Post 394: THE LOOSE MARBLES

If you were asked to name the most important traditional jazz band so far in the 21st Century, what would your answer be?

My own, unhesitatingly, is The Loose Marbles.

Why?

To put it briefly, because this band has done the most to regenerate our music and to encourage and stimulate the terrific resurgence of traditional jazz among the younger generation (particularly those now based in New Orleans) and because, with the help of YouTube and CDs, it has also encouraged a resurgence of our music throughout the world.

Many people believe (I used to be one of them) that The Loose Marbles were formed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The truth is, however, that The Loose Marbles gave their first performance much earlier - in Providence, Rhode Island, way back in September 2000.

The band was given its name by its founder, the clarinet-player Michael Magro, who grew up in Philadelphia, and he is still running the band today. I have met Michael only once - in New Orleans on 11 April 2016. I found him most friendly, serious-minded and eager to talk about his music.

Michael Magro

After all these years, none of his enthusiasm has diminished. Deeply influenced by the recordings of George Lewis, Albert Burbank and Jim Robinson, he is as passionate as ever about the music; and he is clear about how he wants to play it. I think it's fair to say that he likes to put the emphasis on ensemble work. He prefers the kind of traditional jazz that was played before Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five set the fashion for sequences of 'solo' choruses.

Yet Michael did not begin to teach himself the clarinet until he was in his mid-twenties.

Michael told me about those early days. He chose the memorable name Loose Marbles partly because of the connotations of the expression but also because the concept of 'looseness' was always part of his plan. This was to be a band without a regular fixed line-up. All good and like-minded musicians would be welcome in his pool of players. The Band played for a year or so before a break in its history.

Then Michael met Ben Polcer (trumpet and piano). Ben, the son of Ed Polcer, the traditional jazz trumpeter, had graduated at the Music School of the University of Michigan. He joined Michael in the Loose Marbles enterprise and has been driving The Loose Marbles along ever since. For a while they were based in Brooklyn, New York. In 2006 they developed for a few months by playing street music in Washington Square Park, New York City.

Then, the year after Hurricane Katrina, Michael and Ben permanently relocated to New Orleans, trying their luck by playing for tips on the streets. They have been based there ever since. On occasions, they would return to New York City in the summer months, again giving street performances.

I heard that they sometimes had so many musicians available that there would be two Loose Marbles bands in two different locations simultaneously.

The early days in New Orleans.
Michael is on the right. Shaye Cohn is playing piano.

During the following three or four years, so many of today's great traditional jazz musicians migrated to New Orleans and appeared as Marbles, honing their skills in the company of Ben and Michael. These included such people as Charlie Halloran, Aaron Gunn, Tomas Majcherski, Jason Jurzak, John Rodli, Robert Snow, Jon Gross, Dan Levinson, Alynda Lee Segarra, Kiowa Wells, Ryan Baer, John Royen, Peter Loggins, Robin Rapuzzi, Joseph Faison, Matt Bell, Max Bien-Kahn, Jonathan Doyle and many others. Shaye Cohn frequently worked with the band, but mainly on piano in the early post-Katrina days; and Barnabus Jones, who had recently taken up the trombone (in addition to being already a good violinist and banjo-player), was frequently present. They had a powerful vocalist in Meschiya Lake.

There is a video of considerable historical interest of The Loose Marbles in a 2008 configuration, performing at Preservation Hall. You can watch it by clicking here. And see them in the street the same year (with Kiowa singing and Shaye on piano) by clicking here.

As dancers migrated to New Orleans, they tended to join the Loose Marbles family too - stars such as Chance Bushman and Amy Johnson; and they became part of the spectacle. The band busked in Europe in 2007: enjoy the dancing by clicking here.

John and Marla Dixon (now at the heart of The Shotgun Jazz Band) arrived a little later, but they too intermingled with the Marbles and still work closely with them to this day.

Some of the musicians who played in The Loose Marbles have gone on to form bands of their own. Think of Tom Saunders and the Tom Cats, for example. And Meschiya Lake, branching out into a wide range of musical styles, now sings with her own very popular band Meschiya Lake and The Little Big Horns. Above all, there is Tuba Skinny. Shaye Cohn of Tuba Skinny has said: 'One thing really important to The Loose Marbles was ensemble playing. When I first started with them, I was playing second trumpet. So I had to work to find a voice where I could fit in. It taught me to play very simply, and to listen.'

So The Loose Marbles still exists and is attracting plenty of gigs. As the sixty or so musicians who have played in Loose Marbles all still feel part of the family, it is easy enough for Ben and Michael to put together half a dozen of them to play at a gig.

To view a really pleasing and exhilarating video of the band in 2015 CLICK HERE. Michael is still in a central rôle, leading off with the melody in the first chorus. Marla is on trumpet and vocal.

Interesting to think that, although we fans in our eighties regard all those musicians currently working so well in New Orleans as the 'young generation', the years seem to have passed so rapidly since Hurricane Katrina that it won't be long before Ben and Michael are considered the 'elder statesmen' of traditional jazz!

Having said that The Loose Marbles is the most important traditional jazz band of the early Twenty-First Century, I must add that I consider Michael Magro himself as the most important individual musician. If you speak, as I have, to some of those slightly younger musicians who have settled in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, you find they all have immense respect for him and they are all grateful for what he has done. Another reason why I consider him so important is that he has a very clear idea of how he wants a band to sound. As soon as he takes charge of a group of musicians, something magical happens. He is one of the few great leaders who can immediately impose a style that brings out the collective best in his colleagues. For proof of this, even as recently as 2016, watch this wonderful programme:
CLICK HERE.

Finally, here is a picture Bob Andersen sent me of a Loose Marbles 2009 line-up (including himself on this occasion). He scanned it from a newspaper of the time.

Bob says the picture was taken at the Portland, Oregon, Blues and Jazz Fest. You see Shaye on piano, Robert Bell on guitar, Jason on tuba, Ben, Michael and also Benji Bohannon on drums.

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The book Enjoying Traditional Jazz by Pops Coffee is available from Amazon.

Post 213: THE ORIGINS OF TRADITIONAL JAZZ

John McCusker

A most interesting experience while I was in New Orleans in April 2015 was being taken on a conducted tour of the immediate neighbourhood, with John McCusker as guide.

A graduate of Loyola University, New Orleans, John was for thirty years a regional photo-journalist with the Times-Picayune newspaper. He achieved distinction in that work - especially through his coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

John is a knowledgeable, lively and well-prepared speaker. He has spent years researching the origins of jazz in New Orleans. The fruits of much of John's research are to be found in his book Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz (University of Mississippi Press, 2012).

His findings are convincing because he supports them so well with evidence - such as reports from contemporary newspapers. He is also very proud of being a New Orleans citizen and he loves the early jazz music.

John reminded us of the usual 'myths' and said there may be grains of truth in them, but that essentially they were misleading and should be dispelled.

For example, he had found that all these myths were only partially true:

1. Musicians acquired instruments 'left over' by bands after the Civil War and somehow taught themselves to play. McCusker asks: Why should they do that? There were plenty of new and second-hand musical instruments available cheaply in shops; and there was a strong tradition of young people - black and white - having music lessons in those days. Music shops were a Big Thing in the days when people made their own entertainment, long before television and computers and iPhones. Here's an example, from Canal Street, New Orleans.

2. Lots of the early jazz players used to play in the bordellos of Storyville until it was closed down in 1917. (McCusker asks: Why would you want to waste time with musicians in a bordello? Only a few of the more fancy establishments booked musicians. There were plenty of other places - such as Lakeside - for musicians to find employment.)

3. After the closure of Storyville, the musicians went 'up the river' to Chicago. (McCusker says: Only a tiny proportion of the New Orleans musicians moved north. Most stayed in New Orleans and continued to work there. In any case, if you go 'up river', it doesn't lead to Chicago!)

What Mr. McCusker wanted to impress upon us was that there was a very strong musical tradition in New Orleans. We have to remember there was no TV, no radio and no cinema. At the time, a musical instrument was a 'must have' in most households, just as a computer is today. It was very common to find a mandolin or violin in the home (an interview with the early New Orleans musician Johnny Wiggs confirmed this). And there could well be a concertina, a piano or a harmonium.

Plenty of people made a living teaching youngsters to play musical instruments - piano, string, brass, reeds and so on. Music-making in the home and in public places was commonplace. In some homes, a family band would develop.

John especially impressed upon us the importance of opera in the lives of the citizens. People loved it. There were three well-attended opera houses, so everyone knew the tunes from Verdi, Offenbach, Bizet, Reyer, Von Flotow, Massenet, Meyerbeer and Gounod.  What an inspiration to early jazz musicians and composers they must have been!

Here is the Eagle Saloon, where Buddy Bolden and the other early jazz pioneers played. It has languished for years in a state of disrepair, though there is now strong local pressure to have it restored and used again as a venue for music.

John McCusker told us the Minstrel Shows and Vaudeville - both well attended in the theatres of New Orleans - were of huge importance (usually underestimated) in the early development of jazz. Likewise the 'society orchestras' (made up of trained sight-reading musicians) influenced the approach of such early New Orleans jazz musicians as Kid Ory.

A sad sight: the tumbledown building
behind the scaffolding used to be a theatre
in which at one time you could watch a vaudeville show
or hear Buddy Bolden play.

Of special significance was the craze for syncopated piano music (ragtime), brass band marches and especially the Blues with its genesis in the depths of African culture. The early jazz musicians also worked at a golden time in popular music, when so many of the hit songs were easy to adapt to a 'jazzy' presentation. 

Of course, he told us about Buddy Bolden and took us to some of the places where he used to play. We saw his house and the houses (or sites) where other early jazz stars lived - Nick La Rocca's house, for example. He told us about the early life of Louis Armstrong and he impressed upon us the importance of Edward 'Kid' Ory both as a developer of jazz in the early days and as the man who first recognised the talent of the teenager Louis and then set him on his way by booking him for gigs. Ory - who ran his own band in New Orleans from 1907 - also employed such musicians as Johhny Dodds, King Oliver and Sidney Bechet.

John McCusker also emphasised the importance of brass bands. Such bands became possible only in the mid-Nineteenth Century, after the invention of valved brass instruments (which made all notes of the scales obtainable). In the USA, as in England, there was a massive development of the brass band movement from about 1850 onwards. In England, it eventually became formalised, with national contests, and rules about the numbers of each type of instrument. But in Louisiana matters were more free-style. There were some small and medium-sized bands (undoubtedly forerunners of later jazz bands.

In such small, informal groupings, it would be easy for a player or two to set a fashion for 'jazzing up' a tune.) 

Statues on the edge of 'Congo Square',
in Louis Armstrong Park.

Right from the early days, when the famous benevolent societies operated around New Orleans (they provided mutual help at times of hardship), these social clubs had their own bands; and the bands played at members' funerals.

We tend to think of 'jazz funerals' as a twentieth-century invention. But they are really just a continuation of brass band funerals from long before. John McCusker quoted from a newspaper report of 1857 in which mention was made of the brass band accompanying the coffin.

John took us to various sites including 'Congo Square'. This area had been allocated to the black slaves as a place where on Sundays they were allowed to congregate, play their music and dance. The exciting African dances and the rhythms of their music appealed to all kinds of visitors and onlookers. In these, too, we find a huge influence in the early development of jazz. These Sunday events died out but the Square was used for brass band concerts at the end of the Nineteenth Century.

Congo Square in 2015 -
preserved as a historic landmark.

Frieze in Congo Square:
An attempt to imagine the scene about 180 years ago.

My regular blog-reading friend Phil in the USA told me there is a super video made by John McCusker which enables YOU too to go on his conducted tour. May I strongly recommend that you have a look? Watch it by clicking here.

John McCusker still feels deeply hurt about the lack of support New Orleans received during Hurricane Katrina and the floods, which killed 1000 people in the immediate vicinity. I could sense that his emotions were still raw on this subject ten years after it happened. He took us to a point from which we could see over many square miles of parishes north-east of the City, all of which (he told us) had been flooded to a depth of 15 feet.

With better engineering, it need never have happened. With quicker response from administrators and politicians, the consequent suffering could have been alleviated.

But please may I also recommend that you listen to a talk by John McCusker? If you're interested in the earliest days of New Orleans jazz, I think you will find this truly informative:
CLICK HERE TO WATCH IT.

Post 61: NEW ORLEANS SINCE HURRICANE KATRINA

I live about 5000 miles from New Orleans and have managed to visit the great City only four times in my life. The most recent visit was for ten days in April 2015, to coincide with The French Quarter Festival. Before that, my previous visit had been in the 1990s, when Preservation Hall was the obvious place to go for top-quality traditional jazz. At that time, there was some good jazz to be heard in several bars and restaurants; and there were quite a few decent busking groups on the streets. The musicians were mainly black and many of them were elderly (and alas have since died: think of Narvin Kimball, Percy and Willie Humphrey, Milton Batiste, Lionel Ferbos, Pud Brown, Danny Barker, Harold Dejan and James Prevost - all of whom I had the pleasure of hearing). But in the 1990s nobody would have thought of Frenchmen Street (at the eastern edge of the French Quarter) as the best place to look for outstanding traditional jazz. 

In 2015, I found the situation had changed dramatically. For example, Frenchmen Street had now become the place to base yourself in the evenings if you wanted the choice of a wide range of top-quality bands playing in various bars and clubs.

The Spotted Cat, Frenchmen Street
April 2015

Big developments had occurred since Hurricane Katrina. Maybe the hurricane was the catalyst for change.

You will recall that the hurricane struck in August 2005. A huge area was flooded by up to fifteen feet of water. 80% of New Orleans and large tracts of neighbouring parishes were covered; and the flood waters lingered for weeks. About 2000 people lost their lives, half of them in and around New Orleans.

It could have marked the end of jazz in New Orleans; and indeed the homes of many musicians were destroyed and they had to leave.

But from 2006, as the City started to rebuild, a new young generation began to migrate to New Orleans. They came from all parts of America, as well as a few from Canada and Europe. They were mostly young white musicians - some of them straight out of music colleges - and they started to settle in New Orleans in the hope of making a career in music. Surprisingly, many of them wanted to play the old tunes (of 1910 - 1940) in the old styles. Learning from 78 rpm records, and CD reissues and increasingly from the internet (especially YouTube) they mastered music that had rarely been played in the previous 70 years.

Todd Burdick is best known as the tuba player and founder member of Tuba Skinny. He told me he came to New Orleans from Chicago and at the time you could find a pal and jointly rent a shotgun house near the French Quarter for just 400 dollars a month. (The price by 2015 had risen to 900 dollars a month.)

It was a hard life and I guess some of them soon gave up. But many settled. They made just enough money to survive by playing for tips on the streets. They started to find like-minded musicians who became their friends and formed themselves into bands. A good example was The Loose Marbles - a band in which founder members were Ben Polcer (a graduate of the Univeristy of Michigan) and Michael Magro. They encouraged promising newcomers to pass through the band's ranks and hone their skills. Many of the musicians who developed their talents in Loose Marbles have gone on to form bands of their own: think of Tom Saunders and the Tom Cats, Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns, Tuba Skinny, and The Orleans Six, for example.

Shaye Cohn of Tuba Skinny has said: 'One thing really important to The Loose Marbles was ensemble playing. When I first started with them, I was playing second trumpet. So I had to work to find a voice where I could fit in. It taught me to play very simply, and to listen'.

The Loose Marbles still exists and is attracting plenty of gigs. As the sixty or so musicians who have played in Loose Marbles all still feel part of the family, it is easy enough for Ben and Michael to put together half a dozen of them to play at a gig.

To see a video of great historical interest - The Loose Marbles playing in the street in 2007, CLICK HERE. And to see them playing indoors in those early post-Katrina days, CLICK HERE.

The great banjo player John Dixon told me that with the musicians came some great dancers - people such as Amy Johnson and Chance Bushman; and they in turn attracted more dancers..... and so more musicians.

In the hottest months, it became customary to decamp to the cooler regions in the north, so you might find some of these bands in August busking in New York's Washington Square, for example. Some of the musicians head north in August to work as tutors in residential Jazz Camps. More recently, some of the bands have even been able to tour overseas during the summer.

As part of their learning and development, some players, after arriving in New Orleans, decided to take up a second or even a third instrument. They taught themselves and - in just a few years - reached the highest levels on these instruments. Think of Barnabus Jones. He arrived in New Orleans as a violinist. He then mastered the banjo. And finally he bought an old trombone and mastered that. Now he is regarded as one of the finest traditional jazz trombonists in the history of jazz. Then there is Shaye Cohn. She arrived as an outstanding pianist and accomplished violinist. She obtained a very old cornet (which she still plays - she told me it is the only horn she possesses), taught herself the fingering, and just a few years later has surely become the most creative traditional jazz cornet player in the world.

Shaye kindly allowed me to take
a photo of her world-famous cornet.

Todd Burdick arrived in New Orleans as a banjo and guitar player. He is now one of the best jazz tuba players. And that isn't enough. He told me he is now trying to learn the string bass to add to his armoury. Todd said with some regret he hardly ever gets invited to play a gig on banjo these days because 'people seem to have forgotten that I play the instrument'!

It was an enormous pleasure
for me to meet Todd Burdick.

Todd on guitar -
a few years ago.

As the years have gone by, bands have emerged and developed - all with distinctive styles. Hundreds of hours spent making music on the streets and later playing at gigs in bars and clubs have brought the standard of traditional jazz performance in New Orleans to a musical level at least equal to that of the 1920s.

The boom in tourism and the world-wide appreciation of their music (fostered by YouTube, internet-streamed performances and CDs) has meant that the best bands no longer need to play on the streets to make a living. They can survive on the income from gigs mainly in the bars and clubs on Frenchmen Street. Indeed, Frenchmen Street is the place to be - though the great tradition still continues at Preservation Hall: every night, while I was in town, there was a long queue in St. Peter's Street waiting for the Hall to open.

A performance in Preservation Hall
April 2015

Some of the best bands to emerge since Katrina have practically given up busking in the streets, because it is such hard work and it has become so difficult to secure a prime spot. But others (such as Tuba Skinny) still choose to play in the streets at least once a week because they see this as a chance to try out new ideas and to spread the music to the people. They say it is good to play what you like when you like, without any pressures from a promoter. 

Meanwhile, more young musicians have arrived in New Orleans to try their luck. The most outstanding (such as James Evans from Wales and Haruka Kikuchi from Japan) have rapidly been recruited into established bands.

On the streets the musicians playing for tips have continued to multiply. In my view, there are now too many for their own good, because competition has made it hard to earn a living. Even so, I have to report the standards of the music to be heard on Royal Street are so high that those bands are much better and more exciting than the typical band that we find in pubs and jazz clubs here in England.

This Facebook entry by guitarist Shine Delphi shows just how hard they work - even on a birthday:
Thank y'all for the birthday love. If you're in New Orleans come give me a hug. I'll be busking with Yes Ma'am  11 - 2, then Goorin Bros hat shop 3 - 5 and I'll finish the evening over at Buffa's 11 - 1.

While I was in New Orleans I had the privilege of conversations with several of the musicians I had previously seen and admired only on YouTube. It was a special thrill to meet them. I learned a great deal about their approach to the music, and how they practise, rehearse and manage their lives. But that will be a subject to write about later.smile emoticon

Meeting the great Japanese trombonist
Haruka Kikuchi was a special thrill.
See her in full flight
BY CLICKING HERE.

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Footnote

The Book Enjoying Traditional Jazz, written  by Pops Coffee, is available from Amazon.