Tailgate Ramblings

TAILGATE RAMBLINGS DECEMBER 1980 TAILGATE RAMBLINGS The board voted to set aside some of our Volume 10, Number 12 current treasury balance in a savings account, December, 1980 as a rainy day fund. The action also asked the incoming board to increase this savings amount in January if treasury balances EDITOR: Ken Kramer warrant. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: A report on the current status of the Joe Godfrey Harold Gray club's special events program was received. George Kay Dick Baker The bar guarantee remains a problem, and Floyd Levin Vivienne Brownfield has caused some losses in spite of good attendance. Our January special, with a fine POTOMAC RIVER JAZZ CLUB: band from New York (the Blazer Bobcats) will President Ken Kramer be held at the Marriott Twin Bridges on January 10. No bar minimum here, so we will see how the rental costs balance off against TAILGATE RAMBLINGS is the monthly publication the bar minimums in other spots. On Valentine's of the Potomac River Jazz Club. The Club Day, we will be bringing in a most exciting stands for the preservation, encouragement, and band, the Alamo City Band from San Antonio, advancement of traditional jazz. This means Texas. On March 1 , our great annual jazz from 1900 to 1930 in the New Orleans, Bix Birthday Party as usual. More information Chicago and Dixieland styles, including their via Tailgate and the PRJC Hot Line. various revivals, as well as blues and ragtime. TAILGATE RAMBLINGS welcomes contributions The committee working on securing local from its readers. bands for our specials gave a partial report. A two-band local band special will be held * * * * in April. NOTES FROM THE BOARD MEETING The Tenth Anniversary Committee is starting work in December on plans for special The PRJC Board meets monthly. There are observances of, you guessed it, the Tenth fifteen members, five elected for a three-year Anniversary. Souvenir gavels were given to term by PRJC members in an annual mail ballot all PRJC past presidents at the November 29 ing. The Board then elects from its member annual meeting, as a kick-off. The March- ship the club officers, who serve for a term April issue of Tailgate Ramblings will be of one year. The president is ineligible for a double issue, filled with pictures and re-election. history. All you early birds dig into your musty files and send us your pictures and In our November meeting, held on Wednesday thoughts about the founding days. November 19 at the Bratwursthaus (downstairs club room), thirteen of the fifteen members Ken Kramer were present. The major action was to amend ★ ★ ★ ★ the bylaws so that no board member may be elected for more than two successive three- RESULTS OF THE PRJC ELECTION year terms. Bylaw items under consideration are a change so that bylaws must be introduced The winners and new board members are: at one meeting, with a final decision at the Doris Baker next session. Also under consideration is a Joe Godfrey change for officers to be elected in the Johnson McRee first meeting in January, rather than in Bill Meisel December immediately following the annual Ray West meeting. This will give the new board members We had a good percentage of members a chance to have one board meeting experience voting. The Annual Meeting on Nov. before selection of officers. 29th was a great event- with the Story- ville Seven in top form( and thats great), and two excellent jam sessions. RECORD REVIEW by George Kay THE BUCK CREEK JAZZ BAND (BC-101 Stereo) Blue Blood Blues was first recorded in Buck Creek Records, 6617 Ridgeway Drive 1929 for OKeh by Blind Willie Dunn's Gin Springfield, VA. 22150 8.00 postpaid. Bottle Four (King Oliver, cornet; J. C. Recorded April 20, 1980 at the Hilton Hotel, Johnson, piano; Eddie Lang and Lonnie Springfield, Virginia Johnson, guitars and Hoagy Carmichael, Recordinq Engineer: Dick Baker tapping the gin bottles). Later, in 1930, Sound: excellent (Daugherty Audio) Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers Art and photos: Terry Davang and Drue Green recorded the tune for Victor. The Buck Liner notes: Ken Kramer Creek's version is very much in the New Orleans idiom of loose-jointed medium tempo Personnel: Jim Ritter, ct; John Skillman, cl; and interplay of open and muted brass Frank Mesich, trb/euphonium; Rick Cordrey, po; choruses. Jerry Addicott, bjo; John Wood, tuba; and Trombone Rag, a Turk Murphy composition, Gil Brown, drums. gives Mesich a chance to show what he can do Tunes: Bugle Boy Blues, Over in Gloryland, I'm with his trombone. He gives a convincing Travellin;, Blue Blood Blues, Trombone Rag, demonstration of his ability to "move around" The Curse of an Aching Heat, Sweet Lotus on his instrument with all-out support froim Blossom, Olga and Zero. the band. The Curse of an Aching Heart opens with This is the first recording by the Buck another excellent euphonium/tuba duet by Creek Jazz Band. The group was formed three Mesich and Wood in waltz time. Ritter's years ago at the home of Fred and Anna Wahler cornet picks up the tempo with a swinging on Buck Creek Road in the Maryland suburbs of four-four beat as the band plays a quiet, Washington. There have been no personnel respectful version of this grand old 1890s changes since the beginning which undoubtedly ballad. accounts for the group's remarkable rapport Sweet Lotus Blossom has been recorded and cohesion. The music on this set exudes primarily as a vehicle for singers such as the spontaneity and enthusiasm of good Julia Lee in the 1940s and more recently by traditional jazz. Jimmy Witherspoon with Wilbur de Paris and Bugle Boy Blues harks back to the alpha days his band. The Buck Creeks turn to Duke of the New Orleans marching bands. Brown's Ellington rather than de Paris to showcase brief snare drum fanfare sets the steady Mesich's growl trombone in tribute to the march tempo of this six minute track. The great Tricky Sam Nanton of the early euphonium/tuba duet by Mesich and Wood is a Ellington orchestra. surprising and pleasant innovation. Ritter's Olga is an almost forgotten 1930 King sprightly cornet, Skillman's subdued clarinet, Oliver tune that certainly warrants Cordrey's romping piano and Addicott's resurrection from oblivion. Played at a slow tasteful banjo give the performance a springy, to medium tempo, the Buck Creek feature the joyful feeling. contrasting voices of Ritter's "01iveresque" Over in Gloryland comes from one of the eight cornet and Mesich's big toned trombone. memorable sides recorded in 1927 by Sam Skillman's warm and fluid clarinet solo is Morgan's Jazz Band of New Orleans. The Buck outstanding. Creek band excels in capturing the fluid Zero, written by trombonist Santo Pecora melody and swing of the Morgan recording. of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, is one of I'm Travel 1 in' is a slow blues-type lament those timeless evergreens that belongs in featuring Ritter's strong lead cornet, Mesich's every jazz band's book. The tune has been a eloquent trombone and Cordrey's relaxed piano. perennial favorite of all New Orleans jazz fans. A slower version of the number was recorded by the NO Rhythm Kings for OKeh in 1925 under its other title "I Never Knew What a Gal Could Do." The Buck Creek shows good taste and ease in handling the melodic flow and steady, pulsating beat of this jazz classic. A very fitting climax for a highly enjoyable album. * ★ * * A JAZZ LECTURE - and Some Thoughts on History Jazz sociologist, writer, and scholar Indeed the closest thing to a useful Nat Hentoff last month spoke on "The history is the epochal book which Politics of Jazz" before a small and Hentoff himself co-edited with Nat rather uncomprehending audience at Shapiro some years ago, "Hear Me Goucher College in Towson, Md. Talkin' To Yah." This invaluable Hentoff's talk was a strong state volume of quotations from virtually ment of jazz as Black music disregarded every jazz musician of merit alive when and/or denigrated by the majority cul it was compiled, will be an indispensible ture, and brought a number of questions source work for whoever takes on the job from the audience on the order ofs "What of writing the definitive history. It, do you think of Benny Goodman...George and a number of biographies and auto Shearing...Dave Brubeck?" (His answers, biographies on such musicians as Mezz "Not much.") Mezzrow, Pops Foster, Sidney Bechet, Hentoff assailed the lack of orderly Eddie Condon, Dizzy Gillespie, and scholarly interest in jazz - an insens Charlie Parker will provide at least itivity, he said, which has resulted in some of the material needed. the destruction of invaluable films, There will still be enough booby videotapes, and other archival material traps to ensnare any but the most wary through the years. Jazz is seen by the historian. Just trying to unravel fact guardians of the culture as "popular" and mythology in the New Orleans part music, unworthy of serious attention, of the history will be a major challenge. he said. (Example: Two recent books have appeared, Citing Duke Ellington as the greatest one trying to reconstruct from inferred composer in American history, Hentoff evidence a biography of Buddy Bolden, recalled aWiite House cultural event the second questioning whether there during the LBJ years at which the ever was a notable trumpet player in Ellington band played. Later, Dwight New Orleans named Buddy Bolden. The McDonald wrote in Esquire that the writer of the definitive history will band had been magnificent but bemoaned have that one to sort out!) the fact that there had been no great The reasons for and the mechanics of American composers present at the the spread of jazz from New Orleans (or gathering.

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