[Dixielandjazz] New Orleans Benefit CD

[Robert S. Ringwald]

 Press Release - September 21, 2005

"ARIZONA CLASSIC JAZZ SOCIETY TO RELEASE BENEFIT CD FOR NEEDY JAZZ
MUSICIANS IN NEW
ORLEANS & GULF COAST AREAS STRICKEN BY HURRICANE KATRINA."
(Phoenix, Arizona)

Today Helen Daley, President of the Arizona Classic Jazz Society announced 
their
putting together of a Relief Jazz CD to help some of the more needy jazz 
musicians
in Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states devastated by Labor Day's Hurricane 
Katrina.
"With five of our country's top jazz bands performing on "Darkness.on the 
Delta"
and Banu Gibson, New Orleans' famed Jazz vocalist, on eight of the 17 
selections
on this CD", Ms. Daley said that she hopes "that some 5,000 CDs will be sold 
during
the coming months, allowing the Jazz Society to send some $50 thousand to 
agencies
that will earmark the dollars so received for the many jazz musicians, who 
lost not
only their homes, but also their instruments".
Joe Hopkins, a jazz clarinetist himself (who plays at the "Chances Are 
Restaurant"
in Scottsdale twice weekly) has already donated one of his better saxophones 
recently
and says of this relief project, "What a wonderful way to help rebuild a 
jazz musicians
life, and at the same time remember "that genre" of music that New Orleans 
made famous
for this country: our most notable contribution to the Music of this World - 
Jazz."
The Relief CD's executive producer, Barker Hickox allowed that without three 
bands
volunteering to help him "build" this new CD, "it plainly would not have 
happened."
The Buck Creek Jazz Band of the Washington, DC area; The Titan Hot 7 from 
Nashville,
and John Sheridan's "Sine Qua Non-5", each "donated two or three cuts to 
help extend
the length of "Darkness on the Delta" to its current 70 plus minutes of 
great jazz!
Furthermore, two of the CD's bands will be appearing for the Jazz Society 's 
Jazz
Weekend Festival on November 10
 -13 at the San Marcos in Chandler.
The Titan Hot 7 and the Sine Qua Non - 5 will be there plus several other 
top traditional
jazz groups like High Sierra
The original vinyl recording with Banu Gibson and her band and The World's 
Greatest
Jazz Band of Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart was recorded and released back in 
the early
80's under the title "Jazz me Blues".
"Indecently Vic Richardson, Downbeats' trombonist of the year back in the 70's, 
several
times, yet has two vocals on this CD, which makes it a collectors item, says 
CD producer
Barker Hickox. (He ran for Sheriff here in Maricopa County in 1976!)
$10 from every CD sold will be sent monthly to a nonprofit (501-C3) 
organization
in the Louisianan area for the aid and assistance of Jazz Musicians in the 
area.