Tributes to Jack TeagardenTributes to Jack TeagardenRiverwalk presents two hour-long tributes to Jack Teagarden in May, 1999 featuring trombonist and bandleader Rex Allen: Jack Teagarden: Back Roads of Texas and Jack Teagarden: Big City Jazz in the Forties. Through the courtesy of Joe Showler and his Jack Teagarden Collection, we'll hear some wonderful old archive tapes of Jack Teagarden himself, talking about his life and music.
The shows were produced on April 7, 1999 at the Landing in San Antonio. The feed dates are May 20 and 27, 1999. Please check the carriage list to find out the exact air dates in your area.
Right: publicity photo of Jack Teagarden with an inscription: "To Vic, Best of Everything, Jack Teagarden." This was to Vic Moore, drummer of the Wolverines, the first band that Bix Beiderbecke recorded with in the early 1920's. Moore gave his photo collection to the Cullums in 1963 when they were getting started with the Landing jazz club in San Antonio, and many of the prints are displayed on the Landing walls.
Left: Host David Holt goes over the script on
rehearsal day, April 6, 1999 on the Landing Riverwalk patio.
The first hour, Jack Teagarden: Back Roads of Texas, follows Jack and his trombone through the dusty backroads of Texas in the 1920s--from the grimy oilfields of western Texas, to Sylvan Beach on Galveston Bay.
Bandleader Paul Whiteman once described Jack's playing this way:
"They talk about hot jazz and cool jazz but when it comes to Jack Teagarden there's another phrase that fits his music - Warm Jazz. He has an emotional and yet always controlled way of playing - full of meaning and compassion."
Right: David Holt in
action in his isolation booth during the show.
Jack got his first steady job in 1920 in a San Antonio road house called the Horn Palace not far from the Landing. He was a fifteen-year-old kid with slicked-back hair and a handsome face. Jack's first reaction to San Antonio was, "It's the biggest town I've ever seen!"
A year later, on the heels of a shoot-out at the Horn Palace and the famous flood of '21, Jack decided it was time to hit the road. But, he always kept coming back, and in 1926 he was playing at the Somerset Club in San Antonio with the New Orleans Rhythm Masters. The Somerset was a hot night spot at the height of Prohibition. It had gambling and drinks--and outdoor dancing in the days before air conditioning.
Left: Rex Allen confers with Jim Cullum during
rehearsal on the day of the show.
.In Jack Teagarden: Big City Jazz in the Forties, we hear about Jack's collaboration with trombonists Abe Lincoln and Glenn Miller and re-visit Teagarden's glory years with Louis Armstrong's All-Stars.
One day in 1927, a soft-spoken 22-year-old "country boy" with a Texas drawl checked into the Marie Antoinette Hotel on West 66th street. Nobody could have guessed that Jack Teagarden, the shy young man with a trombone case, was about to take New York by storm.
Ten years later, Jack Teagarden was a jazz star. He was in top form. He had finished a five year stint with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and now he was leading his own big band.
Right: Howard Elkins and
John Sheridan during rehearsal.
Jack and Glenn Miller were scheduled for a recording session with Benny Goodman for the Columbia label. It was February in 1931. Goodman sent the two trombonists off to write an arrangement and opening to the jazz standard Basin Street Blues. Helen Miller kept Jack and Glenn fueled with black coffee during an all night writing session that resulted in the famous lines and opening notes to Basin Street Blues that are now so familiar.
All through the war years, from 1939 to 1946, Jack Teagarden kept his own Orchestra together. It was never successful financially---mainly because Jack couldn't have cared less about running a business. But, Jack and his Orchestra toured extensively, working in Hollywood film studios, and making many important recordings, including V-Discs and Armed Forces Radio broadcasts for the troops overseas.
Below: some of the Special Friends of Jazz during the break between shows. Clockwise from upper left: Roxie and Jim Hayne; George Nash and Eloise Cullum; Marnie and General Robert F. McDermott; Jonathan Schmidt and fiancée Christine
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Jim Cullum says:
"My father played with Teagarden's Orchestra in the forties. He first met Jack in Dallas in about 1940 and several different times they jammed together. Neither one of them could get enough music and they would play all night. That was the start of a long friendship. In 1946 my father joined Jack's big band and played saxophone in the reed section, and some clarinet in a small seven piece group that would come down front. They call it a "band within a band." That's what he enjoyed the most...improvising with Jack.
Years later I had the good fortune to know Jack. He visited our home in San Antonio. I followed his band around the state to catch his concerts. Once in Houston, I actually sat in with the Teagarden band. And one of my favorite things was hearing Jack's stories. I'm nostalgic about hearing these old recordings of Jack's voice. It's like a flashback for me--hearing these stories again."
Left: Ron Hockett, John Sheridan, Rex
Allen after the show
In the late 40s, Jack Teagarden teamed up with Louis Armstrong in a collaboration that lasted four years. One of the most exciting things to come out of a memorable Town Hall Concert was a duet Armstrong and Teagarden did on Rockin' Chair.
Jim Cullum:
"We're lucky that a recording was made that night and you can hear the pure joy that Jack and Louis took in playing and singing together. The Town Hall concert started a four-year collaboration between Armstrong and Teagarden. Louis and Jack were such kindred spirits during those years in the late 40s. When they were together every night, they were really playing to and for each other."
Right: the crowd after the show
Armstrong often spoke of his appreciation for Teagarden...he once said, "I love Jack Teagarden...and his music...and the soul he displays when he's pouring out his heart in that trombone."
Another one of the bright highlights of Jack Teagarden's career was a recording he made in October 1955 with Bobby Hackett. This collaboration resulted in a famous session---known as the Coast Concert. Jack played an incredible duet with renowned trombonist Abe Lincoln.
Below: l. to r.: Mike Pittsley playing Abe Lincoln's late 1930's vintage NY Bach (#12 bell and #16 slide) and Rex Allen playing Jack Teagarden's Conn 4H.
Our own Mike Pittsley's mentor is Abe Lincoln, while Rex Allen is a lifetime Teagarden
disciple.
And here's something extra special: Mike plays the very same trombone that Lincoln played on the 1955 recording and Rex plays Jack's horn. First we hear Jack and Abe go at it on the vintage recording, and then Rex and Mike play their own version of the classic, That's A Plenty.
For more information on Jack Teagarden, visit the following sites:
© 1999 by Margaret Moos Pick
