Midnight at Eddie Condon’s – Bud Freeman’s All Star Orchestra

I have a mixed and conflicted relationship with jazz music. Some, the stuff I have always thought of as swing music, I love deeply. Other jazz, the more free-flowing, less structured music I associate with the years after the swing age, I do not care for. Because I lack a proper understanding of this large and important type of music, picking up a jazz record is always a bit of a gamble. Will this be structured enough to dance to? Will this be musical masturbation? These are questions only time can answer.

Today, time has been kind to me. Midnight at Eddie Condon’s is a collection of delightful, dancable. instrumental jazz music originally released in 1945. It is not entirely within my prefered style, I do enjoy a vocalist accompanying the band, but that is a minor quibble.

The covers are sadly lacking in artwork, the front featuring a scaled down cover from the original release and the rear featuring only text. This text contains a little biography of Bud Freeman, lists the full band performing on every song and has a short write-up on every song, all written by Dan Morgenstern (eight time winner of the Grammy for best album notes). I love this sort of context, it is a huge part of why I collect music and almost the whole of the reason I write about it at all.

This album was recorded on two separate days in December of 1945 with six different collections of musicians (many repeated) monophonically. It was released on EmArcy Records (catelogue MG-36013) between 1954-58 and was a product of Mercury Records. This release is on Trip Records, a product of Springboard International Records, credits Polygram, and is part of a Special Collectors Series. This particular release has a catelogue number of TLP-5529 and was released sometime in the mid 1970s.

Musician Roster
Midnight at Eddie Condon’s
Time on my Hands
Royal Garden Blues
Trumpet: Charlie Shavers, Trombone: Vernon Brown, Clarinet: Edmond Hall, Tenox Sax: Bud Freeman, Piano: Gene Schroeder, Bass: John Simmons, Drums: Davey Tough
Recorded December 10, 1945

Inside on the Southside
I Found a new Baby
Trumpet: Charlie Shavers, Trombone: Vernon Brown, Clarinet: Edmond Hall, Tenor Sax: Bud Freeman, Piano: Gene Schroeder, Bass: Bob Casey, Drums: Davey Tough
Recorded December 10, 1945

Blue Room
Clarinet: Edmond Hall, Tenor Sax: Bud Freeman, Piano: Gene Schroeder, Bass: Bob Casey, Drums: Davey Tough
Recorded December 10, 1945

Tea for Two
Room with a View
Tenor Sax: Bud Freeman, Piano: Joe Sullivan, Guitar: Carmen Mastren; Bass: Sid Weiss, Drums: George Wettling
Recorded December 5, 1945

Honeysuckle Rose
Tenor Sax: Bud Freeman, Piano: Joe Sullivan, Guitar: Carmen Mastren; Bass: Sid Weiss, Drums: George Wettling, Clarinet: Peanuts Hucko
Recorded December 5, 1945

You Took Advantage of Me
You’re my Everything
Sentimental Baby
Tenor Sax: Bud Freeman, Piano: Joe Sullivan, Guitar: Carmen Mastren; Bass: Sid Weiss, Drums: George Wettling, Clarinet: Peanuts Hucko, Cornet: Wild Bill Davidson
Recorded December 5, 1945

My greatest complaint about this album is that the physical copy I possess is in poor condition. I purchased it for 0.50$, so I am not surprised, but the first and final songs on the A side are completely unlistenable due to scratches, and fuzz consumes much of the rest of both sides. Perhaps a cleaning will be able to restore some of the sound quality.

I have a harder time remembering and placing instrumental music without context than I do songs with lyrics, so these songs all tend to blend together for me. Which is not a criticism, just an admission of my biases. I enjoy this music, if I still went out to swing dancing events this is the sort of music I would be delighted to hear. The lack of lyric and vocals makes it excellent background music with that touch of class I so often lack. The music here is beautiful and I am glad to have it.

I recently purchased a few boxes of shellac 78 rpm records, and I would be delighted to find more songs featuring any of the musicians credited on this LP.