[Dixielandjazz] NYTimes--Bluegrass and jazz bands, more in common than you'd think

[Norman Vickers]

To: DJML and Musicians & Jazzfans lists

From:  Norman Vickers, Jazz Society of Pensacola

 

Here's article in Monday 7/25 NYTimes about melding of bluegrass and jazz
bands-Del McCoury's bluegrass group and Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

 




  _____  

July 24, 2011


Bluegrass and Jazz Bands, With More in Common Than You'd Think


By BEN RATLIFF
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ben_ratliff/in
dex.html?inline=nyt-per> 


Del McCoury <http://www.delmccouryband.com/> 's bluegrass group and the
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
<http://www.preservationhall.com/band/index.aspx>  did the proper adult
thing on Wednesday night: they resolved their differences, surrounded by
expensive claret. 

On "American Legacies" (McCoury Music), their recent joint album, they've
explicitly made their traditions melt together. This is an old story. Louis
Armstrong did it with Jimmie Rodgers; Wynton Marsalis did it with Willie
Nelson.  The pairing is not a stretch, though it can seem to be. For the
first half of the 20th century bands from putatively different traditions
implicitly understood their common origins and points of crossover. And
their repertories overlapped. Type in the song title "Corrine, Corrina
<http://www.google.com/search?q=corrina+corrine&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=o
rg.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a> " on YouTube and you'll get Red
Nichols's jazz version, Bo Carter's string-band blues version, and various
shades of country into rock 'n' roll from the Collins Kids, Ray Peterson,
Brooks & Dunn, Big Joe Turner, and Jerry Lee Lewis. 

Or you could do the same with "Milenberg Joys,
<http://www.google.com/search?q=corrina+corrine&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=o
rg.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=firefox-
a&hs=406&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&source=hp&q=milenberg+joys+youtube
&aq=0&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=44eb8ccc40613db6&biw=1
209&bih=807> " which the combined bands played near the end of their set at
City Winery on Wednesday. It's a song that Mr. McCoury - raised in the Black
Mountain region of North Carolina - knew because he used to play it in Bill
Monroe's band, and the jazz group knew because Jelly Roll Morton wrote it.
(The dynastic Preservation Hall band, from New Orleans, was founded in 1961
by Allan and Sandra Jaffe, parents of its current tuba player and director,
Ben Jaffe; it has no original members, but the current lineup is full of
familial and professional ties to the group's past.) In that song, and in a
few other places, the musicians did right by the audience: they made music
subtly pan across the stage, from one band to another, so you could hear the
difference in rhythmic temperament, whether in grooves or in solos. 

At full strength 12 musicians stood onstage, jazz guys to the left,
bluegrass to the right. The Preservation Hall band used funk and parade
beats and slid into the beginning of each bar, making the "one" indistinct;
by contrast, Mr. McCoury's group bit down hard on it. 

Although Mr. McCoury filled half the set with his high, clean, no-nonsense
voice, there was a lot more Preservation Hall in the mix; trumpet, trombone,
saxophone and tuba walked all over guitar, banjo, mandolin and string bass.
(The singing styles of the Preservation Hall musicians - the trumpeter Mark
Braud and the saxophonist Clint Maedgen - take up more space than Mr.
McCoury, through various shades of showiness.) And the Preservation Hall
band's strong drummer, Joe Lastie, stamped an irrefutable, seductive groove
deep into each song. 

There were lessons and discoveries in all of that, but you wouldn't want to
overthink it; the music was too amiable and easy to like. 

The Del McCoury Band and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band will collaborate
again at the Edmonton Folk Festival in Alberta on Aug. 6;
preservationhall.com. 

 
--end--