Smokey Stover - Smokey Stover's Original Firemen - Argo LP 652, Argo Original Pressing, White Promo Label (Multicolored Vinyl!), Mono
Smokey Stover - Trumpet, Vocals
Floyd O'Brien - Trombone
Jimmy Granato - Clarinet
Gen Raebourne - Piano
John Gilliland - Tuba
Don Chester - Drums
Betty Brandon - Vocals
Recorded - September 1 & 2, 1959, Ter Mar Recording Studio, Chicago
Supervision - Jack Tracy
Engineer - Malcolm Chisholm
Cover - Don Bronstein
Released - 1960?
Here's another great Argo obscurity, again in the trad jazz/dixieland style - Smokey Stover's Original Firemen! This is a lively and enjoyable side, executed by some great local Chicago players of the time. Ok fidelity with some unavoidable slight skips after some extensive digital restoration from a very well worn, but very cool multicolored original Argo promo vinyl.
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Thanks ... a Dixieland release without the usual warhorses ... Baron
ReplyDeleteWhere There's Fire... There's Smokey Stover And His Original Firemen
ReplyDeleteThanks for this rarity! I wonder what it is with dixieland bands and firemen? At the time Firehouse Five Plus Two was a popular act with a lot of records on the Good Time Jazz label.
The music here in parts bordered on the corny, I thought, but in other parts was fine. There were a couple of noteworthy veterans in this band; trombonist Floyd O'Brien had played in the big bands of Gene Krupa and Bob Crosby in the 40s, and clarinetist Jimmy Granato went even further back, having recorded already in the late 20s with Frank Winegar and in 1930 with Red Nichols.
As for the skips on this rip, which you also mention, they can usually be fixed. You can put some extra weight on the tonearm, or even hold it down slightly with a finger when it passes the problematic groove. Doing it once may be enough to make it track correctly thereafter, and then you will have the missing seconds back when you play it the next time. It is now a long time since I could play LPs myself, but that is how I used to fix skips back in the day and it worked.
Smokey Stover made a second album for Argo called "Jubilee", but that one must be incredibly rare, because I have not been able to find even a cover image to see what it looks like!