13. Chicago Rhythm Kings, “I’ve Found a New Baby”

(Spencer Williams-Jack Palmer)

For use with Lesson #13.

 

Style: Early Chicago

Personnel: Francis “Muggsy” Spanier (age 21) cornet, Frank Teschemacher clarinet, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow tenor saxophone, Joe Sullivan (age 21) piano, Eddie Condon banjo, Jim Lanigan tuba, Gene Krupa (age 19) drums. Recorded in 1928.

Issued on Brunswick 4001.

Reissued on Acrobat 157, ASV 5102 and 5192, and Timeless 1021.

The early Chicago Style was developed in the 1920s by a group of high-schoolers collectively referred to as the “Austin High Gang”. The musicians on this recording (including several Austinites) are in their late teens to mid-twenties, and their style is rambunctious and rebellious. Clarinetist Frank Teschemacher’s angular, pushing, straight-eighth clarinet style accounted for much of the edginess in many of the early Chicago Style recordings. A prominent element of the style is the “flare”, heard at 2:59-3:01, in which the intensity builds to a crash on beat 4 at the end of a phrase. The tag ending here is a paraphrase of a lick from Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five recording of “Cornet Chop Suey”.

Sequence for this track

0:00 Ensemble chorus

0:40 Clarinet solo (ensemble on last two bars)

1:18 Piano solo (ensemble on last two bars)

1:55 Tenor sax solo (ensemble on last two bars)

2:32 Ensemble outchorus

3:10 Tag by tenor sax

”Muggsy” Spanier