Archives, Episode 87: Time-Life Giants of Jazz, Part 5

Discovering Jazz

I had subscribed, from 1978 to 1983 to a series of 3-disk albums by Time Life Records called The Giants of Jazz”. A new one would be delivered to my door every month. They each contained a very detailed booklet including descriptions each recording on the six sides.

I featured these albums on a series of 5 podcasts late in 2019. For this year’s summer reruns I’m playing the last one—Part 5.

It features three recordings by the great saxophonist, Johnny Hodges…and talks about how he got the nick name ‘rabbit’. I also play recordings by Red Norvo, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Teddy Wilson, Henry Red Allen, and Lester Young. And I talk about each of them.

On each episode I depart from the Giants of Jazz series and play something by a Canadian jazz ‘giant’. For this week’s episode it was William Eckstein—a ragtime and jazz pianist/composer who was one of the first Canadians to play live on Radio (1919) as well as to make records on the burgeoning Canadian record industry. In fact, I start the program with him. Somebody I suspect most of you have never heard of.