Thursday, December 10, 2009

Jingle Jammin' III: Leo's Bells


The Prof nods! How could I forget Leo Watson's "Jingle Bells"? (I guess if George Harrison forgot Billy Preston at the Concert for Bangladesh, I can be forgiven.)

To learn about this great idiosyncratic scatter, a bridge between swing and bop, click here to read Leonard Feather's reminiscence in The Jazz Years: Earwitness to an Era.

Watson was dubbed the James Joyce of Jazz because of his enthusiastically free associating as he scatted, evident in the lyrics here:

Jingle bells, jingle bells,
wedding bells,
bells of the wedding,
wedding cake,
cut the cake,
snowflake,
snowflakes of Chicago,
Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town...

Oh, yeah, and the band is led by a raucous Vic Dickenson on trombone with piano by "Jellyroll Lipchitz" (Leonard Feather, who put the session together, you could look it up, himself)!

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