One of the great rock songs in classic hot music: that is, you’ll rock back and forth in your chair. Guaranteed. And here’s a splendid version by four of the best: Albanie Falletta, resonator guitar, vocal, tour guide; Jon-Erik Kellso, Puje trumpet; Evan Arntzen, clarinet; Jen Hodge, string bass.
Boundless enthusiasm and contrapuntal joy free of charge.
This was performed at Cafe Bohemia, 15 Barrow Street, New York City, before the lights went out on Broadway. Happily the city and the music blaze again all over town.
Albanie explains it all, but if you crave an even more detailed socio-geographical-musical history of “Milneburg,” the New Orleans neighborhood that the song is named for, visit here. And about the composer credits: the introduction is by Jelly Roll Morton (thus my title) appended to the New Orleans Rhythm Kings’ composition GOLDEN LEAF STRUT, which is its own universe.
But the rollicking music is its own glorious explanation:
That satisfies all of our daily food group requirements and more.
Here are the final three performances from the rocking set performed by Hal Smith’s MORTONIA SEVEN at the Redwood Coast Music Festival — jazz of such a high order that I am sorry I caught only nine songs by this band.
Mister Morton looks over Mister Smith’s shoulder.
At the Redwood Coast Music Festival, they performed MILENBERG JOYS, SMOKE-HOUSE BLUES, BALLIN’ THE JACK, BLUE BLOOD BLUES, STEAMBOAT STOMP, MAMIE’S BLUES, visible and audible here and three others:
FROGGIE MOORE RAG (or FROG-I-MORE if you prefer):
NEW ORLEANS BLUES:
and for a rousing climax, PANAMA:
I look forward to hearing this band at festivals in the year to come.
For the first part of this wonderful set, frankly irresistible — MILENBERG JOYS, SMOKE-HOUSE BLUES, BALLIN’ THE JACK — visit here. And here are the next three.
BLUE BLOOD BLUES:
STEAMBOAT STOMP:
MAMIE’S BLUES (vocal by John Gill):
A wonderful band devoted to the music of Jelly Roll Morton and the music he and his bands played — electrifying, exact, and loose all at once. Led by Hal Smith on drums, the Mortonia Seven is Dave Kosmyna, cornet and vocal; TJ Muller, trombone; Dave Bennett, clarinet; Kris Tokarski, piano; John Gill, banjo and vocal; Sam Rocha, string bass and helicon.
Some words. Jelly Roll Morton was not happy to have his music popularized by others during his lifetime (think of Fletcher Henderson, Benny Goodman, and others selling millions of copies of KING PORTER STOMP and WOLVERINE BLUES) but in some way there was a Morton “revival” going on for the last decade of his life. And with good reason: the compositions themselves are substantial, full of surprises that haven’t aged, and the recorded performances are fascinating marriages of hot improvisation and established structures.
But because Morton was such a powerful personality — man, composer, arranger, giver of dicta that should be obeyed — tributes to him have often not been easy or their results satisfying. Sometimes ensembles have been reverent and obedient: we must play it exactly the way the Red Hot Peppers did on the record, and those results are dazzling in their own way but I am not sure Omer Simeon would have liked people treating his solo as holy writ, to be repeated forever, with musicians subsuming their own identities in those manuscripts and recordings. (And Morton’s recordings have their own vivid force, not easy to replicate.) The other extreme, with a bunch of good people “jamming” on WOLVERINE BLUES and SWEET SUBSTITUTE, can be thrilling, but the results are at a distance from the exactitude Morton brought to his gigs and the recording studio.
The Mortonia Seven takes some and leaves some from both worlds: you can easily hear the outlines and structures of the original compositions and recordings, executed with style and grace, but the musicians’ personalities come through whole. And the result is lively, not studied — hot and sweet, raucous and melancholy, as the music demands.
There are more performances from this set that I will share with you. For now, I’m going to watch these again, mop my brow, and grin. Join me!
Get ready for the room temperature to increase steadily. Music first, words after.
MILENBERG JOYS (vocal by John Gill):
SMOKE-HOUSE BLUES:
BALLIN’ THE JACK (vocal by Dave Kosmyna):
A wonderful band devoted to the music of Jelly Roll Morton and the music he and his bands played — electrifying, exact, and loose all at once. Led by Hal Smith on drums, the Mortonia Seven is Dave Kosmyna, cornet and vocal; TJ Muller, trombone; Dave Bennett, clarinet; Kris Tokarski, piano; John Gill, banjo and vocal; Sam Rocha, string bass and helicon.
Some words. Jelly Roll Morton was not happy to have his music popularized by others during his lifetime (think of Fletcher Henderson, Benny Goodman, and others selling millions of copies of KING PORTER STOMP and WOLVERINE BLUES) but in some way there was a Morton “revival” going on for the last decade of his life. And with good reason: the compositions themselves are substantial, full of surprises that haven’t aged, and the recorded performances are fascinating marriages of hot improvisation and established structures.
But because Morton was such a powerful personality — man, composer, arranger, giver of dicta that should be obeyed — tributes to him have often not been easy or their results satisfying. Sometimes ensembles have been reverent and obedient: we must play it exactly the way the Red Hot Peppers did on the record, and those results are dazzling in their own way but I am not sure Omer Simeon would have liked people treating his solo as holy writ, to be repeated forever, with musicians subsuming their own identities in those manuscripts and recordings. (And Morton’s recordings have their own vivid force, not easy to replicate.) The other extreme, with a bunch of good people “jamming” on WOLVERINE BLUES and SWEET SUBSTITUTE, can be thrilling, but the results are at a distance from the exactitude Morton brought to his gigs and the recording studio.
The Mortonia Seven takes some and leaves some from both worlds: you can easily hear the outlines and structures of the original compositions and recordings, executed with style and grace, but the musicians’ personalities come through whole. And the result is lively, not studied — hot and sweet, raucous and melancholy, as the music demands.
There are a half-dozen more performances from this set that I will share with you. For now, I’m going to watch these three again, mop my brow, and grin. Join me!
“How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” is too difficult a question and even for celestial beings, perhaps a little cramped. “How much joy can two superb improvisers pack into ten minutes?” is an easier question since we have the tangible evidence.
This delightful interlude — THE CRAVE / GRANDPA’S SPELLS / IF DREAMS COME TRUE — two by Jelly Roll Morton, and a classic stride test piece by Edgar Sampson that works beautifully on its own (think of Billie’s version) were performed in concert (thanks to Dick Gibson) at the Paramount Theatre in Colorado, sometime between September 4-6, 1982. Dick Hyman, Dave Frishberg, pianos, if you were guessing:
Everyone who’s immersed in this music bows to Dick Hyman, part Eminence, part Keyboard Gazelle. For spirited inventiveness, only Art Tatum has surpassed him. But because Dave Frishberg was rarely in the foreground as a solo pianist, especially after his success as a sardonic-whimsical singer-songwriter, he’s been underestimated for too long. But he was a peerless soloist and accompanist, with this own mixture of Duke-Rowles-Basie, which once heard is unforgettable.
Here, he is shoulder-to-shoulder with Hyman, musically and fraternally. These ten minutes are expert and exact, but they are also joyous play — a too-brief interlude. But now you can share the grinning as well, and return at leisure.
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.
It’s my pleasure to present a group to you, its members expert and passionate although not all that well-known, its instrumentation clarinet / soprano saxophone, viola, and double bass.
Some of you might say, “That’s seriously unorthodox,” and perhaps you’d be right since groups with this instrumentation aren’t the usual. But the question of “orthodox” instrumentation has long been shaped by players’ desires to reproduce a certain desirable sound — whether Bob Crosby’s Bobcats or Charlie Parker’s quintets. And, of course, the marketplace — music as recognizable reproducible product — was a driving force, so that the Benny Goodman trio gave rise to other clarinet-piano-drums groups.
But left to their own devices, musicians looked for other sympathetic souls who could play. Alto, clarinet, guitar, string bass? Sure. Cornet, bass saxophone, piano, guitar? Let’s go.
Hear for yourself.
Goodness, don’t they swing? — with such dancing rhythms, shifting tonalities, and an overall translucency. And the CONSORT is such a sweet triumph — its precursor is the Basie rhythm section — of complete unity and complete individuality all at once.
I’ll have another. How about something slightly more unexpected?
Why stop now?
What we loosely call “cyberspace” is like the grab bag at the children’s party: sometimes you get a neatly wrapped package of worn socks; sometimes you find a jewel.
I first met Danyel Nicholas (clarinet, soprano saxophone, and imagination) when he left a wonderfully articulated comment on a video of the EarRegulars. I wanted to find out who this thinking person was, and instigated a conversation, which led me to the videos of the CHAMBER JAZZ CONSORT, also featuring Micha Daniels, viola, and Roland Effgen, double bass. The video performances were a sweet ardent breeze to my sensibilities, and I asked Danyel to tell me where all this light-hearted expert fervent joy had come from:
Chamber Jazz Consort was formed after I came back from New York (where I studied with Mark Lopeman and, to a lesser extent, with the late Phil Schaap–history is a very important part of music as my favourite composers and even players tend to be all historic) wrote some arrangements and tried to re-vitalise my old swing band I had left behind and that John Defferary had kind of inherited but was no longer interested in. Those cats however couldn’t handle the amount of writing and detailed notation. Then came the pandemic and we decided to shrink to the minimum size. I had grown up “bilingual” in musical terms and always drifted towards substantial compositions (Jelly Roll, Ellington, Benny Carter) in Jazz. I am not so much interested in Third Stream as Jazz clearly already is a third stream, but I think form and instrumentation are not definitive yet, as many jazz musicians simply don’t have the time to study Lully or Schubert. I like counterpoint and try to write obbligato accompaniment that is not an organic version of band in a box. That’s why I am particularly fond of the EarRegulars and always relished the occasions when Scott Robinson played Trumbauer on a Sarrusophone.
I pursued Danyel a little more, saying that my readers — and I — wanted to know, “Where on earth did this fellow come from?” and got this witty reply:
What were I & where? That’s a tough one!—— In the 80s I studied composition and played piano, in the 90s lute and viol (in Frankfurt/Germany at Clara Schuman’s conservatory…) but played mostly modern jazz (clarinet & alto) as nobody here was seriously playing earlier jazz, or any early music for that matter, especially in my generation. I had however loved Ellington, Jelly, Henderson, or the Missourians ever since friends of my parents, when I was “knee-high to a duck,” gave me stacks of strange records they thought I might like. I did!
In the late 90s I published a book on “exotic” instruments for a museum and taught the clarinet. I also started to collect historic clarinets like the kind Bigard or Simeon used.
In the “oughties” I worked with New Orleans-style people (like Trevor Richards, John Defferary to name only those you might have heard of) and worked endlessly on mouthpieces. In the teens I tried to run a Kansas City-style swing band playing mostly for lindy hoppers, then, in New York, I met Mark Lopeman (playing lead alto with the Nighthawks that evening), took lessons with him for about 2 years (about 3 hours a week!) and realised that writing jazz was the right thing for me to do. Mark is the greatest transcriber I have ever met. And one of the finest reeds! Back in Europe I played with all sorts of musicians who would tell me they’d rather improvise because they didn’t care how the inner voices moved or how the instrumentation sounded. So I felt like Jelly Roll! Hooray!
During the pandemic (hardly any gigs for two years!) I rehearsed the Chamber Jazz Consort and practiced French music of the Louis XIV era. I also try to keep the “Red Hot Hottentots” alive, an ancient German hot jazz ensemble (with Colin Dawson).
Next I might embark with Capt. Gulliver…
I don’t want Danyel, Micha, and Roland to embark anywhere except for a series of gigs, a concert tour, CD and DVD recording sessions, festival appearances. In the ideal world, they would be the “other” group on a concert bill with a chamber group playing Brahms and Dvorak.
Practical matters. Danyel’s YouTube channel can be found here. As I write this, he has a mingy eleven subscribers, including me. We can do better. And he has posted more than a dozen thrilling videos . . . with a broad imaginative reach. Here’s one I love:
I love this brave friendly wise quirky band, and want them to be better known. Tell your friends!
At the end of last summer, one of the great pleasures was the Sunday sessions created by the EarRegulars outside of the Ear Inn on 326 Spring Street. I’ve been sending their wonderful music out slowly, a performance at a time, hoping to come to the end of the 2021 gifts as the 2022 summer sessions begin again. Cue Helen Humes singing I CAN DREAM, CAN’T I?
On October 3, the EarRegulars were Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Matt Munisteri, guitar; Harvey Tibbs, trombone; Neal Miner, string bass. And here they are musing their way, collectively and singly, through Jelly Roll Morton’s SWEET SUBSTITUTE, with delicacy and fervor:
Accept no substitutes. Ask for The EarRegulars wherever better music can be found. (They have resumed their Sunday evening sessions indoors, from 8-11, loosely, and those gatherings at 326 Spring Street are also life-changing, in subtle ways.)
Life is a banquet of imperfections, as I can tell you from experience.
And I am about to offer you a performance that is sonically restorative while at the same time it is visually flawed. For only the second time in its mechanical-technical life, one of my cameras has proven rebellious: about twenty-five seconds in to this “video,” the image freezes and remains a still photograph.
But the music pulses delightfully on.
It would have pained me (and perhaps the shade of Ferdinand LeMenthe) to have consigned this to the darkness . . . so I present it to you here with the caveats above. It’s lovely rousing music, with daring solos and splendid ensemble interplay by The EarRegulars, people who know how to do the Charleston without leaving their seats: Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet (perhaps his Harry B. Jay model?); Harvey Tibbs, trombone; Matt Munisteri, guitar; Neal Miner, string bass.
All this medicalized joy took place at The Ear Out, 326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City, on Sunday, November 3, 2021. Now you know it all, and can savor the healing powers of hot jazz:
As to the rebellious camera, perhaps it will go to an over-55 senior community, where it can tell tales of the many hours of music it recorded for all of us.
For relief from my attempts to tidy my apartment (think Sisyphus with myopia and a short attention span) I turn to the more cheerful task of tidying my YouTube archives.
I have preserved somewhere around eight thousand videos, recorded from 2007 to this summer, and some of them are labeled in ways that make them elusive. But you and I benefit from my disorder, since wonders emerge and can be shared.
March 2019 seems like decades ago, but it wasn’t — in calendar time. Because of kind invitations from the Juvae Jazz Society, I found myself in Decatur, Illinois, for a one-day jazz festival that also featured Petra van Nuis and her Recession Seven and local hero Bob Havens. I video-recorded several sets by the Chicago Cellar Boys, and I think four posts on JAZZ LIVES resulted. But here are some you ain’t tuned in to yet. The CCB are Andy Schumm, cornet, clarinet, saxophones, arrangements; John Otto, clarinet, alto saxophone; Paul Asaro, piano, vocal; Dave Bock, tuba; Johnny Donatowicz, banjo and guitar.
GULF COAST BLUES:
I FOUND A NEW BABY:
WILD MAN BLUES:
BEER GARDEN BLUES comes from 1933, and celebrates the end of Prohibition: Clarence Williams gave it new lyrics and it became SWING, BROTHER, SWING a few years later:
I understand the CCB played splendidly at the most recent Bix Festival — may they once again delight us at many venues. Until then, I have posted nearly sixty performances by this flexible, inventive hot group, so there’s much more to delight you.
If the names above are familiar to you — John Royen, piano; Kim Cusack, clarinet; Joshua Gouzy or Steve PIkal, string bass; Hal Smith, drums — then my copying Louis’ delighted exhortation will make perfect sense. To go a little deeper, here is a new CD, titled GREEN SWAMP, a Darnell Howard original. It contains seventeen performances and was beautifully recorded by New Orleans’ own Tim Stambaugh.
But perhaps four minutes of music would be a joy-spreading interlude at this point — a Don Ewell original, SOUTH SIDE STRUT, with Steve on string bass. (Don, as you might know, was John’s mentor: no one better.)
I have a familiar pride in this issue, because I wrote the notes:
In a society in love with newness, to call something “old-fashioned” may seem an insult.Doesn’t everyone want thelatest thing? But to me that expression is another name for timeless beauty and virtue, creations that will last. This CD is terribly “old-fashioned” and I am damned glad of it.
This music is melodic, swinging, affectionate. It romps. It grins. The sounds embrace the listener; what comes out of the speaker sounds good, and that is no small thing (in Condon-terms, it is honey rather than broken glass to the ear). Without gimmicks or jokes, the band says, “Come along with us. We promise you a good time.” Most of the tunes (“tunes” is another old-fashioned word, one I’d hate to lose) are medium-tempo, a little faster or slower: good for spur-of-the-moment-shoeless dancing in the kitchen.
Captain John Royen doesn’t have that honorific only because he pilots a boat; his playing is wonderfully decisive: you know where you are at all times, and the trip is both elegant and exciting, as he steers by the lights of Ewell and Morton. The Captain is also that reassuring evolutionary accomplishment: a two-handed orchestral pianist. He doesn’t pound or race: you can set your clock by him. His colleagues Pikal and Gouzy are just as reliable: they offer a limber rhythmic platform, flexible and stimulating. Hal Smith is a master of swing and sonic variety: every note both propels and rings as he plays “for the comfort of the band.” Finally, there’s the unequalled Kim Cusack, whose tone is lemonade in July, who creates memorable variations with lightness and fervor. The repertoire is honorable melodies that are both venerable and fresh. By the way, this is a band, not simply four soloists in the same room: listeners with even mildly functioning imaginations will sense these musicians smiling approval through every track.
I used to write long liner notes, supplying biography (Google made that redundant) and song origins (ditto), explaining musical nuances. My new goal is to write notes that can be read in less than three minutes and twenty seconds, the time it took to play a 78 rpm record. If more explanation is necessary, one of us has failed. Not the band, I assure you. Now, get to listening! Joy awaits.
The other performances on the disc are I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH ME / SQUEEZE ME / BLUES MY NAUGHTY SWEETIE GIVES TO ME / HONEY HUSH / I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOU / SWEET SUBSTITUTE / HERE COMES THE BAND / OLD FASHIONED LOVE / PRETTY BABY / LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME / MONDAY DATE / BLUE, TURNING GREY OVER YOU / SAVE IT, PRETTY MAMA / BUSH STREET SCRAMBLE / DELMAR DRAG / GREEN SWAMP.
Julian Barnes has an extraordinary story in his 2005 collection THE LEMON TABLE, “A Short History of Hairdressing,” in which the narrator recounts his life as a series of haircuts.
It amuses me to offer my life in a few lines as a purchaser of recorded music:
Fifty-five years ago, when my mother went shopping in a department store, I ran off and bought a Louis Armstrong long-playing record for $2.79 plus tax. Thirty years ago, I stopped off at Tower Records on my way home from work and bought an Arbors or a Concord CD for $16 and hid it in my briefcase so it wouldn’t be seen and cause an argument. In the past twelve months, although I still buy music from Amazon and eBay and the musicians themselves, the music cornucopia has become Bandcamp.com, where one can hear and purchase all sorts of divinely inspired improvised music — from Bob Matthews to Brad Linde and Freddie Redd, to Gordon Au, Keenan McKenzie, Jonathan Doyle, The Vitality Five, The Dime Notes, Andrew Oliver, Michael McQuaid and two dozen more . . . and now, a wonderful addition to Hal Smith’s catalogue of inspiring music.
This isn’t a collection of howling, meowing, and hissing: no need to open the window and shout “STOP THAT!” at the feline orgy below. Rather, it’s hot New Orleans dance music. Hal [one of the greatest swinging drummers on the planet, and that’s no stage joke] says, of this brand-new session, “a sound somewhere between Bunk’s band (if Don Ewell had been the pianist) and the 1964 ‘Jazzology Poll Winners.'”
Filet of soul — not canned or freeze-dried. I confess to always entering into an emotional relationship with music — those rare and delicious effusions that make me feel warmly embraced. Hal’s new disc does that.
Here, listen. And I believe that Bandcamp waives its fees on Friday, so the musicians get more of the hot savory pie.
The facts, ma’am (thinking of Jack Webb, if you remember):
Hal Smith (drums, leader); Clint Baker (trumpet, vocal on MY LITTLE GIRL); John Gill (trombone); Ryan Calloway (clarinet); Kris Tokarski (piano); Bill Reinhart (banjo); Katie Cavera (string bass). YOU ALWAYS HURT THE ONE YOU LOVE / ARKANSAS BLUES / BLUE MASK STOMP / HONEY BABE / SAN SUE STRUT / BLACK CAT ON THE FENCE / BLUE FOR YOU, BUNK / MY LITTLE GIRL //
Jake Hanna said — often — “What are you waiting for the last chorus of a tune to swing? Start swinging from the beginning!” and this band does, no matter what the tempo. Twenty years ago, a work-colleague would say, “You ROCK!” as
Before I heard a note, I was happy with the tune list. Occasionally I think, “If I hear one more JUST A CLOSER WALK WITH ME or PLEASE DON’T TALK ABOUT ME WHEN I’M GONE or SI TU VOIS MA MERE I will bang my head into the wall — don’t try this, it ruins the paint — but the avoidance of tediously overplayed songs was immediately refreshing. Aside from the homage to Bunk Johnson’s repertoire, there are affectionate glances at Messrs. Morton, Manone, Bechet, and others.
It’s a band with New Orleans in their hearts — strong melodic improvisations, a pulsating supportive rhythm section, and a delightfully idiosyncratic front line making SOUNDS. There is a refreshing reliance on ensemble playing, and a return to one of my favorite things: one player offering a straight but swinging melody while the other improvises around it.
I said it was warm — and warming — music. I hear other bands full of players I admire hewing so closely to the recordings that the collective effect is technically dazzling but a little cool to the touch. The Jazzologists know the score (pun intended) but they romp all on their own. And they don’t fall into the reverent trap of imitating the limitations of venerable senior players. They play.
And it’s a triumph of passion as well as technology. Yes, it was created remotely, with players in six cities — but the groove is such that you wouldn’t know it.
Not for the first time in my adult life have I lamented the disconnect between my ears and heart (those parts that receive the music and revel in it) and my rather stiff stubborn legs. But hearing this disc, I would happily dance around the kitchen, not caring how goofy I might look. It’s that inspiring.
To be a good critic, one must find flaws, or so it seems. That was hard with this session — now on its fifth playing as I write this — but I did find one thing to complain about. I wish this had been a digital two-CD set. Maybe in a few months (what is the feline gestation period?) there can be Kittens?
I didn’t create this video, but I bless Bob and Ruth Byler for doing just that: James Dapogny, piano, and Bent Persson, cornet, playing CHICAGO BREAKDOWN / BLACK BOTTOM STOMP at the Manassas Jazz Festival, November 29, 1985. It’s been hidden in plain sight [think of that Poe mystery] in the middle of a much longer video, but it was worth the price of the software needed to dig it out. For me, and of course for you.
Even though the composer credits for WILD MAN BLUES read Armstrong-Morton or the reverse, we know that such a collaboration, on manuscript paper or public performance, didn’t happen. But this episode gives us a chance to imagine the two of them in duet, north of TOM CAT, west of WEATHER BIRD:
What swing, what intensity, what ease — breathing the idiom and making it live. I will have more of Jim and Bent to share with you (when the Swedish Jazz Kings came to Manassas) shortly: for now, bask in these fine hot sounds.
It’s Sunday! Grab your mask, your hat, your coat — no, wait, just make yourself comfortable as we go downtown to the Seat of Pleasure, 326 Spring Street, for a wonderful session with the EarRegulars — who were, on November 14, 2010, Dan Block, clarinet and tenor saxophone; Pete Martinez, clarinet; Matt Munisteri, guitar; Jon Burr, string bass.
Three little words — could they be THE EAR INN?
Poor Buddy — we now know more about why he was Blue:
Beauty and song: it must be Irving Berlin:
And Israel Baline returns to his roots:
and the conclusion:
Be cautious and loving, and we’ll live through this to be together again.
Yesterday, I posted a video of Ray Skjelbred and his Cubs performing BIG BOY here, and the response was so enthusiastic that I thought, “Let’s have another one right now.”
Ninety-five years ago, people were praising Peter — first instrumentally (Herb Wiedoft, Glen Oswald’s Serenaders, the Broadway Dance Orchestra, Paul Specht, Alex Hyde, Red Nichols) — then vocally (Arthur Fields with Sam Lanin) and the 1932 “Rhythmakers” sessions that Philip Larkin thought the highest art.
Here, as a historical benchmark, is a 1924 version by Glen Oswald’s Serenaders (recorded in Oakland, California) — a varied arrangement, full of bounce:
“Peter” remains a mystery – – but we do know that he was “so nice,” as proven by four versions of this secular hymn of praise to his romantic ardor recorded in April and May 1932 by the Rhythmakers, a beyond-our-wildest-dreams group featuring Henry Red Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Eddie Condon, Joe Sullivan, Jack Bland, Al Morgan, Zutty Singleton. If you don’t know the Rhythmakers sessions, you are honor-bound to do some of the most pleasurable research.
But here we are in 2014, with Ray Skjelbred and his Cubs at the one-day al fresco jazz party held at Cline Wineries in Napa, California. This wondrous little band — having themselves a time while making sure we do also — is Ray, piano; Kim Cusack, clarinet; Clint Baker, string bass; Katie Cavera, guitar; Jeff Hamilton, drums. Members of the Cubs have been known to burst into song, but this time Peter’s praises must be imagined or implied. However, Ray and the Cubs are clearly nice and more: no ambiguity there.
The Cubs continue to delight me for the best reasons. They don’t wear brightly-colored polo shirts; they are humorous but not jokey; they play hot and sweet music — honoring everyone from Frank Teschemacher and Eddie Condon to Jimmie Noone and Jeni Le Gon — without putting on the kind of show that more popular “trad” bands get away with. They are what Milt Hinton called GOOD MUSIC, and I celebrate them. Tell the children that such a thing exists, please.
And a digression (what’s a blog for if the CEO can’t digress?) — OH PETER — no comma in the original — was composed by Herb Wiedoft, Gene Rose, and Jesse Stafford. Wiedoft played trumpet and led his own orchestra, where Rose played piano and wrote arrangements; Stafford played trombone and baritone horn. And hereis the original sheet music, verse and chorus.
I take a deep breath and point out that “peter” has been slang for “penis” since the mid-nineteenth century. . . . so “When you are by my side / That’s when I’m satisfied,” and “There’s nothing sweeter, Peter, Peter,” in the chorus, has always made me wonder, and the verse, new to me, contains the lines, “I’m missin’ / Your love and kissin’ ? And lots of other things too.” The lyrics do state that Peter is a real person who has been “stepping out,” but if the song were titled OH SAMMY, would it have the same effect? (What of Morton’s 1929 SWEET PETER, by the way?) Perhaps you will propose that I need a more virtuous life, but I wonder if this song was sung with a wink at the audience, even though it’s clearly not a double-entendre blues of the period. Do think on it. And please admire my superb restraint in not titling this post IS YOUR PETER NICE?
Note: any connections between BIG BOY and OH PETER that readers might perceive are their own responsibility.
I know how hard improvising in public is, but I’ve been in situations where singularly gifted musicians are simply “doing their job” and we can all hear it. Perhaps it’s the last tune of an exhausting festival set; perhaps someone in the band had a marital argument earlier or has to use the facilities very shortly.
But there are performances and recordings joyous from the first notes. Not volume or speed: rather, a collective pleased exuberance. Here’s a fine one.
But I’m not surprised: after all, it’s the second CD by the wonderful DIME NOTES, made up of great players (and thinkers and feel-ers as well): Andrew Oliver, piano; David Horniblow, clarinet; Dave Kelbie, guitar; Louis Thomas, string bass. I was very pleased with their first effort, as you can read here — and when Andrew and David became the “Complete Morton Project,” every week brought a new YouTube video — jolts of pleasure at regular intervals.
Here’s a sample — Jimmie Noone’s EL RADO SCUFFLE:
Several things make this CD more than special. The repertoire is a lovely mix of classics and less-played tunes from the early jazz years: EL RADO SCUFFLE / THE CHANT / DAYLIGHT SAVIN’ BLUES / THE DREAM / GRANDPA’S SPELLS / FICKLE FAY CREEP / PEP / WORRIED AND LONESOME BLUES / TEN CENT RHYTHM (an original by Andrew) / WHY / JUBILEE STOMP / SAN // Of course there’s Mister Jelly, but also side-glances at James P. Johnson and others.
But I can hear some of you, those who grumble, “I have sixteen versions of SAN already. Why do I need this one?” — which has some validity. If you stop that grumbling, I will try to answer.
For one thing, that approach reminds me of the dusty joke, “Would you like a book for your birthday?” “No thanks, I already have a book.” The whole spirit of the music we love is in its ability to make the familiar fresh and gleaming. How many recordings do any of us have of slow twelve-bar blues? But we hope for more excitement, more “personality” to come from what we already know in its broad outlines. It’s especially true with THE DIME NOTES, who are a working band: they know the venerable recordings by heart; they have immersed themselves in the little details of those Gennetts and Vocalions. And they don’t strive to be “innovative” or “harmonically adventurous” in ways that would put a fez on the Mona Lisa. But each track on this CD has its own vivacious energy, as if someone had switched on an internal light. I hear things in these songs that I don’t expect to hear, and there is no museum-dust, no scent of antiquity. And because this is a working band, there is a special, charming unity: the way people who have been together for some time laugh at each other’s jokes, anticipate each other’s acts — in general, “play well with others.”
There’s a secret ingredient: that is, a large awareness that each of the four masterful players has, and it permeates the group. Leaving aside Andrew’s original, even though the newest song on this CD was composed more than eighty years ago, the music didn’t freeze in 1926. At the risk of offending those who like their jazz “pure,” whatever in the name of Eli Oberstein that means, this band knows how to play Twenties jazz with a buoyant swing feeling that perhaps Mel Stitzel was unaware of or not willing to attempt. I don’t mean genre-bending “Dixieland goes Modern,” but I do hear a joyous bounce throughout this session, and it makes the older material seem so shiny.
And that, dear comrades in jazz, is why this CD is memorable and will remain so through multiple playings.
Seasonal Hot migrations: the Weatherbird Jazz Band has just paid us another welcome visit. (I’ve posted perhaps two dozen of their performances, which are both gratifying and easy to find.)
Here are six more beautiful performances, mostly celebrating the 1925-28 sides that Louis Armstrong and friends created in Chicago, with celebratory glances at Jelly Roll Morton, Clarence Williams, and the NORK.
The Weatherbirds, for these sessions, are Bent Persson, trumpet or cornet; Kaj Sifvert, trombone; Tomas Ornberg, clarinet or soprano saxophone; Ulf Johansson Werre, piano; Goran Lind, string bass; Goran Eriksson, banjo or alto saxophone; Sigge Dellert, drums. You’ll notice that I refrain from explaining and explicating: this music needs no subtitles, just listeners open to joy.
MY MONDAY DATE:
SOMEDAY SWEETHEART:
TIN ROOF BLUES:
BLACK BOTTOM STOMP (today is Mr. Morton’s birthday):
Here‘s the first part of a wonderful set at the San Diego Jazz Fest, where the Yerba Buena Stompers play and sing MILENBERG JOYS, SOME OF THESE DAYS, and THE TORCH. The Stompers are John Gill, banjo and vocal; Kevin Dorn, drums; Clint Baker, tuba; Tom Bartlett, trombone; Orange Kellin, clarinet; Duke Heitger, trumpet; Leon Oakley, cornet. And what fine noises they make.
“More!” the crowd shouts.
Here’s the ODJB’s CLARINET MARMALADE — as John Gill says, “For the kids”:
To the NORK, for TIN ROOF BLUES, with John’s down-home vocal:
A G minor vamp starts the BLUES MY NAUGHTY SWEETIE GIVES TO ME:
and the Louis Hot Five ONCE IN A WHILE:
Alas, we won’t have a reunion in person this November, but I permit myself to hope for one in 2021.
Jen Hodge is the real deal — as melodically propulsive ensemble player or soloist, singer, bandleader, or jazz-instigator / investigator. (Now we can add “whistler” to the list of credits, by the way.) So I’m not at all surprised that her new CD, THE GIRL IN THE GROOVE, is lively, varied, and flavorful. Incidentally, the second link will lead you to Jen’s online CD release party via Facebook, on Friday, October 2, from 9-11, EDT. Consider yourself invited.
And since Jen and friends often play for swing dancers, the music on this disc has a definite warm pulse, felt rather than being a matter of volume, that is consistently cheering. That’s evident from the first notes of the aptly named HODGE PODGE (all right, it was named for Johnny Hodges) that keeps the bounce of late-Thirties Ellington without being a museum piece. Brad Shigeta growls and snarls his way through the main strain of HERE LIES LOVE before involving the rest of the band in the swinging elegy. Incidentally, any 2020 CD that has a little-played Ralph Rainger composition, made famous by Bing Crosby, has already curled up at the foot of my bed — even before Mike Daugherty’s stop-time chorus and the singular Chris Davis and Joseph Abbott.
What could be more overdone than I GOT RHYTHM, you ask? Not in Jen’s version, which begins with her winsome singing of the verse, rubato, over Josh’s guitar tapestries . . . sliding into a rocking vocal chorus with the band taking turns around her — then taking things to a cheerfully higher level with vocal twists and turns. Jen’s singing is sweetly unfussy and genuine, charming because she isn’t imitating anyone, just having a good time sharing the song with us. SUMMERTIME, also teetering on the brink of extinction, sounds both fresh and ominous — March of the Aliens, and they are coming to your town in the next hour! — but it continues on its own singular path with Joseph Abbott’s lyrically clear improvisation on the melody, then Brad Shigeta’s affectionate snarl (he means no harm) and Abbott’s sky-blue tones as the band riffs somewhat menacingly underneath. You’ll have to hear it to understand.
USE YOUR HEAD, an old-time-modern original by Jen, starts off at marvelously low volume — as if the band had decided to jam the insinuating composition in whispers. Apparently the lyrics are a series of instructions to a prospective lover, auditioning for the gig. I hope so. More blessed to give, and all that. When the performance was over, rocking itself to a kind of pleasurable summit, thanks to Clara Rose as well as the band, I was only disappointed that Jen didn’t come back to sing a half-dozen more choruses. Yes, it’s 2020, but it’s a song that would have done nicely for Clara, Mamie, or Bessie in 1931. Or Fats Waller, any decade. I played it three times before moving on, and I expect to repeat the pleasurable experience tomorrow. Come for the philosophy, stay for the swing.
I must halt matters here and praise Jen’s string bass playing. As wonderful as the other musicians are on this CD — and they damned well are — my ears kept coming back in delight to the lines she was creating under and through the ensembles, and her concise swinging “speaking” solo work. And her arco passage on DEAD MAN BLUES is so poignant, so focused. And, just for the record, she plays with equal beauty and conviction in person: I have shared videos of Jen at Cafe Bohemia, where no one talked through a single solo, because every solo kept us rapt.
Then there are the arrangements, mostly group efforts by the band, three by Jen herself, and HODGE PODGE by the sterling Alan Matheson. On Joseph Abbott’s THE EARTHQUAKE DRILL, I had to look at the band personnel again to remind myself that this was a compact, flexible, sauntering sextet — no piano — because so much was going on in this fast blues, and not only a SING SING SING interlude for clarinet and drums. You could — and you will want to — listen to the whole disc several times, once focusing on the soloists, once on the charts, once . . . you will figure it out. It sounds happy and natural: this band floats on the fun it creates.
Every jazz CD needs some side-glances at The End, to keep the hoodoo away: this one has not only HERE LIES LOVE, but a jaunty variation on the “New Orleans Function” theme, where FLEE AS A BIRD turns the corner into DEAD MAN BLUES — less Morton than Manone, I think, until the final choruses, reminiscent of MOURNFUL INTERLUDE, providing a splendid trot home from the imagined gravesite. Be not afraid: nothing’s dead on this disc, even with some ancient repertoire, frisky and bold.
Speaking of frisky and bold, there’s Jen’s soulful rendition of UP ABOVE MY HEAD, which has the appropriate words, “I really do believe / there’s joy somewhere.” How true for this disc. And although the original composition reaches all the way back, Jen’s version hints both at a revival service and something Charles Mingus might have invented and played — spirituality with a deep (mildly whimsical) seismic motion.
And the CD ends with a lovely tribute — not only to generations of trumpet players who gently begin STARDUST with the verse — but to the much-missed swing matriarch and Sage, Dawn Hampton, who left us a YouTube video of her whistling that composition in the most heartfelt manner. Jen’s whistling reminds me not only of the mysterious Maurice Hendricks (look him up, do), but also of someone whistling — earnestly and passionately — on her way home from school or a tennis match. And, in ways that surprised me, of Louis: I felt the same chills up and down my spine. I don’t write such praise lightly.
Hereyou can pre-order the digital CD (it will slide down the birth canal on October 2) and hear samples. It’s a wow.
We can celebrate and mourn at the same time, and the combination feels right today, because Eddy Davis — imaginative, unpredictable, magical, mysterious — would have been eighty today, September 26, 2020. Yes, he went away, but he is never far from us.
Eddy Davis and Conal Fowkes, Cafe Bohemia, Dec. 26, 2019.
I offer a triple homage: to Eddy, his hand a blur, his mouth open in song; to Jelly Roll Morton; to the good old New York that we had before the pandemic so altered our lives. Here are Eddy and friends, Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Evan Arntzen, clarinet; Conal Fowkes, string bass, at Cafe Bohemia, 15 Barrow Street, Greenwich Village, New York, where joy flourished regularly:
I look forward to a future where we can once again gather joyously. How I’ll bring my easy chair along is a problem, but perhaps they can be provided.
For their first set at the San Diego Jazz Fest (November 28, 2019), the Yerba Buena Stompers did what your bank or insurance company requests — they “went paperless” and had a fine time playing some good old good ones. Here are the first three songs from that set, to remind you how solidly that band can rock. They are John Gill, banjo, vocal; Leon Oakley, cornet; Duke Heitger, trumpet; Tom Bartlett, trombone; Orange Kellin, clarinet; Conal Fowkes, piano; Clint Baker, tuba; Kevin Dorn, drums.
NORK + Jelly = JOYS:
One of the most durable pop songs of 1920 — I remember Sophie Tucker on Ed Sullivan’s Sunday-night television show:
and a genuine TORCH song about the sorrow of what happens when the gang goes home . . . sung with special ardor by John, in fine voice:
More delights to come from this very durable band: people who know their stuff.
My feeling is that Louis Armstrong could do anything he wanted to, and he did. But not everything.
I present this excerpt from a recent “news” story posted in the Akron Beacon Journal that amused me in its affectionate inaccuracy. The author, Facebook tells me, is news editor of The Daily Record, Wooster, OH, and he also works at the Ashland Times-Gazette. It seems that a reader, Robert, sent him this story and he printed it. Yes, fact-checking has been dead for some time.
TESSIE’S TIDBITS: A story about Louis Armstrong you probably didn’t know
By Jarred Opatz Posted Aug 3, 2020 at 12:01 AM Hi sweeties! I am going to date myself a bit as I remember Louis Armstrong on the radio as well as television. After all these years, I never know how he got the nickname “Satchmo” and the following article will fill you in.
Big Cheeks.
A grandson of slaves, a boy was born in a poor neighborhood of New Orleans known as the “Back of Town.” His father abandoned the family when the child was an infant. His mother became a prostitute and the boy, and his sister had to live with their grandmother. Early in life he proved to be gifted for music and with three other kids he sang in the streets of New Orleans. His first gains were coins that were thrown to them.
A Jewish family, Karnofsky, who had emigrated from Lithuania to the USA, had pity for the 7-year-old boy and brought him into their home. Initially giving “work” in the house, to feed this hungry child. There he remained and slept in this Jewish family’s home where, for the first time in his life, he was treated with kindness and tenderness.
When he went to bed, Mrs. Karnovsky sang him a Russian lullaby that he would sing with her. Later, he learned to sing and play several Russian and Jewish songs. Over time, this boy became the adopted son of this family. The Karnofskys gave him money to buy his first musical instrument as was the custom in the Jewish families.
They sincerely admired his musical talent. Later, when he became a professional musician and composer, he used these Jewish melodies in compositions, such as St. James Infirmary and Go Down Moses.
The little black boy grew up and wrote a book about this Jewish family who had adopted him in 1907. In memory of this family and until the end of his life, he wore a Star of David and said that in this family, he had learned “how to live real life and determination.”
You might recognize his name. This little boy was called: Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.
Louis Armstrong proudly spoke fluent Yiddish! And “Satchmo” is Yiddish for “Big Cheeks”!!!
And I will bet you did not know any of this? Thanks, Robert for sharing!
+++
Imagine my astonishment.
Louis doesn’t even get composer credit for this magnificent song, and I’m not even talking about ST. JAMES INFIRMARY, credited to an outsider named “Joe Primrose,” obviously not from any shtetl I know:
Before you leave the room . . . I earnestly ask you to read one of the shortest posts I’ve ever done, on a related thread, called SO WHO KNEW?
P.S. If any of the multifarious Corrections Officers are moved to write in and chide me for my inept Google-Yiddish or my gentle satire, please forbear. I don’t come to your house and tell you that you’re making the kugel all wrong.
JAZZ LIVES 