Emily Asher’s Garden Party, photograph by Renée Toplansky.
Here are more wonderful highlights from my first concert of 2019 (my first post, featuring the New Wonders, can be found here), a showcase for several bands under the brightly colored banner of Noble + Wylie, a musician-run enterprise that fills a real need, representing splendid traditional jazz performers, offering the best services to the artists and their audiences. The co-founders are musicians Emily Asher and Katie Lee, who know the business from many angles. You can read more about this promising company at the link above, but a few sentences from Emily give a taste of their forthright approach: “I see Noble + Wylie as an agency which elevates and celebrates excellence. By focusing on honesty and quality over chaos and hype, I look forward to fostering long-term positive relationships with diverse music venues, festivals, schools, and private clients in order to provide distinctive and creative music to audiences world-wide.”
(If you search for Noble & Wylie — connected by an ampersand — you’ll find only UK shoes, no music at all. Caveat emptor.)
At the January 7 showcase, we (that’s R1 and me) had the opportunity to hear three groups represented by Noble + Wylie: The Ladybugs, the New Wonders, and Emily Asher’s Garden Party — and I brought back some tasty video evidence. Here is the first set by the Garden Party, a versatile band playing hot and sweet, mixing jazz classics and memorable new compositions. For this occasion, they are Emily Asher, trombone, vocal, compositions; Mike Davis, cornet; Jay Rattman, reeds; Dalton Ridenhour, piano; James Chirillo, guitar; Rob Adkins, string bass; Jay Lepley, drums, with incidental singing by members of the band. My videos came from an odd angle, but I hope all can be forgiven. This friendly, warm band knows tempos: hear their easy rock!
MUSKRAT RAMBLE:
WHEN YOU WORE A TULIP, with a Second Line sashay and a glee club, too:
Hoagy Carmichael’s MEMPHIS IN JUNE, arranged by Rob Adkins, with Jay Rattman bringing Johnny Hodges into church:
Emily’s own AN OPEN INVITATION TO A RAINSTORM, in honor of Beth Campbell:
Her Carmichael-inflected PACIFIC LULLABY, which deserves your close attention until James Chirillo’s closing chime:
And the wry MY LIFE WOULD BE EASY:
I recorded more music from this concert, and it will appear in the near future. Thanks to these unpretentious gifted musicians, and of course to Noble + Wylie.
May your happiness increase!
