Ridin' But Walkin'

Remember those far-off days when music was either good or bad? Well, here's a track which undoubtedly falls into the "good" category. I first came across it on a Jack Teagarden compilation (above) in my local library, and ever since then have assumed - without actually bothering to investigate to any great degree - that any RCA LP in their "vintage" series with the distinctive winerack cover must perforce contain any number of equivalent goodies.




One of the consequences of the digital age generally is that although you get more sides for your buck - those who still part with bucks, that is - the sense that some kindly mentor has cherrypicked the best of an artist for you has all but gone. What, he recorded eight takes that day? Here they all are - and two you never knew about. (You're welcome.) And hey, don't let The Man at Decca decide what constitutes the best of early Duke Ellington - here's a boxful of the stuff; now you can fill your blue serge boots.

Such largesse can be a mixed blessing, leading to the aural equivalent of a psychomatic affliction  termed "sightseer's ankle" by Robert Robinson. When in an art gallery chocka with masterpieces Robinson's sense of the enormity of the artist's achievement, the sheer cliff face that he, the viewer, was now being asked to scale unaided, made enjoyment and engagement impossible to sustain for more than about ten minutes, whereupon that ache would conveniently kick in, excusing him from further labour. So I mourn those LP covers with essays by Brian Rust, gently guiding you to an appreciation of the carefully selected contents.

In the case of that Teagarden album the essayist is actually jazz historian Richard B Hadlock, but the point still stands. I haven't sought out the album since then, though it covered quite a range of his work, as I remember. Songs like I'll Be a Friend With Pleasure by Ben Pollack (catchphrase: "May it please you") sounded sentimental, possibly ironic, though not unpleasant, and Never Had a Reason to Believe in You by the Mound City Blue Blowers was good fun, but it was Ridin' But Walkin', credited to Fats Waller and His Buddies, which really caught the ear. In a sense it doesn't amount to much: a simple blues. But there are several things in its favour. One is that in addition to Teagarden it features Fats Waller, albeit in an unusually restrained mode, leaning back and content to be a sideman, helping things along. The other is that members of Luis Russell's Orchestra (though not Russell himself) are featured - musicians I had already come to know and love though another LP discovered in that library featuring the very best of Russell's output, which is saying plenty.

It must also be said that the sound on the above youtube clip is better than can be heard on the relevant volume of JSP's Complete Fats Waller set. Although the hallowed John R.T. Davies more or less annointed Ted Kendall as his successor, to my ears Kendall's transfer of Ridin' But Walkin' has a trace of that sadly familiar underwater sound (spillage from the River of Jordan?) which attends over-processing. So I wonder about the source material uploaded to youtube: might it have been from that vinyl Teagarden compilation? It would be nice to think so.

Those old jazz albums which filled the record racks in my local library have been on my mind in recent days as I have been leafing through a first edition of The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz (above) by Brian Case and Stan Britt. "First edition" shouldn't be taken to imply anything particularly collectable or valuable to anyone else in this instance; it's just that it's likely to contain more of the album covers I recognise from the years of frequenting my local library than later editions: "illustrated by ... 275 record jackets" is the book's boast, and I think I must have skimmed through most of them.

The quality of the covers varies, though often the basis is an old photograph of the artist or band put, with a great or lesser degree of artistry, into some setting intended to be visually arresting. When a painting or drawing has removed the need for a photograph of the artist the cover is more likely to have aged well; there are many cases where you feel like trying to prise a photo away from some once-trendy setting. One Jelly Roll Morton album was adorned by a strange, mysterious misty shape, presumably intended to bolster the legend of the man who claimed to have invented jazz.

Later on I bought my own copy of the album with the rather more prosaic cover which you can see below. But that Impressionist painting seemed to match the strangeness, to me, of the tracks: something which couldn't quite be grasped, however simple and spare the playing and singing.

Yet all the covers I thumbed through in those long-ago days, good or bad as they may now seem, spoke of excitements contained inside which were different in some unspecified way from those promised by pop and rock albums. They seemed, these jazz people, sophisticated and adult by comparison - and their work was stored in a library, which meant they were educational, not for fun - or not just for fun. I suppose I treated some of these records as a kind of nasty medicine which I'd be wise to persist in taking even if the rewards were less immediate than pop. And I recall that on one occasion in the early seventies I got respect at the post office counter when the assistant saw I was carrying the library's copy of The Luis Russell Story, so that was a considerable payoff. No, we didn't then proceed to form a band together, but it was certainly a moment.

I can't claim, however, that I gave myself wholeheartedly to this new interest and immediately began working through all the library had to offer in that wideranging category. Listening to a cassette of Charlie Christian at Minton's I had a sense that that was about my limit: it was enjoyable, or enjoyable-ish, but Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams and others were preferable. Given my liking for Luis Russell I suppose I ought to have listened more methodically to the library's Duke Ellington LPs, but I didn't. 

Certain album covers, like the above for Ellington and Johnny Hodges, stick in my mind but I never actually borrowed it, as far as I recall. Too busy buying doo wop and rock'n'roll records, probably, and riffling through the library's stock of nostalgiac records of variety stars and Vivian Ellis musicals, so I never really had the singlemindedness of some jazz devotees. And there was further diversion to be found in the library in nearby Hamilton, which I discovered was more liberal in its purchasing of vinyl - it had, for example, The Cameo-Parkway Story: The London American Legend, not to mention Neil Sedaka - so I wasn't driven deeper into jazz, and to this day have never really explored much beyond the mid-forties.

When I look at the many album covers in that book, some of which can be seen on its back cover (above), I feel a sense of warmth, and a  wistfulness about the past which they conjure up - my past, I mean, not 1920s New Orleans or Kansas City. It's not that I want to go back there - it certainly wasn't uniformly agreeable - but libraries have always been substantial things in my life, havens, ways of accessing wonders. It's a long time since I have walked into the building which introduced me to jazz, and it may be that I shall never go back again. The odd comment I have read on online forums suggests it is quite a different beast now: a sleepy reference room now seems to be cluttered with computers and much arguing about who is entitled to use the machines and when, if those online critics are to be believed.

The library's jazz collection was already beginning to change and shrink before I moved from the area; at some point pop was deemed to be okay which I think coincided with the introduction of charges for the privilege of borrowing records. Perhaps the message was: "You can listen to this trash but let's not pretend it'll do you any good." Jazz records deemed surplus to requirements were sold off on occasion: I bought Clarence Williams Rarities, which I had borrowed and listened to countless times. It has an unlovely cover, expressly aimed at the afficionado who already knew what he was getting - no need for an image of Williams or his accomplices against a psychedelic background. I just missed the copy of The Luis Russell Story which had been such a joyful discovery to my fourteen year old self; I did think of remonstrating with the middle-aged man who had snatched it up, but I didn't.

There is unlikely, then, to be a pile of jazz albums mouldering and gently warping in some dusty basement room in my former local library: all, I imagine, must now been sold off at bargain prices. Perhaps some of those who snapped them up did so to revisit the hours of pleasure the LPs and their covers had already afforded them. I do hope that Luis Russell went to a good home. Ditto Jugs and Washboards, a Decca compilation with Clarence Williams sides, doubtless also gone into the void; I picked up another copy, at a price, some years later in London. "Hens' teeth" was the sign directing me to towards it.

I wonder about the fate of that Jack Teagarden album containing the Fats Waller gem. Assuming it hasn't already gone to landfill - a much-played library copy can't be worth a lot, after all - will there come a time, in this unexpected age of vinyl revival, when someone's grandson chances to place a slightly wavy disc on his top of the range turntable or his cheap and nasty all-in-one with USB output, grimaces through the simpering of Ben Pollack and is about to lift the record off when he hears the opening of Ridin' But Walkin' and wonders where it has been all his life?

Libraries have to adapt, and even if I could I wouldn't want to halt the selling-off of that once-loved stock if it's no longer in demand - though it would certainly be nice to get there five minutes earlier on the day of the sale, thus allowing me to clasp The Luis Russell Story to my own bosom, cackling horribly at the sight of my thwarted rival's tears of frustration.

But that sense of triumph would, I imagine, be short-lived. Because what I'd really like - what I need -  is the chance to stand, one more once, in the record section of the library as it was in the mid-seventies and, systematically and unhurriedly, go through the racks, committing every cover, every tracklist, every essay by Brian Rust and whoever else to memory.

So why didn't I drink deeper at the time? Maybe it wasn't just those other musical distractions. The library's jazz collection never seemed to be added to or whittled down, or not so's you'd notice. Did I assume it would be there forever? The few remaining jazzers from the old days weren't going to be making many more albums, after all, so there was no urgent need to probe every nook and cranny of this sleepy, PVC-girt collection. Miles Kington once wrote about "the kind of book which you put aside until tomorrow, when you'll be more alert", or words to that effect, and perhaps that's what I thought I was doing: postponing until I was ready. No one rushes to take their nasty medicine, despite its widely-attested benefits.

And I didn't have a guide. None of my brothers was interested in jazz, and I didn't see that post office assistant again. A few years ago on Radio 3 Duke Ellington was Donald Macleod's Composer of the Week; I was fascinated as he talked through each early side, singling out musicians and telling us what to listen for. There was an overlap with the approach of Luis Russell, and I couldn't understand why I'd waited several decades to discover this.

Maybe now, with this delightful tome by my side, I shall explore a little further.

Occasionally a direct CD equivalent of one of those old library albums crops up. I hesitated for a long time before deciding which Ivie Anderson CD to buy. A collection remastered by John R.T. Davies was undoubtedly the more sensible option, with its guarantee of good sound. But a CD reproducing the warm pink cover I remembered from an LP in the library, Duke Ellington Presents Ivie Anderson, called to me, even though online reviews suggested the sound of at least one CD edition was poor.

I think in the end I went for the CD with the Davies transfers. Yes: I think I did. But I can't easily convey how pleasurable the prospect was of holding a facsimile of that crudely designed original album cover. It wouldn't have brought back the past - the image would have been shrunken and mean by comparison with the twelve by twelve original, for a kickoff.

But, ridiculous as it may sound, I can't help thinking that receiving such a package, opening it and gazing upon the images of Ellington and Ivie Anderson on the front cover, looking for all the world like photos torn from a scrapbook, would have been a kind of holy act, or an act of reclamation: the thought of that background warms me now as it warmed me then, glowing through the cloudy yellow of its PVC cover.

There may be less noisy transfers of There's a Lull in My Life to be found on youtube at the present moment but I hope you will understand why this has to be the one embedded here: