Various Artists – The Owls’ Hoot!

Description

Release Date:  1994

Label:  Frog Records

Track List

New Orleans Owls
1 Stomp Off, Let’s Go
2 Oh Me! Oh My!
3 The Owl’s Hoot
4 Piccadilly
5 Temperance
6 Dynamite
7 Pretty Baby
8 West End Romp
9 Blowin’ Off Steam
10 White Ghost Shivers
11 The Nightmare
12 Brotherly Love
13 Eccentric
14 That’s A Plenty
15 Meat On The Table
16 The New Twister
17 Goose Pimples
18 Throwin’ The Horns
New Orleans Rhythm Kings
19 She’s Crying’ For Me
20 She’s Crying’ For Me
21 Everybody Loves Somebody Blues
22 Everybody Loves Somebody Blues
John Hyman’s Bayou Stompers
23 Ain’t Love Grand?
24 Ain’t Love Grand?
25 Alligator Blues
26 Alligator Blues

Personnel

New Orleans Owls

Brass Bass – Dan LeBlanc    Clarinet, Alto Saxophone – Irvine “Pinky” Vidacovich     Clarinet,Cornet – Bill Padron    Drums, Leader – Earl Crumb     Guitar Banjo [Banjo Guitar] – Rene Gelpi      Piano – Edward “Mose” Ferrer      Tenor Saxophone – Lester Smith     Trombone – Frank Netto

New Orleans Rhythm Kings

Banjo – Bill Eastwood    Brass Bass – Chink Martin    Clarinet – Charles Cordilla    Cornet – Paul Mares    Drums – Leo Adde    Piano – Glyn Lea “Red” Long    Trombone – Santo Pecora

John Hyman’s Bayou Stompers

Clarinet – Elery Maser    Cornet – John Hyman    Drums – Monk Hazel    Guitar – Nappy Lamare    Harmonica – Alvin Gautreaux   Piano – Horace Diaz    Trombone – Charles Hartman

Notes

This was the second CD issued by the newly-formed Frog label in 1994, and it was an important reissue, presenting all eighteeen issued sides by the New Orleans Owls. Unlike many other similarly-styled groups, its members were all from the crescent city, and key members had been playing together, in the Invincibles String Band, since around 1912. The Owls was formed in 1922, and recorded a total of sessions for Columbia between September 1925 and October 1927. The late 1926 session was recorded on tour in Atlanta, and includes “The Nightmare” which was coupled with “Eccentric” and issued also in England.

That’s followed by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings recordings made by Victor in New Orleans in March 1925, when that group recreated two of the numbers recorded two months earlier for Okeh, albeit that clarinetist Leon Roppolo had been replaced by Charlie Cordella, who’d played tenor sax on the earlier date. Both issued of each number are included, and although these are not as well known as the Okeh recordings they are still impressive testaments to the NORK’s great ensemble sound, particularly in the rideout of “She’s Crying For Me”, and the virtuosity of its soloists.

The compilation concludes with the two Victor recordings made in New Orleans by John Hyman’s Bayou Stompers in March 1927. It presents the authentic sound of early white New Orleans jazz, and the recordings deserve to be more widely known.