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A friend sent in this nice performance of OH, BABY! — which, in its lovely old-school way, bends jazz genres in an unexpected fashion.
Because of Bix Beiderbecke and Eddie Condon, because of Wild Bill Davison and others, I associate this song firmly with a “Chicagoan” approach: hot, charging, perhaps with the world-shaking rhythm section of Ralph Sutton, Eddie, Walter Page, and George Wettling rocking Columbia Records’ Thirtieth Street studios, now probably vanished.
But clarinetist Gerry Green and friends reimagined it somewhat in reverse — taking it back to New Orleans in the most delicately forceful way. The magicians in this video performance are Dave Brown, string bass; Bill Dixon, banjo; Bob Pelland, piano; Jim Armstrong, trumpet and trombone. This was recorded on February 5. 2011, at the Bellingham, Washington, Traditional Jazz Society. The new YouTube channel is called, sweetly, “islandstarfish,” and it will be worth your energy to watch it closely, I think.
JAZZ LIVES 
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Michael,
As someone is who really getting into the history of this music as I go along I found it interesting to hear this song in such a dramatically different style. Now for someone like yourself whose has just about seen it all, are the moments of time crossing (Chicago style to N.O. style in this example) something that people do to fit the band or to experiment in typical jazz fashion?
Dear OSU (I must be formal, I fear),
I can’t speak for the Shakers. But so much jazz — if not all — is about PLAY. So that the musicians I know say, “Why not?” We can play the songs we like in the styles that come naturally to us . . . and let’s see what happens. I think it’s also fair to say that for most of the history of this rich music, the labels and titles were applied, like bandages. externally, by people who didn’t play instruments. Critics and other entities made up names; the musicians played. I think of Baby Dodds digging Max Roach in one of those OLD vs. NEW radio broadcasts c. 1946. This makes for “good” journalism, but from my experience all the musicians themselves ask is, “Can (s)he play?” And then they’re off. Welcome to JAZZ LIVES! Michael
The opening reference to Bix relative to this tune, is incorrect. It is not the same Oh Baby as the Wolverines recorded. The Wolverines of course were anything but the later, too frenetic at times, Chicagoans. They bounced along on a 2/4 bass line, with drums hardly heard except for blocks, catch cymbals, etc adding decoration and light drive. No one beating heel out of a kit, and especially not a 4 to the bar bass drum, or string bass. Why do nearly all string bass players today play 4 to the bar on everything? Play some 2/4 tunes as 2/4 (cut common) and give the tune room to breathe!
Carl Spencer
Spencer’s Nighthawks Orch