International Jazz Banjo Newsletter

It is with regret that I must inform you of the passing of Reg Stranks, banjoist and the organisor of the popular Midland Banjo Fest. Clem Vickery informed me today.
May he rest in peace.

Dear friends. I'm delighted to say that my new CD "My banjo...and other friends" is now available. I'm shipping some to Dave Frey at www.ultimatebanjo.com and www.cdbaby.com for USA customers, European customers can buy directly from me via www.seanmoyses.com . You can buy with cheque, paypal or cash.
This is (as always) a huge financial effort so please support me by buying a copy (or two!).
Best wishes,
Sean Moyses

www.SeanMoyses.com

Have you been thinking about taking some tenor banjo lessons but have no one near you to go too? The distance or the weather makes it impossible to go somewhere?
Well now you have an opportunity to take lessons through your computer from the comfort of your home!

Steve Caddick is giving tenor banjo lessons LIVE and in person online with a web cam.

It is easy to set up to do this.
All you need to do is get a webcam, download Skype, a free video conferencing application and get a Paypal account.

E-mail me at:
banjopa1@yahoo.com
We can discuss what you want to learn.
or visit my website for more details
www.stevecaddick.com

I look forward to helping you attain your dream of playing the tenor banjo!
I use standard tenor tuning of CGDA only.
********************

thanks,
Steve
www.stevecaddick.com

We will be friends until we are old and senile, then we'll be NEW friends :)

Tim Allan’s “Banjos Aweigh” On The 2009 JazzSea Cruise

It was very smooth cruising with the 2009 JazzSea Caribbean cruise aboard Holland America’s “M.S. Statendam”, from January 3 to 10. There was lots of music to hear and to play, plus great weather in various islands - all in 7 days of fun.

These annual January cruises allow musicians to play in an organized atmosphere as well as in informal jam sessions. There were 4 popular trad. jazz bands onboard, from the U.S. and Canada, as well as a “Jammers” band, led by Dick Williams, aimed at offering playing time to mostly horn players. The Banjos Aweigh band, which I conduct, is composed of banjo players along with horns, piano, drums, and washboards, all of whom are novices. It is amazing how quickly these band members catch on and produce listenable music, starting and finishing each song very cleanly. By the way, half of these band members had my “Banjos Aweigh Song Book” along with their music stands to help them get through each hour-long performance.

The “Banjos Aweigh Song Book” contains all the songs our band played onboard. You can purchase it on my website www.timallan.com, in case you want to prepare for next year’s JazzSea cruise.

I also offered private lessons on various stringed instruments and brought along some new helpful banjo books and CDs that I had recently produced. My 2 different tenor banjo chord-diagrammed song books were popular with the tenor players, and my “Play Along-Practice Trax” book/CD combo, containing 22 banjo band songs, proved to be popular with all instruments.

If you are interested in being part of the JazzSea cruise next year, simply go online to www.jazzsea.com.

European players might be interested in knowing that I will perform again in downtown Pforzheim, Germany, on May 18 and 19, 2009. For more information on my performances, please contact Rainer Daub at (0)49-723-135-6500. I also have other concerts in southern Germany being worked on at the moment. You may contact me for more information at tim@timallan.com.

I'll be glad to tell you what I know about my uncle Eddie Collins. He
was my father's younger brother, and when my father died, I lived,
off and on, with my Uncle Eddie and his family. For that reason, I
know quite a bit about his career.

He was in Hollywood working as a studio musician in 1940 when my
father died, and his work commitments prevented his coming back to
Detroit for the funeral. As a six-year-old at the time, I recall his
absence having been discussed by my mother and grandmother with
special sadness, since the two brothers were very close. I don't know
what movie he was making then, but he did play for at least some
Busby Berkeley musicals. In fact, he stayed at Ruby Keeler's house in
Palm Springs for much of the time he spent in California. She was the
star of many of those musicals and was married to Al Jolson then. He
often told me stories of his time in California and of his close
friendship with many of the Hollywood actors of the day. Robert
Mitchum's sister was a friend of Ed's, too. He first met Robert
Mitchum when Robert was just 18 years old.

Ed was a master not only of the banjo and other stringed instruments,
but also a very proficient brass and reed player, He was a very fine
French horn player, but did not pursue a career with a symphony
orchestra. He did play with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra whenever
they needed a banjo player, however, and was officially listed as the
"Prinicpal Banjoist" with the DSO. He always apologized for the
"Principal" designation, pointing out that the title was automatic
since the DSO only had one banjo player.

I know that he did indeed perform with Eddie Peabody, but I don't
know exactly how many times or when those performances would have
been. I telephoned my Aunt Margaret, who was my dad's younger sister
(the two boys, my dad and uncle Ed, were born in 1909 and 1912, and
Margaret was born in 1924). Margaret is in a nursing home, now, and
her memory is failing. She said that she remembers her brother Ed's
leaving from the Shelby Hotel in Detroit on a band bus that would
take them for 72 one-night stands across the U.S. and that Eddie
Peabody went alongon that trip. I'm nearly a hundred percent certain
that she is mistaken about Eddie Peabody's going on that tour. I,
too, remember that road trip, and it was definitely at a time when my
uncle was with the Art Mooney Orchestra. They played gigs ranging
from the Shamrock Hotel in Texas to the Paramount Theater in New York
City and, presumably, 70 other locations in between.

Ed played the banjo on all of Art Mooney's records with the exception
of the first recording of Four Leaf Clover, a single for which Art
hired local NY musician Mike Pingatore for the banjo part. That was
the record that disc jockey Al Collins (no relation) played over and
over for 24 hours on a San Francisco radio station. It was a
(probably payola) stunt that made the record famous. My uncle then
played on the subsequent albums recorded in 1948 and the re-recording
of all of them around 1971. Ed mentioned these recordings on one of
the Arthur Godfrey radio programs he did 1971. Godfrey often had
guest stars on for a whole week at a time. I think it was a week in
March of 1971 that my uncle Ed and Theresa Brewer were the guests.

Ed played with all the big band pick-up orchestras at one time or
another, the earliest being that of Paul Whiteman. He also played
with a USO troupe, and I wrote a story about that in the May/June
2006 All Frets Magazine put out by FIGA (the Fretted Instrument Guild
of America). If you happen to run across that issue of the magazine,
the people in the final photo are misidentified. I'm the tall one.
McDonald is the short one.

I'll include a couple of old photos. The first of them shows my Uncle
Ed on the right, a banjo player I don't recognize on the left, and (I
think) Eddie Peabody in the middle playing a "banjoline" guitar. In the second
one, Ed is flanked by Leo Carillo (an actor friend from his Hollywood
days) and Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams (Williams, by the way,
was 6 feet six inches tall. The next one shows Ed in front of a
billboard at Chicago's Chez Paris. Next are Louis and Ed backstage at
the Fox Theater in Detroit in a dressing room rehearsal. The final
one is the Art Mooney Orchestra at the Paramount theater in New York
City, with Ed featured at the left of Art Mooney in the photo.