Post 589: THE DEW DROP HALL - THE OLDEST SURVIVING VENUE

I have written about the Dew Drop Hall before. But it is such an important building in the history of traditional jazz that - for the benefit of newcomers - I think it is worth writing about again.

The Dew Drop Hall
April 2015

For me the ambition to see The Dew Drop Hall started when I read that Marla Dixon's Shotgun Jazz Band played there on 7th November, 2014. That was what prompted me to find out more about this important jazz venue. It must have been a great thrill for Marla and her team to play in this very spot, among the spirits of so many of the Greats who performed there one hundred years earlier.

So let me tell you about this truly legendary old building that is one of the most important venues in the history of traditional jazz. It's the oldest surviving building in the world in which jazz was played in the earliest years of its development; and traditional jazz is again being played there today. I'm referring to the The Dew Drop Dance and Social Hall, which is situated at 430 Lamarque Street in Old Mandeville, Louisiana.

A great thrill for me was finally setting foot in The Dew Drop Hall in April 2015, when I was in New Orleans for the French Quarter Festival.

The story of the Hall begins on 5 May 1885, when local African Americans created The Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Association - aiming to provide help to the sick and the needy.

The Association built the hall from cypress timber nine years later - and opened it in 1895. Its foundations were simple brick piers (a wise choice for flood protection at the time). The pier at the front on the left still bears the original inscription (now barely legible).

It commemorates the founding of the Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Society No. 2 of Mandeville on May 5th, 1885, and the construction of the building in 1895, along with the names of the building committee.

The walls were covered with weather-boards at the front, and batten on the sides and rear; and they were originally painted green. The carpenters created the large wooden double-door at the front gable end, and a smaller door on the right at the back. There was an open beam ceiling. It was essentially a one-room structure, available for meetings, celebrations, vaudeville, dances and so on. It became the centre of social life.

The dais (mainly used as a bandstand) at the far end was typical of the time - with a wooden banister front opening in two places for the steps. The original dais was small (the part behind the banister on the left) but it was later extended to what we see in the picture above. The hall was built without electricity - or plumbing - or even glass: the 'windows' were simply openings measuring 6 feet high by 4 feet wide. They were normally covered by wooden shutters. These windows must have helped keep the band and audience cool on humid evenings.

Lamarque Street is to this day a quiet sparsely-populated, leafy, narrow road.

But where exactly is it? Answer: about 35 miles north of The French Quarter in New Orleans. It's where I've put the red dot at the centre top of this Google Map, very close to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

From the earliest days, musicians started to cross the lake by steamboat to play for Saturday night dances in the Hall.

There were three landing-places for the boats on the shoreline - from east to west the Camellia Landing (destroyed by fire in 1912), the St. Tammany Pier (destroyed by fire in 1926), and the Lewisburg Landing (at the Lewis Plantation). The bands brought plenty of fans with them: Mandeville was considered a fashionable resort. It had several bands playing in various venues, including pavilions, the hotels and local park.

Pretty well all the famous early jazz musicians played at The Dew Drop Hall. Buddy Petit, Bunk Johnson, Kid Ory, Tommy Ladnier, Louis Armstrong, Papa Celestin, Sam Morgan, Chester Zardis and George Lewis were among them. Local man Isidore Fritz - according to such witnesses as George Lewis one of the best jazz clarinet players of all time - was a regular there, leading The Independence Band, which was hugely popular. He had Tommy Ladnier on trumpet and Edmond Hall on clarinet. Isidore's two brothers also played. What a pity the band was never recorded (or even photographed, it seems). Fritz was unwilling to cross the Lake to play in New Orleans. Why? Because he was doing very nicely in Mandeville and also had a family building business there. Fritz died in 1940.

Lillian, the wife of banjo-player Buddy Manaday (of Buddy Petit's Band) later recalled that white people as well as black attended and they all got along well together. Petit's Band, by the way, played at many venues in the  region - including at Bogalusa, Pensacola and Moss Point.

By the 1920s and 1930s, the Hall was a major centre for jazz concerts. Wooden benches provided limited and basic seating for about 100 people.

But - how sad! - as fashions and customs changed, the young were no longer interested, the Dew Drop Association ceased to exist and the Hall was virtually abandoned in the mid-1940s. This state of affairs continued for about half a century.

What amazing luck that nobody knocked the building down! All the other similar dance halls of its era were demolished or changed hands and acquired new uses or (like The Sons and Daughters Hall - also in Mandeville, on Lake Shore Drive) burned down.

The overgrown plot was bought at auction in 1993 by Jacqueline 'Jinx' Vidrine. She might have been expected to demolish the building and erect a modern house there; but she was a jazz enthusiast and knew what she was doing. She cleared the plot and investigated the building. She even found an old upright piano inside.

Jacqueline dreamed of re-opening the Hall as a jazz venue or museum. After some years, she managed to get the local Parks Service interested. By 1999, a first concert was possible! Mayor Eddie Price and the Mandeville Council recognised the importance of the property and bought the plot of land from Jacqueline. She herself donated the Hall to the community. Funds had been raised, including donations from the English. 

There had been a plan to transport the Hall to a site in Louis Armstrong Park, New Orleans. But the Mayor of Mandeville was easily convinced that the Hall should stay where it was. In 2001 the Hall was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 'official' re-opening was on 5 May, 2002. In 2006, two members of the Mandeville City Council led a campaign to create The Friends of Dew Drop - a non-profit organisation. There had to be a little refurbishment (at a cost of about 25,000 dollars), but they ensured it was entirely sympathetic with the original design of the Hall. Here is how the Hall looked in Lamarque Street when I visited. Note the (inevitably moss-covered) tree in front of it.

Concerts featuring the best of local musicians are now put on fortnightly in the Spring and Autumn. There are string bands, jug bands and various similar groups as well as traditional jazz bands.

The band performing when I was there included the great Gregg Stafford and Michael White and the outstanding young bass player Tyler Thomson.

There was even a brolly parade.

Just inside the entrance door

I'm thrilled to say that 'Jinx' is still very much involved in helping with activities at the Hall. She was there and I had the honour of being introduced to her.

Jacqueline Vidrine -
the driving force in preserving the Hall

If you go to The Dew Drop, you have a choice between standing, or arriving early to secure one of those wooden seats, or (bringing your picnic chairs) listening from outside to the wonderful music drifting through the large open windows (three on each side). Good Louisiana food is usually on sale outside the Hall, as it was in the earliest days.

The Shotgun Jazz Band
performing there in 2014

By the way, you may care to watch a video I made about The Dew Drop:
CLICK HERE.
Three days after the Gregg Stafford concert, the great Tuba Skinny played at The Dew Drop Hall. A video showing one of the tunes they played can be seen by clicking on here.

And for a much more recent video of Tuba Skinny playing at the Hall, CLICK HERE. The tune is the wonderful Deep Bayou Moan, composed by Shaye Cohn.

You can sample an entire album (19 tunes) recorded in The Dew Drop Hall during a live concert on 18 March 2017 BY CLICKING HERE. 

========================
Just in case you may be interested to know which tunes were played when I was there for the Gregg Stafford concert in April 2015, the programme was:
SET ONE
Hindustan
We Shall Walk Through The Streets of the City
Bye Bye Blackbird
Redwing
Fidgety Feet
Careless Love
Golden Leaf Strut (final strain of 'Milneberg Joys')
SET TWO
Panama Rag
When You're Smiling
Burgundy Street Blues (Michael White feature)
You Always Hurt The One You Love
Blueberry Hill
SET THREE
Baby Won't You Please Come Home
Creole Love Call
Just a Little While To Stay Here
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
When The Saints Go Marching In

Long may The Dew Drop continue!

Post 577: FEBRUARY IN NEW ORLEANS

I'm looking back on my brief visit to New Orleans last February and, with the help of my photographs, would like to share with you some of the pleasures and memories.

First, some lovely sights.

Next, the flavour of the French Quarter.

As usual, it was a great privilege to be able to video some fine bands playing in Royal Street.

And I had the chance to meet and photograph some of the great musicians whose work I have long admired from 4500 miles away on YouTube. They included Molly Reeves.

I had the pleasure of making a new friend among the musicians - saxophonist Marty Peters.

And it was a great thrill renewing friendship with Marla Dixon and Haruka Kikuchi.

I told Haruka in 2015 that I was adopting her as my grand-daughter, so she now greets me as 'Grandad'!

If you have never seen the storming performance of Royal Garden Blues that I filmed in 2015 (in which Haruka and Marla both play), may I recommend it as a treat?

CLICK ON IT HERE.

And this February, as usual, I made time for an occasional stroll by the mighty Mississippi.

I decided this would be my 'farewell' visit to New Orleans. In my old age, and currently being treated for a couple of medical conditions, common sense tells me the 4500-mile journey is too strenuous to undertake any more. But looking at these pictures makes me want to be right back there. I wonder whether I shall be able to make it one more time?

Post 567: THE GENEROUS MAKERS OF GREAT VIDEOS

If, like me, you spend many hours watching YouTube videos of traditional jazz bands playing in the USA - and particularly in New Orleans, you must have noticed that dozens of the videos have been put up by two video-making enthusiasts who use the code-names digitalalexa and RaoulDuke504. And more recently James Sterling has also come on to the scene. And there others - such as Wild Bill and jazzbo43, who have captured many good New Orleans performances for us. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude; and I think the bands too must be grateful to these people for spreading their fame to many thousands throughout the world. 

A great experience I had in New Orleans during April 2015 was meeting two of these video-makers. They were enthusiastically filming at the French Quarter Festival.

RaoulDuke504 has the advantage of living near New Orleans. I met him while he was filming the Tuba Skinny performance at the Festival. Here he is:

I had the great privilege of shaking his hand and thanking him for the pleasure he has given me (and so many thousands of people) with his wonderful videos.

Digitalalexa is actually two people - husband Al and his wife Judy from New Jersey. They travelled down frequently to New Orleans and had a grand time filming their favourite bands. Al and Judy film the same performance from different angles and when they return home Al edits the two videos into one, trying to make the most of the best shots they have obtained between them. It was a great honour to meet Al and Judy several times at various events. Al told me his videos by 2015 had over three million 'hits'. It was through their videos that I (and hundreds of other fans) first discovered Tuba Skinny and some of the other great bands. So I am deeply grateful.

Here is Judy at The Louisiana Music Factory, where they were about to film a Tuba Skinny Concert.

And here at the same event is Al.

These wonderful modest people enjoy their relative anonymity. But I hope they won't mind my featuring them on this Blog and saying a Big Thank You to them on behalf of us all for bringing us such pleasure.

Good news is that Al and Judy produced the first video of Tuba Skinny to be viewed more than a million times: THIS ONE - CLICK ON TO WATCH IT.

By the way, Al and Judy also founded The 2015 French Quarter Festival and Tuba Skinny Appreciation Society. Al and Judy designed and then Judy embroidered a batch of these lovely souvenir bannerettes. They distributed them to several fans to wave during the Parade and they also gave some to the members of Tuba Skinny.

What terrific souvenirs. I treasure mine!

James Sterling lives in Florida and can get to New Orleans in five hours by car. In January 2015, he came upon a YouTube video of Tuba Skinny (probably one of digitalalexa's). He told me it changed his life for ever. (Exactly the same experience had happened to me a year or two earlier.) He said: 'I watched Tuba Skinny videos for 6 hours straight, finally stopping at 1am'. Since then, James has made the journey three or four times each year. In 2016, I had the pleasure of meeting James and his wife, too. Here he is in Frenchmen Street. Thank you, too, for all the good work, James!

Post 525: VISITORS TO NEW ORLEANS

In the last few months, I have received about a dozen emails from readers who had recently spent a week or two in New Orleans. For some of them, it was their first visit. Some were there for the French Quarter Festival; but others had opted for the quieter and less crowded weeks after the Festival.

Let me say straight away that they all reported having a great time and returned home exhilarated. Several had set out with the aim of catching favourite bands. They generally succeeded, and assured me that seeing the bands in person (and sometimes managing a chat with them) was even better than watching great YouTube videos.

Yet there were just a few grumbles too. These included complaints about time-keeping and punctuality. These points were made: sometimes a band is advertised to start playing at a certain time; but they spend so long chatting and setting up, that the concert actually begins almost half an hour late. Similarly, a band told a tourist it would be busking in a certain spot until 1pm, but when he turned up to hear them at 12.30pm, he found they were already packing up and leaving.

I fear such things are bound to happen. In New Orleans, as in many countries of my experience, people have a relaxed attitude to matters of time-keeping and punctuality.

However, the point was made that Tuba Skinny always started right on time (for example, at their dba concerts). There was always high praise for that particular band. Most people managed to catch them at least once busking in Royal Street.

Some of the lesser bands were criticised for poor discipline and a somewhat cavalier attitude to their audiences. Here's an extract from one correspondent:

Arriving at 7pm, I asked where the band was. I was told they were delayed by the non-arrival of one of their number. I chatted to a couple at the bar (2 of the only 3 attendees apart from myself). After that the sequence of events was as follows:

7.30 Band (less the missing one) started playing to about 5 spectators.

7.40-7.45 Trombonist arrived, placing his instrument by his seat on the stage, went to the bar, ordered a 'shot', downed it, ordered a pint and went outside to drink it with a cigarette.

7.55 Trombonist joined the band. Turned out he was also the vocalist.

8.15 1st set finished, the couple having left earlier. I left, leaving about 3 people in the audience.

I must admit having had a couple of similar experiences myself in the bars of Frenchmen Street. But I think such performers are their own worst enemies. They will not make a living and will be soon rejected.

But let us end positively: for an example of the sort of music recent visitors have enjoyed:

CLICK HERE.

Post 471: ADVICE FOR VISITORS TO NEW ORLEANS

You're planning a holiday in New Orleans? It will be your first time there? Great. You will love it.

The best way to get around in the French Quarter, where most of the jazz is to be heard, is on foot. The entire French Quarter is small - only about half a square mile in total. However, until you get used to it, be careful how you tread on those pavements (sidewalks), because - as at 2017 - there were still thousands of fractures and fragmentations awaiting repair.

My friend and keen video-maker James Sterling from Florida has visited New Orleans much more often than I have; and he has asked me to pass on his own recommendations. He says you should get out of the French Quarter occasionally, particularly by using the St. Charles Streetcar which will quickly take you to the Garden District, with its stately mansions, hotels and restaurants, as well as the fine Audubon Park and Zoo. Then there is Magazine Street. You can visit it while in the Garden District. It is lined with quirky shops, pubs and eateries and is just a five-block walk from the streetcar line. That is a very good tip - not one that many people would think of.

And James enjoyed the World War II Museum in the Warehouse District, just up-river from the French Quarter. In addition to the displays, it has a theatre with live revues of music from the WWII era.

James says he goes to New Orleans for the food as much as for the music. He says: 'There are too many excellent restaurants in NOLA to list but my favourite is Coquette on the corner of Magazine and Washington in the Garden District.' He also mentions Brennans for a great brunch, and Coop's Place, Johnny's Po-Boys, The Gumbo Shop, and The Central Grocery for excellent reasonably-priced food. Café Envie in Decatur Street is good for pastries, coffee and breakfasts.

For a place to stay, James likes the many bed-and-breakfast inns. He says: 'You will get a private room usually in an old mansion with personal service from the inn-keeper and will meet new friends around the breakfast table. For rooms at reasonable prices (for NOLA) I recommend The Richelieu, Hotel Provincial, LaMothe House, and The Frenchmen Hotel (get a room in the back away from the street noise).'

There are indeed plenty of hotels and other forms of accommodation. Imagine you stay at a hotel in Burgundy Street, somewhere near the junction with St. Ann Street. It will be a mere 5-minute walk to Preservation Hall, or 12 minutes to the Palm Court Jazz Café.

It will take you only a quarter hour to walk to Frenchmen Street, which is just beyond the French Quarter at its north-eastern edge; and there in the evenings (and some afternoons) you will find such great bars and clubs as the dba, The Maison and The Spotted Cat, where some wonderful bands regularly play.

From 11 a.m. daily, you will be able to hear great busking groups if you head to Royal Street (five minutes on foot from your hotel).

Buskers in Royal Street

You will of course enjoy sampling all the other amazing things the French Quarter has to offer, including, as Jim says, plenty of fine eating places. You must have a stroll by the Mississippi – maybe heading down to the Riverwalk Shopping Mall, which I like very much. On the way to it, you could visit the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas. On another day, head left alongside the river to a different kind of shopping experience – the famous and massive French Market.

The French Market

Of course you will dawdle among the artists in Jackson Square (where there is usually also some lively jazz busking).

And you may visit special events at The Mint, or take rides on the streetcars to the Garden District .

Or go to the huge City Park, or have a river trip on the Natchez. Or you might care to cross the River on the ferry to Algiers.

The Mississippi and New Orleans

Maybe you will go on one of those 'Bayou' tours or a 'Cemetery' tour (easily bookable - you will see them widely advertised. James particularly recommends the Lafayette Cemetery just one block south of St. Charles Avenue). This is well worth doing on your first visit.

My advice would be to give the garish and vulgar Bourbon Street only a few minutes of your time. I suppose it's worth seeing, if only to convince yourself that such a street really exists. And you will hardly be able to avoid it, as it's right there in the centre of the French Quarter. But if you are a serious traditional jazz fan, there are far better places to be.

But please don't take me as authoritative. I live 4500 miles from New Orleans and have been to the City only seven times during the last 30 years, so (even with help from James) I don't claim to be an expert. I am simply giving you a few personal impressions that may be of some use.

On my first visit, when I was about 50 years old, I spent most evenings at Preservation Hall. I heard such players as Harold Dejan, Milton Batiste, Narvin Kimball, Percy Humphrey, Willie Humphrey, Danny Barker, Frank Demond, Kid Sheik Colar and the very young Greg Stafford. But in recent years I have spent my evenings in the bars and clubs of Frenchmen Street to catch the exciting new generation of great bands that have evolved in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina.

A couple of further points:

1. Transport between the aerodrome and the City Centre (about 15 miles) is easy. There are plenty of taxis. And some hotels run shuttle services. Recently a taxi cost 40 dollars (including tip) for a single trip. But there is also a regular bus service (the Jefferson E.2 Transit) which is efficient and remarkably cheap (about a couple of dollars), which I have also used. Obviously get up-to-date timetables from the internet.

2. When is the best time to go? All the year round there is good jazz. However, bear this point in mind: in June, July and August it can be extremely hot – maybe too hot for comfort. Even some of the musicians make this the time of year when they head north and tour in cooler States, or fly to other continents to play at festivals. The French Quarter Festival (in April) is recommended as there is an organised programme with dozens of bands giving free concerts on temporary stages in many of the streets. However, bear in mind that the crowds can be huge and you may have the disappointment of not being able hear your favourite bands in the best possible conditions.

Jackson Square during the French Quarter Festival

Also, unsurprisingly, hotel prices tend to be quite a bit higher during festivals. So you may prefer to go at a 'quieter' time when you will be able to spend your evenings in the clubs, hearing your favourite bands in conditions that are acoustically better and less crowded.

Post 446: THE PALINGENESIS OF TRADITIONAL JAZZ

Is our music dying out? Thank goodness, despite certain causes for alarm in my country, the answer is 'NO!'

There are plenty of wonderful young musicians around the globe who have discovered the musical styles and repertoire of a century ago and are playing traditional jazz with great skill and passion. For an immediate example, have a look at a video of Over The Waves played by young musicians in Tokyo to see what I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBuXLwcnvvg

But let me tell you about what has happened here in England.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, traditional jazz was extremely popular in Britain. There were hundreds of bands, from full-time professionals performing at the Royal Festival Hall to enthusiastic amateurs who entertained in the back rooms of pubs. Their music was inspired by the New Orleans and Chicago jazz of the period 1910 - 1930 and also by the revival of traditional jazz after the Second World War by bands such as that of George Lewis.

Occasionally a record made by a British jazz band would even make it into the week's 'Top Ten'.

But from the era of the Beatles and disco music onwards, traditional jazz fell into decline. It is now given very little air time on British radio and virtually none on television.

Ten years ago, I noticed audiences at traditional jazz club concerts in England were becoming sparse and the average age of members of the bands was about 65.

Now, it's even worse: there are places where you can find trad jazz being played in Britain (usually still in the back rooms of pubs) but the musicians are dying out. A typical pub band today comprises musicians aged 75 or over.

The kind of retired people I have known in such bands over these years include men who formerly worked as a plasterer, a dentist, an accountant, an electrician, two doctors - one of them a heavy-smoker(!), two maths teachers, a laboratory technician, a car dealer, a builder, a music shop salesman, a school caretaker and a telephone engineer. On one night a week, they would come together and make pretty good music. Their reward? Nothing, other than a 'first drink free' from the bar.

Traditional jazz in Britain has become the pursuit of a tiny minority. But at least it is still alive - just about. Pretty well every month I hear of yet another jazz club (some of them that have been running for decades) closing down because of poor attendances and lack of revenue.

But I constantly hear of new young bands setting up, especially elsewhere in the world. One of the latest is The Stone Arch Jazz Band in Minneapolis, founded by the talented and tasteful clarinet-player Richard Lund. Have a look at their website: Click here to view. And note that the band has already made some stylish videos, such as this one: Click here to view.

The band called The Fat Babies, based in Chicago, are highly respected and I am told they play regularly at The Green Mill Bar in that City. You can find plenty of their videos on YouTube.

And The Dirty River Dixie Band, founded in Texas and playing a very energetic kind of dixieland music, was able to announce towards the end of 2016 that the average age of its members was under 25.

The situation in such countries as Australia, Germany, Canada, Spain, Italy and Denmark, as far as I can tell, gives some encouragement.

The Dizzy Birds Jazz Band in Berlin is terrific.

And have a listen to The Old Fashion Band of Santiago, Chile, by clicking here.

And correspondent Michael Meissner has introduced me to Queen Porter Stomp in Sydney, Australia. Here they are, and you can easily find examples of this fine young band's work on YouTube:

Regular correspondent Robert Duis recommends looking at videos of Malo's Hot Five and Attila's Rollini Project; and my friend Anders Winnberg in Sweden has assured me there are plenty of good bands operating in his country, where the Gothenburg Jazz Festival is a major event. And Ray Andrew in Perth, Australia, has told me the traditional jazz scene is very strong in his city and that the young are being attracted to it. Even Finland - a country remote from New Orleans and with a population of well under six million - has the very pleasant Birger's Ragtime Band. Also in Finland there is a band called Doctor Jazz: it seems to me to be bright and recently formed; and several of the players are relatively young.

Regular reader Phil in the USA has recommended the Moscow-based young bands The Kickipickles and The Moscow Ragtime Band. You may find their work on YouTube.

And in Japan, especially, as I indicated above, traditional jazz seems to be going through a boom period. Some of the best in the world is being played in Tokyo. Seek out the performances on YouTube uploaded by the video-maker codenamed ragtimecave.

One of the newest Japanese bands seems to be The High Time Rollers:
CLICK HERE.
So, we do not have to accept that traditional jazz is on the way out!

Above all, I can tell you there is great old-time jazz being played by YOUNG people on the streets of New Orleans. They are the hope for the future; and I believe the Internet is spreading their influence so rapidly that there will be yet another big revival of this kind of music.

In the days before Hurricane Katrina, you would have thought of Bourbon Street as the main hub for jazz in New Orleans. But now it is Frenchmen Street, in the Faubourg Marigny - a road full of jazz bars and clubs. There are over twenty traditional jazz bands playing professionally in New Orleans - more than at any previous time in jazz history.

To see what I mean, even if you can't get to New Orleans, try spending some time on YouTube. You will be amazed at the quality of the traditional jazz being produced by instrumentalists mostly in their twenties and thirties; and there are plenty of singers of outstanding ability too.

I have written before about Tuba Skinny - currently considered the best of all the groups. They are not only technically brilliant; they also take great care over arrangements and presentation of tunes, and they have been reviving great old melodies that were in danger of being forgotten. Have a good look and listen to their work. But you may also care to try any of these groups on YouTube. Just type their names in and indulge yourself with some fine music:

Tuba Skinny

Rhythm Wizards Jazz Band (CLICK HERE to sample their tasteful playing)
Loose Marbles
Little Big Horns
The Cottonmouth Kings
The Dapper Dandies
Smoking Time Jazz Band
Jessy Carolina and the Hot Mess
Jenavieve Cook and the Royal Street Winding Boys
Yes Ma'am String Band
The Shotgun JazzBand (led by the dynamic Canadian trumpeter and singer Marla Dixon: CLICK HERE for an exciting example of their work)
Stalebread Scottie and His Gang
The Gentilly Stompers
Emily Estrella and the Faux Barrio Billionaires (Emily is originally from Cincinatti)
Hokum High Rollers
The Messy Cookers
The Sluetown Strutters
The Palmetto Bug Stompers
John Zarsky and the Trad Stars
The Jazz Vipers
The New Orleans Swamp Donkeys
Orleans 6 (led by the excellent Ben Polcer)
Sour Mash Hug Band
Baby Soda

There is a band called Ragstretch, formed by young people in 2012. It is confusing to work out where this band is based, because its members are Australians and Scandinavians and some of them seem to be living in New York. The musicians also play in other bands and some of them are already well-known on the traditional jazz scene. But when the band Ragstretch comes together, they give brilliant, sparkling, tasteful performances. There are plenty of videos of them for you to explore on YouTube. You could try this version of Panama (played in Copenhagen) for starters: 
CLICK HERE.

In St. Louis, Missouri, The Sidney Street Shakers play exactly the kind of jazz I like best - unpretentious, straightforward, exciting, with good teamwork and just right for dancers. And note elsewhere The California Feet Warmers - a fairly young band playing slick, well-prepared traditional jazz.

All terrific stuff. So heart-warming; and giving great hope for the future.

And even in Britain there is hope. Have a look at the videos of The Brownfield/Byrne Hot Six to discover some technically-brilliant swinging jazz being played by chaps who seem to be still in their twenties.

Also from Britain, seek out the videos of Adrian Cox, or Ben Cummings, or The Graham Hughes Sunshine Kings, or Giacomo Smith, or The Basin Street Brawlers. You will have a pleasant surprise.

And in May 2017 a band called The Ten Bells Rag Band was formed in London. The musicians are relatively young and are inspired by such bands as Tuba Skinny in New Orleans. They play some very pleasant traditional jazz.

Elsewhere, you may find such good young bands as Magic Shook Heads and The Hippocampus Jass Gang in the south of France: their videos are worth watching. And in Buenos Aires, you have the Jazz Friends - a terrific, fluent band, whose range of instruments sometimes includes the 'pinkullo' - a South American flute.

In the North-Eastern corner of Italy we find the young Adovabadan Jazz Band of Treviso playing some very tasteful traditional jazz. For example, click here to see them performing Cake Walking Babies From Home.

In Horten (population 27,000), Norway, a group of beginners aged 35 to 55 got together in 2016, modestly called themselves The Sloppy Jazz Newbies, and by the following year were making good progress and starting to attract gigs. You can hear them tackling Big Chief Battleaxe BY CLICKING HERE.

In the Rhine-Neckar area of Germany, a newly-formed band of energetic and enthusiastic young musicians has shown what can be achieved even with a limited range of instruments. They call themselves Die Selbsthilfe-Gruppe (The Self-Help Group) and you can find examples of their work on YouTube.

I am sure there must be many other such bands around the world. I would be pleased to receive more information.

And on top of all that, the astonishing response to this blog proves there is still great interest in the music. I started the blog in 2013 - just as a little hobby in my old age - and I am amazed to find that it is now being looked at more than 15,000 times a month by people from all over the world.