Jack Teagarden's 100th birthday 9/20/05

by Alan Greenblatt

What would have been Jack Teagarden's 100th birthday occurred last month, an anniversary that was little noted around the world. Who was Jack Teagarden? He was undoubtedly, as historian Ted Gioia says, the greatest trombone player in traditional jazz. He was also a winning singer, one of the few whites who could sing the blues with the right feeling.

Teagarden was famous for his laid-back approach. When asked one time why he slept so much, he replied that, like many southerners, he was a slow sleeper. He was a great technical virtuoso, opening up the instrument as a solo voice. His solos sound easygoing and they tended to be short. But recording the same tunes over and over again reveals how many subtle variations Teagarden was able to work in. The same might be said of his singing, which was low and a bit raspy but always conveyed great feeling, despite its understated manner.

Teagarden was born in the cow town of Vernon, Texas. The place was remote from centers of music, although legend has the young Teagarden sitting on the fence listening to the music pouring out of Negro Holy Roller tents sometimes set up on the vacant lot across the street. There was also plenty of music in the house as mother Helen, a pianist, brought up her kids to play; all had professional careers, Charlie on trumpet, Cub on drums and Norma at the piano. But it was Jack who had the biggest impact. Teagarden toured around the southwest for a time but once he made it to New York in the late 1920s he became one of the city's most widely-recorded musicians, with stints in bands run by Ben Pollack, Benny Goodman and Paul Whiteman. Teagarden and his longtime friend Louis Armstrong made up the tune "Knockin' a Jug" at an impromptu afterparty recording session in 1929. The two had met years earlier in New Orleans -- Teagarden is the only white spoken of fondly in Armstrong's memoir "Satchmo" -- but this was the first time Armstrong heard the Texan play, and it knocked him out.

Teagarden went on to lead his own band for several years -- which featured at one point a 16-year-old Stan Getz -- but he was never much of a businessman and leading 15 musicians around wore him out. Once he gave it up, after the war, he joined with Armstrong for several years in the All-Stars group. He played and recorded some and died from drink before reaching the age of 60.

Teagarden was a great master and made many outstanding recordings. He was never well served by the record industry, saddled with sometimes lousy material. He hasn't done well in the CD age, either. He could and therefore did play in such a variety of styles and context that reissues of his earlier work are incoherent, varying greatly from track to track. His later albums aren't all kept in print. Consider buying the two-CD compilation King of the Blues Trombone.

I happened to be in the Bay Area last month and therefore able to catch perhaps the only public remembrance of Teagarden's anniversary, held at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society in Half Moon Bay. Rex Allen, a veteran bandleader in the Bay Area and trombonist, has long been a Teagarden acolyte. What's more, he and another trombone player named Wally.... oh, why didn't I write it down... bought the Teagarden band book (all its charts and arrangements) several years ago.

This character Wally played in Teagarden's band as a teenager and told stories about it. Since it was also his birthday, Allen presented Wally with his old box that held the charts he played as second and third trombone. Wally said when they first bought the band book from Teagarden's widow some years ago, he looked inside and found some hair cream -- what they used to oil the valves in those days -- and a pair of letters from his mother that had been sitting in that box for some 40 years. The charts themselves had rarely if ever been opened since 1947. This was a rare chance, then, to hear the Teagarden big band sound live and in person. The group ran through many of the tunes associated with Teagarden, including "Stars Fell on Alabama" and "A Hundred Years From Today" -- that wonderfully melancholy carpe diem statement -- and constantly reprising "I Got a Right to Sing the Blues." Allen has a brighter tone than Teagarden and plays with a smoothness that also masks virtuosity. He got himself ready to imitate Teagarden's trick of replacing the bell with a water glass, which produces a smoky sound. He said, "I need a water glass," and some skanky guy from the audience handed him a plastic bottle, thinking he wanted water as opposed to the glass itself. Allen hired an indifferent singer but a crack band. Often they put aside the charts and Allen would pick out four or five other guys to improvise their way through some familiar old tune. Since Teagarden was at his best, in my opinion, in small-group settings, this made for a good tribute.

But if I'm being honest, as Simon Cowell says, I will point out that the musical highlight came when the band paid tribute to the 101st birthday of Count Basie. Their rendition of "One O'Clock Jump" was one of the most spirited things I've ever heard. With the brass players wailing over the slippery repeated phrases of the saxophones, it created such a forceful, joyful excitement that you could understand for once in your life how it was that big band swing was at one time genuinely the most popular music in the land.

If you're ever out in the Bay Area on a summer Sunday, consider spending the afternoon at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society. For 40 years, Pete Douglas has opened his beach house to musicians and fans, often drawing top talent such as Milt Jackson and Cedar Walton who might be in the area for gigs at bigger places. It's an attentive crowd and you can't beat the chance to sit on a folding chair in a cramped living room for getting up close to the music. Bach Dancing is just across from the beach, so between sets you can sit on the terrace, drink some wine and come out after to watch the sunset.

I went to Bach Dancing a decade or so ago for a tribute to Jack's sister Norma. She played a little -- I used to see her for years at the Washington Square Bar & Grill in North Beach -- including her favorite song, Gordon Jenkins' "This Is All I Ask." But mainly Norma got to sit and listen while many of the Bay Area's finest expressed their affection through song for this kind, elegant lady.

At one point, someone announced that Jack's son was in the audience, so we all clapped. At the break, I heard someone say sentimentally to Norma, "Isn't is nice that he came?"

Norma said, "It would be even nicer if he paid back the money he owes us."