The Ness River Rhythm Kings
Vinyl Sleeve
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Released on a vinyl in December 1984 with eleven tunes, I would reckon that it was the Rhythm Kings first recording after seven years, or moreso double that period since the formation of their band. This review of the LP vinyl record is with band leader approval.
Although the Southern Syncopated Orchestra under conductor Will Marion Cook in 1919 played the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, and in later years his organisation played Characteristic Blues a clarinet solo by Sidney Bechet, which was recorded by Noble Sissle’s Swingsters two decades later with Sidney on soprano and singer Billy Banks, I never dreamed that I would have been able to hear before the middle 70s such beautiful jazz play coming from North of the River Tay, by Inverness's Ness River Rhythm Kings.
The reality was that those Rhythm Kings had been busy playing venues namely the long since gone Inverness Carlton across the Highlands and the North East of Scotland, attending the Edinburgh jazz festivals - years before this LP vinyl was cut.
The tackling of numbers orchestrated by composers Clarence Williams and Duke Ellington requires a small jazz group of an exceptional standard to do so, indeed, having handled to good effect in the manner that this album sounds clearly marks how professional they are at their metier.
Buster Bailey on soprano replaces Sidney Bechet with the Williams Blue Five on an original of Every Body Loves My Baby, which was recorded in New York by Ellington’s Washingtonians and East St Louis Tootlers with Bubber Miley on trumpet, Joe Nanton on trombone and Otto Hardwick playing reeds - later that year, with his Famous Orchestra on the same tune calling it Lots O’ Fingers, the Ness River Rhythm Kings on East St Louis Toodle.Oo most certainly here gains credit – well, well, so there we are now.
Tuba is heard prominently on most tunes to a nice effect, but was perhaps best - not to benefit the fast timing of Mr Poule that incurs quotes the likes of “Sweet Georgia Brown” on it, also to have been better not heard on the Clarence William’s Cushionfoot Stomp, but for its bass drum like tone and its ragtime-piece-feeling movements, the tuba turned the Tom Turpin Harlem Rag into a masterpiece.
Such overall tuba high praise would, nor never could be given, if the instrumentalists happened to be less than superb in their playing of this album.
Pianist Thomas M J Turpin was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1873 and in 1922 he died in St Louis, Missouri, becoming Father of St Louis ragtime, and president of the Rosebud Club with more fame. Harlem Rag is played by the Ness River Rhythm Kings with a flavoured gaiety, ragtime steps, with a living bantam-step-jump to it, displaying syncopated single-note lines with emphasis on a strutting jaunt Oh so tempting for the listener to having this number played over and over, again and again. Match Georgia Grind with it, and it becomes a pity that the jazz world beyond Inverness and Scotland hadn’t heard more about the jazz music that was coming out of the Glen Mhor Hotel, or previous venues, namely the long since gone Inverness Carlton, for their jazz for it really was then - for its time - all great stuff – superb musicianship at breath.
One encounters comedy in Chinatown My Chinatown, the beautiful gliding of Someday Sweetheart” in muted mellow-tone, and as to the sophisticated rendition of the title tune Blue River it's perhaps based on the 1933 recording of it in New York by Jack Teagarden rather that a 1927 same place transcript of trombonist Bill Rank with the Frankie Trumbauer Orchestra - only the jazz artists of the band themselves or the proud owners of the LP may be able to tell you.
Although this vinyl LP is perhaps long sold out, the Ness River Rhythm Kings have cut two CDs, one in 1996 the other in 2000, entitled “Red River Blues” and “Mississippi Mud” respectively, which are reviewed adjacent in the KJR website, and may still be got at the band venue every Tuesday evening where they have a residency at the Glen Mhor Hotel, Ness Walk, Inverness, Scotland - well worth a visit - and with a bit of luck can perhaps get your hands on one of them or both.
Kings Jazz Review
Friday the 11th of May 2007
Jazz artists from left to right are
Tom Jamieson (bjo gtr); Mike MacKenzie (reeds); Tom Taylor (tpt cl vcl ldr); Royce Emerson (str bs); Roy Stevenson (reeds); Ian Leitch (pno)
The lady jazz fan keeps cool with her fan.