THE RIVERMONT ROUNDUP: THE FRIED SEVEN, BRIDGETOWN SEXTET, ROYCE MARTIN (April 2024)

Here’s a one-question quiz. Name a well-established American record company (CD and vinyl) specializing in ragtime, vintage jazz, and hot dance music. The most well-established one is Rivermont Records. And this post is to celebrate three new releases and to encourage you to peek into their expansive catalogue.

Let’s begin with something truly Hot.

As they say, a hot band is good to find. And The Fried Seven is delicious. Hark, children:

Their debut CD, LATE TO THE PARTY, is a delight. I know that all over the globe, various traditional-jazz sextets and septets are working their way through the hundred years of repertoire, but the Fried Seven is a marvelous mix of intensity and precision. And they are having fun, which percolates through their CD. Here’s a video vignette, which says it better than I could:

I had not heard of them (or heard them) before, and I confess to the usual established-American-jazz-fan hauteur, “How good could they be if I have never heard them before”? (cue Phillip Larkin) — but the first performance on their CD was enough to convince me. They are, to be precise, Pablo Castillo (cornet), Matteo Paggi (trombone), Marti Mitjavila (tenor sax and clarinet), Pepijn Mouwen (alto sax, clarinet, and arrangements), Cem Karayalcin (guitar, banjo), Simon Osuna (string bass), and Carlos Ayuso (drums). For LATE TO THE PARTY, they are joined by special guest vocalist Laura Dooge.

The joyous music might just rattle your speakers off your desk, so be warned.

Second, a dazzling and thoughtful young pianist:

Pianist-composer Royce Martin of St. Louis, not yet thirty, is a bold explorer who knows where home is. I heard of him a few weeks before I heard this set, when ragtime scholar and pianist Brian Holland spoke admiringly of him as someone extending the zealously-guarded boundaries of ragtime performance and composition.

The first disc begins with an audio playlet, A DREAM DEFINED, in which Martin imagines a pair of reporters coming to Joplin’s house in 1916, attempting to interview him. It is eloquent, sly, and moving (as are Martin’s own notes to the set).

What follows are Martin’s solo performances of twelve Joplin classics under the heading of “Reimagining the Music,” performances that are arresting in their clarity — Martin is someone Dick Wellstood, Dick Hyman, and Dave McKenna would admire — and their sweet audacities. For him, Joplin is to be played, not put in a museum case. But Martin is not just dazzling us: his tiptoeing SOLACE is a warm delicate journey through a melody sometimes offered as simply pretty. Anyone who gets ruffled by Martin’s delightful improvisations can go back to their recordings that proclaim, “This is how Joplin would have played it,” as if anyone, at this remove, can tell. LILY QUEEN is a ruminative delight, full of breathing room: soundtrack for a film no one has yet imagined.

The final section, presenting three compositions by Martin, DREAMLAND, RAGS TO RICHES, and TO THE STARS, begins with an imagined conversation between Martin and Joplin — with Joplin insisting that contemporary music needs to be “saved,” shaken alive and awake. This morphs into a rap song, lyrics scored to a modern version of THE ENTERTAINER. Whether we are meant to hear this as bringing Joplin to a new audience or as an ironic commentary, I don’t know. But it is certainly arresting. The final section returns to Joplin’s imagined exhortations, “I need you to save pop music. Keep the dream alive.” The music and mysteries ring in our ears.

The deluxe package contains a second disc, for those guardians of the music unwilling to have their purity sullied by imaginative drama or rap. We know who you are.

Third, a swinging small group from the Pacific Northwest, led by the remarkable pianist Andrew Oliver, the Bridgetown Sextet. They had me immediately because of the title track of their CD, FUNCTIONIZIN’, a Fats Waller line — in slow-motion — built on the harmonies of SQUEEZE ME.

Here’s their version of ARKANSAS BLUES, with Red McKenzie in mind:

Stylistically, they are a bit later than the Fried Seven, but what both CDs have in common is a freshness of repertoire. I am fairly well-versed in the music of the period, but both discs had compositions that I would have found impossible to hum at a moment’s notice. And it’s not a matter of chasing obscurity for its own sake: no, these are good tunes by respected composers that have gotten less attention. I’m glad to hear FICKLE FAY CREEP in place of BLACK BOTTOM STOMP, for one example. The ensemble work is delightful — the band gets into fifth gear when it’s called for, but they can also stay at the most pleasing steady glide. The Sextet is made up of Andrew Oliver (piano), Sam Dechenne (trumpet and cornet), David Evans (tenor sax and clarinet), John Moak (trombone), Doug Sammons (guitar, banjo, vocals), Eric Gruber (string bass), and Tyson Stubelek (drums). For this album, they are joined by special guests Dee Settlemier (vocal), Garner Pruitt (cornet), and Chris Shuttleworth (tuba). Completely, consistently satisfying hot jazz, with deep understanding and no gimmicks.

When you go to the Rivermont catalogue, you’ll find an astonishing list of releases — CDs, lps, new 78s, recent recordings, reissues of jazz and hot dance bands. Some names: Andy Schumm, the Chicago Cellar Boys, Colin Hancock, Dick Hyman, Kenny Davern, Josh Duffee, Brian Holland, Bryan Wright, Ian Whitcomb, Carl Sonny Leyland, Kim Cusack, Ed Clute, Paul Asaro, Ted Lewis, The New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Nat Brusiloff, and a long series of recordings curated by the late Rich Conaty, of “The Big Broadcast.”

Worth a look, or ten. And I should add that the releases are well-produced, with erudite liner notes, photographs, and fine recorded sound.

May your happiness increase!