"They must have played together a lot!" - Review of the All Star Concert, June 11, 2006

"They must have played together a lot," the woman beside me says.

"No, on the contrary, they've never played together before in their lives," I say. She looks puzzled.

I try to explain. "That's one of the things that's so great about traditional jazz," I say. "You can put together players who have never seen each other, and they can not only play all the songs without music, but they all know the same songs, in the same keys, with the same structure."

All Stars on stage at the Red Lion Hotel

She and her husband and I are sitting next to each other at a long bar-like table in the Red Lion Hotel's Club Max on Sunday afternoon, June 11th. Playing on stage is an all-star band made up of nationally known musicians from New Orleans, Florida, Dallas, and Austin, in a concert sponsored by the Austin Traditional Jazz Society. The room is almost full of fans of dixieland (or traditional jazz, or New Orleans jazz), and the waiter and bartender are scrambling to keep up with the food and drink orders. It's now the middle of the third set and the dance floor is still crowded.

Connie Jones on trumpet

Conrad ('Connie') Jones from New Orleans on cornet has led his own band and has played with Pete Fountain, Jack Teagarden, and The Dukes of Dixieland. On clarinet, soprano saxophone, and bass saxophone is Bob Krenkel from Dallas, who for 35 years has played professionally with bands from Alaska to Florida. From Florida is trombonist Ed Stoddard, who has played with bands throughout the country, including Connie Jones' Crescent City Jazz Band and The Real Dukes of Dixleland. Joining his brother is Dave Stoddard on tuba, now from Austin, but he has played both valve trombone and tuba with numerous band and in festivals in the East, South, and Midwest before coming to Austin. On piano is Austin's Tommy Griffith, the leader of the New Orleans Jazz Band of Austin, and on drums is Budge Mabry, who also plays in that band and others in Austin and San Antonio. All told, there's about 200 years of musical experience sharing the stage.

Ed Stoddard - trombone

The first set started with three blues-songs that left the audience anything but blue: "Royal Garden Blues", "Tin Roof Blues", and "Jazz Me Blues". Then Connie Jones sang "What a Wonderful World" and no disagreements whatsoever were noted in the audience. The set concluded with "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", "When Your Lover Has Gone", and "Riverboat Shuffle". Connie Jones' cornet solos were constantly inventive and conspicuously brilliant, showing why he's a recognized master. Bob Krenkel slid up and down the scale on his clarinet, caressed melodies with his soprano sax, and plumbed the depths of musical feeling with his bass sax. Ed Stoddard played trombone with rhythmic ingenuity and explored the harmonic possibilities of each chord.

Bob Krenkel on clarinet

Highlights of the second set were "Big Butter and Egg Man", Sidney Bechet's "Si Tu Vois Ma Mere" with a luscious solo by Bob Krenkel on soprano sax, a fine vocal by Tommy Griffith on "Exactly Like You", and an infectious New Orleans-style street-beat on drums by Budge Mabry in "Milenberg Joys". In the third set, Dave Stoddard started off "Someday, Sweetheart" with a well-played main melody, and later showed that his brother was not the only one who could weave well-wrought improvisations. Ed Stoddard then sang "Someday You'll Be Sorry", and the afternoon ended with special guest Bob Alexius (who knew Connie from when they both lived in New Orleans) on string bass in "Bourbon Street Parade". There was even a parasol-parade in a second line strutting around the dance-floor to give a final New Orleans flavor to the afternoon.

The concert has demonstrated how six expert musicians who know traditional jazz inside and out, but not each other, can give the impression that they have been playing in the same band for years. All over the world, pretty much the same body of songs is used, and all players know them. But the songs are just vessels for their creativity, which fills them with different delights each time.