Acker Bilk & The Paramount Jazz Band – Acker Pie (1972)

Bernard Stanley “Acker” Bilk MBE (28 January 1929 – 2 November 2014) was an English clarinettist and vocalist known for his trademark goatee, bowler hat, striped waistcoat and breathy, vibrato-rich, lower-register clarinet style.

Bilk’s 1962 instrumental tune “Stranger on the Shore” became the UK’s biggest selling single of 1962 where it remained in the UK charts for more than 50 weeks, peaking at number two, and was the first No. 1 single in the United States by a British artist in the era of the modern Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.

But … Mr. Acker Bilk was much more than only a traditional jazz player …

On this Album we hear some traditional jazz … a great version of “Nobody Knows You (When You´re Down And Out) .. .I know this Ida Cox song from an early album by The Spencer Davis Group …

And you´ll hear some unexpectedly sounds, like “Nairobi Knees Up ” and … “Burgundy Street” listen … and enjoy!

In other words: A real great Album by the one and only Mr.  Acker Bilk …

Personnel:
Acker Bilk (clarinet, vocals)
Tucker Finlayson (bass)
Rod Mason (trumpet)
John Mortimer (trombone)
Tony Pitt (guitar, banjo)
Johnny Richardson (drums)
+
Barney Bates (piano, harmonium on 10.)

Tracklist:
01. Wolverine Blues (J. Spikes/B. Spikes/Morton) 3.40
02. Spider And The Fly (Waller/Razaf/Johnson) 4.33
03. Burgundy Street (Traditional) 2.37
04. Rose Of The Rio Grande (Leslie/Warren/Gammon) 4.34
05. Nobody Knows You (When You´re Down And Out) (Cox) 3.20
06. Nairobi Knees Up (Mortimer) 3.24
07. I’m An Old Cow Hand /Mercer) 2.41
08. South Rampart Street Parade (Haggart/Bauduc) 4.07
09. Sweet Georgia Brown (Bernie/Casey/Pinkard) 4.14
10. Gloomy Sunday (Seress) 3.08
11. Free For All (Mortimer) 3.34
12. Travellin’ On (Bilk/Green/Manzi) 2.46

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More from Mr. Acker Bilk:

Acker Bilk With The Leon Young String Chorale – Mood For Love (1966)

With his goatee beard, bowler hat and striped waistcoat, Acker Bilk was one of the most recognisable musicians of the post-war British trad jazz boom.

His 1961 record, the haunting Stranger on the Shore, was in the charts for more than 50 weeks and made him an international star.

He attributed his unique style of playing to the fact he had lost part of a finger while out sledging, as well as losing two front teeth during a school playground fight.

Bernard Stanley Bilk was born in Pensford, Somerset, in January 1929, the son of a Methodist lay preacher. His mother played the organ in the local chapel.

He died on 2 November 2014 aged 85 after a lengthy illness.

After a spell working at the Wills tobacco factory in Bristol, he went off to do his National Service in Egypt where he learned to play the clarinet and formed a band known as the Original Egyptian Stompers.

On his return home he worked for his uncle as a blacksmith but he had caught the music bug and formed another band, the Chew Valley Jazzmen, in 1953.

The following year later he tried his luck in London as a clarinet player with Ken Colyer’s band, but soon returned to Somerset and formed his first Paramount Jazz Band.
Stranger on the Shore

The band’s first big break was when they played seven days a week for six months in a bar in Düsseldorf which gave them plenty of opportunity to hone their skills as musicians.

By now he was widely known as Acker, Somerset dialect for mate. A publicity agent suggested he adopt the Edwardian costume, complete with bowler hat, that came to epitomise the trad jazz style.

At one time he employed a road manager, Alan Cutler, known as Adge, who would go on to find success with scrumpy and western outfit, The Wurzels.

Bilk, who referred to the clarinet as “that thing I stick in my head and blow”, performed with all the major figures in British jazz including Chris Barber, Kenny Ball and George Melly.

But he appealed to more than just jazz lovers with his wistful signature tune, Stranger on the Shore, which became the theme for a BBC TV series.

An expanded version of a piece originally called Jenny – after his daughter – it stayed in the charts for 55 weeks and won four gold discs.

It also brought Acker Bilk the unique distinction of being the first artist have a simultaneous chart-topping hit in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

He said that he never tired of the tune he called Strangler on the Floor: generations of music lovers agreed.

Over the years Mr. Acker Bilk, as he liked to be called, toured in the Far East, Australia and Europe and made many television and radio appearances.

Besides Stranger on the Shore, Acker Bilk also had hits with tunes such as Summer Set and Buona Sera.

He sold millions of records and won an Ivor Novello award. (by BBC)

Here´s another sweetie by the master of the clarinet: Mood For Love with a real great cover !

Alternate front+back cover

Personnel:
Jerry Allen (organ)
Acker Bilk (clarinet)
+
The Leon Young String Chorale

Tracklist:
01. I’m In The Mood For Love (McHugh/Fields) 2.41
02. Sonia (Roy/Tuvey) 2.59
03. La Playa (Barouh/v.Wetter) 2.56
04. I’m Confessin’ (That I Love You) (Neiberg/Dougherty/Reynolds) 2.49
05. Paradise (Clifford/Brown) 2.54
06. When Lights Are Low (Carter/Williams) 3.26
07. It Had To Be You (Jones/Kahn) 2.30
08. Theme From ”Madame X” (Wildman) 2.50
09. Night Lights (Shaw) 2.50
10. When You Are There (Adam) 2.26
11. If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight (Creamer/Johnson) 3.02
12. When Your Lover Has Gone (Swan) 2.21

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Acker Bilk – Some Of My Favourite Things (1972)

 Acker Bilk was a bowler-hatted titan of Trad jazz who conjured a warm, sentimental sound from his clarinet
Acker Bilk, who has died aged 85, was a jazz clarinettist and bandleader who became a hugely popular figure in the wider world of entertainment; his recordings, in particular Stranger On The Shore, figured among the bestselling records of the 20th century.

Bilk’s popular appeal owed almost as much to his unaffected and avuncular manner as to the warm, sentimental sound of his clarinet. Similarly, his bowler-hatted figure was as instantly recognisable as his tone and style. Despite his great popularity, Bilk retained his commitment to jazz and led a series of excellent bands throughout his career.

Bernard Stanley Bilk was born on January 28 1929 in Pensford, Somerset, the son of a cabinet maker. His mother played the organ in the chapel where his father acted as a lay preacher. Bilk acquired the nickname “Acker”, a local word meaning “pal” or “mate”, as a boy.

His mother insisted on his taking formal piano lessons which, he claimed, almost killed his interest in music. His boyhood exploits around the village resulted in several injuries, including the loss of two front teeth and the top joint of a finger. He later claimed that these disabilities contributed to his individual style of playing.

Leaving school at 14, Bilk worked first at the Wills tobacco factory in Bristol, at a wage of £1 4s a week, and later as a builder’s labourer and blacksmith’s apprentice. He took up the clarinet in 1948, while on National Service in Egypt, and formed a semi-professional band in Bristol shortly after demobilisation.

Early in 1954 Bilk was invited to join the band of Ken Colyer, Britain’s leading New Orleans-style musician. He found life in London so disagreeable that he left after only a few months, returned home and took a variety of manual jobs. In 1956 he formed his Paramount Jazz Band.

Realising that the band’s only chance of establishing itself lay in having a London base, in 1957 Bilk braved the capital once more. Traditional, or “Trad”, jazz was now growing in popularity throughout Europe, and he secured a six-week engagement in Düsseldorf.

The long nightly sessions imparted a professional polish to the band and they returned home in perfect form to take advantage of the burgeoning Trad craze.

It was Bilk’s good fortune to have his advertising handled by the publicist Peter Leslie, who was later to play a role in promoting the Beatles’ early career. Leslie hit upon the idea of presenting Bilk and the band in the guise of Edwardian showmen or prizefighters.

They appeared dressed in waistcoats, shirtsleeves and bowler hats. Bilk himself was always billed as “Mr Acker Bilk”, while the band’s record albums, press advertisements and handbills came complete with yards of Leslie’s orotund, mock-Edwardian prose: “The notes flew out in that Style much favoured in the American City of New Orleans: so Spirited in its Execution, so Subtle and Melodious in Conception.”

Leslie’s strategy for creating a distinctive image worked well. Young Trad fans adopted the bowler hat as their identifying symbol and, somewhat to his alarm, Acker Bilk found himself a leader of pop fashion at the beginning of the Sixties. He played a prominent role in Dick Lester’s It’s Trad, Dad!, the archetypal youth film of the time.

In 1960 he recorded his composition Stranger On The Shore with a string orchestra, as the theme music to a BBC television play for children. The tune caught on and became the first-ever simultaneous hit in Britain and America, remaining in the Top 30 singles chart for 53 weeks, gaining an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

The tune which he habitually referred to as “my old-age pension”, was subsequently recorded by dozens of other artists, including Duke Ellington, and continues to sell in prodigious quantities.

Although the boom in Trad jazz came to an abrupt end in 1963, with the rise of the Beatles, Bilk continued to pursue his double-sided career with great success. The band, freed from the need to conform to the strict Trad format, blossomed into a fine, open-textured mainstream jazz sextet.

Meanwhile, a long series of attractive, easy-listening albums emerged to supply an apparently insatiable market. The ubiquitous sound of Acker with strings, still to be heard in shops, bars, hotel lobbies, lifts and aeroplanes around the world, brought him numerous awards. Particularly successful were the albums Sheer Magic and Evergreen, both of which gained gold discs.

Although he did not have to, Bilk continued to tour the world with his Paramount Jazz Band. The generation which had taken to him as teenagers continued to flock to his performances as adults, often bringing their children and grandchildren with them in later years.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, he took care not to allow his show to harden into an ossified routine, but it would always end in the same way. He would don the bowler hat, which had been lying prominently placed on the piano throughout. This simple action invariably brought storms of applause which died away to silence as he played the first notes of Stranger On The Shore.

In recent years, Bilk began to limit the number of his appearances. A keen amateur painter, he spent more time painting and relaxing at his home in Pensford than in his big house at Potters Bar, north London. In 2000 he was treated for throat cancer.

He was appointed MBE in 2001.

Acker Bilk is survived by his wife, Jean (née Hawkins), whom he first met when they were schoolchildren, a daughter, Jenny, and a son, Peter.

Acker Bilk, born January 28 1929, died November 2 2014 (The Telegraph)

And this is an album from 1972, this album is not a sampler, but an original studio album by the great Mr. Acker Bilk !

Enjoy this sentimental journey ….

Personnel:
Barney Bates (piano)
Acker Bilk (clarinet, vocals)
Ritchie Bryant (drums)
Mike Cotton (trumpet, bluegelhorn)
Tucker Finlayson (bass)
Tony Pitt (guitar)
John Mortimer (trombone)
+
L. Allen (percussion)
S. Barrett (percussion)
F. Clarke (bass)
M. Harris (piano)
Les Hurdle (bass)
Mike Morgan (guitar)
Alan Parker (guitar)
D. Wright (drums)
+
Violin:
R. Leopold – W. Reid – J. Ronayne – F. Alexander – R. Cohen – D. Weekes – D. Collier – J. Bloch – B. Pecker – J. Fields – G. Palmer – A, Babynchut – J. Salisbury
+
Viola:
D. Bellman – L. Rosen – G. Scott – M. Loban’
+
Cello:
W. DeMont – V. Joseph

Tracklist:
01. Stranger On The Shore (Bilk/Mellin) 3.20
02. Claire (O´Sullivan) 2.42
03. What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life (Bergman/LeGrand) 2.50
04. The Folks Who Live On The Hill (Kern/Hammerstein) 2.51
05. Makin’ Whoopee (Khan/Donaldson) 2.19
06. Misty (Carner/Burke) 4.14
07. Close To You (Bacharach/David) 3.11
08. The Summer Knows (LeGrand) 3.10
09. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (Bacharach/David) 2.46
10. This Guy’s In Love With You (Bacharach/David) 3.07
11. Sugar (Mitchell/Alexander/Pinkard) 2.38
12. What A Wonderful World (Weiss/Douglas) 2.41
13. A Hundred Years From Today (Young/Washington) 2.52
14. Going Home (Traditional) 2.47

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Acker Bilk – Mr. Acker Bilk In Paris (1966)

With his goatee beard, bowler hat and striped waistcoat, Acker Bilk was one of the most recognisable musicians of the post-war British trad jazz boom.
His 1961 record, the haunting Stranger on the Shore, was in the charts for more than 50 weeks and made him an international star.

He attributed his unique style of playing to the fact he had lost part of a finger while out sledging, as well as losing two front teeth during a school playground fight.
Bernard Stanley Bilk was born in Pensford, Somerset, in January 1929, the son of a Methodist lay preacher. His mother played the organ in the local chapel.

He died on 2 November 2014 aged 85 after a lengthy illness.

After a spell working at the Wills tobacco factory in Bristol, he went off to do his National Service in Egypt where he learned to play the clarinet and formed a band known as the Original Egyptian Stompers.

On his return home he worked for his uncle as a blacksmith but he had caught the music bug and formed another band, the Chew Valley Jazzmen, in 1953.
The following year later he tried his luck in London as a clarinet player with Ken Colyer’s band, but soon returned to Somerset and formed his first Paramount Jazz Band.
Stranger on the Shore

The band’s first big break was when they played seven days a week for six months in a bar in Düsseldorf which gave them plenty of opportunity to hone their skills as musicians.

By now he was widely known as Acker, Somerset dialect for mate. A publicity agent suggested he adopt the Edwardian costume, complete with bowler hat, that came to epitomise the trad jazz style. (by BBC news)And here´s another nice LP with Mr. Acker Bilk. This time he plays wonderful french familiar hits, ideal for clarinet, like “Petite Fleur”, “J’ attendrai”, “La Mer” and others. Enjoy.

Alternate frontcovers

Personnel:
Acker Bilk (clarinet)
+
The Leon Young Strin Chorale
+
a bunch of unknown studio musicians

Tracklist:
01. Petite Fleur (Bechet) 2.52
02. J’attendrai (Olivieri/Poterat) 2.31
03. Mademoiselle de Paris (Durand) 2.27
04. Don’t Say A Word (Aznavour/Worth) 2.08
05. No Regrets (Dumont) 3.00
06. Louise (Whiting/Robin) 2.43
07. L’amour Parisienne (Harvey) 2.25
08. My Prayer (Kennedy/Bonlanger) 2.26
09. Claudette (Bilk) 2.33
10. Dolce Paola (Adamo) 2.40
11. Think Of Me (Bower/Datin/Gall) 2.22
12. La Mer (Lawrence/Trenet) 2.52

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Acker Bilk – The One For Me (1976)

Bernard Stanley “Acker” Bilk MBE (28 January 1929 – 2 November 2014) was an English clarinettist and vocalist known for his trademark goatee, bowler hat, striped waistcoat and breathy, vibrato-rich, lower-register clarinet style.

Bilk’s 1962 instrumental tune “Stranger on the Shore” became the UK’s biggest selling single of 1962 where it remained in the UK charts for more than 50 weeks, peaking at number two, and was the first No. 1 single in the United States by a British artist in the era of the modern Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.

Bilk was born in Pensford, Somerset, in 1929. He earned the nickname “Acker” from the Somerset slang for “friend” or “mate”. His parents tried to teach him the piano but, as a boy, Bilk found it restricted his love of outdoor activities, including football. He lost two front teeth in a school fight and half a finger in a sledging accident, both of which he claimed to have affected his eventual clarinet style.

On leaving school Bilk joined the workforce of W.D. & H.O. Wills’s cigarette factory in Bristol, staying there for three years putting tobacco in the cooling room and then pushing tobacco through a blower. He then undertook his three years national service with the Royal Engineers in the Suez Canal Zone. He learnt the clarinet there after his sapper friend, John A. Britten, gave him one bought at a bazaar and for which Britten had no use. The clarinet had no reed and Britten fashioned a makeshift reed for the instrument out of some scrap wood. He then borrowed a better instrument from the British Army, which he kept with him on demobilisation.

On returning home after national service, Bilk joined his uncle’s blacksmith business and qualified in the trade.

Bilk played with friends on the Bristol jazz circuit and in 1951 moved to London to play with Ken Colyer’s band. But, disliking London, he returned west and formed his own band in Pensford called the Chew Valley Jazzmen, which was renamed the Bristol Paramount Jazz Band when they moved to London in 1951. Their agent then booked them for a six-month gig in Düsseldorf, Germany, playing in a beer bar seven hours a night, seven nights a week where Bilk and the band developed their distinctive style and appearance, complete with striped-waistcoats and bowler hats.

Acker Bilk Playing at a West End Jazz Club, February 1962

On return to Britain and now based in Plaistow, London, the band played the London jazz club scene. It was from here that Bilk became part of the boom in traditional jazz that swept the United Kingdom in the late 1950s. In 1960, their single “Summer Set” (a pun on their home county), co-written by Bilk and pianist Dave Collet, reached number five on the UK Singles Chart, and began a run of 11 chart hit singles. In 1961 “Acker Bilk and His Paramount Jazz Band” appeared at the Royal Variety Performance.

Bilk was not an internationally known musician until an experiment with a string ensemble and a composition of his own as its keynote piece made him one in 1962. Upon the birth of his daughter, he composed and dedicated a melody entitled “Jenny” (her name). He was approached by a British television series for permission to use that melody, but to change the title to “Stranger on the Shore”. He went on to record it as the title track of a new album in which his signature deep and quavering clarinet was backed by the Leon Young String Chorale. The single was not only a big hit in the United Kingdom, where it stayed on the charts for 55 weeks, gaining a second wind after Bilk was the subject of the TV show This Is Your Life, but also shot to the top of the American charts at a time when the American pop charts and radio playlists were open to almost anything in just about any style. As a result, Bilk was the second British artist to have a single in the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. (Vera Lynn was the first, with “Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart” in 1952.) “Stranger on the Shore” sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The album was also highlighted by a striking interpretation of Bunny Berigan’s legendary hit “I Can’t Get Started”. At the height of his career, Bilk’s public relations workers were known as the “Bilk Marketing Board”, a pun on the Milk Marketing Board.

In January 1963, British music magazine NME reported on the biggest trad jazz event to be staged in Britain at Alexandra Palace. The event included George Melly, Diz Disley, Alex Welsh, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer, Monty Sunshine, Bob Wallis, Bruce Turner, Mick Mulligan and Bilk. Bilk recorded a series of albums in Britain that were also released successfully in the United States (on the Atlantic Records subsidiary Atco), including a collaboration, Together, with the Danish jazz pianist and composer Bent Fabric (“The Alley Cat”). Bilk’s success tapered off when British rock and roll made its big international impact beginning in 1964 and he shifted direction to the cabaret circuit. He finally had another chart success in 1976 with “Aria”, which went to number five in the United Kingdom. In May 1977, Bilk & His Paramount Jazz Band provided the interval act for the Eurovision Song Contest. His last chart appearance was in 1978 when the TV-promoted album released on Pye/Warwick, Evergreen, reached 17 in a 14-week album chart run. In the early 1980s, Bilk and his signature hit were newly familiar, due to “Stranger on the Shore” being used in the soundtrack to Sweet Dreams, the film biography of country music legend Patsy Cline. The tune “Aria” featured as a central musical motif in the 2012 Polish film Mój rower. Most of his classic albums with the Paramount Jazz Band have been reissued and are available on the UK-based Lake label.

Bilk has been described as the “Great Master of the Clarinet”. His clarinet sound and style was at least as singular as had been those of American jazzmen such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Russell Procope, and “Stranger on the Shore” — which he was once quoted as calling “my old-age pension” — remains a standard of jazz and popular music alike.

Bilk continued to tour with his Paramount Jazz Band, as well as performing concerts with his two contemporaries, Chris Barber and Kenny Ball (deceased), both of whom were born in 1930, as the 3Bs. Bilk also provided distinctive vocals on many of his tracks, including on “I’m an Old Cowhand”, “The Folks Who Live on the Hill”, “White Cliffs of Dover”, “Travellin On” and “That’s My Home”.

One of his recordings is with the Chris Barber band, sharing the clarinet spot with the band’s regular reedsmen, John Crocker and Ian Wheeler. He made a CD with Wally Fawkes for the Lake label in 2002. He appeared on three albums by Van Morrison, Down the Road, What’s Wrong With This Picture? and Born to Sing: No Plan B.

In 2012 Bilk said that, after 50 years, he was “fed up” with playing his most famous tune, “Stranger on the Shore”.

Bilk married his childhood sweetheart, Jean, whom he met in the same class at school. The couple had two children, one a daughter, Jenny, after whom a composition was named. After living near London in Potters Bar for many years the couple retired to Pensford.

In 2000, Bilk was diagnosed with throat cancer, which was treated through surgery and then followed by daily radiation therapy at Bristol Haematology and Oncology Centre. Subsequently he had had eight keyhole operations for bladder cancer and suffered a minor stroke.

Bilk died on 2 November 2014 at the age of 85. He is survived by his wife Jean, daughter Jenny and son Pete.

Personnel:
Acker Bilk (clarinet, vocals)
+
a bunch of unknown studio musicians

Tracklist:
01. The Fool On The Hill (Lennon/McCartney) 2.48
02. The Way We Were (A.Bergmann/M.Bergmann/Hamlish) 3.54
03. Moonlight In Vermont (Blackburn/Suessdorf) 3.44
04. Champagne (Bradley) 2.45
05. They Can’t Take That Away From Me (I.Gershwin/G.Gershwin) 3.12
06. Miss You Nights (Townsend) 3.33
07. Aria (Bardotti/Bembo) 3.27
08. The One For Me (Bilk) 2.11
09. Send In The Clowns (Sondheim) 3.01
10. You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling (Spector/Mann/Weill) 3.29
11. Feelings (Albert) 3.49
12. That Lucky Old Sun (Gillespie/Smith) 3.24

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R.I.P.

Acker Bilk & His Paramount Jazz Band – Beau Jazz/Beau Bilk (1962/1968)

Acker Bilk was part of the boom in traditional jazz that swept the United Kingdom in the late 1950s

Described as ‘Great Master of Clarinet’, Acker Bilk was, and still is just as important as American jazzmen like Benny Goodman or Artie Shaw.

In January 1963, the British music magazine, NME reported that the biggest trad jazz event to be staged in Britain had taken place at Alexandra Palace. The event included George Melly, Diz Disley, Alex Welsh, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer, Monty Sunshine, Bob Wallis, Bruce Turner, Mick Mulligan and Bilk.[8] Bilk recorded a series of albums in Britain that were also released successfully in the United States (on the Atlantic Records subsidiary Atco), including a memorable collaboration (Together) with Danish jazz pianist-composer Bent Fabric (“The Alley Cat”). But his success tapered off when British rock and roll made its big international explosion beginning in 1964, and Bilk shifted direction to the cabaret circuit.

This album is a re-release of his brilliant album “Beau Jazz” from 1962 … and it´s a high class recording with this great old Trational Jazz !

Original frontcover from 1962

Although Acker will always be synonymous with the famous Bowler Hat and Waistcoat, Acker is a serious and dedicated musician, and exceptionally professional. Last word from Acker “I still find it hard to believe I am getting paid for doing what I love most in the World” – This Great Master of the Clarinet has a style which is unique.

Acker Bilk & Chris Barber in 1962

Personnel:
Acker Bilk (clarinet, vocals)
Stanley Greig (piano)
Roy James (banjo)
Ronald McKay (drums, percussion)
Jonathan Mortimer (trombone)
Ernest Price (bass)
Colin Smith (trumpet)
+
Per Hansen (trumpet on 12.)
Roy James (guitar on 04.)

 
Alternate frontcover

Tracklist:
01. Grandpa’s Spells (Morton) 3.00
02. Creole Love Call (Ellingtin/Miley) 3.26
03. I Found A New Baby (Palmer) 2.59
04. This Town (James) 2.58
05. Bula Bula (Mortimer) 2.58
06. Sentimental Journey (Green/BrownHomer) 2.51
07. Tell ’em About Me (Yancey) 2.26
08. Chattanooga Stomps (Oliver) 3.22
09. Sneak Away (Smith) 2.56
10. Wilbour (Smith) 3.00
11. Oh! Marie (Prima) 3.26
12. Ole Miss Rag (Handy) 3.02

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