“RAGSTRETCH” IS GOOD FOR YOU

Sometimes you know how good a band is in the first two choruses.  That happened to me with RAGSTRETCH, whose debut CD I am reviewing belatedly. True, I knew two members of the band through hearing them several times in New York City: trombonist / singer Shannon Barnett and trumpeter / singer Bjorn Ingelstam, so I was already eager to hear the CD.  But I was unprepared for just how hot and expert this Australian – Scandinavian jazz hybrid is.

By the way, you can skip my encomia and go directly here, which is the band’s website.  Here you can sample the sounds and buy the CD.

The other 4/6 of this sextet: Chris Tanner, clarinet / vocals; Craig Fermanis, guitar; Sam Anning, string bass; Rajiv Jayaweera, drums.

The repertoire is familiar but the treatment is energized: DANS LA RUE D’ANTIBES / WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM / JUST A CLOSER WALK WITH THEE / ‘WAY DOWN YONDER IN NEW ORLEANS / MY MONDAY DATE / JAZZ ME BLUES / FOOLIN’ MYSELF / WHY DON’T YOU GO DOWN TO NEW ORLEANS / ROCKIN’ CHAIR / PANAMA / SWEET LORRAINE / I’LL BE YOUR BABY TONIGHT.

“Energized” in this case doesn’t mean loud or fast, although Ragstretch is capable of playing romping tempos without rushing or dragging: it means that they are expert at conveying enthusiasm — musically, without jokes.  It also means that they have, individually and as a group, heard a wide variety of jazz and pop, and they bring their awareness to the repertoire.  It doesn’t mean that the solo work in JAZZ ME BLUES (for one example) sounds like Blue Note sixties hard bop, but it also means that this band knows that the music continued even after the death of Bunk Johnson.  There’s a joyous playfulness and charging rhythm that many other better-known bands could learn from.

Here’s a sample:

and

Sam Anning’s cover sketch — “Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Trousers” — sums up so much about this band: cheerfully in love with the music but just slightly subversive.  And completely satisfying.

I have no license to practice medicine, but I prescribe RAGSTRETCH and their CD as a proven mood-enhancer . . . without side effects.  It made me feel better. What more could anyone say?

May your happiness increase!

BEAUTIFULLY IN BALANCE: REBECCA KILGORE AND FRIENDS at the ATLANTA JAZZ PARTY (April 27, 2014)

This is how it’s done. 

The masters of melodic improvisation here are Rebecca Kilgore, vocal; Duke Heitger, trumpet; Dan Barrett, trombone; Dan Block, clarinet; Rossano Sportiello, piano; Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar; Paul Keller, string bass; Ed Metz, drums — at the twenty-fifth Atlanta Jazz Party in April 2014.

Becky and Bucky, romantics, quieting the room with their duet on TRES PALABRAS (and what courage it takes to begin a set with such a tender ballad):

Southern pastoral in swing (recalling Lester Young and Anita O’Day), JUST A LITTLE BIT SOUTH OF NORTH CAROLINA, with delicious playfulness all the way through:

Becky so sweetly and tenderly honors Judy Garland, Clark Gable, and Roger Edens, YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU (and Dan Barrett has Vic on his mind, too):

She and the band give us an ebullient finish, with JEEPERS CREEPERS:

This set was so  very satisfying, lyricism and swing, feeling and expertise intermingled throughout: I wouldn’t change a single note. And I’ve listened to the twenty minutes of music here, over and over, delighted, moved, and amazed.

Rebecca has two new CD releases: JUST IMAGINE (with Dan Barrett and Paolo Alderighi) and I LIKE MEN (with Harry Allen, Rossano Sportiello, Joel Forbes, and Kevin Kanner) for those of us who find our appetites for tenderness, joy, and subtlety stimulated (not satiated) by these four videos.

And if you’re in New York City on Monday, May 19, 2014, in the early evening, you should seriously consider visiting Becky and friends at Symphony Space for the Sidney Bechet Society’s tribute to Mat Domber . . . particularly apt here because Mat and Rachel Domber recorded so many sessions for their Arbors Records label that are as beautiful as this live performance. “All-Star Tribute to Mat Domber & Arbors Records“: Anat Cohen, Wycliffe Gordon, Bob Wilber, Dick Hyman, Bucky Pizzarelli, Randy Sandke, Warren Vache, Harry Allen, Rebecca Kilgore, Ed Metz, Joel Forbes, John Allred, Rossano Sportiello, and Rajiv Jayaweera.

May your happiness increase!

WHILE IT’S HOT: TWO CONCERTS, COMING SOON

I revere the jazz Past: the recordings, the actual men and women, their stories, their holy artifacts.

But I would not want this art form to become a museum, where we can only hear the Great Dead People.

So I encourage my friends to seek out occasions where we can live in the present moment: hearing living men and women play and sing their own versions of this lovely music right in front of us. It’s an experience different and deeper than listening to the Electrobeam Gennett you just got on eBay, although I am not making fun of that pleasure, not at all.

Enjoying the present makes me think of fish and chips, which I will explain below.  Trust me, it’s relevant.

The two concerts I am reminding you all about are put on by the Sidney Bechet Society in New York City. Were I there, I would be there. They take place on Monday, at 7:15 (a nice serene early hour) at Symphony Space at 2537 Broadway at 95th Street.

Monday, April 21, is the second “Jam Session of the Millenium,” led by our own Dan Levinson:

If you’re one of those Jazz Lovers who wonders, “Who are these kids and are they any good?” you and your skepticism are in luck — because someone (thank you, Anonymous Person) recorded the first Jam Session of the Millennium in its entirety.  Consider this!

Monday, May 19, is a tribute concert in honor of Mat Domber, who made so much good music possible for all of us (along with his wonderful wife Rachel, still with us) on Arbors Records from the late Eighties onwards.  The audience of jazz listeners thanks him as do the musicians — and some of them gather onstage to say it with music: Randy Sandke, Wycliffe Gordon, Anat Cohen, Dick Hyman, Bucky Pizzarelli, Warren Vache, Joel Forbes, Rebecca Kilgore, Ed Metz, Rossano Sportiello, Harry Allen, John Allred, Rajiv Jayaweera, and Bob Wilber!

Tickets are $35 (students $10) ahttp://youtu.be/TfKz2nIok-Qnd the Symphony Space contact information is 212.864.5400 / www.symphonyspace.org.

“Fish and chips, Michael?”

Yes.  In one of my favorite Irish novels of the last few decades, THE VAN, by Roddy Doyle, two fellows open a mobile fish and chips “cooker” out of an old van — a very funny and touching novel.  But one of their selling points is a sign that says TODAY’S CHIPS TODAY. Get this music while it’s HOT.

May your happiness increase!