Listening to Prestige Records Part 56: Teacho Wiltshire sessions

Weinstock tossed in a lot of sessions in mid and late December, trying a bit of everything. On December 18, he cut two sides with Dr. Alvin A. Childs (preaching) and his congregation (singing). Can't find them anywhere, nor any indication that Dr. Childs ever recorded anything else, but he did found a church in Harlem: Childs' Memorial Temple. Also in December (no specific date given) two other gospel groups, Silver Trumpets and Rev. Felix Johnson,

On December 20, he seems to have scheduled a number of performers, with Teacho Wiltshire's band backing them up.

I wish I could tell you more about Teacho Witlshire. He seems to have been incredibly prolific as a studio arranger and bandleader, mostly for rhythm and blues sessions -- but also including King Pleasure's "Moody's Mood" session -- but I can't find any biographical material at all, which is a little strange, considering how ubiquitous he was on the New York music scene. The only soloist credited here is Lem Davis, who also recorded two songs that day under his own name, which were released on a Prestige 78, but I can't find them.

The Cabineers' two songs were released on 78 and 45, under Prestige's Rhythm and Blue Series, but

they aren't really rhythm and blues -- they're more descendants of the Mills Brothers and the jazz vocal quartets of the swing era; Marv Goldberg, who knows pretty much everything about every doo-wop group, regrets that he doesn't know more about the Cabineers. They were around for a while, with several personnel changes, and these are the last two songs that they recorded. They're very good, but they're a jazz producer's idea of doowop. The genre was still pretty new in 1951, but several groups -- the Orioles, the Clovers, the Ravens, the Dominoes -- had already established a template. They can't be found on Spotify, but they're well represented on YouTube.

Next up was John Bennings -- again, nothing, He made a few records for Savoy, and this one for Prestige, but I can't find any of them. Then the Dixieaires, cutting six gospel songs, only two of which were released. The Dixieaires were a prolific group -- their name says "gospel," but they cut a lot of R&B, too. You can find them on YouTube, but not their Prestige recordings.