What happens
This Is Jazz is a half-hour program of live jazz improvised by a group of veteran musicians, introduced by writer and narrator Rudy Bletch. The episode, first broadcast on February 8, 1947, opens with a roll call of the players: cornetist Muggsy Spanier, clarinetist Albert Nicholas, trombonist George Brunies, guitarist Danny Barker, drummer Baby Dodds, pianist Lucky Roberts and bassist Cyrus St. Clair. The band performs the classic Muskrat Ramble, then a version of Tin Roof Blues sung by Brunies, and the program goes on to explain how improvisation differs from a printed score. Lucky Roberts then plays solo ragtime piano.
A radio studio on the Mutual Broadcasting System, presented from WOR in New York, with the program describing the jazz tradition that began in New Orleans and traveled up the Mississippi.
Characters: Rudy Bletch, Muggsy Spanier, Albert Nicholas, George Brunies, Danny Barker, Baby Dodds, Lucky Roberts, Cyrus St. Clair
Listen for: The band's improvised version of Muskrat Ramble and Lucky Roberts' slow solo piano performance, which he has recast under a different title.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.