HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BENT PERSSON!

November 2014, Bent Persson (right) and a humble admirer at the Whitley Bay Jazz Party. Photo by Andrew Wittenborn.

BENT PERSSON is a true hero of mine, and I know I have company around the world. I think of his friendly kind enthusiasm in person — he is ready to laugh at the world’s absurdities — and the soaring trumpet player, at once exact and passionate, who makes Louis and his world come alive in the brightest ways.

I first met Bent in the way that we used to find our heroes in the pre-internet era, sonically. In the middle Seventies, I was passionately collecting records. That meant that I would spend the day in New York City visiting record stores, coming home when I had used up my money. I prowled through Happy Tunes One and Two, Dayton’s, and J&R Records near City Hall, where I spotted a record on a label I hadn’t heard of before (“Kenneth Records”) featuring Bent Persson (someone new) playing his orchestral versions of the Louis Armstrong 50 Hot Choruses book published in Chicago, 1927. Perhaps it was $6.99, the price of two DJ copies or cutouts, but I took the risk. It was electrifying, joyous, and hot beyond my wildest expectations. Here’s what it sounded like.

HIGH SOCIETY, in duet with pianist Ulf Johansson Werre (1977):

I kept on buying every record (then CD) on which he appeared, and he visited the US now and again — although I wasn’t at liberty to meet him — to make sublime hot music, some of it captured in videos from the Manassas Jazz Festival.

CHINATOWN, with Kenny Davern, Jim Dapogny, Tomas Ornberg, and Steve Jordan (1988):

and duets with Jim Dapogny, CHICAGO BREAKDOWN and BLACK BOTTOM STOMP (1985):

At some point, I had acquired a computer and an email account, and was writing for THE MISSISSIPPI RAG, so I remember starting a correspondence with Bent — admiring and curious on my part, friendly and gracious on his. In the intervening years of record collecting, I understood that Bent was a Renaissance man of hot trumpet (and cornet): yes, Louis, but also Bix, Red, Cootie, and others, and no mere copyist, but a great understander and emulator, always himself while letting the light of his heroes shine through him. A great scholar as well, although that might be too obvious to write.

Finally the circumstances of my life changed so that I could fly — literally and figuratively — and in 2009 I made my way to the Whitley Bay Jazz Party, which I attended every year until 2016, video camera at the ready, approaching my heroes, shyly beaming love and gratitude at them. Bent knew me slightly from our correspondence, but I recall coming up to him, introducing myself, hugging him, and saying that he had been a hero of mine for decades. He took it all with good grace.

I created more than a hundred videos of Bent in that series of delightful parties, and I will share only four: you can find the rest on YouTube with a little earnest searching.

CLEMENTINE with Norman Field, Spats Langham, Frans Sjostrom (2009):

DUSK with Frans and Jacob Ullberger (2009):

LOOKIN’ GOOD BUT FEELIN’ BAD with the Red Hot Reedwarmers (2009):

and for an incendiary closer, DING DONG DADDY with Enrico Tomasso, Spats Langham, Kristoffer Kompen, and other luminaries (2015):

Please don’t let the apparent historical nature of these videos fool you into thinking that Bent has hung up his horns and dumped his valve oil into the trash.

He is still performing, and there were gigs with BENTS JAZZ COCKTAIL as recently as mid-August (what a well-dressed crew!) Visit Bent’s Facebook page for the most current news of his schedule.

This is the most fragmentary celebration of Bent, a man devoted to his art but also a first-rate human being who beams when he talks about the family he adores. If he is new to you, I hope you have been as uplifted and electrified by his music presented here as I have been for almost fifty years. If he is a shining light to you, here is another occasion to thank him for being and sustaining the glories of jazz.

It is, although across too many miles, another hug, so well-deserved.

May your happiness increase!

MAKING CONNECTIONS, 2010 and 2019, WITH THE HELP OF NORMAN FIELD

I spent much of the morning hooking up a new computer setup: my laptop and my neck have a tumultuous relationship, so I prefer a desktop computer, a large monitor, and all the trimmings.  That means a good deal of crawling around under a table, plugging wires in to the wall and in to the back of the computer (Swift’s phrase “Leaping and Creeping” came frequently to mind).  The image below is an exaggeration, but most readers know the feeling, even if they wouldn’t wear those shoes:

I succeeded,without banging my head on the underside of the table of cursing: a double victory.

As a reward to myself for all that technological-dancing, even though it was primarily on all fours, I decided that the first thing I should do on this computer, after being allowed access to my own life, would be to share some music — appropriately a song celebrating a new hot dance, the SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE.

Since technology, going all the way back to cylinder recordings, has blessed us with the power to make the past and present dance on into the future, here is a performance from July 11, 2010, at what was then the International Jazz Festival at Whitley Bay, featuring Norman Field, clarinet; Nick Ward, drums; Andy Woon, trumpet; Paul Munnery, trombone; Frans Sjostrom, bass sax; Jacob Ullberger, guitar / banjo:

Fewer than 400 jazz-hot fanciers have viewed this video in nearly a decade, so this post is my effort to share joy with more people.  Keep dancing, everyone, wherever you can.

May your happiness increase!

IN MEMORY OF TOM BAKER, WHO DID ALL THINGS WELL

I now have an opportunity to share with you some wonderful videos of the amazing musician Tom Baker (1952-2001) who lives on.

Below is a picture of our benefactor and generous friend, Enrico Borsetti, who took a video camera to the 2000 Ascona Jazz Festival and recorded treasures — some of which I have already posted, featuring Dan Barrett, Jeff Hamilton, Ray Sherman, Jon-Erik Kellso, Brian Oglivie, John Smith, Eddie Erickson, Joel Forbes, and Rebecca Kilgore.

Another magnificent band, led by pianist / singer Keith Nichols, was called The Blue Rhythm Makers — and here on YouTube you can see two incarnations with different personnel.  The one I share today features the immensely talented and much-missed Tom Baker (trumpet, trombone, reeds, vocal, and more I am probably leaving out), my friend-heroes Matthias Seuffert, Martin Wheatley, Frans Sjostrom.

Here you can learn more / see more about Tom, who made the transition at 49.

Here’s Tom’s very touching reading of ANNIE LAURIE, which I think unforgettable, especially thinking of such a brilliant man who is no longer with us:

and a searing I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW:

and a radiant version of Benny Carter’s ONCE UPON A TIME:

Since I believe that “the dead” KNOW, I send tears and reverent admiration to Tom Baker.  And let us not forget the living, to whom I send gratitude.

May your happiness increase!

THANKS TO ENRICO, SOME HOT MINUTES IN ASCONA: KEITH NICHOLS, MATTHIAS SEUFFERT, RENE HAGMANN, CHRISTOPH WACKERBARTH, MARTIN WHEATLEY, FRANS SJOSTROM, and guests ANDY STEIN, JON-ERIK KELLSO (July 7, 2002)

The dashing fellow above (from a 2009 photograph) is the jazz scholar-devotee Enrico Borsetti. I know him as a fine fellow, although we have never met in person.  His generosity is remarkable, but this is a new example: Enrico’s video-recording of music from the 2002 Ascona Jazz Festival, specifically this wonderful band, the Blue Rhythm Makers.  For this date, they were Keith Nichols, piano and vocal; René Hagmann, cornet, reeds; Matthias Seuffert, reeds; Christoph Wackerbarth, trombone; Martin Wheatley, guitar;
Frans Sjostrom, bass sax, with guest appearances by Andy Stein, violin; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet. This music was created at the Ristorante Tamaro, Ascona, on Sunday, July 7, 2002.

WHEN DAY IS DONE and POISON:

THE MAN FROM THE SOUTH and I WISH I WERE TWINS:

with guest star Andy Stein, violin, DOIN’ THE NEW LOW DOWN:

And the poignant I’LL NEVER BE THE SAME:

ONE HOUR (Keith sings the lovely verse):

Jon-Erik raises the temperature, even for July, with a rousing SWING THAT MUSIC:

and Andy returns to close the first half of this performance with THAT’S A PLENTY, certainly an accurate description of these wonderful videos.

(Incidentally, I am pleased and amused to note that Enrico’s world is much like mine in the matter of videos: umbrellas and people with cameras obscuring the view, crashing dishes and more — but the sound blazes right at us, and these videos are true gifts.) Here‘s Enrico’s YouTube channel, where all varieties of beauties blossom.

May your happiness increase!

IN PRAISE OF LOUIS: JOE MURANYI, BOB BARNARD, BENT PERSSON (MARCIAC 1997)

In my world, there’s always a time and place for Louis-devotion and devotions.

First, some healthy carbohydrates — the Swedish Jazz Kings playing POTATO HEAD BLUES at the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz in 2000:

The Swedish Jazz Kings are a wonderful band with Bent Persson on trumpet or cornet; Tomas Ornberg on clarinet and soprano saxophone.  I don’t know the remaining members of the orchestra, but they all sound better than Pretty Good.

What follows is one of those pleasantly explosive surprises one stumbles across if one is (like myself) deeply engrossed by the YouTube Palace of Pleasures.  I believe the video was shot by Michel Laplace, or at least he is the generous soul who made it available to us.  It features Bent with Bob Barnard — some incredible brass conversations — and the irreplaceable Joe Muranyi.

That’s Joe Muranyi, clarinet, soprano saxophone, vocal; Bob Barnard, cornet; Swedish Jazz Kings — Bent Persson, cornet; Tomas Ornberg, clarinet, soprano saxophone; Joep Peeters, piano; Ollie Nyman, banjo; Frans Sjöström, bass saxophone.  August 13, 1997 : playing and singing HOUSE RENT BLUES / I’M A LITTLE BLACKBIRD / KANSAS CITY MAN BLUES / I DIG SATCH.

Thanks again to Michel Laplace.  And to these magnificent musicians.  And of course to Louis, who lights our way.

May your happiness increase!

MORE SEAGOONERY, BY POPULAR REQUEST (MIKE DURHAM CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY, November 8, 2015)

Several audience members and a musician-friend wrote in after yesterday’s post featuring Keith Nichols and the Seagoon Serenaders, asking if I would post more.  Happy to oblige!

Here you can find out more about Keith’s inspiration, THE  GOON SHOW, a radio series from 1951-60.

The Serenaders are Keith, piano; Emma Fisk, violin; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Spats Langham, guitar; Nick Ball, drums; Malcolm Sked, bass; Lars Frank, Thomas Winteler, Michael McQuaid, reeds (Michael doubling cornet). Dance music of the highest order.

The first song of the set is the old Chicago standard, SOMEDAY SWEETHEART, with an explanation of the group’s inspiration by Keith as well as a vocal:

IF I GIVE UP THE SAXOPHONE (WILL YOU COME BACK TO ME?) was a hit for Eddie Cantor in the 1929 film WHOOPEE — written by Irving Kahal, Sammy Fain, and Willie Raskin.  I suspect that the song is an outgrowth of the instrument’s popularity early in the decade and the large number of amateur players:

I don’t know how much Goonery there will be at the 2016 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party (November 3-6) but there will be some.  Musicians are often great comic improvisers, and they honor the guiding spirit of the party: Mike was both witty, sometimes dangerously so, and he had a stockpile of jokes that was astonishing.

See you there.

May your happiness increase!

“THE MOOCHE”: THE SEAGOON SERENADERS at the MIKE DURHAM CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY (Nov. 8, 2015)

What happens when vestiges of THE GOON SHOW meet early jazz, under the benignly unsettling leadership of Keith Nichols?  I present a brilliant example below.  Keith’s presentation, mixing satire and Hot, was called THE SEAGOON SERENADERS, and it came alive at the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party on November 8, 2015:

Once when we get past the hilarity, the Serenaders launch into a very delightful performance of Ellington’s THE MOOCHE (named, I am told, for a contemporary dance), complete with clarinet trio and hot cornet chorus.  That’s Keith, piano; Emma Fisk, violin; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Spats Langham, guitar; Nick Ball, drums; Malcolm Sked, bass; Lars Frank, Thomas Winteler, Michael McQuaid, reeds (Michael doubling cornet on this performance).  Dance music of the highest order.

A nice mixture of hot jazz, occasionally leavened with comedy, can be found this November 3-6.  Details here.

May your happiness increase!

“BIX OFF THE RECORD” at the MIKE DURHAM CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY: ANDY SCHUMM, KRISTOFFER KOMPEN, MICHAEL McQUAID, DAVID BOEDDINGHAUS, FRANS SJOSTROM, JOSH DUFFEE (Nov. 8, 2015)

Imagine, if you will, a friendly conversation between Bix Beiderbecke and Hugo Gernsback — rendered without a word, in lovely mysterious music — and you have some idea of what follows.

I don’t care to rank artists — let others create pyramids with The Hero(ine) at the apex — but it fascinates me that the collective grief at the death of Bix is so strong that generations of musicians have energized themselves in homages, exact or imaginative.  It is as if we cannot endure the fact of his death, so musicians invent contexts in which his glowing spirit can be summoned anew. It used to take the form of copying a Bix solo (SINGIN’ THE BLUES might be the most copied one I know) but that had its limits, so musicians began to imagine alternate universes.  What if Bix had played Gershwin?  What if we could know what CLOUDY sounded like?  And, most recently, how might Bix have sounded on songs of his time and place that he never recorded?

In 2014, an expert and heartfelt group assembled after the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party — Andy Schumm, cornet; Kristoffer Kompen, trombone; Mauro Porro, reeds; David Boeddinghaus, piano; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Josh Duffee, drums — to create the CD for Lake Records, called whimsically BIX OFF THE RECORD:

In 2015, the same players — with Michael McQuaid taking Mauro’s place — played another set: the delightful results below.  Andy provides commentary as needed.

WOLVERINE BLUES:

TELL ME:

CATARACT RAY BLUES:

MY BABY’S ARMS:

DRIFTWOOD:

Beautiful performances of songs that haven’t been overplayed, all in the idiom but expansively imagined.

But wait! There’s more!  Andy, Rico Tomasso, and other nobles have recorded a new CD for Lake Records — WHEN LOUIS MET BIX, celebrating hot nights in 1928 Chicago — with Matthias Seuffert, Alistair Allan, Morten Gunnar Larsen, ‘Spats’ Langham, Malcolm Sked, Nicholas D. Ball.

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; Come On and Stomp, Stomp, Stomp; My Melancholy Baby; When She Came To Me; I’m Just Wild About Harry; The Baltimore.

A copy is winging its way to me through the mail. Details (of a digital sort) here.

Thank you, gentlemen — alive and dead.

May your happiness increase!

 

ON DOROTHY’S SIDE: THOMAS WINTELER, TORSTEIN KUBBAN, FRANS SJOSTROM, JACOB ULLBERGER, DAVID BOEDDINGHAUS at the MIKE DURHAM CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY (Nov. 5, 2015)

Jonathan Schwartz told the story of walking with his father (Arthur Schwartz, of Dietz and Schwartz fame) on a shady city street, and his father saying, “Come on, let’s cross over to Dorothy’s side of the street,” the reference being to the lyricist Dorothy Fields and the classic 1930 song ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET (music by Jimmy McHugh).

Even though the rendition that follows was hours away from the sunshine, it glows and radiates in the best way: evoking Bechet, Louis, and Hines if you like, or dramatizing that such mastery is still entirely possible in this century: the players are Thomas Winteler, soprano saxophone; Torstein Kubban, cornet; David Boeddinghaus, keyboard; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Jacob Ullberger, banjo.  All of this goodness took place on November 5, 2015, at the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party.  And I know for a certainty that more like it will take place at the November 2016 Party.

Living sunshine, even in the darkness.  Thanks to Messrs. Sjostrom, Winteler, Kubban, Boeddinghaus, and Ullberger:

May your happiness increase!

“SECOND REUNION”: THE UNION RHYTHM KINGS ON DISC and LIVE

The Union Rhythm Kings at the 2013 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party

The debut CD of this wonderful hot band, A HOT REUNION, on Herman Records, came out in 2009.  So the second one is long overdue, and I am happy to report that it is here, and as delightful as its predecessor.  (I am grateful to Trygve Hernaes, the band’s enthusiastic guide and supporter, for enabling me to hear them on disc before I’d met them all in person.)

The band, the Union Rhythm Kings, is a wonderful hot hybrid of Norwegian and Swedish musicians — Kristoffer Kompen, trombone; Bent Persson, trumpet; Lars Frank, reeds; Morten Gunnar Larsen, piano, Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Jacob Ullberger, banjo / guitar.  For the geographers keeping score, Kris, Lars, and Morten are from Norway; Bent, Frans, and Jacob from Sweden. The band even has its own Wikipedia page.

What sets the URK apart (and above) many other “traditional” jazz bands is the excellence of their solo and ensemble work, expert and impassioned, and free from cliche.  They are inspired by the original recordings and arrangements, but they bring their own energy to the repertoire.  They’ve broken free of the Jazz Museum.

On this disc, much of that repertoire is comfortable Morton, Ellington, Armstrong, Luis Russell, and Beiderbecke — but the URK takes pleasure in Jack Purvis and obscure Morton. Thus, CLARINET MARMALADE, CROCODILE CRADLE, DAVENPORT BLUES, SARATOGA SHOUT, HUMPTY DUMPTY, WHEN YOU’RE FEELING BLUE, I DIDN’T KNOW, I AIN’T GOT NOBODY, MILENBERG JOYS, RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE, WHAT’S THE USE OF CRYIN’, BABY, SANTA CLAUS BLUES, BLUES OF THE VAGABOND, SOMEBODY STOLE MY GAL, DUSKY STEVEDORE.

I’ve listened to them with great pleasure at their recent annual appearances at the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party, and I have some performance video from November 5-8 to share with you — which will embody the band’s virtues better than paragraphs of enthusiastic prose.  The great young drummer Nick Ball helps out on all these performances.

Here are four from their Sunday-evening concert:

DAVENPORT BLUES:

BLUES OF THE VAGABOND:

HUMPTY DUMPTY:

CLARINET MARMALADE:

and four from the Thursday-night pub session:

In honor of the Luis Russell band, SARATOGA SHOUT:

For solitaries everywhere, I AIN’T GOT NOBODY:

and these last two (with Bix in mind), with Thomas Winteler sitting in for Lars:

SORRY:

JAZZ ME BLUES:

The URK discs (beautifully recorded), can be obtained from Sonor Records AS,
Postboks 4275, NO 7436 Trondheim, Norway.  Information at email: sonoras@online.no.  Price: NOK 200 or USD 25, packing and postage included. Payment via Paypal, to the email address above.

May your happiness increase!

THIS TAKES THE CAKE: TORSTEIN KUBBAN, THOMAS WINTELER, DAVID BOEDDINGHAUS, JACOB WINTELER, FRANS SJOSTROM (Victory Pub, November 5, 2015)

This isn’t a recipe post, but who could resist this?  (Erin, who dislikes cake, can skip right to the music.)

What follows is absolutely glorious — evoking Louis and Sidney ninety years later, in the Victory Pub, a place I am sure neither of them ever visited.  This after-hours session took place on November 5, 2015, as part of the revelry of the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party.

The people lighting up the darkness are Torstein Kubban, cornet; Thomas Winteler, soprano saxophone; David Boeddinghaus, keyboard; Jacob Ullberger, banjo; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone.

CAKE WALKIN’ BABIES FROM HOME:

I know that the original recordings — and the tradition that follows — are somewhat pugnacious, with Bechet and Armstrong each trying to show dominance . . . but this 2015 version evokes the Hot Peaceable Kingdom, with the two lions treating the lambs to Newcastle brown ale after the set.  Mixing metaphors wildly, I know, but these wonderful virtuosic players seem more brotherly than combative, united in the great desire to bring light into the darkness.

Two other performances of equal splendor from this evening can be found here  and here.

See you at this year’s Party. Even more details to be savored here.

There’ll be cake.

May your happiness increase!

“IN THE SHADE OF THE OLD APPLE TREE”: TORSTEIN KUBBAN, JACOB ULLBERGER, FRANS SJOSTROM at the MIKE DURHAM CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY (November 5, 2015)

You don’t need a large group of people to create something beautiful.  And you don’t need the most comfortable settings — even a large sign advertising GOURMET BURGERS and COMFORT SALADS is no distraction for heartfelt artists who know and embody lovely truths.

And so it was once again shown — gorgeously — on the first night of the 2015 Mike Durham Classic Jazz  Party (November 5) after the rehearsals had concluded and a small group of the devout gathered in the Victory Pub for fun and hot jazz.

Here, three masters of hot combined to produce music at the highest level: Torstein Kubban, cornet; Jacob Ullberger, banjo; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone.  Their text for this mellow sermon is the old song IN THE SHADE OF  THE OLD APPLE TREE — a song so well-known that I recall two parody versions (one ethnic-vaudeville, one lewd) and I am sure there are more . . . as well as Ellington’s and the sacred collaboration of Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers.

But rather than studying the past, I invite you to delight in the glories of the present — a performance where one can admire the individual voices and then marvel at what they combine to create:

Who knew that lovely fruit could grow in darkness?  These three artists did and do.  And more marvels like this will take place at the 2016 Party in November.

Thanks to the Library of Congress “National Jukebox,” here is Billy Murray’s 1905 parody version of the song, depicting death and violence in the orchard.  “Don’t try this at home!” rings especially true.

May your happiness increase! 

WHERE I’VE BEEN, AND WHAT I HEARD (November 5, 2015)

There won’t be much prose in this blogpost: a seventeen-hour travel day has a way of overpowering ordinary cognition (Newcastle to Amsterdam to New York to home, including a taxi, two planes, two airports, a shuttle, and a drive home in rush hour).

But I wanted to let the JAZZ LIVES faithful know that I hadn’t decided to abandon them or the blog.   I will have something to say about the glorious cabaret evening that singer Janice Day and pianist Martin Litton put on in Hay-on-Wye.  And I assure you I will have much more to say about the Mike Durham Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, which is still ringing beautifully in my ears.

Nick Ball and Josh Duffee in the Victory Pub, November 2015, at the Party

But music speaks louder than words, as Charlie Parker reminded Earl Wilson. So here’s a sample from the Thursday, November 5, 2015, after-hours jam session at the Victory Pub in the Village Hotel Newcastle . . . on RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE.

The energized participants are Torstein Kubban, cornet; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Thomas Winteler, clarinet; David Boeddinghaus, piano; Jacob Ullberger, banjo; Nick Ball, drums:

The Party will go on in 2016, but it needs you to survive and flourish.  So do make a note of that, in honor of hot jazz, in honor of Hoagy and Bix too.

May your happiness increase!

WHAT YOU’LL HEAR WHEN YOU’RE THERE: THE MIKE DURHAM CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY (November 5 – 8, 2015)

TWO DEUCES! Bent Persson and Enrico Tomasso at the 2014 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party

“Fine! Wonderful! Perfect!” to quote Fats.  I’m referring to the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party — coming soon to the Village Hotel Newcastle in the UK.

I mean no offense or slight to my friends and heroes who organize Parties, Stomps, Fests, and other weekend galas, but the MDCJP (the Party formerly known as the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party) is special.  Many musicians simply want to get up on the stand and sing or play among their friends and peers, and this is standard — often exhilarating — fare at most jazz weekends.  And the MDCJP encourages such frolic with a nightly jam session in the Victory Pub. But many musicians devoted to the sounds of the Twenties and Thirties and beyond want to pay reverent homage to their forbears while having their own say — so this Party is organized into small concerts, each celebrating a band, a sound, a leader: it becomes a wondrous living evocation of where we’ve all come from.

First, a list of who’s going to be there on the bandstand — an illustrious lot for sure:

Janice Day, Mellow Baku (vocal); Emma Fisk (violin); Andy Schumm, Menno Daams, Duke Heitger, Bent Persson, Enrico Tomasso (trumpet); Kris Kompen, Graham Hughes, Alistair Allan (trombone); Matthias Seuffert, Michael McQuaid, Robert Fowler, Lars Frank, Thomas Winteler, Claus Jacobi (reeds); Martin Litton, David Boeddinghaus, Morten Gunnar Larsen, Keith Nichols (piano); Spats Langham, Jacob Ullberger, Martin Wheatley (banjo, guitar); Phil Rutherford, John Hallam, Malcolm Sked (bass, brass bass); Frans Sjostrom (bass saxophone); Henry Lemaire (bass, guitar, banjo); Richard Pite (drums, bass); Josh Duffee (drums, vibraphone); Nicholas Ball (drums, washboard)

(If I have left anyone out, I apologize.)

And a brief listing of the concert themes: the Union Rhythm Kings; a tribute to Mike Durham; the Original Memphis Five; the Quintette of the Hot Club of France; Jelly Roll Morton; Bunny Berigan; the “avant-garde” of Red Nichols and Miff Mole; Spats Langham’s Hot Combination; Lu Watters; solo piano recitals; Teddy Brown; the Dixie Stompers; Dance Band Divas; Thirties small-group sessions; Louis (featuring Bent and Enrico); the 1938 Morton Library of Congress recordings; Black New Orleans; chamber jazz; Western Swing; Spike Hughes; Chicago South Side; the Cotton Club; Casa Loma Orchestra; more unrecorded Bix; Bechet; Duke Heitger; California Ramblers; Eddie Condon; the Nichols-Duffee Orchestra . . . and more.

And two highlights of the 2104 Festival — moments to remember!

HOT.

SWEET.

It’s a musical feast.  Don’t miss out on this Party.

May your happiness increase!

“BIX OFF THE RECORD” and ON THE BANDSTAND

I confess I come late to this party — the delightful CD below was released almost five months ago — but I don’t arrive empty-handed.  The words tell it all.

And the music is joyful — more than the solemn faces on the cover suggest.

For whatever reasons — an elusive individual who thrills his contemporaries and vanishes, a creator of inexplicable delicate beauty — Bix Beiderbecke has been the subject of more inquiry, more debate, and more mythology than any other jazz musician.  I stand back from such diligence, although I admire its limitless energy.  What fascinates me is the music: the music Bix created and its reverberations after his death.

Many “Bix tributes,” to my ears, are laboring under burdens even before the first note is played or recorded.  Audiences sigh more fervently than they ever did for the young Sinatra when the first cornet notes of the SINGIN’ THE BLUES solo launch into the air.  Other bands offer exquisitely accurate copies of those OKehs and Gennetts.  Just the sort of thing for those who like that sort of thing.  “Perhaps if we can summon up GOOSE PIMPLES note for note, Bix will never have died?”

But BIX OFF THE RECORD is a more imaginative project.  It doesn’t seek to say, “What would Bix have played had he been on Fifty-Second Street alongside Hawkins in 1944,” or “Let’s score Bix for string orchestra.”  Rather, it imagines a lovely, plausible alternate universe where Bix, in the recording studios more often (although never enough) got to play and record songs he would have known, was known to have played, among his peers and contemporaries.

Enough words for the moment?  Hear sound samples here: three full tracks from the CD, ending with a touching cornet-piano duet on MEAN TO ME.  Aside from the brilliant (although honest) recorded sound, the first thing you will notice is the band.  No one is imitating Lennie Hayton, Bill Rank, or Min Leibrook.  The musicians — not tied to the original Bix oeuvre — are free to roam within the conventions of the genre, but not stiffly or formally.  And rather than having this session be a feature for the heartening cornet of Andy Schumm, it features everyone, with delightful arranging touches that make the result more than “Let’s blow on DINAH for five minutes, solos for everyone.” Each performance has sly, sweet, effective glances at other Bix recordings and recordings of the time.  It’s truly uplifting fun, not a class trip to the Museum of Jazz.  And you can’t read the very fine and informative liner notes by Julio Schwarz Andrade here, but they are worth the price of admission.

The Lake Records Facebook page is full of good things, including news of a new duo-release by Jeff Barnhart and Spats Langham called WE WISH THAT WE WERE TWINS, a title both enticing and philosophically deep.

But back to Bix — in his century and in ours simultaneously.

I said I came to this party with gifts, and here are two.  On November 7, 2014, eleven months ago, a sextet assembled on the bandstand of the Village Hotel Newcastle Inspiration Suite — where the glories of the 2014 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party took place — to play some of the songs that would be explored on the CD above.  Messrs Duffee, Sjostrom, Boeddinghaus, Porro, Kompen, and Schumm, if you need reminding.  I was there with one of several video cameras and (although there are heads intermittently in the way) the sound of the band was thrilling.  Here are two selections from that evening’s offering.

One, a pop song of the day much beloved by Bix (an improvisation on its chords and its intent became FOR NO REASON AT ALL IN C), I’D CLIMB THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN:

Then, Morton’s WOLVERINE BLUES as if imagined by the Wolverine Orchestra:

These two performances are, I hope, inducements for those who can to hie themselves to the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party — the Whitley Bay party appropriately renamed for its beloved, intent, humorous founder — which will start on Thursday night, November 5, 2015, with a concert / jam session by the exalted Union Rhythm Kings, and end somewhere between Sunday night and Monday morning, leaving us all weak with pleasure. Here is all you need to know to make that state of being yours. See you there in a month’s time!

And just because it is possible to do so . . . here is the brilliantly screwy surrealistic Fleischer Screen Song (1931) of I’D CLIMB THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN — primitive karaoke through a distorting lens:

May your happiness increase! 

HOMAGE TO ADRIAN: FRANS SJOSTROM’S NEW YORK GANG: DUKE HEITGER, LARS FRANK, KRISTOFFER KOMPEN, MORTEN GUNNAR LARSEN, JACOB ULLBERGER, NICK BALL (Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, November 7, 2014)

From the JAZZ LIVES Collection (currently on display in the JAZZ LIVES kitchen)

I’d love to have this Gang in my neighborhood: paying tribute to Adrian Rollini, they make beauty, not violence.  This session took place at the 2014 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, and the “New York Gang” evoked five classic recordings with connections to Rollini from 1928 to 1934.  They were Frans Sjostrom, bass sax / leader; Morten Gunnar Larsen, piano; Jacob Ullberger, guitar; Nick Ball, drums; Duke Heitger, trumpet; Lars Frank, tenor saxophone; Kristoffer Kompen, trombone.

IF I HAD YOU (if memory serves, the 1928 arrangement from a Sam Lanin record featuring one Bing Crosby, vocal):

DAVENPORT BLUES by our man from that town:

SOMEBODY LOVES ME:

SUGAR:

RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE:

Such sessions have been the hallmarks of every Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party since before my time — my first was in 2009.  Notice, please, the enchanting mix of expertise and casualness, while great recordings and great performers are evoked, more than imitated.  It’s a wonderful party — now renamed the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party — and this year’s version begins with a jam session by the Union Rhythm Kings, a glorious band, on November 5, and the party goes until November 8, or perhaps the early hours of November 9.

You’ll be more than satisfied.

May your happiness increase!

PILGRIMAGES TO BEAUTY

I urge anyone who loves the music to experience it live.  For some, that isn’t possible because of cost or one’s health.  But even though I am proud of my video recordings, they are not the same thing as being on the spot while beauty is created.  And jazz festivals, parties, clubs, concerts can only go on if there are people in attendance.

My readers know all this.  But the trick is to make the great leap from an intellectual awareness (“I should go hear some live jazz . . . someday.”) to action. All of us who have said, “I’ll go to hear Hot Lips Ferguson some other Sunday . . . those gigs will go on forever!” know the sadder reality.)

End of sermon.

I cannot attend this year’s Steamboat Stomp in New Orleans, but my absence means there’s another seat for you.  It begins Friday evening, November 14, and ends Sunday afternoon, the 16th.  In  between I count nineteen one-hour sets of music, in addition to a presentation about the Historic New Orleans Collection, four steam calliope concerts by Debbie Fagnano.  Much of the music will be performed on the two decks of the steamboat Natchez, gliding up and down the Mississippi River.  The artists include Duke Heitger, Don Vappie, Evan Christopher, the Yerba Buena Stompers, Dukes of Dixieland, Tim Laughlin, David Boeddinghaus, Hal Smith, Banu Gibson, Solid Harmony, Jon-Erik Kellso, John Gill, Kevin Dorn, Clint Baker, Tom Bartlett, Conal Fowkes, Orange Kellin, Leon Oakley, Steve Pistorius, and another dozen.

I was able to attend in 2013, and had a wonderful time.  Some evidence!

SWEET LOVIN’ MAN by Duke and the Steamboat Stompers:

Steve Pistorius considers the deep relationship between music, memory, and love in A DOLLAR FOR A DIME:

Banu Gibson, as always, shows us her heart, and it’s full of RHYTHM:

and the Yerba Buena Stompers play a later King Oliver piece, EDNA:

INSERT FOUR-BAR MODULATION HERE.

I returned last night from the 2014 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, exhausted and uplifted.  The exhaustion will wear off (it always does) after a day or two of treating myself like an invalid, nut the joy is permanent.  It comes from seeing people make friends through music.  The music began with rehearsals at 9 AM on Thursday and ended sometime late Monday morning (I heard the jam session at the pub as I was going up the stairs around 1 AM).  The texts for those mellow sermons were based on the teachings of Johnny Dodds, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Orchestra, Jabbo Smith, Jean Goldkette, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Chu Berry, Paul Whiteman, Cootie Williams, Adrian Rollini, Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Johnny Dunn, Luis Russell, Bing Crosby, Helen Morgan, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Carter, Don Byas, Willie Lewis, Sidney Bechet, Al Bowlly, Cliff Edwards, Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Chick Webb, Jelly Roll Morton . . . you get the idea.

And the performers!  Rico Tomasso, Duke Heitger, Menno Daams, Andy Schumm, Bent Persson, Claus Jacobi, Thomas Winteler, Matthias Seuffert, David Boeddinghaus, Graham Hughes, Alistair Allan, Martin Litton, Janice Day, Morten Gunnar Larsen, Keith Nichols, Richard Pite, Malcolm Sked, Phil Rutherford, Spats Langham, Emma Fisk, Frans Sjostrom, Josh Duffee, Nick Ball, Mauro Porro, Henri Lemaire, Kristoffer Kompen, Lars Frank, Martin Wheatley, Jean-Francois Bonnel. . . and sitters-in at the Pub, including Torstein Kubban.  (If I’ve omitted anyone’s name, it is because yesterday was nearly twenty hours of travel, which does terrible things to cognition.)

And the friends!  Everyone who was there will have a mental list, but I think we all start with Patti Durham — then I think of Bob Cox, Bobbi Cox, Derek Coller, Veronica Perrin, Chris Perrin, the young woman clarinetist, so intent, Jonathan David Holmes, Julio Schwarz Andrade, Andrew Wittenborn — and many more.

If you are wondering, the answer is Yes, I did bring my video cameras.  Plural. Safety first.

And I shot video of all the sets, one jam session / concert in the Victory Pub, and many of the rehearsals — several hundred performances.  It takes some time to upload and download, so I have nothing from this last weekend to share with you at the moment.  But I will.

While you are thinking, “How could I start putting money away for the 2015 WHITLEY BAY CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY?” (for that will indeed happen), I invite you to revel in this, recorded at a rehearsal at the 2012 Party:

All over the quite comfortable Village Hotel in Newcastle (with a very solicitous staff) are signs and photographs advertising the pleasures to be found there, all sharing a lower case “v.” at the start, both to show an intensity of feeling (“very!”) as well as remind you of the hotel chain’s identifying logo.  In the mechanism that takes you from one floor to another (I called it an elevator and was reminded that it was a “lift,” because I was in the  United Kingdom now) was a photograph of three pillows reading “v. snuggly” “v. cheeky” and “v.lazy.”

All I will say here, as a bow to the Party and to the Village Hotel and to my heroes and friends, is that I am “v.joyous.”

May your happiness increase!

MARMALADE. YES, PLEASE. (Nov. 3, 2013)

Not this.

Or these.

You’re getting warmer.

Almost there.

But what follows is nothing historical, and it exists in the twenty-first century: CLARINET MARMALADE, played with exuberant Bix-and-Tram-and-Rollini brilliance at a jam session.

To me, this performance is so hot that it should have CAUTION! in its title — near the end of the 2013 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, a hot session in the Victory Pub of the Village Hotel Newcastle, featuring Torstein Kubban, cornet; Kristoffer Kompen, trombone; Andy Schumm, C-melody saxophone; Lars Frank, clarinet; Claus Jacobi, bass sax [the one and only belonging to Frans Sjostrom], Morten Gunnar Larsen, keyboard; Jacob Ullberger, banjo; Josh Duffee, drums; various unidentified dancers and pedestrians.

Recorded on November 3 or perhaps the morning of November 4, 2013 — I cn no longer remember!

I know that this exuberance will happen again at this year’s Party — which is coming around the corner in fourth gear — as it has happened every year I’ve been there. (It begins on the evening of Thursday, November 6, 2014, which is a week away.  I should begin to pack now.)

Since absurdity appeals to me almost as much as does hot jazz, I have to tell JAZZ LIVES readers that when I was documenting this video on YouTube, various helpful terms appeared at the bottom of the page to be considered as tags.  One of them (understandably) was “fruit preserves.”  Indeed.

See you in the Victory Pub, I hope.

And for another three minutes of Torstein, Lars, and Kris, here’s this lovely hot too-brief interlude on MELANCHOLY (with a serenely self-absorbed still photographer to bring the fun to an abrupt close):

May your happiness increase!

RAGS, STOMPS, BLUES, JOYS, and a CRADLE: MORTEN GUNNAR LARSEN’S RED HOT PEPPERS at the WHITLEY BAY CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY (Nov. 2, 2013)

Care for some Jelly Roll?  I certainly do.

Both as pianist and scholar, Morten Gunnar Larsen knows his Jelly Roll Morton, and his knowledge and love show in his playing.

This Morton tribute comes from the 2013 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, and it is an especially rewarding one because it gently and effectively combines a reverent approach to the originals with on-the-spot improvisation.  So what you experience is more than a series of scroll Victor 78s played live

Morten was able to assemble a fine band: Josh Duffee, drums; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Jacob Ullberger, banjo; Lars Frank, clarinet / soprano; Kristoffer Kompen, trombone; Bent Persson, cornet; guest star Aurelie Tropez*, clarinet.

THE SUPERIOR RAG:

MILENBERG JOYS*:

DEAD MAN BLUES*:

WOLVERINE BLUES* (a quartet of Morten, Lars, Aurelie, and Josh):

KANSAS CITY STOMPS:

Another previously unknown Morton composition, a “SLOW STOMP” called CROCODILE CRADLE:

BLACK BOTTOM STOMP:

Morten plays Morton.  What could be nicer?

And to make the point I have been making throughout this year: at the 2014 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, starting on Thursday, November 6, sessions like this are the rule, not the exception.

May your happiness increase!

A NEW BIX PROJECT

Few jazz musicians stir up as much longing and yearning as Bix Beiderbecke. This isn’t an aesthetic judgment on his achievement as measured against anyone else’s, but I sense that he is so powerfully missed by so many people. Although his recorded legacy is not by any means the most brief, those who love his music both revel in its beauties and wish with all their hearts that there would be more. Nearly seventy-five years after his final appearance in a recording studio, it seems unlikely that more will surface — although more unusual events have happened.

So those who revere him and his music have turned to Alternate Universes — tributes that do more than offer beautifully recorded or more leisurely versions of Okeh, Victor, Gennett, Harmony, Columbia sessions — but attempts to recreate something unheard.  (The parallel experiment, and a beautiful one, has always been Bent Persson’s ongoing Studies in Louis, spread over many records and CDs, and always rewarding.)

Nearly fifteen years ago, the very imaginative trumpeter Randy Sandke and friends recorded a CD for the Nagel-Heyer label of music associated with Louis and Bix: here is Doug Ramsey’s 2000 review of that disc.  A few years later, Dick Hyman took a small group in to the studio for Arbors Records (with Tom Pletcher inventing new beauties) to consider what would have happened if Bix played Gershwin.  (A wonderful Stomp Off session paired Bent and Tom for, among other imaginative fancies, a Bix-meets-Louis romp on MAD.)

Now, a decade later, Julio Schwarz Andrade came up with this new imaginative venture and recruited the musicians, and Paul Adams of Lake Records is eager to record the results, so a CD will become reality with some support from you. It’s a continuation of Paul’s work over a number of years called Vintage Recording Projects — where he assembles wonderful idiomatic musicians, records them with a minimum of fuss (no baffles or headphones, just people playing in a suitable room) with delightful results. Here is what the most recent session looked and sounded like — heroically gratifying!

I’ll let Julio explain:

The premise is, of course, that there are many tunes that we know Bix played and was fond of, but never had the chance to record. So this is our humble attempt to right that historical / circumstantial wrong, and to recreate what could have been. The musicians are: Andy Schumm, cornet; Mauro Porro, reeds; Kristoffer Kompen, trombone; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; David Boeddinghaus, piano; Josh Duffee, percussion.  The list of tunes hasn’t been finalized yet, but the following are being considered (in no particular order): STARDUST / SKYLARK / WOLVERINE BLUES / WASHBOARD BLUES / SWANEE / I’D CLIMB THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN / LAZY RIVER / IT MUST BE TRUE / PANAMA / ANGRY / HIAWATHA’S LULLABY / NO-ONE KNOWS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT among others.

Now, projects like this don’t take shape without support, so we are asking people to help out. Here is the link to contribute some . . . money.  A £30 donation gets your name in the booklet. Anything more than that gets you a place in heaven and eternal salvation as well. And all contributions will win gratitude from the organizers, the band, and future listeners.

The session will take place right after this year’s Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, and I look forward to the results.

May your happiness increase!

WITH BIX IN MIND: WHITLEY BAY CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY (ANDY SCHUMM, BENT PERSSON, ANDY WOON, GRAHAM HUGHES, MORTEN GUNNAR LARSEN, FRANS SJOSTROM, JOSH DUFFEE: NOVEMBER 3, 2013)

At the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, held in the Village Hotel, Newcastle, UK, the musicians work hard at creating the fabled jazz ensembles of the past — Henderson, Morton, Ellington, great British hot dance bands, and more — with sheaves of manuscript paper and splendid results.

To balance all of this, there are jam sessions in the hotel’s Victory Pub where no arrangements are to be found, but the same devotion to the heroes of the past is evident. But the music is more loose-limbed, and the evocations more playful. Here are four samples — recorded late Sunday night, November 3, 2013 (or was it Monday morning by then?) after the closing set of the party. The man on everyone’s mind was “the dear boy” from Davenport, Iowa — honored by Andy Schumm, Bent Persson, and Andy Woon, cornet; Graham Hughes, trombone (appearing on all but the first, and singing cheerfully on MARGIE), Morten Gunnar Larsen, keyboard; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Josh Duffee, drums.

AT THE JAZZ BAND BALL:

LOVE NEST:

TODDLIN’ BLUES:

MARGIE:

A Jazz Band Ball, indeed.

See you at the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party this November, where this music will blossom, in the light or in the darkness.

May your happiness increase!

THE BEAUTY OF IT HOT: AFTER HOURS IN THE VICTORY PUB, with JEFF BARNHART, BENT PERSSON, ANDY SCHUMM, TORSTEIN KUBBAN, KRISTOFFER KOMPEN, GRAHAM HUGHES, NORMAN FIELD, MATTHIAS SEUFFERT, FRANS SJOSTROM, LARS FRANK, JACOB ULLBERGER, JOSH DUFFEE — AT THE 2013 WHITLEY BAY CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY (November 1, 2013)

Collectively and joyously, Jeff Barnhart, keyboard / vocals; Bent Persson, Torstein Kubban, Andy Schumm, cornet; Graham Hughes, trombone; Kristoffer Kompen, valve-trombone; Lars Frank, tenor sax; Norman Field, clarinet; Matthias Seuffert, reeds; Jacob Ullberger, banjo; Frans Sjostrom, bass saxophone; Josh Duffee, drums.

Recorded on November 1, 2013, in the Victory Pub at the 2013 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party in Newcastle, England.

THEM THERE EYES:

NOBODY’S SWEETHEART NOW:

LULU’S BACK IN TOWN:

A fellow named Andy Schumm came by . . . and so did Josh Duffee:

MARGIE:

COME ON AND STOMP, STOMP, STOMP:

Because it is difficult to manage a camera, a tripod, a sheet of paper, and a pen, under these circumstances, I could be slightly inexact about who was playing what, when. (No doubt my precise readers will let me know my lapses.) It could have become November 2, 2013, while I was videoing. And if you think, “I can’t see the musicians,” I agree with you.

What matters is the liveliness of the music. These are the moments we remember all our lives — when improvisers, united by common love, memory, and knowledge, give us everything they have spent their lives experiencing — for the pure joy of it.

By the way, there’s more from this and another November 2013 jam session.  But the best way to experience such marvels is by being there. Consider this seriously if you can.

May your happiness increase!