Скачать или смотреть "DID YOU MEAN IT?": HELEN WARD, TEDDY WILSON, STUFF SMITH, JONAH, BEN, LUCIE, KIRBY, COLE (3.37)

This was broadcast on the radio in March 1937. Listen and ponder: do we have it so much better? I wonder.

The band is Helen Ward, vocal; Teddy Wilson, piano; Stuff Smith, violin; Jonah Jones, trumpet; Ben Webster, tenor saxophone; Lawrence Lucie, guitar; John Kirby, string bass; Cozy Cole, drums.

After a declamatory introduction by Jonah, three choruses: one by Helen (obbligati by Stuff and Teddy), one split between Teddy (thank you, Kirby) and Ben at his best pre-1940 rhapsodic, the last for Helen, even more earnest and tender, if such a thing could be imagined, with Jonah making derisive noises behind her as the room temperature rises and she -- without changing very much at all -- becomes trumpet-like in the best Connie Boswell manner. Please notice the way the band stops, to hold its breath, perhaps, at 2:42. Was this an arrangement based on Helen's having performed it with the Goodman band, even though Ella made the Victor record?

The applause that closes this performance sounds artificial, but ours is genuine.

A gift to us from the generous and erudite Anthony Barnett on his own ABFable label. You can find out more about his frankly astonishing CDs and books http://abar.net/index.htm.

This is one of those performances I cannot listen to only once.

Presented by Michael Steinman for JAZZ LIVES (http://www.jazzlives.wordpress.com).