Darktown Strutters' Ball (S. Brooks) 4.20
Big Bad Bully (trad.) 3.21
Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning (T. Delaney) 5.17
Boodie-Oolie (V. Castelli - G. Marson) 4.29
Glory of Love (B. Hill) 4.17
Shake That Thing (C. Jackson) 4.00
Girl of My Dreams (S. Clapp) 3.47
Rosetta (E. Hines - H. Woode) 3.02
Wabash Blues (F. Meinken - D. Ringle) 3.57
Alexander's Ragtime Band (I. Berlin) 4.15
Sister Kate (A. J. Piron) 4.56
Weary Blues (A. Matthews) 4.51
Someday Sweetheart (Spikes bros.) 3.06
Canal Street Blues (J. Oliver) 3.50
Mama Don't 'Low (trad.) 5.26

Conceived, recorded and produced by Giulio Cesare Ricci
Recorded at the Teatro Comunale dei Concordi, Campiglia Marittina (LI)
Recording date 20-21 October 2000
Recording assistant Paola Liberato
Tube microphones Neumann U47, M49
Nagra microphone preamplifiers
Analog Tape Recorde Nagra 4s
line, digital, microphone and supply cables: Signoricci
The original master were transferred from Nagra 4s directly to DSD.

HISTORY

It all started few years ago when "Top Audio organizer Piero Dametti asked me to put together a traditional jazz band to play during his well-known hi-fi show. Being well acquainted with all the specialist musicians of this kind, I had no trouble forming a New Orleans type outfit to fulfil his request. I knew from former experience that a whole brass band was a little out of place in modest sized interior spaces. So, I reverted to the easier formula of three horns with tuba and banjo accompaniment. The audience much enjoyed it, so we were invited again and again the following years. Despite some inevitable changes in the line-up due to band members' occasional unavailability, the basic line up remained the same, i.e. the one featured on this CD.

During the Top Audio production of 1999, Giulio Cesare Ricci head of the fonè record label made a proposal to record us. I fear we took it easy, too easy. At last, all of us, Giulio Cesare, his equipment, including his legendary microphones, and we, the musicians, could gather in Campiglia Marittima, near Piombino (Tuscany) the following year (2000) in the month of October. In a couple of days, between meals, we managed to record the fifteen tracks of this CD.

As is often the case with New Orleans ensembles we started with not many ideas on what to play. The repertoire evolved as we played it, much to our own amusement and to the amazed wonder of Mr. and Mrs. Ricci, Giulio Cesare and Paola Maria, who, I guess, are accustomed to some more detailed session planning.

THE BAND

The musical relationships among our five "Jazz Makers" are a bit complex.

Except for me they usually play together in a group called "Odd Fellows" where by the way Nino plays banjo and guitar while Giorgio performs on string bass.

Nino (on tuba), Giacomo, Andrea and I play together in the "Pegasus Brass Band" as well as in the "Blue Feeling Orchestra" where Nino only plays guitar. Making things more complicated, our individual paths sometimes cross in other bands in which we perform occasionally.

THE TUNES

Darktown Strutters' Ball

Happy song from early 20th Century, catchy and easily remembered. It sounds just like the ideal album opener. It debuted in jazz repertory when in 1917 it was chosen by the "Original Dixieland Jass Band" for the very first jazz record of them all. True, Columbia Records, frightened by all that cacophony didn't release immediately the record, leaving Victor Records the merit publishing the first jazz disc ("Livery Stable Blues" by the same band). But that's another story.

Big Bad Bully

Obscure tune first recorded in the Fifties by Paul Barbarin' s band. The record itself is now a veritable "collector's item". The lyrics suggest that the title's subject must be one of those countless railroad trains which so often served as the vehicle for the lamentations of folk singers.

Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning

When first recorded in the Twenties (with Louis Armstrong's assistance) by Josephine Beatty (Alberta Hunter) and Clara Smith, this was a sixteen-bar blues. In 1940 Sidney Bechet re-shaped it by cutting the melody's length to twelve. We have decided to make everybody happy by using the original format in the first and last choruses, reverting to the customary twelve-bar blues in between.

Boodie-Oolie

This easy "original" in the "New Orleans Today" vein was conceived between meal courses. The title, a little mysterious and deceptively spelled, was conceived by Andrea even before Giacomo and myself had the idea to assemble the notes into a composition of ours. 

The Glory of Love

This Leitmotif of the film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" has been rarely played by jazzmen. We got the inspiration from the beautiful 1950 Kid Ory version (the song was copyrighted in 1936 while the picture was made much later, in 1967).

Shake That Thing

This famous blues by "Papa" Charlie Jackson, a best-seller in the colorful race records market of the Twenties, has decidedly double entendre lyrics and is reminiscent of the even more famous "Georgia Grind". Once again, even if our band doesn't include a trombone player, our reference-version is Kid Ory's.

Girl of My Dreams

This popular waltz song of the Twenties in more recent years had an important role in the "Angel Heart" movie, creeping again and again into the plot as a mysterious link between the main character and his terrible and forgotten past. New Orleans musicians, trombone player Louis Nelson first of all, rightly transformed it into a fox-trot.

Rosetta

One of the best-known songs by the one and only piano giant Earl "Fatha" Hines. Our version heavily features Andrea's tenor sax. After listening to the many recorded takes, we decided to use this early version which, despite the portentous reed "squeak" that we originally found "unacceptable", remains the livelier one.

Wabash Blues

A trumpet player's piece. Isham Jones' first recorded version featured the nearly forgotten trumpeter Louis Panico, while later on Clyde McCoy had a great personal success with it, despite a rather un-tasty performance. Possibly unaware of all this (he's too young to care) Giacomo must have caught the affinity between his instrument and this 1921 vintage melody, since he selected it as own feature.

Alexander's Ragtime Band

One of Irving Berlin's best known songs, an early forerunner of such "song-about-songs" opus as "Memphis Blues", "A Song Was Born", "A Banda" and "Canzone da due soldi". The openly declared quote of Stephen Foster's "Swanee River" (not only four bars of that melody were lifted, but the lyrics also mention the original title) must have had some relevance in the American copyright’s history.

(I Whish I Could Shimmy Like My) Sister Kate

A great traditional jazz classic. Louis Armstrong, usually easy going in such matters, once claimed he wrote it. We can believe him, I guess. Anyhow the easy but lovely harmonic structure (which is shared with other "originals" like "South", "Bogalusa Strut" and "Georgia Camp Meeting" lends itself nicely to jazz improvisation.

Weary Blues

Sometimes known as "Shake It and Break It", this blues-based ragtime tune has remained a jazz favorite ever since the 1927 Armstrong versions.

Someday Sweetheart

Some believe that Jely Rol Morton wrote this beautiful tune. Possibly it isn't so, even if the famous pianist recorded a great version of it leading his "Red Hot Peppers". When we came to record ours, Andrea, who must have the King Oliver version printed in his head, as if guided by some invisible autopilot, found himself unconsciously playing the not so common verse section. Lucky strike!

Canal Street Blues

A King Oliver classic again. This one, named after New Orleans' main street, is a piece that al jazz lovers know by heart. As expected, our performance includes several bows to the unforgettable 1923 original recording.

Mama Don't 'Low

New Orleans veteran musicians of fifty years ago adopted this tune because it allowed itself well to introduce the "guys in the band". Faithful to tradition Andrea acts as master of ceremonies by inserting our names one by one into the song lyrics before each solo.

Vittorio Castelli