One of the blog-categories I created is “SURPRISE!” and the video below is an especially nice one. I’ve admired the playing and fortitude and wit of Michael McQuaid and Nick Ward for a decade or so now, and although Andrew Oliver came along later (think of the Complete Morton Project) he is breathing the same exalted air. The other gentlemen of the ensemble are new to me, more or less, but I embrace them as well.
Here, from a July afternoon at the Breda Jazz Festival, is a neat package of twenty-plus minutes of hot / sweet jazz:
The musicians are Michael McQuaid, clarinet, soprano saxophone, and trumpet;
Antoine Trommelen, soprano saxophone; Andrew Oliver, piano; Nick Ward, drums; Bart Wouters, string bass; Curtis Volp, banjo.
The songs are CHINA BOY, SOMEDAY SWEETHEART, SHREVEPORT STOMP, AFTER YOUVE GONE, and the aura is somewhere between a homespun Summit Reunion and the Bechet-Spanier Big Four . . . neither of which bothers me in the least. Thanks to Paul Dunleavy for being the efficient man on the spot with a functioning camera: as a member of his professional guild, I want to see him get credit.
Some surprises I don’t like: no popping paper bags in back of me, no jury-duty notices in the mail, my doctor saying, “I don’t like the looks of this at all,” but I’m ready for more surprises like this one, any time.
May your happiness increase!
JAZZ LIVES 
nice to see somebody playing that curved soprano, al la Bob Wilber.
Thanks Michael – this was a fun impromptu session! Antoine and I talked a lot about Bob Wilber and Kenny Davern that afternoon.