[78-L] Helen Humes question about Suspicious Blues

kil at roadrunner.com kil at roadrunner.com
Fri Feb 21 13:21:46 PST 2014


I think your answer can be found by viewing the original label, which is here....
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/HELEN-HUMES-LEONARD-FEATHER-Suspicious-Blues-SAVOY-78-5514-Keep-Your-Mind-Me-/200922821594
You can zoom in by hovering the mouse.
Here is an excerpt from Feather's book "The Jazz Years: Earwitness to an Era", published in 1987, about the group...
   "Though the Humes-Pete Brown sides were well received, Helen did not record again until December 1944 when I persuaded Herman Lubinsky, a penny pinching man who was then building a big catalogue for his Savoy Records, to let me put a group together for Helen.  The back-up group, billed as Leonard Feather's Hiptet, had an odd front line, with two respected old-timers, Bobby Stark, the trumpeter (whom I had admired in the Chick Webb band, and who died just a year after this session) and Prince Robinson, of McKinney's Cotton Pickers renown, on tenor.  Herbie Fields whose year with Lionel Hampton had established him as the first Esquire award-winning white sideman with a major black band, played alto and clarinet.  With me in the rhythm section were Chuck Wayne, Oscar Pettiford and Denzil Best.  Of that entire group only Chuck and I survive.  (Savoy reissued these sides in 1986.)
RayK
---- Koen Kamphuijs & Gusta Harderwijk wrote: 
> For my radio show I try to find some information on Helen Humes' song 
> Suspicious Blues that she did back in 1944 for the Savoy label.  What 
> I wonder is the backing orchestra - according to a 
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_lB-CTdwGM>you tube clip it was 
> with Leonard Feather's hiptet; the 
> <http://www.78discography.com/Sav5500.htm>Savoy page on the online 78 
> discography project mentions the band of Herbie Fields and credit the 
> composition to Leonard Feather.  Now normally I tend to find other 
> sources more reliable than what users write with the youtube clips 
> they upload, but the 78 discography project pages are notorious - at 
> least with me - for their inaccuracies (oops what am I saying now).
> 
> Anyone who can tell me which source is right?



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