Isomatic UK Weblog

This evening we saw Brian White's Magna jazz band at The Manor in Old Malden (pictured).
Our favourite numbers were as follows:
1. Corinne Corinna, first recorded by Bo Chatmon and the Mississippi Sheiks but not copyrighted until 1932 by Chatmon and his publishers, Mitchell Parish and J. Mayo Williams. The link is to Big Joe Turner singing, backed by a rock-and-roll saxophone.
2. Love Me or Leave Me, written by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by Gus Kahn and introduced in the Broadway play 'Whoopee' in 1928, sung by Ruth Etting. This link is to the Peggy Lee version. Peter Winn was the only person present who knew who composed it.
3. Wabash Blues, words by Dave Ringle and music by Fred Meinken and the first success for pianist, saxophonist and song composer Isham Jones. This link is to the Fletcher Henderson version. Wabash presumably refers to the river; the Wabash Cannonball is fictional.
4. Alan Dandy's beautiful solo feature Echo of Spring, composed by Willie "The Lion" Smith in 1938. The link is to Robbie Rhodes at the El Segundo Ragtime Festival.

I was tackled at the bar by a guy who had been avidly reading this weblog. He commented that I was very self-opinionated (probably true if I could spell it). I asked for an example and he quoted car parking. I wondered if he was referring to (Thursday, November 11, 2004) when I complained about pay-and-display at hospitals. If so I stand by my view that this is evil. He agreed with that but thought that otherwise heavy traffic made car parking problems inevitable. I missed the opportunity to comment on private 'clamping' in Windsor, more evil.

Labels: Jazz