Baby Won’t You Please Come Home & Up, Up And Away – 1969

The World’s Greatest Jazz Band

An unusual medley by quite an all-star group

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The modestly-titled if not totally inaccurate World’s Greatest Jazz Band performed spirited Chicago traditional jazz during the late 1960s and ‘70s.

For their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, they start off with trumpeters Yank Lawson and Billy Butterfield soloing and harmonizing beautifully together on “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” with accompaniment by pianist Ralph Sutton, bassist Bob Haggart, and drummer Gus Johnson.

After that ballad, the full group (with tenor-saxophonist Bud Freeman, clarinetist Bob Wilbur, and trombonists Carl Fontana and Lou McGarity) go into an uptempo “Up, Up & Away,” swinging the song as best they can.

This performance gives one the chance to see a lot of veteran jazz greats in a short period of time.

-Scott Yanow

 

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