Post: 340 TUBA SKINNY IN AUSTRALIA - A GREAT VIDEO

One of the best half-hour traditional jazz videos that you will find anywhere on YouTube is a concert given by Tuba Skinny during their Australian tour in 2013.

As the video was professionally made and edited by Australian Television, the visual and sound qualities are exceptionally good.

The tunes played are 'Got A Man In The 'Bama Mines', 'Billygoat Stomp', 'Deep Henderson', 'Biscuit Roller', 'Dirty TB Blues', and 'Dallas Rag'.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH IT.

At the time, the band was an eight-piece and included on strings those great musicians Ryan Baer (six-string banjo) and Westen Borghesi (tenor banjo). The reed player was Jonathan Doyle, who always contributed something very cultured to the Tuba Skinny sound.

My own favourite performances are 'Biscuit Roller', with its terrific vocal from Erika, and 'Deep Henderson' - a tour de force. I am always thrilled to hear how Barnabus and Shaye cope with those thrilling and difficult arpeggios in the third theme of 'Deep Henderson'. Listen out for them at 11 mins 50 seconds to 12 mins 02 seconds and again from 12 minutes 37 seconds to 12 minutes 49 seconds.

Also, the passion of Erika's singing and the supporting instrumental work in 'Dirty TB Blues' are outstanding.

This video was on YouTube for a couple of years and then sadly was taken down. But what a thrill it was when - a couple of years later - it mysteriously re-appeared!

Post 192: 'SALAMANCA BLUES'

A reader asked me who composed Salamanca Blues, which can be heard on Tuba Skinny's 2012 CD 'Rag Band'.

Shaye  (Photo courtesy of an Australian correspondent)

Well, it was composed by none other than Shaye Cohn. As performed on the CD, it is a short, unpretentious, medium-tempo, charming and melodic piece, without a vocal. The whole thing is over in less than three minutes and it comprises just 76 bars (measures), which are made up of six segments:

1. 12-bar simple blues in F, firmly stated as a trombone solo by Barnabus Jones.

2. 16-bar soaring theme in F, just as firmly stated on Shaye's cornet - starting on the high F. There is some lovely tremolo support from the banjo and the harmonies are beautiful.

3. A key change! With no modulation, the full ensemble is straight and decisively led by the cornet into a 12-bar blues in Ab.

4. A second 12-bar ensemble in Ab.

5. Another 12-bar in Ab, this time stated by the banjo with (from Jonathan Doyle's clarinet) some cascading sweetness over a Db chord and also a two-bar solo 'break' - the only break in the 76 bars.

6. A final 12-bar ensemble blues chorus, again firmly started by Shaye on the high F - turning the chord into an Ab6. But, with a slight rallentando, all is brought to a calm neat ending.

Why did Shaye call her composition Salamanca Blues? I don't know. My first guess was that it was named for Salamanca in Spain. Tuba Skinny have visited that country. But there is also a 'Salamanca Market' in Hobart, Tasmania. Maybe the band busked in that market some time before 2012, but I have no evidence of a trip to Tasmania before 2013. A friend has suggested - very plausibly - that it was inspired by the small city called Salamanca in the Southern Tier region of New York. He reminded me that the band played shows in that general region at about the time when the tune was composed.

That excellent video-maker codenamed TheWsm0 filmed the band reviving the tune in 2018, during the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans:

CLICK HERE.
Why not buy the CD, which also contains such treats as Jackson Stomp, Banjoreno and Russian Rag?

Post 134: LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA - A TUBA SKINNY PERFORMANCE

Today I received this:-

Hello Ivan, 

On Saturday the 18th October, Maree and I were treated to some absolutely fabulous New Orleans Jazz by a superb band of musicians called Tuba Skinny. It was a beautiful evening in Melbourne and the band were playing in a large tent on the banks of the Yarra River. We were able to stand one row back from the stage (we wangled this only because we are small and the taller people around did not mind) and had a great view of all the activities on the stage. The washboard player Robin Rapuzzi was directly above us on the stage. Erika has a great blues/jazz voice and the rest are superb on their individual instruments. The show went for about 90mins and we enjoyed every minute of it.

But wait there's more. After the show the band members came out to sell their recent CDs so we bought their CD titled "Pyramid Strut" and six of the band members autographed it. We also took some photos.

All in all a very memorable and enjoyable evening.

Cheers,

John and Maree