I LIKE THAT / I Didn’t Know (Clarence M. Jones). I’m Proud of a Baby Like You (Stevens-Schoenberg-Helmick). Hoosier Sweetheart+ (Goodwin-Ash-Baskette). Clementine (From New Orleans) (Warren-Creamer). Ya’ Comin’ Up Tonight, Huh?* (Lyman-Sherman-Lewis). That’s What Puts the Sweet in Home Sweet Home+ (Newman-Gordon-Lowry). Sunday (Krueger-Conn-Miller-Styne). Dardanella (Bernard-Black-Fisher). Just Imagine (DeSylva-Brown-Henderson). My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now+ (Caesar-Friend). My Ohio Home+ (Kahn-Donaldson). I Like That (Trumbauer-Hayton). Don’t Be Like That* (Pinkard-Tobias-Gottlieb). Dinah+ (Lewis-Young-Akst). I’m Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now (Benny Davis-Jesse Greer). Sunny Disposish* (Phil Charig-Ira Gershwin). My Pretty Girl (Charles Fulcher). So Tired* (Art Sizemore-George Little) / Bratislava Hot Serenaders: Juraj Bartoš, Stanislav Masaryk, Ratislav Suchan, ct/tp; Karol Barto, tb; Zbeno Piala, cl/a-sax/bar-sax; Paul Selinal, cl/a-sax/fl/bs-sax; Pavol HoÞa, cl/s-sax/t-sax/C-sax/bar-sax; Gabriel Szathmary, Adam Szendrei, Jan Kružuak, vln; Erik Jambor, pno/acc; Richard Ficor, bj/gt; Marián Vavro, bs; Juraj Biaha, sousaphone; Patrik Fičor, dm/perc; *Jozek Kuriták, +Miloš Stančik, crooner; Serenader Sisters, voc; others / BHS R158 0007-2-331, also available for free streaming on Spotify. Bonus tracks: Lonely Melody (Walter Donaldson). You Took Advantage of Me (Rodgers-Hart) / available for free streaming on YouTube by clicking titles.
For those who have never listened to or followed them on YouTube, the Bratislava Hot Serenaders is the greatest early jazz recreation band in the world and has been since circa 1994. Founded by trumpeter-cornetist Juraj Bartoš (b. 1967)—not to be confused with a Czech photographer of the same name—they specialize in two kinds of music, traditional Czech music of the past and virtually flawless recreations of old jazz band recordings by Jean Goldkette, Paul Whiteman, Sam Lanin and, believe it or not, Duke Ellington. Indeed, they are the only trad-jazz band that can reproduce the exact orchestral timbres and textures of the Ellington Cotton Club orchestra with exact fidelity. The sad thing is that, to date, I’ve only been able to find two such pieces in their repertoire, Jubilee Stomp and Cotton Club Stomp.
But for me personally, their crowning glory is (are?) the cornet solos taken by Bartoš in which he does not merely duplicate what Bix Beiderbecke played—on the contrary, he rarely plays any of Bix’s solos the way Bix did on the records—but by some miracle channels the spirit of this dead jazz giant to create entirely NEW solos that sound not something like Beiderbecke, but exactly like his playing, stylistically and technically.
How he does this, I don’t know. So many others have tried and came close—the late Bobby Hackett was probably the closest—and others after Hackett, most notably Tom Pletcher and Andy Schumm, but close is not exactly. There was a very specific rhythmic and harmonic feeling to Beiderbecke’s solo spots that made them distinguishable from most of his imitators. During his lifetime, only Andy Secrest (occasionally) and Red Nichols (surprisingly often) came close, and they had the advantage of hearing him live and knowing his daily improvising habits, not just the solos he freeze-dried in place on his recordings.
Thus this 2018 release by the Bratislavans is particularly valuable in giving us not carbon copies but what the musical media nowadays calls “reimagined” Jean Goldkette performances. The one thing you must know, however, is that not all of these songs were recorded by the Goldkette band during the period when Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer were in it. Goldkette formed a new and less starry orchestra which made its recording debut on December 12, 1927, by which time Bix, Tram, bassist Steve Brown and star arranger Bill Challis were all part of the Paul Whiteman orchestra. These post-Bix Goldkette items are Ya’ Comin’ Up Tonight, Huh?, That’s What Puts the Sweet in Home Sweet Home, Just Imagine, My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now, Don’t Be Like That, My Ohio Home and So Tired, and Dinah is an expanded arrangement of the pre-Bix Goldkette band of January 1926. Dardanella is a Challis arrangement written for the Whiteman band with Bix, and I Like That was a Lennie Hayton tune and arrangement recorded in 1929 by the Trumbauer recording band with Bix.
Juraj Bartoš
Yet even in the ensembles of these non-Bix-inclusive Goldkette tracks, the way Bartoš leads the brasses still sounds like Beiderbecke and not his replacement. Perhaps the most interesting track on this CD is I Didn’t Know, a recreation of the only acoustic recording Bix made with Goldkette in the fall of 1924. This recording was never issued commercially on 78; it first appeared, taken from the lone surviving test pressing, on the 1962 LP The Bix Beiderbecke Legend, and in addition to the acoustic sound the first third of this test pressing suffers from a persistent skritch-skratch sound that gets on one’s nerves. So here we have a clean, purely-recorded digital stereo remake of the original. Tommy Dorsey’s trombone solo and Joe Venuti’s violin solo are recreated verbatim, but even here, where Bix was only given one chorus, Bartoš invents something entirely new that still sounds like the Beiderbecke of 1924. It’s almost eerie.
Thus I recommend that, if you have a taste for ‘20s jazz, you at least listen to this entire CD as well as the two extra tracks I recommend above. other Challis arrangements for Bix with Whiteman. The only feature of these performances that do not ring entirely true are the vocals. The “Serenader Sisters” have high, reedy, nasal voices, kind of like Czach chipmunks, but in a way they’re funny to listen to. The male “crooners” have so-so voices but, again, they have a certain charm.
One interesting thing I noticed was that, on YouTube, they only have a live performance of I Like That uploaded; you have to go to Spotify to hear the studio recording. But…Bartoš’s “Bix” solo on the studio recording isn’t as inventive or as exciting as the one on the live track. Keep that in mind the next time you listen to your Beiderbecke recordings. His work in the studio was not always his best. And of course, the other reason to applaud Bartoš’s work is that, of all 1920s jazz musicians, Beiderbecke had the most far-reaching influence, and not just on his own instrument. Louis Armstrong influenced an entire generation and a half of trumpeters, but Bix influenced xylophonist-vibist Red Norvo, tenor saxist Lester Young, clarinetist Artie Shaw, pianist John Lewis and, second hand via Bobby Hackett, John Lewis, Chet Baker and Miles Davis.
—© 2024 Lynn René Bayley
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