[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland Concert Review - Barbone Street

[Stephen Barbone]

List mates:

>From the Reading Eagle, Reading PA, USA. The major daily newspaper in
this city which sponsors a 10 day Jazz Festival every March. It reviews
our concert in the City Park Band Shell, before a general music audience
of about 3500 people, including maybe 300 OKOM jazz fans. The population
of Reading is about 85,000 and it is the County Seat of Berks County
which has a population of about 400,000. The review by a non-jazz
oriented correspondent.

This capped off an 8 day period of gigs where at least 40,000 regular
people heard/saw the band for at least a couple of songs, within a 60
mile radius of Philadelphia, PA USA. Hopefully a few, who were not OKOM
fans previously, now are.

Not counting folks who saw us on NBC and CBS TV Philadelphia, on the six
o'clock news today. We played for the Chester County Tourist Bureau
Press Conference and it got all kinds of coverage including about 10
seconds of us playing "I've Been Working On The Railroad" in swinging
Dixieland style,  in front of a train, which just inaugurated tourist
trips throughout the Brandywine Valley. The Media just loved it. (Were
also on CBS TV in Philadelphia six months ago for a charity function.)

Band Marketing to regular audiences equals lots of gigs and much
adulation.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

SOME HOT JAZZ FOR A COOL NIGHT
By Stephanie Caltagirone  July 27, 2002

The gray skies didn't discourage a large crowd for the Barbone Street
Jazz Band at the First Union Bandshell Concert on Friday night.

The jazz sounds of New Orleans heated up the cool night at City Park as
the six member band played some classic Dixieland Jazz.

While the average age of the band members is 70 years old, you wouldn't
know it from their energetic performances. The accomplished
musicianship, however would have given away their age.

Members of the band have played without various legends throughout the
years, from Pete Fountain and Al Hirt to Buddy Rich and Billie Holiday.

The band based in Chester County, is made up of Ace Tesone on bass;
Glenn Dodson, trombone; Joe Mongillo, drums; Paul Grant, trumpet; Sonny
Troy guitar; and, leading the band on clarinet, Steve Barbone.

The band kicked off the night with the classics, "Sweet Georgia Brown"
and "Ain't Misbehavin'," then gave way to the toe-tapping The Blues My
Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me" and the swinging "Fidgety Feet"

Grant took the microphone to sing "What A Wonderful World," while
Barbone was featured on "That's Why They Call Me Shine" and Thelonious
Monk's "Hackensack" which morphed into Gershwin's "Lady Be Good", an
example of evolution in classic jazz.

After a short break, they returned with a homage to Duke Ellington with
an elegant "C Jam Blues." Barbone claiming not to sing well, took the
microphone with Louis Armstrong's "Someday You'll Be Sorry" and
delivered a playful rendition. He led into it tongue in cheek, by saying
Armstrong probably wrote it about all the women who treat jazz musicians
badly.

They followed with another Ellington tune, "Things Ain't What They Used
To Be", which Barbone said jokingly "tells you a little about us."

They returned to Dixieland for "The Jazz Me Blues" and "After You've
Gone with wonderful solos by Grant, Dodson and Troy.

The band ended the performance with the traditional "When The Saints Go
Marching In", to the delight of the crowd which rewarded them with a
prolonged standing ovation after cheering all through the night for
individual songs and soloists.