Red Nichols and the Five Pennies

I have just been re-reading that Malcolm Lowry's first wife Jan Gabrial bought him a set of Red Nichols and Bix Beiderbecke records for a wedding present while they were in Paris in 1934.

I thought I'd post a few sides by Red Nichols as up to know I have neglected one of Lowry's heroes on the 19th Hole.



Nichols was born in Ogden, Utah, the son of a music teacher. By the age of 12 he was playing cornet with his father's brass band. He decided to take up the new style of music called jazz after hearing the phonograph records of the Original Dixieland Jass Band. In 1923 he moved east to perform with a band in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and (with a few tours of the midwest) made New York City his base throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He worked for various bandleaders including Paul Whiteman and Harry Reser and Henry Halstead., was a regular in the cooperative California Ramblers in addition to leading groups under his own name (often called Red Nichols & His Five Pennies), and of the band of his friend trombonist Miff Mole. Nichols became one of the busiest phonograph session musicians of his era, making hundreds of recording sessions of jazz and hot dance band music. He also played in several Broadway shows.

Read more on Wikipedia



I will be back with a special mix of Red Nichol's tunes in the near future but I will leave you this video below of Nobody's Sweetheart by Eddie Condon 1929 with Red on trumpet.

Adrian Rollini and his Tap Room Gang Weather Man 1935

I follow on from the last post on Joe Venuti's Tap Room Blues with a feature on Adrian Rollini who accompanied Joe Venuti on that track.

Adrian Rollini was a child prodigy on piano; at age four he played a recital at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel (34th sreet and 5th Avenue) in New York. He led his own band at age 14 and began playing with the California Ramblers in the early 1920s. The band also featured Red Nichols, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey.

While in that band Rollini developed his distinctive style of bass saxophone playing. He played in Red Nichols' Five Pennies and appeared on many of Red's recording sessions. He also worked with Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra and recorded with Cliff Edwards and Bix Beiderbecke and his Gang.

Red Nichols

Lowry makes several references in his work to Red Nichols who was another one of his favourite jazz artists. I will be featuring Red Nichols on my next Malc's jazz mix. In the meantime, enjoy these clip of video.

Frank Crumit & Ukulele Lady

But Hugh, if he could not play quite like Django Reinhardt or Eddie Lang on the one hand or, God help him, Frank Crumit on the other, could not help remembering either that he had once enjoyed the reputation of a tremendous talent. Malcolm Lowry Under The Volcano

Hugh is one many characters in Lowry's novels that are based on personas Lowry may have wished to portray i.e. the jazz composer who had sailed the oceans composing songs on his guitar or ukulele. In fact, Lowry had portrayed his voyage to the Far East in 1927, which provides the autobiogrpahical details of Hugh's experiences at sea, to the newpapers who covered the story as "Seeing The World With A Ukulele".

Lowry first started playing music around 1925 on a banjo brought home by his brother Russell before the pair embarked on learning the then popular ukulele to compose songs probably not that far removed from Frank Crumit's Ukulele Lady. Lowry seems to have had a low opinion of Frank Crumit and would have probably preferred Vaughn De Leath's version as she sang with Eddie Lang and Red Nichols who were more to Lowry's jazz tastes.

Vaughn De Leath liked the booze as much as Lowry and died of alcoholism at the age of 48

I am currently collating all of Malc's ukulele references and will return with other posts about his love of the instrument.