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SETTING THE BANDSTAND ABLAZE, IN THE BEST LOUIS FASHION: DAVE KOSMYNA’S INCENDIARY SEVEN PLUS TWO (CHARLIE HALLORAN, ANDY SCHUMM, DENNIS LICHTMAN, KRIS TOKARSKI, KATIE CAVERA, SAM ROCHA, BENNY AMÓN: Redwood Coast Music Festival, October 4, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
"Incendiary" is not an overstatement, as you will see and hear. Here's four minutes of a perfectly controlled explosion, honoring and embodying a fabled Louis Armstrong recording for Decca in 1940, by Dave Kosmyna, cornet, vocal; Charlie Halloran, trombone; Andy Schumm, alto saxophone; Dennis Lichtman, clarinet and fiddle; Kris Tokarski, piano; Katie Cavera, guitar, banjo;…
FRANK NEWTON’S LANDSCAPES OF SOUND | JAZZ LIVES
Before the music sweeps over you, as I predict it will, if Newton is not well-known to you, I suggest you read Matthew Rivera's extraordinary piece on him here. I present a rare private location recording from the autumn of 1944, possibly October 23*, presumably recorded by a Harvard student (hence "The Crimson Network") from…
“SWEET, SOFT, PLENTY RHYTHM”: DAWN LAMBETH’S DAYBREAKERS: MARC CAPARONE, JACOB ZIMMERMAN, DAN BARRETT, CHRIS DAWSON, SAM ROCHA, BENNY AMÓN (Redwood Coast Music Festival, October 4, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
"Sweet, soft, plenty rhythm" is Jelly Roll Morton's condensed description of jazz at its best. But it applies to so much more of the music. I think with great reverence of the Thirties records of Connee Boswell, Mildred Bailey, Maxine Sullivan, Billie Holiday, Nan Wynn, and more. That lineage -- sweet swing singing with equally…
“HONEY BABE”: HAL SMITH’S MORTONIA SEVEN (HAL SMITH, STEVE PIKAL, T.J. MULLER, KRIS TOKARSKI, DAVE BENNETT, COLIN HANCOCK, DAVE KOSMYNA) at the Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival, August 2, 2025. | JAZZ LIVES
Although Jelly Roll Morton is usually characterized as arrogant, some of his music reveals a sweet soul, a man able to offer endearing words and the melodies to support them. There is no issued recording of HONEY BABE: alas, Victor recorded the performance, with his vocal, but rejected it. The song was published by the…
NATHAN TOKUNAGA, NEW YORKER (with DANNY TOBIAS’ LUCKY 7 at WINNIE’S JAZZ BAR: DANNY TOBIAS, SCOTT ROBINSON, JAY RATTMAN, STEVE ASH, ETIENNE WITTICH, PAT O’LEARY, KEVIN DORN, September 26, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
The young man in the blue shirt on our left is Nathan Tokunaga, formerly of Belmont, California; now happily ensconced in Greenwich Village, New York, studying at the New School and practicing vigorously. Nathan brought his lyrical self to the September 16, 2025 revival meeting at Winnie's Jazz Bar (66 west 38th Street, in the…
“TIGER RAG”: KATIE AND THE LOST BOYS (KATIE CAVERA, JESS KING, BENNY AMON, MIKIYA MATSUDA, DALTON RIDENHOUR, CLINT BAKER, RYAN CALLOWAY, COLIN HANCOCK): Redwood Coast Music Festival, October 4, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
Let joy be unconfined! KATIE AND THE LOST BOYS is the invention of the current pride of Evansville, Indiana (Sidney Catlett's home town) -- guitarist, banjoist, singer, actress Katie Cavera. . . a splendid stock company of jazz renegades. For this occasion, the 2025 Redwood Coast Music Festival, the band was Jess King, vocal and…
“YOU’RE SENT FROM HEAVEN, AND I KNOW YOUR WORTH”: VIC DICKENSON, KENNY DAVERN, DICK WELLSTOOD, GEORGE DUVIVIER, MEL LEWIS (1973) | JAZZ LIVES
The songs that jazz musicians improvise on, in performance or in the recording studio, are a subject in themselves. Sometimes the musician is handed a song, new or old, to record, subjected to the powerful whim of the A&R person. The result can be memorable: Billie Holiday and Lester Young making THIS YEAR'S KISSES eternal.…
THEY CALL IT MUSIC: T.J. MULLER’S TRIBUTE TO EDDIE CONDON at the REDWOOD COAST MUSIC FESTIVAL (ANDY SCHUMM, DAN BARRETT, JONATHAN DOYLE, KRIS TOKARSKI, T.J. MULLER, STEVE PIKAL, HAL SMITH, VALERIE KIRCHHOFF, October 7, 2023) | JAZZ LIVES
Eddie Condon and his friends made spirited uplifting music whenever and wherever they were. We have forty-five years of recorded evidence to prove it. Now, we have a session from 2023, a half-century after Eddie put the guitar down forever, to celebrate his music in the best way possible. The hour-long tape I offer here,…
FAST EDDIE CARRIES (IT) ON | JAZZ LIVES
That's Eddie Erickson, balladeer, plectrist, vaudevillian, and more, someone who's delighted me for nearly twenty years. We spent some time recently in Arizona, and visited the little desert town called Carefree (a real-estate developer's invention, because calling it Arid would have attracted fewer people). The main street in the pleasant shopping area is Easy Street…
“WHAT’S THE USE OF A SIGH?”: AN ANTIDOTE TO DESPAIR, THANKS TO THE REVEREND HILL | JAZZ LIVES
When I read the morning's headlines, I feel as if I had been punched in the solar plexus. And that area is still sore from yesterday's headlines. When breathing returns to near-normal, I look for comforts. One of them is the company of the OAO (also known as MVP, for Most Valuable Person); another is…
LOVE IN SWINGTIME: ALICE SPENCER with HAL SMITH’S OVERLAND SWING EXPRESS (DAN BARRETT, JONATHAN DOYLE, KRIS TOKARSKI, JONATHAN STOUT, MIKIYA MATSUDA, at the Redwood Coast Music Festival, October 6, 2024) | JAZZ LIVES
The Alice Spencer Effect, imitated but never surpassed, is a winning combination, a secret recipe mixing emotion, swing, easy risk-taking, joie de vivre, and more. She can make a distracted audience rapt and silent with THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU or I'M THROUGH WITH LOVE, but such deep tender explorations have appeared in other posts.…
HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR PROF. KOSMYNA’S CLASS YET? IT STARTS IN A WEEK! | JAZZ LIVES
To his students at Ohio Northern University, this man is Professor David Kosmyna, who might be found in Presser Hall 300 when not in the classroom. Some of us know Professor Kosmyna by a more informal, less academic title: Incendiary Dave. Club owners and concert producers make it their business to see that the fire…
“TFF,” or TIME-SENSITIVE (November 27, 1987) | JAZZ LIVES
Legendary trumpeter Yank Lawson told the story of the first time he played alongside the Master, Sidney Bechet. Hoping to impress Bechet, Yank chose a very rapid tempo for JAZZ ME BLUES, and when it was done, he looked to Bechet for approval, and got only the sour, "Young man, you played that song too…
“TALENT DESERVING WIDER RECOGNITION,” or WHEN HOT JAZZ and a SWING ERA BIG BAND GOT MARRIED (1936-42) | JAZZ LIVES
"TDWR" was the acronym DOWN BEAT used to hang on some creative individual who wasn't winning their polls, but who should have been. What that says about polls and "the star system" in jazz, I leave to you. The acronym now reminds me of the Monopoly game card that bestows some small sum, perhaps ten…
“THE STUFF IS HERE” at the REDWOOD COAST MUSIC FESTIVAL (Eureka, California, October 2-5, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
The hour draws near, as they used to say. Will we see you at the party? I can't fly you to Eureka, but what follows is as close to an engraved [musical] invitation as I can create. Let Valerie Kirchhoff and her stellar band tell you before I begin: https://youtu.be/lXYkV2wMY0A Alice Spencer gives her heart…
THE GOLDEN AGE IS NOW! (The Third Set): THE DANNY TOBIAS SEPTET with JON-ERIK KELLSO, DAN BLOCK, STEVE ASH, FELIX LEMERLE, PAT O’LEARY, KEVIN DORN (Winnie’s Jazz Bar, 66 West 38th Street, New York, July 25, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
You can find the first and second sets of this wonderful evening's performance here. For those who need a study guide, the personnel of the Septet for this performance is Danny Tobias, trumpet and Eb alto horn; Jon-Erik Kellso, Puje trumpet; Dan Block, tenor saxophone and trumpet; Felix Lemerle, guitar; Steve Ash, piano; Pat O'Leary,…
IN PRESENT TENSE: BECKY KILGORE and JIM DAPOGNY (Jazz at Chautauqua, Saturday, September 18, 2004) | JAZZ LIVES
I cannot bear that people I love and admire have moved away through death or illness. I cannot bring them back in person. All I can do is honor their art and hope that their spirits know we send them love. Two such dear people and artists are Jim Dapogny and Becky Kilgore, James and…
IN THE MAIN STREAM: HARRY ALLEN, JOE WILDER, KEN PEPLOWSKI, DAVE McKENNA, MICHAEL MOORE, JOHN VON OHLEN (Jazz at Chautauqua, September 15, 2000) | JAZZ LIVES
Timeless music performed exactly a quarter-century ago, which is hard to imagine. The gracious expert performers are Harry Allen, tenor saxophone; Joe Wilder, trumpet and flugelhorn; Ken Peplowski, clarinet and tenor saxophone; Dave McKenna, piano; Michael Moore, double bass; John Von Ohlen, drums. The place and the occasion was Joe Boughton's weekend jazz immersion, Jazz…
“LADY, BE GOOD”: DAVID BOEDDINGHAUS, MENNO DAAMS, TORSTEIN KUBBAN, LARS FRANK, MARTIN WHEATLEY, PHIL RUTHERFORD, ANDY SCHUMM (The Victory Pub, The Village Hotel, Newcastle, UK, November 2016) | JAZZ LIVES
Improvisations on a well-known theme by George and Ira Gershwin, now LADY BE GOOD, but originally, OH, LADY BE GOOD!. Here is Cliff Edwards in 1925, who begins with the sweet verse: https://youtu.be/1ughJYxojok?si=iEPdHdcSh_ThNo9Q Generations of jazz players and singers have taken the LADY for various rides around the park. I begin this post with the…
“WOULD YOU LIKE BUTTER OR SOUR CREAM ON YOUR POTATO?”: JAZZ, STEAK, AND SUBURBIA | JAZZ LIVES
Some experiential sociology follows, subjective, hardly comprehensive. In the Twenties, hot music, dancing, and illicit liquor were happily linked. Speakeasies may have served food as a cover, just as restaurants may have offered liquor sub rosa during Prohibition. But the only evidence of music accompanied by food I have is Louis, thirty years after the…
EVEN BETTER IN PERSON: CEMRE NECEFBAS, JOSH HOLCOMB, JOSH DUNN, JARED ENGEL (Temple Court, Beekman Hotel, New York City, Sunday, September 7, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
Edgar Allen Poe enjoyed the sounds, as did the audience at Temple Court. and and a wide-angle shot of the room (photos courtesy of RSG Studios): I don't recall precisely when I heard the wonderful singer Cemre Necefbas on YouTube, but it was before the pandemic. I was thrilled to know she is back in…
TWO DEUCES: MARC CAPARONE and JEFF HAMILTON at BIRD AND BECKETT (653 Chenery Street, San Francisco, California, August 30, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
Just perfect. And I am particularly delighted by this duo-performance because Marc and Jeff have not only been musical heroes but good friends of mine and of JAZZ LIVES for fifteen years. Thanks to Eric Whittington of Bird & Beckett Books & Records, even people at some distance from San Francisco (like myself) and otherwise…
COMING SOON! or “IF YOU CAN, YOU SHOULD”: THE REDWOOD COAST MUSIC FESTIVAL (Eureka, California, October 2-5, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
I know my title is unsubtle. Not everyone can (which is why I bring a video camera, to spread the joy). But it occurred to me this afternoon, Thursday, October 4, 2025, that in four weeks from now, Thursday, October 2, the OAO and I will be on a plane to Eureka, California, to dip…
HOT TIMES at the HOT CLUB OF NEW YORK (The First Set): COLIN HANCOCK, JON THOMAS, and MIKE DAVIS (“Sittin’ In,” 20 West 20th Street, Room 307, Sunday, August 31, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
https://jazzlives.wordpress.com/2025/06/06/its-hot-its-here-tthe-hot-club-of-new-york-has-a-home-20-west-20th-street-room-307-new-york-city/?preview_id=75452&preview_nonce=96bb27b61a&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=75471 On Monday nights (7:30-10:30 PM) The Hot Club of New York warmly embraces the past while bringing it to the present, by sharing music recorded on 78 rpm records. It's sweetly and unaffectedly educational, with none of the dusty strictures of the classroom. This is due to the gently witty personality of its founder,…
BORN SINGING: CEMRE NECEFBAS / JOSH DUNN | JAZZ LIVES
On her YouTube channel, the marvelous singer Cemre Necefbaş has a one-sentence biography: "She was born in Istanbul in 1994, singing." As Johnny Keats was fond of saying, that is all you need to know. I will add that her work is a marvelous blend of passion and exactitude (she takes risks but sticks the…
“THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE”: JON-ERIK KELLSO, JOE WILDER, MARTY GROSZ, JOHN SHERIDAN, HAL SMITH, JAY LEONHART, DAN BARRETT, BOB REITMEIER, SCOTT HAMILTON. (Jazz at Chautauqua, September 19, 1999) | JAZZ LIVES
Joe Boughton's triumphant jazz weekend, Jazz at Chautauqua, opened and closed with as many musicians as possible on stage to play a series of one-chorus ballad solos, and then one or two riotous jam session extravaganzas, often dividing twenty musicians into two bands alternating choruses and solos. They took as their model the Eddie Condon…
PAUL BACON and his BLUE-BLOWERS (JON-ERIK KELLSO, BOBBY GORDON, MARTY GROSZ, JOHN SHERIDAN, VINCE GIORDANO, WAYNE JONES: Conneaut Lake Jazz Festival, August 26, 1994) | JAZZ LIVES
If you look up "Paul Bacon" online and find the right one, you will be facing perhaps hundreds of memorable designs -- from early Blue Note lp jackets to MONK'S MUSIC -- and book jackets completely recognizable (Joseph Heller's CATCH-22) even as their creator remains anonymous. I doubt that he got royalties for his art,…
SOUNDTRACK FOR AN IMAGINED FILM ROMANCE: “CURVE VELOCI,” MARISA BALISTRERI QUARTET | JAZZ LIVES
Something different, but totally charming. A friend told me about this music, and although everyone was new to me, I found myself playing the track -- a swinging 12-bar blues with a marvelous singer -- several times. That was all the encouragement I needed to tell you about it. FAST CURVES for sure. Marisa Balistreri,…
SWEET, THEN SAVORY: KEN PEPLOWSKI, HOWARD ALDEN, JAY LEONHART, JOHN VON OHLEN (Jazz at Chautauqua, Sunday, September 19,1999) | JAZZ LIVES
Few of us are fortunate enough to have live music performed at Sunday brunch. But thanks to Joe Boughton and Jazz at Chautauqua, we had the most uplifting sounds along with eggs, fruit, coffee, and toast. Joe also wanted the music he love to be documented, so we can recapture experiences of more than a…
WHEN JAZZ CAME UP THE RIVER TO LINLITHGOW: THE SWEDISH JAZZ KINGS TAKE SCOTLAND (Part One: Saturday, August 21, 2010) | JAZZ LIVES
The music that follows -- the exuberant hot music, I should say -- is shared here thanks to the generosity of Irene Biermans, who managed the Swedish Jazz Kings and was also the wife of its spectacular reedman Tomas Ornberg. She is very much on the planet, so her generosity is in the present tense,…
IN THE MAIN STREAM: SCOTT HAMILTON, HOWARD ALDEN, DAN BARRETT, JOE WILDER, ROSS TOMPKINS, MICHAEL MOORE, JOHN VON OHLEN (Allegheny Jazz Society, August 22, 1986) | JAZZ LIVES
Mainstream jazz nirvana, utterly personal voices blending into a marvelous unity. This wonderful session came about because of jazz enthusiast and entrepreneur Joe Boughton, whose enterprises included the Conneaut Lake Jazz Festival, Jazz at Chautauqua, the Allegheny Jazz Society, JUMP Records, and more. Joe left for another neighborhood in 2010, but his legacy lives on…
THE GOLDEN AGE IS NOW (Part Two): ‘WAY DOWN YONDER IN BUSHWICK: JON-ERIK KELLSO, DAVE BLENKHORN, DAN WEISSELBERG, MARK SHANE, KEVIN DORN (Cafe Ornithology, 1037 Broadway, Bushwick, Brooklyn, February 16 and June 25, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
I think of these five musicians as Anointed Guardians of Medium-Tempo Swing. It's fashionable to play fast, and occasionally take time for a ballad, but the Groove: "music to pat your foot by," as William Basie, the Saint of Red Bank, described it, is to be treasured. Here are selections -- more good news! --…
“EV’RY DREAM GONE”: BARBARA LEA, DAVE McKENNA, BOB BARNARD, LARRY CONLEY, WILLARD ROBISON (Conneaut Lake Jazz Festival, August 30, 1992) | JAZZ LIVES
Ford Madox Ford's novel THE GOOD SOLDIER begins with "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." Perhaps the most melancholy interlude in American popular song is the 1929 A COTTAGE FOR SALE, music by Willard Robison, lyrics by Larry Conleym although I hear Robison's particular kind of midwestern melancholy in the lyrics as…
THE GOLDEN AGE IS NOW (Part Three): “SITTIN’ IN” at the HOT CLUB OF NEW YORK with EVAN ARNTZEN, JOEL WENHARDT, JAY RATTMAN, SAM CHESS, ANDREW MILLAR (Room 307, 20 West 20th Street, Sunday, July 13, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
You can experience the first half of this delicious musical-communal interlude here. The quick version is that this was the first jam session gathering sponsored by the Hot Club of New York, and the happy participants were Evan Arntzen, clarinet and tenor saxophone; Joel Wenhardt, piano; Andrew Millar, drums; Sam Chess, trombone; Jay Rattman, clarinet.…
THE GOLDEN AGE IS NOW! (The Second Set): THE DANNY TOBIAS SEPTET with JON-ERIK KELLSO, DAN BLOCK, STEVE ASH, FELIX LEMERLE, PAT O’LEARY, and KEVIN DORN (Winnie’s Jazz Bar, 66 West 38th Street, New York, July 25, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
For Part One of this delicious Musical Offering, click here. You won't be sorry. The band and I will wait. and and! And now to music. Always welcome, Donaldson's YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY: https://youtu.be/2MBqw07qceo A standard that's much-loved but not frequently played, DON'T BLAME ME: https://youtu.be/z4Rl5K1vaCQ THE SHEIK OF ARABY, echoing Hot Lips Page on…
“WHAT’S THE MAGIC WORD?”: MENNO DAAMS, TORSTEIN KUBBAN, LARS FRANK, DAVID BOEDDINGHAUS, MARTIN WHEATLEY, PHIL RUTHERFORD, ANDY SCHUMM (Whitley Bay Jazz Party, Newcastle, England, November 5, 2016) | JAZZ LIVES
If you spend any time with pre-pubescent children, this word, part admonition, part entreaty, might come to your mind. It's mechanical, in the same way one hopes to train better behavior by repetition and reward. Perhaps you grew up with the even less subtle, "Say please!" as part of your training to be courteous. But…
“HOTTER THAN THE DEPOT STOVE”: MARTY GROSZ, TOM BAKER, BOB HAVENS, BOBBY GORDON, JOHN SHERIDAN, BOB HAGGART, HAL SMITH (Conneaut Lake Jazz Party, Sunday brunch, August 30, 1992) | JAZZ LIVES
I don't think many railroad depots have waiting rooms with stoves like this anymore, but the music counts more than the vintage expression. I wanted to call this post THE VERY DEFINITION OF HOT JAZZ or APPLY HEAT TO THE AFFLICTED AREA, but the stove caught my eye. The music catches the ear and never…
THE GOLDEN AGE IS NOW (Part One): THE DANNY TOBIAS SEPTET with JON-ERIK KELLSO, DAN BLOCK, STEVE ASH, FELIX LEMERLE, PAT O’LEARY, and KEVIN DORN (Winnie’s Jazz Bar, 66 West 38th Street, New York, July 25, 2025) | JAZZ LIVES
My title isn't hyperbole. I know, among jazz fans of a certain orientation, that the Past is the hallowed place. "X is great, but have you heard Y on this song?" I admire Y without limit, but Y is dead and no longer gigging. X and Company can be seen in person in the rapidly-receding…
A FEW MINUTES, NEVER ENOUGH, WITH JIM DAPOGNY (Jazz at Chautauqua, September 30, 2007) | JAZZ LIVES
Here but not here. I can delight in the music and energy of Jim Dapogny (James or Prof, take your pick) but I can no longer send him an email or sit down to a meal with him. Everything and everyone is finite, but I don't expect to stop feeling his absence while I am…
“COME AND GET IT!”: THE 2025 REDWOOD COAST MUSIC FESTIVAL IS ON THE WAY, WITH A CAST OF THOUSANDS (Valerie Kirchhoff, Ethan Leinwand, Jonathan Doyle, T.J. Muller, Andy Schumm; Carl Sonny Leyland, Dan Barrett, Nate Ketner, Sam Rocha, Josh Collazo, Hal Smith, Dave Kosmyna, Dave Bennett, Kris Tokarski, Katie Cavera, Steve Pikal, Alice Spencer, Marc Caparone, Jacob Zimmerman,Brian Holland, Danny Coots, Ray Skjelbred, Riley Baker, Jessica King, Ryan Calloway, Clint Baker, Jon-Erik Kellso, Andy Schumm, Matt Weiner.) | JAZZ LIVES
October is not that far away. For some, it is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. For me, it's time for the Redwood Coast Music Festival. I don't know a place more full of fruitfulness -- the musical and personal kind -- than the Redwood Coast Music Festival in Eureka, California. You can look…