– Preston Frazier

Hello, Catherine and Colin, how are you?

 – Catherine Russell

I’m fine.

– Colin Hancock

Good, how’s it going?

– Preston Frazier 

Great! Let’s discuss your new project, ‘ Cat and the Hounds’

 I got ‘Cat and the Hounds’ a few weeks ago, started listening to it, and thought, this is a delight, but it’s also, and I’ll direct this at you, Colin, first, it is also a musical journey.

It is history. How did this project begin with you and Catherine?

– Colin Hancock

The very beginning of this project started way back in 2019. I had just graduated from undergrad and had moved to New York City to get my master’s degree from Columbia.

 I took advantage of the fantastic traditional jazz scene in New York.

I grew up in Austin, playing in the scene here, which is a very good one. There’s a thriving, hot jazz, classic jazz, whatever you want to call it, scene here.

One of the people I wanted to get to know better was Vince Giordano, a band leader and a world-renowned historian of music.

He knew a lot of the original masters. He got to know me and learned about one of my missions: to include as much representation of younger people of color in music as possible.

He was helpful.

The late George Wein, the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, reached out to Vince about trying to get more representation at the festival in traditional jazz.

Those two things happened simultaneously. Vince reached out to me to organize a group.

It was a challenge. I thought, ‘How am I going to find as many people of color as I can to put together a group like this, because it is hard?’

The pandemic happened, and then George passed away. So those two things happening made the whole idea of the project fizzle out for a little bit.

But I always felt like we shouldn’t have let it go that quickly.

There’s too much momentum here.

 I was playing at a party with a mutual friend of Cat’s and mine, Matthew Rivera. It was his housewarming in Brooklyn.

He’s a center of gravity for the community. He has an incredible collection of historical recordings, and he’s a real patron of this music.

I had previously recorded Catherine. I have some vintage recording equipment that I love to use, including cylinder and 78 equipment.

We met that way. I have been a fan of Cat for years. So it was a great honor to do that.

When I saw her at the party, it was like, oh, it’d be cool to have Cat sit and just catch up and all that stuff.

It became apparent very quickly that working on a project together would be a lot of fun.

 Preston Frazier 

That’s amazing because I know you’re busy. At the time of the recording, you were in law school. 

Catherine, it was probably a year and a half ago that you released the Grammy-nominated ‘My Ideal’  album that you recorded with Sean Mason. You’ve been on the road a lot, Catherine, so how did you find time to record this?

– Catherine Russell

When Colin approached me about this idea, I had to do it because nobody else was doing it.

Colin is one of the foremost scholars of this music.

It was also an education for me.  I thought, Wow, this takes a lot, man.

This experience gave me a lot more respect for Bessie Smith and all the artists of that era who recorded and sounded so great.

The care Colin took in that process was just fascinating to me. 

When he came to me with this project, I said yes!  A group of African-American musicians creating and paying homage, not recreating, but paying homage to this era of music, which I love anyway, because I have recorded a bunch of this kind of stuff, and I love the research. I love the blues artists, the blues singers of the 1920s, and their songwriting.

We just had a fantastic time doing it.

I just learned so much from Colin.

– Preston Frazier 

You both are jazz historians. You both have a connection, a blood connection to jazz. Catherine, of course, your father and your mother, and Colin, your father and your mother as well.

How did you come about the song selection for the album?

– Colin Hancock

It was simultaneously really fun and also a bit complex, because there’s such a wealth of material that you can choose from.

People have their caveats about early recordings of early vocalists, but

If you have listened to the material enough, you realize that there are so many outstanding vocalists to pick from.

It’s not just Bessie and Ethel Waters as amazing and rightfully on the pedestal as they are. I’m leading an Ethel Waters tribute at a festival in England later this year, and I’m facing the same issue: having to pick the material again.

I wanted to find variety, because like we say in the album’s liner notes, there’s not just one blues, there’s not just one approach to this.

And that is a common mistake, which is a hard one to remedy, because you can’t teach jazz history in one class; it’s impossible.

However, in jazz education, discussions of this era can sometimes be formulaic. 

It was not only about planning a set list for a show, but we also had these great musicians who were bringing this music to life in the current generation. Additionally, the fantastic variety of material they performed back in the day is awe-inspiring.

– Preston Frazier 

Catherine, I have a similar question to you regarding the song selection. How did you feel about that?

 – Catherine Russell

We did everything that we had planned to do. And included a few, a few things that my dad.

Dad had played initially in his youth.

You want variety. You want people to know that blues is not just 12 Bar Blues, it is storytelling. For me, excellent writing paints beautiful pictures; you can see the train leaving the station, you can talk about love in so many different ways, and loss, and then also include the history of the Great Migration of people going from the South to Chicago.  It’s all in these songs. The melodies are fantastic, and they’re fun to sing.

They’re challenging to sing. It brings me to a place of the strength of these women, the strength of these artists who are singing this material.

It’s not child’s play, man. 

You’ve got to be getting into this stuff. It’s not easy stuff, you know. I always like a challenge. I always like a great melody. I love great lyrics, great storytelling. 

We highlight a lot of the early writers because, unfortunately, when people say great American songbook, a lot of these people are not included.

I find it criminal. It’s ridiculous. You cannot say Great American Songbook without Great African American Songbook.

That’s just the way it is, period.

– Preston Frazier 

Could both of you elaborate on how this was recorded?

 – Catherine Russell

We rehearsed in a room,  all together. And we recorded all together. That’s how you get the spirit.

You can’t just do something to somebody in this room at different times and things like that. We recorded as a band.

In a contemporary studio. I always  insist on recording as a band, for the energy and the interplay between the musicians.

– Colin Hancock

 I was the leading producer, with Paul Kahn as associate producer and Scott Asen as executive producer. It was recorded in Sear Sound in New York.

One of my favorite experiences was when we rehearsed “Elevator Papa, Switchboard Mama” and came together in the main room, with Jaron and Cat facing John Thomas and me.

You’re always listening as a musician, but I was listening at that moment.

I remember closing my eyes and listening, thinking, “This is pretty much what it would have been back in the day.” That happens when you’re together like that, in this space, and recording together.

 – Preston Frazier 

Let’s jump to some of the songs. You mentioned that it was a duet with Jerron Paxton. Where did that song originate?

– Colin Hancock

 We were trying to showcase the variety of things you would have heard back then, all under the umbrella term of blues.

Two of the most famous artists of the time had an exclusive music contract.

The OK Company, one of the top companies marketing to African-Americans at the time, was a husband-and-wife duo known as Butterbeans and Susie. They were famous for touring in Vaudeville and for their recordings.

They recorded in New York. They recorded in Chicago with Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five. People sometimes forget that they recorded with bands.

They recorded in Atlanta with Eddie Haywood Sr., dad of Eddie Haywood Jr., for OK. Later in the 1920s, with the switch from horn recording to microphone recording, they increased their recording activities in New York City at the ritzy studio there.

It was James P. Johnson who was the piano accompanist on that recording. So, it was a routine, either something they did on stage or something they worked up for the recording.

We’re not sure, so some deeper research into reviews of local shows would be helpful. 

But it was undoubtedly a part of their shtick.

– Catherine Russell

This one, which I’ve read, is part of the Kitchen Mechanics Review, written by James P. Johnson and Andy Ruzoff, the lyricist.

So the review was dedicated to service workers in Harlem. The year was 1930 when this review show played on stage.

They would have been doing this as a vaudeville act on stage. It’s just fantastic.

I grew up watching television variety shows. That was the last place as a young child where I could see anything that looked like vaudeville on television, because vaudeville was still included in Cesar and Imogene Coca, who were vaudeville actors and comedians, and they were still included in these variety shows.

This reminds me of my youth, watching performances, but I never really got to see black vaudeville. It gave us a chance to explore that, which was fun.

So the only person I would want to do this with is Jerron Paxton, another aficionado of all kinds of early blues.

He just knew this naturally; it just comes out of him naturally. So it was fun.

– Preston Frazier 

Colin, did you make any significant arrangement changes to some of the originals that you heard?

– Colin Hancock

Oh, yeah. We didn’t want to do carbon copies, for instance, with “ Elevator Popa…”

In the original recording, there is no cornet player. It’s just Johnson on piano. The reason I wanted to do cornet in addition is that, speaking of honoring the composers, one of the other composers we celebrate on this is Perry Bradford, who wrote Crazy Blues and many other tunes.

He recorded with James P. Johnson around that same time, and they did a fantastic duet of a classic song that advertised a dance that never caught on.

The trumpet player on that record was a guy named Louis Metcalf, who was fantastic. Played with King Oliver.

He also played on the Riverboats one time on the Mississippi,  a similar generation to Louis Armstrong.

And his playing on this record of Skittledy Scow, along with Johnson.

 Is it cool to bring, you know, that kind of musical interplay?

 It worked. The other arrangements were similar, like on “Everybody Mess Around”, where the original record features just trumpet and piano.

 Since we haven’t heard Evan Christopher play soprano sax on this album, it could be cool to listen to him do that,  give it a different texture.

 – Preston Frazier 

Could you tell me a little bit about Panama Limited Blues”?

– Colin Hancock

When we were picking the songs, I had suggested another song by Ada Brown.

I like Ada Brown, and this would be good. And Cat was like, Well, my dad recorded with Ada Brown and did this song.

 I said, “We’re doing that.” You know, that’s way cooler.

– Catherine Russell

I had been listening to Ada Brown and Paul Kahn, who suggested actually including this tune. It’s great because it’s an enjoyable tune to sing, the historical aspect of it with the train lines and how people got around in those days, and how the transportation they relied upon.

Then, the connection to Panama, where my dad was from, and how people took the ships – this is the most fascinating part of transportation to me, how people got around.

The train was such a part of people’s hearts because that’s how you met somebody.

There’s so much history connected to transport, including the names of the trains and all this kind of stuff.

The Panama Limited was an essential train line, so all of that stuff inspired me to sing it.

Colin and Paul Kahn wrote some serious liner notes on this package.

It’s like reading just history.

 – Preston Frazier

The next song on my list is the first single from the album,   “Cake Walking Babies (From Home) ”. Colin, want to start there with that?

– Colin Hancock

 I loved that song, probably since I was eight years old. 

I remember thinking, “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.” Because of the, you know, record by Louis and Sidney Bechet with Clarence Williams and Eva Taylor.

 I have always enjoyed that one, because it’s got a certain chill vibe to it, which lends itself well to the song.

And so I wanted to do that version to honor Louie and Bechet, give them a nod, but also to honor Bessie.

You can’t talk about the blues and the recording of the blues from this era without Bessie Smith.

– Catherine Russell

 I remember listening to a radio show. It was probably Phil Schaap; I listened to him endlessly. They were talking, Alberta Hunter also did a version of this, and they were talking about playing it at the correct speed, because it’s hard to, sometimes when you listen to a vintage recording like that, it’s in between the keys,  so you don’t know if the key was D, E flat, you don’t know what the key is.

They spent about half an hour discussing, you know, and chiming in on what the correct key was for this recording.

This is the first time I’ve heard this tune, and it reminds me of pictures of people cakewalking —the actual dance it’s about.

It’s just a happy, upbeat tune for me, and of course, Bessie Smith can do no wrong.

When I heard Bessie’s version, I was inspired to sing it, and playing it only made me even happier…

 I loved this choice… 

– Preston Frazier 

It’s a delightful song. Probably my favorite song from the album. 

– Colin Hancock

That one is so deep. I loved working on that one, from an arranging standpoint, because it’s a great example of how even a 12-bar blues can be extremely calm.

Complex and deep. 

I often put myself in the mindset of the underrepresented folks who made these records possible.

And one of the key factors of that is the African American recording engineers and promoters from that period who were marketing this stuff to black audiences.

And how did a standard 12-bar blues get marketed? 

How would it have been done with somebody like Victoria Spivy? She was from Texas.

If a Texas band from back then, an African American Texas band, how would they do it?

Well, Troy Floyd had the most popular African American Texas band. I knew the son of the trumpet player in that band and interviewed him.

He said, people liked the trombone with the bazooka mute. It’s like a kazoo-style straight mute on the trombone.

And that was popular. That sound didn’t continue after the 1920s.

That novelty, but still with the blues, still serious.  I saw that our trombonist, Deion Tucker, had a bazooka mute.

 I said, Man, you have got to use that!

 – Preston Frazier 

 What about “Gypsy Blues”? 

– Colin Hancock

Picking the instrumentals was tough. So much material to choose from.

I was thinking about who needs to be represented in this project. Two figures who I don’t think you would have the current kind of music industry in general, and indeed not the black experience within the music industry, you know, as it is today, without our Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake.

Noble Sissle was a member of the Harlem Hellfighters band with James Reese’s Europe. He helped to popularize a lot of those singing styles internationally. Then he brought that fame back to New York after the First World War, the Great War, and helped to get a lot of sounds of African American music to a broader audience.

The two of them collaborated on the 1921 show Shuffle Along, which, although not the first African American show on Broadway, was one of the first to make a notable impact.

Terry Waldo, a pupil of Eubie Blake, put it best: it brought sentimental music performed by African American artists into the limelight, not just blues stuff or hot jazz performances, but also ballads and similar genres.

So I wanted to represent that, too.

“Serenade Blues”, which is kind of the second one in the medley, I identified that song recently on a record by a college band that says ‘medley’. I figured out it was “Serenade Blues”, so it’s been on my mind. 

 I don’t think anybody’s played that since 1923. So let’s incorporate it. Why not?

Let’s honor these guys. 

– Preston Frazier 

Let’s jump to “West Indies Blues”.

– Colin Hancock

It was exciting to write the arrangement for this because we added Vince Giordano as a guest. I mentioned him earlier on as somebody important in this project, and I wanted to have him join in.

He’s fantastic, and it’s an honor to have him play this music with us. He’s such an important person for helping get this music out there.

Rather than simply replicating the original version, I decided to write it around the new instrumentation and incorporate some of the basic foundations of the arrangement that you would have gotten if you had purchased the stock, but make it our own.

A few nods here and there to some of the Caribbean ties to this song, rhythmically or in pattern or things like that, because that’s such an essential part of this.

 – Catherine Russell

 I wasn’t familiar with this tune. I was just so happy to learn about this tune.

I used a light accent because I was raised Panamanian/Jamaican; my grandfather was Jamaican, and on my father’s side.

It’s just a great tune and great fun too. I’m happy Colin chose that.

– Preston Frazier 

How about “Going Crazy with the Blues”?

– Catherine Russell

Mamie Smith did so many great recordings, and I wasn’t familiar with this particular tune.

I had recorded “Going Crazy with the Blues “ on another recording with Vince Giordano that he did for the ‘Boardwalk Empire’ series, Volume 1.

It’s a well-written tune.

You picture a woman seeing her man with some woman across the street and around the corner.

I love the melody, I love the lyrics, I love the story, and it’s something that you can sink your teeth into as a singer.

Mamie Smith has become one of my favorites. 

She was one of the greats. I know that there were blues before she recorded “Crazy Blues” in 1920, of course, but she was the pivotal artist who brought that more into the forefront for mass African American consumption at that time.

– Colin Hancock

 I dug “Carolina Shout”.

It was a technical piece. We did a lot of excellent, soulful stuff, but it was also cool to have a little showy piece, given our talented musicians.

In the band, particularly Jonathan Thomas, who I met performing with another African American early jazz musician on the scene in New York, Danny Wellington, we met on one of his gigs.

And I was like, we got to do like some “Carolina Shout” at some point.

So we did. Seeing it happen around him and Jerron Paxton, who played those great banjo breaks, was cool.

– Preston Frazier 

It’s a lovely album.  I appreciate your time. Colin, Catherine.

– Catherine Russell

What gives me hope is doing this with young people.

It’s fantastic because then this music lives on. Colin is one of the most passionate individuals about the history and mechanics of music, including the writers and everything else.

Young people need to be doing it too.

 I am hopeful and inspired by my connection with all these folks; they’re embracing this music.