Wilber and Hall

Some ten minutes after this correspondent had settled himself at the Savoy the other night to listen to Bob Wilber and Edmond Hall perform on their clarinets, the young lady accompanying him asked, "What's that thing that other little man's playing on?"

Now any girl who has just passed her twenty-first birthday should know a trombone when she sees one, but the question had its points. Playing the trombone was Jimmy Archey, whose name is not on the marquee, but who seems the outstanding member of a rare band. The Wilber group has a very special talent for integration and quiet harmony which makes it a welcome change from the noisy cacophony which seems popular now. Wilber, Archey, and the aged Pops Foster take turns backing restrained solo breaks, with only the final choruses of such venerable numbers as "Rose Room," "Muskrat Ramble," and "High Society" erupting into high, driving chords. These closing choruses, plus Archey's solo on "How High The Moon," were the brightest spots of Sunday's performance.

Hall, whose high-register playing still shows the delicacy and fluidity that have marked him as an unmatched technician, is almost crippled by a worthless piano-bass-drum trio behind him. Almost, that is, because he handles his solos--as well as those that ought to be taken by trumpet and trombone--with loving care. "Sister Kate" and "Basin Street Blues" came from his clarinet in almost unbelievable fashion.

It is very pleasant jazz, this Dixieland heard at the Savoy--a jazz almost lost now, for the cash comes to other forms of music. But it's nice to see a beardless youth like Wilber playing it straight, playing it so close to Cambridge, and playing it so well. Wilber on the low notes, Hall on the high ones, and Archey's trombone make the Savoy's offering as good as anything going. Charles W. Halley, 2nd