Blues & Boogie
Miriam Klein - Oscar Klein - Henry Chaix - Bob Carter - Hans Peter Giger
LP Europa – E 385, Germany. 1969
Blues and boogie woogie were among my earliest musical loves and this LP has been a favourite for nearly 40 years.
It’s on the Europa label, a discount label that was often sold in supermarkets. The same label as the Emil Mangelsdorf album posted earlier and the St Tropez Jazz Octet posted on OIR a good while ago.
It is not even a rare album, it keeps on poppin’ up in used record bins. I have three or four copies at home, each bought for about 1 Euro. It probably deserves the title of the Most Overlooked Record– at least in Belgium where nobody seems to have the least idea of the quality of the musicians playing here.
So who do we have here? Three Swiss, one Austrian and one American-Hawaiian!
Vocal : Swisss vocalist Miriam Klein first came into the public eye when she performed in Paris in the 1950s with Dexter Gordon, Pierre Michelot, Don Byas and Art Simmons. Later she attended Music School in Vienna and went back to Switzerland to work with the ensembles of her husband, trumpeter and guitarist Oscar Klein. It was in the 1960s and 1970 that she became known internationally. In 1978 her album 'By Myself' was produced by concert management tycoon Horst Lippmann for the L+R label.
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| Miriam Klein |
Guitar, cornet, harmonica: Oscar Klein (5 January 1930 in Graz, Austria – 12 December 2006 in Baden-Württemberg) has, for many decades, been one of the top trad trumpeters/cornetists in Europe. In addition, he was a fine blues guitarist and a good harmonica player. Oscar Klein was an Austrian born jazz trumpeter who also played clarinet, harmonica, and swing guitar. His family fled the Nazis when he was young. He became known for "older jazz" like swing and Dixieland. In the early sixties he joined the famous Dutch Swing College Band in Holland as first trumpeter and he is to be found on several of their recordings. He was also a member of the Tremble Kids (MPS). He played with Lionel Hampton, Joe Zawinul, Romano Mussolini ... and as a duo with bluesman Philadelphia Jerry Hicks. In 1996 he was honored by then President Thomas Klestil.
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| Oscar Klein |
Piano: Henri Chaix, (21 February 1925, Geneva, Switzerland, d. 11 June 1999) played piano from an early age, becoming professional while in his late teens. He played with a number of Swiss bands, eventually becoming a leader in the early 60s. He gained a strong local reputation and during the 50s, 60s and 70s was constantly on call as accompanist for visiting American jazz musicians. Among those with whom he played during these years were Sidney Bechet, Buck Clayton, Rex Stewart and Albert Nicholas. He also played an important role at many Swiss jazz festivals and throughout western and central Europe. A powerful and dynamic player, he displayed a marked penchant for the blues, and his solid accompaniment was of considerable merit. His solos demonstrated an imaginative approach to mainstream jazz. He occasionally played trombone.
Bass : Robert Kahakalau, better known as Bob Carter (b. February 11, 1922, New Haven, Connecticut) was an American jazz bassist and arranger.
Carter learned bass and guitar from his father, a vaudeville performer of Hawaiian heritage. He played in local orchestras from 1937 to 1940, toured from 1940 to 1942 and worked with his own trio in Boston in 1944. In 1944-45 he worked in various groups on 52nd Street in New York City, with Tony Scott, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Stuff Smith, and Charlie Shavers among others. Following time spent playing bebop with Allen Eager and Max Roach in 1946, he worked with Charlie Ventura from 1947 to 1949 and again in 1953-54. In the interim he played with Benny Goodman in 1949-50.
After his second stint with Ventura he studied composition with Wesley LaViolette. Later that decade his arrangements were used by Red Norvo, Bob Harrington, and Shelly Manne. He spent 1957-58 in Hawaii, then returned to New York in 1959, where he played with Bobby Hackett. In the early 1960s, he worked in Germany in the orchestra of Kurt Edelhagen. He did little playing after the end of the 1960s.
Drums : Hans Peter Giger is a Swiss percussionist and bandleader with a musical career stretching over 50 years. In the sixties he worked as studio-musician in Paris, with Claude Bolling and others. In then moved to Germany and took part in various experimental Kraut bands and projects (Dzyan, Drum Circus - with Joel Vandroogenbroeck) . He joined the Albert Mangelsdorff Quintet in 1972. In 1977 he went out on his own with his project, the Family of Percussion, a percussion-only quartet, along with Trilok Gurtu, Doug Hammond and Tom Nicholas.
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| Peter Giger |
Tracks
A1 Cafe Society Memories Written By – H. Chaix 2:20
A2 Black Sweet And Tall (Voc.) Written By – M. Klein 2:53
A3 Beatin' The Boogie Written By – H. Chaix 2:12
A4 Blue Valves Written By – O. Klein 2:58
A5 Two Timing Girls (Voc.) Written By – M. Klein 2:55
A6 Lazy Foot Written By – O. Klein 2:26
A7 Midnight Written By – M. Klein 1:48
B1 Story Telling Man (Voc.) Written By – M. Klein 3:42
B2 Boogie For Everybody Written By – H. Chaix 2:36
B3 Louisiana Sunset Written By – H. Chaix 2:08
B4 This Little Lamp Of Mine (Voc.) Written By – Trad. / M. Klein 2:02
B5 Red Head Blues Written By – O. Klein 2:47
B6 O.K., A Blues Written By – O. Klein 2:43
B7 Who's Groove (Voc.) Written By – M. Klein 3:11
Made in Germany by Miller International Schallplatten G. M. B. H.
14 tracks, quite generous for a discount label! And all the tracks but one are originals.
Now, don’t tell me it wasn’t a well spent Euro !
