Listening to these 17 songs from before The Great War into The Great Depression makes you realize how far music creation and listening has changed. Back in these days, each tune was a concise 2-3 2/2 minute statement, and every note and part of a melody meant something. A solo had to make every thought count as time was precious. The eight men that make up The Evergreen Classic Jazz Band don’t treat the songs by Fats Waller, Scot Joplin, Jimmie Noone and Duke Ellington as museum pieces; rather, they spotlight the importance of a concise and cogent theme, mood and melody. In contrast to music today where never ending songs have never ending and pointless solos, each artist does what jazz originally set out to do, which was to “tell a story.” These guys tell it!
Happy rhythms and breaks are provided by the team of Al LaTourette/banjo, Tom Jacobus and Dale Roach/tp, with happy moods and peepy solos on “Ring Dem Bells” and “Stomp Off, Let’s Go.” Steady two beats made for dancing with your partner mix with polyphony between Craig Flory’s trumpet and David Holo’s cornet on “Stock Yards Strut” and the gentlemanly gait no “Swipesy Cake Walk.” The reeds cackle on the two beat ditties “Every Eveining” and they get fluffy on “Kangaroo Hop” while David Loomis” delvirs a peppy and joyful solo on “Put ‘Em Down Blues.” Bouncing tubas and slinky trombones glide and stride like a parade and vintage Chicago jazz features Jake Powel’s soprano sax on “Blues In The Air.” Solos pop in and out amongst the polyphony like minstrels on a street festival, yet each instrument has its own voice, sound and style. Infectious, this disc makes you wonder when the music started taking itself too seriously.
Delmark Records