A friend of mine swears that he has heard an old recording by Earl Bostic of the song “So Rare,” and all searches only turn up a recording by Jimmy Dorsey, and my google-fu is lacking at this point, anyone know if Bostic actually recorded this song?
Chuck Haddix hosts a program called The Fish Fry on our local PBS station. He is the director of the Marr Sound Archives, a specialty library with extensive jazz recordings, and is quite knowledgeable in this area. Betcha anything he’ll know. You can contact him here.
Not as a leader, according to Tom Lord’s Jazz Discography where Bostic’s listings can be found in Volume 2 on pages B677 to B684. I do not have either the song or performer indices for this series so I do not know if he may have recorded this song as a sideman on someone elses session.
I also did do a Google search with no hits on a Bostic recording; however, the aforementioned Dorsey and Shearing recordings are referenced often for this song.
FWIW, according to the same reference source (different volume, etc) these are the two listings that I can find for So Rare by the Dorsey’s:
[ul]
[li]July 28, 1937 by Tommy Dorsey and the Clambake Seven and Orchestra[/li][li]November 11, 1956 by Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra as a part of a AFRS Broadcast[/li][/ul]
BTW, Bostic is not a sideman on either recording, and it is not listed in the discography for the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra.
Hope this and the previous post help.
Since this involves the Arts, let’s move it to Cafe Society.
samclem