Rhythm on Record

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 360, 17 May 1946, Page 10

Rhythm on Record

DO not recommend "Turntable’s" Friday night "Rhythm on Record" sessions to those who prefer to regard swing as something affecting bobbysoxers and zoot-suitors only, For facilis descensus Averno, or as Benny Goodman might have it "it’s a quickstep to the hotspot," and after only two sessions I find myself in danger of becoming a Constant Listener. There’s a double fascination. First, the music itself. It’s worth listening through a desert.of run-of-the-mill boogie-woogie to find something with the haunting sophistication Lament for a Lost Love (subtitled Solace). But equally fascinating is the commentary. "Turntable" is a master of his subject, and we are only just realising how involved the subject is. For it seems: necessary to give a short history of all the more memorable clarinettists, trumpeters, and alto-saxers in the swing world, and as these change their instruments, their pseudonyms, and their combination (singular) for every recording, the task is not an easy one, particularly as the characters involved have, to begin with, mames such as Specs Lanaghan,

Foots Carlisle, and Shoeless John Jackson. Though Philistines and F.B.I. officials may feél that "Turntable’s" sleuthlike ability to track down his man might be employed to better purpose, constant listeners to the session will disagree; without his competent guidance they might find themselves lost in that musical demi-monde where negroes are jimdawgs and white men are ofays, and the Great Duke refers neither to Marlborough, Wellington, nor even Windsor.