Jazz Romance, Pt. 2

Here's a brief addendum to the Joe Marsala/Adele Girard post of a few weeks ago. A local church sale yielded up this gem, complete with a lovingly hand-lettered sleeve. No doubt the previous owner was one of us – a collector of fine recorded sound, I mean. 

It's a Joe Marsala date for Decca from March 21, 1941, done in New York City shortly before the country's entry into World War II. Most of the players would soon be gone in the draft, and within a year nearly all studio activity would cease under the Petrillo recording ban. But in early 1941, things were humming along, and Marsala did a number of solid sessions for Decca. 

The title of this piece is "Bull's Eye," and I post it here because it's an Adele Girard original. It seems to draw from the classical repertoire, and even quotes a very familiar theme (so familiar, I can't think of where it comes from at the moment). Adele solos nicely, as do Joe and his brother Marty, as well as mysterious tenor man John Smith (unknown to me, and with a name like his, completely unsearchable on the interwebs). Also of interest is 20-year-old drummer Shelly Manne, who gets in some very nice fills (and starts off the piece). For the record, here's the personnel: Marsala, clarinet; Marty Marsala, trumpet; Ben Glassman, alto, clarinet; Smith, tenor; Dave Bowman, piano; Girard, harp; Carmen Mastren, guitar; Jack Kelleher, bass; and Manne, drums. It's scratchy, but heck, what'd you expect from a 70-year-old bit of phonography?
 

A Jazz Romance

Talk about hipsters – here's Toots Thielemans sharing a good word with a couple of jazz footnotes, aka Mr. and Mrs. Joe Marsala. Mrs. Marsala was, of course, better know as Adele Girard, a true jazz pioneer. Her ax was an unlikely one for the raucous, traditional Chicago-style jazz she and Joe played together. They're standing under the awning of one of 52nd Street's better-known venues, circa 1948. Is that Toots' guitar in the case – or maybe a huge harmonica? Photo by William Gottlieb

Yesterday I was poking around a Salvation Army up in Binghamton, NY, and I came across a curiosity. It was a Joe Marsala record on another of those budget, semi-legit here-and-gone labels. Now, normally I don't pay much attention to product of that sort, and Marsala's Dixie-oriented stuff never did much for me, but this record had two redeeming facets. One was the presence of ex-Ellington cornetist Rex Stewart. The other was harpist Adele Girard. Harp on a traditional jazz record? This I had to hear.

Rex Stewart

It occurred to me as I was standing in line waiting to purchase my find that Adele Girard might be in some way connected to Joe Marsala. I knew her name from somewhere, probably from a few obscure jazz sides in the stacks back home, but that was about all. After I made it back to my country pad, I found that Adele was indeed connected to Joe – via matrimony. And she and Mr. Marsala had made numerous records together over a long joint career. Gotta love the Internet! I even found a few more of their recordings in my collection.

The Marsala record that I bought appears in no discography that I can find. Bruyninckx has an entry for it on another label but no date or personnel. And the players listed on the LP are augmented by another trumpeter and a couple of reeds in places. But Rex is clearly there, and so is Adele. And because I knew you'd all be fascinated to hear this pioneer of jazz string harp, here's a cut from the record. It's "Mandy," with Rex on cornet, a mystery second trumpeter (brother Marty Marsala, perhaps?), Joe playing clarinet, pianist Dick Cary, Carmen Mastren on guitar, Pat Merola on bass, drummer Johnny Blowers, and Ms. Girard soloing on harp.

Here's a charming history of the Marsalas written by Adele herself (dictated only a few months before her death in 1993):

http://www.pitt.edu/~atteberr/jazz/articles/Girard.html

And here's a Soundie jukebox clip of Adele Girard, made around the time of the photo above, doing "Harp Boogie" with an unknown bassist and guitarist. As you can see, Adele was easy to look at and swings mightily. The dancer hasn't got very good rhythm, but I guess that wasn't what the boozy jukebox customers were interested in anyway.