Thursday 10 February 2011

Chick Webb - Original Sessions 1937 / 1939 - Musidisc Label ID. 30 JA 5113


Chick Webb - Original Sessions 1937 / 1939 - Musidisc Label ID. 30 JA 5113 - Stomping at the Savoy (4CD)

Chick Webb and his Orchestra

 
Description from the Sleeve
 
Williams "Chick" Webb American drummer and band leader was born in Baltimore in 1907. At an early age he was already playing"' in local bands and in 1924 was hired by Edward Dowell in New-York. Two years later he put together a small band with Bobby Stark Benny Carter and Johnny .Hodges. His reputation was established by the early Thirties when at the Savoy in Harlem he led a big band whose members included Edgar Sampson Taft Jordan and John Kirby. Webb's popularity began to soar in 1934 thanks to the appearance of Ella Fitzgerald with the band. He became the idol of black audiences and the rival of the outstanding band leaders of the time - Benny Goodman Count Basie Jimmy Lunceford and Duke Ellington. He died of tuberculosis at the peak of his career aged 32. His band continued playing together for two years under Ella Fitzgerald's direction.

Chick Webb was one of the greatest drummers of the 1930s. Despite his poor health he managed to summon forth prodigious power the force of his percussion dominating the mass of the big band's sound which he drove at an implacable tempo its peculiar accentuations achieving an unequalled swing. The surge of sound that he coaxed from his snare drum - both with brushes and sticks - his manner of striking resonance from the cymbals and his punctuating beats on the bass drum added up to a colorful simple effective and precise style one that deeply influenced the percussionnists of those days - Sid Catlett Jo Jones Cozy Cole Gene Krupa and Dave Tough for example.

The arrangements played by Webb's band featured recurring series of riffs providing ample background for emphasizing the soloists yet consistently catering to the dancer's desires and also forming a framework for Ella Fitzgerald's vocals beginning in 1 934.

 

ID. 100076 - Chick Webb - Original Sessions 1937 / 1939 - Musidisc Label ID. 30 JA 5113

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