Baby Won’t You Please Come Home and Up, Up And Away – 1969
The World’s Greatest Jazz Band
A nonet filled with all-stars
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The modestly-titled but not totally inaccurate World’s Greatest Jazz Band was in its heyday during 1969-75.
The band, as seen in this 1969 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, consists of Yank Lawson and Billy Butterfield on trumpets, trombonists Lou McGarity and Carl Fontana, clarinetist Bob Wilbur, tenor-saxophonist Bud Freeman, pianist Ralph Sutton, bassist Bob Haggart, and drummer Gus Johnson; each of these players appeared on a countless number of rewarding sessions during their careers.
They manage to at least briefly feature most of their members during the time that they had on the Ed Sullivan Show.
“Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home” has Yank Lawson and Billy Butterfield in the spotlight while the group, making the most out of “Up, Up And Away,” mostly plays ensembles on the latter tune while swinging it.
This is one of the very rare film appearances by the original version of the WGJB.
-Scott Yanow
Ella Fitzgerald