1950 to 1953

Today I worked all day on a thread: was Jimmy Forrest or was he not a member of the Jay McShann band when they recorded at the Savoy Ballroom (NYC) in 1942? In the process, I stumbled across a JET article from late 1953 stating that he had been sentenced to two years in prison. I'm not after salacious information, only the truth. I did manage to pin down that Jimmy Forrest was in the McShann band from 1940 until the AFM ban or when he joined Andy Kirk and that he was in fact roommates with the Bird.

So, it seems that, after Forrest left the Andy Kirk Orchestra in 1950, he returned to St. Louis and took a day job. He then worked around the Mound City area, recorded with Miles at the Barrelhouse (not the Barrel!), re-united with the Bird in 1953 at the Glass Bar, recorded some hit tunes in Chicago along the way, only to get busted.

Again, I'm trying to document all this stuff, conclusively, as so much information is simply copied from Allmusic.com second and third hand. Tomorrow, I will post this information with sources.

1920 to 1933

Born in St. Louis, MO, on January 24, 1920, James Robert Forrest Junior’s early musical development was at the hands of his musical parents, including his first professional work at the age of 12 with his mother’s band, “Eva Forrest’s Stompers”. He received at least part of his formal musical training at Sumner High School under the tutelage of the legendary bandmaster Major N. (Nathaniel) Clark Smith. Smith had developed a reputation as “America’s Greatest Colored Bandmaster,” while teaching, during the 1920s, at both Lincoln High School in Kansas City and Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago. Smith would have had considerable influence over the early development of mid-western American music as he instructed Lionel Hampton, Milt Hinton, Ray Nance (all in Chicago) and Walter Page (in Kansas City). Page later became a seminal member of the Oklahoma City Blue Devils, the Bennie Moten Orchestra and the Count Basie Orchestra. In 1930, Smith relocated to St. Louis and remained in St. Louis until his return to Kansas City, shortly before his death, in June of 1935. Forrest and his contemporary Ernie Wilkins were both taught by Major Smith at Sumner, sometime between 1930 and 1933: Forrest would have likely been attending grades 6 through 9 .

Sources

1. University of Missouri - Kansas City. Musicians Local No. 627 and the Mutual Musicians Foundation: The Cradle of Kansas City Jazz. http://www.umkc.edu/‌orgs/‌local627/‌introduction/‌smith/‌ (accessed July 28, 2009).
2. Buchner, Reginald T. “Rediscovering Major N. Clark Smith.” Music Educators Journal 71, no. 6 (February 1985): 36-42. http://www.jstor.org/‌stable/‌3396473 (accessed July 11, 2008).
3. Cunningham, Lyn Driggs, and Jimmy Jones. Sweet, Hot and Blue, 54-56. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989.

© Ken Hoffman - 2009

What is this thing called, Love?

A few years ago, 2003 to be exact, I was researching Count Basie as 2004 was going to be the centennial of his birth (August 21) and I wanted to start a rehearsal big band to play his music - kind of a continuing-ed course on how to properly interpret the Count's music. In the process of digging up archival film footage of the band, I came across Bruce Ricker's film "The Last of The Blue Devils", which featured priceless, live video footage of Basie's seventies vintage band playing live at the University of Kansas: "Moten Swing", "One O'Clock Jump", "Jumpin' at the Woodside" and a particularly authentic rendering of "Night Train". If you are a fan of this type of music or a student of mid-western jazz and blues, you should absolutely own this film. At the time, I had mostly been playing blues and R&B gigs, and I was well aware of the place of "Night Train" in the pantheon of saxophonic anthems. I also knew that Jimmy Forrest had written (or borrowed - more on this later) the tune but I didn't realize until the end of the film that the tenor player performing in the movie WAS Jimmy Forrest. And there began my study of Jimmy Forrest.

Over the five years, I have compiled much information, scholarly and musical, on my G3 iBook that survived years of world travel, including a repair trip from Costa Rica to Canada and back and to its final resting place in Budapest after its hard drive AND the external drive died in the same week. Through the good graces of a data recovery team in Budapest all this material has survived and I intend to share what I have gathered so far and will continue to do so. I'm going to present the definitive reference work on the life and music of Jimmy Forrest.

This work on Jimmy Forrest will be serialized, piecemeal, until it is finally assembled into form, here on this blog. I've learned so much about the blues, Kansas City and St. Louis music, historical research and how to play the saxophone over these years that I think it should be shared, through one posting or on thousand.

I once read a statement by Joseph Campbell, that to truly understand an authors journey, you had to read as many of his books as possible. I have applied this to Jimmy Forrest, by listening to his playing, reading what is written about him, watching him perform on video, transcribing and practicing his solos, and I think I'm now ready to share what I have learned.

Lastly, be patient with this blog. Life is busy, so this historical-musical yarn is going to unravel slowly and, at times, may completely unravel: I'm going to do all the work right here. If a reference isn't in place, be patient. If a link breaks, let me know. If you're reading and interested, leave a comment. If I got a fact wrong, send me a citable source and I'll correct it. Above all, if you haven't done so yet, watch the movie that got me started.