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13/09/10 - Neil Harrison's item on Oscar Alemán (I have the same double CD), a worthy rival to Django Reinhardt, leads me to ponder on those musicians who were in the same league as the superstars but never achieved the same recognition, perhaps lacking luck, determination, good health, opportunity, contacts and pushiness. It is said that Jabbo Smith was the equal of Louis Armstrong in the late twenties, and that Jimmy Harrison (not related to Neil, I understand) was the early trombonist par excellence. A number of musicians when asked to state their favourite players often quote names unfamiliar to the rest of us. On a Jack Teagarden CD there is a cornettist called Fred Greenleaf who sounds superb to me - anyone heard of him? And recently when You Tubing Howard Alden with George van Eps (the guitarists' guitarist) I've watched A Beautiful Friendship and Just You, Just Me with accompanying drummer Jake Hanna (recently departed) and bassist Dave Stone. Dave sounds brilliant to me - I haven't encountered anyone familiar with his work. I daresay that as a percussionist Moe Green could confirm that the little-known Horst Kitzinfangel was possibly the world's second best triangle player". - John Muskett 13/09/10 - "Hi Fred, I read with interest John Muskett's letter regarding musicians unknown to us who for whatever reason never showed up on our radar. My cause celebre is a drummer called Bob Conselmann who hailed from Chicago. I have a 1928 recording with Benny Goodman and he is as good as any white drummer at that time. He sounds a lot like Krupa. I also have a 1933 recording of him with Jack Teagarden. After that nothing. Did he die young, pack it in, who knows ? Regarding Horst Kitzinfangel I would go so far as to say that he is the world's leading triangle player. Some people say that honour belongs to Pierre LeGoolie but Horst also plays a mean tambourine which seems beyond LeGoolie's talents". - Moe Green. Hello Fred, 01/10/10 - I am indebted to John Muskett for the additional information on Horst Kitzingfangel. Of course I knew that Horst had died in 1986 but as John rightly surmises I was using the present tense as a mark of respect as I do with all great artists who are deceased. I was aware of Horst's illustrious career in the Baroque Music world and also in more modern pieces-- who could forget his sterling performance in Skoda's ' Thus Spake Sara Wooster' ? -- but I am intrigued by John's mention of a jazz trio. Although Horst never married there were rumours that he had had a relationship with a friend of his sister from the laundry (scene of that unfortunate accident ) and the friendship had produced a son. I remember when I lived in London in the 60's there was talk among musicians of an amazing triangle player called Kenny Kitzingfangel. I once went to The Busted Drum in Stockwell as I had heard on the grapevine that Kenny would be there. A person was pointed out to me but unfortunately he was too drunk to make much sense. He was about 6'6" exceedingly thin and I noticed he had very dainty hands. Triangle hands. He seemed obsessed about someone who appeared close to him and at one point grabbed my jacket and cried ' why has he forsaken his instrument to dabble in political satire and paintings of his mother ? ' If this was indeed a reference to his father it could mean that Horst actually is buried in St. Nicholas ( Chiswick ) with the two people that he admired albeit in an unmarked grave. If this is true then we must leave it to others to unearth the facts about the final years of this great though enigmatic artist. Moe Green. 01/10/10 - "Both John Muskett and Moe Green are wrong", says Jeff Roberts, no doubt with a wry smile. " A cursory search of Ancestry Re-united shows that the world class triangle player Horst Kitzinfangel was born in Bermuda, from where he mysteriously disappeared some years ago. Please put the record straight!". 04/10/10 - I have it on good authority that he spent some time in the Basque country during the 1930s, where he played in a band led by a local trumpet palyer, Mugs Espania. Phil Yates 05/10/10 - Full marks to Phil Yates for the in depth research. However the musician he refers to is from European and not Bermudian ancestry. In fact a Horst of a different colour. 05/10/10 - Horse Kitzingfangel was the one who played the whinney on Mugs Espania's recording of 'Livery Stable Blues'. - Richard Knock 05/10/10 - 08/10/10 - Mr. Muskett raises an interesting point when he mentions the composer Skoda being related to Alexander Skoda the film director. I am fairly certain Horst K. was in the studio orch. that recorded the music for one of Alexander Skoda's classic films. Hence the title ' Tings to Come ' Regarding Gerhardt's son serving in the Austrian Navy and later on the Bremen there must have been nautical connections in the family because I have discovered Horst senior wrote a sea shanty entitled ' Horst's Vessel Song ' Unfortunately this was appropriated by the followers of a certain Austrian corporal and could well be one of the reasons for Horst's rapid departure from that country Luckily he managed to bring with him his priceless collection of early 17th. century triangles some of which can be seen at the Symphonic Hall of International Triangles in Baden Baden. Yours faithfully 08/10/10 - Thanks to John Musket for clearing up the Bermuda anomaly re-Horst. However I can find no trace of Horst's movements after 1930 save for a reference in the Liverpool Maritime Museum to the maiden voyage of the S.S. Mularkey where it notes 'music provided by H. Kitzingfangel and his Idiophone All Stars'. Sadly their repertoire was somewhat limited and repetetive, so much so that they were discharged in New York to make their own way home or in life. It seems that Horst took himself to Hollywood where he befriended the Marx Brothers. A reference in Groucho's memoirs refers to a fancy dress party where he says ' took my new pal H after his tonsillectomy dressed as a pony. Took great joy in telling everyone that he wouldn't say much----he's a little Horst! 'Now as Horst was barely much over five feet two tall, the jigsaw piece fits. There is some evidence, albeit apocryphal, that Groucho wanted to name the film they were working on at the time after him but this was vetoed by the others. Perhaps as well, 'Horst Feathers' would never have been a box office hit. I think Horst did appear in the film though as close examination of the band scenes shows a shadowy figure next to the drums playing what appears to be a muted soprano scalene triangle. If one listens very closely to Chico Marx's piano solo of Fred Warings fine tune 'Collegiate', I swear an obtuse triangle can be heard in the final coda. More details of the missing years from anyone would be a revelation. Jeff Roberts 05/10/10 - It's becoming more and more apparent that work is drying up for musicians. How else could they find time to send me all these Horst Kitzingfangel stories? More have arrived today. 11/10/10 - Hello Fred, 13/10/10 - I have been endeavoring to conduct some research into Horst Kitzinfangel's ancestry. I was getting nowhere until I came across a tattered copy of a treatise concerning the effect of irritability and prostitution on jazz ' Whining Strumpets ' by Ruby Blush. I would like to quote a passage from her chapter on Buddy Bolden; ' in the summer of 1931 I was visiting the home of the blues guitarist Blind Phew in Moose Dropping Missouri. He showed me a faded copy of the famous photo of the Bolden Orch. It was some moments before I realized that there was an extra musician in the group and that he was holding what was undoubtedly a tenor triangle. When I excitedly questioned Blind Phew about this all he could say was that the musician was a great fan of classical music and had apparently emigrated to Europe to follow his career. Bolden who, even then, was exhibiting signs of mental breakdown had, in a furious rage, demanded that all record of this musician be destroyed. Blind Phew would not part with the photo and it has since vanished ' Make of that what you will but is it possible that the great Horst K. is descended from slaves ? Regarding his time in Hollywood I believe he approached Hal Roach with an idea for a script about two people trying to deliver a giant triangle to a house up an immense flight of stairs but I don't know if anything came of this. The mention of a tetrahedron reminds me that in the late 50's Horst reportedly took up with Don Cherry and Ornette Coleman and experimented with a octahedron but apparently this was too difficult even for his talents. Hope that this helps. Moe Green. 13/10/10 - Yes, John is right as Horst did indeed take on an alias but at sometime before 1941 he reverted to his real name. Scanning through back copies of 'Variety' I notice that in that year he appears as interviewee for the job of musical director on the film 'Citizen Kane', directed by Horston Welles. It seems he was narrowly beaten for the post by the leading French conductor Blanche Carte, thus proving that you can put the Carte before the Horst! Is there any truth in the rumor that Horst wrote and first recorded a version of 'My Ting--a-Ling?' 15/10/10 - "He was also signed up to appear in The Four Horstmen of
The Eucalyptus" Since that time the koalas have been increasingly worried, and their apprehension is easily passed on to anyone who tries to console them, as the picture below makes clear.
Tony West 15/10/10 - I wonder if anyone can shed any light on the whereabouts of a triangle that vanished from the collection of International Triangles in the 1930's It was reputedly stolen on Herman Goering's orders for his art collection. I refer of course to the Rubber Triangle that was famously used during the first performance of Haydn's Symphony No. 94 to pacify a drunken oboe player. This resulted in the sudden fortissimo chord in the second movement and it became known as the ' Surprise Symphony ' ( certainly for the oboe player ). Without wishing to boast I have in my collection a record on the French Odeon label by a quartet calling themselves Three Tings and a Tang playing ' The Hypotenuse Square Dance ' which clearly shows the influence of the great Horst himself. 16/10/10 - Whilst doing research on the origin and history of readers' help columns I came across the obituary of Angst Kintzinfangel who was an aunt of Horst and contributed regularly to the "Tagischer Arbeiter". It mentioned that she had herself first encountered anxiety when as a maths student
in Frankfurt she had tried grilling local sausages instead of boiling them. Her problem was that when the sausage was cooked on one side, and then turned, it always rolled back on to the cooked side causing it to burn. 18/10/10 - Dear Fred, I was fascinated by Mike Pembroke's piece about Horst Kitzingfangel and particularly his aunt Angst's seemingly unsuccessful venture into marketing her Isosoges Triangles: On a recent gig in Nuuk with a spin-off group of the Northern Dance Orchestra, I found an all-night snack bar selling Isosoges sausage sandwiches. I was lucky really because the cafe was just closing for the day. Malcolm Hogarth 24/10/10 - A few scattered Horst jottings: Horst was a great traveller for music and for pleasure. He enjoyed several trips to Ireland, and when in Dublin stayed at Mrs O'Rourke's in the Lower Baggot (he called her his baggot-elle), convenient for visits to O'Donoghue's Bar where he liked to hear Ronnie Drew (and The Dubliners) sing The Auld Triangle. For relaxation the English Lakeland was his favourite area: often he went with fellow percussionist Simon Hottentot ("Cymbal Simon") and he liked best of all to stand out on the slopes and peer down to Horstwater. Horst loved walking the fells and usually repaired to a pub at the end of the day where, despite his weak and croaky voice, he would regale the locals with selections from White Horst Inn. He felt obliged to supplement his musical earnings with sponsorship from two organisations with which he identified very strongly - the Youth Hostel Association and the Bass Brewery; it was with great pride that he sported their logo-emblazoned cagoules. In addition to those lands listed by other scribes, his musical travels took him to the Middle East, on one occasion with sister Greta, on holiday from the laundry. She attracted much attention from one of the local potentates who wished to add her to his harem, but Greta was not compliant: truly she was a sheikh-proof washer. John Muskett 29/01/12 - The linking, by
Jeff Roberts and Phil Yates, of clarinet maestro Bunty and Horst
Kitzinfangel has reminded me of another of Horst's great passions:
photography. In the late 1930s Horst had set sail for the USA with
one of the early Leica 35mm cameras and two rolls of colour film,
only recently commercially available . Hoping to enlarge on the work
of Milt Hinton he determined, on arrival in New York, to test his
apparatus by photographing musicians in action. John Muskett 31/01/12 - I am glad that Mr. Muskett has revived the H. K. debate as I know a little about the Staten Island sessions. The reason for the session over running was that Horst, tiring of his obsession with colour had started to venture into what he called culinary compositions. Unfortunately by this time the musicians had had enough of Horst's fantasies and the only tunes performed were, "Pie Liner", "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", "Clarinet Marmalade" and "Eggcentric Rag". By this time Horst was getting a reputation as a bit of a nutter and the boat ride back to Manhattan was conducted in stony silence. On arriving back at the Pier Horst bought a hot dog and announced that he was going to transpose the object into a symphony. Obtaining some condiments and looking at his surroundings he said he would call the work " A Salt on Battery " At which point the musicians slunk away. Moe Green. 26/03/12 - Hello Fred, Cruciverbalists may be pleased to learn that the ghost of Horst Kitzinfangel has completed the prize cryptic crossword (with a 'T' theme) in last Saturday's Guardian (24 March). Harmoniously". John Muskett 29/03/12 - Did it really take the Ghost of Horst Kitzinfangel three days to do the T crossword? (26/03/12). I'm surprised. I think I did it in less than an hour; but I didn't have a gig on Saturday! Allan Wilcox, 05/04/12 - Hello Fred, Of course it didn't take Horst's ghost three days to complete the Guardian's T themed crossword, but he solves the Sudoku, Killer and Futoshiki first. The delay is entirely the fault of his amanuensis (and your present scribe) who is nowhere near as nimble in thought or deed and was also attending over the weekend in question to musical matters and entertaining family visitors. Harmoniously John Muskett
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