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Jeff wrote: > My name is Jeff Shucard. I'm a jazz musician/writer living in > Vancouver, B.C. I'm doing research for what I hope will be an > authoritative piece on Jimmy Durante's early career in the New York > music scene that I am co writing with the jazz historian, Mark > Berrisford. As a pianist, band leader and composer, Durante recorded > between 1918 - 1923. He also, I believe, "moonlighted" as the > pianist on the 1959 Audio Fidelity LP # 1909 titled, EDDIE JACKSON! > The problem is the band is not credited other than being called, > "his Dixielanders". If anyone can possibly direct me to an > informational source for the musicians who performed on this > recording I would be most appreciative and very grateful as this > information would greatly help in completing my research and resolve > some nagging questions in the scholarship of early jazz. Wow, I happen to own a copy of this LP. The LP itself does not list the personnel of Eddie Jackson's "Dixielanders". The liner notes are long and contain a wealth of historical information. The last paragraph is interesting vis-a-vis this thread, and understandable may lead some to believe Jimmy Durante is playing piano: "Years of hard plugging in small-time acts followed, during the course of which he met Jimmy Durante. In 1917 Eddie and a girl named Dot Taylor joined forces in a shimmy dance act, and graced by the music of Jimmy Durante's band they did well for five years. In 1923 Eddie formed an act with Harry Harris, who was subsequently bought out by Lou Clayton, at which time the team of Clayton, Jackson and Durante was born. They became an immediate success in their own club, and soon afterward hit the big time all over the United States. For more than a quarter of a century the trio stuck together. Then, in 1950, Lou Clayton died, and Eddie and Jimmy Durante went it alone in a series of television shows. Today they are filling engagements in virtually every medium, and audiences are cheering them on to new laurels." Great music on this LP, too. Jon Noring (p.s., who owns the rights to these recordings, and do the original master tapes still exist?)