WHERE THE RENO CLUB MEETS FILM NOIR: “BEALE STREET BLUES,” by The EarRegulars: JON-ERIK KELLSO, MATT MUNISTERI, DUKE HEITGER, HARVEY TIBBS, DAN BLOCK, NEAL MINER (The Ear Inn, June 7, 2009)

I missed out on the Reno Club, and Fifty-Second Street transformed downwards years before my birth, but there are serious compensations. I did and do have The Ear Inn (and so do you) where The EarRegulars have been playing every Sunday night from 8-11 PM since the summer of 2007. 326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City.

This is one of the earliest videos I shot there . . . at a time when YouTube allowed posters to take dark-hued video and change it into black-and-white. So we have my version of film noir, bowing to Ida Lupino, to the Reno Club, to wartime Greenwich Village jazz, to building intensity through backgrounds and riffs. All priceless.

Fault-finders are encouraged to floss with a cactus needle, then take Nipper out for a constitutional.

The song? Handy’s BEALE STREET BLUES. The performers? Jon-Erik Kellso, Puje; Duke Heitger, trumpet; Harvey Tibbs, trombone; Dan Block, clarinet; Matt Munisteri, guitar; Neal Miner, string bass. Heroes all. They know what to do — no one needs a GPS — and they do it beautifully, individually and collectively. And they know how to sustain and build a mood, gently but dramatically, for twelve minutes.

And, yes, such things are still possible. But you do have to get out of your chair and find them where they are happening . . . real players, too substantial for any lit screen. Bless them when you see and hear them, too.

May your happiness increase!

BEALE STREET STILL CAN TALK: MEL POWELL, RUBY BRAFF, BOBBY DONALDSON (1955)

Mel Powell in uniform, autographed later in life.

Another trip down that memorable street: sedate and passionate all at once. Mel Powell, piano; Ruby Braff, cornet; Bobby Donaldson, drums. October 19, 1955, for Vanguard Records, supervised by John Hammond. In the tradition, beyond the tradition, looking at the tradition from a distance with affection, extending the tradition. It’s the first performance from a quintet session — with Skeeter Best and Oscar Pettiford on guitar and bass — and I wonder if they were late or if this was a warm-up for the engineers. Either way, it is a compact deft masterwork.

Although many bands did this as a near-stomp (I hear the Condon JAM SESSION COAST-TO-COAST version in my mind’s ear) this version is almost ruminative, a rhythm ballad with a subversive sly bounce from Donaldson paddling along in the distance. Both Mel and Ruby seem sweetly experimental, as if wondering how much sonic stretching the venerable contours will take: Ruby growling as if he were the Ellington brass section, Mel bridging two worlds: Wilson-stride with extended harmonies and unexpected phrase-shapes the rule. It’s a visit to a new world in less than four minutes, and it lingers in the brain.

This quiet celebration is for my man AJS, who made his way across the border to freedom just today.

May your happiness increase!

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, IT WOULD SOUND LIKE THIS: DANNY TOBIAS, SCOTT ROBINSON, JAMES CHIRILLO, FRANK TATE (The Ear Inn, Sunday, August 6, 2017)

“I’d rather be here / Than any place I know.”

Maybe that’s hyperbole, but The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City) on Sunday nights — since summer 2007 — has given me and others much joy. Here’s a previously unseen document of that feeling, provided by Danny Tobias, cornet; Scott Robinson, taragoto; James Chirillo, guitar; Frank Tate, string bass. W.C. Handy’s BEALE STREET BLUES taken at a groovy lope.

May your happiness increase!

SUNDAY NIGHTS AT 326 SPRING STREET (Part Twenty-Eight) — WE NEED SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO: SESSIONS AT THE EAR INN, featuring THE EarRegulars (2007 – the Future)

Do you Ear what I Ear?

Ready to get ready?  Snow boots, ridiculous headgear, two pairs of gloves (for when one is left behind)?  Let’s prepare for cyber-joys at 326 Spring Street, New York . . . the EarRegulars at the Ear Inn, lifting spirits, no spirit too big or too small.

Correction: I realized that we don’t have to go outside.  So slippers and fleece sweatpants are perfectly appropriate attire.  Sorry if I frightened you.

Now that we’re settled in . . .

I’d forgotten about this marvelous constellation, but it happened on September 26, 2010:  Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Scott Robinson, tenor saxophone; Matt Munisteri, guitar; Pat O’Leary, string bass, and — dropping by — the legendary Bob Barnard, cornet:

An easy-rocking BEALE STREET BLUES, just what Doctor Jazz prescribed:

BEALE STREET BLUES (concluded):

The first of two evocations of the Eternal Feminine, A PRETTY GIRL IS LIKE A MELODY.  Bob lives more than twenty hours away by air, so he didn’t get to join in here.  I note now, ten years later, that the last dozen or so bars of this performance are missing.  I blame YouTube, but You are free to blame Me:

and a truly lovely SLEEPY TIME GAL, music that feels like an embrace:

Aren’t you glad we did?  See you next Sunday, although you are free to nose around JAZZ LIVES in the interim.

May your happiness increase!

 

MUSIC THAT LASTS: RUSS PHILLIPS, DUKE HEITGER, BRIA SKONBERG, ALLAN VACHE, ROSSANO SPORTIELLO, SEAN CRONIN, DARRIAN DOUGLAS at the ATLANTA JAZZ PARTY (April 18, 2015)

Good music, like any good art, doesn’t grow old.  Here’s a venerable song — apparently composed in 1916, published in 1917, being performed ninety-eight years later at the Atlanta Jazz Party on April 18, 2015.  And meaning no disrespect to Mister Handy, it is more than possible that the song was accessible in parts long before 1916.

Good music is also flexible.  The venerable composition, so beloved of “Dixieland” players, gets a sweet Basie makeover here, at the hands of Russ Phillips, trombone; Duke Heitger, Bria Skonberg, trumpet; Allan Vache, clarinet; Rossano Sportiello, piano; Sean Cronin, string bass; Darrian Douglas, drums.

This is a rewarding interlude: I feel improved by its expert generous joys.

May your happiness increase!