MENNO DAAMS and ALEX HILL INTRODUCE US TO GLORY (Thursday, November 4, 2016, 11:30 AM, the Village Hotel, Newcastle, UK)

I admit that my title may seem over-detailed. But take those details with some whimsy, and I will explain. Of course, impatient or eager readers may skip right to the video and return or not. Having retired from what was called “college teaching,” I no longer take attendance. But here are the principal players.

Menno Daams (cornet, trumpet, compositions, arrangements) is a brilliant friend and musical hero, someone balancing taste, wit, bravura, and subtlety in all his musical endeavors. When last seen, he was playing brilliantly at this year’s Ascona Jazz Festival.

Pianist, composer, arranger, singer Alexander Hill, alas, lived a truly intense and truncated life — one of those driven geniuses who didn’t seem to sleep and whose bright spark flickered out at 30. Tuberculosis was the culprit or perhaps he was one of those people meant to cram several lifetimes of art and work into one short span.

I attended the Whitley Bay Jazz Party (now the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party) from 2009 to 2016, as a jazz enthusiast, blogger, and videographer . . . and in that last capacity I posted almost 450 videos of bands large and small, formal and informal, and a variety of singers. Exhausting but joyous work and you can see the results of my “swingyoucats” YouTube channel.

Certain managerial decisions made it first difficult, then impossible for me to continue, and I haven’t been back. Others have taken on my role, and I now have the perhaps odd luxury of watching their videos from my computer. But that is another novella entirely.

One of the delights of the weekend was the opportunity to watch and record bands rehearsing in the morning and afternoon — large combinations of musicians who didn’t play together, reading manuscripts — reading charts for the first time, stopping and starting. No one told me to leave (bless you, heroes) and once in a great while the rehearsals, unbuttoned and playful, surpassed the evening’s “concert” performance. An example you can find on YouTube is my capture of the rehearsal by a Bent Persson group of CAFE CAPERS. And this: Menno Daams’ International Serenaders paying tribute to Alex Hill by performing his spiritual, KEEP A SONG IN YOUR SOUL.

Menno had granted me permission to post the video, which I did in 2019. Recently, as a delightful surprise, he reposted it with the musical information rolling along above the image. You can call it the “director’s cut” or the “DVD version with special enhanced features.” Call it what you will, but it’s lovely.

I confess to a didactic-emotional-spiritual purpose of mine. The band sounds so good, and the enhanced version is such a work of art, that it bothers me how few people have seen this: fewer than 200 took in the first posting (three years ago) and fewer than 70 have seen this version. People! This will make you sit up straight in your chairs: it will spark joy for free. (Take that, Marie Kondo.)

I bow to Menno, to Alex, and to this great band. Thank you for letting me visit, thank you for certain.

May your happiness increase!

THEY REALLY RING THE BELL: ENRICO TOMASSO, BENT PERSSON, KRISTOFER KOMPEN, LARS FRANK, SPATS LANGHAM, MENNO DAAMS, RICHARD EXALL, MICHAEL McQUAID, MORTEN GUNNAR LARSEN, MALCOLM SKED (Whitley Bay Jazz Party, November 6, 2015)

“Two Louis Armstrongs for the price of one!”

Enrico Tomasso, touched by divinity, leads a big band at the 2015 Whitley Bay Jazz Party in Phil Baxter’s I’M A DING DONG DADDY. Soloists are Rico himself, Bent Persson, trumpets; Kristoffer Kompen, trombone; Lars Frank, tenor saxophone; Spats Langham, vocal and guitar. Supporting players are Menno Daams, trumpet; Richard Exall, Michael McQuaid, reeds; Morten Gunnar Larsen, piano; Malcolm Sked, sousaphone. Apologies to anyone I’ve left out.

To quote Vic Dickenson, “Ding Ding!”

May your happiness increase!

GORGEOUSLY.

I have it in my mind to create a new one-question JAZZ category on JEOPARDY, the winning amount to be uncountable. GORGEOUSLY is the answer, and bzzzzzzt! — one of the contestants has an answer. “Yes?” “How does Menno Daams play a ballad?” “Yes! That’s right!”

The reason for this goofy approach is that a new-old video, circa 2000, of brass hero Menno playing WILLOW WEEP FOR ME has appeared, and it’s magnificent. Passion, bite, control, delicacy, a singing approach to the original melody: a small instantaneous masterpiece, and that last word is not one I use.

Menno’s utterly empathic accompanists are Mike Goetz, piano; Ton van Bergeijk, guitar; Alfred Smidt, string bass; Louis Debij, drums:

I think that’s just gorgeous. Don’t you?

May your happiness increase!

THEY WANT US TO BE HAPPY, TOO: STEPHANIE TRICK, PAOLO ALDERIGHI, NICKI PARROTT, ENGELBERT WROBEL, BERNARD FLEGAR (Jazz im Rathaus, Westoverledingen, Germany (April 9, 2016)

I’m pleased to share with JAZZ LIVES’ readers (and watchers) a complete set from a few years ago — from only my second trip to Germany. Both times I ventured out of my nest because of the kind urgings of Manfred Selchow, concert producer extraordinaire. Even if you’ve never been to one of Manny’s concerts, perhaps you’ve heard the results as issued on a long series of irreplaceable all-star Nagel-Heyer CDs. He created a weekend of rewarding jazz concerts in “the Town Hall,” which carries with it a wonderful resonance of Louis and Eddie Condon and many others in performance.

And here is a very recent photograph of Manfred and his wife Renate with the wonderful drummer Bernard Flegar:

This little band features Stephanie Trick and Paolo Alderighi, piano; Engelbert Wrobel, clarinet and saxophones; Nicki Parrott, string bass and vocal; Bernard Flegar, drums. And the program is so delightfully varied: no one could say these songs are new, but the energy this band brings to them, the cohesive joy, is very special. I’m grateful to the musicians for their for their generous music (and permission to share this set) and to Eric Devine for technical wizardry.

Before we move to the music, a few words. I’m always pleased when jazz fans go beyond their love for “the locals” which can, at worst, become provincialism, to discover worthies who don’t live ten miles away. Nicki, Stephanie and Paolo, and Engelbert (known as “Angel” to his friends and for good reason) all have their enthusiastic constituencies: some of this due to excellent recordings, often on the Arbors Records label, some due to what I would guess are exhausting touring schedules.

But Bernard, who has visited the US but not toured there, might be less well known, and this is a deficiency to be immediately remedied.

He is what the heroes of our jazz past would call someone who kicks the band along — but he is not a noisemaker. Ask Dan Barrett, Allan Vache, Menno Daams, Chris Hopkins, and others and they will tell you how sympathetically he listens, in the grand tradition, how he seamlessly merges what he has studied of the great percussive history into his own sound and approach, and how gloriously he swings.

You’ll hear for yourself, but if you ever begin to lament that the great drummers are gone or aging, explore Bernard’s work as documented on CD and video — and he is now an essential part of a new band, Armstrong’s Ambassadors, also featuring Angel (Matthias Seuffert is in the 2020 video), Colin Dawson, and Sebastien Giradot. (The band name should tell you all you need to know about their affectionate reverence for a certain Mister Strong.)

But let’s go back to 2016 for some elegant hot diversions.

A very Basie-ish BLUE SKIES, featuring Nicki, Paolo, Angel, and Bernard:

Stephanie joins in the fun for HONEYSUCKLE ROSE:

A band-within-a-band — Paolo, Nicki, and Angel — for OVER THE RAINBOW:

THE MEN I LOVE, announces Nicki — with happy glances at Paolo, Bernard, and Angel:

and finally, a swing declaration of intent, with everyone playing AMEN — I WANT TO BE HAPPY:

And to move us forward to the present and future, here’s an almost nine-minute sampler of how splendidly the new band, Armstrong’s Ambassadors, pays swinging homage:

Wonderful music from Nicki, Stephanie, Paolo, Angel, and Bernard — all of them still flourishing and expressing themselves so well — and from this new band. Hope springs, doesn’t it?

May your happiness increase!

ANYONE CAN PLAY FAST, BUT IT TAKES YEARS TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO PLAY SLOWLY (MENNO DAAMS, TORSTEIN KUBBAN, LARS FRANK, JON PENN: Newcastle, November 5, 2016) — and a PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

The v.memorable decor at the Village Hotel.

The song is MEMORIES OF YOU, and this is a performance to remember. It took place after the scheduled musical events had concluded at the 2016 Whitley Bay International Jazz Party, held at the Village Hotel in Newcastle, UK.

Fast tempos wow the crowd, but I think most musicians would agree with me that slow tempos are much harder to handle with coherence, variety, and feeling. When the bars are going along like telephone poles out the window, one can simply rely on learned patterns and hang on. Some trumpet players, and I think of Rex Stewart, play faster as the tempo increases; some, like mid-period Louis (hear the 1932-33 Victors) know that whole notes and “long tones” convey intense emotional messages.

Thus it is with this performance: it has its own sustained beauty — no one plays double-time; they let the emotions unfold. Directly in front of my camera was Menno Daams, cornet; to his left, a string bassist whose name I did not learn; Torstein Kubban, trumpet; Lars Frank, tenor saxophone; Jon Penn, keyboard. And although one might associate this Eubie Blake – Noble Sissle evergreen with Benny Goodman, there is Louis in the air — but more so, I am reminded of a Jerry Newman recording from some undocumented early morning in 1941 at Minton’s. Hawkins is here, and so is Frank Newton. At least in my imagination. V.beautiful, as we say at the Village Hotel (with a big wave of my hand to my honoured friend Nicholas D. Ball):

There is drama here, and passion, but no rush: these musicians know (and feel) how to take time to let beauty unfold on its own terms. Even in the pub.

Now for the Public Service Announcement. I began publishing this blog in February 2008, which is an infinity of delighted keystrokes and videos ago. During the pandemic, I felt it was my responsibility to add joy to the air by posting every day. I hope many of you can say along with me, “I have come out of my house. I am less afraid. My life has expanded.” Instead of spending eight hours a day in front of this lit screen, I have returned to a life that resembles the one I cherished sixteen months ago. So this is only to say I am reverting to a summer schedule . . . a day might go by without a post. This is not to cause alarm, but it is a sign that your faithful blogger might have gotten home late from a concert in New Jersey or dinner in Brooklyn and not be up to posting a new blog that day. I don’t intend to stop . . . but this is just to let my faithful, sometimes anxious audience know that if there is no blogpost that day, I am not in the ER.

The blog has been an instrument, rather like a spiritual megaphone, through which I could send love and gratitude, often in the form of music, and I have gotten it back so wonderfully for thirteen years. I am not quitting, but don’t worry if I play hookey (or even hooky). There are something like five thousand blogposts stored here: you might be able to amuse yourself while I am capering in the sunshine (or eating something with capers.) Love, Michael

May your happiness increase!

A LITTLE LOUIS IN THE PUB: TORSTEIN KUBBAN, MENNO DAAMS, LARS FRANK, THOMAS WINTELER, JON PENN, and FRIENDS (November 5, 2016, Newcastle, UK)

The performance that follows — incredibly passionate music in honor of Mister Strong — was created at an after-hours jam session in the Victory Pub in the Village Hotel, Newcastle (after the formal proceedings of the Whitley Bay International Jazz Festival had concluded for the day, November 5, 2016) featuring Torstein Kubban, trumpet; Menno Daams, cornet; Thomas Winteler, clarinet / soprano saxophone; Lars Frank, tenor saxophone; Jon Penn, keyboard; unidentified, string bass.

P.S. Comments noting — what a surprise! — that the audience isn’t silent will be deleted. It’s a pub, for goodness’ sake. They were enjoying themselves: savor the music:

May your happiness increase!

ANOTHER “TOWN HALL CONCERT”: PAOLO ALDERIGHI, BERT BOEREN, MENNO DAAMS, BERNARD FLEGAR, MORITZ GASTREICH, NICO GASTREICH, HELGE LORENZ, NICKI PARROTT, MATTHIAS SEUFFERT, STEPHANIE TRICK, NIELS UNBEHAGEN, ENGELBERT WROBEL (Westoverledingen, Germany, April 10, 2016)

I was there, among admired friends.  And the music was spectacular.

In German, it’s JAZZ IM RATHAUS — Jazz at the Town (City) Hall — but given that Louis’ 1947 Town Hall Concert shaped my life, I realign the words as tribute.  The Dramatis Personae is on the green cover.

April 9, 2016. Photograph by Elke Grunwald

This was the thirtieth annual concert, a series featuring, among others, Wild Bill Davison, Kenny Davern, Marty Grosz, Ralph Sutton, Jon-Erik Kellso, Dan Barrett, Randy Sandke, Warren Vache, Bob Haggart, Mark Shane, Danny Moss, Chris Hopkins, Jake Hanna, Rossano Sportiello, Antti Sarpila, Butch Miles, Ken Peplowski . . . . All of this happened because of Manfred Selchow, known to his friends as Mannie, a deep jazz-lover, author of beautifully comprehensive studies of Ed Hall and Vic Dickenson.  He’s the serious man below with both hands on the check, but don’t let that somber visage fool you: he is a warm and easy fellow.

But music is what we’re here for — two rousing selections from the final concert of the April 8-10 jazz weekend at the Rathaus.  The first, LADY BE GOOD, is full of gratifying solos, ensemble telepathy, uplifting surprises.  That’s Matthias Seuffert, Engelbert Wrobel, tenor saxophones; Helge Lorenz, guitar; Bert Boeren, trombone; Menno Daams, cornet; Rico Tomasso, trumpet; Bernard Flegar, later, Moritz Gastreich, drums; Nico Gastreich, string bass; Niels Unbehagen, Stephanie Trick, Paolo Alderighi, piano — doing crowd-pleasing handoffs.  AND 1936 Lester!  (Wait for it, as they say.)

The encore, PERDIDO, evokes JATP, with Matthias, Engelbert, Helge, Nicki Parrott on string bass; Bernard, Niels, Stephanie, Paolo, Rico, Menno, and Bert:

Someday, sweethearts, we shall meet again.  And thanks for the lovely sounds.

May your happiness increase!

SIX MINUTES OF SWING MYSTERY (May 25, 1939)

We like to think that everything can be known, and in many cases answers can be found by the diligent, but I am sharing a small mystery with my readers, for their pleasure and perhaps our mutual enlightenment.

Certain jazz soloists are immediately recognizable: you can make your own list.  Other superb players are less familiar because of the paucity of evidence (we know what Charlie Shavers sounds like because of his distinctive approach, but we also have hours of his recorded work to compare any unidentified playing against.)  I think also of Coleman Hawkins’ comment about being on the road: that you could go to some small town and there would be a tenor player who no one ever heard of who would be as good as the famous ones.

When I saw this record — rather obscure and rare — I wanted it, for those reasons.  Also because Edgar Sampson, saxophonist, composer, arranger, never produced any music that was less than superb.  I knew one song — DON’T TRY YOUR JIVE ON ME — because of Fats Waller’s UK recording.  When I played it, though, I was impressed and mystified.  A great trumpet solo on JIVE, and rippling swing piano on both sides.

I have some vanity about knowing the great soloists of the period, and it piqued me that I couldn’t identify anyone except Sampson.  But I have friends who are also experts, and I tried their knowledge as well — let me list their names in alphabetical order: Marc Caparone, Menno Daams, Jan Evensmo, Jon-Erik Kellso, Bent Persson, Rob Rothberg, Bo Scherman — but no definitive answers.

About The Three Swingsters, I can only surmise that they were a vocal group with some regional fame — I think Pennsylvania — but I do not know whether the record was made to showcase them or not.

Before we go deeper, here is the mysterious listing in Tom Lord’s online discography:

Edgar Sampson And His Orchestra : 2 tp, tb, Edgar Sampson (as) unknown p, b and d, The Three Swingsters (vcl-1)
New York, May 25, 1939
WM1023-A Don’t try your jive on me (1) Voc 4942
WM1024-A Pick your own lick (1) –
WM1025-A Sly mongoose (1) (unissued)

My experts (I apologize if that seems too possessive) came up with names of who the trumpet soloist couldn’t be, and proposed Dick Vance or Benny Carter as the trumpeter, and Tommy Fulford as the pianist, with some thoughts of perhaps Eddie Heywood or Kenny Kersey.  Vance and Fulford were stalwarts of the Chick Webb band — this disc was recorded very late in Chick’s life — and at that time Sampson was the band’s musical director.  I have heard Fulford with Chick’s “Little Chicks,” and he is plausible — fleet and swinging.

On first hearing, I thought the pianist was Billy Kyle, but the player does not reach for Kyle’s beloved downward run, and Billy recorded that day with Jack Sneed for Decca (of course he could have made two sessions in one day). The connection to Master Records suggests the salutary influence of Helen Oakley. And PICK YOUR OWN LICK (written by “newcomers to songdom” Roy Jacobs and Gene de Paul, according to Billboard) was published by Mills Music.  de Paul went on to write DON’T TAKE YOUR LOVE FROM ME and I’LL REMEMBER APRIL, but LICK is not his finest hour.  Or three minutes.

Here’s DON’T TRY YOUR JIVE ON ME:

About PICK YOUR OWN LICK: I try never to write these words, but what a terrible idea — an attempt to have a pop hit by cannibalizing bits of other pop hits. But the band sounds good, even while the lyrics pummel us with obvious hopeful thefts.

Your thoughts?

May your happiness increase!

“IN THAT FREE-AND-EASY MANNER”: MENNO DAAMS’ INTERNATIONAL SERENADERS BRING ALEX HILL TO LIFE (Whitley Bay, November 4, 2016)

Early on November 4, 2016, an august group of informally-attired gentlemen assembled within the Village Hotel in Newcastle, England, at what is now called Mike Durham’s Whitley bay Classic Jazz Party to rehearse their set of songs and arrangements by the most-talented and most short-lived Alex Hill.  Their aims: to have a jubilee and also do some needed functionizin’.

The truly all-star band was led by trumpeter / scholar / arranger Menno Daams,  and was comprised of David Boeddinghaus, piano; Spats Langham, guitar and vocal; Henry Lemaire, string bass; Richard Pite, drums;  Rico Tomasso, Duke Heitger, trumpets; Jean-Francois Bonnel, Richard Exall, Robert Fowler, Lars Frank, reeds; Jim Fryer, Alistair Allan, trombones.

This was a rehearsal: thus, not everything had already been polished through focused playing and replaying, but the absence of an audience occasionally lets musicians cut loose and experiment.  I’ve intentionally left in the pre-and-post comments to give listeners the experience of being there.

And although they knew I was there, they happily managed to ignore me, which was fine then and turned into a great boon for all of us.  I had a wonderful view of the chairs, but one must sit far enough back in the room to capture everyone in the band. My focus wasn’t perfect, but at least you can blame the camera rather than its operator.  The sound is clear, and the absence of an audience, bringing pint mugs back and forth and chatting, is a great boon, although sharp-eared video observers will hear some commentary which usually stops when the band begins.

About the band name: I don’t think Menno and Co. had an official collective sobriquet in the program, and many of the original Hill sessions were issued as “his Hollywood Sepians,” and no amount of linguistic immolation on my part could convert that to a group title both appropriate and inoffensive.  I will leave the possible variations on that theme to you, and comments offering such names will, alas, never see the light of cyber-day.

On to the blessed music.  LET’S HAVE A JUBILEE:

SONG OF THE PLOW:

AIN’T IT NICE?:

DISSONANCE (Mezz Mezzrow took credit, but it is a Hill composition and arrangement):

DELTA BOUND (with wonderful singing by Mr. Langham, typically):

FUNCTIONIZIN’, a close cousin of SQUEEZE ME:

KEEP A SONG IN YOUR SOUL, wise advice:

One of the unannounced pleasures of this Party, held this November in the same space [the “v.snuggly” Village Hotel] is that well-behaved listeners are welcome to sit in on rehearsals — a rare pleasure.  Blessings on Alex, Menno, and the wonderful musicians for their splendid work in keeping the good sounds alive.

And just so you know my enthusiasm is global, not local, this comment, relayed through my good friend Sir Robert Cox: “Tom [that’s Spats] said how brilliant Menno’s arrangements were and how much, to their astonishment, rehearsal had taken only 45 minutes. He said that, never in the history of the party, had a rehearsal lasted less than an hour.”

May your happiness increase!

A LEISURELY CONVERSATION OF KINDRED SOULS, or “BLUES FOR MANNIE”: MATTHIAS SEUFFERT, HELGE LORENZ, ENGELBERT WROBEL, BERT BOEREN, MENNO DAAMS, ENRICO TOMASSO, BERNARD FLEGAR, NICO GASTREICH, NIELS UNBEHAGEN (April 10, 2016)

You wouldn’t imagine that the serious man (second from left in the photograph, holding a corner of the check) could inspire such joy, but it’s true.  That fellow is my friend and friend to many, Manfred “Mannie” Selchow, jazz concert promoter, jazz scholar, enthusiast, and so much more.  He even has his own Wikipedia page that gives his birthdate, his work history, and more — but it also says that he has organized more than thirty concert tours of Germany that have resulted in many joyous concerts and CDs from them (released on the Nagel-Heyer label) featuring Ralph Sutton, Marty Grosz, Harry Allen, Randy Sandke, Eddie Erickson, Menno Daams, Jon-Erik Kellso, Dan Barrett, Kenny Davern, Bob Wilber, Mark Shane, Rossano Sportiello, and hundreds more.

I first met Manfred through the mail: he had published a small but fascinating bio-discography of one of his great heroes, Edmond Hall (whom he heard in 1955 when Ed came to Germany with Louis).  Eager as always, I wrote him to let him know about some Hall I’d heard that he hadn’t.  We began corresponding and traded many tapes.  The slim monograph grew into a huge beautiful book, PROFOUNDLY BLUE, and Manfred then began working on an even more expansively detailed one about Vic Dickenson, DING! DING! which I am proud to have been a small part of.  In 2007, I visited him in his hometown for a weekend of music; I came over again in April 2016 for “Jazz im Rathaus,” which takes place in Imhove.  This 2016 concert weekend was in celebration not only of thirty years of wonderful music, but of Manfred’s eightieth birthday.

The concert weekend was marvelous, full of music from the people you see below and others, including Nicki Parrott, Stephanie Trick, and Paolo Alderighi. However, one of the most satisfying interludes of the weekend took place near the end — a JATP-themed set led by Matthias Seuffert.  And Matthias, who has excellent ideas, had this one: to play a blues for Mannie.  Now, often “Blues for [insert name here]” is elegiac, since the subject has died.  Happily, this isn’t the case.  What it is, is a medium-tempo, rocking, cliche-free evocation of the old days made new — honoring our friend Mannie.  The players are Bernard Flegar, drums; Niels Unbehagen, piano; Helge Lorenz, guitar; Nico Gastreich, string bass; Bert Boeren, trombone; Engelbert Wrobel, Matthias Seuffert, reeds; Menno Daams, Enrico Tomasso, trumpet.  What a groove!

I think the world — in its perilous state — needs blues like this (homeopathically) to drive away the real ones we face, and this nearly ten-minute example of singular individuals working together lovingly in swing for a common purpose is a good model for all of us.  Thanks to the always-inspiring Mannie for all he’s done and continues to do.

P.S.  This post was originally prepared for the faithful readers and listeners shortly after the music was performed, but technical difficulties of a rather tedious sort interfered . . . and now you can see what we all saw a few years back.  Thanks for holding, as they say in telephone conversations.  And if Manfred is still somewhat computer-averse, I hope someone will share this post with him.

May your happiness increase!

SWEET CREATIONS: “DREAM CITY”: DAVID LUKÁCS, MALO MAZURIÉ, ATTILA KORB, FÉLIX HUNOT, JOEP LUMEIJ

David Lukács dreams in lyrical swing.  His most recent CD is evidence that I do not exaggerate.  Now, I know that some of my American readers might furrow their brows and say, “Who are these people?  I don’t know their names!” but I urge them to listen and watch.

To quote the lyrics from SAY IT SIMPLE (I hear Jack Teagarden’s voice in my head as I type), “If that don’t get it, well, forget it right now.”

Here you can hear the music, download it, purchase a disc.

The sweet-natured magicians are David Lukacs, clarinet, tenor saxophone, arrangements; Malo Mazurie, cornet, trumpet; Attila Korb, bass saxophone*, trombone; Felix Hunot, guitar, banjo; Joep Lumeij: string bass.  The songs are DREAM CITY / A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND / OLD MAN BLUES / MORE THAN YOU KNOW / THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC / MOONLIGHT ON THE GANGES / I HAD IT BUT IT’S ALL GONE NOW / HALLELUJAH! / BLUE PRELUDE / MANDY, MAKE UP YOUR MIND / THEN SOMEONE’S IN LOVE / LOUISIANA / CLARINET MARMALADE / MANOIR DE MES REVES.  The liner notes are by Scott Robinson.

David told me that this CD is inspired by his father’s record collection (obviously the Lukacs lineage has taste and discernment) but his vision is even larger: “With this album I created my own city, my Dream City, where there’s Bix and Tram’s music in one club, Duke is playing in the theatre beside, and you might hear Django’s music around the corner.”

That transcends the time-machine cliche, and each track is a dreamy vision of a heard past made real for us in 2019. The dreaminess is most charming, because this disc isn’t simply a series of recreations of recordings.  Occasionally the band follows the outlines of a famous disc closely — as in A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND — but each song becomes a sweet playground for these (sometimes shoeless) dear geniuses to roam in.

Here’s another video tour, with snippets of the title tune, OLD MAN BLUES, MOONLIGHT ON THE GANGES, MANOIR DE MES REVES (and comments from Scott, who knows):

Readers who feel this music as I do won’t need any more explanation — but a few lines are in order.  I first heard David on record with Menno Daams (check out the latter’s PLAYGROUND) — two musicians who have deep lyrical intelligence, but DREAM CITY is an astonishing combination of the hallowed past and true contemporary liveliness.  David told me that he has been inspired not only by the old records, but by the music Marty Grosz and others made, using those sounds as a basis.  I hear echoes of the Ruby Braff-George Barnes Quartet and the small-group sessions that were so prolific and gratifying on the Arbors label.

DREAM CITY offers us glorious yet understated solo work and — perhaps even better — delicious ensemble playing and gratifying arrangements.  The inspirations are also the Kansas City Six, the Ellington, Basie, and Wilson small bands, and more.  You can draw your own family tree with chalk on the sidewalk.  The “unusual” instrumentation also allows a great flexibility in voicings — this is no formulaic band that plays each song in the same way, simply varying tempo and key — and this CD is not a series of solos-with-rhythm.  Each selection, none longer than a 12″ 78, is a short story in sounds.

If you care to, go back to the video of DREAM CITY — which begins, if I am correct, with a line on the chords of BYE BYE BLUES and then changes key into a medium-bounce blues — and admire not only the soloing, so tersely expert, so full of feeling without self-consciousness — but the arrangement itself: the quiet effective way horns hum behind a soloist, the use of stop-time and a Chicago “flare,” the echoes of Bix and Tram without tying the whole endeavor to a 1927 skeleton . . . worth study, deserving of admiration.

All of the players impress me tremendously, but Attila gets his own * (and that is not the title of a children’s book) because I’d not known of his bass saxophone playing: he is a master of that horn, handling it with elegance and grace, sometimes giving it a limber ease I would associate with the bass clarinet, although he never hurries.  (I also discovered Attila’s 2017 TAP ROOM SWING, a tribute to Adrian Rollini, which I hope to write about in future.)

I plan to continue blissfully dreaming to DREAM CITY, an ethereal soundtrack, so rewarding.

May your happiness increase!

WHEN BEING “MAD” IS PLEASURE (1924, 1938, and 2017)

Our subjects today are the overlap of “madness” and “pleasure.”  Please be prepared to take notes.

“But first, this,” as they used to say on public radio.

PLEASURE MAD, a Sidney Bechet composition, was recorded in 1924 but the vocal versions weren’t issued, except for this one.  Did the record company find it too direct to be acceptable?  Here’s Ethel Waters’ version, clear as a bell:

Perhaps the song continued to be performed with those lyrics, but I don’t have any evidence.  However, it resurfaced in 1938 as VIPER MAD, new lyrics, as sung — memorably — by O’Neil Spencer:

There might be other ways to pose the rhetorical question, but at what moment in those fourteen years did sexual pleasure become a less interesting subject in popular song than smoking reefers?

While you consider that intriguing philosophical question, I have a new double-CD set (36 tracks!  12 pounds!) to share with you.  A little personal history: I attended the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party, then renamed Mike Durham’s International Classic Jazz Party, from 2009 to 2016, and had a fine time: the best American, European, Australian, and occasionally South American musicians turned loose for a long weekend of hot and sweet jazz, its spiritual center the late Twenties and early Thirties.

Here are three samples, videoed by me, songs and personnels named:

and

and

I ended with GOT BUTTER ON IT so that JAZZ LIVES readers can — as they say — get a flavor of the experience.  The Party continues to do its special magic splendidly, a magic that videos only partially convey.  This year it’s November 1-3, and details can be found here.  And if you search JAZZ LIVES for “Whitley Bay” or “Durham,” you will find a deluge of posts and videos.

But this post isn’t exactly about the Party as such, nor is it about my videos.  Its subject — now, pay attention — is a 2-CD set of live performances from the 2018 Party, which is just thrilling.  It’s called PLEASURE MAD: ‘LIVE RECORDINGS FROM MIKE DURHAM’S INTERNATIONAL CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY 2017 (WVR RECORDS WVR1007).  As I wrote above, 36 live performances in beautiful sound.

And the sound is worth noting, with delight.  At the Party, some fans record the music from the audience with everything from ancient cassette recorders to digital ones; when I was there, I videoed as much as I could.  But this CD issue has the benefit of superb sound, because of the young Norwegian trumpeter and recording engineer Torstein Kubban, who has recorded every session for the past six years.  Torstein is a phenomenal player, so I may be permitted this digression:

He’s got it, for sure.  And his recordings are wonderful.

Here are the songs performed — referencing Duke Ellington, Ben Pollack, Bennie Moten, the Halfway House Orchestra, Alex Hill, Rube Bloom, Jabbo Smith, Louis Armstrong,Eddie Condon, Willie “the Lion” Smith, Clarence Williams, Luis Russell, King Oliver, James P. Johnson, and more:

And the musicians: Mike Davis, Andy Schumm, Duke Heitger, Jamie Brownfield, Malo Mazurie, Kristoffer Kompen, Jim Fryer, Graham Hughes, Ewan Bleach, Michael McQuaid, Richard Exall, Claus Jacobi, Matthias Seuffert, Lars Frank, Jean-Francois Bonnel, Emma Fisk, David Boeddinghaus, Martin Litton, Keith Nichols, Morten Gunnar Larsen, Martin Wheatley, Spats Langham, Peter Beyerer, Henry Lemaire, Jacob Ullberger, Phil Rutherford, Elise Sut, Malcolm Sked, Josh Duffee, Richard Pite, Nick Ward, Nick Ball, Joan Viskant, Nicolle Rochelle.  If I’ve left anyone out, let me know and I will impale myself on a cactus needle as penance, and video the event.

I think it’s taken me so long to write this post because every time I wanted to take the CDs into the house to write about them, I would start them up on the car player and there they would stay.  A few highlights, deeply subjective: Martin Litton’s sensitive and tender solo LAURA; the riotous hot polyphony of CHATTANOOGA STOMP (which I recently played six times in the car, non-stop); the exuberant GIVE ME YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER; Spats Langham’s NEW ORLEANS SHUFFLE; a completely headlong RAILROAD MAN; a version of THE CHARLESTON that starts with Louis’ WEST END BLUES cadenza; SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE that rocks tremendously; I FOUND A NEW BABY that sounds as if Hines (in the guise of Boeddinghaus) visited a Condon jam session in 1933; SOBBIN’ BLUES with layers and textures as rich as great architecture.  You will find your own favorites; those are mine of the moment.

My advice?  If you can, get thee to the Party, where seats are going fast.  Once there, buy several copies of this set — for yourself, national holidays, the birthdays of hip relatives — and enjoy for decades.  If you can’t get to the UK, you can still purchase the set, which I urge you to do.

The CD is obtainable from website: https://whitleybayjazzfest.com
email:wbjazzfest@btinternet.com.  For more information, contact patti_durham1@btinternet.com.

And when the authorities knock on your door to ask about the ecstatic sounds coming from within, you can simply show them this CD and say, “Well, Officers, I’m PLEASURE MAD!  Would you like to come in?” And all will be well.

May your happiness increase!

FROLICSOME, THEN TOUCHING: MENNO DAAMS AND FRIENDS HONOR HOAGY CARMICHAEL (RICHARD EXALL, DAVID BOEDDINGHAUS, MARTIN WHEATLEY, GRAHAM HUGHES, JOSH DUFFEE) at the MIKE DURHAM CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY, November 6, 2016

Menno Daams is one of the great trumpet players (arrangers, composers, bandleaders) of our era, but, better yet, he is a sensitive imaginer, someone who understands intuitively how to make even the most familiar standards glisten.

He does it here in his brief but very fulfilling tribute to Hoagy Carmichael at the 2016 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party, with the help of five kindred spirits who get the feeling and never lose it: Josh Duffee, drums; Graham Hughes, string bass; Martin Wheatley, guitar; Richard Exall, tenor saxophone; David Boeddinghaus, piano.  (And — consciously or unconsciously, perhaps because one thinks of Louis and Hoagy in the same moment — there are two lovely delicate slow-motion homages to Louis as well.  You’ll hear them.)

For RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE, rather than go all the way back to Bix — with the Wolverines or with Trumbauer — Menno and band take what I would call a 1936 Fifty-Second Street approach to this song, with echoes of Berigan or Hackett, Forrest Crawford or Joe Marsala, Teddy Wilson or Joe Sullivan, Carmen Mastren, Sid Weiss, and Stan King — light-hearted yet potent):

A thoughtful, gentle exploration of LAZY RIVER:

Then, something gossamer yet imperishable, a medley of SKYLARK / STAR DUST that begins as a cornet-guitar duet, and then becomes a trio. But allow yourself to muse over David’s incredibly deep solo exposition:

And because we need a change from those subtle telling emotions, Menno offers an audio-visual comedy, then THANKSGIVING, featuring a rocking and rocketing solo by Josh.  Appropriate, because I was thankful then and continue to be now:

Menno’s website is here; his Facebook page here.

Speaking of thanks, I owe some to the generous and expert Cine Devine, Rescuer Par Excellence and creator of fine jazz videos.

May your happiness increase!

NOT A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY, BUT A MONTH: NOVEMBER 3-6, 2016

Some of the faces will be different, but that scene is where I will be in less than a month — at the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party in Newcastle, England. More details here.

Rather than launch some well-deserved paragraphs about how wonderful it is and how you should go if you can, I thought I’d let some videos from last year do the talking, and singing, and playing.

Spats Langham at the imaginary cinema of romance:

Richard Pite’s Gramercy Five:

Menno loves Spike, and Gabriel returns the compliment:

Thomas Winteler and Matthias Seuffert play the Fatha’s blues — but wait! — has young Master Ball made off with the spoons?

Keith’s heartbreaking entreaty:

 

The Sentimental Miss Day:

Rico’s Bar-B-Que:

Torstein Kubban and Frans Sjostrom in the Victory Pub:

Now you see why I am going?  I hope to see some JAZZ LIVES friends there as well.

May your happiness increase!

“MY HEART IS RIDING ON YOUR WINGS”: NICKI PARROTT, MENNO DAAMS, PAOLO ALDERIGHI (Westoverledingen, Germany, April 9, 2016)

JAZZ IM RATHAUS April 2016 Photograph by Elke Grunwald

People who don’t make music professionally have, I think, only a small awareness of how much work — beyond “the ten thousand hours of practice” it takes to make a beautiful melody come alive.  Beauty is rarely, if ever, casually tossed off by someone who has no experience in the hard work of creativity.  In the performance that follows, deep but gentle subtleties of light and dark caress our sensibilities.  Memorably.

This trio interlude was created by three masters of loveliness: Nicki Parrott, vocal and string bass; Menno Daams, cornet; Paolo Alderighi, piano.  Of course their text is the gorgeous creation of Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, SKYLARK.  And standing behind them in the shadows is Bix Beiderbecke, for Hoagy originally called this song BIX LICKS.

This marvel took place at a concert in Germany on April 9, 2016 — the gift to us of the very gracious and indefatigable Manfred Selchow, who has been doing this for thirty years.  Details of Mannie’s most recent offering here.

And the music itself.

I encourage listeners and viewers to visit this performance several times: for Nicki’s beautiful singing, her stalwart but never obtrusive bass playing, for Menno’s nighttime traceries, and for Paolo’s loving support.  He is the fellow one might not notice on the first viewing, but it takes a lifetime of listening and study and practice to be so generous, so right, in such quietly heartfelt orchestral playing.

May your happiness increase!

HOMAGE TO HUGHES: MENNO DAAMS and his ORCHESTRA at the MIKE DURHAM CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY (Nov. 7, 2015)

Before there was any discussion of “Third Stream Music,” jazz and classical shaking hands congenially, before Gil Evans or Gunther Schuller, there was Patrick “Spike” Hughes — British writer, composer, bassist — who visited the United States in 1933 for a memorable series of recordings that used the Benny Carter orchestra with guest stars Henry “Red” Allen and Coleman Hawkins.

John Wright’s wonderfully detailed (and lively) biographical sketch of Spike can be found here.

Many of us have marveled at Spike’s 1933 recordings, which blend European compositional ideas with hot solos.  But it waited until 2015 for someone to put together an expert jazz orchestra to play transcriptions of those sides.  That someone is the magnificently talented Menno Daams.  (Bent Persson, Menno’s diligent trumpet colleague, also transcribed the Red Allen solos — as arduous as task as one could imagine).

This orchestra offered its tribute to Spike’s 1933 music at the November 2015 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party, and I was fortunate enough to be sitting in front of this eloquent band.  Here are seven performances from this set: notice the shifting textures behind the soloists, and the soloists themselves.  If these compositions are new to you, notice their charming and surprising mixture of 1933 hot dance music, fervent soloing, and advanced harmonies: before we are a whole chorus into NOCTURNE, for example, we have the sense of a landscape both familiar and unsettling — even when absorbing this music in 2016.  There’s beautiful lyricism and a rocking 4/4 beat, but it’s as if, while you slept, someone has painted the walls of your living room different colors and nailed the kitchen cutlery to the ceiling.

I salute Menno for bringing this modernistic music to us, and the band for rendering it so superbly.  They are: Menno Daams, cornet; Bent Persson, Rico Tomasso, trumpet; Michael McQuaid, Claus Jacobi, Matthias Seuffert, Lars Frank, reeds; Kristoffer Kompen, Alistair Allan, Graham Hughes, trombone; Martin Litton, piano; Spats Langham, guitar / vocal; Henry Lemaire, string bass; Richard Pite, drums.

NOCTURNE:

AIR IN D FLAT:

SWEET SORROW BLUES:

FIREBIRD:

ARABESQUE:

DONEGAL CRADLE SONG:

SOMEONE STOLE GABRIEL’S  HORN (vocal Spats):

A personal note: I first heard the Spike Hughes sides in 1972, and they struck me as beautifully ambitious music.  The impression hasn’t faded.  But viewing and re-hearing Menno’s precise, swinging transcriptions and the band’s playing, I heard aspects of the music I’d not heard before, and even the listener new to this can find a thousand delights that grow more pleasing each time.  I think this set a magnificent accomplishment.  Only at the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party could such marvelous undertakings find a home and an appreciative audience.  Join me there this November.

May your happiness increase!

WAY OUT WESTOVERLEDINGEN / PAPENBURG JOYS (APRIL 8-10, 2016)

I don’t always speak to my college students about Literature; more often, I find myself standing at the intersection of Literature and Life.  So that when a student says to me that (s)he is exhausted because of working too many hours to pay for “things,” I encourage that student to consider, before springing to buy a glittery object, exactly how many hours of work it will cost.  I don’t know if my parental exhortation has any effect, but it is part of a cost / benefit calculation that has sometimes led me to put back something I was about to buy.

Cost and benefit is relevant here, because the person writing these words is still seriously exhausted by the previous weekend’s travel to the Rathaus, in Papenburg, in the larger territory of Westoverledingen, where the Generous Man of Jazz Manfred Selchow lives and has been staging concerts and tours for thirty years.  I know I spent more hours in transit than I did listening to music, but the ten-plus hours of the latter were and are precious.  A few notes follow. But first, a photograph (by my new friend Elke Grunwald):

From the left, that’s Engelbert Wrobel, tenor saxophone; Helge Lorenz, guitar; Matthias Seuffert, tenor saxophone; Nicki Parrott, string bass / vocal; Menno Daams, cornet; Rico Tomasso, trumpet; Moritz Gastreich, drums.  Others on the program were Stephanie Trick, Paolo Alderighi, Niels Unbehagen, piano; Bert Boeren, trombone; Bernard Flegar, drums; Nico Gastreich, string bass.  And in the audience there’s a balding fellow with a turquoise shirt and a video camera, as close to the music as he can get without ascending the stage.

Friday night featured a two-set concert by Engelbert, Stephanie, Paolo, and Nicki — a group coyly termed SWINGIN’ LADIES PLUS 2.  The music was lively (TEMPTATION RAG), funky (BLUEBERRY HILL), riotously exuberant (THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR THE SUNRISE), multi-colored (THANKS FOR THE MEMORY), classic (SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET, SHINE, LIZA, ST. LOUIS BLUES) tender (THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU) and Brazilian (Nicki sang BRAZIL and played a samba medley).  I heard delicious echoes of Goodman, James P. Johnson, Garner and Don Lambert, but the quartet was itself as well as evocative, full of sweet surprises in ensemble and solo.

If you weren’t in the audience, you can still hear this group — their wonderful CD, FROM JOPLIN TO JOBIM, is available on iTunes and elsewhere.

And that was Friday.

Saturday, post-breakfast, was devoted to a necessary exploration of Sleep.  But at night, there was JAM SESSION NIGHT — four hours and more of sheer pleasure.  It began with a set devoted to Eddie Condon’s music and world, which was started off in just the proper spirit by Nico, reading aloud from WE CALLED IT MUSIC — in German — the passage where Eddie has to go to the induction center to determine if he is fit for service.  (The punchline, in English, is something like, “Get this man a drink!”)  After the laughter died down, Menno, Rico, Bert, Matthias, Niels, Nico and Moritz offered songs directly related to Eddie’s recordings and performances: LOUISIANA, WHEN YOUR LOVER HAS GONE, DIANE, OH, BABY!, THEM THERE EYES, a ballad medley, and MEET ME TONIGHT IN DREAMLAND.  The music also honored Milt Gabler and George Avakian, appropriately.  And it honored Eddie, with beautiful hot lyricism from everyone.

A short pause, and then Paolo introduced his clever AROUND BROADWAY — jazz classics that were originally show tunes in one way or another — with Engelbert, Stephanie, Nicki, and Bernard.  Berlin, Youmans, Gershwin, with intelligent but never pedantic commentary by Paolo.  And we heard HONEYSUCKLE ROSE, BLUE SKIES, OVER THE RAINBOW, ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND, THE MAN I LOVE, and I WANT TO BE HAPPY.  (The audience and the musicians were already happy.  I saw this.)

One of the highlights of the weekend followed, a Hoagy Carmichael set featuring Menno, Matthias, Engelbert, Paolo, Nicki, and Moritz.  The classics were beautifully played and sung: SKYLARK, RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE, NEW ORLEANS, STARDUST, RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE, LAZY RIVER — with two delicious surprises: SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE, which Carmichael’s Collegians had recorded, although not a Carmichael composition, and THANKSGIVING, which was his work.  My marginal notations (what Stephanie called my “grades”!) were very enthusiastic.

Finally — who or what could follow that? — a set led by Rico in tribute to his mentor, idol, and ideal Louis.  A brief AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ led off, then a seriously intent CHINATOWN, a more relaxed MY WALKING STICK, WILLIE THE WEEPER, a Rico-Niels duet on SWEET LORRAINE (unplanned and elegant), two versions of I LOVE YOU, SAMANTHA, YOU’RE LUCKY TO ME, A KISS TO BUILD A DREAM ON, and a two-tiered finale, merging STRUTTIN’ WITH SOME BARBECUE and WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD.

A seemingly insatiable audience called for more, and got it — eleven players assembled for a Benny Carter-flavored I NEVER KNEW and a promise, WE’LL MEET AGAIN.

Delighted, thrilled, elated, exhausted, I went to bed as soon as I could.

After a perfect German breakfast buffet (I dream of these lavish assortments of food, I confess) it was time for Sunday’s JAZZ FRUSCHOPPEN (I now know that the second word means “morning / lunchtime drink,” another linguistic morsel for the word-hoard).  Bert, Rico, Engelbert, Niels, Stephanie, Helge, Nico, and Moritz took on the pleasure of honoring Basie in under an hour, with MOTEN SWING, SPLANKY, a plunger-muted feature a la Al Grey for Bert on MAKIN’ WHOOPEE, SHINY STOCKINGS, ALL OF ME (for the rhythm section) and a searing JUMPIN’ AT THE WOODSIDE.

Nicki led Menno, Matthias, Stephanie, Paolo, and Bernard through a tenderly swinging evocation (not imitation) of Billie, Teddy, and Lester, with ME, MYSELF AND I, LOVER MAN, PLEASE DON’T TALK ABOUT ME WHEN I’M GONE, SAY IT ISN’T SO, THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT, STORMY WEATHER, and WHAT A LITTLE MOONLIGHT CAN DO — drawing on the best songs that Billie ever recorded, instead of A SUNBONNET BLUE.

And — a proper climax — a JATP set with a five-horn front line backed by Paolo, Helge, Nicki, and Moritz, which presented long versions of TEA FOR TWO, STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY, I SURRENDER DEAR, IDAHO, a BLUES FOR MANNIE, THEY CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME, LADY BE GOOD with Lester’s 1936 solo for two tenors, and an encore of PERDIDO, with swing rather than honking.

It was wonderful.

Yes, I video-ed the weekend, so those who weren’t there should not grieve.  It will, however, take some time for the videos to emerge: courtesy to the musicians requires that they be given a chance to see what they like or loathe.

A Manfred Selchow weekend is a jazz feast, and he’s been doing this and more for three decades.  We are all so grateful.

May your happiness increase!

WHEN SURRENDER IS TRIUMPH (BENT PERSSON and DUKE HEITGER, 2015)

I SURRENDER, DEAR, is truly a forlorn love song.  Not “You left me: where did you go?” but “Without you I can’t make my way,” which is a more abject surrender to love unfulfilled.

And here’s Bing, both in 1931 and 1939 — so you can hear the intense yearning in the words and music:

A very mature version (with John Scott Trotter):

(There are several more Bing-versions of this song, for those willing to immerse themselves in YouTube, including a 1971 performance on the Flip Wilson Show where one line of the lyrics is . . . altered.)

But now to Mister Strong.

On November 6, 2015, this glorious group of musicians — Bent Persson, Rico Tomasso, Menno Daams, Kristoffer Kompen, Lars Frank, Robert Fowler, Michael McQuaid, Morten Gunnar Larsen, Malcolm Sked, Nick Ball, Spats Langham did the holy work of evoking Louis Armstrong at the 2015 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party.  Here’s my video of this wonderful song — sung and played by the heroic Bent Persson:

Here, for the cinematographers in the viewing audience, is Flemming Thorbye’s video of the same performance — which is much better than mine!

And about two months earlier, Duke Heitger, trumpet; Rossano Sportiello, piano; Nicki Parrott, string bass; Ricky Malichi, drums, gave this beautiful song a treatment that reminds me a little of Benny Carter and Teddy Wilson, not bad antecedents at all:

We associate surrender with defeat, with failure.  If love requires the surrender of the armored ego, that’s a triumph.  And the creation of beauty out of painful yearning, another triumph.  Incidentally, the Cleveland Classic Jazz Party takes place in September; the Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party in November.  So no reason for conflict.

May your happiness increase!

WHEN IT’S APRIL IN WESTOVERLEDINGEN, GOOD SOUNDS HAPPEN (April 8-10, 2016)

Westoverledingen, Germany, a city with an imposing name, is not known worldwide as the cradle of jazz, but memorable music has been created there for the past thirty years and more by Manfred Selchow.  Manfred doesn’t play an instrument, but I feel secure in writing that he has done more for jazz than many people who do play.

I first encountered Manfred, or Mannie, as people call him, as a jazz scholar, because of his splendid documentation of clarinetist Edmond Hall’s life, performances, and recordings in a substantial book, PROFOUNDLY BLUE. Then he did the same thing for another hero of mine, trombonist Vic Dickenson, in a book he called, properly DING! DING!.

But Manfred likes the real thing, created on the spot, as much as he adores recordings — so he has invented and produced concert tours and festivals of some of the greatest musicians of this era.  (Many of his concerts have been recorded and the results issued on the Nagel-Heyer label.)

I first met Manfred and his wife Renate in 2007, when I also had the distinctive pleasure of encountering Menno Daams, Frank Roberscheuten, Colin T. Dawson, Oliver Mewes, Chris Hopkins, Shaunette Hildabrand, Bernd Lhotzky, and others.  At the time I didn’t have a blog or a video camera, so perhaps I only documented those evenings for the much-missed The Mississippi Rag.  

Here’s a wonderful example of what takes place under Mannie’s amiable direction — a 1992 romp by Marty Grosz, Peter Ecklund, Dick Meldonian, Keith Ingham, Bob Haggart, Chuck Riggs (video by Helge Lorenz):

and more recently, a 2013 session with Menno Daams, Nicki Parrott, Bert Boeren, Antti Sarpila, Engelbert Wrobel, Joep Peeters, Chris Hopkins, Helge Lorenz, Jan Lorenz:

And since I gather that “Jazz im Rathaus” means roughly “Jazz at the Town Hall,” the shades of Louis and Eddie Condon are properly approving.

Now, for April 2016!  Consider the listings below:

Friday, April 8, 2016 – 8:00 – 10: 30 p.m.

Swingin’ Ladies + 2
Jazzfestival
(with Engelbert Wrobel, reeds; Stephanie Trick, Paolo Alderighi, piano; Nicki Parrott, bass / vocal)
Rathaus Ihrhove
Bahnhofstraße
26810-Westoverledingen
Germany

Saturday, April 9, 2016 – 8:00 – midnight.

Jazzfestival “Jam Session Night”
(with Engelbert Wrobel, Paolo Alderighi, Nicki Parrott, Menno Daams, Enrico Tomasso, trumpet; Bert Boeren, trombone; Matthias Seuffert, reeds; Niels Unbehagen, piano; Nico Gastreich, bass; Moritz Gastreich, Bernard Flegar, drums)

Set One: “We Called It Music”: Enrico Tomasso, Bert Boeren, Matthias Seuffert, Niels Unbehagen, Nico Gastreich (leader), Moritz Gastreich.

Set Two: “Around Broadway”: Engelbert Wrobel (leader), Paolo Alderighi, Stephanie Trick, Nicki Parrott, Bernard Flegar.

Set Three: “The Stardust Road”: Menno Daams (leader), Matthias Seuffert, Engelbert Wrobel, Paolo Alderighi, Nicki Parrott, Moritz Gastreich.

Set Four: “What A Wonderful World”: Enrico Tomasso, Bert Boeren, Matthias Seuffert, Niels Unbehagen, Nico Gastreich, Bernard Flegar.

At the finale all the musicians join in.

same location as Friday

Sunday, April 10, 2016 – 11:00 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Jazzfestival “Jazz Frühschoppen”
(with Engelbert Wrobel, Paolo Alderighi, Nicki Parrott, Menno Daams, Enrico Tomasso, Bert Boeren, Matthias Seuffert, Niels Unbehagen, Nico Gastreich, Moritz Gastreich, Bernard Flegar)

Set One: “Basie Jam”: Enrico Tomasso, Bert Boeren (leader), Engelbert Wrobel, Niels Unbehagen, Stephanie Trick, Helge Lorenz, guitar; Nico Gastreich, Moritz Gastreich.

Set Two: “To Billie, Teddy, and Pres”: Menno Daams, Matthias Seuffert, Paolo Alderighi, Stephanie Trick, Nicki Parrott (leader), Bernard Flegar.

Set Three: “Jazz at the Philharmonic Remembered”: Matthias Seuffert (leader) plus all of the other musicians in various combinations.

same location as Friday and Saturday

And here is another version of that information.  (And now I know what “Vorschau” means, so don’t let anyone tell you that blogging isn’t educational.)

I’m going.  How could I resist?  So I hope to meet some of the faithful there — even people who know of this blog — for good music and good times.

My dear friend Sir Robert Cox tells me that there are many good hotels in Papenburg and Leer only minutes away at €90 – €100/night ($100-110) with breakfast.

For more information, use the phone number on the bottom of the program:

(0049) 04955 933225. (Mainly German speaking, possibly some English)
email: helmer.alberring@westoverledingen.de

or Manfred Selchow (0049) 04955 8216. (English and German)

or Bob Cox (0044) 01634 232934. (English)
email: coxes@tesco.net

May your happiness increase!

ELOQUENT, THEN RIOTOUS: MENNO DAAMS, MATTHIAS SEUFFERT, KEITH NICHOLS, MARTIN WHEATLEY, HENRY LEMAIRE, RICHARD PITE at the MIKE DURHAM CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY (November 7, 2015)

Menno Daams

Here are two glorious performances from the 2015 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party, held in the Village Hotel Newcastle (Whitley Bay) — on November 7 of that year.  The creators are Menno Daams, trumpet; Matthias Seuffert, clarinet / tenor saxophone; Keith Nichols, piano; Martin Wheatley, guitar / banjo; Henry Lemaire, string bass; Richard Pite, drums.

Matthias Seuffert

First, the Benny Carter classic — so evocative of Louis — ONCE UPON A TIME:

Then, an incendiary romp through Tyers’ PANAMA:

Want more?  Be sure to join us at the 2016 Party (November 4-6) with an opening concert / jam session featuring the Union Rhythm Kings, and enjoy an overflowing weekend of music and pleasures. Details http://www.whitleybayjazzfest.org/ as always.

May your happiness increase!

FOUR BY FOUR IN 4 / 4: “The Unaccounted Four,” Scheveningen, July 2015

I’ve written about the wondrous quartet, whimsically called THE UNACCOUNTED FOUR, as often as I could: here, here, here, here, here. They make music that is both cerebral and welcoming.

The unusual proliferation of hyperlinks should indicate my enthusiasm, but a few words might help for those who would rather read than click.

Menno Daams’ Unaccounted Four, Amsterdam.  Photograph by Mats van Soolingen.

The Unaccounted Four is a quartet of trumpet, clarinet / tenor, guitar, bass. Historically-minded readers will think of the Django-Rex Stewart session, the Bechet-Spanier Big Four, the Ruby Braff-George Barnes Quartet, and in our century, the EarRegulars.  And all of those connections would be valid, although the U 4 leans more to the pensive than the combative, with echoes of the Alec Wilder Octet.

The U 4 is swinging, melodic, deeply thoughtful and playful all at once.  And they have understood something about time as well — and I don’t mean simply a swinging flexible 4 / 4.  If modern physics — and modern art — have helped us understand that time is more a field than a series of beads on a string, the U 4 enacts that easy flexibility in the most charming ways.  In their playing, hot jazz and The Birth of the Cool sit at the same table; Charlie Parker and Charlie Holmes go to the same reed repairman, and Miles smiles warmly at Louis.

Did I say that they have a wonderful CD, called PLAYGROUND?  They do. One could hear some of it here.  And here.

For visual as well as auditory proof of this band’s happy approach to music and to our hearts, here are four videos from a July 2015 performance.

Nothing UNDECIDED here — sparkling chamber jazz that makes this familiar song sound exactly like new:

Then, Ravel’s SLEEPING BEAUTY:

James P. Johnson’s SNOWY MORNING BLUES:

And Bix’s IN THE DARK:

Endearing lyricism is what I call it.

Now, I can’t make it out of the country for next Wednesday, but the U 4 will be playing a gig then.  More room for you!  Details here and here.

May your happiness increase!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOT.

SWEET.

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

May your happiness increase!