Post 489: SWEET SHEIKS

A band that has caught my eye on YouTube recently is called Sweet Sheiks. It seems that it normally comprises just five musicians - two young ladies and three gents. From the internet, I discovered this band was formed as recently as March 2016 and is based in Milwaukee. For those of you whose geography is as hazy as mine, let me tell you Milwaukee is in the State of Wisconsin and on the west shore of Lake Michigan, almost 100 miles north of Chicago. To put it another way, it's just over 1000 miles north of New Orleans.

Sweet Sheiks do not exactly describe themselves as a traditional jazz band: they say they play 'antique pop'. But their music certainly comes within what I consider to be the traditional jazz category. They claim to be 'a toe-tapping five-some inspired by the popular music of the tens, twenties, and thirties'. They describe their music as 'refreshingly vintage' - and nobody could argue with that.

The members are:

Jen Müttin-Schrank: vocals, guitar, saw (played with violin bow), washboard

Ousia Lydian: violin and vocals (and whistling)

Garrett Burton: banjo

Andrew Spadafora: clarinet

Aaron Johnson: tuba

You will notice they do not normally have drums or a trombone or trumpet. But that's just fine with me. I am not at all sure that the addition of any of these instruments would improve their performance. It would take an exceptional musician to fit in with their house style and to contribute anything more that might be welcome.

As with so many of the young bands in America, it is such a joy to be able to hear all of the instruments clearly and to note what a great creative contribution each player is making to the overall sound.

Andrew Spadafora's clarinet improvisations are as good as the best you will hear in New Orleans, and the solid tuba-based rhythm, with guitar and banjo, is reminiscent of what Todd Burdick and his team produce in the engine room of Tuba Skinny. But I must say all five of these young musicians play extremely well, both as individuals and as team members. I am looking forward very much to watching how Sweet Sheiks develops.

Catch a pleasant performance of The Curse of an Aching Heart BY CLICKING HERE.

And for something unusual - Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen played extraordinarily well on the musical saw, CLICK HERE.

For a very spirited version of Who Walked in When I Walked Out, CLICK HERE.

By the way, as so often, I must express deepest gratitude to the video-maker codenamed jazzbo43 for bringing so many of their performances to our computer screens.

If those have whetted your appetite, you will be able to find several more performances by the band on YouTube.

As for me, if I ever make it to the USA again, I shall be looking for ways of fitting in a stop-over in Milwaukee on my way to New Orleans!

Post 442: 'ROOT, HOG! OR DIE!'

Times are hard. You can no longer afford to feed your pig. So you turn him loose to fend for himself. You say to the pig: 'Off you go, Piggy. Root around and find some food for yourself. If you don't, you will die.'

Or you may simply say: 'Root, hog! Or die!'

From early colonial times, this became a familiar expression in American English of the Southern States (but never in English English). An American friend in Connecticut tells me it is now considered antiquated, even in the USA. Root, hog! Or die!, meaning Be resourceful and self-reliant, was once proverbial. And John Dixon told me: 'It IS an antiquated term, but you still hear it out in the country. It wasn’t a regular expression but I remember both my paternal grandma and my dad both saying it a few times on occasion'.

The expression made its way into a folk song (a song quite different from the one currently played by The Shotgun Jazz Band), even long before The Harlem Hamfats recorded their Root, hog! Or die! in 1937.

The Harlem Hamfats were founded in Chicago, primarily as a studio band. Not one of the band's eight members was actually from Harlem! Their leaders were Herb Morand (trumpet and vocals) and Kansas Joe McCoy (guitar and vocals). They developed a riff-based style, which is conspicuous in Root, hog! Or die!

This minor-key tune uses virtually the same chord sequence as Blue Drag and Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen. To see what I mean about the riffing and the chord sequence, listen to the Hamfats' recording (apparently in the very unusual key of Gb minor) of the song BY CLICKING HERE.

But why am I telling you all this?

Because on 19 October, during a fleeting visit to New Orleans, I caught The Shotgun Jazz Band playing Root, hog! Or die! at The Spotted Cat Music Club. John Dixon told me they had recently introduced the tune into their repertoire, having picked it up from The Harlem Hamfats.

I made a video of their version. Playing (in the key of C minor) at a slightly faster tempo than the Hamfats, they had that wonderful combination of John Dixon and Tyler Thomson powerfully laying down the rhythm and chords, while Craig and Tomas offered some good solo choruses.

By the way, John also told me: 'It differs from the Blue Drag form by adding a #5 over the words ‘root hog or die’. If you divide those words up in time,  it’s:  -   (#V)root - (V)hog or - (1)die - instead of just V-I.'

Marla lustily provided the vocal and showed in her trumpet solo chorus what can be achieved by using a mute while lingering on the most bluesy notes. I hope you will enjoy watching my video. You may do so BY CLICKING HERE.

Post 42: 'BLUE DRAG'

I learn something every day. Recently I learned there is a good simple tune called Blue Drag. It seems to have been composed in 1932 by a Russian-born composer of film scores called Josef Myrow (1910 - 1987). He was a graduate of the Curtis School of Music and an extremely good pianist. His best-remembered song is perhaps You Make Me Feel So Young.

A kind American correspondent suggested I might enjoy watching a YouTube of The Thrift Set Orchestra (of Austin, Texas), playing Blue Drag. In this delightful video, the vocal is sung by Albanie Falletta and the band includes some familiar faces - players who are among the best in the world today.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW IT.

It seemed to me this would be a very good tune to include in our programmes. It's fun to have a 'riffy' one occasionally, especially if, like this, it is in a minor key.

Blue Drag reminds me a little of Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen. But it makes a good alternative to that tune for use in concerts. The two songs seem to have a very similar harmonic pattern and the same structure:  a  a  b  a, with b (the Middle Eight) providing a perfect contrast to the riff.

My friends and I worked it out by ear, as well as we could, and it didn't sound at all bad when we tried playing it.

Even though this catchy number is new to me, perhaps some of you have known it for years. I find it was recorded long ago by such artists as Earl Hines, Freddie Taylor and Django Reinhardt.

Post 18: JENAVIEVE COOKE

If you would like to see a performance by a remarkable young lady who is a singer / trumpet-player / band-leader (and very good in all three rôles), CLICK HERE.

Giving up a good career to become a musician, especially when it means learning new instruments from scratch without a tutor, can be 'hard and scary'. That's what Jenavieve Cooke told me. And having got to know her a little, I can easily understand what she meant. She said that although it is hard and scary it is also 'very exciting and rewarding'.

The first time I heard of Jenavieve Cooke was in August 2015, when a reader of this Blog suggested I should watch some YouTube videos in which she was featured. With her Band - The Royal Street Winding Boys - she was filmed busking in New Orleans. She played trumpet on That's a Plenty and also sang numbers such as Egyptian Ella.

I was hooked. Jenavieve had a band of very fine musicians, and she presented the music in a forthright, appealing way. She also had charisma, and what you might call 'stage presence'. 

So, when I visited New Orleans in April 2016, I hoped I would get to hear Jenavieve playing. Sure enough, I found her with her band on the evening of April 9th in The Dragon's Den, which is situated at the junction of Frenchmen Street and Esplanade Avenue.

But before I tell you about that, I must pass on what I learned from Jenavieve about her development as a musician. It is a fascinating story that would make a novel in itself; and I think it illustrates so well the drive, bravery, dedication and hard work to be admired in the new young generation of traditional jazz musicians who have migrated to New Orleans.

Jenavieve was born in Bremerton in Washington State. (If your geography is as bad as mine, it may help to picture that as pretty well 120 miles south of Vancouver in Canada.) Her father was a naval officer on the base there. It wasn't long before the family found itself on the opposite side of the USA, in Annapolis, Maryland, where there is a big naval base to which her father had been transferred. This was one of many moves that must have disrupted Jenavieve's education. She told me she changed schools eight times during twelve years. Her father would be at sea for months at a time.

Throughout her childhood, Jenavieve knew that she had music in her soul. In Annapolis, a friend of the family was leader of the navy band. Jenavieve loved dancing and has fond memories of the dance parties there.

Soon, her father having left active duty to be in the Reserves, they moved to Orlando, Florida. When Jenavieve was only 12, her mother became seriously ill with cancer and successfully underwent chemotherapy.

Her parents arranged for her to have piano lessons, but only for six months. Jenavieve also played drums in the band of one of the Middle Schools that she attended briefly.

At High School, Jenavieve underwent a rigorous International Baccalaureate programme. This left her no time to join one of the school bands. But she was always singing: 'I used to sing constantly in my room or in school and my brother always told me to shut up whenever I sang!'

She told me 'My dad wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer and my mom was very sick. That was the moment I decided I would never be a musician, but rather a music lover.'

However, in the late 1990s, while at High School, Jenavieve got into swing dancing, taking lessons and then attending as many dances as she could. At this time, she discovered the recordings of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. And such visiting bands as the Squirrel Nut Zippers (from Asheville) thrilled her and showed what was possible. 'I was in love with it all. It spoke to my soul in a very unpretentious and permanent way.'

Jenavieve went to university, studying medicine for two years before deciding this was not for her and switching to a further two years double-majoring in Advertising and Psychology, while at the same time taking lots of art classes. She moved to San Francisco where, after further study, she found a job in which she could be truly creative: art direction in advertising. She says she loved the job ...... and yet still didn't feel content with her life.

One weekend a group of young musicians passed through. She was so moved by the joy they experienced and gave. This was the crucial moment. She gave up her job, bought a guitar and headed to Costa Rica with a one-way ticket.

Then she spent seven years travelling extensively in Canada, Central America and Europe. She played the guitar, learned music, busked,  hitch-hiked, camped, worked on farms, made and sold leather goods, picked up languages, and recorded music from various cultures. She told me 'I travelled pretty much penniless'. Jenavieve believes all of this was a massively beneficial experience.

(And you see what I mean about Jenavieve's life sounding like the plot of a substantial novel.)

She was 25 when she started to learn to play the trumpet. (She can now also play various other instruments, including the accordion). The Jenavieve Cooke of today began to emerge.

She worked immensely hard at her trumpet playing and in developing her vocal skills.

Between working in Europe and elsewhere, Jenavieve in each of 2011, 2012 and 2013 spent a few months in New Orleans. A speciality of hers was traditional Balkan music. And in fact she has never lost this interest: she has founded in New Orleans a Balkan Brass Band called Backyard Belladonna.

In the summer of 2013 she attended the famous Welbourne Traditional Jazz Camp, where the tutors include some of the greatest New Orleans-based musicians.

Then she settled in New Orleans, determined to 'really learn this traditional jazz stuff'! She formed her band The Royal Street Winding Boys (and what an appropriate and memorable Jelly Roll Morton-inspired name she chose for it!). Despite the struggles familiar to any band trying to get itself recognised, she now has the satisfaction of seeing her band firmly established in the local scene.

Jenavieve told me: 'I will probably be struggling the rest of my life but somehow it seems worth it. It's about the people we touch, all the people who benefit from the music we're playing. Just how I am touched and was changed by the music I hear.'

Jenavieve's concert with The Royal Street Winding Boys that I attended on 9 April 2016 was extremely enjoyable. She played not only standards such as After You've Gone and I've Found a New Baby but also some of the obscurer numbers from long ago, such as Fourth Street Mess Around, Do Your Duty, Bogalusa Strut, Delta Bound, Mean Blue Spirits and Michigander Blues. Arrangements of the tunes were neat and uncomplicated. She fronted the band with that excellent stage presence that I had noted in the videos. She had become a very good singer indeed and also a confident trumpet player, able to state a melody with a little tasteful decoration and then in later choruses to improvise lustily and fluently. She had obviously developed a wide repertoire of both standard and less common tunes.

She also led well and gave her fellow musicians plenty of opportunities to display their skills. It is not surprising that some of the best local musicians feel privileged to have been invited to be Royal Street Winding Boys.

I very much appreciated that Jenavieve was also kind enough to talk with me.

She is a fine musician with a fine band. If you are ever in New Orleans, may I urge you to seek them out?

Although the conditions (dim lighting and background noise) made filming far from ideal, I videoed the band performing  I've Found a New Baby. You can watch it by CLICKING HERE.

Jenavieve at The Dragon's Den,
9 April 2016.

On 20 October 2016, I was again briefly in New Orleans and managed to catch another of Jenavieve's gigs. She had become a very busy musician in the local scene, and elsewhere. She gave a powerful, driving performance, both on trumpet and singing, and her supporting 'Winding Boys' were outstanding musicians, too. Wherever possible, she included the verses as well as the choruses of familiar songs; and she had some interesting head arrangements (for instance, switching in to double-time occasionally for a middle eight). You may watch a video I made on that occasion BY CLICKING HERE.

In February 2017 I was in New Orleans again. CLICK HERE for a video I made on that occasion.