“IT’S FAT LIKE THAT”: MORE FROM THE FAT BABIES at the EVERGREEN JAZZ FESTIVAL (July 30, 2016)

One of the great pleasures of the summer of 2016 was the Evergreen Jazz Festival in Evergreen, Colorado.  There I and others enjoyed the Carl Sonny Leyland trio with Clint Baker and Jeff Hamilton; the Kris Tokarski trio with Tim Laughlin and Hal Smith (and guest star Andy Schumm), and the Fat Babies, with Beau Sample, Andy Schumm, Dave Bock, John Otto, Jonathan Doyle, Paul Asaro,  Jake Sanders, and Alex Hall.

I’ve posted videos from the Fat Babies’ July 29 set here.  And some especially Fat music here. And even here.

Here are three more from the next day’s frolic.

The first, a composition from 1925 where Louis Armstrong plays slide whistle as well as cornet with his Hot Five, WHO’S IT . . . which I am assuming might have something with playing tag or an adult version rather than being a metaphysical inquiry into the slippery parameters of identity.

Here are the Fat Babies romping through the thickets of swing:

Another Louis-related item, I AIN’T GONNA PLAY NO SECOND FIDDLE, which he recorded with Perry Bradford’s Jazz Phools as well as with Bessie Smith:

and Jimmie Noone’s APEX BLUES:

And here is my review of the band’s latest CD — on the Delmark Records label, SOLID GASSUH — a disc whose virtues I do not exaggerate.

Support The Fat Babies!  They’re remarkable.

May your happiness increase!

TRUTH IN (HOT) ADVERTISING: THE FAT BABIES, “SOLID GASSUH,” DELMARK RECORDS 257

We hope this truth can be made evident.  The new CD by The Fat Babies, SOLID GASSUH, on Delmark Records, embodies Truth in Advertising in its title and its contents.

“Solid gassuh,” as Ricky Riccardi — the Master of all things Louis — informs us in his excellent liner notes, was Louis’ highest expression of praise.  (I’d like to see it replace “sick” and “killin'” in the contemporary lexicon.  Do I dream?)

The Fat Babies are a superb band — well-rehearsed but sublimely loose, authentic but not stiff.  If you don’t know them, you are on the very precipice of Having Missed Out On Something Wonderful — which I can rectify here, here, and here.  (Those posts come from July 29, 2016 at the Evergreen Jazz Festival, and feature the “new” Fat Babies with the addition of the heroic Jonathan Doyle on reeds.)

SOLID GASSUH was recorded at the Babies’ hangout, the Honky Tonk BBQ, but there’s no crowd noise — which is fine — and the recorded sound is especially spacious and genuine, thanks to Mark Haynes and Alex Hall.  I know it’s unusual to credit the sound engineers first, but when so many recordings sound like recordings rather than music, they deserve applause.

The Babies, for this recording, their third, are Andy Schumm, cornet and arrangements; Dave Bock, trombone; John Otto, reeds; Paul Asaro, piano and vocals (also the chart for EGYPTIAN ELLA), Jake Sanders, banjo and guitar, Beau Sample, leader, string bass; Alex Hall, drums.

Their repertoire, for those deep in this music, says so much about this band — DOCTOR BLUES / AFTER A WHILE / FEELIN’ GOOD / DID YOU EVER SEE A DREAM WALKING? / ORIGINAL CHARLESTON STRUT / PENCIL PAPA / I MISS A LITTLE MISS / PARKWAY STOMP / YOU WERE ONLY PASSING TIME WITH ME / ALABAMY BOUND / SLOW RIVER / DELIRIUM / EGYPTIAN ELLA / SING SONG GIRL / MAPLE LEAF RAG.  There are many associations here, but without looking anything up I think of Ben Pollack, Paul Mares, Boyce Brown, Ted Lewis, Benny Goodman, Bix Beiderbecke, Fud Livingston, Red Nichols, Miff Mole, Luis Russell, Bud Freeman, Bing Crosby, Nat Finston, Thomas Morris, Lil Hardin, Sidney Catlett, Al Wynn, Punch Miller, Alex Hill . . . and you can fill in the other blanks for yourself.  And even though some of the songs may be “obscure,” each track is highly melodic and dramatic without ever being melodramatic.  (As much as we love ROYAL GARDEN BLUES, it’s reassuring to know that it wasn’t the only song ever played.)

The Babies are remarkable for what they aren’t — not a “Dixieland” or “New Orleans” or “Condon” ensemble, but a group of musicians who obviously have studied the players, singers, and the recordings, but use them as inspired framework for their own creativity.  Occasionally, the Babies do offer us a transcription of a venerable recorded performance, but it is so energized (and by that I don’t mean faster or louder) that it seems as if someone has cleaned centuries of dust off an Old Master and it’s seen freshly.  More often, they use portions of an original arrangement, honoring it, as a way to show off their own bright solos.  So the effect at times is not an “updating,” but music seen from another angle, an alternate take full of verve and charm, as if the fellows had been playing the song on the job rather than in the studio.

If you follow the Babies, and many do, you will have known that this recording is coming, and will already have it.  When my copy arrived, I played it through three times in a row, marveling at its energy and precision, its lively beating heart.  SOLID GASSUH is immensely satisfying, as are the Fat Babies themselves.

You can purchase the disc and hear sound samples here, and  this is the Delmark Records site, where good music (traditional and utterly untraditional) flourishes.

May your happiness increase!

SO FAT, SO GOOD (Part One): THE FAT BABIES at the EVERGREEN JAZZ FESTIVAL (July 29, 2016)

Double rainbow, Evergreen, Colorado, 2014. Photograph by Michael Steinman

Wonder of wonders (continue) with the Miracle Boys of Hot, The Fat Babies, at their July 29, 2016.  Even the elk were swinging.  They are (of course) Alex Hall, drums; Beau Sample, string bass; Paul Asaro, piano / vocal; Jake Sanders, guitar / banjo; Jonathan Doyle, John Otto, reeds; Dave Bock, trombone; Andy Schumm, cornet, clarinet, arrangements.

MANDY, MAKE UP YOUR MIND:

PLEASURE MAD (later known as VIPER MAD, by Sidney “Bash-shay” in any case:

HE MAY BE YOUR MAN (BUT HE COMES  TO SEE ME SOMETIMES):

and a quick but satisfying set-closer, MAPLE LEAF RAG, Charles LaVere 1935 style:

So hot it’s delightful.  And another whole Evergreen set to come.

And . . . the Babies have three CDs out on the Delmark label: CHICAGO HOT, 18th and RACINE, and the new Baby, SOLID GASSUH, as well as two featuring Paul Asaro on Rivermont, WHAT A HEAVENLY DREAM (devoted to Fats) and SWEET JAZZ MUSIC (for Jelly).  Lay in a supply.  They say it’s going to be a cold cold winter.

May your happiness increase!

“OH, FAT THAT THING!” THE FAT BABIES, featuring PAUL ASARO and JOHN OTTO, PLAY FATS WALLER (Evergreen Jazz Festival, July 29, 2016)

The most difficult part of this blogpost has been trying to find a polite title for the congenial combination of THE FAT BABIES and THOMAS “FATS” WALLER, but I think I’ve managed to be as little offensive as possible.  I hope.  No suggestions solicited, please.

Here are three performances by that wonderful octet — Andy Schumm, cornet; Dave Bock, trombone; John Otto and Jonathan Doyle, reeds; Paul Asaro, piano and vocals; Jake Sanders, banjo / guitar; Beau Sample, leader / string bass; Alex Hall, drums — at the Evergreen Jazz Festival in Evergreen, Colorado, on July 29, 2016.

THE FAT BABIES, before Jonathan Doyle had joined the band.

From Fats’ first published song (based on THE BOY IN THE BOAT, as we know), onwards to a sadder one:

Finally, the delightful Jimmy McHugh tune that Fats made his own — performing it in the 1935 film KING OF BURLESQUE.  (Then, it got taken up by Louis and others, happily):

On all these performances, the ebullient Paul Asaro — striding, singing, and smiling — stands out, as he always does.  Paul has made two CDs — tributes to Waller and Morton — with the Fat Babies, issued on Rivermont Records.

More to come from Colorado — and if you’re near Chicago, you can hear The Fat Babies live.  http://www.thefatbabies.com/ is their website and performing schedule.  And — even more! — I’m waiting for a copy of their latest release, correctly titled SOLID GASSUH (!) on Delmark Records.

Hotter than a fat baby, for sure.

May your happiness increase!

DELEGATES OF PLEASURE: THE FAT BABIES (Part One) AT THE EVERGREEN JAZZ FESTIVAL, JULY 29, 2016

I first heard The Fat Babies at the San Diego Jazz Fest, and of course enjoyed their CDs and the videos of their performances from Chicago.  But the 2016 Evergreen Jazz Festival offered a special treat: several sets of this very accomplished and joyous hot band at close range, where I could see and hear them in all dimensions.  I had a wonderful time, and I wasn’t alone.

If The Fat Babies are new to you, I won’t let too many words get in the way of instant access to pleasure.  They are Andy Schumm, cornet, clarinet, arrangements, compositions; Dave Bock, trombone; Jonathan Doyle, John Otto, reeds; Paul Asaro, piano and vocal; Jake Sanders, guitar and banjo; Beau Sample, string bass and leader; Alex Hall, drums.

Their repertoire is primarily from the very early Twenties to a decade later, with a goodly sampling of hot material — from the obscure to the familiar — delivered with energy and precision, but there are also wonderful detours into early Bing (instrumentally) and esoteric pop of the period.  And at a time when many bands devoted to this repertoire are Either / Or — offering exact transcriptions of venerable recordings or loose jam session romps on hallowed material, The Fat Babies move easily and without pretension between the two worlds.  And their whimsical title notwithstanding, they are an impressively lean band: their eight pieces are as effective, even more so, than some larger units.

I  nominate them as Delegates of Pleasure for this century.

Here’s proof, if proof is needed.

ORIENTAL MAN (a video I keep on playing over and over, and it’s not for the cinematography, I assure you):

LIVIN’ IN THE SUNLIGHT, LOVIN’ IN THE MOONLIGHT (a Bing tune c. 1933, which sounds like a remarkably good life-plan, and the performance is the very definition of Hot Dance):

GET OUT AND  GET UNDER THE MOON (another excellent life-plan — preach it, Brother Asaro!):

UP TOWN (composed and arranged by Andy, a most convincing evocation of 1930-1 hot):

SALLY OF MY DREAMS (I know of only a few recordings of this — by the Dorsey Brothers, Ben Pollack, and Gregor and his Gregorians; Paul takes the vocal here):

The Fat Babies have made two CDs on their own, issued on the Delmark label, and another backing Marty Grosz.  I’ve heard tell that their third, SOLID GASSUH (truth in advertising) is ready to be released any second now.  I can’t wait.  And there will be more videos from Evergreen, I promise.

May your happiness increase!

HOT MUSIC FROM CHICAGO: MARTY and the BABIES

The paragraph that follows is not for the timid.  Years ago, when I first started trading cassette tapes with jazz fanciers who lived far away, I encountered the delightful Bill Coverdale of Naples, Florida — another Joe Thomas enthusiast. A dear man, now passed into spirit.  But when Bill wanted to know if I’d liked a particular tape or performance, he would write, “Did that wiggle your stylus?” You’d have to know something about pre-Eighties means of sound reproduction to get the joke . . . but this CD certainly does make for a good deal of wiggling joy.

That says it all, doesn’t it — and with the bonus of a Martin Oliver Grosz cutout collage.  But here are the details, so read on.

The selections chosen by the Gentlemen of the Ensemble: Why Couldn’t It Be Poor Little Me? / A Jazz Holiday / Intro to Blue (and Broken-Hearted) / Blue (and Broken-Hearted) / In A Little Spanish Town / Sweet Sue / My Daddy Rocks Me / Prince of Wails / Hold Me / Diga Diga Doo / Forevermore / Rose of Washington Square / How Deep Is The Ocean / A Good Man is Hard to Find / Church Street Sobbin’ Blues / Strut Miss Lizzie / Intro to The Lady in Red / The Lady in Red / Marty talks.

“Tell us a story, Mister Grosz!” Photo by Lynn Redmile

The Gentlemen of the Aforementioned Ensemble: Grosz, g, bj, voc, speech; Andy Schumm, cnt, blue-blowing; John Otto, cl, ts, bari-s; Jonathan Doyle, cl, ts; Dave Bock or “Panic Slim,” tb; James Dapogny or Paul Asaro, p; Beau Sample, bs; Alex Hall, d. 2013 and 2014, Chicago, Illinois.
Marty Grosz is the last of a breed that, were we to be honest, never existed anywhere except in our imaginations.  A chordal acoustic rhythm guitarist in the style of Dick McDonough, Carl Kress, Bernard Addison, Al Casey; a ringing banjoist who plays the instrument only under duress; a singer who combines the satire of Fats Waller with the tender croon of Red McKenzie and early Crosby; a sharp-edged raconteur and jazz / pop culture historian; a composer of swing ditties; a first-rate arranger; an adept on-the-spot bandleader, skilled at head arrangements while you wait. He once told a liner note writer (ruefully), “I would have been dynamite in 1933.” The regretful tone of that statement was no doubt because Marty was then 3; he is now 85, which makes us all the more glad to have him with us.

Marty’s most recent CD was, if I recall correctly, done in 2010.  With the slow attrition of “record companies,” I am thrilled that this one came out.

A little History, which fans of Marty will already know.

After many years as a respected but under-employed Chicago sideman playing what he likes to call Hot Jazz, alongside Frank Chace, Art Hodes, Don Ewell, Albert Nicholas, and others (even a mysteriously reappearing Jabbo Smith) he became much better-known during his brief tenure with the Bob Wilber-Kenny Davern Soprano Summit (1974-78); he made a few sessions under his own name, both bands and guitar duets; he was then part of the Dick Sudhalter / Dick Wellstood / Joe Muranyi Classic Jazz Quartet. To me, the Great Grosz Period began in 1987, when Bob Erdos of Stomp Off Records began to feature Marty as a leader – songs, personnel, arrangements, encouraging him to record obscure material.  From 1987 to 2010, he recorded prolifically for Stomp Off, Jazzology, Sackville, Jump, Arbors, and other labels. Then, as several of those labels closed their doors, there was a long hiatus. I followed Marty, often with camera, and can attest that he had neither staled nor withered.

His most recent recording, DIGA DIGA DOO, is both a celebration of Marty and of Hot. Recorded in 2013 and 2014, it relies on the hot sensation of the Midwest (and many festivals in the US and Europe) THE FAT BABIES, led by string bassist Beau Sample and featuring cornetist Andy Schumm, trombonist Dave Bock, reedman John Otto, drummer Alex Hall, pianist Paul Asaro. For a second session, Marty brought in the eminent pianist / arranger James Dapogny, Marty’s friend “Panic Slim,” trombone, and Austin, Texas, hot reedman Jonathan Doyle.

It is joyous Hot Music of the kind they would have played in Chicago in the Twenties through the Forties, but it is more than a museum piece, a recreation of old records in better sound. The band shines; their rollicking expert energy comes through every track. Schumm, freed of the necessity of Bix-impersonation, growls and saunters; Dapogny offers startlingly original orchestral backgrounds and solos; Otto veers between sweet melodism and Don Murray / Fud Livingston abstractions. And the other members are just as fine. Some of the selections place us firmly in 1928, but others offer intriguing new views of what is considered an old music, for Marty’s imagination also takes in “rhythm ballads” and music that I imagine he might have heard while playing for strippers.

One of the beautiful talents Marty rarely gets credit for is his effective, even when skeletal arrangements. It would have been easy to take this band into the studio and let them jam on familiar tunes, but Marty finds this approach boring and limiting. So – although the spirit of Hot isn’t ever lost – a Grosz session, in the studio or at a jazz party – has a good deal of paper, which works out well. One could profitably listen to any selection on this disc and admire the assignment of solos, the idiomatic backgrounds and riffs, which give a five-minute performance vitality and variety.

Another characteristic of Marty is an almost inexhaustible flow of verbal commentary; on this disc we have a few precious fragments that will let audiences a hundred years from today – should they exist – get a deeper sense of the man singing, playing, and leading.

A pause for candor. Is this the most polished disc that Marty has ever done? No, and at times it must be measured by the standards we apply to live performance rather than the clinical perfection we expect from studio sessions. But these selections are lively and authentic and thus precious. I could list many delights from this disc but will share only one. Listening to DIGA DIGA DOO for the first time, I came to IN A LITTLE SPANISH TOWN – which begins with a syncopated Spanish rhythm and then – after a wonderful string bass break – shifts into completely groovy swing. I think I’ve played that ninety-second passage a hundred times, and I force my friends to hear it, too.

Here it is, courtesy of “Orchard Enterprises,” a company that has now picked and gleaned the best music for free propagation on YouTube.  I disapprove of the endeavor but could not resist sharing this performance with my readers in hopes that it encourages actual disc purchases:

More about Marty in an April 2015 article here. And you can see him in full flower at the Allegheny Jazz Party, coming up in less than a month.

I keep returning to a quote from Stephen Sondheim because I find it particularly irksome: he told an interviewer that the late work of great artists (excepting I think Picasso and Stravinsky) was always second-rate. I’d like to lock our Stephen in a room with DIGA DIGA DOO at a medium volume until he recanted.

May your happiness increase!

FAT, HOT, GOOD: THE FAT BABIES at the SAN DIEGO JAZZ FEST (Nov. 28, 2014)

Seriously hot: the Fat Babies take on jazz classics, pop tunes, and obscure delights at the San Diego Jazz Fest (Nov. 28, 2014).  They are Beau Sample, string bass; Alex Hall, drums; Paul Asaro, piano, vocals; Jake Sanders, guitar / banjo; Dave Bock, trombone; John Otto, Jonathan Doyle (a guest star from Austin, Texas), reeds; Andy Schumm, cornet, arrangements.  They’re a favorite band of mine and they have a loyal following.

A small caveat: You’ll hear some sweetly animated conversation from a few people to my right.  I try to regard it as gently surrealistic commentary.  I was trained to respect my elders, even when they are oblivious, so JAZZ LIVES listeners bear the burden of my politeness. It’s too late to get annoyed at the audience (very pleasant people).  Or me.

Doc Cooke’s HERE COMES THE HOT TAMALE MAN:

Johnny DeDroit’s THE SWING:

From the Perry Bradford and his Jazz Phools book — originally featuring a young Louis Armstrong, LUCY LONG:

Bixiana! OH, BABY, DON’T SAY NO, SAY MAYBE:

More Bixiana! BIG BOY:

Jimmie Noone, Earl Hines, and the mysterious Floyd Mills’ CHICAGO RHYTHM:

A blues made memorable by a Jack Teagarden cornet chorus, IT’S SO GOOD [or, as Michael McQuaid once announced it at Whitley Bay, IT’S NO GOOD]:

A hot Henderson opus, COME ON, BABY!:

A pop tune recorded by Jack Linx and other worthies, OH, ME, OH, MY:

A Twenties pop ballad, SAVE YOUR SORROW:

Jumping forward into wild modernity, Paul pays homage to a delicious Fats Waller record of I’LL DANCE AT YOUR WEDDING:

Tiny Parham’s ROCK BOTTOM (not personally):

THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE (a little laginappe: a jam session for two reeds — John Otto and Jon Doyle — and the rhythm section):

Good hot sounds. There will be more good music at this year’s San Diego Jazz Fest, which will take place from Nov. 25-29.  Details will be available here, and I promise to write more about the Fest as the autumn gets closer.

May your happiness increase!

RED HOT! THE FAT BABIES at the SAN DIEGO JAZZ FEST (Nov. 28, 2014)

Authentic Mexican food, hot Chicago Twenties jazz, the warmth of the San Diego Jazz Fest . . . what more could anyone want?

Here’s just a taste.  The Fat Babies take on the Doc Cooke / Freddie Keppard classic at the San Diego Jazz Fest (Nov. 28, 2014): they are Beau Sample, string bass; Alex Hall, drums; Paul Asaro, piano; Jake Sanders, guitar / banjo; Dave Bock, trombone; John Otto, Jonathan Doyle, reeds; Andy Schumm, cornet.

And that tamale is filled with good things: idiomatic but loose ensemble playing, hot horn solos, bass-drum accents, stride piano, Charleston rhythms, ensemble shouts . . . a very satisfying plateful:

More to come.  And should the Fat Babies be new to you, look for their two Delmark CDs, CHICAGO HOT and 18th AND RACINE — each a delight.

May your happiness increase! 

HAL SMITH HONORS “MISTER CHACE”

The splendid jazz drummer and jazz scholar Hal Smith and I share certain serious devotions.  One is to the pianist Frank Melrose and his daughter Ida; another is to the clarinetist and brave explorer Frank Chace.

Hal has emerged with yet a third talent to share (generously) with us: he has created a beautiful and lively video tribute to Mister Chace, with a glorious soundtrack of SORRY — played by Marty Grosz and his Honoris Causa Jazz Band from the Riverside recording called HOORAY FOR BIX — as well as a panorama of rare, never-before-seen, highly evocative photographs that open the door to understanding Frank Chace a little wider.

Thank you, Hal!  Frank would be amused, perplexed, and I think pleased by your creative act of love.  Ultimately, he would be delighted that someone who understood the music so well — and played it with equal grace — had taken the time to honor him:

Hal and Frank can be heard together on two rewarding and illuminating CD sets on the Jazzology label — one with Butch Thompson, John Otto, and Charlie DeVore; the other with Tom Pletcher and Tom Bartlett, among others.  Winning music indeed.

May your happiness increase!

KEEPING JAZZ LIVELY: THE FAT BABIES, “18th AND RACINE”

For some musicians and many audience members, honoring the innovative music of the past is a nearly academic matter.  To them, one should treat a 1927 McKenzie-Condon recording as if it were a Mozart score, and make it come alive in this century through absolute idiomatic fidelity to the original.

This approach, a heartfelt reverence for the past, can have electrifying results. Hearing a trumpet player exquisitely reproduce a Louis solo has always made me want to cheer, and I am sure that Louis would have seen this as an act of love — a love that took skill, expertise, and hours of diligence.

But I wonder if all the truly innovative musicians of the past would have delighted in this form of reverence.  Would Bix be cheered to know that somewhere, right now, a cornet player is reproducing his solo on SINGIN’ THE BLUES?  I have my doubts; after all, he told Jimmy McPartland that what he liked most about jazz was its innate unpredictability, that no one knew what was going to happen next. Lester Young said that he felt hemmed in by the players who had copied his every mannerism and then presented it as a style.

For me, the most rewarding music balances its obeisances to the past (often encapsulated in recordings) with freshness, the delicious uncertainty of surprise, of risk, of invention within an idiom.

My readers may not agree with this, and I won’t demean the contemporary player who, in honoring an idol, reproduces his every nuance as a tribute and a beautiful piece of “acting.”  And innovation has to be aware of context: the young tenor player in the 2014 “Swing Era” big band, soloing on STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY, who launches into a Wayne Shorter meditation, pleases me not at all.

I offer here another energized example of how one might honor the past without dishonoring the present — the second compact disc by the Chicago-based hot band, THE FAT BABIES (Delmark Records):

I thought their first CD, CHICAGO HOT, was superb — you can read my encomium here, and this one is even better.

The musicians are Beau Sample, string bass; Alex Hall, drums; Jake Sanders, tenor banjo, Paul Asaro, piano / vocal; Dave Bock, trombone; John Otto, clarinet / alto saxophone; Andy Schumm, cornet / alto saxophone — with incidental singing by the members of the ensemble and arrangements by Schumm, Asaro, and Otto.  The songs are LIZA (Condon-Rubens), TILL TIMES GET BETTER, THE STAMPEDE, MABEL’S DREAM, NOBODY’S SWEETHEART NOW, I CAN’T DANCE (I GOT ANTS IN MY PANTS), 18th AND RACINE (an original by Andy), KING KONG STOMP, EL RADO SCUFFLE, OH BABY, STARDUST, I’LL FLY TO HAWAII, OH ME! OH MY!, THE CHANT, BLUEBERRY RHYME.  Experienced jazz listeners will be able to tick off the associations here: James P. Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton, the Washboard Rhythm Kings, Joseph Robichaux, Jimmie Noone, Fletcher Henderson, Jabbo Smith, Eddie Condon, Brad Gowans, Hoagy Carmichael, Bix Beiderbecke, and more.

But the Fat Babies do more than reproduce old records.  They invent within the familiar architectures; honoring hallowed introductions and endings, they create energetic, personal statements — so that the results sound both idiomatic and fresh, with influences and shadings in motion on every track.  The ensemble is lively and flexible; the solos are rewarding; the rhythm section swings along mightily.  And there’s a group vocal on I’LL FLY TO HAWAII — more than anyone could ever ask for.

The CD doesn’t sound like a brilliant history lesson.  Rather, it sounds like a happy gathering of the faithful who have understood that “going for yourself”  — as Fats and Billie, Chick Webb, and Freddie Keppard did — is the true jazz gospel.

Whether or not you share my sentiments about recreation, repertory, innovation, originality, or not, you owe it to yourself to investigate this session.  It’s alive, and that’s always a good thing.  Revering the dead by making sure what they created never moves again might not be what the dead, once living, wanted for themselves.

May your happiness increase!

VANESSA TAGLIABUE YORKE: “THE RACINE CONNECTION”

What it looked like at the 2012 Bix Fest, thanks to Tom Warner, Phil Pospychala, Andy Schumm, Dalton Ridenhour, Josh Duffee, and the engaging singer Vanessa Tagliabue Yorke:

This performance and ten others are now available on a Rivermont Records CD called “Vanessa Tagliabue Yorke: The Racine Connection,” and it’s a thorough pleasure.

When most people go to a jam session, club, concert, or festival, if the music is superb, there’s often the regret mixed with the joy: “Wow, that was wonderful. Wish I could hear that again!” The new Rivermont Records CD makes it possible, and a delight.  For one thing, Vanessa isn’t simply a record-copyist (although she does a very effective Annette Hanshaw homage on IF YOU WANT THE RAINBOW).  Rather, she comes to this music with a winning combination of heartfelt emotions and deep understanding.

She has a rangy, eloquent voice — no squeaky-girl Betty Boopisms for her — and at times she evokes the raw yet controlled passion of Piaf.  And her musical range is equally spacious, as evident in the songs selected: BLUE RIVER / WE JUST COULDN’T SAY GOODBYE / THOU SWELL / BACK WATER BLUES / THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU / IF YOU WANT THE RAINBOW / BLACK BOTTOM / LOVELESS LOVE / PETITE FLEUR / IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING / THEM THERE EYES / NEBBIA.  That three or four of those songs go beyond what one might expect at a Bix Festival — and that they are rendered with great feeling and depth — is tribute to Vanessa’s artistic honesty and breadth.

And when this earnest swinging singer is accompanied by great musicians Andy Schumm, Dalton Ridenhour, Yves Francois, John Otto, Dave Bock, Frank Gualtieri, Jason Goldsmith, Leah Bezin, MIke Waldbridge, and Josh Duffee, you know there is fine playing in solo, ensemble, and accompaniment to go along with Vanessa’s voice.  Ten of the twelve selections were recorded “live,” in performance, which is all to the good: I’ll choose that “live” sound, which makes a listener feel as if (s)he is right there, over the pure — and sometimes tense — acoustic environment of a studio any day.

You can find this CD — and many more refreshing ones, present and historical — here.  I predict that Vanessa is at the start of a long and rewarding series of performances and CDs.

May your happiness increase!

“RED HOT! THAT’S WHAT!”: THE FAT BABIES ON DISC: “CHICAGO HOT”

Sometimes — even in this age of instantaneous communication — we are surprisingly insular.  I had heard a good deal about this marvelous Chicago hot jazz band called, oddly, THE FAT BABIES.  I knew they would be superb because of the musicians I knew: Andy Schumm, cornet and more; Paul Asaro, piano;  Dave Bock, trombone and more; John Otto, clarinet and alto saxophone; and Jake Sanders, tenor banjo — all players I had heard in person and of course admired.  Alex Hall, drums, and Beau Sample, string bass / leader, were names new to me, but I figured that musicians are known by the company they keep.

At the 2012 Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party I acquired a copy of their new Delmark CD, CHICAGO HOT, and before I had a chance to listen to it, I also became the happy owner of WHAT A HEAVENLY DREAM — a Fats Waller and his Rhythm project led by Paul Asaro, this on the Rivermont label.  You can read my unashamedly ecstatic review of the Rivermont CD here.

CHICAGO HOT is accurately titled.  I was listening to it in the car today, and if you’d seen a very happy man at a stop light grinning like mad and clapping his hands and bobbing his head . . . three guesses as to that man’s identity.

Before I begin to explain and rhapsodize — for I can do no less — if you visit the band’s website here, you can hear samples from the CD.  The personnel is as mentioned above: Schumm, Bock, Otto, Asaro, Sanders, Sample, and Hall — with tuba legend Mike Waldbridge joining the band for the final track.  The song titles will state where this band is at: SNAKE RAG / LONDON CAFE BLUES / SAN / ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND / I SURRENDER, DEAR / DARDANELLA / BLACK SNAKE BLUES / HERE COMES THE HOT TAMALE MAN (with vocal interjections that I have taken as this post’s title) / FROGGIE MOORE / WILLOW TREE / WEARY BLUES / LIZA / PLEASE / SUSIE / TIGHT LIKE THIS / STOMP OFF, LET’S GO.  So you’ll note the exalted Presences: Papa Joe, Jelly Roll, Louis, Fats, James P., Keppard, Doc Cooke, Bix, Miff, Bing, and their pals.  No vocals or jiving around — no funny-hat stuff — just CHICAGO HOT.

The Fat Babies have accomplished something brilliant on this disc and, I gather, continue to do so regularly in front of living audiences at Chicago venues and elsewhere.  That is, they easily handle the question of “transcription,” “imitation,” “emulation,” “evocation,” and creative reinvention.  What do all those words mean?  Put plainly, although many of the performances on this disc are based on hallowed recordings, I never got the sense that these living players were attempting to “play old records live.”  Their success, for me, is in the way they imbue these monumental artifacts with their own personalities, playing within the style but feeling free to move around in it.

Thus, for one example, Paul Asaro, when faced with a thirty-two bar solo on a song made immortal by Louis Armstrong in 1928, doesn’t place on himself the burden of “becoming” Earl Hines or “reproducing” Earl’s famous chorus.  No — Paul Asaro plays Asaro in those thirty-two bars, drawing on a deep knowledge of Morton, Waller, and a thousand other sources.

Dave Bock sounds like someone who’d be first call for a 1929 Henderson date; John Otto moves from Rod Cless to Darnell Howard.  Andy Schumm, who has legions of starry-eyed admirers who want him to do nothing but become Bix before their eyes, evokes the tougher, more vibrato-laden work of Dominique and George Mitchell with a lovely mix of power and delicacy.

And that rhythm section!  I could listen to Asaro, Sanders (very wistful single-string solos and driving rhythm), Sample (somewhere Milton J. Hinton is grinning admiringly), Hall (who moves nimbly from the heavy brushwork Tommy Benford favors to evocations of Chauncey Morehouse, early Jo Jones — before Basie — George Stafford, Wettling, and other heroes) — swinging!

That swing is worth noting in itself.  Too many recordings / concerts devoted to some historically-accurate notion of what “early jazz” sounded like are at a distance from loose, happy swing.  Now, I know that what constitutes “swing” and “swinging” changes from decade to decade and from individual subjective perception, but the Fat Babies don’t feel compelled to imitate the rhythmic conventions of a 1923 recording just because the Gennett disc captured a particular sound.  But they don’t “update” in annoying ways: there are no quotes from ANTHROPOLOGY or BLUE SEVEN.

Too many words?  Take a look at this, recorded by my friend Jamaica Fisher Knauer:

To quote Chubby Jackson, “Wasn’t that swell?”  Or Alex Hill, “Ain’t it nice?”  (As someone who has a smartphone but doesn’t center his life around it, I must say that this video — and others by “victorcornet21” are the only reason to even considering buying an iPhone.)

I don’t write this about all that many discs, but CHICAGO HOT is a splendidly essential purchase if you feel as I do about hot music, exquisitely and expertly played.

And a postscript.  Liner notes are sometimes as energetically effusive — and just as accurate — as the blurbs on the back cover of a best-selling book.  But Kim Cusack, reed wizard and singer, doesn’t do such things.  He is outspoken and candid about the music he loves and the arts he practices — so notes by Kim are both a rare honor and testimony to his joyous endorsement of this band.

And — as a bonus — I learned from those notes what the band’s (to me) odd name was.  It comes from an expression young Beau Sample heard in his home state, Texas: “It’s hotter than a fat baby.”  Now you know.

May your happiness increase.

“WHAT A HEAVENLY DREAM”: PAUL ASARO and THE FAT BABIES PLAY FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM (Rivermont Records)

Fats Waller left us in 1943.  Both he and his swinging little band — his Rhythm — are inimitable.  But jazz musicians have a good deal of fun trying, in their own ways, to evoke their joyous spirit.  And their efforts give us joy, too.  Dick Wellstood had his Friends of Fats; Mark Shane has FATS LIVES!

The most recent — and highly successful — effort is captured on a new Rivermont Records CD: PAUL ASARO and THE FAT BABIES: WHAT A HEAVENLY DREAM / THE FATS WALLER RHYTHM PROJECT (BSW-2222). Paul Asaro has been a sweetly propulsive pianist and equally fine singer for some years now, and this CD captures him in great form with a band of musicians who are working on his level — the hot Chicago band led by string bassist Beau Sample, with Alex Hall (drums); Jake Sanders (guitar); John Otto (reeds); Andy Schumm (cornet).

How good is this session?  Two critical reactions will have to suffice here.  One is that I received the disc in the mail (a holiday present from a jazz friend!), listened to it last night and this afternoon, and am impelled to let you know about it as soon as possible.  The second is a small experiment I conducted — and it’s one of those you can indeed try at home in complete safetly.  I put the CD into the Beloved’s computer (two rooms away) and let it start up.  “Is that Fats?” she said immediately.  When I explained that it was a modern band in the Waller spirit, she said, “Wow, they are swinging like mad.”  And the Beloved knows Swing.

On the surface, this project looks familiar: fourteen songs, all but one of them recorded by Fats and the Rhythm between 1934-1941.  But there is nothing formulaic about this disc.  For one thing, there’s no lengthy renditions of AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, KEEPIN’ OUT OF MISCHIEF NOW,  or HONEYSUCKLE ROSE.  Some of the songs are familiar — YOUR FEET’S TOO BIG, TRUCKIN’, BLUE TURNING GREY OVER YOU — but the majority are lesser-played, and some are deliciously obscure: YOU’RE MY DISH, ABDULLAH, GOT NO TIME, and WINTER WEATHER. Paul sings on several of the songs, but he is wise enough not to attempt Fats’ particular brand of theatrical jocularity.  And the players are on their own to tell their own stories — a great thing.

What distinguishes this disc from other Waller-inspired evocations is its overall gentleness and sweetness.  Yes, a number of the performances are up-tempo romps so that Paul can show off his considerable stride chops and the band can make any good-sized building sway back and forth, but much of the disc is devoted to sweet-tempered rhythm ballads — coaxing rather than stomping. Paul is responsible for this musical worldview, which makes the CD easy to love rather than difficult to endure (many CDs, however well-meant, grow tedious because of a sameness of approach) but the players here offer their most friendly selves.

The rhythm section of Hall, Sample, and Sanders chooses simplicity over virtuosity; they glide rather than push, and the music breathes beautifully.  John Otto is characteristically subtle on tenor and clarinet, with none of the dramatics Fats’ reedmen sometimes drifted towards.  And then there’s Andy Schumm — making the whole enterprise glow with a delicate sound that of course recalls a mid-Thirties Bix . . . but I thought more often of the young Bobby Hackett on the Decca Dick Robertson sides and, at times, what would have happened if Joe Smith had lived.

This edition of the Rhythm — 2012 style — is precious, and I  can only hope that Paul and company achieve their next dream,  which is a CD of songs Fats never recorded done in this blissful way.

Here’s  the Rivermont Records Facebbok page, and their website.  (Visit the website and hear excerpts from the disc.)

But wait!  There’s more.  This recording is available both as standard audio CD and also as an audiophile-grade vinyl LP limited to 500 copies (in your choice of crystal clear or standard black vinyl). BONUS: Each LP includes a complimentary CD copy of the entire album.  Enjoy the album on vinyl and CD for the same price as the CD alone.

Yum yum yum, to quote Mr. Waller.

May your happiness increase.

BIXFEST 2012 IS ON THE WAY! (March 8-11, 2012)

I’ve never met Phil Pospychala.  But his reverence for Bix Beiderbecke, his music, and his world goes far beyond the sweet passivity of someone listening to his beloved records at home.  No, Phil has been creating and hosting his Tributes to Bix for more than two decades: this one is subtitled THE DREAM CONTINUES: PART XXIII.

That’s a serious thing.

You can find out more immediately by visiting here.   But permit me to share a few bits of information.

This year’s TRIBUTE is held in Racine, Wisconsin — and it will feature Andy Schumm, the heroic young man of jazz, with two “new” bands: his Monkey Chasers and the Scrap-Iron Jazzerinos.  The lissome and swinging singer Vanessa Tagliabue Yorke will be coming back to these shores.  Rare films, rare records to hear and to buy, a lecture by Hans Eekhoff on sound restoration and other pertinent matters; a film-demonstration of Twenties dance styles by the Queen of the Dicty Glide, Bridget Calzaretta . . . cakes in the shape of famous Bix records, contests, a magic show . . . a bus tour of sites related to Bee Palmer, Don Murray, and much more.  Josh Duffee, John Otto, Dave Bock, and Jamaica Knauer will be there.

The highest priced admission (Patron with the bus tour included) is $100.  The site will answer every question you might have — and raise some you never thought of — but you can also email Phil at bixguy@hotmail.com.  It’s advised that you register at the Marriott by February 14 (If music be the food of love, play on!) to ensure that you’ll get a room.

And here’s even more contact information:  the BIX phone hotline is (847) 996-0246.  There’s a reservation form and price schedule on the website, and checks should be mailed to Phil Pospychala at 15745 W. Birchwood Lane, Libertyville, Illinois 60048-5101.  You can also pay by Paypal.

The hotel details are as follows:  Marriott – Racine, WI (Hwy.20) 7111 Washington Ave.  Room Reservations – (262) 886-6100.  Toll Free – (800) 228-9290.  Tell the pleasant young person who takes your call that you are with the  “Bix Fest” to guarantee the special rate of $89, and be eligible for prize drawing of free room.

Register on line – www.marriott.com — type in Group Code – “bixbixa”; the group code field is on the Racine-Marriott homepage on the lower left side.  The $89 rate and room information will then pop up.  The closest airport is   Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport.  More details about bus, shuttle . . . are available on the website.

These festive events don’t go on eternally, so don’t wait.  Be a friend.  “With pleasure” will be all yours.

DOUBLING IN BRASS: TOM WARNER and FRIENDS (August 5, 2011)

I’ve never met Tom Warner in person, but I feel as if I know him well.  He’s a diligent videographer who generously shares his work on YouTube as “tdub1941,” enabling us to travel and hear without leaving our computers.  But it’s only recently that Tom has picked up his trumpet and joined the band.  Although he stays in the ensemble here, I salute him: he’s living the dream, as the phrase goes . . . and capturing it on video, too.

What follows is an informal, unbuttoned delight — it could have taken place anywhere in time and space in the history of hot jazz, although it sounds like Chicago, circa 1933, to me.  I want to hear more of Miss Vanessa Tagliabue Yorke — that girl’s got soul! — and the young fellow on the saxophone looks much like my hero Andy Schumm, doesn’t he?

Tom recorded this at the Doo Dah Lounge in Davenport, Iowa, and the DOO DAH Players are Vanessa Tagliabue Yorke, vocal; Andy Schumm, saxophone; John Otto, clarinet; Frank Gualtieri, trombone; Tom Warner; trumpet; Jason Schreiber, banjo; Dave Bock, tuba.

I hope there’s more from this session!  Thanks to the players, the singer, and the videographer, for a few uplifting moments in jazz.

FRANK CHACE, SEEKER

Clarinetist Frank Chace stood very still when he played, his eyes closed.  In the fashion of the true mystic, he looked inwards, seeking something new, beautiful, personal.  His own speech, his own pathways. 

A Chace solo winds around the melody and the chords, hesitant but guided by its own self-trust: “I don’t know the way but I know where I’m going.” 

He didn’t record enough for any of us, and often he seemed to be making his way through his fellow players — yearning to break free.  When he was playing alongside his great friends Don Ewell or Marty Grosz, he knew that they would supply an indefatigable rhythmic pulse, they would lay down the right chords, and he could then soar.

And soar he did.

In 1985, when I had only recently encountered the mysterious, elliptical Chace universe, Jazzology Records issued a record of a live session led by pianist Butch Thompson.  I thought it remarkable that here was a new Frank Chace record: it remains a treasure.  Charlie DeVore, cornet, John Otto, clarinet, alto sax, vocal; Hal Smith, drums; Jack Meilahn, guitar; Bill Evans, bass, were the other fellows on the stand.  And the session was full of delights, aside from Frank: Hal’s press rolls and shimmering hi-hat; the solid rhythm section; Otto’s sweet, thoughtful alto; De Vore’s Muggy Spanier-emphases.  But Frank Chace produces marvel after marvel. 

Hear him chart his own paths, his eyes closed, his only goal to create his own speech.  Frank was rarely — if ever — satisfied with something he had recorded, so I can’t say that he was complacently pleased with this or any other disc.  About an early session with the Salty Dogs, he told me, “I was fighting for my life!”  But no strain can be heard here: just beauty, impassioned or quietly subversive.     

Now, the complete session (offering twenty-four selections) is available on a double-CD Jazzology set.  (JCD 373/374), available at a variety of online sources.  I can’t praise it highly enough. 

The selections are I FOUND A NEW BABY / ROSE ROOM / I SURRENDER, DEAR / I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH ME / SWEET SUBSTITUTE / SWEETHEARTS ON PARADE / ONE HOUR / JAZZ BAND BALL / IDA / I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOU / SWEET LORRAINE / THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE / NOBODY’S SWEETHEART / HOME / JELLY ROLL / YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME / BLUE TURNING GREY OVER YOU / OH, SISTER, AIN’T THAT HOT? / DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO MISS NEW ORLEANS? / FROM MONDAY ON / S’POSIN’ / SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE / MY HONEY’S LOVIN’ ARMS / THANKS A MILLION. 

Frank doesn’t make an obsession out of being “untraditional,” but he won’t play the expected lines, the predictable harmonies.  You might think you know where his next phrase is going . . . but it turns out that he has led us in his own way, eyes closed, finding new surprises.

Listen to his ardor, his courage, his whimsical explorations. 

“THANKS A MILLION”: CLICK HERE.  ALL MONEY GOES TO THE MUSICIANS!

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

VIDEOGRAPHERS THREE!

What do Rae Ann Berry, Elin Smith, and Lisa (Mook) Ryan have in common?  They’re all women who have a deep involvement in jazz, even though they don’t play instruments.  Nor are they married to instrumentalists or players. 

All three are very creative members of the jazz audience — which is often more male than female.  But they do more than sit and applaud: they are improvisers behind the camera, video artists. 

Rae Ann is known to many by her YouTube channel name — SFRaeAnn — and she takes her camera to jazz happenings on the West Coast: regularly, she finds Clint Baker and his band at Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park, or a solo piano recital by the esteemed Ray Skjelbred at Pier 23 in San Francisco, as well as regularly videorecording jazz fetival performances.  Here are two of her most recent captures:

From July 20, 2010, here’s Ray working his deep-blue way through KMH DRAG, an impromptu blues line created by Max Kaminsky, Freddie Moore, and Art Hodes for a memorable Blue Note record date in (I believe) 1944:

And ten days later, Rae Ann recorded Clint and friends at Cafe Borrone, playing HINDUSTAN.  That’s Clint, clarinet; Leon Oakley, trumpet and necktie; Jim Klippert, trombone; Jason Vanderford, guitar; Bill Reinhart, bass; Steve Apple, drums; and Robert Young, banjo.  There’s good rocking tonight, New Orleans-style:

Elin Smith lives in England, and it was my good fortune to meet her and Ron, her husband, last year at Whitley Bay and again this year.

Elin loves to record jazz performances, but also is fascinated by composing films: her YouTube channel is “elinshouse,” and here she’s trained her lens on two performances by Thomas Winteler, who sounds more like Sidney Bechet than anyone I’ve ever  heard.  These songs are from the most recent Whitley Bay International Jazz Festival, where Thomas was joined by my hero Bent Persson on trumpet, Michel Bard on reeds, Lou Laprete on piano, Henri Lamaire on bass, and Ron Houghton on drums for ALLIGATOR CRAWL:

And a triumphant POTATO HEAD BLUES.  Like its predecessor, it suggests what might have happened if Sidney had brought his clarinet into the OKeh studios while Louis and his Hot Seven were recording:

Finally, there’s Lisa (Mook) Ryan, another Californian. 

Lisa is intrigued not only by the music of Bix Beiderbecke but by the people who continue to investigate it, play it, and keep his legacy alive.  She’s done wonderfully atmospheric films set to Bix’s music.  Here’s IN THE DARK (as played by Dick Hyman) which she’s used atmospherically — creating juxtapositions of slowly-observed still photographs — to muse on what Bix experienced and felt in the year 1928, all seen as shades of light, shadow, and blackness.  Other impressionistic creations of Lisa’s can be seen on her “MookRyan” channel:

 Most recently, under the heading of “MookCam,” she’s captured cornetist Andy Schumm in performance.  Although youthful, Andy has so many fans with video cameras (including myself) that he might be the most-documented jazz musician of the last two or three years — a singular tribute to his talent and the affection it inspires! 

Here are Andy and His Gang at the Putnam Museum, on July 22, 2010.  Andy is playing Bix’s cornet, John Otto on clarinet and sax, Vince Giordano on bass sax/tuba/string bass, Dave Bock on trombone, David Boeddinghaus on the Beiderbecke family piano, Leah Bezin on banjo, and Josh Duffee on drums for a merging of CLARINET MARMALADE and SINGIN’ THE BLUES:

The generous creativity of RaeAnn, Elin, and Lisa inspires us!

NEW OLD SONGS (by ANDY AND HIS GANG, March 2010)

Although it’s always a pleasure to hear JAZZ ME BLUES, for instance, listeners like to be surprised as well — not by mere novelty (playing the theme from FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE in hot style, for instance) but by songs in the idiom that aren’t overly familiar.  Here are two such performances from the 2010 Tribute to Bix, played by Andy Schumm and his Gang (Andy, cornet; Dave Bock, trombone; John Otto, reeds / vocal; David Boeddinghaus, piano; Leah Bezin, banjo; Vince Giordano, bass sax, tuba, string bass; Josh Duffee, drums). 

The first is WHAT A DAY, taken from a post-Bix session done by Frank Trumbauer:

It’s not the most inventive song — the three-note motif gets repeated cheerfully, almost without letup, but it bounces along.

The second, DON’T WAKE ME UP, LET ME DREAM, is more obscure (Abel Baer-Mabel Wayne) and has a certain oblique similarity to GOOD LITTLE, BAD LITTLE YOU — but it, too, gets a jaunty performance.  In this version, Vince got to take a much-needed breather and his place was taken by Mike Walbridge on tuba.  And Andy pounces on the melody from out of the ensemble in fine Goldkette style!

We have the intrepid Flemming Thorbye to thank for these videos: from the back of the hall, but steady and in clear sound — all that anyone could want and more!

BIX FEST 2010: GALS and RIVERS and MONDAY

These videos were taken by the multi-talented Jamaica Knauer at Phil Pospychala’s “Tribute to Bix,” the most recent celebration of Bix Beiderbecke’s life and art.  Cornetist Andy Schumm and his Gang — that’s Dave Bock (trombone), John Otto (reeds), Leah Bezin (banjo / guitar), David Boeddinghaus (piano), Vince Giordano (bass sax, string bass, tuba, vocals), and Josh Duffee (drums) performed a number of selections either recorded by Bix or evoking him.  Appropriately, the music was played on Bix’s birthday — at the Bavarian Inn in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

There are perhaps unintentional thematic connections here, easy to find.

MY GAL SAL (written by Paul Dresser, brother of novelist Theodore Dreiser):

SOMEBODY STOLE MY GAL (was it a pal of Sal or another gal?):

SLOW RIVER (harking back to the Goldkette band):

RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE (for the Wolverines and the 1927 recording with Frank Trumbauer):

Finally, because it’s Thursday, here’s the very antidote to Blue Monday, a cheerful FROM MONDAY ON:

Anyone who’s paying attention won’t need me to point to the special pleasures — the ringing playing of the front line, relaxed and hot; the rocking rhythm section, and the wonderfully steady tempos — but these performances will please over and over.  This band knows the records and the idiom inside-out but no one feels compelled to copy the famous solos.  And the smile on Josh Duffee’s face sums it all up for me.

HAL SMITH REMEMBERS FRANK CHACE

The drummer and versatile bandleader — man of many personalities, all of them rocking — Hal Smith is also a fine writer, someone who counted his too-rare opportunities to play alongside the Chicago clarinetist Frank Chace as life-altering experiences.  Here, with Hal’s permission, I’ve reprinted his tribute to Frank, first published in JAZZ RAMBLER and reprinted in JAZZ BEAT. 

FRANK CHACE — FREE SPIRIT OF THE CLARINET

By Hal Smith

President, America’s Finest City Dixieland Jazz Society

Chicago pianist Oro “Tut” Soper once said, “A Chicago Jazz musician will always have to fight to keep a free, wild heart.” For over 60 years, clarinetist Frank Chace fought for that same freedom.

Chace was born in Chicago on July 22, 1924—over three years before the first classic recordings that would define the Windy City’s musical style. As a youth he played flute, but did not stay with the instrument. In 1943, while attending Yale University, he was drafted by the U.S. Army. The Army is often castigated—justly—for its treatment of musicians such as Lester Young. Luckily for Frank Chace, his Army hitch yielded a benefit: A posting to New York, which resulted in an opportunity to hear Pee Wee Russell at Nick’s. Chace was instantly drawn to Russell’s idiosyncratic sound. He took up clarinet and used Pee Wee Russell’s music as a template for his own playing.
His first recordings were made with the “Cellar Boys” in New York in 1951. The personnel included three musicians who became lifetime friends of Chace: guitarist Marty Grosz, multi-instrumentalist John Dengler and pianist Dick Wellstood. (The great New Orleans bassist Pops Foster and Jelly Roll Morton’s drummer Tommy Benford also played on the records).

Later in 1951, Chace played with Wild Bill Davison at George Wein’s Storyville Club in Boston. Two of the evenings with Davison were recorded and several tracks were issued on the Savoy label.

In 1952, Chace played at the Barrel in St. Louis. The band included another lifelong friend: pianist Don Ewell. Live recordings made at the Barrel indicate that although Pee Wee Russell was still his main inspiration, Chace had also listened to Omer Simeon, Johnny Dodds, Frank Teschemacher and Darnell Howard.

After the St. Louis job ended, Chace established permanent residence in Chicago. In 1955 he played with the Salty Dogs. He also recorded with pianist Dave Remington for the Jubilee label and with Natty Dominique’s New Orleans Hot Six for Windin’ Ball. (Dominique’s group also included the legendary Baby Dodds and Lil Hardin Armstrong). Two years later Chace played a concert in Minneapolis with Doc Evans—later issued on a Soma LP.

One of Frank Chace’s greatest performances was recorded in 1957, when Marty Grosz organized a recording session for the Riverside label. The record, “Hooray For Bix,” by the Honoris Causa Jazz Band, featured Chace on clarinet and bass sax. The other sidemen were: Carl Halen, cornet; Bud Wilson, trombone; Bob Skiver, tenor sax and clarinet; Tut Soper, piano; Chuck Neilson, bass; and Bob Saltmarsh, drums. Bill Priestley, a longtime friend of Bix Beiderbecke, played cornet and guitar on a few tunes. Grosz played guitar, led the band and wrote the arrangements. His charts were based on the sound of Bud Freeman’s Summa Cum Laude band (which was also the inspiration for the band name). Chace is in top form throughout the record, but his first chorus on “Sorry” is the crown jewel of the session. After the four-bar introduction by the horns and string bass, the horns play the melody in tight harmony. Chace floats above the ensemble, joyfully deconstructing the melody in the best tradition of Pee Wee Russell. His use of extended harmonics and rhythmic suspension is as close to “free jazz” as one can get in a swing setting. This breathtaking chorus is Chace’s supreme moment on record and one of the most inspired solos in the history of recorded jazz!

Another highlight for the clarinetist in 1957 was the opportunity to meet Lester Young when both were performing in Indianapolis. One night, after their club date was finished, drummer Buddy Smith offered to take Chace to the hotel where Young was staying. The other musicians gathered around “The Prez,” but Chace hesitated. Young finally asked the shy clarinetist to join the throng, addressing him as “Long-Distance Man.” Compare Lester Young’s introspective clarinet playing on “I Want A Little Girl” (with the Kansas City Six) with Chace’s on “For No Reason At All In C” from the “Hooray For Bix” session. In Lester Young’s own words, “See if you hear something.”
In 1959, Chace was reunited with Don Ewell and John Dengler when Grosz assembled a recording band for the Audio Fidelity label. The band, with Max Kaminsky, Cutty Cutshall, Gene Schroeder (alternating sessions with Ewell) and Don Maclean, recorded enough material for two LPs: “Roaring Twenties at the Gaslight” and “Banjo at the Gaslight Club.” As good as these recordings are, Chace is even better on some private tapes made during the same period. One of these—a session at Bill Priestley’s home in the summer of 1959—features the clarinetist in a trio with Ewell and Grosz. Musicians and jazz fans agree that Chace’s playing on “I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me” ranks with “Sorry” as one of his greatest performances.

He also worked briefly with Gene Mayl’s Dixieland Rhythm Kings in 1959. That particular edition of the band included banjoist and vocalist Clancy Hayes. During that period, Chace and Hayes were involved in another memorable session at Priestley’s, with vocalist Lee Wiley. Fortunately, the tape recorder was running on that occasion too!

Chace’s only commercially-issued recordings from the early 1960s are two LPs on the Jazz Art label, taken from rehearsal sessions with the legendary trumpeter Jabbo Smith; these sides are being reissued with this release. .

During the early and mid ‘60s, except for a brief stint with Muggsy Spanier, Chace worked with the Salty Dogs and also led his own bands. One such group included veterans Johnny Mendel, Floyd O’Brien, Tut Soper and Jim Lanigan as well as younger musicians—Bob Skiver, Grosz and Wayne Jones. When this group played for the Chicago Historical Society in 1964, they were joined by a very special guest—Gene Krupa!

A late-60s Chicago recording session by guitarist/vocalist Jim Kweskin resulted in three more classic Chace solos. The album, “Jump For Joy,” released in 1967, paired Kweskin with cornetist Ted Butterman’s Neo-Passé Jazz Band. In addition to Butterman, the personnel consisted of Chace (clarinet and bass sax); Kim Cusack, clarinet; Johnny Frigo, violin; Grosz (guitar, banjo and arranger); Truck Parham, bass; and Wayne Jones, drums. Fellow reedman Kim Cusack called Chace’s playing on “You’re Not The Only Oyster In The Stew” “one of the sublime moments in jazz.” The clarinet choruses on “Memphis Blues” and “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” are two more outstanding examples of Frank Chace at his best.

Recently, the GHB label released a two-CD set of Chace playing with a specially-assembled band in 1967 at the Emporium of Jazz in Mendota, Minnesota. The group included Bill Price (cornet), Jimmy Archey (trombone), Don Ewell (piano), Bill Evans (bass) and Sammy Penn (drums). A cursory glance at the personnel and their stylistic differences might cause concern. However, the musicians—particularly Chace and Ewell—sound wonderful together.

Sometime during the ‘60s, or possibly the ‘70s, Chace went to work as a technical writer. He continued to work with bands around Chicago, and to play sessions, but did not rely on music for a living. As musician/author Richard Hadlock explains,
“Most jazz players learn to adjust, at least somewhat, to shallow audiences, wrongheaded entrepreneurs, pandering bandleaders and jaded or inept sidemen.

“Not clarinetist Frank Chace, however. Over the thirty-some years I’ve been observing his largely hidden talent, I have heard story after story to do with Frank’s losing out because he wouldn’t play ‘pretty’ or ‘straight’ or ‘traditional’ or some other term that meant going outside his own natural way of making music…

“There have been occasions when Frank simply would not take a paying but dumb job. At other times he hasn’t been hired or was let go because someone wanted to hear, say, Stardust and didn’t recognize Frank’s version of it. The result is that Frank Chace has kept one of the lowest profiles among outstanding jazz players.”

During the 1970s, Chace also listened closely to the music of John Coltrane and other modern jazzmen. In the right setting, his solos often went farther “out” than ever before! Delmark Records producer Bob Koester, a longtime admirer of Chace’s music, wrote about his plan to record the clarinetist with a “modern rhythm section.” Alas, the session never materialized.

This writer’s first encounter with Frank Chace was on Apr. 28, 1985. Pianist Butch Thompson assembled a band to play a concert for the Good Time Jazz Club in Libertyville, Illinois. Butch invited Frank to play clarinet, in a group that included Charlie Devore, cornet; John Otto, alto sax; Jack Meilahn, guitar; Bill Evans, bass; and myself on drums. It was an unbelievable thrill to hear that intense, wailing, clarinet coming from directly in front of the drums! The concert flew by—much too fast—and my only contact with Frank Chace for the next year would be written correspondence. The letters are priceless, especially for the humor. In one exchange, he obviously remembered the salutation on my first letter (“Dear Mr. Chace”). At the end of a very funny letter, which ran to several pages, he signed off as Your Friend, Mr. Chace.

In 1986, he was flown to New York, to perform at the JVC Jazz Festival’s “Chicago Jazz Summit.” An LP was subsequently issued, featuring several instrumental combinations recorded live at the festival. Unbelievably, Chace is only heard on one track. However, it is a rip-roaring version of “At The Jazz Band Ball,” played by Yank Lawson, George Masso, Eddie Miller, Truck Parham, Ikey Robinson, Barrett Deems and festival producer George Wein. Though we can wish that Chace was heard on more tracks, it is safe to say that his two idiosyncratic choruses are easily worth the price of the record!

My final gig with “Mr. Chace” was in 1987—another concert for the Good Time Jazz Club. On that occasion, I led the “Chicago Loopers” which also included Tom Pletcher, cornet; Tom Bartlett, trombone; Joe Johnson, piano; and Dan Shapera, bass. Frank’s playing that day—passionate, rasping, keening, whispered—was other-worldly. It was an indescribable high.

He continued to play with unlimited creativity for nearly 20 more years. In 2001, Drummer Wayne Jones played with Chace at a gig sponsored by Delmark’s Bob Koester. He reported that “Frank sounded not the least dimmed by the passing years.”

Frank Chace died on 28 Dec., 2007. He never gave up that fight to keep a wild, free heart.

Following is a list of recent CD issues that feature Frank Chace:
Salty Dogs 1955 (Windin’ Ball CD-105)
Marty Grosz & The Honoris Causa Jazz Band: Hooray For Bix
(Good Time Jazz 10065-2)
Marty Grosz & The Cellar Boys 1951/Honoris Causa Jazz Band alternate takes 1957
(J&M CD-004)
Jim Kweskin with Ted Butterman & the Neo-Passé Jazz Band: Jump For Joy
(Universe UV0051)
Jimmy Archey & Don Ewell at the Emporium Of Jazz 1967
(GHB BCD-461/462)
Chicago Jazz Summit
(Atlantic 81844-2)

These sessions are due for release in 2009:
Jabbo Smith – 1961 GHB BCD-510
The Chicago Loopers with Frank Chace – Live, 1987 Jazzology JCD 371-372
Butch Thompson and his Boys in Chicago – 1985 Jazzology JCD 373-374

COPYRIGHT, MICHAEL STEINMAN, HAL SMITH, AND JAZZ LIVES, 2010
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.  Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Michael Steinman and Jazz Lives with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

FRANK CHACE ON DISC

This post is meant as a follow-up to my lengthy presentation of letters from the Chicago clarinetist to me.  When Frank Chace died, many jazz listeners who would have admired his work were unaware of it, and the first question asked on several online forums was “Where can I hear his recorded work?  Here’s a brief overviewm beginning with something of a sentimental artifact.

These aren’t compact discs, but 78s from the first recording session of both Marty Grosz and Frank Chace.  Dick Wellstood had already been recording since 1946; Pops Foster and Tommy Benford were veterans. 

Two other titles were recorded: the session was reissued on ten-inch lps on the Pax / Paradox label.  Compact disc reissue, anyone?

Since most of my readers prefer compact discs, here is a brief (and perhaps incomplete) listing of current issues of Frank’s music, in approximate chronological order.

DEWEY JACKSON LIVE AT THE BARREL CLUB, 1952 (Delmark).  This session, recorded by Delmark’s founder Bob Koester, finds Chace with trombonist Sid Dawson and St. Louis trumpet legend Jackson as well as long-time friend Don Ewell. 

SALTY DOGS 1955 (Windin’ Ball).  This features trumpeter Birch Smith, who arranged for the music to be recorded, the legendary trombonist Jim Snyder, John Cooper (piano); Jack Lord (banjo); Bob Rann (tuba); Dick Karner (drums).  Visit http://www.tradjazzproductions.com/music3.html to hear an mp3 of Frank — and to order the CD from TradJazz Productions.

HOORAY FOR BIX: Marty Grosz and his Honoris Causa Jazz Band, 1957 (Riverside / Good Time Jazz).  These sessions — under Marty Grosz’s leadership – pair Frank with cornetist Carl Halen, Bill Priestley on guitar and second cornet, Bud Wilson on trombone, Bob Skiver on reeds, Tut Soper on piano, and others.  (The outlandish names on the liner are pseudonyms — for reasons I have never discerned, since most of the players were not under contract to any other company.)  This might be the best introduction to Frank on record.  A vinyl record of alternate performances showed up very briefly at the end of the vinyl era (and the alternate material was again issued on a compact disc on the British J&M label.)

JIMMY ARCHEY / DON EWELL LIVE AT THE EMPORIUM OF JAZZ, 1967 (GHB: 2 CDs).  Recorded live at the Emporium of Jazz in Mendota, Michigan, home base for the Hall Brothers’ Jazz Band, this live issue features Archey, Don Ewell, trumpeter Bill Price, and drummer Red Maddock among others.

FRANK CHACE and his CHICAGO LOOPERS, 1987 (Jazzology: 2 CDs).  This 2009 issue pairs Frank with the fine drummer Hal Smith, the Bix-inspired cornetist Tom Pletcher, gutty trombonist Tom Bartlett, bassist Dan Shapera, and pianist Joe Johnson.  The candid portrait of Frank at work is by his friend Terry Martin. 

Jazzology plans to issue a complete 2-CD set of the sessions Frank recorded with Butch Thompson, Charlie DeVore, John Otto, Hal Smith, and others — originally issued in part on vinyl as BUTCH THOMPSON AND HIS BOYS.

Should anyone suggest a hidden agenda — ranking the merit of these recordings by the size of the images above — nothing of the sort is implied or expressed. 

Other CDs with appearances by Frank have come and gone — a Vanguard session led by Jim Kweskin (featuring Marty Grosz and Ted Butterman) called JUMP FOR JOY; Frank’s one track from a 1981 Newport Jazz Festival tribute, CHICAGO JAZZ SUMMIT (Atlantic).  Much of his recorded work has been issued on spectacularly obscure recordings: two records by Marty Grosz and his Gaslighters on Audio Fidelity; a session with Dave Remington on Jubilee (a record, oddly enough, that has surfaced a good deal online — in inexpensive V+ copies); with Doc Evans on Soma (where Frank plays baritone sax as well as clarinet).  But Frank’s refusal to play or record music not to his liking make his recorded oeuvre smaller than it should have been.  Ironically, at times I tried to interest two producers of traditional jazz records in doing a Frank Chace recording — preferably a new session — by sending them a cassette of chace in 1958 and 1997.  I received, as I recall, polite demurrers.  Not, mind you, that Frank was ever eager to record: his Chicago friends did herculean wheedling and coaxing with very little result.  But it took until 2009 — and the efforts of Hal Smith — to have a CD issued under Frank’s name, which is a pity.

COPYRIGHT, MICHAEL STEINMAN AND JAZZ LIVES, 2010
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.  Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Michael Steinman and Jazz Lives with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“THE DEAR BOY”: BIXFEST 2010 (March 11-14)

First, “the dear boy” is what Louis Armstrong called Bix, writing about him in 1954.  And Bix Beiderbecke remains dear to many, as man and musician.   

Phil Pospychala is once again arranging his Tribute to Bix, to be held in the Marriott in Racine, Wisconsin.  Details can be found — along with photographs, cartoons, comedy, and information — at http://www.bixfest.com/

The music promises to be typically rewarding, with Vince Giordano leading his Midwest Nighthawks and as a member of the “Bix and his Gang” band — which features Andy Schumm on cornet, Dave Bock on trombone, John Otto on reeds, and Josh Duffee on drums.  Jamaica Knauer, videographer and singer, will be making her debut with cornetist Scott Black, Bock, Andy Schumm on piano, John Otto, and Sue Fischer on drums.  The New Century Jazz Orchestra from the UK will be playing as well. 

Jamaica says, “It’s a really nice, intimate kind of festival, with a bus trip to jazz sites, lectures, record
contests, record sales, jazz films, late night record spinning, birthday cakes in Bix’s honor….a great time to hear some fantastic music, mingle with the musicians, make friends, and visit with old ones.”

For details (prices, reservations, scheduling) visit the BixFest site above.  The video clips I have seen and posted from this festival are evidence enough that a good time was and will be had by all.  Or ask your local Bixian!