“Let’s Get Together” (1934) Chick Webb with Taft Jordan and Pete Clarke/ (1959) Van Alexander with Mannie Klein and Plas Johnson

“Let’s Get Together”

Composed by Chick Webb; arranged by Edgar Sampson.

Recorded by Chick Webb and His Orchestra for Columbia on January 15, 1934 in New York.

Chick Webb, drums, directing: Mario Bauza, first trumpet; Reunald Jones and Taft Jordan, trumpets; Sandy Williams, trombone; Pete Clarke and Edgar Sampson, alto saxophones; Elmer Williams, tenor saxophone; Joe Steele, piano; John Truehart, guitar; John Kirby, bass.

The story – beginnings:

William Henry Webb, Jr. was born on February 10, 1905 in Baltimore. Although there has been considerable confusion about this over many decades, an accumulation of research has finally definitively ascertained this date.(1)

Another important matter that has been the source of much misinformation about Chick Webb is how and why he came to be disabled by the various health problems that left him a hunchback who grew to be only four feet tall. The confusion surrounding that, and the reasons for Webb’s death, have been explained in medical terms as follows: “Chick Webb must first (as a child) have had tuberculosis in a lung or the intestine. Blood-borne, it spread to his spine and led to a permanent deformity.”(2) Relative to the chronic and finally acute health conditions that ultimately caused Webb’s death: “Recurrence of a lung infection caused pleurisy. Further spread resulted in infection of his peritoneum and urinary tract. Following a nephrectomy (surgical kidney removal), bowel and renal failure led to intestinal obstruction, uremia, and death.”(3)

These stark facts set physical aspects of Chick Webb’s life. He had to deal with these harsh realities from the time he was a small child until his death at age at age 34. As fate would have it, in the last couple of years of his life, when he was finally reaching a place as a bandleader where his success was growing substantially after many years of very slow growth, his chronic illnesses gradually combined to cause his death. (Above right: Chick Webb in the late 1930s: he never played without pain.)

The emotional aspects of Webb’s life however were anything but restrictive. His parents were William Henry Webb, Sr., who worked as a laborer, and Marie Florence Johnson, who worked as a laundress. This couple eventually had four children, Bessie, born in 1902; William, Jr. born in 1905; Mabel, born in 1908; and Ethel, born in 1910. Ethel died of pneumonia when she was almost two years old. William Sr. moved out of the family home shortly after that, and died in 1918. In the wake of the departure of her husband, Marie and her three children moved in with her mother Mary. In Mary’s home were also Marie’s two younger sisters, Emma and Florence. Also there was Clarence Jones, a boarder, who eventually married Chick’s grandmother Mary, and was a stabilizing influence on everyone in the family. (Clarence Jones lived until 1961.) Chick was very close to his mother, and contributed to her support as soon as he was able after he began earning his own living as a musician. She was a source of ongoing encouragement for Chick. He also stayed at his family home whenever he came through Baltimore, no matter how famous he became as a bandleader.(4)

Webb’s family called him “William.” The nickname “Chick” came from neighborhood boys who made fun of Webb because of his disability. It appears that despite this, he was never offended by the nickname.

Slow climb:

By the time Chick Webb made this recording, he had been a bandleader, albeit one who had had many struggles, for about eight years. For all of those years, he worked and lived in New York. In January of 1927 he played his first gig at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. For the remainder of his life, the Savoy would be essentially his “home” ballroom, his base of operations in Manhattan. As the public profile of the Savoy rose higher, so did that of Chick Webb. Despite the increasingly dire economic effects of the Great Depression in the early and mid-1930s, business at the Savoy Ballroom was generally good then, with that venue’s owners/operators, Moe Gale and Charlie Buchanan, employing myriad promotions to get people into their ballroom. Once dancers were in the ballroom, Chick Webb and his band made sure that they were satisfied.

Business was not good for the record making industry in those years. There was a large drop-off of record sales from the late 1920s until 1934. Consequently, record companies cut back their recording activity dramatically. Webb was able to produce only eleven recorded sides with his band from August of 1927 until January of 1934, when he made the recording that is presented with this post.(5)

This doesn’t count the one big recording session the Webb band had with Louis Armstrong (December 8, 1932), at which eight masters were made (four tunes, two takes each that were issued). At that time, Louis was often in need of a solid band to serve as his backup for both in-person engagements and on records. In early November of 1932,  Armstrong returned to New York from a tour of Great Britain. His next gig was to appear as the star of a revue called Hot Chocolates. In competition with other bands, the Webb band was chosen to back Louis. This was a major break for them. The revue opened at Connie’s Inn in Harlem in late November, then toured a bit with stands at the Royal Theater in Baltimore and the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C. in December. By the end of the year, Armstrong’s lips were raw and bleeding from overwork. He left the show and returned to his home in Chicago for rest and to allow his lips to heal. Being associated with Louis Armstrong was a definite boost to the public profile of Chick Webb and His Orchestra.(6) (Above right: Louis Armstrong – overwork at the end of 1932 damaged his upper lip. This would continue to be a matter of great concern to him.)

Chick Webb undoubtedly learned a lot from his association with Louis Armstrong. Among his lessons: (A) The power of a marquee name to success in show business. Whenever and wherever the Webb band appeared with Armstrong, there were overflow audiences. This was not so when the Webb band appeared without Louis. (B) No matter how great Louis played his trumpet, he always got a stronger audience response when he sang. Chick filed away this information for future use.

The year 1933 was another one Webb spent building his band’s library of arrangements and personnel. It is unclear what employment the Webb band had throughout that year in addition to their regular gig at the Savoy Ballroom. It can be inferred from what is known that Moe Gale, Webb’s manager, was continuously trying to book the Webb band on strings of one-night dance dates outside of Manhattan. That may have been difficult because without ongoing exposure on records and radio, the name Chick Webb meant very little to dance audiences outside of New York City. A look at the Webb discography for 1933 reveals absolutely no recording activity for the Webb band from their December 8, 1932 Victor session in Camden, New Jersey with Louis Armstrong until a session for Columbia in Manhattan on December 20, 1933. Nevertheless, Chick Webb was becoming more successful at the Savoy Ballroom. (Above left: Moe Gale and Chick Webb.)

Webb’s short association with Columbia Records was the handiwork of John Hammond. It is possible, indeed likely, that Hammond set up, paid all expenses for, and then, in the studio with the Webb band, produced the four or five recording sessions Chick made for that company starting in late 1933.  Those sessions were on: December 20, 1933, January 15, 1934, May 18, 1934, and June 7, 1934 or July 6, 1934. In addition, the Webb band recorded for Columbia on May 9, 1934. That session may also have been produced by Hammond.

Hammond was the beneficiary of a trust fund which paid him $12,000 annually, approximately $160,000 in the value of today’s dollars. These payments started on his twenty-first birthday, December 15, 1931. He “…unself-consciously used this money to create opportunities for himself, and he never shrank from the charge that he used his wealth to buy his way into the music industry. Indeed, he made light of it. The staff at Columbia, whom he approached about renting studio time for his earliest recordings, ‘must have thought I was a nut, albeit one with money who should not be ignored while the company was struggling for survival.'”(7)

The total number of Chick Webb sides made for Columbia is 14. These recordings came at a critical time in the development of the Webb band because the band was getting better in every musical respect, but was being heard almost exclusively by dancers in Manhattan and possibly the surrounding territory. Those records included tunes that would be very important to the future popularity of the Webb band, including: “Blue Minor,” “Stomping at the Savoy,” and “Let’s Get Together,” which became the Webb band’s theme song. (Above right: John Hammond in 1933.)

The music:

“Let’s Get Together” is in 32 bar AABA form. The Webb recording of it starts with no introduction. The first two “A” sections of the tune are played by the three undulating saxophones with muted brass punctuations. Chick’s crisp brushwork on his snare drum is very clearly recorded. The eight-bar bridge is a hill-and-dale melody played by the saxophone trio, warmed a bit by the muted brass. The final eight-bar “A” section of the first chorus is a replication of the first two.

The second chorus begins with an improvised cup-muted trumpet solo. My attribution of this solo to Taft Jordan is based on the fact that he was the jazz trumpet man in the Webb band when this recording was made. The recording mix has the drums (played by Webb) and guitar (played by John Truehart, a friend of Webb’s from his teenage days in Baltimore) plainly recorded, while the saxophones, playing a rather busy background, are barely audible. Jordan plays well and swings nicely, especially considering that this recording was made at the beginning of 1934. (Above left: the Columbia 78 of “Get Together.” Soon the title changed to “Let’s Get Together.” Note the identification of Chick Webb’s Savoy Orch.)

The next solo is on alto saxophone, and I attribute it to Pete Clarke. Once again, his job in the Webb band then was to both lead the saxophones and play jazz. He does both here quite convincingly. He was a fine musician who was a part of the Webb band through much of the 1930s, who also played clarinet, flute, and starting in the 1950s, the baritone saxophone. Clarke is spelled by trombonist Sandy Williams, another Webb band stalwart, before he finishes his solo outing. Then he plays bursts of notes over the sighing brass and reeds. Tenor saxophonist Elmer Williams then plays briefly, his sound being quite hoarse, quite different from a few years later when he acquired the nickname “Tone.”

The finale has the saxophones playing a short riff at first rather aggressively against oo-ah brass, then diminishing in both intensity and volume to the conclusion.

“Let’s Get Together”

Composed by Chick Webb; arranged by Van Alexander.

Recorded by Van Alexander and His Orchestra for Capitol in 1959 in Hollywood.

Van Alexander, directing: Conrad Gozzo, first trumpet; Shorty Sherock, Uan Rasey and Mannie Klein, trumpets; Francis “Joe” Howard, Ed Kusby and Pullman “Tommy” Pederson, tenor trombones; Kenny Schroyer, bass trombone; Paul Horn, first alto saxophone; Abe Most, alto saxophone; Jules Jacob and Plas Johnson, tenor saxophones; Henry “Butch” Stone, baritone saxophone; Paul Smith, piano; Barney Kessel, guitar; Joe Comfort, bass; Irv Cottler, drums.

More story and music:

The arrival of stereophonic sound on commercial records in the late 1950s, combined with the growing popularity of 33 1/3 rpm long-playing disks, turned out to be a boon for the recording industry. In addition, the production of stereo equipment, which was needed to play the new stereo records, began to take-off in the late 1950s. This trend continued through the 1960s and into the 1970s. Many people bought high-quality stereo equipment, often as separate components including speakers, to play the many new stereo LP records that were flooding the market.

The producers of records had a field day making recordings of all kinds that demonstrated the remarkable power of high-fidelity recording techniques coupled with stereophonic sound. The perfect musical ensemble to validate these qualities was the classic big band. The formula followed by producers and the recording engineers they worked in recording big bands was brass out of one speaker, reeds out of the other, with the rhythm section coming out of both speakers.

The record company that embraced the recording of big bands and music from the swing era employing this new technology most successfully was Capitol Records, headquartered in Los Angeles. Producers at Capitol, led by Dave Cavanaugh, devised various approaches to recording big bands. The most successful of these was Capitol and Cavanaugh’s production of a remarkable series of LP’s featuring Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra. Gray was the leader of one of the most successful bands during the swing era, and a very good businessman. He retired from active bandleading around 1950, after spending more that 25 years on the road with a succession of bands. Gray did not need to work after that: he had carefully invested the money he made as a bandleader, and consequently had a comfortable guaranteed income.

Nevertheless, he missed the excitement of making music with a big band of talented musicians. In the mid-1950s, Gray was lured out of retirement to come to Los Angeles to lead a band of studio musicians, all top-grade players and veterans of the swing bands of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, in making new recordings of music associated with the old Casa Loma band. This project also included the popular male vocalist from that band, Kenny Sargent. The resulting Capitol LP, Casa Loma in Hi-Fi, though not in stereo, was very successful. (Above right: Glen Gray pictured in a promotional photo for his first hi-fi LP.  Capitol Records put a substantial promotional push on for the record. It sold well and paved the way for a long and successful series of LPs that presented the music of the swing era in excellent sound.)

In the record business, as in most other areas of human endeavor, nothing succeeds like success. The success of the first Glen Gray/Casa Loma LP inspired the folks at Capitol to create a follow-up, to be in newly available stereophonic sound. The concept was to gather together a dozen classic recordings made by various popular bands during the swing era, and re-record them verbatim (more or less) in high-fidelity stereo. The LP that resulted from that effort, Sounds of the Great Bands …a Tribute in Hi-Fi (and Stereo) by Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, was even more successful than the first Glen Gray Capitol LP. Consequently, many more LPs were produced in this series, with Glen Gray as the actual (and sometimes only titular) leader of the bands that made the recordings. The series stopped in 1964, after Gray’s death, but was reinvigorated in 1969 under the inspired leadership of Billy May.

In 1959 after the first Glen Gray stereo LP racked up big sales, spin-offs from the original concept were green-lighted at at Capitol. One of the most interesting, The Home of Happy Feet, involved bandleader/arranger Van Alexander. Alexander, whose real name was Alexander Feldman, was closely involved as an arranger with Chick Webb’s band in the late 1930s. His success with Webb led to him forming and leading his own band, starting in early 1939. He led that band with marginal success until 1942. After World War II Alexander migrated to Hollywood and worked as an arranger with Bob Crosby on radio, then with Les Brown. By the mid-1950s, he was writing music for films, but he also worked as an arranger and conductor for various recording artists including Jack Teagarden, Keely Smith, Kay Starr and Dakota Staton. When Glen Gray was preparing the music for his first Capitol Sounds of the Great Bands LP, producer Dave Cavanaugh tapped Alexander and arranger Larry Wagner, who had worked for Gray previously, to reconstruct the music to be included on that record.

Alexander’s approach with the music presented on The Home of Happy Feet was different. He took classic tunes played by bands that were featured at the Savoy Ballroom, including Chick Webb’s of course, and rearranged it to maximize the punch of a big band and its soloists in high-fidelity stereo sound. In his reinvention of “Let’s Get Together,” we hear drummer Irv Cottler play the band on, then the muscular saxophone quintet, led by Paul Horn, swing out with the riffy main melody. The popping open trumpet punctuations are led by first trumpeter Conrad Gozzo, while the contrasting hand-muted trombone bursts are led by Joe Howard. Irv Cottler underlines these brass bursts with crisply struck rim shots. (Van Alexander shown at upper right.)

The bridge is carried by the undulating saxophones playing against a background of low open trombones, with Kenny Schroyer’s bass trombone adding ballast. The last eight bars of the first chorus revisit the sounds of the first sixteen.

A brief but colorful interlude sets-up the trumpet solo of Mannie Klein. Klein uses a Harmon mute with its stem removed to create the sound you hear as he plays a bit of jazz. Arranger Alexander at first provides a rhythmic saxophone background for Mannie to play against, then he augments that with oo-ah trombones. Also catch his alternation of 2/4 and 4/4 meter in this sequence. An ensemble explosion follows on the tune’s bridge, with the Gozzo-led trumpets topping the molten sonic mix. Klein then returns to finish the chorus. (Above left: Conrad Gozzo and Mannie Klein.)

A burst of drums and then a swinging ensemble fanfare catapults tenor saxophonist Plas Johnson into a typically robust 16-bar improvised solo. Alexander expertly fashioned a simple rhythm section background for the first eight bars behind Plas. The second eight have the ensemble perking up with lots of rhythm. (Plas Johnson shown at right.) The entire ensemble swings through the next eight bars, then pianist Paul Smith takes an aphoristic solo which returns the music to the saxophones and brass format of the first chorus, and  brassy finale.

The recordings presented with this post were digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.

Notes and links:

(1) Rhythm Man …Chick Webb and the Beat That Changed America (2023), by Stephanie Stein Crease, 8-9. Hereafter Crease.

(2)  Jazz and Death …Medical Profiles of Jazz Greats (2002), by Frederick J. Spencer, M.D., 236.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Crease, 8-9.

(5) One of the “recording sessions” that Webb managed to land during this time period was in December of 1929 for a film soundtrack. Three tunes were recorded by his band. The film was called: After Seben. Here is a link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9_GnoadqsI

(6) Crease, 112-118.

(7) The Producer …John Hammond and the Soul of American Music (2006), by Dunstan Prial, 31.