Jack Teagarden And His Band - 1951 - Live At The Royal Room-Hollywood

Styles: Trombone Jazz
Year: 1999
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 61:26
Size: 141,5 MB
Art: Front

(5:07)  1. Stars Fell On Alabama
(1:55)  2. Little Rock
(2:36)  3. But Not For Me
(5:53)  4. That's A Plenty
(6:42)  5. Ain't Misbehavin'
(6:00)  6. Muskrat Ramble
(6:54)  7. At The Jazz Band Ball
(1:44)  8. Tickled To Death
(2:15)  9. Possum And Taters
(4:20) 10. Peg O' My Heart
(7:01) 11. Struttin' With Some Barbecue
(4:46) 12. Stardust
(6:07) 13. Somebody Loves Me

Jack Teagarden was a trombone player, singer, and band leader whose career spanned from the 1920’s territory and New York jazz scenes to shortly before his death in 1964. Teagarden was not a successful band leader, which may explain why he is not as widely known as some other jazz trombonists, but his unusual singing style influenced several other important jazz singers, and he is widely regarded as the one of the greatest, and possibly the greatest, trombonist in the history of jazz. Teagarden was born in 1905 in Vernon, Texas. Born Weldon Lee Teagarden or Weldon John Teagarden (more sources say Weldon Lee, but John makes more sense considering his nickname), Jack’s earliest performances were working with his mother Helen, who played ragtime piano, in theaters. His siblings also became professional musicians: his younger sister Norma played piano, his younger brother Charlie, trumpet, and his brother Clois (“Cub”), drums. Jack Teagarden began playing piano at age five, took up baritone at age seven or eight, and had settled on trombone by age ten. Some sources claim his unusual style of trombone playing stemmed from the fact that he began playing before he was big enough to play in the farther positions. He moved to Chappell, Nebraska, with his family in 1918, but by 1921 was back in Texas playing with Peck Kelley’s Bad Boys. Through the early and mid 1920’s, he played with several other territory bands, including Doc Ross’s Jazz Bandits, and the Orginal Southern Trumpeters. My sources disagree concerning which band brought Teagarden to New York, and with whom he made his earliest recording, but there is agreement that he arrived in New York in 1927 and was playing with Ben Pollack’s orchestra by 1928. Although Teagarden enjoyed a long career, it was at this point that he had the greatest effect on the history of jazz. The reaction to his unique style of trombone- playing appears to have been both immediate and widespread. Historians and critics widely agree: “No one disputes Jack Teagarden’s place in the trombone pantheon”(Morgenstern, 2004, p.292). Teagarden “is considered by many critics to be the finest of all jazz trombonists....”(Kernfeld, 1988) Teagarden “single-handedly created a whole new way of playing the trombone “ a parallel to Earl Hines and the piano comes to mind “ and did so as early as the mid-twenties and evidently largely out of his own youthful creative resources.”

His unusual approach to trombone playing had both a technical and a stylistic component. His technical approach in particular was quite unorthodox. A short digression into the mechanics of trombone playing will explain why. The trombone slide has seven positions where traditionally notated (chromatic scale) pitches can be played. Each position causes the instrument to be a slightly different length, and the instrument can play a (different) harmonic series at each length. The notes in any harmonic series are much closer together in the upper part of the series. This has a practical effect on trombone playing: in the lower register of the instrument, there are fewer notes in any given position, and often only one position in which a note can be played. In the upper register, notes in any position are closer together, and many notes can be played in more than one position. New Orleans-style trombonists tended to play in the lower range of the instrument, where it is simply impossible to change notes as quickly as a trumpet or clarinet does; entire arms can’t move as fast as a single finger. So the traditional trombone stylists specialized in playing simpler accompaniment parts featuring cute special effects like glissandos. Jack Teagarden apparently did not like this “tailgate” style of trombone-playing. Instead, he played higher in the instrument’s range, using mostly the first and second positions, and rarely moving beyond fourth position. Using “alternate” positions and an embouchure that was apparently extremely flexible (meaning he could change the pitch of a note using only small changes in his lips, mouth, and face muscles), Teagarden could play in the way that appealed to him. It apparently also greatly appealed to other musicians as soon as they heard it, but it relied so heavily on using unusual slide positions and on his ability to bend notes with his unusually flexible embouchure, that his style is generally considered to be literally “inimitable.” Teagarden’s style is also often described using words such as lyrical, vocal, legato, relaxed, fluent and smooth. The two premier trombonists on the New York scene when Teagarden arrived had also already rejected “tailgate” style playing, and there is disagreement about how much Miff Mole and Jimmy Harrison influenced Teagarden. But Teagarden appears to have arrived in New York with a clear idea of how he wanted to sound, and although the three players do seem to have influenced each other somewhat, they each also retained their distinctive styles. Harrison also played in the upper register of the instrument, so that he could play fast trumpet-style licks, but his playing is still firmly in the jazz brass tradition, with hard, clear articulations. More.. https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/jackteagarden 

Personnel:  Jack Teagarden-trombone & vocal;  Charlie Teagarden-trumpet (Jack's brother);  Norma Teagarden-piano (Jack's sister);  Helen Teagarden-piano (8.9) (mother);  Pud Brown-reeds;  Ray Leatherwood-bass;  Ray Bauduc-drums

Live At The Royal Room-Hollywood

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