Geoff Bull and the Finer Cuts

With all my talk about Australian jazz history (I have to warn you: I’ve just been to the doctor, and am now on some SRS DRUGZ to combat another installment of the fucking sinus infection, so this post is probably less coherent than even the earlier ones. even.)…

So, as I was saying. With all that talk about Australian Jazz History, I forgot to tell you about Geoff Bull and the Finer Cuts.

Things to know:

  • The band is headed by Geoff Bull, who is an old school Australian jazz musician with cred. He plays trumpet and sings. That last part is important, because I find a lot of Australian vocalists really irritating in jazz. I know. It’s a silly response. But I do. Geoff Bull’s vocals, however, are really nice.
  • The other people in the band are young, and some of them are from The Cope Street Parade. Including the trombone player, Grant Arthur, who is currently rocking my boat in a big way. And not just because he has a mad beard.
  • They play on Sundays at the East Sydney Hotel. For free. This is a squishy venue, but a good one. Now that the Unity Hall Hotel has fucked up everything with its ‘renovation’ (goodbye piano, goodbye dance floor), the East Sydney is (even more) important.
  • They also play at the Corridor in Newtown on Tuesday nights til about 10pm. This is a tiny venue, but this is a great gig. You should go. It really reminds me of the Virus gigs at the Laundry in Melbourne in about 2002. It’s also free, but buy some drinks, yo. Maybe for the band? Yes.
  • They have a new album/ep thing out. It’s called ‘Geoff Bull and the Finer Cuts’ and you can buy it on bandcamp for just $4. YES, THAT’S FOR JUST FOUR DOLLARS. I paid $10 for an actual CD, which was nice, as it has nice pictures on it.
  • The album is a product of Yum Yum Tree Records, which is important because it’s the sort of collective organisation that jazz really needs. Shit gets done, the right way.

When I first heard the CD I was all “omg, this is the worst thing I have ever heard.” I was tempted to delete it. I know, harsh, huh? But I had just been wallowing in my new Coleman Hawkins set (ie in sixty million 1930s big band recordings of the highest order), had just bought the latest Gordon Webster album and was really feeling quite over the ‘little street jazz band combo’ thing. I wanted a huge, sophisticated rhythm section. I was over rowdy solos.

I know. I’m a dickhead. It’s like I forgot what jazz was all about for a minute there. Maybe it was because I was getting sick. Who knows what was going on inside my head.

But I gave the CD/EP a rest, and then I came back to it. After I saw the band at the Corridor. That gig really impressed me. I wrote about it here. I really like to see a combo working well. And they did. So I gave the CD another go.

Now I’m all “omg this is good. I will even DJ it.” The song ‘Glory Glory’ is gold. It’s really quite lovely. I Approve. I really like Geoff’s vocals and trumpeting. I do like the piano. I’m still not 100% sold on some of the vocals, but then it took me a while to come around to Jesse Selengut’s vocals, and that was obviously crazy talk. But then I’m quite conservative. I know a lot of people do like the vocals, and you might too.

In summary, then, you should:

  • Go to the Corridor or to the East Sydney Hotel to see this band;
  • and

  • Buy this goddamn EP. It’s only Four goddamn dollars: complete bargain;
  • and also

  • Buy the band a beer.

Right Now It’s a Pleasure

It’s much easier to be pleased when you’re not a seething mass of anxiety. So today, I am far more easily pleased than I was last week. I’m not sure whether this moment of calm will last, but for now, I’m just going to enjoy it.

Earlier today I was pleased by Thomas McCarthy’s new film Win Win. It’s no Station Agent, but it pleased me.
Then I was pleased by a nice panini in a cafe full of middle aged Italian men enjoying a widescreen television presentation of the tennis.
Right now I’m really enjoying Abigail Washburn singing Everybody Does It Now.

Tomorrow it might be very difficult to find something that pleases me. But right now it’s a pleasure to just sit here on the couch and listen.

Let’s Dance! (in which I score a free CD and then brag about it)

One thing I don’t say to myself very often is “Gee, I wish I had another version of Jersey Bounce.”

I’ve really been enjoying the recent rash of smaller combos and knock-about street jazz type bands coming out of places like New Orleans and Seattle (bands like Smoking Time Jazz Club, and dancer-populated Careless Lovers.) There’s something about the DIY ethos of dancers learning to play instruments and then making the music they love dancing to. It’s exciting, as dancers move from just responding to and occupying music, to actually making it.

But I have to say, it’s a refreshing change to be presented with a big, solid band full of highly skilled, experienced musicians. And a band that’s well managed is a gem.

We’re all used to the sort of big bands that are hired to play at smaller exchanges and local events. They’re made up of a range of ring-ins and local musicians, pulled together for the night or a couple of gigs. We’ve seen all those faces before. The band leader is usually the guy who put the gig together, not the guy who drills the band each week in practice, who seeks out serious charts and arrangements, tailoring them for individual musicians. And most of these bands are less than inspiring for dancing or listening*. It’s not really surprising that dancers started getting interested in smaller, more dynamic bands.

Today, there simply isn’t enough work for more than three or four big bands (if you’re lucky) in a single (decent sized) Australian city. Even in 1920s Chicago,

the job, as South Side newspaper columnist and orchestra leader Dave Peyton insisted, created bands and held them together. Cabaret, dance hall, and vaudeville theater employment gave life to jazz groups:

The job makes the orchestra. If you lose the job and loaf a few weeks, you haven’t any band. Our field is a narrow one. Your men can’t afford to loaf long and the first bidder takes them away from you. The job is what you want to worship.

(Kenney, William Howland, Chicago Jazz: A cultural history, 1904-1930, Oxford University Press: New York, 1993, xii)

Even if your city is as large and creatively together as Sydney or Melbourne, you still see a lot of the same faces in each of the bands. And each of those guys in modern big bands is also working other projects, other musical styles, just to make a living. Jazz today is a catholic enterprise; there are lots of different styles, and 1930s/40s classic big band swing is just one of them. And you hear it in the big bands. Musicians’ styles and solos are influenced by a far wider range of music than in the original swing era, and while they might bring talent to a big band, there’s rarely the unity of style and focus in a modern big band that really makes them work as a living, breathing animal.

So Bernard Berkhout’s Orchestra’s Let’s Dance! recording is a pleasure.

I have to say, very clearly here, that I was sent a copy of this CD unsolicited. I often have reservations about reviewing bands’ CDs, especially in the swing dance world, as the pool is just too small for me to feel comfortable about reviewing things honestly. But I wasn’t asked to review the CD, I was just sent an email with the line

The CD is now out and I would like to send you a copy.

Awesome. I said “sure” and then I had a new CD. I win!

And I was bloody relieved to hear the actual music. I wasn’t going to have to make nice and fake some positive comments. This album is so fucking good. It’s a delight to hear a solid, tight big band pumping out the shit that made lindy hoppers lose their bits in the olden days. When the oldies talk about music, this is what they mean. Shit is hot. The sound quality is fabulous. The songs are all familiar, the arrangements are tight, the solos are nice, the rhythm section rocks.

I’d heard about this CD before through a thorough piece on its production and intentions on Hey Mr Jesse (ep 67), but also via the SwingDJs thread ‘Recording technique recommended for a new big band album’. I’d been interested in the community consultation that had gone into the album, and into the band. It’s an effective way of marketing a product: give people a feeling of ownership or participation, and they’re more likely to give a shit about the end product. Works with dance events, and it seems to work with CDs for dance bands. I had thought about buying the album, but having to buy a physical CD rather than downloads put me off. Buying in euros from Europe means a dodgy exchange rate and expensive shipping to Australia. So I’d put the album to the back of my mind, on my mental ‘to buy’ list for when I had a few more dollars in my DJing bank (though it’s only $AU20 including postage, which is pretty bloody decent). So a free copy was very welcome. I was curious. Also, I am a tightarse. And it’s very flattering to be sent stuff.

First off, the CD’s packaging is sweet. I don’t care much about this stuff usually (unless we’re talking Mosaic or Bear Family sets), mostly because I tend to rip the CD into my computer, then pack the physical CD away then forget about it. But this packaging is nice. It’s a cardboard case, which is great for shipping long distance. Jewel cases tend to arrive in pieces. Pieces that scratch the buggery out of the CD. And there’s a nice booklet listing all the musicians. Sweet.

To use an annoyingly overused phrase, the album does everything right. Songs are about three minutes. I’m finding dancers more and more tolerant of longer songs these days, probably because of their experience with live bands. But three minutes is a good length. Creating a good dance song in three minutes is a craft, like writing a short story. Get in, set it up, let it roll, finish it up with a bang. This shorter length means there’s less room for long, boring, wanky solos. Thank fuck. The solos in this album are concise, well-crafted and occasionally fucking GREAT. I dunno if they’re transcribed from original recordings (this whole album smacks of painstakingly accurate recreationism), and to be honest, I don’t much care. I’m here for the party, and I’ll think about the finer details later.

Most importantly for a lunk-head dancer like myself (and I am boringly lunkheaded when it comes to what I like for dancing), the band has a chunkingly solid rhythm section. It’s a machine, a power house pumping the band along. This is what a big band does right: four people shoveling the coal, stoking the boiler. A guitar, a piano, a drummer, a bass player, give or take one or two. This is what I really miss in smaller hot street-jazz type combos. I miss those four blokes laying down a good, chunky, layered rhythm.

These guys in Berkhout’s Orchestra give the rest of the band space to explore melody and solo, just getting on with their own job: holding shit together, telling even the newest dancer where the beat is. A good, solid rhythm section lets the rest of the band fuck about with fancy ways of adding/embellishing the swing, the delay that makes for excellent lindy hop.

You know how I know the rhythm section rocks? Because the sound quality is really nice. I don’t know how this was recorded, but I do know it’s nice. Good enough for me. I know it’s cool and interesting to try to recreate the exact same studio and mic set up and whatever from 1920s and 30s recordings. That’s great. Particularly if you’re listening to a CD at home on a decent sound system or good headphones. You can just sit there and soak in every echoey clunk, you can strain your ears trying to find the individual strum of the guitar or clarinetist drawing breath. Less excellent, though, is that sort of action when you’re dancing in an echoey town hall, heart pounding in your ears, trying to keep yourself and your partner safe, surrounded by two hundred people dancing in and out of time. And I’m a DJ. I’m looking for recorded music that works in shithouse conditions.

I’m usually DJing on shitty sound gear. Mishandled set ups in dirty pubs. Inadequate self-powered speakers in echoing church halls. Sure, things can be better at exchanges, but the bulk of my DJing happens in my home town in less than perfect conditions. So I need the best sound quality I can get. Because I’m then going to squeeze that brilliant sound through my shithouse laptop soundcard, down a raggedy RCA cable and into a mixer I don’t really know how to use.

To be honest, I’m completely over bands who are so into recreationism they eschew the awesomeness of modern technology. It seems kind of pointless. You think Jelly Roll Morton would have settled for dodgy sound when he could have heard himself played back in glorious stereo wonderment? If King Oliver or Genny Goodman or other band leaders of that day had had access to the sound technology we have today, you can bet your bottom dollar they’d be using it. They’d be wanting their music to sound as GOOD as possible.

I also find the recreationism that uses olden days tech so obsessively a little culturally naive. There were all sorts of politics going on in the recording industry in the swing era, and the whitest, most popular and palatable bands got access to the best technology and promotion. So those shitty recordings by black artists doing the most provocative, progressive music at the time were the result of shithouse social politics and economics. Recreating that is a bit like recreating bullshit racist dance sequences from films. You’re kind of missing the point.

Do justice to this magic. Do your best playing, and use your best technology.

Berkhout’s producers have done a pretty good job on this.

But I’m a DJ. Just because I love a song or an album, doesn’t mean this is going to be good DJing fodder. So I took this album to my most challenging gig. It’s a fortnightly dance in a large, echoey hall with a bullshitly inadequate sound system. The dancers are mostly new, even complete first-class beginners, and I usually do the first set of the night after the drop-in casual class. There are some more experienced dancers coming along, but this is a mixed crowd, and they don’t really have much time for shit DJing. If the DJ is rubbish, they walk up to Newtown’s main street full of bars and cafes. I find anything lo-fi just disappears into the high ceiling at this venue, and ends up sounding like shit. So I tend to DJ hi-fi and new bands almost exclusively there. Because I am chicken shit.

So I put this CD to the set in that setting. If it could work here, it could work anywhere.

I did my best to set it up properly. I think new music deserves that. So I started with some Big 18, a bit of Gordon Webster (current flavour of the month), some Mora’s Modern Rhythmists, and then it was time to bust out ‘Jersey Bounce’. Instant success. The floor was PACKED. Even the most jaded, heard-it-all-before experienced dancers were up and working it. Yes, we’ve all heard ‘Jersey Bounce’ a million times before, we know every note. We’ve heard every version. But this one is just fucking GREAT. WIN!

I played a few other modern bands in that set, from small to large, from New Orleans to New York. I also played ‘St Louis Blues’ from the Berkout CD, and it went down just as well. This isn’t always the most successful song with lindy hoppers. The tempo and rhythm changes often confuse new dancers. Not this night. WIN!

To be honest, if I’d thought I could have gotten away with it, I’d have played the entire CD, song after song. But there were a handful of other DJs in the room, DJs who’d pick up on that sort of stunt. And I have a rep to protect.

In future, though, this CD is going to be on my go-to list. When I need something solidly swinging and absolutely brilliant for solid lindy hop to introduce the music to beginners, this is on the short list. When I need a hi-fi recording to cope with a difficult sound set up, this is what I’m going to play. When I need a high energy, pumping song to kick a jam into gear, this is going to cut it.

I have been shamelessly pimping this album to all the DJs I know. It’s also an album I’ll recommend to new dancers or people looking for an easy entry point to classic swing.

I could conceivably get tired of this album in the near future. But not before I’ve played it so many times dancers audibly groan when they hear the first two notes of the song.

Yes, you do need another version of ‘Jersey Bounce’. Buy this CD.

* There are exceptions, plenty of them are American and well known with dancers. In Australia, the JW Swing Orchestra, for example, particularly around 2002, specialised in Benny Goodman arrangements, practiced regularly and was seriously tight. The Ozcats here in Sydney are a fully sick Bob Crosby tribute band, but they’re really not a hardcore swing era big band like Benny Goodman’s. Still, the Ozcats is made up of some of Australia’s tightest, most professional and experienced musicians. Who’ve been doing this thing for a looong time. And of course, bands like Melbourne’s Red Hot Rhythmakers are fully sick.

Currently Listening To…

LaTosha Brown singing ‘I Know I’ve Been Changed’.

This is really good stuff. Brown is with Porto Franco Records, where you can find some other lovely music.

I’ve also just bought Natalie Merchant’s latest album ‘Leave Your Sleep’. Dealing with the label’s online store was pretty bloody painful, but this album is well beyond worth it. I adore Merchant, and have ever since 10,000 Maniacs. I especially like ‘House Carpenter’s Daughter’. I really like the way Merchant’s explored American folk music.

This isn’t jazz or dancing music (in the lindy hop sense), but it’s brilliant. And Merchant is such a major name these days she can attract the very best musicians. She did a tour with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and ‘Leave Your Sleep’ is interesting for dancers in that it features Wynton Marsalis on a couple of songs. I can imagine you could probably dance to ‘The Janitor’s Boy‘, but I wouldn’t force it, myself. The album is cool because it’s a collection of songs Merchant sang to her daughter when she was a babby, and includes poems she set to melodies herself.

My favourite song is ‘Bleezer’s Ice-Cream’, which is wonderful. It has the best lyrics:

BLEEZER’S ICE-CREAM
Jack Prelutsky (1940 – )
I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER’S ICE-CREAM STORE,
there are flavors in my freezer
you have never seen before,
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
why not do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI
TAPIOCA SMOKED BOLONEY
CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW
CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW
TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO
TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO
LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN
MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN
ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI
YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI
SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH
SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH
BUTTER BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE
POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL
PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM
PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM
AVOCADO BRUSSELS SPROUT
PERIWINKLE SAUERKRAUT
BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER
CHOCOLATE CHOP SUEY CLUSTER
COTTON CANDY CARROT CUSTARD
CAULIFLOWER COLA MUSTARD
ONION DUMPLING DOUBLE DIP
TURNIP TRUFFLE TRIPLE FLIP
GARLIC GUMBO GRAVY GUAVA
LENTIL LEMON LIVER LAVA
ORANGE OLIVE BAGEL BEET
WATERMELON WAFFLE WHEAT

I am Ebenezer Bleezer,
I run BLEEZER’S ICE-CREAM STORE,
taste a flavor from my freezer,
you will surely ask for more.
twenty-eight divine creations
too delicious to resist,
come on, do yourself a favor,
try the flavors on my list.

Don’t you just love the way the words just roll out of your mouth? This song features Marsalis. It’s gorgeous.

I’m also hot for Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings’ newer song ‘Better Things’. I think it’s my favourite of their songs ever.


linky

I’m kicking myself for forgetting to get Gillian Welch’s new album The Harrow and the Harvest on my emusic credits. ARGH. It’ll have to wait til next month, I think.

And I’ve been listening to a heap of new jazz bands and some old stuff as well. But that stuff is all kind of the same. These people here are a bit more interesting. Except The Palmetto Bug Stompers. They’re interesting.

danny polo

This Danny Polo album The Complete Sets – London 1937-1938 & Paris 1939 plus The Embassy Rhythm Eight 1933 was brought to my attention by the twitter jazznicks, and it’s pretty neat. Polo was a British musician. As per usual, the emusic track details are less than awesome, so I spent some time in the library getting details from the discographies. But only for the songs I’ve bought. Here they are:
Doing The Gorgonzola Danny Polo and his Swing Stars (Philippe Brun, Alix Combelle, Garland Wilson, Una Mae Carlsile, Oscar Aleman, Lojis Vola, Jerry Mengo) 30 Jan 1939 Paris
Don’t Try Your Jive On Me Danny Polo and his Swing Stars (George Chisholm, Norman Brown, Tommy McQuater, Eddi Macauley, Dick Ball, Dudley Barber) 11 Jan 1938 London
He’s A Ragpicker The Embassy (Rhythm) Eight (Max Goldberg, Lew Davi, Danny Polo, Billy Amstell, Bert Barnes, Joe Brannelly, Dick Ball, Max Bacon) 1 February 1935 London
Money For Jam Danny Polo and his Swing Stars (Tommy McQuater, Sid Raymond, Eddie Macauley, Eddie Freeman, Dick Ball, Dudley Barber) 1 October 1937 London
Move Than Somewhat Danny Polo and his Swing Stars (Tommy McQuater, Sid Raymond, Eddie Macauley, Eddie Freeman, Dick Ball, Dudley Barber) 1 October 1937 London
Stratton Street Strut Danny Polo and his Swing Stars (Tommy McQuater, Sid Raymond, Eddie Macauley, Eddie Freeman, Dick Ball, Dudley Barber) 1 October 1937 London
That’s A – Plenty Danny Polo and his Swing Stars (Tommy McQuater, Sid Raymond, Eddie Macauley, Eddie Freeman, Dick Ball, Dudley Barber) 1 October 1937 London
Once again, Paris is important.
And 1937.
Note Una Mae Carlisle in the Paris session – she played piano there.