St. Patrick’s Day never arrives without reminding me of a record that did not get made. In the 1960s Paul Desmond and guitarist Jim Hall, frequent collaborators in those days, came up with an idea for an album of Irish music. In their planning session, they decided on some of the tunes they would record, “The Tralee Song,” “Lovely Hoolihan” and “Fitzhugh or No One” among them. That, unfortunately, is as far as the project went.
Happy St. Patrick’s day.
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
…then there was Louis’ “Irish Black Bottom” (on the chords of “the Wearing of the Green”, and requiring Armstrong to sing “I was born in Ireland”), allegedly first performed at the Sunset Club, with a chorus-line of Harlemites, dressed up as Irish colleens: now that’s what I call multi-culturalism!
Before anyone else points out my error: the Sunset (“Cafe” not “Club”) was in Chicago, so the chorus-line would not have been “Harlemites”. However, the story about them dressed as “colleens” is true, I believe. Glad to see Doug drawing attention (above) to other gems by Good Ol’ Louis!
Doug, here’s one wonderful “holiday” record that did get made:
“Good Friday Blues” by the Modest Jazz Trio (Jim Hall, Red Mitchell and Red Kelly)back in 1960. If anyone finds a copy of this, pounce on it. I wish I still had mine.
(Amen. It’s a classic, a prime candidate for reissue–DR)