BEST CROSSTOWN COMMUTE EVER

Stan Ebin, a Dixieland trumpeter and radio DJ, played these tunes on WKHR-FM:

1. “Hora Staccato.”  Rafael Mendez, trumpet.  Didn’t Dave Tarras record this same tune?  [Yes.]  (Listener’s GPS location: I-90 at Lakewood/McKinley Ave.)

2. “Blues in C# Minor.” Roy Eldridge, trumpet.  (I-90 at West 117th Street by White Castle.)

3. “Lena from Palestina.”  Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band from Cincinnati.  This tune, like “Hora Staccato,” is part of the klezmer repertoire.   (There are three “C” Innerbelt exits in a row: Central, Carnegie and Chester avenues.)

4. “Bless this House.”  Four-part barbershop harmony, all on trumpet, overdubs by Roger Blackburn.  (Carnegie Avenue at East 55th Street, by the old Warner & Swasey factory, where machinists made machine tools with machine tools.)

5.”Basin Street Blues.” Louis Prima, trumpet and vocals; Pee Wee Russell, clarinet.  (Carnegie Avenue by the Cleveland Clinic banner “One of America’s Top 4 Hospitals.”  What are the other three?  Mayo Clinic, New York-Presbyterian and Johns Hopkins?  No.  Add Mass General, delete New York-Presbyterian.)

6. “I Can’t Get Started.”  Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet.  Ebin, the DJ, says, “Dizzy is stealing from Bunny Berigan.”  (Stokes Boulevard by the Baldwin Water Works Plant.)

7. “Wah-Hoo.”  Hoosier Hot Shots.  Spike Jones before there was Spike Jones. 1935.  [At the former Cleveland Heights pothole (now repaved) vortex: North Park at North Woodland.]

Two klezmer tunes, plus interesting old jazz, in a 30-minute drive from the West Side. On regular radio.  Amazing.
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2 of 2 posts for 9/29/10.
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Yiddishe Cup plays tonight (Wed. Sept. 29) 7 p.m., Fairmount Temple, and tomorrow (Thurs. Sept. 30) 7:15 p.m., Park Synagogue, for Simchat Torah.  Cleveland.

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