was published in The Mississippi Rag.

He died, from cancer, on May 21, 2000, at the age of eighty at the Actors Fund Retirement and Nursing Home in Englewood, New Jersey. He had a daughter, Natasha and two sons, Peter and Tony.

Here Buzzy Drooton plays with the Wild Bill Davison All Stars in 1984 in Malmo, Sweden.

CHECK OUT PART THREE

A Look at Scott Yanow's New Book!

A new book by Scott Yanow has been released that focuses exclusively on jazz guitarists. It's entitled The Great Jazz Guitarists, The Ultimate Guide. If you are a jazz fan, as I am, you should find this book an excellent resource. Yanow has written ten previous books and an incredible amount of other jazz related writings. He knows his stuff. Calling the book The Great Jazz Guitarists, your favorite local jazz guitarist might not be included, but, a very large amount of guitarists actually are. Even ones from abroad like Lino Patruno of Italy.

The book contains several guitarists that George A. Borgman knew, interviewed or wrote about including Al Casey, Marty Grosz, Gray Sargent, and Bucky Pizzarelli.

My personal favorite jazz is early to Swing, when it gets to bee-bop I kind of lose interest, however, this book has all the best from every era. Some of the ones from my favorite era are Eddie Condon, Lonnie Johnson, Eddie Lang and Dick McDonough. I'm a little surprised I couldn't find Johnny St. Cyr, however, who doesn't seem to have made the list.

The book starts off with an interesting and well written "Introduction" then comes the main section which lists "342 Great Jazz Guitarists" in alphabetical order. The entries are concise but contain a great deal of information. As Yanow did in his book Classic Jazz: The Musicians and Recordings That Shaped Jazz, 1895-1933, he has some CD and record recommendations to search for at the end of each entry.

The next section lists "44 Other Historic Guitarists" then after this is "175 Other Jazz Guitarists on the Scene Today." Amazingly there's another section called, "They Also Played Jazz Guitar" which includes a variety of musicians who have at some time actually played jazz guitar, such as rocker Peter Frampton, cornet player Bobby Hacket and trumpeter Oscar Klein!

But wait! There's more! "Jazz Guitarists on Film" gives a good sized list of DVDs, a few VHS tapes and even the 10 best performances on film and "Best Ghosting by a Jazz Guitarist." The book ends with a listing of other people's books on jazz guitarists.

The book contains a lot of jazz guitarists, both living and dead, many of whom I have never heard of and a few that I plan to seek out. All around a pretty excellent book.

Yankee Jazz Beat: George A. Borgman's Jazz Journal

It is hoped that Yankee Jazz Beat: George A. Borgman's Jazz Journal will be the first book to be published utilizing George A. Borgman's extensive writings on music and jazz.

The GAB Archives is currently selecting and editing the materials to be used in this volume, which may end up being a muliple volume set.

The writings that are hoped to be included range from published material to  private letters, journals and interviews. The first entries will be from the 1980s. The collection will be centered on his jazz writings but will also include some jottings on music and his daily life as well.

From the Files: Clarinetist Pete Peligian

George A. Borgman has left a rather large collection of materials. For almost every article he wrote on a band or musician, over the years, there was a band or person that he had hoped to write about but never did.

The reasons for an article not coming to fruition were many. Sometimes, a time for a face to face interview couldn't easily be worked out, an article candidate passed away, none of the journals he wrote for were interested in the story, or just the lack of time due to his large work load.

However, with some people for whom he intended to interview, he would begin to write an article with what he had and then would fill it out later after an interview or more research. Here is one of those short prepatory articles from the George A. Borgman Archives files on Rhode Island clarinet player Peter (Pete) Peligian that was recently discovered.

THE PETER PELIGIAN STORY

By George A. Borgman 

  Peter Peligian is a fine jazz clarinet player from Rhode Island, but, on at least one occasion, he was the special guest of cornetist Jeff Hughes' Lost in the Sauce, a quintet, at the Sherborn Inn in Sherborn, Mass.

Early Life

  Peter (Pete) Peligian was born in Providence, R.I., on March 20, 1924.

  Peligian, mostly self-taught on the clarinet, was influenced by early jazz recordings and radio broadcasts.

Becomes Professional Musician

  For many years, Peligian was a member of the Jewels of Dixie. In 1951, he replaced clarinetist Pete Colaluca, who led his own group, when Colaluca moved to Connecticut and trumpeter Tony Tomasso took over the band. For most of the 1950s, the group performed steady engagements at the Village Rendezvous, the Green Orchard and the Governor Dyers. During a 13-week engagement in the Jewel Room of the Bostonian Hotel, that band adopted the name of Jewels of Dixie, a name first used by the Boston Daily Record's George Clark in his glowing review of the band's performance. 


Louis Armstrong

    At the Green Orchard, Louis Armstrong borrowed Tomasso's horn to sit in with the Jewels of Dixie. In addition to Peligian, the other players in the Jewels of Dixie were trombonist Zolman M. (Porky) Cohen, who joined the group in about 1955 and later was replaced by Len Olivieri; pianist Eddie Soares; and drummer Ray Cerce.   

  In ensuing years the Jewels of Dixie had several long stints at the Village Rendezvous, Governor Dyers, Bovi's Town Tavern, the Top of the Court, the Charles Pub, The Helm,  Christy's, and the Warehouse Tavern.

  Peligian performed at the Newport Jazz Festival with the Jewels of Dixie in the mid-1950s. In 1962, the Jewels opened the Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, R.I., with a performance that won critical acclaim.

  Peligian also played periodic gigs with Balaban and Cats at Condon's in New York City from 1979 to 1984.

Bobby Hackett

  In 1983, Peligian played with Bobby Hackett, Red Balaban, Ed Hubble, and Red Edwards at the Pee Wee Russell Memorial Stomp in Martinsville, N.J.

  Peligian’s career includes performances with Doc Cheatham, Ed Hubble and Vic Dickenson at memorial concerts for Bobby Hackett, and at jazz concerts held at Brown University. Throughout his career, he has performed at numerous other concerts, club dates and one nighters, playing with such artists as pianist Dave McKenna, tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton, and cornetist Warren Vaché, among others.

Here is a link to a 1988 newspaper article that mentions Peligian.
Pete Peligian's Obituary at Yankee Jazz Beat

Memories of a Jazz Journalist - Part One

A new series of entries will come from an article that George wrote in 2004.

As a contributing editor to The Mississippi Rag since 1992, I have written more than 30 in-depth stories about musicians and bands in New England, New York City, Upstate New York, Canada, England, and Paris. Here I mention only a few of the amusing and interesting interviews.

One of the first interviews was of John Sheehan (Millis, MA) about his excellent Heritage Jazz Band, now defunct. John, who has a wonderful Irish sense of humor, led the band from his drum set, and he told me, "Good drummers are called 'Sticks.' I was known as 'Twigs.'"

John F. Sheehan was born in Framingham, Massachusetts on March 12, 1927. He served in the Navy during World War II and later attended Tufts University. He then was a minor league pitcher for the New York Giants.

He was the band leader and drummer of the Heritage Jazz Band which played in the Dixieland style.

One interesting incident which showed how well he was liked happened because Sheehan was ill at the Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick, Massachusetts in October 1981. On Sunday, November 2nd at the Stickey Wicket Pub in Hopkinton, the his band often played, his fellow jazz musicians put on a Hospital Rent Party! Dave Whitney, members of the Heritage Jazz Band, Stan McDonald and his Blue Horizon Jazz Band, East Bay City as well as the New Black Eagle Jazz Band all played up a storm for about two hours from 12:00 - 2:00 PM.

Sheehan died at the age of seventy-seven on June 1, 2004 at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Brockton.

 

CHECK OUT PART TWO

Baby, Won't You Please Come Home - Jack Staulcup and His Orchestra - 1950

Jack Staulcup

Here is a 1950 recording in which George A. Borgman was one of the saxophone players on it. We hear Jack Staulcup and His Orchestra, "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home," from an Oriole Records session. It was recorded in the Summer 1950, in Chicago, Illinois.

The Mississippi Rag - December 2007 Issue

The December 2007 issue of The Mississippi Rag was the very last one published. For its final year The Rag  was published online.

In it there were articles covering some of Duke Ellington's  singers. These included Ivie Anderson, Kay Davis, Adelaide Hall, Al Hibbler, as well as others.

There is also a tribute to the 95 year old tenor saxophonist Franz Jackson and a look at his long career.

A mandolinist, Dennis Pash, a member of the Kansas City's Etcetera String Band, is examined. Plus there is coverage of  the Oklahoma Centennial Ragfest, the EarlyJas Festival, Brighton's Swing Jazz Party, Sunnie Sutton's Jazz Party and the Doc Evans Centennial Celebration.

There is also a salute to the Hall Brothers Jazz Band and remembrances Lowell Schreyer and ragtime icon John Arpin.

On page 26 George A. Borgman's last Yankee Jazz Beat column covers musician and radio host Ray Smith's 35 years as host of his radio program The Jazz Decades. He also mentions Ken Badger's Trio, Dr. John Clark's Wolverine Jazz Band, Craig Ball's Back Bay Rhythm Maker's Quintet and Stan McDonald's Blue Horizon Jazz Band.

George leaves off with these words of wisdom, "Take a teenager to a traditional jazz gig or festival. When they have the opportunity to hear trad jazz, they'll probably love it."

Here is the December 2007 online edition of The Mississippi Rag. December 2007

Jack Everette and His Orchestra

One of the bands that George A. Borgman played saxophone and clarinet with in 1946 was the Jack Everette Orchestra a Mid-west territorial big band.

The leader was John Everette Jackson, who was born in Watkins, Iowa on August 22, 1905 to John T. and Katie May (Wells) Jackson. He would use "Jack Everette" for his first band in 1926 in Cedar Rapids because there was another popular Mid-west group known as Jack Jackson and His Orchestra. Three years later, Jack married Alice Leroy Hart on March 4, 1929 in Iowa City.

The Jack Everette Orchestra started gaining it's popularity after the band began broadcasting from Station KWCR on a weekly radio show. The band had a long run at the Mayfair Club in Des Moines and had built up its prestige by the mid-thirties. The Orchestra was fairly successful during the Big Band years and worked a territory everywhere from Cincinatti to Salt Lake City and from Houston to Canada. His band had a long list of performance dates and occasionally they'd travel to Chicago and to Kansas City where they would play at the PlaMor Ballroom.

The band was disbanded during World War II, during which time Jack opened a restaurant in Springfield, Missouri.

With the end of the war Jack reformed his band with many of the same players as before. In a February 9, 1946 advertisement in Billboard he asked for, "TENOR SAX, TRUMPET MEN; commercial ideas and diligence required," to play with his "established territory band." Perhaps this ad led to George's stint with the band on saxophone. Whenever George joined it would not be for long, because he would join the U.S. Army in 1946 too and would become part of the Army of Occupation when he was sent to Germany in 1947.

 

The Jack Everette Orchestra continued its run until 1956. In that year his son Dave started his own orchestra. Jack and Dave would then start the Jackson Artist Corporation, a booking agency, in Kansas City, Missouri in 1962. Ten years later Jack would pass away on July 9, 1972.

Find out more on Jack E. Jackson at Family Tree Maker Online. 

Jazz comes over the Blue Horizon - by George A. Borgman

A bit of old New Orleans is featured every Friday evening at the Foundry in the Liberty Village Mall, Route 27, Walpole. 
 

Exactly at 8:30, Stan McDonald raises his soprano saxophone or clarinet to the playing position, he stamps his left foot to the snappy tempo - counting out loud, "One, two, three, four" - and the Blue Horizon Jazz Band hits the downbeat of its first tune of the evening. 
  

Everyone plays a few bars together, and then the frontliners begin taking solos - first, McDonald, followed by the trumpet and trombone, each instrument providing counterpoint to the soloist's melodic line, while the rhythm section, piano, banjo, bass and drums keeps a steady beat. 
  

Jazz fans come from all over New England to enjoy the traditional jazz and early swing and the restaurant's fine cuisine. 

 

The diners and the bar patrons have a good view of the band, and there is an area for dancing. The acoustics in the high-ceilinged room are excellent. 

 

Bandleader McDonald, whose daytime job is Liberty Director at Framingham State College, is considered to be one of the best reedmen in the world. He is a disciple of Sidney Bechet, the famous soprano saxophonist and the clarinetist from New Orleans. 

 

Stan McDonald & George A. Borgman

According to Alan C. Weber, who wrote the notes for the band's 1982 record album, it is the "consensus that no living reedman plays so effectively in the Bechet manner - full, rich, tone, pronounced vibrato and long, lyrical melodic lines." 

 

McDonald led the New Orleans Jazz Doctors from 1954 until 1960 and also performed with the New Orleans Six and the Historic Jazz Band. 
 

In 1971, he was one of the founders of the New Black Eagles Jazz Band. He travelled with that group to festivals throughout the United States and Europe. He made numerous recordings with them. He left the Black Eagles and formed BHJB in 1981. 

 

Trumpeter Walter Miller, with a Harvard Ph.D. in anthropology and a retired expert in street-gang sociology, is a trad jazz purist of the Louis Armstrong school. 

 

Miller played trumpet with Buck Clayton in Paris, Lil Armstrong and Lee Collins in Chicago, and J. C. Higginbotham on the college circuit. In Boston, he performed with bands at such clubs as Storyville, Savoy, and Mahogany Hall, and he was also in the Historic Jazz Band with McDonald. 

 

Miller has been with the band since 1982, when McDonald talked him into coming out of the musical retirement.

 

McDonald and Miller also do vocals. McDonald's vocal style is reminiscent of Jack Teagarden's. He does well on "You're Such An Ugly Child" and Jelly Roll Morton's "Don't You Leave Me Here." Miller enjoys singing "After You're Gone" and "Sweet Lorraine." He is particularly good on "Makin' Whoopee." 

 

Retired engineer Ken Parsons, the trombonist, is a self-taught musician. He sometimes played in McDonald's Jazz Doctors in the 1950s and also played with traditional and contemporary jazz groups in central Massachusetts before joining BHJB a couple of years ago. 

 

Pianist Phil Hower has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and is research director at an electronics firm. 

 

Hower played with groups on the West Coast in the sixties, and he had his own quartet in San Francisco. He later played at bars in Pittsburgh before moving to Boston, where he developed a good reputation as an authentic trad jazz pianist. He joined BHJB in 1983. 

 

Royce Anderson, also a Ph.D., who teaches marketing  at the Graduate School of Management, Clark University, Worcester, came on board with BHJB as a guitarist about a year ago. He formerly played the blues, folk music and bluegrass on the guitar, but recently converted to a six-string banjo. 

 

"It's just like playing the guitar," Anderson explained. "I sometimes bring a guitar to a gig, but the banjo has that nice, percussive sound. There were some banjos with six strings back in the early jazz days. Johnnie St. Cyr played one in Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven." 

 

Swiss-born Hans Brack, the youngest member of the group, is taking a Ph.D. in chemistry at Brown University. He played bass with several bands in Boston before joining BHJB in 1985. 

Drummer Don Russell, a machinist, joined the group in April. He said, "I don't like at all what is called jazz today, but I've always loved this music. I like happy people, I like happy music and I like the New Orleans jazz." 

 

BHJB played steady gigs at Ephraim's in Sudbury, Bogart's Milford, and the Sherborn Inn. It has had many one-nighters, including the Sticky Wicket in Hopkinton, the Jazz Revival in Beverly and in Cambridge at the Regatta Bar of the Charles Hotel. 

 

The band was featured at the Manassas Jazz Festival in Virginia in 1984, the Downeast Jazz Festival in Camden, Maine, in 1988 and in 1990 at the Pennsylvania Jazz Society's celebration of the 100th anniversary of jazz. 

 

Through the years, BHJB has issued a cassette and two record albums. A CD is currently in the works.  

(George A. Borgman is a freelance writer.) - The Daily Transcript, October 24, 1991.

Stan McDonald and his Blue Horizon Jazz Band is still playing up a storm. George's widow and son Eric went to see them play at the Sherborn Inn on November 20th! Apart from band members not much has changed with McDonald and his music.

The Boston Jazz Chronicles

George's article, "Boston's Grand Old Man of Jazz," about Sabby Lewis, which was printed in The Mississippi Rag in 1994 was cited in the bibliography of the 2012 book; The Boston Jazz Chronicles.

The author of the book, Richard Vacca, spent seven years researching the Boston jazz scene for the period between 1937 to 1962. For more information on the book check out Troy Street Publishing.

When George A. Borgman relocated to the Boston area after retiring from the military he started hearing about the jazz pianist Sabby Lewis. Firstly, from his wife Janet who grew up in Dorchester and would hear his band on the radio and secondly from New England area musicians.

George enventually caught up with Sabby; went to his performances; interviewed him; talked with him on the phone, and would end up absolutely adoring him. He commented that he, "cried when he died." Sabby Lewis passed away in July of 1994 shortly before the story about him was published in The Mississippi Rag.

"The Bench" - Lost Film

Here is a "lost" silent film segment from the feature comedy film The Man in the Movie in which George actually played two roles. That of a silent comedy "heavy" and/or "drunk" and a cranky movie theater patron.

In this segment I call The Bench George appears as the silent comedian who's had one too many. He basically made up his actions on the spot.



This film was shot on the corner of the Boston Public Garden. At one point a bus load of Japanese tourists stopped at the light at the corner. The tourists saw George playing his part and what seemed like a hundred cameras began clicking away! He used to proudly say that pictures of him were all over Japan.

Also featured in this film are George's son Eric Peter McClymer who plays the man who finds the money and Gregory DiGregorio the one who sits of Eric's coat tail.

The Mississippi Rag - November 2007 Issue

The November 2007 issue of The Mississippi Rag is the second to last issue ever printed.

In it can be found an examination of some popular trombonists Tommy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, Miff Mole, George Brunis, Cutty Cutshall, Lou McGarity, and Brad Gowans.

Joe Boughton's annual star–studded Jazz at Chautauqua is covered in a photo display, and ragtime pianist, ex-Soviet citizen, Larisa Migachyov is interviewed.

Two great British jazz festivals, Whitley Bay and Keswick Jazz Festivals, are also, extensively covered as well as an in depth film analysis by William Schafer, of the 1986 independent jazz film, "The Gig," which feastured Warren Vache, Jr.

George's Yankee Jazz Beat column is located on page 28.

Here is the November 2007 online edition of The Mississippi Rag. November 2007 Excerpt from the film The Gig.

The Mississippi Rag - October 2007 Issue

The Mississippi Rag of October 2007 featured an interview with classical and ragtime pianist Richard Dowling. He is also considered a specialist on composer George Gershwin.

Sophie Tucker, who is sometimes remembered as "the last of the Red–Hot Mamas," is examined with historical photographs in an informative article.

The Illiana Club and Eddy Banjura the "Jazz Warrior" is explored as is the Swinging Jazz Party of Blackpool, England, which is covered with some colorful pictures.

And as always George A. Borgman's Yankee Jazz Beat which covers the New England jazz scene can be found on page 14!

Here is the October 2007 online edition of The Mississippi Rag. October 2007

"biggest little band in the land" - The John Kirby Sextet - Inner City & Classic Jazz Release

A new release by Inner City & Classic Jazz is the "Biggest Little Band in the Land" featuring the John Kirby Sextet.

Classic Jazz Records says this regarding their new CD and the John Kirby Sextet.

"Occupying a very small slice of jazz history, the years 1937 thru 1944 with the players listed, defined what a superb artistry and cohesion to an extraordinary extent, could mean in jazz. The war years of the 40s decimated the membership and this exquisite ensemble was no more. Happily these recordings exist and are now once again available to jazz fans. You'll never hear jazz the same way again."

The group heard is made up of John Kirby on bass, Charlie Shavers playing trumpet, Russell Procope on Alto sax, Buster Bailey playing clarinet, Billy Kyle on piano and playing the drums is O'Neil Spencer. The twenty-four tunes on the album are all from the years 1941, 1943 and 1944.

John Kirby is said to have been born on December 31, 1908. He was orphaned as a child and was already in New York playing music by the mid-1920s. He started out on trombone moved on to the tuba and settled on the double-bass.

1937 proved to be an important year for Kirby and his band. They began playing the Onyx Club and recording. Their swing version of Loch Lomond proved to be a hit and he and his band would see success through most of the 40s.

By 1950, however, things had changed. Kirby suffered ill heath from diabetes and drinking. His audience had declined, with concert at Carnegie Hall in December to a porr turnout.

He died on June 14, 1952 in California as he was planning for a comeback. Fortunately, his recordings of his groups live on. In 1993 John Kirby was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.

Nat Hentoff said this about the music of the Biggest Little Band in the Land:

"At the time, it was a phenomenon unlike any other in jazz. A unit which was so together that other musicians would come to marvel at the collective precision of it all - the subtlety of dynamics, the stunning ensemble virtuosity, the way the soloist was so integral a part of the continually floating, soaring, driving, whizzing whole. This was cool jazz before anyone had thought of the term, before Miles Davis and those Capitol recordings. This was a prototype of how disciplined jazz could be before the Modern Jazz Quartet. This was John Kirby." 
 

Listen to samplesof the tunes and/or purchase the CD at Amazon.
 

 

Check out what's new at the Inner City & Classic Jazz website! 

 

An interesting BBC radio program Jazz Legends from 2003.

The Mississippi Rag - September 2007 Issue

The Mississippi Rag of September 2007 looks at the 20th Annual Elkhart Jazz Festival. Contains an interview with North Carolina "ragtimer" Eytan Uslan and has an interesting article on The Vitaphone Project and its effort to restore 1920s Vitaphone films.

There is also coverage of  the Blind Boone Ragtime Festival,  the Caesarea Jazz Festival in Israel and the Great Connecticut Jazz Festival  Here is the September 2007 online edition of The Mississippi Rag. September 2007

The Mississippi Rag - August 2007 Issue

In the August 2007 issue of The Mississippi Rag looks at the "JazzAscona New Orleans and Classics" festival which lasted for eleven days and featured jazz artists from around the globe.

It also features Rich Johnson a Bix Beiderbecke researcher and music director who helped establish Davenport's Bixfest. George's Yankee Jazz Beat mentions the passing of pianist Matthew Quinn, the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame, he also writes about the Artie Shaw Orchestra under Dick Johnson and singer Steve Marvin as well as mentioning many other New England bands and musicians.

Here is the August 2007 online edition of The Mississippi Rag. August 2007

George Borgman's Ruby Braff Article Referenced

George's extensive article “The One and Only Ruby Braff,” which was published in the December 1995 issue of The Mississippi Rag is referenced multiple times in a new book on the recordings of Ruby Braff. Thomas P. Hustad used George's article in the writing of his 722 paged book Born to Play: The Ruby Braff Discography and Directory of Performances which was released this year 2012. George interviewed the trumpeter Braff in person for his article. Ruby Braff died on February 9, 2003 in New York. Sweethearts On Parade Featuring Ruby Braff and Ralph Sutton at The Mid-America Jazz Festival in 1988 in St Louis, Missouri.

The Mississippi Rag - June 2007 Issue

The June 2007 issue of The Mississippi Rag contains comprehensive, colorful coverage of the Atlanta Jazz Party. An in-depth look at Fate Marable's riverboat jazz in the early 1900s through a 1961 interview with Norman Mason and an interview with Corie Melaugh, a member of the new ragtime generation. It also includes a trip to the Norwich Jazz Party, which opened the UK's 2007 season of Trans-Atlantic jazz parties and regional columns which includes George's Yankee Jazz Beat as well as the TJEN column exploring recorded "playalong" options. Here is the June 2007 online edition of The Mississippi Rag. June 2007

The Mississippi Rag - July 2007 Issue

The July 2007 issue of The Mississippi Rag captures the eclectic program that made the Sacramento Jubilee on Memorial Day Weekend a winner for over a quarter of a century. Some of the bands covered are Simon Stribling's New Orleans Ale Stars, the Boondockers, Vince Bartels' Migrant Jazz Workers, Lost Weekend, Capital Focus Jazz Band and Big Tiny Little's band. It also includes a look at three jazz pioneers, Jack Purvis, Emmett Miller, and Fess Williams. George's Yankee Jazz Beat mentions the passing of pianist Matthew Quinn, the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame, he also writes about the Artie Shaw Orchestra under Dick Johnson and singer Steve Marvin as well as mentioning many other New England bands and musicians. Here is the July 2007 online edition of The Mississippi Rag. July 2007 Simon Stribling's New Orleans Ale Stars at Port Angeles 2007

The Mississippi Rag - May 2007 Issue

In the May 2007 issue, of The Rag, the late historian and curator emeritus Dick Allen is honored by writers Butch Thompson, William Schafer, Paige Van Vorst and the Hogan Jazz Archive curator Bruce Boyd Raeburn. Allen was dedicated to New Orleans jazz. His enthusiasm led to the founnding of the Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University.

 

This issue also includes an interview with "Ragtime Kid" author Larry Karp, and has colorful coverage of a star-studded tribute to the late bassist Bob Haggart, as well as a visit to the Tribute to Bix, and the launching of Judi K's new "Jazz Warriors" series with a salute to Wayne Arihood of La Crosse, Wisconsin.

 

Here is the May 2007 online edition of The Mississippi Rag. MAY 2007

Carole Elaine Borgman 1958 - 1967

In April of 1996, George remembered the death of his daughter.

"Friday was the 29th anniversary of the death of Carole Elaine Borgman, our beloved daughter. She was only eight years old. Tanya Rousseau Tupine, her ballet instructor in Virginia in 1965 and 1966, called her a genius at ballet. I miss her very much, so does Janet. No parent ever gets over the death of a child, of course."

"The Musical Counterspy" - By George A. Borgman

Every year I'm asked to write an article for this booklet. If I didn't like the Hot Steamed Jazz Festival so much, I'd beg off, for I'm very busy working on various stories and reviews for The Mississippi Rag.

But what should I write about? I don't like writing about myself, but I've had a very full life, not only as a musician and jazz journalist, but also as a special agent in Military Intelligence in the Army.

In June 1945, at age 17, as a freshman at the University of Missouri in Columbia, I played tenor and alto saxophones and clarinet in the Missourians, a big band, and in the Fall I joined the Moderaires, a big swing band that worked almost every night at Dean's, a basement student hangout in downtown Columbia.

The following March, we heard that Jack Teagarden and His Orchestra were to play at the Engineer School's St. Patrick's dance on Saturday evening, the 16th. A black band played Dean's on Wednesday nights, when we were off, so we traded nights with our black friends, so we could go hear Teagarden Saturday night.

At the dance, during an intermission, we went outside to smoke and converse with some of Teagarden's sidemen. We all laughed about Jack's Texas drummer, who wore cowboy boots and had a plastic straw to sip whisky from a bottle in his coat pocket. During the second break, the guitar player said that Teagarden was looking for a jam session after the dance.

All the Modernaires were there, and we all jumped at the chance for a session with Teagarden. We took our girl friends home early (and were they angry!) and picked up our instruments at our dorms and frat houses. Our drummer, who had a Cadillac convertible, drove across town to purchase some booze for us from a woman who sold it after hours to students. I drank Southern Comfort whisky then, and he brought me a bottle.

At the end of the dance, we met Teagarden, and he and a few of his guys got into cars with us to go to Dean's. I ended up with Jack in the back seat of the Caddy convertible. I knew that Jack loved the booze, and I opened the bottle of Southern Comfort and offered him a taste. He eagerly took a big swig, and, as the "parade" of cars drove across town to Dean's, Jack and I almost emptied the bottle.

Dean's was closing, and the black guys were packing up their instruments. When they saw Jack Teagarden walk in with his trombone case, they happily brought out their horns, and we had a great jam session until about 2:00 a.m. Then we all went to the drummer's frat house, and Teagarden and the guys jammed until 7:00 a.m. There is a photo of Jack, seated on the piano bench, blowing his horn, and all the Modernaires are standing in the background. I am seated to the far right, and I'm obviously blotto.

Oh, yes, a month later Teagarden fired his drummer for being an alcoholic!

Jack Teagarden and His Orchestra circa 1951 playing Wolverine Blues.

That was a memorable experience - sharing a bottle with Teagarden. Another one I recall was when I was with MI in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1978.

My unit gave me the assignment of "riding shotgun" on a counterintelligence operation we had going at the Penthouse Club, which was located on one of Frankfurt's main streets not far from the Abrams Building (formerly the I.G. Farben Building), where I worked.

So every day, after work, I walked to the Penthouse, which was a hangout for the spies, from both East and West, and a lot of American soldiers drank there and chased the girls. A few dope pushers also showed up.

I usually sat at the bar with an old man (let's call him "Vaclav"), in his late sixties. We knew he was working for the Czechoslovakian Intelligence Service. Vaclav wore a hat, limped and carried a cane, and looked just like a Hollywood character actor who always played a spy or a Gestapo agent. Vaclav told me he was born in the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia. We conversed in English or German. The Army had trained me in the Czech language, but I didn't want Vaclav to know that, of course. 

On the evening of January 16, 1978, Vaclav told me it was the fortieth anniversary of the famous concert of the Benny Goodman band at Carnegie Hall. Vaclav then related to me the names of all of Goodman's musicians and invited guest players and their instruments, and even named the tunes they played. The next day I went to an Army library and found a book on jazz and read about the concert. Everything he told me was accurate. I couldn't believe it - a Czechoslovakian spy who was an expert on the Goodman Carnegie Hall concert! During later conversations with Vaclav, he really impressed me with his knowledge of jazz and swing.

So, those are two of my experiences - sharing a bottle of whisky with Jack Teagarden, and a CSSR spy giving me the rundown of the Goodman Carnegie Hall concert.

Oh, yes, in order to make room for the spies to operate in the Penthouse, I informed the Army's Criminal Investigative Division of the dope deals there, and the local CID narcotic squad (who looked and dressed like hippies) showed up one night. The GIs recognized them, and we didn't see a GI there for six months.

"Sing, Sing, Sing" - Benny Goodman and His Orchestra - 1937 Version.

Happy Days at the Sherborn Inn in 2002!

George and his wife Janet at the Sherborn Inn listening to jazz in 2002. Sherborn, Massachusetts.