Jimmy Bertrand’s Washboard Wizards

As the leader of the group sometimes used this band name in the ’30s and ’40s, the primary version of Jimmy Bertrand’s Washboard Wizards was a documenting band assembled to cut sides for the Vocalion label in the next half from the ’20s. Songs like the informal “Easy Arrive Easy Proceed Blues,” the calm “Idle Hour Unique,” as well as the wide-awake “I AM GOING Hunting” have obtained maximum publicity in the reissue marketplace because of the presence of the trumpet and cornet participant called Louis Armstrong. Clarinetist Johnny Dodds can be quite a story, although not really a home term like Satchmo. The bandleader himself isn’t to become dismissed simply as somebody cradling an old-fashioned method of cleaning underwear. He was an experienced drummer and xylophonist who spent a decade in the Erskine Tate music group. Bertrand was also just like active a instructor as he was a performer through the entire ’20s; his college students included grinning vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and the best golf swing drummer, Big Sid Catlett. Hampton by no means hung up the telephone when asked about who his essential influences had been, and explained the washboard guy as his “initial idol” in lots of interviews.