Billy Krechmer

Although known for a long time among jazz musicians everywhere, Billy Krechmer was hardly remembered simply by anyone beyond Philadelphia when he passed on about March 11, 2002, at age 92. Krechmer was created in 1910 in Millville, NJ, from the banks from the Maurice River near Union Lake. He analyzed music in the Curtis Institute and began performing expertly in 1926. Through the past due ’20s and far from the 1930s he proved helpful in rings led by Supplement Gordon, Crimson Nichols, and Ted Lewis, touring the U.S. and European countries before settling straight down in Philadelphia, where he racked up many hours of knowledge as clarinetist within a burlesque home and in the orchestra pits from the Earl and Mastbaum theaters. After a jaw health problem forced him to place aside his device for a time, Krechmer opened up a jazz membership in 1938 and christened it the Jam Program. Situated on cobblestone-covered Ranstead Road between Chestnut and Ludlow near Self-reliance Square, the membership, later known merely as Billy Krechmer’s, became well-known for its all-night jam periods in which music artists from from coast to coast made a spot of halting to take part. In 1947 guitarist Tal Farlow gigged there frequently with Krechmer and pianist Freddie Thompson. It had been at Krechmer’s that Farlow, to be able to make up for the lack of an upright bassist, is normally said to possess developed a method of playing basslines on your guitar. Ray Bryant performed piano with Krechmer from 1951 to 1953, and his sibling Tommy Bryant started his profession plucking the bass with Krechmer’s music group. As a guy, Philadelphia sculptor and mixed-media musician Frank Main spent 3 years as the home drummer at Krechmer’s membership. Billy Krechmer may have recorded just thrice. Two edges had been waxed for the Gotham label in NY on Apr 13, 1950, with Freddie Thompson, guitarist Joe Kuhn, bassist Frank Szetek, and Harold “Doc” Bagby (skill scout and A&R movie director for Gotham) playing the novochord, an early on electronic keyboard device. Krechmer recorded once again in 1954 using a music group whose personnel never have been discovered. Six titles had been waxed at this juncture, including two Dixieland criteria, issued over the Collector’s Golf club label, and four unique compositions, at least two which had been briefly distributed around the general public on 20th Hundred years Information. Krechmer’s repertoire mixed Dixieland and golf swing music with pop melodies and pleasurable jazz settings of his very own devising. He documented and created his very own LP, Billy Krechmer + 5, through the early ’60s, launching it by himself Ranstead record label, which he called for the road which his membership was functioning until it shut its doors permanently in 1966. Krechmer’s whole recorded result would fit beautifully onto one compact disk if somebody would only take time to compile a tribute record.