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TROMBONE RED?
The mystery has always been among discographers as to who was Trombone Red? The band The Blue Six recorded in New York in 1931. Trombone Red is believed to be Robert Freeman and the Blue Six was supposedly made up of Ellington musicians including, so he said, Jabbo Smith the trumpet player although Smith often said he was on many recordings that he wasn’t. Some say Louis Metcalf and Otto Hardwick from Ellington’s Band were part of the band but Hardwick had left the Ellington band by the date of the recording. So the mystery remains.
Trombone Red and the Blue Six
Who were you? Trombone Red
No personnel I have ever read.
Some small territory band,
Or another name did your blue boys have?
I was moved in memory,
By your rude and primitive sounds,
Reminiscent of growling Tricky Sam,
Alto is it?
That moans, tearful and with choking cries,
Like a wounded lamb.
Blue notes, he blew,
On that old ancient sax,
Blue Boys in space, you are trapped in time,
And captured on wax,
Like ‘two note’ Rodgers,
Your voices, moving slowly on,
Like driftwood to another place,
In my mind and heart.
I imagine your haunting calls,
To each other echoing around long lost empty halls,
Damn, I wonder who you were,
Long dead rough-cut diamonds in the still purple air of my long night.
On that date with your greasy plate.
Are you a free man Red?
New York I know is where you were conceived.
Ellingtonian? The detectives thought that too,
Playing Bb Blues you boys in blue.
Did Jabbo adopt you? Like he said,
Before he too was long gone dead.
I’m sure we will never know,
Where you have been boys? And where you did go?
Poem courtesy of DJ Laker
Recordings:
B flat Blues
Columbia
14612D
151616-2
Greasy Plate Stomp
Columbia
14612D
151615-2
June 18th 1931 New York