"Traveling Blues: Life and Music of Tommy Ladnier"

Traveling Blues: Life and Music of Tommy Ladnier by Bo Lindström and Dan Vernhettes has just been published by Jazz'Edit in a limited edition of 500 copies. As an option, you can additionally get a CD containing an archive of the 189 Tommy Ladnier recordings, in mp3 format.

I have already ordered the book but haven't received it yet. However, I have read the Fletcher Henderson chapter, which was published in the two latest IAJRC Journals (Vol.42 nº2 - June 2009 & Vol.42 nº3 - September 2009), and it combines outstanding biographical research and thorough musical analysis (Lindström and Vernhettes have been working on this biography for ten years!). So, the book should be a must-read!

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La editorial Jazz'Edit acaba de publicar Traveling Blues: Life And Music of Tommy Ladnier, de Bo Lindström & Dan Vernhettes, en una edición limitada de 500 ejemplares. Opcionalmente, se puede adquirir un CD con las 189 grabaciones en las que participó Tommy Ladnier, en formato mp3.

Pese a que todavía no he recibido el libro, he podido leer el capítulo dedicado a la época en la que Tommy Ladnier formó parte de la orquesta de Fletcher Henderson, ya que fue publicado en los dos últimos ejemplares del IAJRC Journal (Vol.42 nº2 - June 2009 & Vol.42 nº3 - September 2009). Dicho capítulo combina, a partes iguales, una magnífica investigación biográfica con un concienzudo análisis musical (Lindström y Vernhettes han trabajado durante diez años en esta biografía). Sin duda, ningún aficionado a la música de Tommy Ladnier puede perderse este libro.

Those were the times!

Fletcher Henderson, Peanuts Hucko and Jimmy Crawford at the Central Plaza? Wild Bill Davison, Max Kaminsky, Rex Stewart, Mezz Mezzrow, Bud Freeman and Omer Simeon in the same bill? Henry Red Allen, George Wettling, Pee Wee Russell, Claude Hopkins... Those were the times!

Leonard Feather on Louis Armstrong

This profile of Louis Armstrong was written by Leonard Feather and published in the New York Times on October 26, 1941.

[Click on image to see full size version]

Will Marion Cook's Clef Club Orch. with Fletcher Henderson

According to Swing Along: The Musical Life Of Will Marion Cook by Marva Griffin Carter (Oxford University Press, 2008), when Will Marion Cook returned from Europe in March 1923, he toured with a 25-piece Clef Club Orchestra, performing at Baltimore's Douglass Theatre (March 23, 1923) and Philadelphia's Dunbar Theater, with 'Paramount Recording Wizard' Fletcher Henderson at the piano.

Here's the ad for the first concert, published in the Afro American, March 16, 1923 (note the "35 Musicians and Players" tag).

[Click on image to see full size version]

Fletcher Henderson - New Albert Theatre ad (May 3, 1930)

This concert ad was published in The Afro American (May 3, 1930). Fletcher Henderson's orchestra was going to play at the New Albert Theatre, Baltimore, and it strikes me that, among this amazing constellation of stars (Rex Stewart, Jimmy Harrison or Coleman Hawkins, to name a few), this advertisement underlines drummer Kaiser Marshall, "the world's greatest drummer".

Henry Red Allen - Obituary

As published in The New York Times, April 19, 1967.