Fortunately, this 1955 recording on a small California label is in good condition. It preserves some of the little-remembered “San Francisco Sound” of the early 1940s. In a time when the swing and big band sounds dominated, a minority of jazzmen sought to revive the more intimate sound of Dixieland. There were three localizes “schools” of this “back to the basics” movement: one in New Orleans, another in Chicago, and a third in San Francisco, lead by Lu Watters and Turk Murphy. The 1941 and 1942 sessions on my disc, recorded on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco, have Lu Watters and Bob Scobey on cornets, Turk Murphy on trombone, Ellis Horne on clarinet, Wally Rose on piano, Quire Girsback on tuba, Bill Dart on drums, and two banjo players, Clacy Hayes and Russ Bennett. The interplay is between Watters, Murphy and Horne (whose clarinet is particularly sweet). Watters was most influenced by King Oliver’s band, with Louis Armstrong, in its heyday, but there are also echoes of W. C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton. Some of the material they played was virtually antiquarian even in 1941: they do an excellent, slow-paced version of the Tiger Rag, a piece that can be traced to the French quadrilles of Old New Orleans. The San Francisco sound featured banjo and tuba in the rhythm sections, which played in a 2‑to-the-bar rhythmic style. There was a lighthearted “good time” feeling to it, which distinguishes it from the more plaintive sound of the New Orleans revival.
0 Comments.