Recorded at the Ramada Inn in Schenectady, New York on September 28, 1975

Quality A(-)
There are a couple brief moments when one of the tracks fades, but overall, this is a pretty decent recording.

cassette -> cd-r -> wav -> flac

Song list:
01 It's A Sin To Tell A Lie 5:50
02 Stardust 7:10
03 Satin Doll 9:50
04 St James Infirmary 3:48
05 Rampart Street Blues 5:18
06 Take The A Train 7:48
07 Rose Room 7:03
08 Blues 9:11

Personnel:
Doc Cheatham trumpet, vocals
Eddie Barefiled - tenor, clarinet
Sal Maida - piano
Bill Fuller - bass
Jerry Walsh - drums

Eventually, I had gotten to know Doc pretty well. I received one of his albums to review for a local newspaper in the early 70's. I think I had vaguely heard of him, but not sure where. Listening to his wonderful quartet lp on a small label called Jezebel, I found myself captivated by his unadorned creativity and effortless flow of melodic improvizations. I was also a booking agent at the time, and I was determined to coax him up to the Albany, New York area so that I could hear him in person. As an agent, I was unashamedly selfish - I was more concerned with hearing the music I liked than what others wanted. Fortunately, it usually worked out.

That was the way it was with Doc. He became an instant hit. Doc had an incredible history, including stints with Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong. But, because he was so good technically, he was hidden in a trumpet section as the lead player. He rarely got to solo.

Doc's began his solo career in his late 60's and it continued until he died at the age of 92.

The picture I have included here is with Doc and pianist Sal Maida in my living room. Doc was the kind of guy you could just invite into a very humble abode (and it was all of that at $100 a month) after a gig. This may well have been taken after this recording was made.

I booked Doc a great many times and this particular event came at his prompting. He encouraged me to invite Eddie Barefield up to join him, and I personally thought that he worked best with a foil on the bandstand.

Barefield was a star solist in the 30's and 40's with the Fletcher Henderson and Don Redman big bands. He had that big, proud Coleman Hawkins sound, but with a real sensitivity in his playing - especially with a ballad. Listen to his magnificent performance on Stardust.

You can tell from this recording that Doc and Eddie enjoyed each other. They played together frequently in New York City and that allowed them to put together a really tight performance.

As for the rhythm section - Sal Maida was primarily a bopper, but he had a love of the swing era, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of songs from dixie to very modern jazz and even many rock and pop tunes of the 60's on. He plays nicely here.

Bill Fuller was an obvious admirer of Slam Stewart. He had a simple, but confident bass line. His solos were a little contrived and his singing along with his playing (inspired by Slam) was a nice gimmick, but overdone over the course of an evening. He knew the tunes and his time was fairly solid.

Jerry Fuller was frequently my choice for swing and dixie gigs. He gave a really solid background and could solo with flair if not ingenuity.

As with all my gigs at the Ramada, the musicians were happy to consent to my putting two mikes up on the bandstand and connect them to my cheap little cassette deck. I lived a few blocks from the Ramada, and frequently we came up to my apartment for some after gig chats and we all listened to the tapes together.

I have put many of the Ramada Inn tapes up on DIME and hope to add many more in the future. If you want to be notified when I do that, send me an email at jazz@csatennis.com and I'll add you to my distribution list.


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