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| The 2008 Atlanta JAZZ Party! |
Mr. Jazz ~ A.K.A ~ Phil Carroll
by Atlee O'Brien
MR. CARROLL...many people on our Lookout Mountain have seen your large blue and maize block "M" on the front of your automobile and they have also seen your license plate which reads "Mr. Jazz." It's obvious to most that the "M" stands for McCallie School, but what about the rear plate?
A: "Oh, that blue "M" doesn't stand for McCallie at all, but for the Wolverines of University of Michigan! Graduating from that school was one of my finest accomplishments! Now the other "Mr. Jazz," that's a long story that's been going on since I was eight years old and my Grandfather gave the family a wind-up Victrola that included a stack of 78 rpm records. Among the Caruso and Sousa records was Margie by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. This caught my attention right away. Over the next few years I searched the dial on the radio for more jazz and other hot music. For my 10th birthday my Dad gave me a couple of new records, the first ever given to me. One was Dinah by the Benny Goodman Quartet made up of Benny on clarinet, Teddy Wilson on piano, Lionel Hampton, vibes and Gene Krupa, drums. To this day, 70 years later, this is still one of my favorite small combo swing records. I love the classic, traditional kind of jazz. To me, good jazz always has a melody, and the artistry of the players is in how they can improvise on the melody, maintaining the same chord structure and always finding their way back to the melody, often playing many choruses and never repeating themselves.
"Growing up, my Mother was fond of the theater and subscribed to a New York magazine called CUE. It told about all that was happening in New York museums, galleries, theaters, clubs, etc. I regularly checked what was happening at the jazz clubs. One time I noticed a Sunday afternoon jam session at Nick's in Greenwich Village. The ad said, "Everyone welcome." Since I felt like I fit into the general category of "everyone," I took my meager savings and bought a train (Lackawanna R.R.) ticket to Hoboken for 55 cents! The ferry from Hoboken to Manhattan was free for train passengers. I took the ferry downtown to 23rd street and walked to Nick's on 10th and Broadway. I was 12 years old. Nick met me at the door and was not pleased at my age! But said OK after I mentioned the 'everyone' ad. He let me stand against the back wall but insisted I buy a Coke which cost 25 cents. The very first live jazz that I heard that afternoon was Muggsy Spanier's Ragtimers. (Many jazz historians include the band's records known as 'The Great 16' among the finest examples of Chicago Jazz.) At intermission, the band would leave Nick's and go around the corner to Julius. Nick charged the players 50 cents for a drink but Julius charged only 25 cents! When Muggsy passed me in the back of the room he stopped and said, 'Hey kid, I see we're memebers of the same club.' I said, 'What's that, Muggsy?' He said, 'You're missing a finger and so am I.' Over the years, when I saw Muggsy he would say, 'Hi kid, come over and meet some of the guys.' My missing finger is another 10-year-old wayward prankster story but it sure served me well at Nick's!
"Well, my love of jazz grew as I matured. My friends with the same love would hang out in my bedroom on the first floor (my three sisters were upstairs), listening to the music, and adding records to my collection. In those days, you would go into a music shop and pick out several choices and go into a sound proof room to sample and enjoy them before making the purchase. Remember it was the depression era and money was very tight.
"Buying records, for me, was a difficult event. As I have said, money was always tight, and there were more records, by far, than I could afford so I had to be very selective. In the '30s and '40s, the records were 78 rpm, made of wax and produced in 10-inch and 12-inch...two-sided. Ten-inch records had about 3 minutes of music on each side and the 12-inch...4 minutes and 20 seconds. So you didn't get much music on each record. They were also expensive...50 cents and 75 cents for 12-inch. The Big Three -- Victor, Columbia and Decca were priced the same. However, each had a less expensive companion brand that sold for 35 cents for 10-inch. Victor had Bluebird, Columbia had OKeh and Decca had Coral. As poor boys, we were always pleased when one of our favorites was issued on a 35 cent record. My favorite jazz, however was on labels even more expensive than the Big Three. Most jazz at the time was issued on smaller labels with limited sales so the price for 10-inch records was 75 cents and $1.00 for 12-inch. The best jazz labels in the '30s and '40s were Commodore and Blue Note...both of New York City. Later other labels cropped up...Jazzman, Good Time Jazz, Jump, Jazzology, Circle, GHB and others, but they were all priced above the Big Three.
"Another problem in my youth was that the records were very fragile... prone to crack and chip. Some became unplayable, and others had a click every time the needle passed over the crack. In the late '40s, the record producers turned to vinyl which was a vast improvement. They were much less fragile. Finally the LP came on the market. But, for collectors, we had to spend even more money replacing all our old favorites that were reissued on LPs,and of course, later, spent yet more money to replace favorites that were reissued on CDs in the late '70s. As a consequence I replaced 2,000 78s with about 5,000 LPs and now have about 2,000 CDs. Collecting jazz is expensive.
"My Dad often took the family to the famed Meadowbrook for dinner. You couldn't get in the place on Friday and Saturday nights because it was packed with 2,000 fans, but we would go during the week and saw many of the Big Bands. With friends, I also frequented the Adams movie theater in Newark and the Paramount, Loew's and Strand in New York. We tried to time our arrival for the band's stage show, then sit through the movie and take in the second show. We often took a sack lunch with us to save money.
"Life went on and I never lost my love for the music. I played the drums in a high school garage-type band, patterned after Benny Goodman Quartet and Sextet... I even owned a set of Slingerland drums..the very best! Of course, while I was in high school and college the Big Band period was in full blast. During that era my favorite bands were the swing bands of Goodman, Dorsey, Shaw, Crosby, Ellington, Basie, etc. All the hot bands had vocalists and slow, danceable numbers that appealed to a broad audience, too.
"After somehow managing to graduate from Michigan 'with distinction' added to my diploma, I entered the business world with Otis Elevator, married, had a child while we lived in New Jersey until an irresistible offer came which transferred us to a small southern town... Clinton, NC, where we had another child. After that we went to Rome, Georgia where we lived for four years. I was a consulting industrial engineer with many clients throughout the Southeast. One of them was Brock Candy Company in Chattanooga. I was tired of all the traveling and accepted a position with them. This has come back to haunt me, but I told my wife we were moving to Lookout Mountain. She was pregnant with our third child and was not amused. She pretty much said, 'I'm not having this baby among strangers! I'll stay right here until he is born among friends and ready enough to move to this place you say I will love!' We moved to Wendy Trail on Lookout Mountain when our son was five weeks old.
"Well, I digress a little, but Lee loved Lookout Mountain instantly, so much so that when we moved away for 22 years, she was determined that we would return, as we have. We have been back for 17 happy years.
"I have had the experience of teaching courses on jazz at several Elderhostels. It has been a treat to be able to share the interest with others, and we've been able to enjoy the various places they are held...Atlanta, St. Simons, Jekyll Island, Amicalola State Park, Americus and other sites.
"In the 1980s we started attending live jazz parties all over the country, and befriending lots of fellow jazz fans as well as musicians....Manassas, Connecticut, Conneaut, NY, St. Louis, Pensacola, San Diego. I began to get the itch to start a party of our own. Thus, in 1990, with help from family, The Atlanta Jazz Party! was born. Now we are ready for the 19th consecutive Atlanta Jazz Party! in April 2008! Several hundred people come to these long weekends from many states and countries. The players are all professional musicians and play all over the world. Our Party has been on the 'radar' for several years now."
