Jim Hession/ Walter Donaldson's Sam the Old Accordian Man

http://www.artistopia.com/hessionsession
Walter Donaldson was one of Americas most prolific songwriters to write for Tin Pan Alley. In 1980 Martha and I wrote a series of shows on American Songwriters. One of the shows was the music of Walter Donaldson. Next to Irving Berlin and George Gershwin, Donaldson's prolific output helped to shape America's music. On one of the evenings at the Variety Arts Theater in downtown LA a large family group showed up to view the Donaldson show. At the end of the presentation a man approached us to say that he was Donald Kahn(also a songwriter and son of Gus Kahn the lyricist). He had brought with him over a dozen members of the Walter Donaldson family.It was a good thing we didn't know about this until after the fact. We formed a friendship with the family members and for most of the next 12 years we recorded the library of Donaldson tunes for the family archives. I believe we recorded well over 600 songs. That show brought us many excellent reviews. On another evening a tall, handsome man started singing along with our version of "Yes Sir,That's My Baby". It turned out that Cary Grant was the handsome man who was a close friend of Donaldson and had even sung another standard of Walter's songbook,"Did I Remember?" in the early movie, Suzy with Jean Harlow. It was Cary Grant that brought in the L.A. Times reviewer a week later. The Donaldson songbook has long been a favorite of ours, hopefully we will, at some date record a tribute to this phenomenal songwriter! We have included this song by request of a YouTube viewer. When in college my first two years at UCSanta Barbara I learned this song from Robin Frost, the prolific composer of stride tunes. This was a standard in his group,The Four That Sound Like More.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• jazz
• piano
• Walter
• Donaldson
• Sam
• Paul
• Whiteman
• trad
• stride
• 1920's
• Robin
• Frost

[KawhackitaRag]

What kind of a piano style are you playing this in? This isn't your regular style. In my humble opinion, you are doing closer to a real authentic 1920s style (or at least a "modern" 1920s New York piano style) than usual. I'm impressed! I think this one is my favorite of all of your videos!

The Walter Donaldson tribute stories are great to read too! I think guitarist Marty Grosz also did a tribute to Walter Donaldson, although I could be wrong about this!

[jazznbear]

@KawhackitaRag Some of our performances, both piano and vocal/piano are approached with the style of the period in mind. When I improvise I always hear the orchestrations and arrangements and try to capture the voicings of the different instruments.

I learned a lot about the stylistic elements and voicings of 1920's jazz from Robin Frost when I was a college student at UCSB. Robin's quartet (The Four That Sound Like More) was a popular classic jazz fixture in 1960's California.

[jazznbear]

@jazznbear Robin Frost's "Fats"style stride piano and Bix style cornet work were a real inspiration to us that were just exploring the styles of vintage jazz....

[solong36]

Absolutely perfect -- thanks so much for posting your version --

BTW - what year was this published..?

Stan

[jazznbear]

Glad you liked it! The publishing date was 1927.

[theonlyshadybastard]

you'd never know that old town of mine

[theonlyshadybastard]

it could be the best song ever written

[bsgs98]

The first recording of this tune was done on December 18, 1926. A vocal duet by the Williams Sisters accompanied by Wayne Allen on the piano for Victor 20452.

[VJCZAJA]

perfect feel for the stride style!! thank you so much for post!!