Back in the early days of jazz, the beats were two stepping hot, the solos were wild yet concise and the tunes were danceable. One of the most famous of the “Chicago” style of music (think of the movie Some Like It Hot) was from five kids from the Windy City’s Austin High School, namely Bud Freeman/sax, Dick McPartland/b-g, Jimmy McPartland/ct, Jim Lanigan/p, Dave Tough/dr and Frank Teschemacher/as, all creating the core of what eventually evolved into what we now call The Swing Era.
Producer George Avakian (known for putting together classic albums on the Columbia label by Miles, Ellington, Satchmo and Brubeck) brough together a bunch of modern trad artists like Dick Hyman/p, Kenny Davern/as-cl, Dan Levinson/cl, Dan Barrett/tb, Milt Hinton/b, Howard Alden-Marty Grosz/g, Ken Peplowski/ts, Dick Sudhalter-Peter Eclund/ct, Jon-Erik Kellso/tp, Tony DeNicola-Arnie Kinsella-/dr and Vince Giordano/tb-bsax for a rollicking tribute to the sound, style and attitude of jazz’s deep dish pizza roots.
The album has three mixed and matched bands; the first has Hyman leading the Teschemacher Celebration band including Sudhalter searing through a stomping “One Step To Heaven”, and clarinetist Dan Levinson swaying to “Liz”. Peplowski cruises through the hip jive of “I’ve Found A New Baby” around Hyman’s rollicking fingers, and is ivory thunder on “Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble” (They just don’t make titles like that anymore!).
Kenny Davern’s Windy City Stompers has the leader going into the low register with Dan Barrett’s trombone on “The Darktown Strutter’s Ball” and produces a wondrous vibrato on a deliciously slow take of “Indiana”. Hyman and Barrett delve into “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” with Hinton while the one-off jam of “Farewell Blues” makes the floor vibrate with Vince Giordano’s bass saxophone. When it was hep to be hip, these guys were hip.