Jam session

On the 5th of December 1938 a remarkable recording session took place in the HMV studios in Copenhagen (Denmark). Svend Asmussen, 22 years old, violin player and leader of his own band, had organized a session with three charming Danish vocalists Ingvar Blicher-Hansen, Sonja Steincke and Annegrethe Asmussen to record some popular Danish songs, with unspeakable titles like Et lille tilfældigt or Du sender solen i mit hjerte. So far so good. This session wouldn 't become part of a web log 68 years later if nothing else happened during this session.

f.l.t.r. Leo Mathisen p, Bibi Miranda dm, Svend Asmussen v, Oscar Aleman g

The weeks before this session was planned Svend played with members of his group in the Josephine Baker Revue who had planned a trip through Denmark late November 1938.
Making such a tour was very expensive, so Josephine Baker left her original Baker Boys in Paris and organized a local group to accompany her. A select number of musicans from her band joined her, like Oscar Aleman, the Argentine guitar player and Bibi Miranda, a Brazilian drummer.

Svend Asmussen told me how he appriciated the musical skill of Oscar Aleman, but also his humor and personality. Svend invited Oscar Aleman and Bibi Miranda to follow him into the studio on that 5th of December 68 years ago and join him at a jam session.
This jam session was recorded and the

two tunes Sweet Sue and Limehouse Blues were released on a HMV record.

In the meantime Oscar Aleman made a record with two solo performances he played during the Josephine Baker show. These two recordings became very remarkable; the two tunes, Nobody's Sweetheart and Whispering belong to the best guitar tunes from the 1930s.

This 1938 recording is described in an article titled Oscar Aleman in Copenhagen , that can be downloaded in an English and a Spanish version.

Keep swinging

Hans Koert

You can contact me at keepswinging@live.nl

This contribution has also been posted at the Keep swinging web log