Post 483: ST. CINDER - THE STREET BAND

One of the pleasures of a brief visit to New Orleans in February 2017 was discovering this very fine and hard-working string band playing on the streets. They call themselves St. Cinder.

It seems they have been in existence since meeting in Oregon around 2014 and have made at least a couple of CDs. They travel throughout America in an old school bus, and live in it too.

I made a video of them performing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky'. You can watch it by clicking here. On another day I filmed them playing 'Careless Love'. You may see that video HERE.

And I recorded them performing Jabbo Smith's 'Lina Blues': CLICK HERE. You may care also to listen to Jabbo Smith's original version from the 1920s HERE.

You can even watch Jabbo - still wonderful in old age - singing the song HERE.

By the way, I note that there are plenty more videos of St. Cinder to be found on YouTube.

You can learn more about St. Cinder by clicking here. 

Post 400: 'FINGERING WITH YOUR FINGERS' - FROM THE MISSISSIPPI SHEIKS TO TUBA SKINNY

The tune Fingering With Your Fingers was created in 1935 by The Mississippi Sheiks.

The Mississippi Sheiks

This string band was very active in the early 1930s, when they recorded about 70 tunes. The musicians were mostly members of the Chatmon family (living about 200 miles north of New Orleans and descended from slaves). The best-known member of the family was Armenter Chatmon, who used the stage name 'Bo Carter': he also had a solo career. In performance, there would be between three and five men in the group and the principal instruments were guitars and violin. Many of their recordings (though not this one) had vocals. You can hear their original recording of Fingering With Your Fingers BY CLICKING ON HERE. It is very simple and repetitive (with a 32-bar AABA structure). It also uses a basic, straightforward chord sequence. The melody is reminiscent of the 1930 song Exactly Like You (composed by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields), though it has a quite different Middle Eight.

I picked it up for playing with my friends in the English Midlands. Here's the lead-sheet I prepared.

Practically nobody today would have been aware of this lively tune had it not been for the revival of it, in about 2012, by Tuba Skinny - and their frequent playing of it in public.

For example, to watch an exhilarating performance of Fingering With Your Fingers in 2013, CLICK HERE. That was filmed for us by digitalalexa; and Tuba Skinny comprised nine players on that day. It shows what really great jazz musicians can make out of even the simplest material. I hope you enjoyed the way those two outstanding reed players - Jonathan and Ewan - traded bars in the early part of the video.

And when I visited New Orleans three years later, I found Tuba Skinny still merrily beginning a set with the tune. Here's the video I made at the time: CLICK HERE. On this occasion, Tuba Skinny had a line-up of eight musicians - only four of whom had also appeared in the 2013 video.

The Mississippi Sheiks, by the way, recorded under various names. One of them was The Mississippi Blacksnakes - the group that introduced us to 'Blue Sky Blues' - a most remarkable tune because it comprises twelve AND A HALF bars! This tune was also mastered by Tuba Skinny and you can hear their version of it BY CLICKING HERE.
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Post 380: THE HOKUM HIGH ROLLERS

On the streets of New Orleans, there are now several great young 'string bands' to be heard. It is not just standard traditional jazz bands that have flourished there in the last ten years.

The Hokum High Rollers -
busking at night in Frenchmen Street

The string bands are direct descendants of the string and jug bands from the 1930s, such as The Dixieland Jug Blowers, The South Street Trio, The State Street Boys, The Dallas String Band, The Mississippi Sheiks, The Memphis Jug Band, The Grinnell Giggers, The Mississippi Mud Steppers, Bo Carter's Bands, King David's Jug Band and many others, who have inspired them and from whom they derive much of their repertoire. The music of string bands also of course fed directly into the 'country' and 'bluegrass' genres.

One of the best of today's bands is The Hokum High Rollers. There are plenty of good videos of them on YouTube. If you haven't yet watched it, try this one as an example of their brilliance: Click Here.

And have a look at this remarkable video of a tune they added to their repertoire at the end of 2016. It is Toots, a great ragtime number composed by Felix Arndt and recorded in 1914 by Arndt himself on piano with Dr. Clarence Penney on mandolin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cngV1J-LAU0
What vituosos they are! And if you wish to hear how true to the original their recording is, you can listen to the 1914 recording by Arndt and Penney here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90LK6A6nw44

I was delighted to come across The Hokum High Rollers busking in Royal Street during my April 2016 visit to New Orleans. Listening and watching from close quarters showed me they work hard, take their playing very seriously and have attained the highest technical standard of musicianship. They gave a very entertaining performance.

I recorded a video of them. You can watch it BY CLICKING HERE.

'But is this strictly traditional jazz?' you ask. Well, it certainly works in exactly the same way as traditional jazz and much of the repertoire overlaps. The main difference from more conventional traditional jazz lies in the instrumentation. But string bands even occasionally include a clarinet - or a cornet or trombone.

And the musicians are comfortable whether playing in a string band or in a stock traditional jazz band. For example, you will notice that two members of The Hokum High Rollers in my video are also members of Tuba Skinny. And the tune they are playing - Michigander Blues - has also become popular with many jazz bands since Tuba Skinny started playing it a few years ago.