LISTEN TO ONE: Stormy Weather
Claude Hopkins had a long and distinguished career as pianist and bandleader, but live music is evanescent, and so are the reputations based on it. Lasting reputations are built on recorded music, so it'sm thanks to Prestige and Swingville that Hopkins is chiefly remembered today -- with the Swingville All Stars, backing up Bud Freeman and Lonnie Johnson, and most indelibly for the three albums he recorded as leader: Yes Indeed!, Let's Jam, and this final one, Swing Time! Esmond Edwards gave him great support for the first two (Buddy Tate, augmented by Chu Berry on Yes Indeed! and Joe Thomas on Let's Jam), and Don
Schlitten, not to be undone, gives him a masterful group here, led by Vic Dickenson and Budd Johnson.
Hopkins had the kind of career that jazz fans and jazz historians can dream about, and conjure up a mythos around -- musical director of Josephine Baker's ensemble in Paris (which included Sidney Bechet), leader of a 1930s band which included Vic Dickenson and which had long residencies at the Cotton Club and Roseland. But to actually hear him, these recordings are the place to go. Swing Time! includes two Hopkins originals plus the kind of old chestnuts that, when they're in the hands of masters, you never get tired of hearing.
New to Prestige are trumpeter Bobby Johnson and drummer
Ferdinand Everett. Johnson was a much-in-demand section man who played with Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Erskine Hawkins, among others. Everett's only record date appears to have been this one, but he carries his weight.
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