Allstar Concert, June 2008
By Dan Augustine
Photography by Tom Straus
Some wag (unfortunately not me) dubbed the assemblage as "The Killer B's" because of the swarm of audience-slaying musicians whose names start with the letter B: Brian Holland (piano), Bob Krenkel (clarinet, soprano sax, bass sax), and Bud Dresser (trombone, flugelbone, sousaphone), all from the Dallas area, who drove down on Sunday, June 22nd, to entertain the crowd at the Capital City Comedy Club in a concert hosted by the Austin Traditional Jazz Society. But we must obviously include Budge Mabry (drums, washboard) in that group, even though he's from Austin. And also from Austin were the Beatific Larmon Maddox (cornet) and Bedazzling Dave Stoddard (tuba) proving that they also belong on the A-team. Bob Krenkel has been coming down to Austin to play for 25 years, Bud Dresser has been in many musical groups in the Dallas area for years (Smokey Montgomery, The Light Crust Doughboys, Dr. John "Knocky" Parker, and the Dallas Hot Five with Bob Krenkel), and Brian Holland is simply one of the best ragtime-piano players in the world (three-time winner of World Championship Old Time Piano Playing Contest). Not to be outdone, Mr. Maddox and Mr. Mabry played for years with Chuck Reiley's Alamo City Jazz Band in concerts and festivals all around the country, and Mr. Stoddard played in and led jazz bands in the Washington DC and eastern Pennsylvania regions, on both tuba and valve trombone. These are some of the reasons that this group was billed as the ATJS All-Stars.
The first set started off with "Royal Garden Blues", and everyone played a solo. In "Keepin' Out of Mischief", Larmon and Bud skirted the edges of mischief by trading 4-bar solos, but Dave calmed them down with a fine tuba solo. "Wolverine Blues" kicked off at a fast tempo, with good rollicking piano by Brian, and Bob Krenkel contributed some hot licks. Bud switched to flugelbone, which is a combination of flugelhorn and valve trombone, and demonstrated a smooth quiet style of playing. Then Bob picked up his bass sax and showed why he is a master at it, with inventive phrases and ideas. After some nice vocalizing by Bud in "New Orleans", and a nice solo by Bud in "Avalon" (quoting "Pretty Baby" at one point), the band swung into "Yellow Dog Blues", which enabled the audience to unlimber their howling muscles. The set ended with "Cakewalking Babies from Home", and a number of couples took advantagle of the fast tempo, including an energitic swing-dancer pair.
In the second set, the duo called 'B2' (B-squared) took over, consisting of Brian (piano) and Bud (sousaphone), but they were accompanied by Budge Mabry on washboard, obviously increasing the power of B's to three (two B's or not two B's?). They serenaded the audience with "Kansas City Stomps" (yes, for some reason it's plural) and "The Bell of Louisville" (by Frank French, written in the 1990s), which Bud played for his wife. Even further power was delivered when Bob Krenkel (clarinet) joined the act, making it B4 afterwards on the song "Smiles", where Bud had a good sousaphone solo. Then Brian showed why he won the ragtime world-championship three times with a sparkling rendition of "The Steeplechase Rag" by James P. Johnson, after which the crowd roared its approval. The whole band came back to play "Alexander's Ragtime Band", "Wabash Blues" (with Larmon playing some nice wah-wah muted cornet), "I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby", and "Saint Louis Blues".
During the breaks between sets the audience was invited to check out three different CDs that Brian Holland had brought, and quite a number of them were sold. Several folks wanted a CD with "Steeplechase Rag" on it, which was not available at the concert, but it is available at Mr. Holland's website (the CD called "The Finger Buster" at http://www.hollandentertainment.com/products.htm). The Holland-Dresser duo was also represented on CD ("B2").
The third set got the swing-dancers really rocking to a fast version of "At The Jazz Band Ball". Mr. Tommy Griffith then took Brian Holland's place at the piano so that Bob Krenkel could play soprano sax on "Si Tu Vois Ma Mere" (also known as "Lonesome"). Tommy stuck around to sing and play "My Gal Sal". Then Brian returned and the band slowed down for a smooth reading of "Blue Turning Gray over You", followed by a fast "Shine", featuring a great Krenkel clarinet solo. After "Basin Street Blues" and "Lulu's Back in Town", the band played a song known during World War I as "Those Drafting Blues" and renamed later to "Storyville Blues". Dave Stoddard's tuba solo featured some long melodic lines. The concert ended with a fast version of "I've Found a New Baby", and afterwards the crowd stood and cheered. (Apparently reports of their being victims of the killer Bs were highly exaggerated.)
