23rd April 2025
Adrian Cox – clarinet, vocals leader.
Honey Boulton – guitar, vocals.
Alex Gilson – double bass.
This band is very different…. drawing from ragtime and early jazz.. They started with an Arthur Marshall tune from 1906 “King clips”. It was like looking through a window in time into a black and white world of over a hundred years ago. A great feeling of swing… the bass rocking while Honey Boulton showed an Eddie Lang influence.
“Making runs” a Buddy Bolden/New Orleans Rhythm Kings number. Honey Boulton’s inventive fluid solo lines, and Alex Gilsons sense of swing provided a foundation for Adrian’s solo flights. The music sounded fresh not the dreaded clunk of the revivalist banjo.
“The Pearls” by Jelly Roll Morton…. the musicians communicated the feeling of a New Orleans street parade. The call and response. The trio educated the audience about the music as well as playing it. The elements of early jazz and ragtime were stomp, blues and Spanish twinge.
“Why” a Jelly Roll number brought to life by the trio… the feelings of a rejected lover. ”Mama Nita” about one of Jelly Roll Morton’s lovers. The way the trio communicates the music made me smile.
Lil Hardin’s “Bluer than blue” (she was Louis Armstrong’s wife). Honey Boulton singing this song brought the spirit of 1920s Chicago to life. Bass, guitar, and clarinet ….playing the modern jazz of the early 20th century.
Rocking out on “New Orleans stomp” …. sounding fresh and relevent.
The way I review jazz is this…. all jazz is the modern jazz of its day.
Once I was given a recording of a boogie woogie pianist of the 1930s doing a concert in the 1970s. What I wrote was….. “A pianist out of time in the modern era of the jazz fusion of “Weather Report and Herbie Hancock” WRONG!!!! He actually was doing the same thing in the 1930s …. jazz improvising over early rock rhythms.
Sidney Bechet rolling on the river with “Red Party Blues”. I can see Tina rocking in her high heels and short dress. It all fits together.
Listening to the guitar I can hear the foundations of Montgomery and Benson.
This is not only a jazz concert but a brilliant jazz education class. “Mood Indigo” by Johnny Hodges and Duke Ellington”… the trio’s take was as smooth as top quality Bourbon. Hodges was the link to New Orleans…and Duke Ellington kept innovating the music as he went along… recording with John Coltrane during the 1960s.
The band improvised within the tradition …. sounding fresh and new.
Billy Strayhorn and Buddy Bogard – their very cinematic “Lament”… a funky blue guitar solo with Django Reinhardt chords. Feeling like a New Orleans funeral procession.
This music continues to open windows to a black and white past of over a hundred years ago. “Tears,” co written by King Oliver, Lil Hardin and Louis Armstrong, Like dancing in a Speakeasy in prohibition Chicago.
“Nervous Breakdown” “Home” Alfonso Pico’s “High Society” ….. this was the popular dance music of the day, high class people dancing the Charleston…. musicians soloing on the bandstand.
Finishing with a Sidney Bechet tune…this music was not static but progressive pointing the way for what was going to come. There was a 1932 recording I listened to on National Radio about 20 years ago. It sounded as modern as the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
The last word rests with the late Miles Davis “Louis Armstrong had it all!”
GT
