“THE KRAZY KAPERS”: DELIGHTFUL MUSIC FROM FELIX HUNOT, JEROME ETCHEBERRY, BENOIT DE FLAMESNIL, and RAPHAEL DEVER

If you were to measure jazz ensembles by their ability to adapt to contemporary media, THE KRAZY KAPERS would get high marks. They have a Bandcamp page , which I wll be returning to in this post. They have a Facebook page.

They have a whimsical caricature-logo, drawn by double bassist Raphael Dever:

that is part of their cover art for their debut CD:

and they do interesting visual presentations:

But unlike some bands who seem to focus all the energies on “merch,” band t-shirts and pinback buttons, THE KRAZY KAPERS make astonishingly rewarding music. To use an old advertising phrase, the steak is even better than the sizzle. I am going to take a risk and suggest two monumental sources of inspiration for this CD. One:

the 1933 masterpiece, an improvisation on the harmonies of DIGA DIGA DOO by Benny Carter, Max Kaminsky, Floyd O’Brien, Chu Berry, Teddy Wilson, Lawrence Lucie, Ernest Hill, and Big Sid Catlett . . . if you don’t know this record, go listen. We’ll wait.

And behind that masterpiece is George Herriman’s subversive creation, KRAZY KAT:

The brief liner notes to this disc state (as far as I can read French) that their inspiration is the Bobby Hackett – Vic Dickenson quintet of sainted memory, and that sits very well with me. I actually saw this group several times and they were a high point of the Seventies. But that quintet had a standard rhythm section of piano, double bass, and drums. The Krazy Kapers have guitar and bass, so I propose other antecedents: the Ruby Braff-George Barnes Quartet, and the various drumless / pianoless recordings made for the HRS label: Sidney Bechet – Muggsy Spanier; Rex Stewart – Barney Bigard – Django Reinhardt; Buck Clayton’s Big Four.

Wherever The Krazy Kapers come from, and they come from many places, they are wonderful.

The Kapers are Benoît de Flamesnil, trombone; Jérôme Etcheberry, trumpet; Félix Hunot, guitar; Raphaël Dever, double bass. And they offer music with noble lineages (both composers and performances) that isn’t heard all that much: Noone, but not SWEET LORRAINE or I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW; Ellington and Hodges, but not SATIN DOLL or LUSH LIFE; Bechet, but not PETIT FLEUR. Vic Dickenson, but not SISTER KATE or IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD. You understand.

DEEP TROUBLE / A GYPSY QWITHOUT A SONG / MANHATTAN / CONSTANTLY / JOE LOUIS STOMP / AWFUL SAD / KRAZY KAPERS / WHERE OR WHEN / GOOD QUEEN BESS / LASTIC / ROSE OF THE RIO GRANDE.

Here are two performances I love. Listen to what these creators do with this material. Please note that these aren’t “blowing sessions” but carefully created pieces, whether head arrangements or on paper, that allow the soloists delightful freedom, but something interesting is going on in every half-chorus, backgrounds and figures that suggest a tiny big band, with no dull spots:

Richard Rodgers’ WHERE OR WHEN has a quiet intensity I associate with the Hackett-Teagarden I GUESS I’LL HAVE TO CHANGE MY PLAN. When I first got the CD, I played this track so often that had it been a Fifties record, it would be graying by now. And a riotous ROSE OF THE RIO GRANDE.

What shines through here, as your ears will tell you, is that these four musicians are immensely talented, ready to solo eloquently or to support one another in ensembles in the best way . . . and they are themselves.

That sounds too simple: of course, we “are ourselves,” but in the world of hot music, with the Ancestors standing hundreds of feet tall, with OKehs and Victors casting huge shadows over our puny selves, the instinct to imitate is very powerful and can be crippling. A musician who approaches an Ellington composition with love and reverence may have to work hard to not imitate Cootie, Rex, or Barney, because it, at first, seems the deepest homage, and evidence of mastery.

But the wise musicians, and the Krazy Kapers are very wise, honor the innovators by hewing to the conventions, those that are durable, but shining their infividualities within them. Honoring Bobby or Vic, thus, on this recording, doesn’t mean playing Bobby or Vic’s notes: it means creating something that the great Ancestors would admire, permeated in every way with living, breathing individuality.

This disc is a lovely and fulfilling creation. I hope it’s the first of many Kapers.

May your happiness increase!

“IT’S LIKE THE PAST, BUT ONLY BETTER”: “T’AIN’T NO USE” with JEROME ETCHEBERRY, TCHA LIMBERGER, DAVE KELBIE, SEBASTIEN GIRARDOT (Camille Productions)

I played a few tracks from this new CD for a friend, and her response was simple, “It’s like the past, but only better!” That seemed if not heresy, a paradox, and I asked her to explain. “Well, they sound at first like Stuff Smith and his Onyx Club Boys, which is a wonderful thing, but then again, they remind me of Bill Coleman with Stephane and Django, of Fats, of Louis, of any number of memorable Thirties records. But the best part is that they are alive and well: this isn’t an archaeological trip into Jazz Repertory: we can hear and see them in 2023!”

Dave Kelbie, guitar; Jerome Etchenerry, trumpet; Tcha Limberger, violin; Sebastien Girardot, double bass.

In case you think my friend is being hyperbolic, I direct you to the post I wrote about the Viper Club in November 2022 here. And some aural evidence of the finest kind:

Some practical evidence, i.e., the front cover:

and, as J.C. Flippen used to say, “Flip it over”:

The musicianship is extraordinary: there isn’t a dull or formulaic passage on the disc. It’s a cliche, but the four heroes play as if the fate of the world depended on their swing. And they rescue us, no question. I can testify to this because I nearly ruined my breakfast the other morning because of this disc. Through the happy generosity of the OAO, I now have a very fine CD player / radio on the kitchen counter. I started the disc while I was making breakfast, and got so delightedly engrossed in one track, BABY BROWN, that I kept it on repeat while my eggs and toast came near to inedibility. Dangerously thrilling music, even if you’re not cooking.

Many wonderful bands do the hard work of reproducing venerable recorded performances, and when they succeed, they sound exactly like the Brunswick GOT THE JITTERS by Don Redman or the like. This is a majestic accomplishment, and I know how much labor and sensitivity it requires. But the Viper Club has more expansive goals in mind: to inhabit a way of playing, a way of looking at life, as well as evoking their and our heroes. They are free-range in that their recording of, let’s say, a Stuff Smith composition will bring back memories of an Onyx Club performance, but also of other parallel wizardries.

So the imaginary jukebox is exploded in the best ways, as if Wingy and Henry Red had stopped in to jam with Stephane and Wilson Myers. A panorama, a coloring book without lines to hold back their spirits. Louis would have called it Dee-lightful. And so do I.

A digression. While I was on YouTube, looking for audio-visual evidence for this post (I had naively typed in “viper club”) what came up was a new horror film called THE VIPER CLUB, starring Susan Sarandon. Sarandon is a great actress. But I’ll take this band any day, and there’s not a horrifying note to be found when they play.

This disc and other marvels can be purchased at https://lejazzetal.com/shop/ — the online record store of my dreams.

May your happiness increase!

“SATCHMOCRACY,” VOLUME TWO: The Jérôme Etcheberry Popstet

You can guess that this CD has something to do with Louis Armstrong. What you might not be able to guess is its startling ingenuity and delightful surprises.

Here’s the opening flourish, sound and exuberance:

and a full-fledged regal treatment of WILLIE THE WEEPER:

and I CAN’T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE:

For some, this might be heresy. But it’s thrilling heresy to me. Here’s what I wrote about the first volume:

“SATCHMOCRACY: A TRIBUTE TO LOUIS ARMSTRONG” by the Jérôme Etcheberry – Popstet (2020)

And now these reverent-irreverent expert rascals are back with Volume Two.

They are Jérome Etcheberry, trumpet, musical director, arrangements; Malo Mazurié, trumpet; César Poirier, clarinet, tenor saxophone; Benjamin Dousteyssier, alto and baritone saxophone; Ludovic Allainmat, piano; Félix Hunot, guitar; Sébastien Girardot, double bass; David Grebil, drums.

And a bit of personal history.

When I first heard Louis Armstrong on record around 1960 and saw him on television, I was transfixed. But I’d started my Louis-journey in what may seem to some unusual places: his recordings with Gordon Jenkins, and his Town Hall Concert of 1947. When I began to read the official histories, I started at the beginning, with murky reissues of the Creole Jazz Band and the first volume of George Avakian’s Columbia opus, a selection of the Hot Five recordings of 1925-26. They were jarring to me: Louis soared above his much less adventurous peers. In time, I learned to appreciate acoustic recordings, to celebrate Ory, Dodds, Miss Lil, and St. Cyr. But when I first heard these canonical-records, I wanted to lift Louis out of his surroundings into more imaginative ones. SATCHMOCRACY has some of the same loving-heretical impulses, treating Louis’ startling solos as jewels to be given the finest re-setting, even if it’s not “idiomatic.” If there are any purists left, they might be found clutching their OKehs to their chests in righteous horror, but let them clutch. SATCHMOCRACY would, I am sure, make Louis very happy with its joyous imagination.

The songs are WILLIE THE WEEPER / I CAN’T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE / SKID-DAT-DE-DAT / KING OF THE ZULUS / I’M A DING DONG DADDY FROM DUMAS / WILD MAN BLUES / LIVING IN SATCHMOCRACY / SHINE / AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ / ORIENTAL STRUT / SWEETHEARTS ON PARADE / HEEBIE JEEBIES / LAZY RIVER / CHICAGO BREAKDOWN / KNEE DROPS. Both volumes are available here.

Blaze on, dear fellows, and keep joyously startling us, much as Louis would have startled the record buyer who knew nothing of him. And thank you.

And just for fun — a little unexpected bonus from Jerome Etcheberry and friends, live in Paris:

I think “Wow!” is the appropriate reaction, don’t you?

May your happiness increase!

WELCOME THE “VIPER CLUB 4”: DAVE KELBIE, TCHA LIMBERGER, JEROME ETCHEBERRY, SEBASTIEN GIRARDOT (November 22, 2022)

So much heat in a small space. No, I’m not referring to some stove or portable heater, but this new group, the VIPER CLUB 4: Dave Kelbie, guitar; Tcha Limberger, violin and vocal; Jerome Etcheberry, trumpet; Sebastien Girardot, string bass. Think of Stuff Smith and Jonah Jones, Frank Newton and Teddy Bunn.

And you don’t have to imagine what this summit meeting of European swing stars sounds like, because Dave Kelbie has generously posted three videos. These three wonderful performances were done — in rehearsal, which accounts for the comfortable clothes and the splendid relaxation — on November 22, 2022, and the superb video work is by Francesca Musetti @Fra.

‘T’AIN’T NO USE:

ONYX CLUB SPREE:

I’M CRAZY ‘BOUT MY BABY:

And it’s so nice: they have a touring schedule, which you can read about here, also with biographies of the four players and many photographs. AND the site also has new issues by Martin Wheatley and Thomas (a/k/a “Spats”) Langham, Andrew Oliver, David Horniblow, Don Vappie, and other luminaries. Fascinating music on all sides. (I am writing a post about the memorable CDs by the Wheatley-Langham duo, so delicious.)

I know this group will find the audiences its swinging good humor deserves.

May your happiness increase!

“SATCHMOCRACY: A TRIBUTE TO LOUIS ARMSTRONG” by the Jérôme Etcheberry – Popstet (2020)

This new CD is completely heartening music. Here’s the cover . . .

but before you have one more word launched in your direction, hear some sounds. Excerpts only, but how tasty!

WEST END BLUES:

BIG BUTTER AND EGG MAN:

and that should give you some of the bracing flavors of this new disc that passionately combines “tribute” and “going for yourself” in a way completely true to Louis’ spirit. Should your only question be “How can I get a copy?” the answer is very simple. Visit their website here with not only hope but 19.99 euro, do the PayPal dance, and the disc can be yours. Or here, if you prefer Facebookery.

The songs are TIGHT LIKE THIS, HEAR ME TALKIN’ TO YA, WEATHER BIRD RAG, HOTTER THAN THAT, I DOUBLE DARE YOU, MEMORIES OF YOU, BIG BUTTER AND EGG MAN, SOMEDAY YOU’LL BE SORRY, CORNET CHOP SUEY, STRUTTIN’ WITH SOME BARBECUE, WEST END BLUES, YES! I’M IN THE BARREL, NEW ORLEANS STOMP, and the noble members of The Ensemble are Jérome Etcheberry leader, trumpet, arrangements; Malo Mazurié, trumpet; César Poirier, clarinet, tenor saxophone; Benjamin Dousteyssier, alto and baritone saxophone; Ludovic Allainmat, piano; Félix Hunot, guitar; Sébastien Girardot, string bass; David Grebil, drums.

Some months back, Jerome, whose previous work I’ve found thrilling, asked me if I would write something for his new enterprise. It took me very little time to fall in love with this music, that seems adoring and irreverent (in the best ways) at once.

When I began to listen to this CD I hadn’t had breakfast, so after a track or two I thought, “This is filet of Louis wrapped in a spicy pastry crust, both rare and well-done.” What does my culinary metaphor ending in a cliché mean? As far back as the late Twenties, recordings show that musicians were so awe-struck by Louis – who came from a much more advanced solar system – that they imitated, or attempted to imitate, his singing and playing. Rex Stewart bought shoes like Louis’. And it went beyond individual attempts. Hear BEAU KOO JACK (1929) by the Earl Hines band – his solos scored for the trumpet section. Fast forward to Carnegie Hall, November 8, 1974: a tribute to Louis by the New York Jazz Repertory Company, with Mel Davis, Pee Wee Erwin, and Joe Newman (the sacred texts transcribed scored by Dick Hyman, of course) playing Louis in unison on CAKE WALKING BABIES, POTATO HEAD BLUES, WILLIE THE WEEPER, and WEATHER BIRD. I was there; it was electrifying. Not just as a “Wow, they can do that, and do it well!” in the way you’d applaud Olympic gymnasts, but the multiple voices gave heft and depth to music I’d known by heart for years.

I felt the same exultant chills down my spine listening to this disc. First, Jerome’s playing is glowing, passionate, and exact, both his solos and “section work.” He sounds like Louis in four dimensions, thick and broad and monumental. I also cherish the absence of caricature: no vocals, no “Oh, yeah!” which shows a deep understanding of the man: Louis joked and mugged onstage but was dead serious when he picked up the horn.

And so is Jerome. I can’t overpraise the rest of the band, either. Some bandleaders insist that modern musicians read parts – perhaps a transcribed Jimmy Strong solo – and that’s fine. But it is thrilling to hear these inventive players speak their own swinging truths so joyously, and when “Louis” comes back – in the person of Jerome – there’s no abrupt shift from one world to another. Each performance is a fully-formed entrée (to return to food) with its own savory touches, imaginative, playful, and memorable – so the disc never feels like more of the same. And there’s no conscious archaism either – the result is timeless Mainstream, swinging and vivid. I know Louis would like it. And since I think the dead do not go away, I’ll bet my 78s that Louis likes this now.

I love this disc not only musically, but as a delightful vision of what it might be like to live in a Satchmocracy: where our local deity is a bringer of joy who also takes Swiss Kriss and buys the neighborhood kids ice-cream, where each of us is encouraged to follow in Louis’ path, admiring him but being ourselves in every gesture and embrace. A blissful republic indeed.

Thank you, exalted denizens of that world who make such radiant sounds.

. . . . and for those of you who might say, “I don’t need this new CD — I know all these records by heart already,” this would be an error, because SATCHMOCRACY is a vivid, brightly-colored creation, a joy on its own terms. I would hug it if I could.

May your happiness increase!

STREAMLINED, GENEROUS SWING: “7:33 TO BAYONNE”: JÉRÔME ETCHEBERRY, MICHEL PASTRE, LOUIS MAZETIER

Louis Mazetier, Jerome Etcheberry, Michel Pastre. Photograph by Philippe Marchin

Yes, a delightful new CD by players many of you might not be terribly familiar with — but JAZZ LIVES hopes to change this.  Without another word from me, visit here where you can (on the right-hand side) hear excerpts from three performances.  

This CD is the work of three splendid instrumentalists — Jérôme Etcheberry (of the Swingberries and other groups), trumpet; Michel Pastre, tenor saxophone; Louis Mazetier, piano.  And there’s no need to ask yourself, “Where’s the rest of the band?” because you won’t miss them, not even for four bars.

It’s clear that this is music with a pulse, a warm swinging heartbeat.  I envision the trio as if they were happily walking down Fifty-Second Street.  That isn’t to suggest that this is a repertory disc, although most of the repertoire would have been applauded in 1944, but that these three players have a deep commitment to Swing: in their medium tempos, in their infallible rhythms, and their lovely balance between solo and ensemble.  All three of them are hot players who find joy in ballads, who love to rock, who create backgrounds and riffs, so that the trio never seems like three voices lonely in the aesthetic wilderness.

They balance ease and intensity in the best ways, so that the session is as if Lips Page, Ben Webster, and Johnny Guarnieri found themselves in a congenial place with a good piano and decided to have some fun.  Both Etcheberry and Pastre are old-fashioned players, lyrical and hot at the same time, who aren’t copying but making their own ways through the material: maybe they aren’t Lips and Ben . . . perhaps Shorty or Cootie, Ike Quebec or Chu.  You get the idea. Mazetier graciously and unflaggingly is a whole rhythm section in himself, offering orchestral piano in the Waller manner — but we also hear touches of Wilson and Tatum.  For me, it’s as if my beloved Keynote / Savoy / Blue Note 78s had come to life in this century — and continued to amaze and please right now without a hint of conscious recreation.

The song list will give you a clear idea of what inspires this trio: the original for which the CD is titled, 7:33 TO BAYONNE, and DON’T BE AFRAID, BABY (by Etcheberry and Pastre respectively), ESQUIRE BOUNCE (associated with Hawkins and the Esquire All-Stars), YOU CAN’T LOSE A BROKEN HEART (echoes of Louis, Billie, and James P.), TIME ON MY HANDS, VICTORY STRIDE (think Ellington, James P., and the Blue Note Jazzmen), FOOLIN’ MYSELF (for Lester and Billie), SQUATTY ROO (for Hodges and Co.), SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY, BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA, I’VE GOT THE WORLD ON A STRING, a ballad medley of SEPTEMBER SONG, MY ONE AND ONLY LOVE, and COCKTAILS FOR TWO, a romping IF DREAMS COME TRUE (again, echoes of James P., the Webb band, Buck, Ben, and Teddy), and Mazetier’s LA LIGNE CLAIRE.

Before I remind you where and how you can buy this CD, which I encourage you to do, because it is good for the soul as well as the ears, I will say that musicians wisely don’t ask me how to title the new CD.  I say “wisely,” because not only do I have opinions, but I am often eager to share them.  But if the trio had asked, I would have said in a flash, “Call this one THREE GROOVY BROTHERS.” “Groovy” makes sense to anyone who’s heard the excerpts.  “Brothers” might not: their last names are dissimilar . . . but what I kept hearing all through the disc is a wonderful comradely embrace in swing.  No one wants to show off, to play more, to play louder, to do fancy stuff.  It’s all a kind collective endeavor, with each player trying gently to make sure the music sounds as fine as it can. Which it does.

You can buy the disc here — and for the monolingual, the form is easy to follow, and the little credit-card rectangles are, for better or worse, a common language.

May your happiness increase!

SUPER SWING PROJECT: “CAN’T BELIEVE!”

 

When you hear this new CD, you will, I assure you, repeat some variant of the truncated title to yourself.  Yes, it is just that satisfying, and to know that music at this level is being created is very reassuring.  The SUPER SWING PROJECT lives up to its name.

Music first, then words.  Here’s the SSP performing BLUE LOU live in February 2016:

and THEM THERE EYES, from January 2015:

Who are these heroes?  Jérome Etcheberry, trumpet; Daniel Barda, trombone; Louis Mazetier, piano; Charles Prevost, washboard.  Each one’s a brilliant soloist, but they also combine magnificently as a friendly exalted band, recreating no particular recording but playing soulfully and individualistically in an idiom I hope will never vanish from this planet.

Although I grew up on recordings where the band had a fixed instrumentation — trumpet, trombone, reeds, piano, guitar, bass, drums as the most common — I have a deep fondness for less orthodox arrangements of musicians, the sly and pleased groups of musicians who might assemble onstage to play their hearts out after the regular program had concluded.  Hence, the EarRegulars, the Braff-Barnes Quartet, Soprano Summit, memorable duos, trios, quartets, quintets of the last twelve years, seen and heard and revered live.  To this list of delightful musical entourages I happily add the SUPER SWING PROJECT.

Starting from the back.  The washboard — as a musical instrument — has received a good deal of scorn, some of it well-deserved.  But when well-played (as Charles Prevost shows he can!) it is a lovely alternative to the trap kit, being light, mobile, and less likely to overwhelm a delicate soloist or ensemble.  It stays in the treble register, and offers a delighted commentary to what horns and piano are doing, giving its own slightly more emphatic version of wire brush work.  Charles is subtle without being inaudible, witty without being jokey; he never gets in the way but he adds so much.

Hearing Louis Mazetier at the piano is one of the great experiences for any jazz listener.  At the beginning of any performance, a Mazetier introduction offers the same beguiling comfort as Ralph Sutton’s work did.  The ear hears it, and the body says, “This is going to be good; it is going to be inspired.  You can relax into the comfort of the music.  Welcome to the world of swing!”  Mazetier is a truly orchestral pianist, ever supporting the soloist and the band, but never demanding all of our attention.  He knows the great tradition, but his playing is not a series of learned modules (that Fats run, those James P. octaves); rather it is a beautiful personal synthesis of a very demanding piano tradition.  Here comes the band!

What Daniel Barda creates might look simple; he is never aiming for post-modern pyrotechnics.  But he is a peerless ensemble player, adding just the right touches, and a wonderful soloist, combining lyrical tenderness and propulsive gruffness in every phrase.  The trombone can — in the hands of an unsubtle player — become a clown or a bully, but Barda’s art is masterfully delicate even when he is executing an emphatic smear or growl.  He knows the tradition and embodies it in every phrase, but he is completely himself.

Jérome Etcheberry can play in many contexts, but he is an immensely lyrical hot player, someone who harkens back to Louis, of course, in simple, emotionally-charged phrases, passionate without ever being ostentatious, as well as the majestic players of the Louis-cosmos.  In his subtle, delicate but deep phrasing, I hear delightful echoes of Buck Clayton and early Cootie Williams, but often — a treasure indeed — he evokes Joe Thomas.  (Listen again to THEM THERE EYES and you’ll hear it too.)  I heard him first on CD with Les Swingberries, and was enchanted.

The new CD is a delight.  Although the repertoire is familiar, the band’s approach makes these old tunes gleam and dance: I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH ME / SISTER KATE / WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM / FATS WALLER MEDLEY / DOCTOR JAZZ  (with a guest appearance by the fine banjoist Peter Gutzwiller) / BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME? / THEM THERE EYES / SUGAR / I WANT TO BE HAPPY /WHEN IT’S SLEEPY TIME DOWN SOUTH.  Recorded live and beautifully so, the session is relaxed and intense at once, a true delight.

Here’s the enthusiastic review (from February) of this CD in the Bulletin du Hot Club of France, and here you can “ecouter et achetez” the actual CD or a digital version.  One more: the band’s Facebook page — with their schedule, a new video, and more.

“Can’t believe!” indeed.  You, too, can be in that state of delighted incredulity.  Yes, such things are possible in 2016.

May your happiness increase!

FOR THE LOVE OF SWING (AND THE SWING OF LOVE): DANIEL BARDA, LOUIS MAZETIER, JERÔME ETCHEBERRY, CHARLES PRÉVOST: JANUARY 30, 2015

This delightful swing aubade came to me — and I hope many others — through Facebook, and I learned that this is trombonist Daniel Barda’s Super Swing Project, “Hommage à Fats Waller,” performed on January 30 of this year at Jazzclub Ja-ZZ Rheinfelden (www.ja-zz.ch).

I also must thank the recordist, Peter Gutzwiller, for making this delightful effusion both permanent and accessible to us.

Aside from Monsieur Barda, whom we know from Paris Washboard, there is the superb trumpeter Jerôme Etcheberry (of Les Swingberries), the most honored Louis Mazetier, a stride monarch, and the swinging washboardist Charles Prévost.

They pay tribute to Mister Waller in a charming and convincing way — not by offering their own faster-than-light improvisations on his compositions, not by singing YOUR FEETS TOO BIG, but by jamming in medium-tempo and a little faster on three lovely early-Thirties songs that have swing built in to them.  “Here’s another good old good one that all the musicians in the house love to jam,” as Louis would say.

I think it’s no accident that all three of these songs — if you consider their lyrics, which musicians used to do — are love songs.  One declares that they eyes are indeed the windows to the soul, and both entities entranced the singer; one wishes for a more perfect union of the singer and the Love Object; one expresses delighted incredulity that the blissful union has come to pass.  It just reinforces that love is an inexhaustible subject, and that the best music is love in action. Swing out, you lovers!

I dream of a time when one would give one’s Beloved some Commodore discs for a birthday present, for Valentine’s Day.

THEM THERE EYES:

IF DREAMS COME TRUE:

I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH ME:

It makes me very happy to experience these videos, and to be reassured that such beauty is taking place all around the world.  Blessings on these four gentlemen and also on the man behind the camera.

May your happiness increase! 

MIND IF I TAG ALONG? (SOME BOLD WORDS ABOUT THE BREDA JAZZ FESTIVAL)

My super jazz friend Heidi (from the Netherlands) recently sent me this very flattering email about the upcoming Breda Jazz Festival:

I just found out about the line-up for this year’s Breda Jazz Festival. What can I say, the organisers from that festvial do read your blog for sure! So who’s coming? The Swingberries and Hoppin’ Mad with lovely musicians like Aurélie Tropez, Jerome Etcheberry, Katie Cavera, Evan Arntzen, Simon Stribling, Clint Baker and more.

Now, I am not writing this post to flatter myself as an influential shaper of worldwide jazz events.  I hope the Breda people have been able to learn of many gifted musicians through JAZZ LIVES, but the names above hardly needed my assistance!  What follows is unsubtle in the extreme, but extremism in the pursuit of hot jazz is not always a vice, according to someone.

Would someone invite me to Breda in future?

I’d love to be there, and my mother’s family was Dutch.  Does that count?  Anyway, the forty-two minute video of highlights from the 2012 Festival shows that they might not need another person with a video camera: they are doing a superb job without me, unthinkable as that might seem.  (The above written with metaphorical tongue firmly in theoretical cheek, a hard pose to sustain for long.)  But in addition to Heidi’s brief sketch of the artists who are going to play, I see a Dan Barrett Jay and Kai tribute . . . what an imagined delight.  And more.

See for yourself here.  And of course the Festival has a Facebook page:

May your happiness increase.

LES SWINGBERRIES: “LAUGHING AT LIFE” (2012)

Imagine a small group — in Whitney Balliett’s words, “flesible, wasteless,” that successfully evokes the best jazz of the Swing Era without copying recorded performances, that is fresh, witty, precise.  Need an anlalogue?  How about Glenn Miller’s Uptown Hall Gang with arrangements and originals by Mel Powell?

This group exists, and they’ve made their first CD — consistently splendid music.    A few of my readers complain that my musical endorsements are nudging them towards ruin, but LES SWINGBERRIES are worth it.

About thirteen months ago, I wrote happily about this group — propelled by their 2011 YouTube videos: click here for that post.

One of the video performances that so captivated me is Les Swingberries’ transformation of Johann Strauss’ RADETZKY MARCH (“JAZZETSKY MARCH” in their hands):

From left to right, they are Jerome Etcheberry, trumpet / arrangements; Aurelie Tropez, clarinet; Jacques Schneck, piano; Nicolas Montier, guitar.  I haven’t had any contact with Monsieur Schneck, but I admire his light, elegant playing immensely; Monsieur Etcheberry has absorbed all of the good trumpet sounds of this fertile time and processed them through his instrument so that he sounds like himself (with side-glances at the great figures).  Our contact has been limited to mail and cyber-message, but how could I not admire a man who signs himself “Trumpetfully yours“?  (The only inscription that comes close to that is from Hot Lips Page: “Very Blowingly.”)

I’ve been fortunate enough to exchange a few sentences with Mlle. Tropez at the International Jazz Festival at Whitley Bay — where she was not only a charter member of Les Red Hot Reedwarmers but also played some memorable casual swing duets with pianist Paul Asaro.

And Monsier Montier I met for the first time (I hope there will be others) as a wonderfully agile tenor saxophonist at last year’s Sacramento Music Festival.  It came as a huge shock to find out that he is the immensely gifted guitarist in this group, not only echoing Charlie Christian but also Tiny Grimes and a host of other fine players.

But I hear you saying, “OK, I’m sold.  But I can’t fly to France to catch this group in a club or jazz festival.  What shall I do?”

The answer, dear readers, is only a few clicks away.  Les Swingberries have issued their first CD, which is called LAUGHING AT LIFE — not only a song they play but an indication of their buoyant spirits.

The thirteen selections on the disc are varied and lively — two Mary Lou Williams compositions, CLOUDY and GHOST OF LOVE; Leonard Feather’s SCRAM!  Three other themes are “classics” by Strauss, Tschaikovsky, and Offenbach — initially, I thought of the John Kirby Sextet, but then the heretical whisper came into my mind, “This is better than the Kirby Sextet ever did,” because of a light-hearted rhythmic looseness owing something more to Wilson and Waller than to Kirby.  The group seems to float, and the performances seem too brief (although they are between three and five minutes).  The arrangements are beautifully subtle; on a second or third listening, I found myself marveling at the writing for two horns that suggested a larger ensemble; the fact that a rhythm section of piano and guitar never seemed thin or under-furnished.

Both CLOUDY and GHOST OF LOVE are lovely mobile mood pieces with inspired playing by each member of the quartet.  LAUGHING AT LIFE has equally hip writing / voicing / harmonized lines that suggest an unissued Keynote Records session tenderly waiting for a twenty-first century jazz archaeologist to uncover it for us.  The group lights up BLUE ROOM and HALLELUJAH! from within; the remaining four performances are originals — one a funny tribute to Rex Stewart, REXPIRATION (where the rhythm section gets some of the waiting-for-Benny feeling of Christian and Johnny Guarnieri, always a good thing).  SCHNECK IT OUT has surprising harmonies yet a walking-down-the-street feeling I associate with YACHT CLUB SWING.  BERRY CRUMBLE is built on BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA, but in such a sly way that it would take any listener two or three minutes to uncover those familiar harmonies.

Listening to this CD, I never had the feeling of surfeit that many CDs produce (“Oh, this has been wonderful . . . but eight more tracks?”) — it is a subtle, enriching musical experience, and a lot of fun.

I have some trepidation about delivering my readers into the Land of Downloads, but here is the link to the iTunes site — where one can purchase a song for 0.99 or the whole CD for 10.99. Or, if you prefer your music delivered by the Amazon conglomerate, here is their link.

May your happiness increase.

FRESH AND JUICY: THE BERRY PICKERS PLAY BIX, TRAM, ROLLINI, and FRIENDS

Often, bands striving for “authenticity” when playing Twenties jazz take their OKehs and Gennetts too seriously, the result a certain dogged heaviness.  Cornetist / arranger Jérôme Etcheberry knows better, and his bands float rather than slog.  The newest pleasing evidence is his small group, the BERRY PICKERS, and the five videos that appeared without fanfare on YouTube.

Their repertoire is drawn from the late-Twenties efforts of Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, Adrian Rollini, Eddie Lang, and their friends.  But there is no imitation of solos, and the overall lightness has a sweet jauntiness that I associate with the unbuttoned efforts of Richard M. Sudhalter, John R.T. Davies, and Nevil Skrimshire.

Hear for yourself!

Jérôme Etcheberry’s BERRY PICKERS are Nicolas Dary (alto sax) Jérôme Etcheberry (cornet) Fred Couderc (bass sax) Hugo Lippi (guitar) Stephane Seva (drums).

The DeSylva-Brown-Henderson hymn to caffeine, YOU’RE THE CREAM IN MY COFFEE:

Coffee leads to dancing, so Milton Ager’s HAPPY FEET:

And, yes, let’s do THE BALTIMORE (Dan Healy, Irving Kahal, Jimmy McHugh):

Where does Chauncey Morehouse’s THREE BLIND MICE fit in?  Under the heading of “futuristic rhythm,” no doubt:

And, to close, Fats Waller’s I’M MORE THAN SATISFIED:

My feelings exactly.

May your happiness increase.

MEET “LES SWINGBERRIES”!

These delightful performances — poised yet utterly relaxed — emerged on YouTube only two weeks ago.  I’ve been enjoying them over and over: they owe a good deal to the glory days of the John Kirby Sextet, always a debt to be celebrated.  The four musicians here are trumpeter / arranger Jérôme Etcheberry, the cherished clarinetist Aurélie Tropez,  pianist Jacques Schneck, and guitarist Nicolas Montier.  In the great tradition of “swinging the classics,” les Swingberries offer Offenbach’s “Cancan” from Orpheus in the Underworld:

From Hades to religious exaltation might be a substantial leap, but not for this compact hot band — here, they perform Youmans’ HALLELUJAH:

It looks like a happy band — that’s why LAUGHING AT LIFE (with hints of BROADWAY, Charlie Christian, and Lester Young) seems just right:

Another “classical” piece — the RADETZKY MARCH by Johann Strauss — is transformed into the “JAZZETZKY MARCH,” and not a moment too soon.  Admire the clarinet-guitar duet: simple splendor!

Here’s a romping BLUE ROOM (leaving no time for “my wee head upon your knee,” because that knee is rocking so violently):

I hear beautifully-executed ensemble work, lovely tempos, exquisite solo playing (not a note too many), and a deeply felt intuitive swing.  The group isn’t copying — they’re evoking and reinventing in their own ways — but if I heard this music in the other room, I could be fooled into thinking that 1941 had come again.  And I would want to follow those notes!  And for connoisseurs of “. . . they sound like,” I would offer the little band that Lester and Shad Collins led in 1941, the Goodman Sextet of that same year, the early-Forties Teddy Wilson groups with joe Thomas, Emmett Berry, Ed Hall, Jimmy Hamilton.  V-Discs and Keynote Records, too.  But they sound just wonderful — as a new species of delicious jazz fruit.

My only complaint is that they seem to be playing in someone else’s living room.  Why not mine?

“ON A COCONUT ISLAND” (March 26, 2011)

Here’s a delightful example of the multiculturalism that jazz embodies. 

What could be more expansive than a band of French musicians (with an American pianist sitting in) playing music created by a mixture of races and ethnicities in New Orleans? 

They’re playing a Hawaiian pop song (or at least its subject is Hawaii) recorded by an African-American trumpet player and singer — and my friend Melissa Collard, too.

And they’re playing it in Hungary. 

Call that narrow or insular at your own peril!

The facts:

The Night Owls, from Paris, play a leisurely ON A COCONUT ISLAND, at the 20th International Bohém Ragtime and Jazz Festival in Kecskemét, Hungary, March 26, 2011.  The Owls are Jerome Etcheberry, trumpet; Christophe Deret, trombone; Enzo Mucci, banjo; Sebastien Girardot, string bass; Guillaume Nouaux, drums.  And the meditative-looking fellow at the piano is none other than Butch Thompson!

The 2011 Bohém Festival DVD compilation can be obtained from order@bohemragtime.com.  See more at: www.bohemragtime.com.