Unreissued American Music II: Charles Thompson

Way back in 2014 I promised some more 78s from the American Music label that had not been reissued. It took me awhile, but here is some prime piano ragtime and blues from Charles Thompson.

Charles Thompson (1891-1964), not to be confused with jazz pianist Sir Charles Thompson, was a formidable ragtime pianist and composer. Born in ragtime's "capital," St. Louis, Thompson is probably best known for his composition "The Lily Rag," and for winning the massive 1916 ragtime competition at the Booker T. Washington Theater in his hometown, where he emerged triumphant over Tom Turpin and 66 other pianists.

Bill Russell, the jazz historian who owned the American Music label, moved back to his hometown of Canton, Missouri in 1947. Canton was only 150 miles north of St. Louis, and in December of that year, Russell met Charles Thompson and decided to record him. His attempts to get Thompson on wax were seemingly jinxed. They got four good takes at Technisonic Recording Laboratories in St. Louis on December 30, 1947, but when the engineer dubbed the chosen takes onto a single disc for processing, they were overcut and distorted. Russell did not get the master discs back for many years.

Russell tried again on August 4, 1948, again at Technisonic, but was apparently disappointed with the quality of the performances. He wrote "no good" in his log beside most of the takes. Two tracks from this session were later issued on CD, however.


Finally, on August 2, 1949, Russell and Thompson successfully re-recorded the same four sides that Russell had planned to issue from the 1947 session. This time drummer Bill McCall was added, providing some fairly unobtrusive accompaniments. Russell issued two records on American Music, each featuring a rag backed with a blues.

By the time the revived American Music label issued a CD which paired Thompson with New Orleans/California pianist Dink Johnson, the long-lost 1947 master discs had been returned to Russell. So those were used for the CD issue. That means the 1949 78s have never been reissued. I seldom use the term "mint" to describe the condition of 78s, but these pretty much fit that description.

AM 527: The Lily Rag
                Derby Stomp

AM 528: Delmar Rag
                Lingering Blues

Stokowsky's 1921 Tannhäuser Overture

Lengthy, complex classical compositions posed difficulties for record companies in the pre-1925 acoustic era. A 12-inch record side could only contain four-and-a-half or (at the most) five minutes of music, so longer compositions had to be split over multiple record sides. And the acoustic recording process was fairly kind to strong vocalists, but was woefully inadequate in terms of capturing the timbre of instrumental ensembles. Orchestral music fared particularly poorly in the acoustic era, with record companies generally limiting orchestras to short, familiar warhorses, often edited to fit on one record side.

But as I've mentioned before, Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, understood the recording process better than most musicians. His are some of the best-sounding orchestral recordings of the acoustic era. And while he mostly offered shorter works and single movements (designed to fit on one record side) for his acoustic records, he was bold enough to record some longer pieces with the Philadelphia Symphony before it was common to do so.

Stokowski had been making records for four years when he recorded Wagner's 13-minute "Tannhäuser Overture" in late 1921. It's spread over three single-sided Victor Red Seal discs - sold separately, since the concept of the record "album" only became common with the advent of electrical recording. Stokowski leads the Philadelphians in a magnificent reading of Wagner's piece; its impact overcomes the limitations of the archaic recording process.

I have combined the three sides into one file below. The original issues are:

Part One - Victor 74758: matrix C-22808, take 10; recorded November 7, 1921
Part Two - Victor 74759: matrix C-22814, take 7; recorded December 5, 1921
Part Three - Victor 74768: matrix C-24999, take 2; recorded November 7, 1921.

All parts were recorded in Victor's Camden, New Jersey studios.

Philadelphia SO/Stokowski: Tannhäuser Overture

Gene Fosdick's Hoosiers - Complete

Gene Fosdick's Hoosiers was one of several excellent jazz bands that seemed to spring up from the fertile ground of the Midwest in the early 1920s. The Hoosiers recorded nine sides (at four sessions) for Vocalion in late 1922 and early 1923. An alternate take of one of the sides also exists: the version of "Farewell Blues" issued in Europe on the Beltona and Homocord labels is different than the Vocalion take. The nine Vocalion recordings were reissued as one side of an LP on the excellent reissue label Retrieval in 1979, but the music of the Hoosiers remains little-known. And to my knowledge, the European "Farewell Blues" has never been issued with the Vocalions.

Describing Fosdick's Hoosiers as a Midwestern band may not be really accurate. Fosdick was from Liberty, Indiana, but his recordings were all made in New York City. The personnel is not known in its entirety, and the names listed in the Rust discography are obscure, for the most part. Besides the leader's clarinet and saxophone, Rust lists Joe Rose on cornet, duo pianists Gerald Finney and Will Lanin, Ray McDermott on banjo, and drummer John Sonin. And then there's Gene Fosdick's younger brother Dudley; more about him later.

In his notes to that Retrieval LP, Mark Berresford puts forth a personnel that includes members of the Original Memphis Five, including cornetist Phil Napoleon, for all but the first session. Before I was aware of that, the clarinetist on the last session sounded remarkably like the OM5's Jimmy Lytell to me.  In any case, the personnel does differ from session to session, as does the musical approach.

The first two sessions feature a well-integrated three-piece saxophone section, and the style leans toward hot dance music, although jazz breaks and solos are featured. The passages featuring the two pianists, seemingly playing the same instrument, are some of the most dated elements of the first session. By the third session, there are two "melody" reeds, doubling clarinet and various saxes. The bass instrument seems to be a bass saxophone until the last session, when a tuba takes over the bass duties. By that last session, the Hoosiers have become an unabashed jazz band, and all pop/dance elements have fallen by the wayside. The European take of "Farewell Blues," taken from a German Homocord record, is broadly similar to the Vocalion version, but differs in enough details to let us know that there was some real improvisation going on. The reverse of the Homocord is "Railroad Man" - the same take as on Vocalion.

I've barely mentioned Dudley Fosdick, whose name has to be in the running for the least jazz-musician-like moniker ever. At only 20 years of age, he was in some ways the star of the first two sessions. (He doesn't appear on the last two dates.) In spite of the fact that his chosen instrument was the mellophone, that awkward cousin of the French horn, he became far more well-known that his brother and had a long career in music. To jazz buffs, he is probably best known for his contributions to records by Red Nichols and Miff Mole. His solo on "One Night In June" is a wild, virtuoso statement, and pretty advanced for 1922.

Here are the complete recordings of Gene Fosdick's Hoosiers in chronological order, with recording dates and details about the source records. The usual caveats concerning 78 RPM records apply: the records are in various states of wear, and there is surface noise. I have been sparing with noise reduction. I wish all the records had been in as good condition as "Railroad Man."

Novermber, 1922; NYC

10312            One Night in June (Vocalion 14473)
10313            Lost (A Wonderful Girl) (Vocalion 14473 - a different copy from the above)

December, 1922; NYC

10525            You've Got to See Mamma Ev'ry Night (Vocalion 14496)

January, 1923; NYC

10635            Peggy Dear (Vocalion 15403)
10636            Way Down Yonder in New Orleans (Vocalion 14496)
10641            Apple Sauce (Vocalion 15403)

March, 1923; NYC

11025             Farewell Blues (Vocalion 14535)

11026             Farewell Blues (Homocord B359 - as Homocord Jazz Band)

11027 or 8     Railroad Man (Blues) (Vocalion 14585 - reverse is by Ben Bernie Orchestra)

11030             Aunt Hagar's Blues (Vocalion 14535)