This one’s for Nancie Beaven, one of this blog’s most ardent readers, currently ensconced in Connecticut. Nancie is a great admirer of the Hot Antic Jazz Band and of its cornetist, Michel Bastide. Several times during the 2010 Whitley Bay International Jazz Festival, I had ample opportunity to see why.
The HAJB also sported Bernard Antherieu, clarinet; Philippe Raspail, saxophone; Martin Seck, piano; Christian Lefevre, brass bass; Philippe Guignier, banjo. (The regular banjoist is Jean-Pierre Dubois but that week-end was attending his daughter’s wedding. I apologize to all the musicians I omitted, mis-identified, or mis-named: it took the help of several people (Bill Lowden and JC from Les Rois de Fox-Trot) to get me this close to accuracy.
A lovely melody by a composer new to me, called HOW STRANGE:
SUNDAY, in honor of Bix, the Jean Goldkette band, and even the Keller Sisters and (their brother) Lynch:
CHICAGO RHYTHM, suggesting not only a time and place, but also Jimmie Noone in his heyday:
Finally, an enthusiastic solo piano reading of THE PEARLS, by “Jelly Roll Martin”:
Some band!