[Dixielandjazz] Shameless Promotion

[Stephen G Barbone]

Here is a review of our return engagement performance at the famous  
Ocean City, NJ, Music Pier. Wonderful audience. Some knowledgeable  
about OKOM and some merely there because they were vacationing at the  
Jersey shore beaches and decided to come to the concert. All ages were  
represented and the performance garnered a standing ovation and a  
demand for an encore.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

Ocean City Sentinel - September 4, 2009 - by Ed Wismer OCS Music Critic

Barbone Street Band, A Welcome Return

Ocean City - Everyone has a favorite form when it comes to jazz. I'm  
fond of most including bop and fusion, but I am especially addicted to  
the original sound that emanated from the bars and bordellos of New  
Orleans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

For me, it all started when I was very young. I first herd jazz while  
listening to my uncle's Louis Armstrong and King Oliver records in the  
mid-1930s. If you are one of my contemporaries, you may recall the 10  
inch short and very breakable shellac discs we played on wind-up  
machines with cactus needles. The sound was tinny and certainly wasn't  
stereophonic, but the music was great.

Wednesday, August 26, brought the welcome return of the Barbone Street  
Jazz Band and they brought it back big time. The leader of the band,  
Steve Barbone plays his clarinet like a latter day Benny Goodman or  
Artie Shaw, and sings pretty well too. Barbone is Steve's real last  
name, but he capitalizes on the fact it sounds like "Bourbon." He and  
his band deserve a "Southern Comfort" (but not in Ocean City)  -  
Steve's note, OC is a dry resort town. :-(

Some of his players are AARP members, while the rest are frisky  
kids . . . especially a cute redhead named Cindy Leiby, who makes her  
shiny trombone growl like a tiger and she sings sweetly too. The other  
youngster is drummer Mike Piper. The remaining talented codgers are  
guitarist Sonny Troy and bassist Ace Tesone. There's one more kid,  
Paul Grant, who plays his trumpet like a cross between Louis  
Armstrong, Doc Severensen and Bix Beiderbecke, and also sings.

The Barbone Street Band got off to a rip roaring start with "Bourbon  
Street Parade" and followed with "Tin Roof Blues" and a whole bunch of  
Dixieland classics. Leiby sang several nifty songs, starting with  
"Love." Grant's next vocal was was "That's Why They Call Me Shine"  
which Barbone explained was a parody song and not racist as some  
believe. Grant also sang a song Louis Armstrong penned called "Someday  
You'll Be Sorry. Armstrong had four wives, all high maintenance types,  
Barbone explained, and this was his "get even" song for women who  
treat jazz musicians badly.

The band brought up a guest drummer for one number, Joe Sher, who was  
in his late 80s, but he could really swing. He did a bang up job  
"Undecided Now." "Sweet Georgia Brown" came next and all I could think  
of was Mel Brooks and his Polish version of the song.

Duke Ellington wasn't neglected either. The band played his "In A  
Mellow Tone" smoothly and with great harmony. Barbone nicely sang "I  
Want A Little Girl" which was a favorite of Steve Allen's. Barbone  
said he used it to win his wife, a half century ago. He also told a  
story about jazz clarinetist Irving Fazola. Barbone said that  
musicians' chairs have no arms because Fazola, who weighed over 300  
pounds, once got stuck in a captain's chair at a restaurant after  
eating 35 hamburgers. So they took him and chair to the gig in an  
ambulance. They managed to pry him loose after the first set at the  
Academy of Music in Philadelphia. The crowd was vastly entertained.

The concert's finale was "That's A Plenty," which was used by Jackie  
Gleason as his traveling music between skits. An encore was demanded  
and came in the form of "When The Saints Go Marching In," which upheld  
an old jazz tradition. All I could say was "y'all come back, heah!"