“More than just books”: Eric Whittington’s Bird & Beckett Books (652 Chenery Street, San Francisco, California) is a delightful sanctuary for art, for poetry, for music. And certainly jazz.
July 5, 2022 was an exciting and rare appearance by four of the finest under the banner of RAY SKJELBRED AND HIS CUBS: Ray Skjelbred, piano, vocal; Marc Caparone, cornet; Clint Baker, string bass; Jeff Hamilton, drums.
They play and sing:
BLUE AIR BLUES (Ray’s selection of a strain from Sidney Bechet’s BLUES IN THEAIR) / Fats Waller’s THAT RHYTHM MAN / Hines’ ROSETTA, vocal by Ray / SOMEDAY SWEETHEART, homage to Joe Sullivan and Bing / ONE SWEET LETTER FROM YOU for Lionel and friends / NOBODY’SSWEETHEART for the Chicagoans / MEMORIES OF YOU for everyone who has memories of Eubie, Louis, Benny, and more / Ray commends the band / OH, BABY! also for the Chicagoans / an intermission / James P. Johnson’s OLD-FASHIONED LOVE / SPECIAL DELIVERY BLUES for Barbara Dane / WHO’S SORRY NOW? for the Blue Note Jazzmen and others / WAITING AT THE END OF THE ROAD for Bing and Berlin and my friends too / I NEVER KNEW for Benny Carter, Pres, and Berkeley Rhythm / PEG O’MY HEART for Miff Mole / Bubber Miley’s IT DON’T MEAN A THING (IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT SWING) and closing with James P.’s A PORTER’S LOVE SONG TO A CHAMBERMAID //
Music that’s at once subversive and very direct, with bold statements and tender little explosions. If you can hear the lovely densities, you are tuned to the correct astral channel; if you can’t at first, listen again. And those who are uplifted, as I am, might consider sending a few cyber-lettuce leaves to the sites listed above. Pussycats need food and water; musicians and venues, also.
Probably most readers have never heard of this band, although the names of Wayne Jones, Frank Chace, Ted Butterman, and perhaps Ransom Knowling will be familiar. I don’t know how I got in touch with Wayne, who died in 2013, but we shared a deep love of clarinetist Frank Chace, so we traded a few cassettes. Incidentally, several organizations call themselves by this name, but the one you will hear existed in Chicago in the first half of the 1960s.
Before I proceed, take a few minutes to remember Wayne — man and musician, recalled so well and affectionately by the fine drummer and writer Hal Smith here. Two of the three cassettes Wayne sent me were by the GOLD COAST JAZZ BAND, recorded on Mondays (an off-night) at the famous and now-departed folk-music club, “Gate of Horn,” on Dearborn Street in Chicago.
(If you’d like to hear more from and about the Gold Coast delegates of joy, John Clark’s podcast about the band with four performances from slightly later incarnations can be enjoyed here.)
But our focus today is a very vibrant recording of two sets by a particularly vibrant 1961 band: Ted Butterman, cornet; Peter Nyegaard, trombone; Frank Chace, clarinet (possibly subbing for Kim Cusack); Art Gronwall, piano; Bob Sundstrom, banjo and vocal on ALL BY MYSELF; Ransom Knowling, string bass; Wayne Jones, drums. Ted and Bob were co-leaders of the band. The songs are SMILES / ROYAL GARDEN BLUES / I WANT A LITTLE GIRL / BLUES MY NAUGHTY SWEETIE GIVES TO ME / ALL OF ME (Chace’s melody chorus!) / NOBODY’S SWEETHEART (with Condon “Town Hall” breaks at end) // SOUTH / INDIANA / HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO? / ALL BY MYSELF (Sundstrom, vocal) / I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS:
The tape shows us a remarkable bunch of hot players, their improvisations free from cliche but full of personality. I am struck beyond words by Frank Chace’s lyrical courage and singularity, but the energy level is superb throughout, the swing, the inventiveness. Wonderful ensemble work, inventive solos, and a trotting rhythm section: a small treasure. I wrote a recent post [“WHO KILLED HISTORY?”] urging listeners and musicians to be curious; you might know none of the names of the players, but you will be entranced by this band sixteen bars in to the first selection.
There’s more to come from another evening with this band (with surprise guests), the following Monday night: a gift from the generous Wayne Jones, who lives on in sound and spirit.
Were you to call me a “hoarder,” I would be insulted, but I have been hoarding lovely treasures — previously unseen performance videos — since March 12, 2020, which was the last jazz gig I attended. One of the treasures I dug up recently is a set played and sung by Ray Skjelbred and his Cubs at 2015 the San Diego Jazz Fest: Ray, piano and vocal; Kim Cusack, clarinet; Jeff Hamilton, drums, Clint Baker, string bass; Katie Cavera, guitar, with a guest appearance by Marc Caparone, cornet, on the closing song.
I’d held off on these because my place in the room didn’t allow me to see Ray at the keyboard — a pleasure I always want — and the lighting person, believing that jazz is best played in semi-darkness, had made everyone purple. Whether it was allegiance to the Lake Isle of Innisfree or a secret love of Barney the dinosaur, I didn’t ask, but it was visually unnerving.
The music, however, was and is delightful.
I missed the first bars of James P. Johnson’s AIN’T ‘CHA GOT MUSIC? — but such lapses are, I hope, forgivable:
Many vintage jazz fans know YOU’RE SOME PRETTY DOLL in George Brunies’ UGLY CHILE — but this version has no mockery in it:
Ray loves the optimistic song LIVIN’ IN A GREAT BIG WAY (from the 1935 KING OF BURLESQUE, and so do we. Bring back the New Deal!
Marc Caparone, cornet, always welcome, joins in for I FOUND A NEW BABY, what George Avakian would call “the final blow-off”:
I know I’m out of my depth when I resort to sports metaphors, but these Cubs always win the game. Bless them, and I hope to see a Reunion.
I’ve been reading liberally in the jazz-fan groups on Facebook, which (as I’ve suggested in an earlier post) might be my first error. But several reactions to the music I and others love caught my eye and I could not walk away from them. I characterize these reflex actions as ENTHUSIASTIC “ANALYSIS”.
A recent example: a fan posted a YouTube video of a band performing and recording in New Orleans, c. 1928, with this commentary: Surely this is how a true vintage New Orleans band sounds. Later, a second fan responded: As I understand it, with bands started soloing like that they started calling at Chicago Jazz [.] Fortunately, I no longer teach English for a living and thus would not comment “PROOFREAD!” on the second fellow’s analysis, but the first fan wanted to straighten the second one out: This band never left N.O. Chicago Jazz really started with the white groups that played in Chicago in the 30’s line Muggsy Spanier.
At this point the room started to spin in a most unpleasing way. Rejecting my usual prudence, I wrote: So musicians who played jazz in Chicago in the Twenties weren’t playing “Chicago jazz”? Music is larger than labels. The musicians themselves never called what they were playing these names: these names are inventions of fans and critics, and they are artificial. And to label “schools” of music by race is really not a good idea and never was. My prose was not greeted with shouts of “Yeah you rite!” No one offered to buy me a drink.
But I think the first few assertions are so restrictive that they deserve a few perhaps didactic sentences. I do not set myself up as an Oracle, mind you, but I find narrowness of perspective troubling.
If I were to expand on the original assertions above, they might be:
Authentic New Orleans jazz was an ensemble music performed in that city by Black musicians. Solos were not part of it. When the music opened up to solos, it conveniently changed its name from “New Orleans jazz” to “Chicago jazz.” Then, the final metamorphosis happened when White people who lived in Chicago — including Mr. Spanier — started playing “Chicago jazz.”
I find several problems here, as my comment indicates. First, as someone before me wisely said, it is unlikely that any group of jazz musicians went into a recording studio, and before the downbeat, heard the leader say, “Well, fellows, now we are going to play a piece of music that will define ‘New Orleans jazz’ for all time.” I presume it is more likely that they said, “Let’s try that new tune, and don’t mess up the breaks in the first chorus, all right?”
Musicians play, and played MUSIC. Fans and journalists and “critics” invented names for the ways they thought the music sounded, and from that impulse came divisiveness, theorizing, and other expenditures of energy that may have diverted people from actually listening to the music.
Second, we must acknowledge stylistic cross-pollination. “White Chicago jazz” comes directly from “Black New Orleans jazz,” and Mr. Spanier would tell you that his inspirations were King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. He openly acknowledged his reverent debt to them, by the way, so this is not about Muggsy the Cultural Pillager.
Third, jazz lends itself to wonderful examples of creative people who went their own way. An electric guitar on a 1941 Sidney Bechet record? Louis Armstrong recording popular songs and comic numbers in 1926? And, going back to the asphyxiating categories of New Orleans and Chicago jazz . . . Jelly Roll Morton, a self-defined Creole who, according to his sister Frances, was Jewish, would have been classified as “colored,” He came to Chicago and recorded his Red Hot Peppers with a preponderance of New Orleans musicians — Chicago jazz or New Orleans jazz? They had solos AND they had written passages. They are larger than any category, except if you want to have a large box labeled EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC?
I offer a musical example, and I wish people could listen to it blindfolded.
If you had to characterize or anatomize this, say, for a prize on a quiz show, what would you call it? The gracious gentleman who posted it describes it thusly: Early NO revival recorded in NY in 1946 and played in the true original No style some lovely mortonesque piano by Don Ewell with Bunk on trumpet and Alphonse Steele drums [.]
Again, it’s slippery. IN THE GLOAMING is an Irish song from 1877: perhaps someone wants to call this “folk-jazz”? Bunk Johnson, Black, from New Orleans: if you give the horn player primacy, this is “New Orleans jazz.” But it was recorded in New York. The annotator wants it both ways — it’s “Early NO revival” “in the true original No style.” But there are solos: the trio does not play ensemble throughout. The pianist, White Don Ewell from Baltimore, plays “lovely mortonesque piano,” but does that make the record less “authentic” because of the White Maryland infusion? I confess that I could not find out where Alphonse Steele was born — my books ignore him — but I am guessing he was Black, and he recorded in New York with Henry “Red” Allen and Billie Holiday. So was he a New York Swing Era jazz musician?
From whence comes this intense urge to classify, to label, to dissect?
Digression: I won’t even touch the vitriolic discussions of “authenticity” and which “style” of playing — insert beloved and vilified band names here — people prefer. Very few people seem willing or perhaps able to distinguish between “I like this band. They sound good to me.” and “This is the best band that ever was and anyone who doesn’t like them is an ignorant moron” (Facebook encourages the highest kind of discourse, such as — a direct quote, “Lol u are insane.”)
Could all the jazz fans who have this urge to stuff the music in airless labeled boxes learn this 1906 Bert Williams song and let it guide them?
Ultimately, I think this slicing-and-dicing, weighing and measuring, does the music no good. I think of Lennie and the mouse in OF MICE AND MEN.
But of course I am wrong: I accept that. I will sleep better knowing it.
I’m thrilled that there are some people I know and hold dear who are doing what I do — documenting the jazz scene with video cameras and a respect for the music and musicians. I may leave someone out, but first among them, Laura Wyman of Wyman Video and Eric Devine of CineDevine, and my esteemed California role model, Rae Ann Hopkins Berry.
To this list I now add the brilliant string bassist and very effective videographer Matt Weiner. I’d heard and admired his playing on Jacob Zimmerman’s MORE OF THAT and I got to see him on video in a January 2019 performance here. He may be mildly shocked by being the center of attention, but once you see the evidence you will understand why he deserves the bright lights and bouquets.
Going back a bit, I don’t recall seeing this announcement for a trio performance at Seattle’s Kenyon Hall:
My ignorance was all to the good, because I would have whined and sulked, “I can’t be there to hear or video this music. How can they do this to me?” But Matt rescued me — and now you — from such dolorous utterances by not only recording nine selections by this wondrous trio but sending them to me, and thus to us.
Hence, delights. If you don’t know the Masters here, Skjelbred and Zimmerman, you have fallen behind on your blog-homework and will be sent to blog-detention. Matt is a noble member of this trio. The videos below should unfold as a set of glories: lyrical, tender, hot, wise, and heartfelt. A rare and lasting gift.
I had a wonderful time last weekend at the one-day jazz festival — the little party thrown by the Juvae Jazz Society in Decatur, Illinois. Friendly kind people, hot music, sweet sounds, and good feelings in the Flatland.
The two bands I made the trek to hear are Petra van Nuis’ Recession Seven (more about them soon) and the Chicago Cellar Boys: Andy Schumm, cornet, clarinet, tenor saxophone, arrangements; John Otto, clarinet, alto saxophone; Paul Asaro, piano, vocals; Dave Bock, tuba; Johnny Donatowicz, banjo, guitar.
Andy made his name with most jazz audiences (I saw him, with Dave Bock, first in 2007, alongside Dan Barrett at Jazz at Chautauqua) as a hot cornetist, the closest thing to “the dear boy” possible. But in the intervening years, he’s branched out to embody a whole variety of cornet styles, and he’s also shown himself to be a fine tenor player in the Jack Pettis mold, and a spectacular clarinetist, evoking Tesch, Mezz, and Jimmie. That’s Teschemacher, Mezzrow, and Noone for the newcomers.
The last fellow on that list — facetiously called “Jimmie No-One” by Kenny Davern, who loved his playing, is our subject today. Noone’s little Apex Club band featured himself on clarinet, Doc Poston on alto, Earl Hines on piano, Bud Scott on banjo, Johnny Wells on drums, and Lawson Buford or Bill Newton on tuba. This little band’s most remarkable trademark was the interplay between Noone and Poston, who had worked with Freddie Keppard and Doc Cook earlier. Incidentally, I’m told that the Apex Club was at 330 East 35th Street on the South Side of Chicago. Here is a current view of that address, not inspiring. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Even though the architecture is obliterated, the music remains, so here are the Chicago Cellar Boys becoming the Apex Club Orchestra on two selections — one unrelated to Noone, the other a direct hit.
EL RADO SCUFFLE was in the band’s book, and I read somewhere that the club Noone’s group was working at was the El Dorado, but some letters were missing from the sign or some lights didn’t function. If that was the Scuffle or something larger I can’t know: create your own stories to this soundtrack:
I associate KEEP SMILING AT TROUBLE with Bunny Berigan, Bud Freeman, Joe Marsala, Vic Lewis, Eddie Condon, Jim Goodwin and Ray Skjelbred, Marty Grosz, Bobby Gordon, Dan Levinson — so it is a song with a wonderful pedigree. Here the Cellar Boys are already grinning, and Trouble has left the building — Trouble don’t like verses:
Sometimes it feels lonely up here on the mountaintop — as if I’m the only one doing what I do, proselytizing and broadcasting heartfelt improvised music (modern-traditional-lyrical-Hot-call-it-whatever-you-like). But I know that’s not true, and I am always getting reassuring surprises from the cyber-world.
It’s a long, beautifully video-ed and recorded live session by the Chicago Cellar Boys (the link is to their new website) — the more recent band-within-a-band of The Fat Babies, at Studio 5. (They appear every Sunday night at the Honly Tonk BBQ in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.)
The Chicago Cellar Boys take their name from a 1930 group that had Frank Melrose, Wingy Manone, Frank Teschemacher, Bud Freeman, George Wettling. (Now Tom Lord says that the accordionist is Charles Magnante, which makes so much more sense than “Charles Melrose” — but I digress.)
The CCB are Andy Schumm, cornet, clarinet, tenor sax; John Otto, clarinet, alto sax; John Donatowicz, banjo, guitar; Paul Asaro, piano, vocals; Dave Bock, tuba. And they are a wonderful mix of hot music, dance tunes, pop hilarity, arranged passages and “charts,” and delicious improvisations.
I won’t list the songs played — you can find the blisses and surprises for yourself — because I want to be sure to get this boon out to as many people as I can right now. Thanks to the band, to Steve Rashid, and to Studio 5 for making such a wonderful explosion of art accessible to all of us:
The CCB will also be at this November’s San Diego Jazz Fest, so if I can fight my way to a seat in the front, there might be other videos. And I understand they have made their first recording. “Wow wow wow!” as my friend and role model Anna Katsavos still says.
Here is the first part of the video interviews I did with the Esteemed Mister Cusack — a great deal of fun, good anecdotes, well-told, and new information about everyone from George Brunis to Phyllis Diller: a great honor and pleasure for me. Here’s the second part.
The first six segments were moderately autobiographical, but Kim doesn’t revel in himself as the only subject. So in the videos you will see below, my request had been for Kim to talk of people he’d encountered and played with whom we might otherwise not have known, although some of the players are well-known to those who relish the music: Barrett Deems, James Dapogny, Truck Parham, Little Brother Montgomery. Good stories, seriously rewarding insights not only into people but also into “the business,” including the Chicago underworld.
I’ll let the videos speak for themselves, as Kim does so well.
Norm Murphy and Frank Chace:
Art Gronwald and Little Brother Montgomery (this is for Ethan Leinwand):
Bobby Ballard, Bob Skiver, Floyd Bean:
Smokey Stover and Truck Parham:
Bob Cousins, Wayne Jones, Barrett Deems:
and finally for that afternoon, Kim’s portrait of our hero Jim Dapogny:
I hope to visit Delavan, Wisconsin, again — to delight in the company of Kim and Ailene Cusack and Lacey, too. And who knows what treasures I might bring back for you?
Have you heard this recently, this ecstatic sustained outpouring of wise joys?
You can read the names off the record label before the music starts, so I don’t have to name the divine figures.
I nearly drowned in an online discussion this morning — what is the difference between “New Orleans jazz” and “Dixieland”? That dangerous question quickly branched off into definitions of “Chicago jazz” and “true traditional jazz,” with small mutterings about “two-beat” and “four-beat.”
Gentlemen (for they were all male), these names were not invented by musicians. From what I’ve seen in practice, the Ancestors did not go on the job or into the record studio and say, “Well, fellows, now we are about to create three minutes — or ten minutes — of Authentic _____________ (insert divisive name here).”
They might have said, “Here’s a song we love. Here’s a good old good one,” but usually they referred to what they were doing as “playing music,” or — when things got too divisive — as “our music.”
(At this point, someone will expect me to repeat what Eddie Condon or Duke Ellington said about music. I won’t. My audience already knows those quotations by heart.)
I backed away from the online discussion because my GP is trying to get my blood pressure down, and such conversations are not good for me. But I think of it this way: if your birthday present comes in a box wrapped with newspaper, and the present pleases you, do you need to obsess on the newspaper?
The nomenclature was invented by clubowners, record companies, journalists — to sell a product. Music might be made into a product, but it is essentially a heartfelt personal creation, and arguing about the names for it ultimately has little to do with the art. And such arguments fragment what is already a small audience.
So . . . call it what you will, if you must. But realize that names are not the reality of what we cherish when we hear or play it. And perhaps you might want to listen to that sainted recording once again.
P.S. For once, I am going to exert imperial privilege — my blog is like my house, and if guests behave badly, I point them to the door. So negative comments will not see the light. And now, I am going into Manhattan — below Fourteenth Street — to savor some music.
I love this little band. There! I’ve said it. Kris Tokarski, piano; Hal Smith, drums; Andy Schumm, cornet and clarinet. Snug Harbor, New Orleans, September 25, 2016.
HOT CLASSICISM is on the move! And this posting is in honor of Brother Hal, for many reasons, obvious and otherwise.
FORGET-ME-NOT (with ties to Bix and Whiteman):
SUNDAY (from 1927 on, a reliable mood-improver):
STOMP OFF, LET’S GO! (thanks to Erskine Tate and that chubby young man from Back O’Town):
SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE (a dance we all love — more about it here):
ANGRY (not really, just excited, courtesy of the NORK):
HOT CLASSICISM is the name adopted by Kris Tokarski, piano; Andy Schumm, cornet and clarinet; Hal Smith, drums. I am proud to know them and happy to hear them. This is the second part of their set on the Steamboat Natchez during the 2016 Steamboat Stomp; here is the first.
What follows is another lively tour of all the shadings of hot, inspired by the heroes of Chicago, New Orleans, New York, and elsewhere — precision without stuffiness, eagerness without chaos. The repertoire is classic but not exhausted, and the performances are vibrant.
NOBODY’S SWEETHEART NOW:
MISTER JOE:
JUST GONE:
MY GAL SAL:
TOM CAT BLUES (a duet for Andy and Kris):
STOMP OFF, LET’S GO!:
Wonderful cohesive inspired music. Follow Kris, Hal, and Andy on Facebook to track down their next gigs.
What’s hot, has six legs, and floats? Easy. HOT CLASSICISM, the trio of Kris Tokarski, piano; Andy Schumm, cornet and clarinet; Hal Smith, drums, when they’re on board the steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi River — in this case, Saturday, September 23, 2016, as part of last year’s Steamboat Stomp. But you knew the answer already. (And in the name of accuracy, they float even when on dry land — musically, that is.)
Here’s the first half of a hot, historical but expansively creative set that this trio performed for us on the boat: with admiring glances at Jelly Roll Morton, Tiny Parham, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, Doc Cooke, Freddie Keppard, Albert Wynn, Sidney Catlett, Punch Miller, and dozens of New Orleans and Chicago hot players whose names you would also know.
This Morton tune is called FROG-I-MORE or FROGGIE MOORE RAG (I think those are all the variants) and Mister Morton said it was named for a vaudeville contortionist. No doubt:
SUNDAY, a tune that all the musicians in the world love to play, takes me back to Jean Goldkette in 1927, even though the Keller Sisters and Lynch didn’t make it to the boat:
Are your tamales hot? They should be. Freddie Keppard’s were:
A beautiful slow groove:
I could be wrong, but I think PARKWAY STOMP is a romp on the changes of DARKTOWN STRUTTERS’ BALL — something that was being done long before ANTHROPOLOGY and ORINTHOLOGY. The Albert Wynn recording with Punch Miller is also an early Sidney Catlett recording, something the Honorable Hal Smith knows well:
Who remembers Tiny Parham? Jen Hodge does, and I do, and Milt Hinton did. So does HOT CLASSICISM:
What a wonderful hot band! There’s another serving to come, but until then, you might investigate this delight. And HOT CLASSICISM has gigs to come: follow Kris, Hal, Andy on Facebook. You will be rewarded for diligence.
Before the GPS and the smartphone, there were maps. You can still see people unfolding them on subway platforms, although in certain cities we are told that this is a huge neon sign saying I AM A TOURIST. PLEASE ROB ME.
But this 1946 map is gloriously different: a map of Chicago hot spots from 1914 to 1928, its co-creators the jazz scholar Paul Edward Miller and the pianist / composer Richard M. Jones. It’s selling for $400 at New York’s Argosy Bookshop: see details here.
Description: Map. Colored Lithograph. Measures 13.25″ x 19.25″.
Comments: This unique 1946 map of Chicago identifies the Chicago Jazz Spots from 1914 to 1928. Throughout, beautiful sketches depict famous landmarks and jazz scenes. Streets are identified and locations of jazz spots are noted. Two insets detail the establishments on 31st and State and 35th and State. The map, redrawn from the original by Paul Eduard Miller and Richard M. Jones appeared in the 1946 edition of “Esquire’s Jazz Book Year Book of the Jazz Scene”. The year book was an amazing period publication of jazz in its heyday, featuring photographs, articles, and more. Some of the articles that were included in the 1946 edition, along with this particular map, were “Thirty Years of Chicago Jazz”, “Chicago Jazz History”, “Esquire’s All-American Band”, etc. The Map is in good condition with some foxing and edge wear near centerfold. Linen backed.
Thanks to Jim Eigo of Jazz Promo Services for letting us know. Even with some foxing. You can find him at 845-986-1677, jim@jazzpromoservices.com, and his website is http://www.jazzpromoservices.com.
A wise philosopher — Gladys Bentley or Blanche Calloway — once said, “There are a thousand ways to do something wrong, but only four or five ways to do it right.” One of the most eagerly-awaited CDs of recent memory, WHEN LOUIS MET BIX, on Lake Records, is a shining example of beautiful imaginations at work.
The assertive cover photograph is slightly misleading, suggesting that we might be getting ready for one of those Battle of the Valves scenes so beloved of film directors. I offer as evidence one of the most musical (having seen this scene from THE FIVE PENNIES when I was perhaps eleven, it made a deep impression):
Beautiful as it is, that scene is all about mastery and power: the unknown challenger coming out of the shadows (the club dramatically silenced) to claim territory for himself, and being accepted by the gracious King, who makes space for him on the regal bandstand. It might be satisfying but we know it’s not the way things happen.
And this myth isn’t the story of WHEN LOUIS MET BIX, either historically or in this evocative CD. Consider this fraternal conversation, instead:
Immediately, the ear understands that this CD succeeds at being more than a recreation of a 1927 or 1928 after-hours jam session or cutting contest. The music on this disc, even when it is searing hot, is carried along by a fundamental gentleness of spirit, an aura of brotherly love and deep admiration. No skirmishes, no high notes except as they would logically occur.
As I mentioned at the start, there would have been many ways to make this noble idea turn into a leaden result. One would have been to hew strictly to factoids: to use only songs that we knew Bix and Louis played or recorded, and perhaps narrow the repertoire to a choking narrowness by sticking to compositions both of them had done. (By this time, certain well-played songs are reassuring to the audience but must feel like too-tight clothing to the musicians, restricting free movement.) Another would have been to envision the music as competitive: the Bix of BARNACLE BILL pitted against the Louis of POTATO HEAD BLUES. Nay, nay, to quote the Sage of Corona.
Instead, the repertoire is spacious — Louis and Bix loved melodies — and it offers Broadway show music by Rodgers and Blake next to pop classics of the time, alongside “jazz standards” and obscurities by Morton, Chris Smith, Fats Waller — and one evocative original by Andy Schumm. And rather than simply say to the noble players in the studio, “All right. MILENBERG JOYS, and find your own way home,” or “Meet you at the end,” the performances on this disc are delicately yet effectively shaped so that each seems a complete musical expression. There are small arrangements on each track, and rather than that being an impiety (affront to the Goddess of Hot, who supposedly loathes anything worked out — although we know better) these little sketches make the performances even more satisfying. Split choruses, four-bar trades, modulations, duet interludes, balanced conversations where X plays the melody and Y improvises around it, stop-time choruses . . . the wonders that musicians had and have accessible to them instead of the possible monotony of ensemble-solo-ensemble.
On that score, one of the reasons it has taken me longer than usual to review this worthy disc is that I kept falling in love with one track so that I wanted to play it all the way to work and all the way home. By definition, CDs are economy-sized packages of music, and I think I would have been happier (although weighed down) if this Lake Records CD could have been sold as eight 12″ 78 discs in a heavy cardboard binder, to be listened to deeply one at a time, on and on. But longing for the past, although understandable, has its limits. And the imagined 78s would have warped in my car.
For the record, and what a record! –the songs are OL’ MAN RIVER / MILENBERG JOYS / CHLOE / MANDY, MAKE UP YOUR MIND / WHO’S IT / PUT ‘EM DOWN BLUES / WHISPERING / MANHATTAN / SKID-DAT-DE-DAT / BESSIE COULDN’T HELP IT (the one Louis-Bix recording overlap) / COME ON AND STOMP, STOMP, STOMP / MY MELANCHOLY BABY / WHEN SHE CAME TO ME/ I’M JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY / THE BALTIMORE.
And the players. Rico (Louis) and Andy (Bix) are joined by absolutely stellar folk. And since neither Bix nor Louis tried to take up all the space on a recording, democracy prevails; thus we hear beautiful work from Alistair Allan, trombone; Matthias Seuffert, reeds; Morten Gunnar Larsen, piano; Spats Langham, banjo and guitar; Malcolm Sked, string bass; Nicholas D. Ball, drums.
More evidence:
Through this CD, we are able to travel to an alternate universe, where glorious improvised music evokes and summons up the Great Departed. And unlike actually attending the after-hour jam session at the Sunset Cafe or the Savoy Ballroom and thinking, “Where is all this beauty going?” we can have this dramatic evocation to visit over and over again (without our clothes smelling of smoke, spilled whiskey, or beer).
Incidentally, may I urge you to do the most venerable thing and purchase the actual physical disc (from Amazon US or UK or elsewhere). Not only does the glorious sound Paul Adamsgot through his vintage microphones deserve to be reproduced in the highest fidelity (as opposed to mp3s played through earbuds on a noisy train in the common fashion) but you’ll miss out on wonderfully detailed but light-hearted liner notes by scholar-producerJulio Schwarz Andrade and many wonderful photographs that convey the joy that reigned at this session.
My hope is that Lake Records will continue this series of mystical voyages that make an imagined past into tangible present reality. I’m sure that Julio, Paul, and the fellows have even more thrilling ideas for us in future. And I hope that there is an on-the-spot Louis / Bix meeting at the 2016 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party so that we can marvel again.
Thanks to all the participants for making a visit to the alternate universe possible and so joyous. . . . a world where lyricism, abandon, passion, and expertise shape the music.
In this case, six creative musicians took the stand at the 2014 San Diego Jazz Fest to show us what Swing is, what Hot Music is. Note my choice of tense: wholly the present. And thanks to the magic of video, the future as well.
Before Benny Goodman and Les Paul got to this song, it was a 1919 waltz. But I think of it as a Chicagoan hot classic, which is the way Ray Skjelbred, piano; Marc Caparone, cornet; Jim Buchmann, clarinet / saxello; Hal Smith, drums; Beau Sample, string bass; Katie Cavera, guitar, approach it here. And please don’t turn away to look at Facebook before it’s all over — you’ll miss a two-chorus Rhythm Seminar conducted by Professors Hal Smith and Beau Sample: a graduate degree in Hot.
There are more performances to come from this wonderful sextet, but let me remind you of those I’ve already posted here, and here, and here, and even here.
Aren’t we lucky? These wonderful manifestations of joy and solar power aren’t restricted to San Diego, but I will say that the 2015 San Diego Jazz Fest is going to happen this Thanksgiving weekend, November 25-29, 2015.
Find out more hereand here. I know that Ray, Marc, Katie, Dawn Lambeth, Clint Baker, the Yerba Buena Stompers, Carl Sonny Leyland, Nicki Parrott, Rossano Sportiello, Stephanie Trick, Paolo Alderighi, Miss Ida Blue, Molly Ryan, Dan Levinson, Jonathan Stout, Bob Schulz, Chloe Feoranzo, and many others will be making music there. I’ll be there. You should consider it!
No tricks, no gimmicks, no special band shirts — just deeply felt hot music performed by four masters at the 2014 San Diego Jazz Fest (the 35th) on November 28, 2014. That’s Ray Skjelbred, piano; Marc Caparone, cornet; Beau Sample, string bass; Hal Smith, drums. Chicago style, if you like.
A rollicking OH, BABY — the exuberant late-Twenties song favored by Condon and others, with the innocent / naughty line, “Wouldn’t it be H – – – if you weren’t there?”:
And then Walter Donaldson’s classic YOU’RE DRIVING ME CRAZY, at a leisurely Jess Stacy tempo, with a wondrous Skjelbred interlude in the middle and Marc reaching for his plunger mute — exceedingly hot:
I’m very fond of NOBODY’S SWEETHEART NOW — both the music and the sadly censorious lyrics that wag a stern moral finger at the pretty girl who has left her home town to live a fast life in the Big Bad City. Hereis my leisurely explication-with-music of several songs that do the neat trick of delineating vice while saying how naughty it is and what sad consequences ensue. (What other blog offers you fallen women all the way back to Thomas Hardy? I ask you.)
But here, without its lyrics, is a 2014 Chicagoan version of that Sweetheart’s fall from grace — as performed at the San Diego Jazz Fest by four swing poets: Ray Skjelbred, piano; Marc Caparone, cornet; Beau Sample, string bass; Hal Smith, drums. Watch out for the stop-and-go that begins its gradual ascent at about 5:20 — you’ll understand how it got its name. And enjoy the hot lyricism:
Swing out, all you Ruined Maids! And the rest of you, too.
Erastus was very pleased, and told me so. He wasn’t alone.
One of the things the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party does best — perhaps with no equals — is to offer vivid panoramas-in-sound of what our heroes sounded like . . . not exactly copying the records, but swinging out in devoted, accurate loving style
Here’s one such example: four beautiful evocations of hot Chicago 1927, in honor of Johnny Dodds’ Black Bottom Stompers (and its close relatives) — brought to life again in 2013 by clarinetist (and Dodds scholar) Matthias Seuffert, Andy Schumm, Duke Heitger, trumpet; Graham Hughes, trombone; Martin Seck, piano; Jacob Ullberger, banjo; Phil Rutherford, brass bass; Nick Ward, drums.
The players in this video are really in there, as they used to say: I delight in the intricate ensemble dance they do and their intense yet loose soloing.
WILD MAN BLUES:
WHEN ERASTUS PLAYS HIS OLD KAZOO:
MELANCHOLY:
WEARY BLUES:
More of these uplifting sounds to come in November: details here. I am gently nudging those JAZZ LIVES readers who can attend this year’s Party to not wait: both seating and hotel rooms sold out months in advance in prior years.
Pianist, bandleader, composer, and occasional vocalist Ray Skjelbred is gently but obstinately authentic, a prophet and beacon of deep Chicago jazz — whether it’s tender, gritty, or romping. He and the Cubs proved this again (they always do) at their November 2013 appearances at the San Diego Jazz Fest. For this weekend, The Cubs were Kim Cusack, clarinet, vocal; Clint Baker, string bass, tuba, vocal; Katie Cavera, guitar, vocal; Mike Daugherty, drums, vocal.
SIX POINT BLUES:
EVERY EVENING:
A highlight for all of us — heartfelt and quietly fervent — ANY TIME, ANY DAY, ANYWHERE:
Alienation of affections or kidnapping was never so festive as this rendition of SOMEBODY STOLE MY GAL:
HO HUM!:
PIANO MAN:
DARKTOWN STRUTTERS BALL:
That music is good news for us all. But more good news — larger and more tangible than the computer monitor — is coming: the Cubs are making a California tour in early July 2014, beginning in two weeks. Jeff Hamilton will be on drums, along with the regulars you see above.
Thursday, July 10: Rossmoor Dixieland Jazz Club in Walnut Creek CA. For more information visit here.
Friday, July 11: Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park, California. 7:30 – 10:00 PM. (1010 El Camino Real, dress casual, good food and drink and a sweet atmosphere).
Saturday, July 12: Cline Wine and Jazz Festival in Sonoma, California. The Cubs will play three sets: for details, visit here.
Sunday, July 13: Napa Valley Dixieland Jazz Society. For more information visit: here.
Monday, July 14: Le Colonial in San Francisco, California (20 Cosmo Place). For more information visit here.
The admiring shades of Alex Hill, Sidney Catlett, Lee Wiley, Eddie Condon, Count Basie, Earl Hines, Sippie Wallace, Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Noone, Cassino Simpson, Tut Soper, Frank Melrose, Pee Wee Russell, Joe Sullivan, Jess Stacy, Wellman Braud, Frank Teschemacher, Gene Krupa, and scores of unheralded blues musicians stand behind this band — as the Cubs make their own lovely ways to our ears and hearts. Panaceas without side-effects.
Just beautiful. Leon, cornet; Craig, guitar; guest star Meredith, vocals — at Cafe Divine (a fine restaurant at 1600 Stockton Street in San Francisco). Leon Oakley and Craig Ventresco play there on the third Sunday of every month, and this session — in two parts — took place on May 18, 2014.
A caveat to start. Leon and Craig play without amplification, and Cafe Divine is a restaurant, not a concert hall, so you will hear the conversation of the diners. I don’t think that the Savoy Ballroom was reverently still, or the dinners at which Bach and Mozart swung out with their latest compositions.
Their intoxicating music soars. I told Craig after the first set that he and Leon had performed time-and-space-warping magic: they had made 2014 North Beach into 1928 Chicago, and he agreed: that was their intention!
Here is the second of two tasting menus offered for your delectation. (And here is the first, in case it passed you by.)
SEE SEE RIDER:
TOO BUSY (with Meredith evoking Lillie Delk Christian):
A sweet KEEPIN’ OUT OF MISCHIEF NOW at the most sweetly romantic tempo imaginable:
The rarely played CHERRY:
Meredith goes south with I’M COMIN’ VIRGINIA:
And I ask you. Did you ever hear the story of WILLIE THE WEEPER?
Just beautiful. Leon, cornet; Craig, guitar; guest star Meredith, vocals — at Cafe Divine (a fine restaurant at 1600 Stockton Street in San Francisco). Leon Oakley and Craig Ventresco play there on the third Sunday of every month, and this session — in two parts — took place on May 18, 2014.
A caveat to start. Leon and Craig play without amplification, and Cafe Divine is a restaurant, not a concert hall, so you will hear the conversation of the diners. I don’t think that the Savoy Ballroom was reverently still, or the dinners at which Bach and Mozart swung out with their latest compositions.
Their intoxicating music soars. I told Craig after the first set that he and Leon had performed time-and-space-warping magic: they had made 2014 North Beach into 1928 Chicago, and he agreed: that was their intention!
Here is the first of two tasting menus offered for your delectation.
The Hot Five’s ONCE IN A WHILE:
A very moving MEMORIES OF YOU:
Robert Johnson’s HOT TAMALES (THEY’RE RED HOT) which at first I mistook for HOW’M I DOIN’? — being more familiar with Redman than Johnson:
A song I didn’t know, from Amanda Randoph’s repertoire, here sung by Meredith, HONEY, DON’T YOU TURN YOUR BACK ON ME:
A highlight: MABEL’S DREAM:
Meredith offers I’M A LITTLE BLACKBIRD from the Clarence Williams book:
And we close with a spicy MESSIN’ AROUND:
Other bands are playing these songs, and beautifully, too, but no one else is making music quite like this in 2014, I propose. I’ve marked my calendar for the Oakley-Ventresco magical appearances at Cafe Divine, a place that lives up to its name.
Living in New York, twenty and more years ago, I had heard Ray Skjelbred in a variety of contexts: with Berkeley Rhythm, with Hal Smith’s Rhythmakers featuring Bobby Gordon and Rebecca Kilgore, and on his own. One of the great pleasures of being on this coast is the chance to see him and his band at various festivals (at the Sacramento Music Festival, May 23-26; and at various California locations July 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 — see here for details).
I am glad that Ray and his Cubs have steady gigs on the West Coast, but I wish they were better known worldwide.
It would be ironic but somehow fitting if what I see as their essential virtues had kept them slightly out of prominence in the world of “traditional” jazz. The group isn’t loud and it doesn’t have an identifying trademark unless you consider a deeply-rooted blues-based hot lyricism a trademark. No parasol parades; no singing along. Just intense yet relaxed Chicago jazz for this century.
They call it music.
I shy away from “best” or “favorite,” but I am drawn to this band as if magnetically. I know that a set from Ray or from Ray and his pals will make me feel better — and the side effects of deep elation and gratitude won’t wear off soon if at all.
The band in its most recent incarnation was Ray, piano, vocals, intuition; Kim Cusack, clarinet, vocal; Clint Baker, string bass and tuba, vocal; Katie Cavera, rhythm guitar, vocal; Mike Daugherty, drums, vocal.
Here is a full set (why skimp on pleasure?) from the Thanksgiving 2013 San Diego Jazz Fest (November 30, 2013, to be exact).
LINGER AWHILE:
BULL FROG BLUES:
WHO’S SORRY NOW?:
SUGAR:
OUR MONDAY DATE:
OH, BABY (DON’T SAY NO, SAY MAYBE):
OUT OF NOWHERE (with a lovely streamlined homage to Bing by Mister Daugherty, man of many talents):
AT THE JAZZ BAND BALL:
GET OUT AND GET UNDER THE MOON (Katie always gives such good advice);
JAZZ LIVES 