Teddy Riley Takes Us To Honky Tonk Town

The late Teddy Riley had a lengthy career in new Orleans music that included stints with Joe Avery, Henry Allen Sr’s Brass Band, Roy Brown’s Mighty Mighty Men, Fats Domino, Champion Jack Dupree, Heritage Hall Jazz Band, and others spanning traditional New Orleans Jazz and rhythm and blues. Not one of the best known of the traditional jazz trumpeters, Riley is heard on a 1979 studio date along with four songs from a 1985 live performance, Honky Tonk Town ’79 (504 Records).


The band for the studio date included Walden ‘Frog’ Joseph on trombone, Manny Crusto on clarinet, Jeanette Kimball on piano and John Robichaux on drums and vocal. Interesting on this date is Crusto who was mostly a rhythm and blues saxophonist who had been working with Professor Longhair. On the live date, the band included Wendell Eugene was on trombone, Clarence Ford on clarinet and Walter Payton on bass.


Its a spirited collection of traditional jazz in the vein of such bands as George Lewis and Kid Howard. The music is played with enthusiasm and a folkish charm over such songs as Down in Honky Tonk, Moonlight Bay, There’ll Be Some Changes Made, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, and Avalon. Highlights of the studio sides are the exhilarating Avalon, and Just Blues. There are rough edges on the ensemble work, but the enthusiasm of the band more than compensates and Riley plays with a bright tone and bluesy feel.


The four very spirited live recordings include such staples of the repertoire as Panama, Clarinet Marmalade, Bogalusa Strut, and Shake It and Break It, one of the two Riley vocals on this disc. This recording, and others on the 504 label (504 being the area code containing New Orleans), can be purchased at the Louisiana Music Factory, www.louisianamusicfactory.com. On you tube, there are some clips of Riley as part of the Louis Cottrell Jazz Band from a Perry Como show in the 1970s including this one of “Dippermouth Blues,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58vuXttUpMU&feature=related.


This was a purchase.

Evan Christopher Remembering Songs On The Clarinet Road

One of two new albums, clarinetist Evan Christopher had issued in 2010, Remembering Song (Arbors), is another exploration in following the clarinet road he has has embarked on the last two decades or so. A 2011 Jazz Journalist Association finalist for clarinet, and a favorite of Nat Hentoff and the late Ahmet Ertegun, Christopher is joined by a fine quartet with legendary Bucky Pizzarelli on acoustic guitar, James Chirillo on electric guitar and bassist Greg Cohen. As quoted in Larry Blumenfeld’s notes, Christopher observes “By not using drums, the texture is more introspective, more subtle.”

After a brief introduction of The Remembering Song, the group launches into Christopher’s original The Wrath of Grapes” inspired by a wine shop-cum-performance space in the Bywater area which has embedded within a quote from Louis Prima’s Sing Sing Sing. Its a lively performance with Christopher’s warm, fluid swooping tone complemented by the band and Chirillo takes a nice horn like solo. Way Down in New Orleans starts at a languid, dreamy tempo with the interplay between Christopher’s warm woody tone accented by Chirillo’s single note responses, before the performance revives a tango section in the original sheet music before transitioning back to the dreamy mood for the lovely close. Christopher’s The River By the Road is inspired by a quote from Sidney Bechet’s autobiography with bassist Cohen taking a solo on a performance that conjures up a picnic on a delightful spring day.

Tommy Ladnier is somewhat forgotten figure these days but he had a close association with Sidney Bechet, and his Mojo Blues is a lovely minor key tune with a bluesy mood and wonderful solos from all four. Bechet is inspiration for You Gotta Treat it Gentle another lovely melody that Christopher develops and caresses. The quartet take what Blumenfeld describes as a deliberate tempo on the rarely performed Jelly Roll Morton ruminative composition, My Home Is a Southern Town followed by the delightfully lazy Serenade. The Remembering Song heard in a full rendition, is an original that sounds so familiar yet new and the performance particularly sings.

Evan Christopher is a thoughtful person who continues to mine what some would consider traditional byways of jazz, yet brings a contemporary approach along with substantial lyricism and soulfulness to his music. Remembering Song is simply amongst the latest recording of his sublime playing and music.

I purchased this recording

Paul Barbarin's Bourbon Street Parade

Paul Barbarin is regarded as one of the greatest of the early new Orleans drummers. He had stints with Freddie Keppard, Jimmy Noone, King Oliver, Luis Russell, Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong, while often returning to New Orleans. After World II, he remained in New Orleans where he played traditional New Orleans Jazz as well as revived his father’s Onward Brass Band with Louis Cottrell, Jr. He was also a songwriter and composer, a member of ASCAP and some of his compositions including, “Bourbon Street Parade” and “(Paul Barbarin’s) Second Line,” have become core for the traditional New Orleans repertoire and staple of the contemporary Brass Bands. He passed away in 1969 while leading a street parade.

Barbarin recorded with many of the famous musicians he was associated with, as well as made a number of recordings as a leader for Atlantic Records and GHB as well as played on recordings by Bunk johnson, George Lewis and others. The latter is one of the labels that was created by or are now owned by George Buck as part of the George H. Buck, Jr., Jazz Foundation family of labels. In 2008, they released on GHB, BCD-2, Paul Barbarin and his New Orleans Jazz Band. Buck recalled in his JazzBeat magazine from March 2008, “This was the second production we released on our GHB label, and it features Ernie Cagnolatti on trumpet, Eddie Pierson, trombone, Albert Burbank, clarinet, Lester Santiago on piano, Richard McLean on bass, and Paul Barbarin on drums. This was recorded in New Orleans in June 1954, and the original LP has been out of stock for quite a number of years, so I’m happy to report that it is available once again, this time on CD.

It is an interesting group of musicians, although most are little known. This is the only recording by the Afro-Italian, Cagnolatti while pianist Santiago recorded with Herb Morand, as well as George Lewis & Red Allen in addition to Barbarin. Clarinetist Burbank, like Santiago can be heard on a number of GHB Foundation label recordings and a well regarded New Orleans clarinetist, while both bassist McLean and trombonist Pierson are less represented in the Buck Foundation catalog.

Whatever the case, the band that is heard on Paul Barbarin and his New Orleans Jazz Band, is an excellent one in the classic New Orleans tradition. The band has such a ebullient swing to it, of course in part to the leader’s wonderful drums. The selection of songs is marvelous with the three horns all being wonderful, whether doing their collective heads as well as during their solos. From the first moments of “Weary Blues,” with the three horns followed by rollicking piano by Santiago followed by a warm, woody solo from Burbank leading to the three horns in a collective improvisation. Cagnolatti’s obvious influence was Louis Armstrong, and his bright crisp playing enlivens every track as when he takes the lead over the other horns on Barbarin’s classic “Bourbon Street Parade.” Burbank takes the initial solo before Cagnolatti takes his crisp sounding lead followed by honky tonk piano and then the the trombone and clarinet weave in and around the trumpet lead as Cagnolatti leads the way as they ride the number out. Whether handling the nitty gritty of “Tin Roof Blues,” or other staples of the New Orleans repertoire as “Clarinet Marmalade,” “Panama” (heard on two recordings), “Muskrat Ramble,” “Milneberg Joys,” “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” or “Sweet Georgia Brown,” the ensemble playing is first-rate throughout, and with infectious joy. The rhythm section swings and the solos catch the listener’s attention for a terrific recording of authentic New Orleans Jazz.

This CD is available from better vendors like amazon or the Louisiana Music Factory, but you might check out www.jazzology.com which lists all of the Buck Foundation labels and available releases that include a wide variety of traditional and swing jazz, blues and jazz-inflected vocalists. All there is the Record Collectors Discount Club that has a modest entry fee and allows discounted prices of the catalog of books, CDs and DVDs.

I purchased this CD. My biographical information from wikipedia, drummerworld.com and jazzology.com.