Jim Klippert said it best. “I always wanted to play with a band like this.”
On August 1, 2012, Clint Baker’s New Orleans Jazz Band rocked the house — the Cheryl Burke Dance Studio in Mountain View, California — at the “Wednesday Night Hop.”
The participants? Clint on trumpet and vocal; Jim Klippert, trombone; Bill Carter, clarinet; Jason Vanderford, guitar; Bill Reinhart, banjo; Tom Wilson, string bass; Steve Apple, drums.
Here’s where you can find out about future Wednesday Night Hops.
And here’s the first part of the evening.
Now, to the second. The constant delights were beautiful ensemble energy and precision, wonderful hot playing — passion, relaxation, and intuition — no matter what the tempo. More than one person let me know that the first set was so entrancingly distracting that it got them off track at work . . . . I have visions of people at their desks all over the world trying hard to stay focused while Sister Kate does her thing . . . . for Clint and his colleagues create music that is deliciously distracting. Their music is a sure cure for gloom, tedium, ennui, Victorian swoons, pins-and-needles, existential dread, coffee nerves, the blahs, low blood sugar, high anxiety, and more.
SISTER KATE (or, for the archivists in the room, GET OFF KATIE’S HEAD):
Woe, woe. It’s CARELESS LOVE. Be careful, now!
Thanks to Puccini, here’s AVALON, not too fast:
For Bix, for Louis, for Papa Joe — ROYAL GARDEN BLUES:
SOMEDAY SWEETHEART:
KNEE DROPS is an irresistible Louis Armstrong song from the Hot Five sessions. For this post, I tried to find more information on what the dance move would have looked like in 1926 . . .but I am not sure that the “knee drop” as practiced in break-dancing and ballet would have been recognized at the Sunset Cafe or other Chicago nightspots:
When in doubt, SHAKE THAT THING (defined loosely):
May your happiness increase.