http://ronniesinger.blogspot.com/
https://archive.org/details/RonnieSingerLiveInNewYorkEarly1950s
Ronnie Singer (ca. 1929 – ca. 1953) was a Chicagoan bebop guitarist. He played with great jazz players like saxophonists Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz, Zoot Sims, Sonny Stitt, trumpeter Red Rodney, guitarist Jimmy Gourley, pianist Lou Levy, drummer Al Levitt, etc. He moved to New York in the late forties / early fifties to play with clarinetist and band leader Artie Shaw. Heroin addict, he eventually committed suicide with his wife by asphixia in a gas oven. Here are the sole known jazz recordings of this incredible cat with an unidentified quintet – a great trumpeter (Don Joseph, Don Fagerquist?) and a steady piano-bass-drums rhythm section. Tunes are Vincent Youmans's Tea For Two, James F. Hanley's (Back Home Again In) Indiana and Ford Dabney's Shine. A copy of the tapes belonged to the late great bebop guitarist Jimmy Gourley (from Saint Louis, Missouri), contemporary and friend of Ronnie Singer, who considered him as his greatest influence, ahead Jimmy Raney and Charlie Christian.
Update (23/02/11): The tapes have been lowered by a semitone, they were playing too fast during numerizing.
The sound is more confortable, the timbre closer to reality; and the tunes are now in logical keys:
Tea For Two in G, Indiana in F and Shine in Eb.
More on this subject, with pictures, music transcriptions, etc. (french & english):
ronniesinger.blogspot.com
