“RHYTHM WAS HIS BUSINESS”: REMEMBERING KEN SALVO

Ken Salvo, the stalwart banjoist and guitarist of Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks and many other groups — in Chicago, New York, and Florida — left us this year. I didn’t get to speak with him, but his joy in playing and his steady rhythmic pulse were evident whenever I saw the Nighthawks. And musicians I’ve spoken about Ken to recall his kindnesses off the bandstand: he went out of his way to help them, to rescue them whenever he could.

He was well-liked and well-admired, so I’ve asked people who knew him to recall him for you. I’ve always thought that the measure of a life well-lived is the way people miss someone when they’re gone: Ken lived beautifully.

Clarinetist JOE LICARI:

I was shocked to hear of Ken’s passing as well as that of his wife Sandy just two weeks prior. Over many years I have played hundreds of gigs together. He was a great musician and entertainer and would always greet you with a smile. He was a sweet kind man and gentleman. I feel blessed to have known him on the bandstand and on recordings. Rest in peace, dear friend.

Trumpeter MICHAEL PONELLA:

A few years back there was the intense wind and snow storm late in October.  The Nighthawks were performing a Halloween party near Hartford, Connecticut for that evening.  Ken met me at my house in New York and drove from there.    On the way we encountered stop and go traffic, high winds, blinding snow, accident slowdowns, and crazy drivers that Ken was yelling to in the car.  We made it to the gig amazingly, but a few minutes late.   The party was a success, but Ken was exhausted from all the travel, and excitement.  Luckily that night a local hotel was provided, and Ken had me drive his car the rest of the way while he rested.  Even after a hard/tiring time traveling Ken would still perform his 100% on stage. One more:  Every time the Nighthawks would perform at Town Hall in NYC, Ken would always rise to the occasion.  He enjoyed playing there as well.  I will probably remember him most from those concerts, smiling, and playing faster than he ever played before.

Photograph by Lynn Redmile

Banjoist / vocalist CYNTHIA SAYER:

Ken knew how much I admired his plectrum Epiphone guitar because we had a running joke from me teasing him about it for years. And I knew how much he loved it too, so when he called me from Florida to offer to actually sell it to me, I was alarmed – though I was aware of health issues going on, I also knew he could keep playing, so why did he think he wouldn’t use it anymore? He talked about his local gigs and essentially said that he has faced that he’s now finished with the guitar, and it was time to pass it on to me. And well aware of the difficulties for all musicians during the pandemic, he also offered me generous terms. I accepted his offer with both deep appreciation and a heavy heart.

He knew I’d be coming to Florida soon (last June, during that small time window when we thought things were starting to return to normal, finally visiting our elderly moms there for the first time since pre-pandemic – Ken and Sandy lived close by) so he wanted to take advantage of the visit for me to possibly get the guitar. So while in Florida, we visited, jammed some (I posted a video or two of our jamming on Facebook), and I ended up taking the guitar back with me to NYC. I’m sooooo very grateful that I happened to have this last visit with him!!

I don’t remember when or where we first met, but I figure we’d known each other for most of my adulthood. A nice person and a fine player.

Bassist / tubaist / vocalist BRIAN NALEPKA:

Ken Salvo was a good friend and musical buddy for many years. He was not flashy and didn’t play “busy” solos. He kept good solid time and had that rare talent of making any band he was in better. He laid a solid rhythmic foundation that would let the front line do their work, and fit like a glove with the rest of the rhythm section. I know he is missed by everyone he played with.

Photograph by Aidan Grant

Trombonist / euphonist / vocalist JIM FRYER:

As to Ken Salvo, so many stories start coming into my mind that it’s hard to know where to start and how to organize them. He was a proud father and a devoted husband. He took pride in his “day gig” and I’m sure he was good at it. He was a terrific leader on a gig and a valuable sideman. Playing in the Nighthawks was a stretch for him, reading was not his forte, but he made it work, and his banjo and basic musicianship skills were so good that Vince had him in the band for many years. He also had a kind of old fashioned ethos that younger musicians don’t have today, simply due to changing circumstances. He was a saloon player from the golden olden days, who strove to make everyone in the room happy, in rooms that were full of regular working class folks, not young self-identified hipsters.

Photograph by Bela Szaloky

Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, bandleader VINCE GIORDANO:

I had moved to Brooklyn in 1979, Ken got my number, and we got a gig. He was the leader, he was on banjo, and I had my tuba and string bass . . . and it worked out great, we had a fun time. He played solid banjo, sang nicely, took swinging solos. He was a great banjoist. I like working with banjo, and he was very musical on it at all times. He was very professional, so we worked a bunch over the years. He would call me over the years.

Little by little, I found out more about Ken. I knew he was from the Chicago area and his family were big traditional jazz lovers. When the Dukes of Dixieland would came into Chicago to play, they would come to his house, because Ken was a great Italian cook. There was a great friendship there, and Ken’s dad had all their records, so he became friends with the Assuntos, and that was another inspiration for him to be in traditional jazz music.

How did Ken join the Nighthawks? Different people had come in and out of the band over the years; people move away or decide they want to play vintage jazz, so I gave him a call, “Would you like to try it?” “I love the band, but you might not be happy with my reading,” but he read the charts down perfectly. And he would take the charts home and work on the Eddie Lang pieces. We had a lot of fun on BOARDWALK EMPIRE and playing private parties and working with Garrison Keillor. When we did Prairie Home Companion at Wolf Trap we would all drive down to Kenny’s house in New Jersey and the bus company — this giant touring bus that would take us and the equipment to Wolf Trap — would pick us up. Kenny and his wife Sandy would have big vats of Dunkin Donuts coffee and donuts for the trip.

Ken was really conscientious sideman — anything he could do to help he did. And he said nice things about working with the band. When we did the RHAPSODY IN BLUE concert with Maurice Peress, he did the solo on LINGER AWHILE and he brought down the house. He was scared about doing it, but I said, “Come on, Kenny, you’re a virtuoso,” and he really did it — even snuck in a RHAPSODY IN BLUE lick. The audience laughed and it broke up Maurice. He would do tasteful things on the banjo, and he was great.

One day, he showed up and told the band that he and Sandy were moving to Florida — a long commute! too long for Monday nights — so he was leaving. We kept in touch for a few years, phone calls and emails. I saw him about a month before he passed — his son got remarried in Maryland and he hired a small contingent of the Nighthawks. I brought a banjo and he played a few numbers and brought the house down. His wife had health problems and passed a few weeks after the party. Between being ill and without his wife, they were married about fifty years . . . that was it.

So we all were sad, and the dance community he would hang with when we played, they all put up nice tributes and pictures. He was a warm friendly guy with a great laugh who liked to talk with people. We all miss him.

Photograph by Jenna Perlette

Trumpeter, cornetist, composer RANDY SANDKE:

This has been a cruel season for jazz fans. First we lost Phil Schaap, and then George Wein, two giants who did so much to spread the joyous and profound message of the music to all corners of the globe. But someone else passed who, though unnoticed by the jazz media, had a long and vital career as a musician. I’m speaking of Ken Salvo, a banjo and guitar player, who led his own groups but was most identified for his decade-long stint with Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks.

Ken was a solid rhythm player, but also an exciting soloist who could hold his own in any musical situation. He was heard regularly on Monday and Tuesday nights at Vince’s home base in NYC, Club Cachet and later Iguana. With the Nighthawks, Ken appeared on several film soundtracks, as well as the band’s Grammy award-winning album of selections from the HBO series, Boardwalk Empire.

Ken began his career as a teen-ager, when his father would drive him to Rush St. in Chicago to work at the Red Garter. Ken developed his vast knowledge of tunes and prodigious technique there, working until all hours of the night. This period of the mid-to-late ‘60s was a golden age for banjo and guitar players in Chicago, since Eddy Davis, Marty Grosz, and Ken were all in town at the same time.

Ken moved to New Jersey in the late ‘70s and, in order to support a growing family, became a home inspector. He took to that job so well he became president of the trade organization. He also worked for a time at Allied Van Lines, and was responsible for moving Branford Marsalis and the new Tonight Show Band (including ex-Nighthawk trombonist Matt Finders) from the New York area to L.A. All during this time, Ken continued to play, book jobs, and make himself known in the NY freelance music scene.

In 2017, Ken moved with his wife of nearly fifty years, Sandy, to Venice, Florida. He had managed his finances well and looked forward to many years of playing golf and performing gigs in the area. Before I moved to Venice a couple of years later, Ken called me to offer me a steady job at a club in Cape Coral. He’d drive me down to the gig, about an hour each way, and we’d trade stories about growing up in Chicago, and so much else. We became very close, and he was a total joy on and off the bandstand. He helped smooth the way for me in Florida, and I will be eternally grateful.

All was working out well for him until last fall. He found out that his wife had inoperable brain cancer and her outlook was not good. They tried various treatments with all the attendant hopes and setbacks. In the midst of dealing with Sandy, Ken discovered he had lung cancer, probably from years of smoking in his younger years, plus working in smoky clubs before cigarettes were banned. Somehow he contracted Covid as well.

The end came fast. Sandy died when Ken was in the hospital and he was crushed. They’d known each other since their teenage years and I think Ken couldn’t conceive of living without her. When offered a ventilator he turned it down and passed away a few days later.

I truly loved Ken and grieve his passing. I’m sure that all who knew him, or heard him play, feel the same way. He was everybody’s friend and he will be sorely missed. R.I.P., my dear friend.

Photograph by Marcia Salter

Pianist / composer PETER YARIN:

We played for years in the rhythm section of Vince’s Nighthawks together – the Sofia’s and Iguana days. This was countless hours spent sitting inches away, aligning our chords and quarter notes, doing what we all try to do, maintaining our individual parts while fusing with the music and the band. Ken’s playing was exciting, joyful, full of energy, buoyant. He approached the bandstand with determination, grit, and a smile. Always clear was his commitment to and his faith in the music and the way it was to be played.

Solicitous of others’ welfare in tough times, he would respond with warmth and compassion. We joked together a lot. I will miss him. May his spirit resonate on.

P.S. from Michael: thanks to the musicians above who took the time to write lovely memoirs of a good friend and bandstand companion. I will be pleased to post other remembrances of Ken in the comments or perhaps in a future post.

May your happiness increase!

BRINGING THE BLUES TO BARROW STREET: MARA KAYE, TIM McNALLEY, JON-ERIK KELLSO, BRIAN NALEPKA (Cafe Bohemia, February 6, 2020)

Mara Kaye, 2018

Mara Kaye sings dangerous blues.  You know the kind, where the protagonist says she’s going to cut those who disobey, and you know it doesn’t mean trim their uneven bangs.  I do not doubt Mara’s ferocities, but since this is a video, you can watch without fear.

The wonderful noises and story-telling below took place a little more than a year ago, at Cafe Bohemia, 15 Barrow Street, where I spent six months of happy evenings between September 2019 and March 2020.

On February 6, Mara was joined by friends and musical family Tim McNalley, guitar; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Brian Nalepka, string bass.  And she sang a bucolic little folk ditty about some of our favorite subjects:

I think that particular manifestation of OKeh Records ceased to be around 1935, although there have been later echoes.  But the jazz and blues grapevine tells me that Mara and another hero, Carl Sonny Leyland, have been recording for BigTone Records and that the results will be issued sooner than later.  Ain’t that good news?

May your happiness increase!

DRIVER’S LICENSE: MARA KAYE, TIM McNALLEY, ALBANIE FALLETTA, JON-ERIK KELLSO, BRIAN NALEPKA (Cafe Bohemia, February 6, 2020)

Here are a few more minutes of the blues with a very clear subtext — transportation can be fun even if you scrape the curb! — performed at Cafe Bohemia what seems like centuries ago but is really only fourteen months, if my math holds.  The elated perpetrators are Mara Kaye, vocal; Tim McNalley, guitar; Albanie Falletta, resonator guitar; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Brian Nalepka, string bass.  The Department of Motor Vehicles informs me that all five of them passed their driving tests easily, the first time.  Experts.

Yes, this beautiful automobile, a 1941 Ford V-8, is particularly relevant to what follows.

Just be sure to use all your mirrors and go slowly when maneuvering into tight spaces.  More to come, as we say.

May your happiness increase!

BARBARA ROSENE KNOWS THE WAY*, THEN and NOW

Some weeks back, I posted an exciting instrumental version of SONG OF THE WANDERER (WHERE SHALL I GO?) by Carl Sonny Leyland, Jacob Zimmerman, Jeff Hamilton, and Lakshmi Ramirez, and mentioned that one of the best versions I knew was by a Harry James – Basie contingent with Helen Humes singing, but that I didn’t know versions with the verse.

A dear friend wrote in and said, “You know, Barbara Rosene made a marvelous recording of that for Stomp Off, and she sings the verse.”

Perfectly correct, and I’d forgotten (shame on me)!  It’s from March 2007, and the band is Tom Roberts, cornet; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Brad Shigeta, trombone; Pete Martinez, soprano and tenor saxophone; Mike Hashim, soprano and alto saxophone; Conal Fowkes, piano; Craig Ventresco, banjo; Brian Nalepka, string bass, tuba; Kevin Dorn, drums.  The wonderfully hip arrangement is by Pete Martinez:

Barbara has a beautiful voice — if she tells the telemarketer to not call her again, the person on the other end of the phone has heard a little concert — but that is only the foundation of her art, which is a multi-colored mixture of tenderness, sentiment, swing, a joy even in the saddest songs . . . depths that resonate with us but never feel mannered or ponderous.  She is that rare creature, an adult whose awareness comes through the lyrics: she knows what she’s singing about.

Her art is not only contained on those plastic discs and YouTube videos, but it is living in bright colors and subtle hues today.

And when I write “today,” I do mean it.  Barbara has been doing a series of streaming cocktail-hour concerts in duet with the gifted pianist Rock Wehrmann and the one coming right up will happen on Friday evening, September 4th, at 6 PM.  There’s no formal ticket-link, but when you go on Barbara’s page on Friday, you’ll be able to — as they say — tip the band.  And you’ll want to.  In case you want to start early and avoid the rush, the links are Venmo- @Barbara-Rosene Paypal- Barbeteart@aol.com.

* to our hearts, if you hadn’t guessed.

May your happiness increase!

NEXT STOP, HEAVEN: MARA KAYE, JON-ERIK KELLSO, EVAN ARNTZEN, JARED ENGEL (Cafe Bohemia, October 24, 2019)

Mara Kaye, having herself a time.

When I first met Mara Kaye, on the other side of the continent, about six years ago, she was a fervent advocate of “other people’s blues,” often the chansons of Victoria Spivey, Ida Cox, and Memphis Minnie.  Happily she continues to perform these songs, but she’s also added wonderful swing classics to her repertoire, many harking back to the Billie Holiday recordings of the Thirties and early Forties.

Here’s one, quite famous, that she renders with swing, joy, and conviction — accompanied by a splendid group of improvising stars: Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Evan Arntzen, clarinet and tenor saxophone; Arnt Arntzen, guitar; Jared Engel, string bass.

All of this happened at the end of a Cafe Bohemia Jazz Quartet gig — at the downtown home of happy sounds, 15 Barrow Street, Greenwich Village, New York City.  And I felt Irving, Fred, Ginger, Ella, and Louis looking on approvingly.

That music is good news to me.  But the good news continues: tomorrow, Thursday, February 6, Mara will be returning to Cafe Bohemia, starting at 8 PM, joined by Jon-Erik Kellso, Brian Nalepka, string bass, and Tim McNalley, guitar, although so far it seems that the stairs are too narrow to allow Mara to bring that lovely bathtub.

Those who understand pleasure and enlightenment can buy tickets here.

May your happiness increase!

HALLOWED GROUND COMES TO LIFE, or THE SOUNDS AT CAFE BOHEMIA (15 Barrow Street, New York City): MARA KAYE, JON-ERIK KELLSO, MATT MUNISTERI, EVAN ARNTZEN, BRIAN NALEPKA (September 26, 2019)

Once . . . .

New York City is full of vanished landmarks: one checks the address of what was once a place both sacred and thriving only to find that it is now a nail salon or, even more common, that its facade no longer exists: it’s now luxury apartments or university offices.  But resurrection, however rare, is possible and delightful. The “new” CAFE BOHEMIA, thanks to the labors and vision of Mike Zieleniewski and Christine Santelli, is one of those urban(e) miracles.

There will be divine music there on Thursday, October 24, featuring Jon-Erik Kellso, Evan Arntzen, Arnt Arntzen, and Jared Engel as well as the Hot Club.  Tickets here for the 7:00 show; here for the 9:30 show.  And for those who “don’t do Facebook,” tickets can be purchased through Eventbrite.

Now . . . .

and another view:

LIVE MUSIC for sure.  And there’s also Fat Cat Matt Rivera’s HOT CLUB, which I’ve written about here.

But let’s go back to some of that LIVE MUSIC, performed on September 26, before the Club’s official opening — a delightful all-acoustic jazz and blues evening featuring Mara Kaye, vocal; Matt Munisteri, guitar; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Evan Arntzen, clarinet and tenor saxophone; Brian Nalepka, string bass.  Incidentally, only people who regularly attend live-music events know how rare “all-acoustic” is, and how pleasing.

BLACK SHEEP BLUES:

For Billie, I WISHED ON THE MOON:

Also for Lady Day, NO REGRETS:

“How sad I am,” with a grin, for MY MAN:

I’ll have more music from this night, also from October 17 (Evan, Andrew Millar, Felix Lemerle, Alex Claffy) but I urge you to tear yourselves away from those electronic devices and visit the Cafe on the 24th.  It’s tactless to remind people but necessary that clubs, concerts, and festivals need actual human attendees (what a thought!) to survive.  So . . . see you there!

May your happiness increase!

“FROM THEIR HEARTS (Part Three): JON-ERIK KELLSO, CHARLIE HALLORAN, BRIAN NALEPKA, JOHN GILL, and JON DE LUCIA, JORDAN HIRSCH (The EarRegulars at The Ear Inn, July 8, 2018)

The EarRegulars, plus catsup. Photograph by Neal Siegal.

Here is the link to Parts One and Two, containing ten radiant performances from that very gratifying evening at 326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City.

And here are a few of the closing performances.

BEALE STREET BLUES:

IF YOU WERE THE ONLY GIRL IN THE WORLD (Mr. Nalepka sings of romance):

‘WAY DOWN YONDER IN NEW ORLEANS, with guest Jon De Lucia, clarinet:

THE CURSE OF AN ACHING HEART, with Jordan Hirsch, trumpet, and added soundtrack from the Wolf Cubs to my right, or, as Louis says, “Somebody must have been putting alcohol in our liquor”:

A wonderful evening, hugely restorative.  You’ve never been to The Ear Inn?  Get thee hence on a Sunday evening — early to grab a barstool or table — and live life fully.

May your happiness increase!

FROM THEIR HEARTS (Part Two): JON-ERIK KELLSO, CHARLIE HALLORAN, BRIAN NALEPKA, JOHN GILL (The EarRegulars at The Ear Inn, July 8, 2018)

From left, Brian, John, Jon-Erik, Charlie, that very night. Photograph by Neal Siegal.

Another serving of musical splendor: expertise and passion in equal measure.  Visit here for the first four performances (BOGALUSA STRUT, SOMEDAY SWEETHEART, WHO’S SORRY NOW, TISHOMINGO BLUES) and for details.

Music does indeed speak louder than words, so here’s more, the best kind.

WEARY BLUES:

YOU TELL ME YOUR DREAM (swing out, Brian!):

FIDGETY FEET:

PRETTY BABY:

DO YOU EVER THINK OF ME?:

OLD FASHIONED LOVE:

Even in darkness, joy is all around us, and these performances — so generous! — are powerful reminders.

May your happiness increase!

FROM THEIR HEARTS (Part One): JON-ERIK KELLSO, CHARLIE HALLORAN, BRIAN NALEPKA, JOHN GILL (The EarRegulars at The Ear Inn, July 8, 2018)

After the last tune had been played on Sunday, July 8, at The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City), Brian Nalepka — string bass, vocals, wit — caught my eye and smiled, “That was a GOOD night, Michael!” and he didn’t have to say anything more.  What the EarRegulars created that night, as they have done for eleven years of Sundays, was magical.  They demonstrated, for a few hours, how music is the best medicine for all kinds of woes.

The genuine heartfelt practitioners that night were Brian; John Gill, banjo, National guitar, vocal; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet, leader; New Orleans luminary Charlie Halloran, in New York for a few days, trombone, or as he likes to call it, “trampagne.”  When you play as beautifully as Charlie does, you have wide-open linguistic license.

A few more words about him: I’d heard his recordings and they bring great joy: I’m thinking of his QUALITY SIX and CE BIGUINE, both celebrated on this blog (as well as wonderful work with half-a-dozen other bands) — but the closest we’d ever come to a real conversation was that we waved to each other across a fence at one of the Steamboat Stomps. So I was delighted to hear him in person, doing the thing at close range, and to find out that he is as gracious a person as he is a fine musician.  And I don’t overstate.

The Fellows, that very night. Photograph by Neal Siegal.

Here are some highlights from early in the evening.  The band just glowed, and so did we.

A rocking BOGALUSA STRUT:

A tender but groovy SOMEDAY SWEETHEART — a version that seems to need no comma in the middle:

Asking the musical question, WHO’S SORRY NOW? — here, it’s not fashionable to invoke the name of Miff Mole, but Charlie brings him to life in this century, exuberant and precise.  And we’re so lucky to have this band sharing its love every Sunday:

And to close this segment, a down-home TISHOMINGO BLUES, wonderfully sung by John Gill:

I will have more joyous evidence — inspired and inspiring — to share with you after a brief interval.

May your happiness increase!

WHY BE Regular WHEN YOU CAN BE EarRegular? (JON-ERIK KELLSO, DAVID SAGER, JOHN GILL, BRIAN NALEPKA at THE EAR INN, August 13, 2017)

Some decades ago, when there were “public” and “private” subjects, people did not speak boldly of bodily functions.  But money was there to be made from people’s distress, so we had IRREGULARITY as a euphemism:

If your child was irregular:

The same problem for the grown-ups:

You understand.  As did Louis.  I’m a big fan of peristalsis.

But being EarRegular is a higher state of being, one we should all aspire to, and it has nothing to do with what has to be performed in private.  In fact, true EarRegularity is performed in public, generously, by the wonderful people who make music at The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho, New York) every Sunday night from 8-11 PM.

Here are three beautiful examples from the evening of August 13, 2017 — Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; David Sager (visiting from D.C.), trombone; John Gill, banjo; Brian Nalepka, string bass.  (If you hear howling from somewhere in these videos, don’t be afeared: that’s only our friend Barry Foley getting ready for Halloween, several months early.)

Handy’s BEALE STREET BLUES — with gorgeous mutations from Jon and the sound you don’t always hear trombonists utilize, harking back to Jimmy Harrison and Benny Morton, from David.  And I can’t ignore the candid eloquence of Messrs. Gill and Nalepka, reminding us of what acoustic playing sounds like:

Another good old good one, AT THE JAZZ BAND BALL:

And finally, a rousing SAN:

I’m afraid you cannot go to your friendly pharmacist and say, “What do you have to make me EarRegular?” because she may not know of the goal you aspire to.  But you can go to The Ear Inn on Sunday nights and get fixed right up — no co-pay, no need to show your insurance card.  Just put some good paper in the tip pumpkin (“Phillup deBucket”) and you’ll feel better.  Fast.

May your happiness increase!

MARA KAYE SINGS LADY DAY with JON-ERIK KELLSO, DAVID SAGER, JOHN GILL, BRIAN NALEPKA, SCOTT RICKETTS, EYAL VILNER at THE EAR INN (August 13, 2017)

Mara Kaye is one of New York’s great gifts to the world. Two years ago, she did a concert performance at Joe’s Pub, an evening of songs associated with Billie Holiday.  Here is some of what I wrote, that still rings true.

She is a substantial stage personality.  One way this is expressed is in her nearly constant yet genuine motion, as if her energy is too strong for her to stand still.  It’s not just hair-tossing, but a continual series of dance moves that also look like yoga poses and warm-up stretches, even a jubilant marching-in-place. Often she held her arms over her head, her hands open.  I think it was always exuberant emotion, but it was also her own expression of an ancient and honorable theatrical style . . . so that even the people in the most distant balcony of the Apollo Theatre could see you and join in with the person onstage. And her voice matched her larger-than-life physical presence.  On a Twenties record label, she might have been billed as COMEDIENNE WITH ORCHESTRA, and that odd designation rang true. The comedy bubbled up here and there in speech: she hails from Brooklyn, so that her sailboat in the moonlight was idling along in Sheepshead Bay. But it also emerged delightfully in her voice: I heard echoes of Fanny Brice, of comic Eastern European melodies . . . it never sounded as if she was taking Billie or the music lightly, but as if she was having such a good time that she couldn’t help playing. . . . SHOW in the best tradition — not caricature, but something Louis would have admired immensely.

I’m always glad to see Mara, and when she showed up at The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho) on Sunday, August 13, I had hopes she would be invited to sit in with the EarRegulars.  Leader and brass deity Jon-Erik Kellso has the same feelings about this young woman, so he invited her to join the band . . . and these two performances are the result. The EarRegulars, that night, were Jon-Erik; David Sager, trombone (making a guest appearance from his home in a southern town), John Gill, banjo; Brian Nalepka, string bass, with sitters-in Scott Ricketts, cornet and Eyal Vilner, to my left, alto saxophone.  The ghosts of Buck Clayton, Lester Young, and Benny Morton were there, and they approved.

Two gorgeous performances: FOOLIN’ MYSELF:

and I CAN’T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE (during the instrumental portion you’ll see Mara, ever the good jazz citizen, walking around with the tip jar — the tip pumpkin — to help the band:

Music like this, peerless and delicate, improves our world, for these musicians give us love and more.

May your happiness increase!

“UNDERNEATH THE GROUND, WHERE ALL THE FUN IS FOUND”: TERRY WALDO’S GOTHAM JAZZ BAND (January 29, 2017): JON-ERIK KELLSO, EVAN ARNTZEN, JIM FRYER, TERRY WALDO, BRIAN NALEPKA, JOHN GILL, JAY LEPLEY

Even in January, it’s hot down below — when “down below” refers to Fat Cat, 75 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, New York, and when Terry Waldo and the Gotham City Band are in session.  As they were last January 29 — one of their Sunday early-evening delights.  (I’d advise not looking at the club’s graphic too strenuously; it raises certain questions.)

Our text for today, Brothers and Sisters, is the 1916 hit DOWN IN HONKY TONKY TOWN, by Charles McCarron and Chris Smith.  I would never have added the Y to the penultimate word, but that was because I’d never seen the cover of the sheet music.  I have changed my ways.

This site, the source of the sheet music above, also has a wonderfully erudite discussion about the origin of “honky tonk,” which I found fascinating.

Here is the start of the chorus:

Come honey, let’s go down,
to honky-tonky town.
It’s underneath the ground,
where all the fun is found.
There’ll be singing waiters,
singing syncopaters,
dancing to piano played by Mister Brown.
He plays piano queer,
he always plays by ear.
The music that you hear,
just makes you stay a year.

(At this point the variant versions became too deep for me to delve into without a paid sabbatical, but you get the idea — an inducement to good times.)

Here’s the quite hot instrumental version created belowstairs by Terry Waldo, piano; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Jim Fryer, trombone; Evan Arntzen, clarinet; Brian Nalepka, string bass; John Gill, banjo; Jay Lepley, drums:

The temperature is in the nineties today, so we don’t need anyone to get us hotter, but this will be homeopathically salutary, and you can also watch it next winter to keep heating costs down.

May your happiness increase!

DESIRE (SUPPRESSED) and PASSION (SECRET), THEN and NOW

Does popular art follow high art, or the reverse, or are the coincidences simply coincidental?  In 1915, Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook premiered a play, SUPPRESSED DESIRES; 1924, Eugene O’Neill’s DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS; 1929, Dali’s THE ACCOMODATIONS OF DESIRE.  PASSION had always been part of the cultural vocabulary, so no need to search out appearances in the Twenties.  A graduate student in early modernist popular culture would probably trace some of this to Havelock Ellis, Theodoor Hendrik Van de Velde, and others writing for a curious public.  I don’t doubt that Dr. Freud is behind all this in some way, also.

I know that the stereotypical idea of pop songwriters is cigar-smoking fellows looking to make money off the latest craze, but it is possible that some of those brilliant tunesmiths read something in the paper besides the sports pages.  Make what you will of the synchronicity or the coincidence, these two songs, HE’S MY SECRET PASSION and MY SUPPRESSED DESIRE enjoyed some fame in that year, the second creation even featured in a film where I would think little was suppressed.

I’ve known MY SUPPRESSED DESIRE for years through the Bing Crosby – Harry Barris – Al Rinker recording, a series of small hot comedic playlets unfolding one after another:

Bing’s “Tell it!” at 1:35 is a favorite moment, and I like the way the recording morphs through moods and tempos — a whole stage show in miniature, with the introduction coming around as the conclusion, and the rocking intensity of Bing’s last bridge.

Here’s a very pleasing Goldkette-styled version by Abe Lyman’s California Orchestra:

There are several excellent contemporary dance band versions of this song — by Coon-Sanders Nighthawks, Verne Buck, and Lud Gluskin — which I leave to you to find on YouTube, because for me the Rhythm Boys’ version blots all the others out.

Now (thanks to Jonathan David Holmes) I have a new recording of HE’S MY SECRET PASSION by The Four Bright Sparks, my favorite new band name, to share with you.  I find the instrumental combination of clarinet, xylophone, guitar, drums, and piano entrancing, and Queenie Leonard’s slightly emphatic singing is also charming.  Discographer Tom Lord sniffs, “The above was a studio group but they played straight dance music and nearly never featured hot solo work,” a classic example of jazz-snobbery:

And here is Marion Harris’ impossibly tender reading of PASSION:

Showing that passion has living validity in this century also, Barbara Rosene and friends (among others, Conal Fowkes, Michael Hashim, Pete Martinez, Brian Nalepka, and Craig Ventresco) in 2007:

Barbara, Conal Fowkes, and Danny Tobias will be performing at Mezzrow on West Tenth Street in New York City on June 13.  Her shows are always delightful, and, yes, attendance will be taken.

Attentive textual explicators will note that these are not the same song at all: the singer of PASSION is wistful and hopeful that an introduction can be arranged and great things will result, where the singer of SUPPRESSED notes accurately that the Object of Desire belongs to someone else, which is an entirely different situation.  But these recordings and the songs are atypically cheerful — no one is lamenting that the opportunity has passed forever.  For listeners, we hope for the best: gratified passion, reciprocated desire.

May your happiness increase!

NEW YORK CAKE: TERRY WALDO, EVAN ARNTZEN, JON-ERIK KELLSO, BRIAN NALEPKA, JIM FRYER, JOHN GILL, JAY LEPLEY at FAT CAT (January 29, 2017)

Not this (announced as “the best New York style cheesecake):

but a hot version of the song immortalized in 1924 and 1925 by Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, Bessie Smith and others, CAKE WALKIN’ BABIES FROM HOME.  This is my second CAKE post: the first, presenting two hot performances by Dave Kosymna, Christopher Smith, Ray Heitger, Nicole Heitger, James Dapogny, and Pete Siers (all deftly captured by Laura Wyman) may be visited here.

But my experience of New York and New  Yorkers — even from the suburbs, what Flaubert would call the provinces — is that we don’t like to take second place to anyone or anything.  And in a cake walking contest, second place is noplace.

So here’s the New York version, created a month earlier at Fat Cat (75 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village) by Terry Waldo and the Gotham City Band, who were on that Sunday Evan Arntzen, Jon-Erik Kellso, Jim Fryer, Jay Lepley, Brian Nalepka, John Gill.  Consider for yourselves:

I won’t ask viewers to set up mock combat between Ohio and New York: all those cakes and contests are beautiful and hot.

May your happiness increase!

REBUKING THE DEACON: TERRY WALDO’S GOTHAM CITY BAND: TERRY WALDO, JON-ERIK KELLSO, JIM FRYER, EVAN ARNTZEN, JOHN GILL, BRIAN NALEPKA, JAY LEPLEY at FAT CAT (January 29, 2017)

Some might know W.C. Handy’s AUNT HAGAR’S BLUES as one of the ancient classics — a multi-strain composition, hallowed through decades of performance. But the lyrics tell a deep story: here is an approximate transcription of what Louis sang on the 1954 Columbia session honoring Handy (that recording the precious gift of the far-seeing George Avakian):

Old Deacon Splivin his flock was givin’ the way of livin’ right, yes
Said he, “No wingin’, no ragtime singin’, tonight,” yes
Up jumped Aunt Hagar and shouted out with all her might
All her might.

She said, “Oh, ain’t no use to preachin’
Oh, ain’t no use to teachin’.

Each modulation of syncopation
Just tells my feet to dance and I can’t refuse
When I hear the melody they call the blues, those ever lovin’ blues.”

Just hear Aunt Hagar’s children harmonizin’ to that old mournful tune.
It’s like a choir from on high broke loose, amen
If the Devil brought it, the good Lord sent it right down to me
Let the congregation join while I sing those lovin’ Aunt Hagar’s blues.

Even in 2017, the Deacon is still waggling his bony finger at us, and even when the lyrics to AUNT HAGAR’S BLUES aren’t sung, you can hear Aunt’s triumph.  A convincing example took place downstairs at Fat Cat (75 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village, New York) on Sunday, January 29, 2017, when Terry Waldo’s Gotham City Band played the song.  The hot philosophers sending the message are Terry, Jon-Erik Kellso, John Gill, Brian Nalepka, Jay Lepley, Jim Fryer, Evan Arntzen:

The message is clear.  When faced with those who would preach denial of life, always choose joy, no matter who tries to direct your course.  I’m with Aunt Hagar.

May your happiness increase!

PIPING HOT, EXPERTLY PREPARED: TERRY WALDO, JON-ERIK KELLSO, JIM FRYER, EVAN ARNTZEN, JOHN GILL, BRIAN NALEPKA, JAY LEPLEY at FAT CAT (January 29, 2017)

WEARY BLUES was written in 1915 by Artie Matthews as a ragtime piece, and the earliest recording we have (I believe) is this quite warm and well-seasoned  1919 rendition by the Louisiana Five:

Then it was recorded by many people — it’s terribly catchy with many breaks and it has a natural momentum.  I will only offer this piece of history, because my feeling everyone should know this hot record by heart:

But this blog isn’t about archaeology; rather, it’s about gratifying music performed NOW.  Down in the basement of Fat Cat (75 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village, New York City) on Sunday, January 29, 2017, Terry Waldo and his Gotham City Band created something beautiful and blazing hot out of WEARY BLUES.  The cooks were Terry, piano; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Jim Fryer, trombone; Evan Arntzen, reeds; John Gill, banjo; Brian Nalepka, string bass; Jay Lepley, drums.

The savory dish, herewith:

Why do I live in New York?  Many reasons, but the possibility of wandering down the stairs on a late Sunday afternoon, making my way through young people focused on beer, ping pong, billiards, conversation, and hearing THAT is one of the chief reasons to be here and stay here.

For my readers: may the most heavy WEARY BLUES you ever feel be just this light upon your heart.

May your happiness increase!

“FOX TROT, VOCAL CHORUS”: JIM FRYER, EVAN ARNTZEN, BRIAN NALEPKA with TERRY WALDO, JAY LEPLEY, JOHN GILL, JON-ERIK KELLSO at FAT CAT (Jan. 29, 2017)

Even if they don’t have trained voices, the instrumental soloists I know tend to be really convincing singers, often with a loose, sleeves-rolled up approach to the song, which, by its casualness, conceals a real understanding of melody, rhythm, and how to “sell a song.”  (And sometimes the most under-documented singers are the most affecting: Basie, muttering his way through HARVARD BLUES, Hawkins emoting on LOVE CRIES, Carter wooing us with SYNTHETIC LOVE.)

Musicians know that bursting into song delights an audience (if it’s not offered on every performance) and it rests tired lips and hands. Here are three wonderful examples from a Sunday afternoon session by Terry Waldo, Jon-Erik Kellso, Jim Fryer, Evan Arntzen, Brian Nalepka, John Gill, and Jay Lepley — January 29, 2017).  I will point out that everyone in this band has been known to warble a chorus, but today I am concentrating on Messrs. Fryer, Arntzen, and Nalepka — all of whom have sung in performance and the recording studio.

And since so much of American pop music of the last century and more takes romance as its subject, here are three very different love songs: the first a chronicle of deprivation (“I’d love to join the fun but they bar me.”) the second a narrative of how serendipity made for great love (“I kept buying china / Until the crowd got wise.”) and the last a happy description of mutual adoration (“My baby don’t care who knows it.”)

Jim Fryer chronicles romantic woes, Lombardo / Louis style on SWEETHEARTS ON PARADE:

Evan Arntzen reminds us of Bing, 1931, incidentally, with I FOUND A MILLION DOLLAR BABY (IN A FIVE-AND-TEN CENT STORE):

and Brian Nalepka tells the truth (ask Mary Shaughnessy), MY BABY JUST CARES FOR ME:

These frolics happen most Sunday afternoons at Fat Cat, 75 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village, New York City (take the #1 train to Christopher Street / Sheridan Square).

May your happiness increase!

THANKS FOR THE SWING! (TERRY WALDO, JIM FRYER, EVAN ARNTZEN, JOHN GILL, BRIAN NALEPKA, JAY LEPLEY at FAT CAT, January 29, 2017)

When it’s good, you can tell right off. And this — recorded at Fat Cat, at 75 Christopher Street, New York City, is good.

While Terry and Company were waiting for everyone to arrive on Sunday, January 29, 2017, they gently launched in to this 1927 Rodgers and Hart classic — once only a new pop song — and created some very fine and spiritually moving vibrations. The creators? Terry Waldo, piano; Jim Fryer, trombone; Evan Arntzen, clarinet; John Gill, banjo; Brian Nalepka, string bass; Jay Lepley, drums.

Music like this improves the world.  Blessings on you, gentlemen.

And a rather sour postscript, which has nothing to do with the glorious music presented here.  This video ends up on YouTube, my cosmic megaphone to broadcast the joy that others create.  But many people who post comments on YouTube do so to complain.  “The video is too dark.  The crowd is too noisy.  One of the musicians is not up to my high standards.”

My imagined response is, at its most polite, “Dear Sir (it’s always a male writer!), such complaining is rather like pointing to the wonderful free dinner, made for you by a world-renowned chef, and refusing to eat it because it is on what you think is the wrong china. Since the internet has made most people think that everything is free, and that their often tactless expressions of taste are true criticism, I simply sigh.”

Insert loud sigh here.  Now I will enjoy the video again, to be uplifted by the generous mastery of these musicians.

May your happiness increase! 

“IRISH BLACK BOTTOM”: TERRY WALDO, JON-ERIK KELLSO, JIM FRYER, EVAN ARNTZEN, JOHN GILL, BRIAN NALEPKA, JAY LEPLEY (Fat Cat, January 29, 2017)

No, this isn’t an early celebration of Saint Patrick, nor is it a lesson in North American vernacular dance.  A week ago today, I had the delightful good fortune of being in the basement known as Fat Cat (75 Christopher Street) to hear Terry Waldo’s Gotham City Band — Terry, piano; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Jim Fryer, trombone; Evan Arntzen, clarinet; John Gill, banjo; Brian Nalepka, string bass; Jay Lepley, drums.  And one of the lively excursions into hot archaeology that they offered was Percy Venable’s novelty number, IRISH BLACK BOTTOM, premiered by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five in Chicago in 1926.  For the full history of this song and that performance, read on in Ricky Riccardi’s quite magnificent Louis blog.

And now, from 1926 to 2017, with a performance calculated to warm you more efficiently than heated seats in a new car:

The genial joyousness of that performance could win anyone over, even without the history.  But I also post this musical episode to reiterate a point.  Many “jazz critics” see the chronological advance of the music as one improvement succeeding another: Roy Eldridge was more “sophisticated” than Louis, Charlie Parker more than Roy, Miles and Trane and Ornette even more so. “Sophisticated” is a weighted word, especially when the appearance of complexity is taken as the highest good.  But for those who look at “Dixieland” as simple, I’d suggest that even a tune as lightweight as IRISH BLACK BOTTOM has its own sophistication, its own complicated routine, and it is not something one could pick up at one hearing, the Real Book notwithstanding.  Court adjourned.

May your happiness increase!

MISTER LIPSKIN PAYS A VISIT BELOWSTAIRS (Dec. 18, 2016): MIKE LIPSKIN, JON-ERIK KELLSO, JIM FRYER, EVAN ARNTZEN, JOHN GILL, BRIAN NALEPKA, JAY LEPLEY (a/k/a TERRY WALDO’S GOTHAM CITY BAND at FAT CAT)

Pianist / vocalist / scholar / composer Terry Waldo leads his Gotham City Band several Sunday afternoons every month (from about 5:45 to 8) at Fat Cat, 75 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, New York City.

Fat Cat is an unusual jazz club, even considering that it is roughly parallel to two other basement shrines, Smalls and Mezzrow: Greenwich Village’s answer to the long-gone Swing Street.  A large sprawling room, it is filled with the furniture one would expect from a college student union: ping pong tables, pool tables, and the like.  One may play these games for $6 / hour and many young people do.  The bar also offers homemade pomegranate soda for $3, a remarkable boon.  Another distinctive feature of this establishment is the singular adhesiveness of their low couches: once I sit down, I drop below sea level, and know I will arise only at the end of the last set after embarrassing flailing.)

On this Sunday, Terry’s band was particularly noble: Jay Lepley, drums; John Gill, banjo; Brian Nalepka, string bass; Evan Arntzen, clarinet and soprano; Jim Fryer, trombone; Jon-Erik Kellso, cornet instead of his usual horn.  Terry had been leading the group in his usual cheerful egalitarian fashion.  Then I saw a distinctly recognizable fellow — musician and friend — appear to my left.  It was the Sage of several states (California and Arizona), friend and protege of Willie the Lion Smith . . . Mister Michael Lipskin, known to himself and us as Mike.  He asked Terry if he could play a few . . . and he did, shifting the repertoire to two numbers rarely called in such ensembles (by Ray Noble and by Ellington) with splendid results.  And here they are:

THE VERY THOUGHT OF  YOU (at a very Thirties rhythm-ballad tempo, entirely charming):

I’M BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT:

The latter title may be slightly ironic given the intense belowstairs darkness of Fat Cat, but the music shines brightly.

May your happiness increase!

“A PUPPY-DOG AT PLAY”: EVAN ARNTZEN with TERRY WALDO, JON-ERIK KELLSO, JIM FRYER, JOHN GILL, BRIAN NALEPKA, JAY LEPLEY at FAT CAT (December 18, 2016)

Everyone knows Evan Arntzen as one of the quietly dazzling instrumental virtuosi of our time, but we might not recognize him as a sweetly compelling storyteller.  Here he brings a Twenties pastoral to that least pastoral of spaces, Fat Cat (75 Christopher Street) making that cavernous student union – rec room into a bosky dell, 1924 style, thanks also to Mister Berlin:

May your happiness increase!

THE NALEPKA FAMILY MUSICALE: BRIAN NALEPKA, NORA NALEPKA, TERRY WALDO, JOHN GILL, JAY LEPLEY, JON-ERIK KELLSO, JIM FRYER, EVAN ARNTZEN (FAT CAT, December 18, 2016)

Talent runs in the family, they say.  And in this case, they’re right.  Brian Nalepka, string bassist, tubaist, accordionist, singer, and sage jester, is someone I admire: when he’s on the scene, I know the beat will be there too, and it will be swinging.  His wife, Mary Shaughnessy, doesn’t sing; nor, as far as I know, does daughter Ella.  But Nora Nalepka does, and she’s very good at it.  This isn’t a post about swing nepotism, but one about music.

On the most recent appearance of Terry Waldo’s Gotham City Band at Fat Cat (75 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village, New York City) — Sunday, December 18, 2016 — I was there to document and enjoy not one, but two Nalepka musical offerings.

Here’s Brian — “asking the musical question” HOW YA GONNA KEEP ‘EM DOWN ON THE FARM?, a Walter Donaldson melody and one of the witty and relevant hits of 1919, after the Great War had ended. His colleagues are Terry Waldo, piano; John Gill, banjo; Jay Lepley, drums; Jon-Erik Kellso, cornet (for the occasion); Jim Fryer, trombone; Evan Arntzen, reeds.  If you haven’t noticed it this far, Brian is not only a great rhythm player and soloist, but he is that most rare thing, a swinging entertainer.

Nora — more modern, a child of the late twentieth century — picked a more “contemporary” song . . . from 1934: the Nacio Herb Brown – Arthur Freed ALL I DO IS DREAM OF  YOU, which many of us know from its delightful part in the 1952 film SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN.

and, for a reason, here is the first page of that folio:

Although this sweet song is a love ballad, most bands and singers take it at a brisk tempo, which flattens its yearning appeal.  Note “Slowly (with expression),” which is the way Nora sings it.

She knows how to convey feeling; she improvises gently; she swings.  Not surprising, perhaps, but immensely pleasing.

This is my second Nora-sighting (I wish it would happen bi-annually at the very least); here is my first, eleven months ago, her sweet rendition of I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH ME.

And — a secret pleasure — the phrase that Terry improvises on in his solo is Jess Stacy’s introduction to the issued take of DIANE (Commodore, 1938) featuring Jack Teagarden.  Years of obsessive listening pay off.

Dear Ms. Nalepka, if you plan to make a CD — call it, perhaps, NORA NALEPKA SINGS ANCIENT SONGS OF LOVE — let me know and I’ll contribute to the crowdfunding.  And Father Brian, keep on doin’ what you’re doin’!

May your happiness increase!