Weary Blues - Albert Nicholas & DSC 1954

Weary Blues - Albert Nicholas & DSC 1954

In order to play this unique sound clip, which is far from perfect, of clarinettist Albert Nicholas as a guest of the Dutch Swing College in 1954, I had to search for pictures and film from that same period. There is no 'sinc'.
Throughout their career Weary Blues has always been a special feature tune of the Dutch Swing College. Probably the most famous recording was from an album at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in 1955 with clarinettists Peter Schilperoort, Dim Kesber and Jan Morks.
This particular Weary Blues was recorded during a tour in Denmark in September 1954 with Peter, Dim and guest Albert Nicholas. It took many years before this recording was available and finally in the nineties a CD was brought out on the Storyville label (STCD 5522).
What makes this tune special for me? Well, in 1965 our band won the AVRO radio jazz competition and the price was playing with Mr. Nicholas in the Kurhaus Concert Hall in Scheveningen, just about a year before our family moved from the Netherlands to Canada. This was my earliest experience to perform with an internationally renowned jazz musician. After all, Albert Nicholas played and recorded already in 1928 with the King Oliver Dixie Syncopators.
Also, in 1976 when the Dutch Swing College came for the first time to Toronto to play a series of double concerts with our Climax Jazz Band, I recorded them playing Weary Blues, again with three clarinets, Peter Schilperoort, Bob Kaper (the leader since 1990) and our own Jim Buchmann.
Youtube friend Peter Meili "oldtimejazzfan" from Zurich told me he had the recording of Nicholas and the DSC. He mailed a copy to me and I could not resist to post it on youtube and daily motion. Thank you Peter.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• jazz
• classic
• revival
• dutch
• swing
• college

[oldtimejazzfan]

In the 1st picture, Albert Nicholas is the "cut" clarinet player at the right. Fully shown is Darnell Howard.

[lesterwyoung]

Albert was one of the few of the older New Orleans musicians to give up the Albert(!) or simple system clarinet in favour of the Boehm. He still possessed that liquid, woody tone which is supposed to be peculiar to the simple system. So maybe it has more to do with the player than the horn.........

[edmundhall]

Fantastiskt! Albert N var i bästa form under dessa år. Friskt sväng i Dutch swing collage!

[Corrie121]

This is truly great!!

I just love the fluid tone of Albert Nicholas" clarinette.

Thanks for sharing.

[tenorbanjo4]

Greatest european jazz band from the golden era...

[ilbofilms]

Hello oldtimejazzfan, One cannot control peoples comments.

but it certainly a darn good one and 750 views on my erwigfilms site is quite good, Have a look what the viewercount is on the same ilbofilms site, more than a 1000 and also six comments. Happy newyear!

[oldtimejazzfan]

I`m surprised that so far nobody wrote a comment on this marvellous tune, so i have to do it myself (on my own CD!). This is one of the best versions of Weary Blues ever and I especially like the end where they are going back from Bb to F which is quite unusal for this tune.