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Home , Lionel Hampton, Milt Gabler, Pee Wee Russell, Red Allen

non-performers milt gabier

Suppose a fellow was the principal record producer of own imprint, “The United Hot Clubs of America.” Thus , and — arguably was bred the first real indie record operation. the three major founders of rock & roll — you would At 75$ a copy, the reissues sold modestly, but in quanti­ have to agree that anybody with credits that heavy would ties sufficient to get the attention of the biggies, and be a lock for the R & R H of F. Columbia in particular, under the stewardship of the peer­ But suppose on top of all of that the guy turns out to less John Hammond, began to disgorge specimens from its be the produgigf of , , Bing vaults at 50$ per, in effect cutting Milt’s water off. Crosby, , Pearl Bailey, Jimmie Lunceford, Undaunted, Milt did the next “logical” thing. He assem­ , AND LOUIS ARM­ bled an array of stalwarts under the direction of the STRONG, would you say, hey y’all, what took so long? doughty and began to produce his own his­ Say hello to . toric records under the Commodore label. These Reverse the tape to 1926. Young Milton goes to work Commodores were superb then and are great today sub in his dad’s radio shop on East 42nd St. across the way specie aetemitas, not just in my own. skewed opinion, but in from the Commodore Hotel. Also called the Commodore, posterity’s verdict. Fact is that they are still alive and kick­ the store purveys not only Atwater Kent Super ing, repackaged (for the nth time) this time on the Mosaic Hetrodynes and Majesties but such cultural artifacts as label in a multi-disc compilation. And selling. sneeze powder, whoopee Cushions and exploding cigars. But records alone couldn’t feed Milt’s jazz jones, and in With the radio running throughout the day, Milt is 1940 he initiated a weekly jam session at Jimmy Ryan’s on inspired to put a loudspeaker through the transom, and 52nd St., employing wonderful players like , 42nd St. begins to resonate to the sugary strains of the , and Zutty Singleton — and dozens of bands of Rudy Vallee, Paul Specht, and their ilk — hardly others of the b£§t;>and brightest. If you were fortunate unalloyed jazz by anyone’s reckoning, but somewhat enough to have attended, you were a witness to sublime redeemed by an occasional h o t^ lo by sidemen like performances by the artists of jazz’s Periclean age. Manny Klein, Charlie Margolies and . Also in 1941, Milt .went to work for Decca. In no A double helix ensues: Lured by the music, civilians time at all he escalated to the top and became chief of straggle into the store in search of ne§^fe,jWjjlton himself A&R, where he remained until 1971. contracts the Boogie Disease. He persuades Pop to put in Helping out at Ryan’s sessions as well as serving a line of generic type phonograph records. Before long, behind, the counter in the shop was Milt!s brother-in- however, a winnowing occurs in young Gabler’s sensibili­ law. His name was Jack Crystal, and his son William, ty and he stohks only the pure and sublime — Jazzus commonly called Billy, was raised in this effervescent Americanus: Hot Fives on OKeh, Jelly environment, fifeuld he have been exposed to the mor­ Roll on Victor, and Duke on any label — and henceforth dant Condon humor, the machine gun repartee of Wild he. cannot be turned around. But the major record com- Bill, the slapstick antics of George Brunies? _\ panics Milt was dealing with found it inconvenient to Nowadays Milt stays busy with the workings of his pre­ continue pressing up the sides he was ordering, because cious Catalog. He has been accorded gold records, except for Commodore, the demand for antiquarian clas­ Grammys, lifetime awards, BMI honors — his music den sics was, to put it generously, exiguous to a fault. can barely accommodate the hardware. He is rumored to be And so, faute de mieux, Milt went into the manufactur­ writing his memoirs. ing business, leasing selected masters for release under his I can’t wait. - jerry w exler

thirty seven