Post 426: THE BALKAN BRASS BAND INFLUENCE IN TRADITIONAL JAZZ

My American friend and frequent correspondent Phil is very keen on a band called The California Feetwarmers.

He has kept me informed about their Summer 2016 tour in the U.K., Germany and Switzerland. You can hear this band of very proficient musicians by clicking here, where they play slick arrangements of Aunt Hagar's Blues, San and Bill Bailey.

Phil tells me some of the players previously played as a 'Balkan brass band' and there is still a great influence of the disciplines of Balkan brass band music in their playing.

This set me thinking, because Balkan Brass Band Music is something about which I knew virtually nothing. So I spent a couple of hours reading about it. I discovered it seems to have arisen from the folk music mainly of Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Much of the music supports vigorous dancing. It has repetitive insistent melodies and very strong rhythms.

Picture a village square. We see a group of colourfully-dressed dancers in a circle, hands linked, dancing in a manner that involves fast-paced complicated foot movements while the upper bodies remain statuesque. They are accompanied by a sousaphone heavily stamping the first and third beats of the bars, an accordion playing rapid sequences of notes, a violin, trumpets and other horns, as well as sundry busy percussion instruments. The band plays with technical precision. The harmonies sound simple – largely involving the three main chords (but perhaps this is deceptive, since it seems likely also that they using some uncommon scales); and the melodies, mostly rapid, contain some acrobatic twists and turns. In some tunes, there are compound time signatures, notably 9/8 and 7/8.

A 'Balkan Brass Band' in New Orleans!

I learned that there are various song forms of which the two commonest are the Kolo and the Čoček. The Kolo is often a group dance as described above and sometimes in 9/8 rhythmic form. The Čoček may also be in 9/8 time.

To get an immediate feel for what Balkan brass band music at its brassiest sounds like, click here.

The Balkan influence has spread among some of the very best traditional jazz musicians of today. Think of Jenavieve Cooke. In her years of nomadic living, she picked up Balkan music at its source. In April 2016 she told me 'I'm a traditional Balkan music and dance freak!'

Years before she formed the famous Royal Street Winding Boys, Jenavieve founded in New Orleans a Balkan brass band called Backyard Belladonna.

And there's Ben Schenk (mainly playing clarinet), now in his 50s, who spent years evolving the kind of band that seemed just right for him. He ended up with The Panorama Jazz Band, which is quite capable of playing traditional jazz in familiar style, but also has in its programmes doses of influence from Balkan brass band music and Klezmer music, not to mention a considerable Caribbean element! Panorama has been a truly great band since Aurora Nealand (who, by the way, has toured in the Balkans) joined it. She - one of the world's greatest reed players - has a heart full of the joys of music of all cultures. She perfectly complements Ben's work. There are plenty of videos of the band on YouTube but I will mention this one, where you catch them in Big Band Mardi Gras format: CLICK HERE.

And think of Matt Schreiber. This fine accordion player and Balkan music specialist not only plays with Ben in the Panorama Jazz Band but also works in the specialist Mahala Trio (Balkan music in New Orleans). Try watching a video of him and his two colleagues by clicking here. It's not a brass band but it certainly gives novices such as myself a good insight into the nature of Balkan music.

And now we have The Wit's End Brass Band. They have produced a remarkable CD that you can find on Bandcamp.

The Wit's End Brass Band 2016.
It includes some familiar faces!

You must watch THIS VIDEO OF THEM. CLICK HERE TO VIEW.

I discovered there are very many 'Balkan Bands' all over the world, even in such unlikely places as England, Australia and the Netherlands. In the USA there are dozens of them, and Balkan Band Summer Camps are held on both the East and West Coasts. For a terrific Balkan SuperBand playing in our beloved Royal Street, New Orleans: CLICK HERE.

Balkan Brass Bands:
Above and Below

In spirit, instrumentation and rhythmic excitement, it seems to me this Balkan music has a lot in common with Klezmer music, which has also had a permeating influence on New Orleans jazz in the 21st Century. Add to these influences that of Caribbean calypso music – much associated in recent years with The Panorama Jazz Band and with Madeleine Reidy and later with The Rhythm Wizards in New Orleans and Wow! We observe some very interesting developments in the music we love.

Post 386: ROBIN RAPUZZI

During my April 2016 visit to New Orleans, I had the great pleasure of meeting Robin Rapuzzi again. Robin is best known as the washboard player of Tuba Skinny. I had met him for the first time during the French Quarter Festival of 2015, when we had some conversations that I enjoyed and from which I learned a lot.

Before he became a celebrated washboard player, Robin was a full-kit percussionist. He played the drum set at a young age and this led to participating in punk rock bands at high school. At that time, he also learned the guitar and harmonica. He enjoyed playing sea shanties, Woodie Guthrie tunes, and compositions of his own. He considered himself a 'folk musician' up to the time when he moved to New Orleans, where he took up the washboard specialism, joined Tuba Skinny and  ...... the rest is history.

On some occasions, he told me, he has felt a bit limited in using the washboard only. For example, for such a tune as New Orleans Bump, he said that with the snare and Chinese tom-drum and china-crash cymbal he could access the depth and true texture that such a 'stompy' number deserved.

Since early 2015, he has returned to playing a full percussion set even in the streets. How has he managed to transport so much kit? The answer is that he hauls it around in a trailer attached to his bicycle. (He calls pedalling this load into the French Quarter his 'daily work-out'!)

Most of the New Orleans musicians use bicycles: it's almost impossible to park a car in the French Quarter.

Here then is Robin's transport. He kindly allowed me to photograph him and the kit when he arrived to set up in Royal Street. Neat, isn't it? (Note added: I received the shocking news that someone stole Robin's trailer on 16 December 2018. )

I also had the very great pleasure this year of meeting Robin's lovely wife, Magda. She is Polish and is a highly-talented artist: she has produced some amazing work, often of dwellings in New Orleans but also sometimes combining mythical animal and human images with tremendous attention to detail. Her silk-screen prints are sold at The Foundation Gallery in Royal Street and the Hall-Barnett Gallery on Chartres, as well as in other galleries.

I realised a few days after meeting her that I had long admired Magda's work (through the internet) before discovering that she was married to Robin.

And here is the amazingly intricate and creative piece of art-work that Magda produced for the cover of the first CD by The Wit's End Brass Band in which Robin plays:

Although most fans think of Robin as a member of Tuba Skinny, he actually performs in several bands. He clearly enjoys the variety of work and is proud of them all. I think he was particularly pleased that I turned up to hear him with The Rhythm Wizards; and I made a video of them playing Ice Cream, in which you can see Robin at work in close-up. View it by clicking on here. I also filmed them playing Cotton-Picker's Drag. You can watch that performance by clicking here. I'm afraid the sound isn't exactly perfect (my fault for walking round while they were playing) but I hope this video gives a genuine feel for what it is like to be a member of a street band in New Orleans.

On another day, I found Robin playing with The Hokum High Rollers. I made a video of them playing Michigander Blues. You may see that by clicking on here.

There are hundreds of videos on YouTube of Robin playing with Tuba Skinny. But if you would like to watch one I made of them playing Hilarity Rag during this April 2016 visit, click on here. This is of historic interest because Robin told me it was a tune the Band had only just learned and this was its first public performance.

Robin was in England during June 2016. (His mother is English.) He teamed up with his friend Ewan Bleach - the great English reed player (not to mention pianist and singer) who worked in New Orleans with Tuba Skinny for several months.

One of the interesting things Robin also told me is that it's not just the fans who enjoy the YouTube videos. He said many musicians - including himself - use them as learning tools. They analyse their own performances and consider what improvements could be made. He found it particularly interesting to spot how his own backing of, say, trombone solo choruses varied according to which trombonist he was playing with.

I think there's a message for us all: we should not just enjoy videos but also use them as tools for analysing and improving playing.

Post 385: THE RHYTHM WIZARDS

Robin Rapuzzi is very proud of the work done in New Orleans by The Rhythm Wizards, one of the jazz bands in which he played.

Alas, the band was short-lived. It disbanded by 2017.

I can tell you this was a really good and interesting band, unusual because of its instrumentation and broad-minded repertoire. It is admirable that so many of the young musicians in New Orleans are introducing us to long-forgotten and unfamiliar tunes, including some with a Caribbean origin. This is so refreshing after all the Bourbon Street Parades and When The Saints and Bill Baileys that we constantly hear elsewhere.

The Rhythm Wizards were formed late in 2014, with Tomas Majcherski as leader. Some of the musicians had earlier played together in an experimental band called The 4.99 Five-Piece (a name based on fried chicken on sale in the market!); and some had played in Steamboat Calypso - the group led by Madeleine Reidy. Robin says they were very inspired by that group. In fact, Maddy was the singer on the first album The Rhythm Wizards produced.

Robin had great respect for the leadership provided by Tomas: he told me Tomas had 'done a ton of research for the group, especially when it comes to picking out the significant poly-rhythms that make Caribbean and jazz music so much fun to play'.

Robin kindly let me know The Rhythm Wizards intended to perform in Royal Street on 7 April 2016, while I was in town. So I made a point of being there.

Who were the members of the band? It's hard to give a definitive answer because the young New Orleans bands all seem to have a pool of players to draw upon. But the 'core' players seemed to be:

Tomas Majcherski : Clarinet and Reeds
Robin Rapuzzi : Drums and Washboard
Jon Ramm : Trombone
Max Bien-Kahn : Guitar
Todd Burdick : banjo and tuba
Peter Olynciw : upright bass
Coleman Akin : Violin
Zayd Sifri : auxiliary percussion
Others who played and recorded with them include:
Max Feldschuh : Vibraphone and Piano
Madeleine Reidy : vocals

You will notice that The Rhythm Wizards usually played without a trumpet and they had up to four musicians on stringed instruments. It was the clarinet that tended to lead on the melody. All these features helped to make this a refreshingly distinctive traditional jazz band.

On its website, the Band claimed to play 'Traditional Jazz and Pan-American Music from the Mississippi Delta to the Caribbean and beyond'. Such a repertoire also made it rather special.

Yes, The Rhythm Wizards could be found playing a popular standard such as Ice Cream, or St. Louis Blues, or an elegant Maple Leaf Rag, but in the same programme you were also likely to hear that rarely-played number St. Louis Tickle and the rhythmic Caribbean-style Petrol or the sweetly melodic waltz-tempo Tres Bemoles (meaning 'Three Flats' - and it is indeed in the key of Eb). Or you might catch them playing Black Rag, which sounded to me like Down Home Rag. (I found later that Down Home Rag was composed in 1911, but that Papa Celestin's Tuxedo Orchestra was the first to record it - in 1925 - under the title Black Rag. I wonder why. To avoid paying dues?)

As you may infer, the variety of rhythms to be heard in a performance justified their name as the 'Rhythm Wizards'.

One of their most popular numbers was The History of Man. Codallo's Top Hatters Orchestra of Trinidad recorded that tune in the 1930s, and The Rhythm Wizards were one of the few bands to be playing it in the 21st Century.

I made two videos of their performance in Royal Street on 7 April 2016. While filming, I slowly walked round the band, to get a good view of all of them in close-up. The result is that the sound quality is sometimes unbalanced but I hope the videos give a good idea of the kind of music the band plays and, incidentally, what busking is like for a musician on the streets of New Orleans.

In one of my videos, they are playing The Cotton-Picker's Drag.  This tune was created by a string band of the 1930s - The Grinnell Giggers. View The Rhythm Wizards playing it BY CLICKING HERE.

The other video shows them playing the old favourite Ice Cream: View it BY CLICKING HERE.

Post 331: 'ST. LOUIS TICKLE' AND 'BUDDY BOLDEN'S BLUES'

The famous Buddy Bolden's Blues is played occasionally by most traditional jazz bands. It's the one beginning with the words 'I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say You're nasty, you're dirty, take it away....'.

I'm not the first person to notice that the tune of Buddy Bolden's Blues is in fact the second theme in the composition St. Louis Tickle.

St. Louis Tickle was composed in about 1904 (when Buddy Bolden was a star on the New Orleans music scene).

The composers were named on the original sheet music as 'Barney and Seymore' (elsewhere 'Seymour'). But it is probable that these names were a pseudonym for Theron Catlan Bennett (1879 - 1937) - who became a well-known composer, music publisher (in Chicago) and music-shop owner (in Denver).

Having examined the sheet music, which is a well-structured through-composed early rag, I assumed that Bolden's Band 'lifted' the second theme from this composition, put words to it and made it their own.

However, internet sources claim the tune was composed by Bolden himself. Or that it was composed by the trombone player in his band - Willie Cornish - or at least that Cornish put the words to it. If Bolden's Band composed it, the composer of St. Louis Tickle must have lifted it from them.

But he did not live in New Orleans, so would he even have heard it in those days before mass media? And why would a composer of his obvious talent need to steal an idea for a theme? And how do we account for his distinctively 'raggy' rhythms and notes in Bars 7 and 8 and Bars 14, 15, and 16? They are more subtle and complex than the simplified version used in the song.

My theory would have been that Bolden's band lifted and adapted the tune from St. Louis Tickle. But we are confidently assured by the experts that Bennett stole the tune from Bolden and sneaked the melody into his composition.

Whatever the truth, Buddy Bolden's Blues exists and you can hear many performances of it on YouTube, notably a very relaxed, soulful one by the late Pat Halcox:

CLICK HERE.

And you can hear a lovely, tasteful version of St. Louis Tickle played (in 2015) by some of our favourite New Orleans-based musicians BY CLICKING HERE. This is a most delightful performance. May I urge you to watch it? Listen out for the 'Buddy Bolden' theme at 55 seconds.

Elsewhere, you can hear St. Louis Tickle performed by various artists, for example the California Feetwarmers. Note the Bolden theme, starting at 30 seconds into the film.

CLICK HERE.

Finally, here's the original 1904 sheet music. I have marked in RED where the Bolden theme begins. It runs just for the repeated 16 bars. Then the composition moves into its next theme.

Post 49: FROM CALYPSOS TO TRADITIONAL JAZZ

Hey, what's this?

Hold Your Hand Madam Khan, Buy Me a Zeppelin, History of Man, Seven Skeletons Found in the Yard, Roses of Caracas, Juliana - how is it that such tunes have entered the repertoire of the young street bands in New Orleans?

The all-ladies band, formed in 2016 and now called The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band, has the calypso Shame and Scandal in the Family in its repertoire and recorded on its first Album.

It seems that someone on the traditional jazz scene in New Orleans has been deeply affected since early 2014 by Trinidadian calypsos from the 1930s.

Traditional jazz bands have long enjoyed playing an occasional tune with a Latin rhythm - for variety. In the standard repertoire, there are Creole Song and Eh La Bas, Rum and Coca Cola and Mama Inez, for example; and the minor key section of St. Louis Blues and a few tunes such as Isle of Capri lend themselves to a Latin beat.

But we have recently seen on YouTube that the bands have revived long-forgotten 1930s calypso numbers. There was the Superband (with Madeleine Reidy on vocal) playing Hold Your Hand Madam Khan: Click here to view. Great fun.

Madeleine has kindly let me know about a wonderful website/blog from which anyone can obtain inspiration and material. She told me: Here's a music blog I found recently with tons of awesome old calypso (and many other Caribbean genres) recordings uploaded for free:

http://auraljoy.blogspot.com . 

The site is indeed tremendous and I pass on Maddy's recommendation to you.

My theory is that Madeleine is the principal force behind this percolation of Caribbean music into the repertoires of today's young bands in New Orleans.

In fact, one of the groups in which she plays is called Maddie and Her Calypso Friends. They recorded Seven Skeletons Found in the Yard - a calypso originally recorded in 1938 by Lord Executor (Philip Garcia). Watch this video (click here). Madeleine clearly makes a speciality of calypsos and has also been seen, for example, singing Buy Me a Zeppelin - another great number. You can hear Maddie performing this calypso by clicking here. She has memorised the words of plenty of verses for these songs - no mean feat.

And since 2014 Maddie has led an exciting 12-piece band called Steamboat Calypso. Like the great calypso performers of the 1930s (Lord Invader and Roaring Lion, for example), Maddie has given her musicians wonderful stage names - such as Lord Patches, The Duke of Hammers, Porkchop and (Shaye Cohn, no less) The Duchess of Sound. Madeleine has plans for them to make a CD soon. You can find a few videos of the band on YouTube.

The Lionel Belasco tunes Juliana and Roses of Caracas have been heard on the streets of New Orleans, played by Tuba Skinny. And The Rhythm Wizards included History of Man as one of the twelve tracks on their March 2015 CD. More recently we had Tuba Skinny (at the time sharing three players with The Rhythm Wizards) also playing History of Man in the street:

Click here to view.

The history of the calypso over the last 250 years is very complex. Many influences went into its creation, and in its turn it has  spawned music in various sub-genres. If you want to study the history of calypsos in depth, there is plenty to get you started in Wikipedia. But if you are happy with a few over-simple essentials I can offer you some observations.

The origins of Afro-Caribbean calypsos can be found in the music sung by the slaves of French planters in the Eighteenth Century, especially in Trinidad.

The early music had characteristic rhythms and harmonies.

The language of the lyrics moved over the years from a form of French creole to a greater intermingling of English.

The words were frequently subversive - expressing political satire.

In 1912, on a visit to New York, Lovey's String Band (twelve musicians, including piano, bass, flute, violins, etc. - quite an 'orchestra') made the first recording of a calypso - five years before the first jazz recording! You can hear their performance by clicking here.  The Lovey String Band and the pianist-composer Lionel Belasco were important names in the recording of the music over the next few years. To my ear, those early recordings seem to use one or two simple repetitive smooth melodic themes, played (for example on violin or clarinet) against a busy rhythmic - almost ragtime - background.

Lovey's String Band

Try sampling another very early calypso recording - this one a piano-and-violin duet (Lionel Belasco and Cyril Monrose) - by clicking here.

Calypsos flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, when the genre became firmly established. Their subject-matter was wide-ranging, but continued to contain much critical comment on politics and society, sometimes under the guise of double entendre. Entrepreneurial talent scouts fitted some of the best performers up with impressive stage names and sent them from the West Indies to record and find fame in New York. Principal among them were Roaring Lion (Rafael de Leon), Attila the Hun (Raymond Quevedo), Lord Invader (Rupert Westmore Grant - who composed Rum and Coca-Cola), Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts), Lord Caresser (Rufus Callender) and Wilmoth 'King' Houdini (Frederick Wilmoth Hendricks).

Lord Caresser (Rufus Callender)

Words were often witty and delivered in rapid-fire style (sometimes extemporised), and there were internal rhymes. You can hear Raymond Quevedo and his band performing Coffee Coffee by clicking here. It is hard to imagine anybody not enjoying this!

Note how, in structure, this calypso has much in common with the New Orleans 'Creole' standards Eh La Bas and L'Autre Can Can (a.k.a. Creole Song). But this is unsurprising: they are derived from similar African roots.

Born as late as 1934, Lord Tanamo (Joseph Gordon) sustained the tradition. Listen to his amusing Taller Than You Are (written and played by himself): CLICK HERE. I have not yet heard a New Orleans band play this song, but I am sure one of them will soon get round to it!

From the 1950s, 'toned-down', commercialised calypsos were very much in vogue. For example, there was The Banana Boat Song, made famous by Harry Belafonte. There were several films exploiting the craze - notably Island in the Sun. The use of steel drums became commonplace. (Ironically, the steel drums have generally been manufactured in European countries, such as Sweden and Switzerland.)

There have been hundreds of calypsos recorded and dozens of distinguished performers - far more than my brief survey implies.

But, as the repertoire of the Trinidadian band Codallo's Top Hatters Orchestra has been revived in New Orleans, it is worth mentioning that band in particular. In the 1930s they recorded History of Man and Hold Your Hand Madam Khan. And it was Lord Caresser (Rufus Callender) who wrote Exploiter (a.k.a. Buy Me a Zeppelin).

Post 4: THE GRINNELL GIGGERS

The Grinnell Giggers were a small string band - usually just three players - who performed near the Missouri-Arkansas border in the 1920s and 1930s. They were based about 700 miles south-east of the centre of the USA. Or, to put it another way, 500 miles due north of New Orleans.

These men were farmers and fishermen, whose hobby was providing music for country dances. Their leader was Ben Tinnon, born in 1890. He played the violin and also composed most of their tunes. His pieces were bright and simple, with two or three good melodic themes based on familiar easy chord sequences - just right for dancing and straightforward playing. Try, for example, Ruth's Rag, which he wrote in honour of his wife, Ruth. Click here to listen to it.

Let's get this clear right now: the fact that they called themselves 'Giggers' had nothing to do with playing gigs, in the music sense. Grinnells were fish and 'gigging' was a way of catching them (using a pronged fork). These men really were grinnell giggers.

The only times the band recorded were in May and November 1930. Together with Tinnon on fiddle were Melvin Paul (1905-1970) on banjo or mandolin, and Grover Grant (1897-1971) on guitar.  In fact they recorded only eight tunes. But these sessions, which took place in Memphis, have proved to be important and influential.

The tunes recorded were:

Cotton Pickers Drag (composed by Tinnon himself and probably the best of them all - with a distinctive and memorable second theme, descending from high notes)

Duck Shoes Rag

Gigger's Waltz 1

Gigger's Waltz 2 (clearly the same piece of music as above but there are quite a few differences of detail in the playing)

Plow Boy Hop (a fine piece by Tinnon)

Ruth's Rag

Sunset Waltz (Composed by Tinnon. Yes, a waltz; but it's a different from tune from the 'Sunset Waltz' created and recorded by The Mississippi Mud Steppers the previous year)

Uncle Ned's Waltz (a gentle waltz by Tinnon. It has a 'Victorian' feel to it, and there is some pleasant tremolo playing by the banjo)

A generous uploader codenamed Banjerholler has put all these on YouTube for our enjoyment.

As there are a number of fiddle-players among the present young generation of traditional jazz musicians in New Orleans, it is not surprising that that they have been attracted by this music. For example, there is the charming video in which Shaye Cohn is seen playing Plow Boy Hop on the fiddle (apparently for her own amusement), and other members of Tuba Skinny gradually join in. Click here to watch it. And you may care to watch a video I made in April 2016 of The Rhythm Wizards playing Tinnon's Cotton Pickers Drag. Click here to view it. For Shaye playing this tune with Tuba Skinny, click here.

And for Tuba Skinny giving a sweet performance of the 'other' Sunset Waltz - the one created the previous year by the similar string band, The Mississippi Mud Steppers - click here.

Of the three Grinnell Giggers, Ben Tinnon was the first born and the last to die. He passed away in 1974.
=================
Footnote: On 17 April, 2019, I received this interesting email:
I recently discovered this article about the Grinnell Giggers and also a  
few other sites that had their music. I am thrilled to see these articles  
and hear the music.  The reason for my message is that I personally knew  
Ben Tinnon.  He was my guitar and music teacher in around 1965.  Him and my  
Dad were also very good friends.   He always told me that he had recorded  
for Victor Records and he would play these songs on fiddle while I  
accompanied him on guitar, which was part of my guitar training keeping  
rhythm. I am from East Prairie, Mo.   He was known as Uncle Ben to many folks  
here and was a very nice man loved by all that knew him.
By the way, the picture of the fish that has been gigged is not a
grinnell.   I have gigged grinnell and also caught them on a hook.
Another little piece of information is that the Grinnell Giggers were
supposed to have recorded another group of songs.  For this recording,
they brought the tape recorder to Ben Tinnon's house.   His wife had
gotten upset over his recording and also she had turned against him
playing music because of his new popularity.  So when they were
getting ready to record, she had buttered his bow, which kept him from
playing.  Living out where there was not immediate access to another
bow, the session never took place and was never rescheduled.   Mr.
Tinnon never got over being upset over this.

Regards,
Tommy Loomas