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.
Thanks for keeping Willie alive! My grandfather, Jack Eckstein, played violin on Burma Moon. His brother, Willie is my great uncle. Although many pronounced the family name as you do, they always referred to their name as eck-STINE. It became even more confusing when Willie became Billy (the exact same name as an American band leader)
Steve, thank you so much for sharing that with me. I’ve been looking for early Canadian jazz giants, and Willie was really the first one I found who, to my mind, was distinctly jazz, was creative, and was part of jazz’s very early history. And he was a great pianist and composer.
Thanks for clarifying the correct pronunciation of his name.
I hope to play other recordings by Willie in the future on my Discovering Jazz podcast.