“CATEGORY: MUSIC”: THE NEW EL DORADO JAZZ BAND PLAYS “SALTY BUBBLE” (Seaside, Oregon, Feb. 2012)

Sometimes YouTube has just the right idea.

Here is the New El Dorado Jazz Band, performing at the Seaside, Oregon Jazz Festival during February 22-24, 2012 — that’s Hal Smith, washboard; Katie Cavera, banjo / guitar; Dave Brown, string bass; Carl Sonny Leyland, piano; Mike Baird, clarinet; Howard Miyata, trombone; Marc Caparone, trumpet.

The song is SALTY BUBBLE, composed by trumpeter / vocalist Papa Ray Ronnei, and catapulted to fame by Woody Allen, who used it in his film WHATEVER WORKS.  (SALTY BUBBLE does have a certain kinship with a famous Twenties song about an Asian gentleman who puts people to sleep in the nicest ways, but no matter.)

Back to YouTube.  Without meaning to do so, they have cut through the ideological chatter that continues to afflict jazz.  Is this New Orleans jazz, Dixieland, traditional jazz, small-band swing . . . what-cha-call-em-blues?  No, without knowing it, they have taken their cue from Eddie Condon and his brother-in-law Sidney Smith, who chose to call what Eddie and friends played simply MUSIC.

And that it is!  More to come from Seaside and the New El Dorados, courtesy of the fine band and of our steady videographer “islandstarfish“.

“I NEVER KNEW”: GERRY GREEN’S CRESCENT CITY SHAKERS with SPECIAL GUESTS DAN BARRETT and CLINT BAKER

Usually ignorance isn’t bliss — but when the condition of Unknowing sounds like this (a cross between a jam session, the 1933 Chocolate Dandies, and an unissued Keynote Records session done in New Orleans) it’s a very good thing.

This band — to be more serious for a few words — was having a good time in Vancouver, B.C., on November 20, 2011, as part of the Vancouver Jazz Dance festival.  Its regular personnel includes leader Gerry Green on reeds, Bob Pelland on piano, Jim Armstrong on trombone and vocal, Bill Dixon on banjo, and the very solid Dave Brown on string bass.  That would be enough for most hearers, but the two guests were truly special: Dan Barrett on trumpet, trombone, and vocal; Clint Baker on drums.

Here they are contradicting the title of the song — I NEVER KNEW.  You don’t learn to play like this in school, and there’s nothing ignorant about this music:

Thanks to the elusive but expert islandstarfish for capturing this performance and others with such skill!

THE FIRST THURSDAY JAZZ BAND (April 7, 2011)

The First Thursday Jazz Band — a delightful small group paying homage to Pee Wee Russell, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis (Armstrong and Prima) among others — was caught live for five video performances at the New Orleans Creole Restaurant in Pioneer Square, Seattle, Washington.

The quiet heroes up there are Ray Skjelbred, piano; Steve Wright, trumpet, reeds; Dave Brown, bass; Mike Daugherty, drums.  For further information, visit the “islandstarfish” YouTube channel, where you can hear and see this band perform HELLO, LOLA!, CHASIN SHADOWS, a groovy BLUES IN THIRDS, and a tender IF WE NEVER MEET AGAIN.

Here’s a sweetly meditative I’M ON THE CREST OF A WAVE — for Bix and Bing and the King of Jazz:

http://youtu.be/4PBw_dcvF8E

I hope to see more of this band!

“OH, BABY!” by GERRY GREEN’S CRESCENT CITY SHAKERS

DON’T FORGET TO CLICK HERE WHILE YOU’RE DOING THE CHARLESTON – – THE MUSICIANS WILL THANK YOU!

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=VBURVAWDMWQAS

A friend sent in this nice performance of OH, BABY! — which, in its lovely old-school way, bends jazz genres in an unexpected fashion. 

Because of Bix Beiderbecke and Eddie Condon, because of Wild Bill Davison and others, I associate this song firmly with a “Chicagoan” approach: hot, charging, perhaps with the world-shaking rhythm section of Ralph Sutton, Eddie, Walter Page, and George Wettling rocking Columbia Records’ Thirtieth Street studios, now probably vanished. 

But clarinetist Gerry Green and friends reimagined it somewhat in reverse — taking it back to New Orleans in the most delicately forceful way.  The magicians in this video performance are Dave Brown, string bass; Bill Dixon, banjo; Bob Pelland, piano; Jim Armstrong, trumpet and trombone.  This was recorded on February 5. 2011, at the Bellingham, Washington, Traditional Jazz Society.  The new YouTube channel is called, sweetly, “islandstarfish,” and it will be worth your energy to watch it closely, I think.