Post 560: HARUKA KIKUCHI'S GREAT ANTHOLOGY CD

Haruka Kikuchi, energetically driving a band along or playing gently and lyrically, is currently one of the world’s best traditional jazz trombonists. She grew up in Japan and graduated in Music Science at Tokyo University of Fine Arts in 2010. Inspired by Kid Ory, she fell in love with traditional jazz.

In 2014, Haruka made the bold move of emigrating to New Orleans. She was soon in demand and playing with such bands as Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers and The Swamp Donkeys. Today, through her playing with The Shotgun Jazz Band and The Shake ‘Em Up Jazz Band, she has become an international favourite. Her diary – up to the moment of the Coronavirus lock-down, was full.

Haruka married fellow Japanese musician the superb pianist Yoshitaka Tsuji; and they have a cute little son, Shouta, who has appeared with Haruka in videos – even on last year’s European tour.

Haruka wanted to link Japan with New Orleans in a project to inspire the next generation. So, whenever Japanese players visited New Orleans, she invited them into a recording studio to play music with her new friends. Over four years, she arranged 10 such sessions. Thirty-eight different musicians took part. They included Naho Ishimura, Shingo Kano, Makiko Tamura and Tomomitsu Maruyama from Japan and locals such as Molly Reeves, Gerald French, Twerk Thomson and David Boeddinghaus.

This year, Haruka has put together a CD anthology drawn from those sessions. It is called ‘Japan: New Orleans Collection Series’. 

There are eleven tunes on the CD. I don’t know which studio Haruka uses but I can tell you the recording and sound quality are first-class. You can enjoy the full tone of every instrument with great clarity.

Here are some of the highlights. On ‘Struttin’ With Some Barbecue’ we have witty, fluent double-chorus solos from Naho Ishimura, and Haruka herself, with Gerald French providing a vocal. ‘By and By’, which features fine playing from Haruka’s husband, Yoshitaka, is played by a quintet including both piano and organ. It begins with a slow church-style organ solo before a stomping treatment of the song. Haruka is at her lyrical best in ‘When It’s Sleepy Time Down South’, which she performs with only a piano and string bass in support.

You may agree with me that the loveliest track is ‘Give It Up’, which shows you need only get four great players together and magic results. Makiko Tamura is on clarinet, Molly Reeves on guitar and Joshua Gouzy on bass. Need I say more?

The sextet playing ‘Buddy Bolden’s Blues’ includes three trombones and there is no vocal. In both these respects the atmospheric interpretation, with liberal use of trombone mutes, is refreshing.

You would hardly expect ‘The Mooche’ to work well when played by a mere quartet of guitar, bass, trombone and piano. But, with a dramatic arrangement and the trombone carrying most of the melody, Hideki Kon, Nobu Ozaki and Haruka, joined by Larry Scala, pull it off. You would think the tune had been written for them.

Kevin Louis is on trumpet in an all-star quintet playing the ‘Gettysburg March’, which – delightfully and traditionally – the group runs through first in 6/8 time before breaking into a swinging 4/4. Junji Kimura shows his skills on percussion.

‘Mama Inez’ is the only number to feature a saxophone. Its player is Yasuki Sogabe; and very fine he is too, with piano, bass and drums providing the excellent rhythmic support this song requires.

It was brave for a quartet to undertake ‘High Society’. But with Kensuke Shintani on clarinet, Haruka knew it would sparkle. David Boeddinghaus on piano and Tom Saunders on tuba give just the right support.

‘Lonesome Road’ features the banjo-player Tomomitsu Maruyama, whose work we have admired in YouTube videos from Tokyo. They take it at a gentle tempo in the key of F, with Tomomitsu also offering the vocal.

The final number - ‘Indian Red’ - features a seven-piece group, successfully plunging four Japanese musicians into a stereotypical piece of Louisiana culture. Quite an achievement! My guess is that Haruka is specially proud of that.

I strongly recommend this unique anthology. It is available from The Louisiana Music Factory.

Post 612: CRAIG FLORY'S 'MINOR FRET'

What a wonderful and complex composition Craig Flory’s ‘Minor Fret’ is. Through-composed, it is possibly the most striking and challenging piece Tuba Skinny ever set itself to learn by heart. 

Beginning (in recent performances) with a single beat played on the washboard, the rest of the first bar has the band holding an E flat minor chord, followed by four (in earlier performances two) more bars of Introduction, establishing the key by firmly laying down that chord on every beat.

This is followed by a 12-bar blues theme in E flat minor, led by Craig on clarinet, with Shaye playing a pretty counter-melody in bars 2 and 4. Then Shaye herself leads the way through the 12-bar blues theme, this time with Barnabus playing the counter-melody.

Now something extraordinary happens: the rug is pulled from under us! There is a startling switch up by just one semi-tone to the key of E minor! The acid E minor chord is hammered out over eight bars, during which Craig plays that counter-melody again – but in the new key. The eight bars end with a heavily-struck B flat 7th chord, which leads us cleverly back into the principal key of E flat minor.

We now have the 12-bar blues in E flat minor again, but usually with the trombone (Barnabus) taking the lead in the final eight of those bars.

Now those final eight themselves become the pattern for a new theme: we have this little theme, played three (in some performances four) times and usually led respectively by the cornet, the clarinet, the tuba and (against offbeats) the guitar. This eight-bar theme uses the chord structure of the final eight bars of the 12-bar blues in E flat minor.

The last of these mini-solos ends on a crashing B 7th chord, taking us for a second time into that wailing Interlude of eight bars in E minor, again including the counter-melody and ending on a sustained B flat 7th chord, which of course takes us neatly back into the key of E flat minor for another run-through of the twelve-bar blues theme and a lingering drop on the final E flat minor chord. Wow!

You can hear Tuba Skinny play this piece in its mature form, after some months of gestation and tweaking, in this video filmed by my good friend James Sterling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNDWAJvhN_4

Post 611: RECOMMENDED GREAT TRADITIONAL JAZZ VIDEOS

I leave you some recommendations for videos of traditional jazz bands active in recent years. If you have not seen these videos before, I hope you will enjoy them. If you have seen them, I am sure you will enjoy watching them again!

First, for a relaxed, moving, unpretentious but beautifully-played performance, showing just how perfect a musical form traditional jazz can be, try Whenever You're Lonesome, Just Telephone Me played by members of The Shotgun Jazz Band. The video runs for about five minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IwUIizeLk0

For an example of a great jazz band playing one of the very complex tunes from our repertoire - Deep Henderson - watch Tuba Skinny in this next video. It runs for a little over three minutes. Notice how all members of the band, working from memory rather than printed arrangements, play wonderfully as an ensemble through all three sections of this challenging piece, not to mention taking in their stride a change of key and linking passages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqVx9vwt2WM

Now, for some passionate 'no frills' traditional jazz, coupled with brilliant musicianship and generating great excitement, I would like to offer you a performance of Royal Garden Blues that I myself had the privilege of filming. This one runs for under five minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv5RBMA_v4k

Next, I offer you a performance of a good old jazz standard - Savoy Blues - played by The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band. This video runs for a little under five minutes. I recommend it because it shows what happens when six outstanding musicians come together and - with great respect for each other - play wonderfully as a team, just as our bands should. This performance too is unpretentious and yet you will hardly find a better rendition of this piece anywhere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjvABe9Mvns

Finally, if you have time to sit back for a full half hour and watch six outstanding musicians play a varied programme ranging from storming stuff such as Climax Rag to the tender Love Songs of the Nile, may I urge you to watch this video? You will also hear such tunes as Oriental Man, Yearning, Mobile Stomp and I Can't Escape From You. As one observer said, 'It's the kind of music that makes you cry with joy!' Click on it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RicINWvmAcg&t=814s

In my opinion, this is the best 'half-hour live concert' video to have appeared in several years.

Post 610: TUBA SKINNY RE-CREATING GEMS FROM THE PAST

I have been hugely impressed in recent months - as I'm sure most fans have - by the meticulous care Tuba Skinny take whenever they select a forgotten or near-forgotten recording from the 1920s and decide to add it to their repertoire. Though they have to adapt the piece to suit their own resources, talents and instrumentation, they keep closely to the spirit of the original, often including the order of events, the structure of the piece and even sometimes the exact notes originally played in two-bar breaks.

Take, for example, their rifacimento of Got No Blues - Lil Hardin's composition recorded by the Hot Five. Have a look at this performance, kindly filmed by James Sterling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45UaSrvgR8E

I love the sensible way Shaye tackles Louis' two-bar cornet break at 32 seconds. And note the key-changing subtleties: on the Hot Five original, a banjo interlude craftily slides us from the key of Eb to the key of F. In Tuba Skinny's performance, hear Jason do exactly the same (54 seconds to 1 minute 05 seconds). Later, just as Louis plays a succession of notes to transpose the piece back into Eb before handing the next solo on to clarinet-player Johnny Dodds, so Shaye plays a similar pattern of notes (1 minute 48 seconds to 1 minute 54 seconds) to return the tune to Eb and so hands it on to Craig in that key.

These things don't just happen. They require hours of preparation, coordination and practice. Then, when the tune is ready for public performance, every player knows exactly what is happening and what he is required to do, and when.

Next, consider I Got The Cryin' Blues. It was composed by Sara Martin and Tom Johnson, and recorded in September 1924 by Sara Martin and her Jug Band. Here's their version of it played by Tuba Skinny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHJmrjbvKIY

As you can hear, it has an 8-bar Verse (played just once) and a 16-bar Chorus. But here's the interesting thing: the Chorus is sometimes played with the addition of a two-bar tag! You can hear Erika sing the tag at 2 mins. 21 secs. You can hear Shaye play it at 1 min. 41 secs; and again right at the end, before the Coda. And guess what? Tuba Skinny have followed the structure of the original Sara Martin recording and have punctiliously placed the Tags exactly where Sara and her Band played them. Of course the whole Band knows exactly when they are coming. Nobody makes a mistake. That's a further illustration of the meticulous care  the band takes in its preparation of tunes for our entertainment.

And consider how they recreate King Oliver's 1929 recording of Too Late, which was composed by Dave Nelson and Oliver himself. Click on this performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3QB9sFeLtU

This is a 32-bar tune with a simple chord progression. With Rhadamanthine scrupulosity, Tuba Skinny begin with the extraordinary 'speeding up fanfare' Introduction of Oliver's recording. Then they follow the equally extraordinary example set by Oliver of dropping the key from Eb to C for one Chorus only - the second. Even Oliver's two-bar breaks are scrupulously respected. Shaye herself faithfully copies (at 3 mins. 53 secs.) the break that occurs in Bars 15 and 16 of the 32. To do this, she has to play the highest note I have heard her play anywhere in a YouTube video. She is not one of those soulless players who like to show off by playing lots of high notes all the time, but in this moment she proves she can hit such a note when she wants to be faithful to the original recording.

Cushion Foot Stomp has proved very popular with audiences. Here is a Tuba Skinny performance of this piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izFrbeafINM

Although Tuba Skinny sensibly do not include the scat vocal to be heard on the original Clarence Williams recording from 1927, the Coda and Shaye's 'decorations' (exactly as cornet-player Ed Allen provided on the original recording) illustrate well the band's attention to detail when they set about producing a rifacimento of a classic recording from the past.

For the benefit of anyone who may have difficulty following the ichnography of jazz classics from the 1920s, here's the lay-out of this one. You will note that it has three themes, like many of the jazz classics of that era.

Tuba Skinny follow Clarence Williams, by playing the piece in the key of Eb.

(1) EIGHT-BAR INTRODUCTION : 28 seconds - 38 seconds.

(2) THEME A (standard 12-bar) : 39 secs. - 54 secs. Craig leading with the main melody.

(3) THEME B (24 bars) : Todd leading, with Shaye 'decorating' : 55 secs. - 1 min. 27 secs.

(4) THEME B (24 bars) : Craig leading, with Shaye 'decorating’ : 1 min. 28 secs - 1 min. 59 secs.

(5) THEME A (the 12-bar again) : 2 mins. 00 secs. - 2 mins. 16 secs.

(6) BRIDGE (4 bars, leading into THEME C): 2 mins. 17 secs. - 2 min. 21 secs.

(7) THEME C [Classically known as the TRIO. This is the Main Theme on which the piece settles, and is used as the basis for improvised solos. It consists of 16 bars, always with a ‘break’ on Bars 7 and 8] : Taken by Barnabus, and indeed with the ‘break’ : 2 mins. 22 secs. – 2 mins. 43 secs. (You can hear his ‘break’ at 2 mins. 30 secs. - 2 mins. 32 secs.)

(8) THEME C : Taken by Craig and including the ‘break’ - 2 mins. 44 secs. – 3 mins. 04 secs.

(9) THEME C : Taken by Shaye and including the ‘break’ - 3 mins. 05 secs. – 3 mins. 26 secs.

(10) THEME C : Taken by Jason and including the ‘break’ - 3 mins. 27 secs. – 3 mins. 47 secs.

(11) THEME C : Taken by Todd and including the ‘break’ - 3 mins. 48 secs. – 4 mins. 08 secs.

(12) THEME C : Taken by Robin and including the ‘break’ - 4 mins. 09 secs. – 4 mins. 29 secs.

(13) THEME C : Taken by the full ensemble but with collective ‘break’ on signal from Shaye - 4 mins. 30 secs. – 4 mins. 50 secs.

(14) CODA (4 bars) : Initiated by Robin – 4 mins. 51 secs – 4 mins. 59 secs.

Finally, have a listen to Tuba Skinny's re-creation of Kiss Me Sweet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIprWKmVFwc

This song was composed by Steve J. Lewis and Armand J. Piron in 1923. Like Piron, Tuba Skinny play it in the key of C; and they play the 16-bar Verse only once. Also like Piron they take Bars 7 and 8 of the 20-bar Chorus as a 'break'. You can hear Todd play it at 1 min 14 secs and 3 mins 45 secs, Barnabus at 1 min 52 secs, Craig at 2 mins 29 secs, Max at 3 mins 08 secs and Robin at 4 mins 22 secs. There is an amusing Coda in the Piron recording which - surprisingly - Tuba Skinny omit, though they have a lovely rallentando ending instead.

The interesting rhythmic backing to Craig's solo is the kind of thing Tuba Skinny devise and execute so well, as is the way Craig and Shaye play harmonies behind Barnabus's solo chorus.

Though Tuba Skinny choose not to have a vocal, there are words to this tune. For the words of the Chorus, go to Piron's original recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7HuZNF77IQ - or if you would like to hear the words of the Verse as well as the Chorus, go to the King Oliver recording (he plays it in the key of G):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJTecT7DHOQ

20-bar Choruses are unusual, though there was a fashion for them at the time. Think of After You've Gone, What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes At Me For?, Oh You Beautiful Doll, The Darktown Strutters Ball, Drop That Sack, Hard-Hearted Hannah, You've Got the Right Key but the Wrong Keyhole and Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries, for example.

One final bit of tedious analysis: when it's Shaye's turn to play the 20-bar Chorus as a solo (2 mins 55 secs), she plays the first six bars and then gives the next two (the break) to Max; she then plays Bars 9 to 12 and leaves the remaining eight to Max. This is a typical Tuba Skinny stratagem - and a lesson to us all in how to make the music interesting.

Almost all Tuba Skinny performances are masterclasses for the rest of the world's traditional jazz bands. There. You will be relieved to hear I've finished and will now go and have a cup of coffee.