Review of All Stars Concert
By Dan Augustine
Well, Austin, you blew it. All but about 150 of
you, that is. You had a chance to see not only some fabulous
local musicians play jazz, but to hear and see some truly world-class
artists perform the only true contribution of the USA to world art.
Yeah, i know the local media never tells you about it, but believe me, there is a style of jazz that i bet you would like if you ever heard it. That goes for you folks under 30 as well as those over (ahem) a certain age. The style is called "traditional jazz", or "New Orleans jazz", or "dixieland", or just jazz. The songs have a melody you can remember and hum to yourself later. The rhythms make you want to dance. So what if some of the songs were written 100 years ago? We still like Brahms, Beethoven, and Bach, don't we? (Not to mention Buxtehude, Binchois, and Byrd.)
It ain't all about some tacky old guys in straw hats and striped vests playing "When the Saints Go Marching In" you know. The songs the All-Stars played at the concert on Sunday at the Capital City Comedy Club (hosted by the Austin Traditional Jazz Society, at http://www.atjs.org) featured dances, marches, ballads, blues, and all kinds of styles.
For example, the first set
started off with a real barn-burner of a tune, "Royal Garden Blues",
and everybody took a solo. Everybody? I guess i
ought to tell you who the All-Stars were: first and foremost was a
great reed-player named Bob Krenkel, from Plano, Texas, who drove all
the way down here (and he's been doing this since 1984) just to play
this concert. He plays clarinet, soprano sax, and an
impossibly huge bass sax (mounted on a stand, it's so big).
Next to him was Larmon Maddox (from Austin) on cornet, who's played
with traditional jazz bands for 40 years and is the best in the Austin
area. He and Jim Cullum (you've heard of him, haven't you?;
he has a band and a club in San Antonio) are (in my
not-so-modest opinion) the best in Texas (Larmon also plays in the
Alamo City Jazz Band of San Antonio and a number of bands in
Austin). On trombone, Max Lyon is a local school-teacher and
plays superlative trombone with a number of jazz bands around
Austin. And playing tenor sax (but also clarinet on a couple
of tunes) was Jon Doyle, who's been in Austin a number of years and is
one of the best in town. The rhythm section consisted of
Tommy Griffith on piano (who leads his own New Orleans Jazz Band of
Austin), Dave Stoddard on tuba (who plays in Aunt Rubies' Sweet Jazz
Babies and mentors the Chaparral Dixielanders), Budge Mabry on drums
(who plays with Tommy Griffith and other bands and is also a hot
washboard player), and a very welcome newcomer to Austin, John Gill on
banjo, who is an internationally known band-leader with CDs and
performances in San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York. In
short, this was truly an ALL-STAR band!
We all convened at the Capital City
Comedy Club, over near Anderson Lane and US 183, from 2:00 to 5:00 pm,
on June 10th, and had a great time, with lots of refreshing beverages
and snacks from the kitchen. The room was about 1/3 full by
1:30, and by showtime we had about 150 folks listening, dancing to the
tunes, clapping their hands to the rhythm, and generally having a fine
old time. See? You could have been there, enjoying
the music and visiting with friends. But no, you had to mow
the lawn or do the laundry or something. Bo-ring.
Come on by in September and have a pleasant Sunday afternoon (see our
website for the Fall schedule, at http://www1.onr.com/atjs/events.html).
OK, so what else did you miss?
Well:
How about John Gill singing "Buddy
Bolden Blues" (Buddy Bolden was reputed to be the first true jazz
musician, in New Orleans around 1900). He also played a
number of banjo solos with expertise you won't find anywhere else.
The "Yellow Dog Blues", with a great trombone solo by Max Lyon, and some friends from Flower Mound showing the rest of the audience how to howl like yellow dogs at a certain point in the tune.
"Cakewalkin' Babies from Home", a great dance-tune impossible not to move body-parts to. (Where were the parasols?)
Bob Krenkel explored the nether regions of human hearing with his bass sax solo in "Fidgety Feet", and Larmon Maddox on cornet played "If I Had You", to the delight of the dancers. He also played some altissimo clarinet and some beautiful solos on soprano sax, especially on "Si Tu Va Ma Mere".
Dave Stoddard did the
announcing chores and also played steady and inventive bass-lines on
tuba and had some expressive solos on tunes such as "Beale Street
Blues" and "Storyville Blues".
Silky smooth solos on tenor sax by Jon
Doyle on "Oh Baby" and "Margie", and not enough of his fine clarinet on
other songs. He also traded 4s a number of times with Larmon,
echoing each other's ideas.
Fine solos by Max Lyon on "Yellow Dog
Blues" (no howls by him), "If I Had You", and a lovely high-register
improvisation on "Poor Butterfly".
Tommy Griffith, besides anchoring the harmonies on piano, also played some rollicking solos on "Margie" and "Storyville Blues" (nice old-timey ragtime-piano).
Throughout, Budge Mabry kept the band on the beat and played some nice breaks and fills. Pity he didn't get to show you his washboard-chops (he brings down the house).
A final comment on this style of jazz: get it out of you head (if it's in your head) that this is highly complex music you have to think about and know a lot about. To put it kindly, bull pucky. This style of jazz is basically either dance music or blues (well, OK, or ballads). Above all, it has tunes you can remember, a beat that won't quit (where are all those swing-dancers; c'mon and join us!), and words and topics a million times more interesting than anything you'll hear on radio. We apologize if we can't make TV, radio, and the print-media tell you about us and this kind of music, but we're here and would like you to come join us and enjoy the music as much as we do!
