ISRAEL GORMAN AND HIS PONTCHARTRAIN PALS (A)
1. Just a Little While to Stay Here
2. When the Moon Plays Peekaboo
3. Yes, Yes in Your Eyes
4. Rocheblave Street Blues
5. Down in Honky Tonk Town
6. Blues for Icon Hall
7. In the Sweet Bye and Bye (Take 2)
8. Somebody Stole My Gal
9. In the Sweet Bye and Bye (Take 1)*
10. Pagan Love Song *
STEVE ANGRUM’S NEW ORLEANS FOOTWARMERS WITH KID SHEIK AND PUNCH MILLER (B)
11. Ice Cream (Take 1)
12. Sheik of Araby (Balance finder – Take 1) *
13. Lady Be Good (Balance finder) *
14. Sheik of Araby (Vocal Kid Sheik) (Take 2) *
15. Saint Louis Blues *
EMILE BARNES WITH
CHARLIE LOVE’S CADO BAND (C)
16. Let the Rest of the World Go By
17. Doodle Doo Doo
18. Milneburg Joys
19. Old Grey Bonnet
20. I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and
Write Myself a Letter
21. Black Bottom
22. Panama (Piano solo) *
EMILE BARNES WITH CHARLIE LOVE’S CADO BAND (D)
23. I Want to Go Where You Go *
* Previously unissued

(A) Israel Gorman and his Pontchartain Pals
Jim Holmes (trumpet); Israel Gorman (clarinet); John Coles (banjo)
Recorded 2456 N. Rocheblave St., New Orleans, La., October 6 1962.

(B) Steve Angrum’s New Orleans Footwarmers with Kid Sheik and Punch Miller
George ‘Kid Sheik’ Cola, Ernest ‘Punch’ Miller (trumpets); Albert Warner (trombone); Steve Angrum (clarinet); Harrison Verret (banjo); Alcide ‘Slow Drag’ Pavageau (string bass); Alex Bigard (drums)
Recorded 1110 Royal St., New Orleans, La., August 6 1961.
Punch Miller replaces Kid Sheik on track 11.
Punch Miller added on tracks 12, 13 and 14.

(C) Emile Barnes with
Charlie Love’s Cado Band
Charlie Love (trumpet); Emile Barnes (clarinet);
Ernest Roubleau (banjo); Louis Gallaud (piano)
Recorded New Orleans, La., August 29 1960.
Charlie Love out on track 17.

(D) Emile Barnes with Charlie Love’s Cado Band
Charlie Love (trumpet); Emile Barnes (clarinet); Emanuel Sayles (banjo);
Louis Gallaud (piano); Albert Jiles (drums)
Recorded New Orleans, La., August 1960.

Len Klikunas, cultural anthropologist and artist, was a close friend of Ken Grayson Mills from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s. I thank him for his permission to feature the cover photograph. Unlike the black-and-white photograph featured here, the original signed photograph that Ken sent to Len on 14 December 1989 has two colours in it. Len explains:

There is an orange and there is a golden yellow. The golden yellow is applied over the saxophone. Ken altered that black-and-white photo so that the saxophone that was already there would be highlighted in yellow. His shirt is colored in orange. As an artist, my opinion is that Ken used two colored markers.
This photo is Ken’s hand-crafted and deeply personal representation of himself. It is not just a picture taken of him. It is how Ken saw Ken. He literally left his mark on the image. Especially if this photo is among the latest dated photos of him [28 October 1989], its significance is that it is the latest expression of his visual thinking vis-à-vis his own music. While black-and-white photography can be seen as an art in itself, the fact he added colors to it (regardless of the photographer, which could have been himself for that matter) puts it into the categories of a hand-colored or hand-tinted photograph or even a painting. Yes, that is the photo I would like you to use in the Mills CD booklet. That is as close as I can get to try to carry out his final wishes. That is the Ken he was proud to have others see.

When I wrote to Len to say that it might not be possible to use a two-colour photograph in the CD booklet for technical reasons, Len replied: ‘Here is a reprocessed photo in b & w designed for crisp reproduction and highlights Ken’s sax! This would be the one to use.’ - Richard Ekins, 2018

The New Orleans Clarinets of
Israel Gorman, Steve Angrum and Emile Barnes by Richard Ekins

‘I was extremely overwhelmed when I heard a real New Orleans clarinet. Because it was weird. Totally different from records. That air down there! The heat and the moisture was different, right? It never really got grabbed, that tone.’ Ken Mills, c. 1985
This CD provides a musical lagniappe to my Ken Grayson Mills Project – ‘The Hidden History of Ken Grayson Mills, Icon Records and Preservation Hall in Exile’ – published in serial form in the British magazine Just Jazz between 2016 and 2018 and published online by lacroixrecords.com simultaneously. The series argues that Mills is the foremost founding father of the second wave New Orleans jazz revivalism of the 1960s, principally because of his role as record producer for his Icon Records New Orleans jazz label (1960–1967) and as founder of Preservation Hall, New Orleans, in June 1961.
Mills first arrived in New Orleans in June 1960 set to embark on an ambitious programme of recording the old-style New Orleans musicians for his Icon label that would continue until October 1962. As he put it later, in an undated letter to an enthusiast: ‘The reason for the single-pointed attention of the early 1960s is that I was young, had some finance, and the New Orleans men were dying and taking their culture with them. We had to move QUICK.’ Mills had long been fascinated by the sounds of the clarinet. He had tried to play the instrument as a young man, before later focussing on the tenor saxophone and it was no coincidence that a clarinet featured as the sole image in the Icon Records logo.
According to Barry Martyn, it was not until Mills ‘heard a record of George Lewis’ band playing “Over the Waves” that he realized music as good as rhythm and blues existed.’ However, Mills soon concluded that the pride of place given to George Lewis as the pre-eminent revivalist New Orleans clarinettist was leading to the neglect – particularly in recordings – of other major New Orleans clarinettists as good if not better than Lewis. Mills set himself the task of righting this wrong.
Following his recordings of Polo Barnes and John Handy on clarinet, on his first trip to New Orleans in 1960 (Icon LPs 2 & 5) Mills turned his attention to the clarinet player he championed most vigorously throughout his life – Israel Gorman. Gorman featured with Kid Howard’s La Vida Jazz Band on Icon LP 4 (Mills’ favourite Icon) and on Icon LP 7 (with Punch Miller), a release that achieved a 4* rating when reviewed by Downbeat. Shortly after this recording, in late 1962, and just before he was due to leave New Orleans for the last time, Mills recorded the informal session at the beginning of this CD. He did this together with his friend Warwick Reynolds. The recording featured Israel Gorman with two young English musicians, Jim Holmes on trumpet and John Coles on banjo. Mills had particular praise for Gorman on this session, making annotations such as ‘Yes, yes in your eyes – (super fine)’ and ‘Israel’s blues [Blues for Icon Hall] – (fabulous)’. He summarised the session thus: ‘runs about 40 minutes and is wonderful music, no fluffs, no weaknesses.’ No part of the session has ever been issued on CD before and the final two previously unissued tracks were never issued on vinyl, either.
Mills’ focus on Gorman extended throughout the period of his three trips to New Orleans in 1960, 1961 and 1962, respectively. Gorman was not to die until 1965. However, time was running out more speedily for Steve Angrum and Emile Barnes. Mills’ release of his Icon LP 6 ‘Steve Angrum with Kid Sheik’s Storyville Ramblers’ featured on record for the first time the clarinet playing of Steve Angrum. This was a recording made in November 1961 on Mills’ second trip to New Orleans. As Mills wrote in the initial sleeve notes: ‘These recordings bring to the listener the warm and delightful style of Steve Angrum. His heartfelt playing was good enough for some of the best bands in New Orleans history, but not good enough, for some reason, to rate recordings until two months prior to his death.’
Mills had caught him just in time. These are his last recordings – ‘The Last Testament of Steve Angrum’. Four of the five takes on this CD have never been issued before and the fifth – Ice Cream #1 – was on the original LP but has never been issued on CD. According to Barry Martyn, writing in 1997, this take ‘was unusable because of the deterioration of the master tape.’ Fortunately, Mills had sold the undamaged take of Ice Cream #1 to Mike Dine of 504 records along with the rest of the Angrum material on this CD.
Although Emile Barnes was not to die until 1970, his failing health meant that he was only playing in his backyard from 1963 and he stopped playing entirely in 1967. On his first arrival in New Orleans in 1960, Mills was helped greatly by Walter Eysselinck who, at that time, was making a number of recordings of Emile Barnes featuring the old-style trumpet player Charlie Love. Eysselinck had no wish to run his own record label but he was interested in getting his material released by others. He sold some of his recordings to Riverside but seems to have been happy to hand over most of the rest of his material to Ken Mills to issue on his Icon label as Mills thought fit.
When Mills returned to California after his 1960 New Orleans trip, he planned to issue ‘After Many a Summer’ as Icon LP 6. This would have featured some of Eysselinck’s material under the name of ‘Emile Barnes and his Friends’, including Kid Sheik and Charlie Love. In the event, the release was never consummated and it fell to others to issue much of this material. The first six Emile Barnes tracks on this CD were issued on vinyl by Keith Smith (New Orleans Rarities, 2). Panama is a previously unissued piano solo by Louis Gallaud from the same session. Mills sold the final track to Mike Dine in November 1990 for release on 504 Records. It comes from a different session. Emanuel Sayles replaces Ernest Roubleau and Albert Jiles is added on drums.

References: The Ken Grayson Mills Project by Richard Ekins http://www.lacroixrecords.com/grayson_menu.html; William Carter, Preservation Hall: Music from the Heart, Norton, New York, 1991; Barry Martyn, ‘Opening Night at Preservation Hall’, American Music AMCD-96, 1995; Barry Martyn, ‘Steve Angrum and George Lewis with Kid Sheik’s Band’, American Music AMCD-56, 1997; Bob Rowbotham, ‘Emile Barnes – “Silver Threads Among the Gold”’, New Orleans Music, 2006, 13 (1), pp. 6-12.

Credits: Liner notes – Richard Ekins; Recording engineers – Ken Grayson Mills and Warwick Reynolds (Israel Gorman), Ken Grayson Mills (Steve Angrum), Walter Eysselinck (Emile Barnes); Compiled and transferred to CD-R’s by Charlie Crump; Digital mastering by Richard Bird, VisionMaster Studio, Westwego, La.; Graphics & artwork by Rich Art. Thanks to Fred Eatherton, Chris Crump, Richard Crediton-Hughes, Len Klikunas and Lynsae Harkins. This Lord Richard New Orleans Session is co-produced by Tom Stagg and Richard Ekins for 504/LA CROIX Records with partial funding from the Centre for Media Research, Ulster University, UK. Manufactured in the USA by CRT Custom Products, Whites Creek, TN.