Episode 87: Giants of Jazz Part 5,Johnny Hodges,Lester Young, Willie Eckstein

This is the last of the five part series on Time Life’s Giants of Jazz—28 three record sets with huge booklets featuring swing era musicians who helped define jazz. This week you’ll hear and hear about James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, Henry Red Allen, Red Norvo, and more Teddy Wilson. In my quest to find any Canadian equivalents to these jazz giants, I’ve made a wonderful discovery: a Montreal based ragtime and jazz pianist/composer who helped introduce jazz to the Canadian recording industry and to live radio.   His name is William Eckstein.   I start off the program with a couple Eckstein tracks from 1919 and 1930.