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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Correspondence: On Harry James

August 22, 2007 by Doug Ramsey

Record producer, writer and all-’round musician Bill Kirchner writes:

In 1995, I programmed and did the liner notes for Harry James: Verve Jazz Masters 55, a CD compilation of James’ MGM recordings from 1959 to ’64. These recordings are among James’ best from a jazz standpoint; the CD is still available.
My thanks to trumpeter/bandleader/historian Dean Pratt–much more of a James authority than I am–who hipped me to these recordings in 1993 when I was working on the Smithsonian Big Band Renaissance boxed set.

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Comments

  1. Dick Bobnick says

    August 3, 2008 at 10:55 am

    (A year following the Rifftides posts it refers to, comes this communique addressed to Bill Kirchner. To see the Harry James piece that brought Kirchner’s comment, follow this link: http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/2007/08/harry_james.html — DR)
    Hi Bill:
    I found this Harry James link by accident but I felt I had to respond to your programming and liner notes on the Harry James, Verve Jazz-masters 55 CD. It is absolutely one of my top three favorites of James’ music. I am a lifelong James collector-enthusiast having first heard of him at age 7 when an older cousin who had just returned from WW II put a record on his turntable and asked me how I liked it. It was Harry’s phenomenal recording of “Flight Of The Bumblebee”. I was so blown away I asked my folks to start me on the trumpet. To make a long story short, I played trumpet throughout high school and college, earning my tuition that way. I now have a son who is an outstanding lead trumpet and soloist. He just returned from a 4-year stint as lead trumpet with the U.S. Army’s JAZZ KNIGHTS jazz ensemble at West Point. He is now an educator and first call trumpet in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
    I love the Verve album as it shows Harry to be the ultimate trumpet genius and jazz icon he was. Too many so called critics do not give him the credit he truly deserves. Harry was the most influential big band and jazz trumpet of the 20th century. Every major jazz and lead trumpeter, big band and classical, gives Harry top kudos for his mastery of his instrument and his musical legacy. Your liner notes are great, authoritative and accurate. I have recommended this album to many and have used parts of it on jazz and big band radio shows on which I was a guest. I am Email friends with former James trumpet men Tony Scodwell and Clay Jenkins, who was a teacher of my son while he was at Eastman School Of Music. I would appreciate any other info or referrals to James historians or collectors you may know of to trade stories and facts. Thanks again for an outstanding job on the album. By the way, I am a nationally published illustrator-portrait artist and have done a number of musical celebrities for agencies, publishers etc., including one of Harry. Check out my website.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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