Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Joseph Francis Lamb was born of Irish parents on December 6, 1887 in Montclair, New Jersey. The youngest of four children, he taught himself to play the piano and admired the early ragtime publications of Scott Joplin. His first known works were Meet Me At The Chutes and Idle Dreams, at the age of 13 in 1900, but they are unpublished and assumed lost.

During his teenage years while living in Toronto, Canada he published several march and waltz compositions for Harry H. Sparks Music Publisher. Most notable were The Lilliputian’s Bazaar, Celestine Waltzes, and Florentine. Most were published after he left Canada

Lamb dropped out of St. Jerome’s College in 1904 to work for a dry goods company. He met Joplin in 1907 while purchasing the latest Joplin and Scott sheet music in the offices of John Stark & Son. It was there that Joplin was impressed with Lamb’s compositions and recommended him to ragtime publisher John Stark. Stark published Lamb’s music for the next decade, starting with Sensation.

Joseph’s twelve rags published by Stark from 1908 to 1919 can be divided into two groups: the “heavy” rags are incorporated with Joplin’s melody–dominated style and Scott’s expansive use of the keyboard registers. The “light” rags with the cakewalk tradition show the narrow-range melodies inspired by Joplin.

He went on to work as an arranger for the J. Fred Helf Music Publishing Company and in 1914 became an accountant for L. F. Dommerich & Company. When popular music interest shifted from ragtime to jazz Lamb stopped publishing his music, playing and composing only as a hobby.

Composer Joseph Lamb, who was the only non-African American of the Big Three composers of classical ragtime, the other two being Scott Joplin and James Scott, died of a heart attack in Brooklyn, New York at age 72 on September 3, 1960.

 

 

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The Jazz Voyager

For this Jazz Voyager it’s a relatively short hop in New England terms, an idyllic three and a half hours along the Long Island Sound from the Big Apple to Old Lyme, to be in good company at The Side Door. Not unfamiliar with small town living, as Connecticut used to be this voyager’s stomping ground growing up, this venue has been billed as the only jazz club between Boston and New York City.

Residing in the historic Old Lyme Inn. The club opened in 2013 and is operated by an ambitious, jazz-loving couple in Ken and Chris Kitchings. Already made my reservations for a room and the show, so I’ll be spending the night at the inn.

On stage this week will be a first call drummer, Joe Farnsworth, leading his quintet composed of Sarah Hanahan on alto saxophone, vocalist Georgia Heers, Cameron Campbell playing piano and Peter Washington on bass. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Joe and Peter on a couple of occasions but not with him leading this configuration. I am also excited to hear Georgia, Sarah and Cameron share their gifts.

The Side Door is located at 85 Lyme Street, 06371. For more information visit thesidedoorjazz.com.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Theodor Christian Frølich Bergh, better known as Totti Bergh was born December 5, 1935 in Oslo, Norway. He began playing clarinet, and started learning to play the saxophone in 1952. By the time he turned 21 in 1956, he became a professional musician, becoming a regular member of Kjell Karlsen Sextet for three years, in addition to collaborating sporadically with Rowland Greenberg and other musicians on the Norwegian jazz scene.

He joined the Norwegian America Ships house orchestra on the voyage to New York City. In 1960 Totti succeeded Harald Bergersen as tenor saxophonist in Karlsen’s new big band and in the summer of 1961 he met his future wife Laila Dalseth, who joined the band.

He would go on to play with the bands of Einar Schanke, Rowland Greenberg, Per Borthen and in Dalseth’s orchestra. During the Nineties he played tenor  and soprano saxophone with Christiania Jazzband and with Christiania 12.

Saxophonist Totti Bergh, who released several albums as a leader and whose music is reminiscent of Lester Young and Dexter Gordon, died January 4, 2012 in his home city.

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Jazz Poems

LADY SINGS THE BLUES

Satin luscious, amber Beauty ceter-stage;

garden in her hair. If flowers could sing

they’d sound like this. That legendary scene:

the lady unpetals her song, the only light

in a room of smoke, nightclub tinkering

with lovers in the dark, cigarette flares,

gin & tonic. This is where the heartache

blooms. Forgot the holes

zippered along her arms. Forget the booze.

Center-stage, satin-tongue dispels a note.

Amber amaryllis, blue chanteuse, Amen.

If flowers could sing they’d sound like this.

                         *     *     *

This should be Harlem, but it’s not.

It’s Diana Ross with no Supremes.

Fox Theater, Nineteen Seventy-something.

Ma and me; lovers crowded in the dark.

The only light breaks on the movie-screen.

I’m a boy, but old enough to know Heartache.

We watch her rise and wither

like a burnt-out cliche. You know the story:

Brutal lush. Jail-bird. Scag queen.

In the asylum scene, the actresses’s eyes

are bruised; latticed with blood, but not quite sad

enough. She’s the star so her beauty persists.

Not like Billie fucked-up satin, hair museless,

heart ruined by the end.

                         *     *     * The houselights wake and nobody’s blue but Ma.

Billie didn’t sound like that, she says

as we walk hand in hand to the street.

Nineteen Seventy-something,

My lady hums, Good Morning Heartache,

My father’s in a distant place.

TERRANCE HAYES

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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