JAZZ CRUSADE JCCD3033/4, 1998 16 tracks 141 min
Royal Garden Blues, What A Friend We Have In Jesus, Some Of These Days, Sheikh Of Araby, Just A While To Stay Here, Tin Roof Blues, Algiers Strut, Bugle Boy March Lily Of The Valley, Dipper Mouth Blues, St. James Infirmary Blues, Hindustan, Over In The Gloryland, Summertime, St. Louis Blues, Bourbon St. Parade
New Orleans’ jazz is black music. So how come so few black Americans play it today? Where is today’s King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, or Bunk Johnson? Well it Ian’t Wyston Marsalis as he but rarely plays in the style. Nicholas Payton doesn’t live up to the hype. Wendell Brumous shews some potential. Gregg Stafford? Oh yes, he der man! These CDs, recorded live at a Toronto jazz festival are hard driving, hot New Orleans style jazz played by Gregg with members from various America and Canadian outfits. Every member deserves a mention: Big Bill Bissonnette moaning his trombone in his unique style, wicked reeds wizard Paul Boehmke, the ‘all together’ rhythm section of Emil Mark on banjo, Colin Bray on bass and Dennis Elder on drums, and the wonderful Roberta Hunt playing a ‘barrel house’ piano that compliments the rhythm boys, underlines the front line and contributes the odd solo break. But these CDs belong to Gregg Stafford. The sleeve notes tell that Gregg is a snazzy dresser, wearing what at times must be startling outfits. Silk shirt and cravat one minute, a pin stripe suit complete with patent leather shoes the next, and then a racoon skin coat! He is also said to be compulsive, like cancelling his air flight and instead driving from New Orleans to Toronto and gaining his first experience of tackling snow in the process. His playing is as sharp, punchy and snappy as his clothes; as impulsive and dynamic as his personality. These are two brilliant and exuberant CDs. If you like New Orleans Jazz you have just got to have them. Even lovers of other Traditional and Dixieland jazz styles should get them. Ok, at times some of the musos get ‘off mike’, but this is live jazz. The ‘liveness’ is emphasised by the way the musicians feed off and drive each other on, ensuring that each tune is explored to the max. The shortest track is 5:31 and the longest, the extraordinary, ‘Tin Roof Blues’, is a full boded 13:07. Lie back, close your eyes, and you are there, caught up in the music with the wildly enthusiastic audience. And Gregg Stafford? Oh yeh, he is de man alright!

REED MY LIPS : THE RETURN OF THE MOULDY FIVE
JAZZ CRUSADE JCCD3045, 1999, 18 tracks, 72 min
The Best Things In life Are Free, Magic Is The Moonlight, I Want You, Where The Blue Of The Night, The Old Spinning Wheel, Beautiful Ohio, River Stay ‘Way From My Door, Roses Of Picardy, Forgive Me, Mouldy Five Blues, Rock Of Ages, red Sails In The Sunset, Smiles, On The Road To Home Sweet Home, Where The River Shannon Flows, When The Swallows Come Back, Should I?, One Sweet Letter From You.
I first saw Sammy Rimington in 1962 playing with Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen. He was a skinny kid in an evening suit about four sizes too big for him, but boy could he play. The cover of the CD shews that, he has acquired a bit of weight and an additional chin as well as experience in the meantime! After leaving Ken’s band he went Stateside to join Big Bill Bissonette’s Easy Rider’s Jazz band. To amuse themselves when the Rider’s weren’t playing and, so the notes tell, to pull birds, five members formed the Mouldy Five, a clarinet and rhythm section band to play at a local small jazz club. Big Bill says that: ‘this little band was the hardest working band I ever gigged with. It never gave up.’ Almost 40 years later, Big Bill pulled the Mouldy Five back together to drive them hard yet again and record this CD. Work hard they certainly do, and work well too. Sammy weaves his wonderful web of clear charming clarinet over some pretty, potent, and sometime powerful tunes. The band sits easily alongside the small outfits run by George Lewis and Johnny Dodds, as indeed does Sammy Rimington himself. A very tasty CD, why not take a bite?

GEOFF COLE & HIS HOT FIVE : ONE NEVER KNOWS : DO ONE?
JAZZ CRUSADE JCCD3047, 1999, 17 tracks, 72min
The Minor Drag, Curse Of An Aching Heart, Cabin In The Sky, What’s The Reason?, Lu Lu’s Back In Town, Honey Hush, Truckin’, Rosetta, Black & Blue, Christopher Columbus, I Used To Love You, Two Sleepy People, Your Feet’s Too Big, Yacht Club Swing, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Music Maestro Please, Oh Lokka There, Ain’t She Pretty?
Fats Waller, jazzman or entertainer? Both of course! I am too young to have seen the man live, but I have seen film clips. Who can forget the suggestive leer and knowing wink that Fats used to draw you into his private joke? But he was no lightweight, either physically or musically, and you dismiss him and his type of jazz at your own peril. One of the blessings in recent years has been the re-issue of much older material. An extra blessing is the music industries under valuing of old jazz masters, such as Fats. The result has been a plethora of cheap CDs, and I have many. So, does having the originals lessen the need to have this CD? No. If you have read any of my reviews of the Ken Colyer band from the late 60’s, you will know how much I appreciate the playing of trombonist Geoff Cole, reeds man Tony Pyke, and pianist Pat Hawes. They are no-one’s slave, nor are they mimics. This CD belongs to them (and Ken Matthews on bass and Colin Miller on drums). The basic style may be Fats Waller, but the interpretation is their’s. Geoff’s rasping, yet oft delicate, especially on mute, trombone is fully complemented by Tony’s reed playing; his alto style is unique to himself and one of the nicest around to listen to. Is Pat Hawes up to being Waller on piano? As I said, the style is Fats’, but the interpretation isn’ t. The only area where Pat makes no attempt to take on Waller is in the area of the asides and comments the man was so famous for. Here Tom Waller makes his contribution, and does so excellently. This is another fine album to sit alongside the, Geoff Cole & His Hot Seven, tribute to Jelly Roll Morton. And if I can say that after having heard the album for the fourth consecutive time, it must be good!

GOIN’ HOME : A FOND FAREWELL TO CHRIS BLOUNT
Jazz Crusade JCCD3046, 1999, 15 tracks, 71 min
Carolina Moon, Goin’ Home, Dr. Jazz, Salutation March, Too Busy / Clarinet Marmalade, Give Me Your Telephone Number, Four or Five Times, Get Out Of Here, Milneberg Joys / Rose Of Picardy, Melancholy, At A Georgia camp Meeting, Mama Inez, The Moose : A March Chris Blount had a habit of surprising jazz fans, and he certainly did so when he died suddenly this year! A player in the George Lewis mould, Chris toured and played extensively in the UK and Europe, both with his own band and as a guest player with other bands. Both fans and fellow jazz musicians will certainly miss him. This CD comprises of three separate sessions. The first is from 1995 with an all star band of Norman Thatcher trumpet, Dave Vickers trombone, Barry Grummett piano, Dave Brennan banjo, Mick Kennedy bass and Malc Murphy drums. With Thatcher being the nearest thing around to Ken Colyer and all but the pianist and the bass player having either been sides men or regular players with The Guv’nor, you know how the tracks sound: pure New Orleans played in a smooth yet crisp manner that delights the ears. At times it is very hard not to think that you are not listening to the Rimington/Cole band of 1961-63. The second session is from 1993 with Ged Hone on trumpet, Big Bill Bissonnette on trombone, Mac MacDonald banjo, Ken Matthews bass, and Dion Cochrane drums. This band has a harder edge and more forceful style, and it is quite noticeable how Chris Blount shows his ability to vary his style to fit in with those he is playing with. The final session is from 1996 playing with his then band of Derek Winters trumpet, Ron Radford trombone, Barry Grummett piano, Tony Peatman banjo, Harry Slater bass and Steve Upton drums. Again the pace changes, and so does Chris’ clarinet playing. It is amazing that the man could show such variety of delivery and yet remain so completely within idiom. Having just read my notes, I am struck that I am giving the impression that Chris Blount was a broken and weak reed, blowing this way and that. It is not true. What is true is that he had complete sympathy with those he was playing with and was able to catch, and then complement their interpretation of New Orleans jazz. Chris Blount was often underrated as a jazz clarinettist, not least by myself, but this CD shews him at his best, and is a fitting, and indeed a fond, farewell to a great talent.

EASY RIDERS JAZZ BAND THEN & NOW
Jazz Crusade JACD 3037/8, 1998, 25 tracks, 130 min
Early Hours, It’s Tight Like That, Trouble In Mind, The Sheikh Of Araby, Dead Man Blues, Gettysburg March, Just A Closer Walk With Thee, Over The Waves, Summertime, Bugle Boy March, After You’ve Gone, Easy Riders’ Drop-Out Blues, The Old Rugged Cross Panama, Over The Waves, Apple Blossom Time, Marchin’ & Swingin’, Miss My Little Brown Ass, Solitude, West Indies Blues, Someday My Prince Will Come, Tipi-Tin, Storyville Blues, We Will Walk Through The Streets Of The City, Now Is The Hour. This set of two CDS features Big Bill Bissonnette’s Easy Riders Jazz Band with 33 years between them. The first CD comprises of unissued recordings from 1965 & 66 made for the renowned George Buck. Sammy Rimington contemplating Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen and visited Big Bill about doing a tour with the Easy Riders. Bill had already had Sammy in his International Jazz Band and took no persuading to have one of England’s finest reedsmen in his band. Subsequently Sammy left Colyer and became a long-term member of the Easy Riders. Circumstances over took the band, and these recordings were never released. The first thing that strikes you is that the sound, although definitely of the New Orleans flavour, is very different from the sound that was current, and still current, in Europe. The Europeans tend to stick to the early New Orleans sound, possibly because of the fact that they used original recordings of the master to learn the music. The American sound had moved on (here I have chosen to ignore the bands run by those bands run by the old masters themselves). The sound put out by the rhythm section is very distinctive and being a much more noticeably the driving force of the sound. The image that came to mind was that of a diesel, throbbing and powerful. The front line is also strong, so they are not overpowered by the rhythm boys; can anyone imagine Big Bill’s trombone or Fred Vigorot’s cornet being overpowered? Sammy plays his Albert action clarinet in a somewhat looser style than when with Colyer, and he even gets to ‘skate’! One thing I loved was hearing a real jangling, ‘pub’ piano again, brought back memories of old Battersea and family piss ups, sorry parties. The band hangs together well, and plays some memorable jazz. The only negative is Big Bill’s kazoo playing; sorry mate, but if you want to hear a real hot kazoo player you will have to shout me the air tickets! The second CD is from a 1998 re-union. In the meantime two of the rhythm section had died and the third was only able to put in the odd appearance following a lung transplant. This does make a noticeable difference to the sound with the rhythm section more subdued. The other difference is that the band is more ‘reedy’. After Sammy Rimington left the band the very capable, Paul Boemke took his place. This CD has both men in the line up with Sammy sticking to clarinet and Paul taking to tenor sax. Often a four-man front line gets too complicated and tangled, but the Easy Riders handle it all with their usual aplomb. This is a very nice set and as a 2for1 offer, a bargain. It should appeal to American jazz fans familiar with the band and the sound. It needs to also be in the collection of those of us who are of the European school as it helps us to appreciate the depth and breadth of our favourite jazz style. New Orleans jazz is an idiom, not a straight jacket. These CDs help increase your appreciation of that fact. As a Kiwi, albeit adopted, it was nice to have the album finish with, ‘Now Is The Hour’. One tune that has got me worried is, ‘Kiss My Little Brown Ass ’, with Big Bill on vocals. The tune is a variation of , ‘Do What Ory Say’, but the lyrics suggest that Bill is getting into zoophilia. Personally I never fancied kissing donkeys. Maybe it’s an American thing!