The Jazz Repertory Company Blog

The Jazz Repertory Company Blog
The Jazz Repertory Company Blog

Thursday 11 August 2016

Countdown to our next Cadogan Hall concert - Mad, Trad & Dangerous To Blow - ANOTHER 100 Years Of Jazz, Saturday 7:30pm, 24th September 2016:

Countdown #20: 
"When I go to the Gate, I'll play a duet with Gabriel. Yeah, we'll play 'Sleepy Time Down South' and 'Hello Dolly!' Then he can blow a couple that he's been playing up there all the time.'" 
Louis Armstrong 


Countdown #19: 
The Boss Blogs


Countdown #18: 
"Lester Young had hired a drummer who wasn't playing what he wanted to hear. During a break, the drummer tried making conversation: 
'Say Prez, when was the last time we worked together?' 
'Tonight,' sighed Lester." 
Lester Young

Countdown #17: 
"There are two kinds of jazz: Traditional, where they all play together and try to outdo each other, and Modern, where each player goes on as if unaware of the existence of the others. You must decide which you support and decry the other on every occasion." 
Bluff Your Way In Music

Countdown #16: 
"By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with." 
Duke Ellington


Countdown #15: 
"Jazz perfectly captures the democratic process in sound. Jazz means working things out musically with other people. You have to listen to other musicians and play with them even if you don’t agree with what they’re playing. It teaches you the very opposite of racism and anti-Semitism. It teaches you that the world is big enough to accommodate us all." 
Wynton Marsalis


Countdown #14: 
"Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijuana, and will expire on cocaine." 
Artie Shaw

Countdown #13: 
"Finally Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes'." 
Eddie Condon

Countdown #12: 
"Most customers, by the time the musicians reach the second set, are to some extent inebriated. They don’t care what you play anyway." 
Charlie Mingus

Countdown #11: 
"I never practice my guitar — from time to time I just open the case and throw in a piece of raw meat." 
Wes Montgomery

Countdown #10: 
"Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple." 
Charlie Mingus

Countdown #9: 
"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny." 
Frank Zappa

Countdown #8: 
In Another 100 Years Of Jazz we pay tribute to the “Mickey Mouse” bands of the swing era – the bands that definitely didn’t swing! Lawrence Welk was the king of the “Mickey Mouse” bandleaders. Here’s Will Ferrell in a great spoof of the Welk. 

Countdown #7: 
In Another 100 Years Of Jazz Georgina Jackson not only sings this but plays the virtuosic trumpet solo too! Boy we work her hard! 

Countdown #6: 
Duke Ellington’s The Mooche. Don't miss our ANOTHER 100 Years Of Jazz concert to see if the band strip down to similar 1928 jungle style feathered bikinis. 

Countdown #5: 
See 5 sexy boys and a thoughtful and intelligent women play ANOTHER 100 years of jazz. 

Countdown #4: 
Nick Dawson gets his Mojo working for one day only in 2016; September 24th at Cadogan Hall

Countdown #3: 
"Jazz will endure, just as long as people hear it through their feet instead of their brains." 
John Philip Sousa

Countdown #2: 
"If you're in jazz and more than 10 people like you, you're labelled commercial" 
Herbie Mann

Countdown #1: 
The show ends with a version of St Louis Blues encompassing jazz styles from 90 years of the music's history, kicking off in 1914 and ending up in 2004 with this great Peter Cincotti version.

Mad, Trad & Dangerous To Blow - ANOTHER 100 Years Of Jazz, 24th September at London's Cadogan Hall: Tickets Here!



The Jazz Repertory Company: Worth Making A Noise About.


Thursday 4 August 2016

The Sex Pistols On Trumpet & 1917's Infernal Racket

In anticipation of Another 100 Years of Jazz concert at the Cadogan Hall on September  24th I'm posting a few interesting nuggets about some of the music included in the new show. In the first show (100 Years of Jazz in 99 minutes) we played Livery Stable Blues by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band and In "Another 100 Years" we turn the record over and perform Dixieland Jass Band One Step.  Livery Stable Blues is a slow infernal racket - in complete contrast the B side is a much livelier infernal racket.  Imagine The Sex Pistols having their guitars confiscated and replaced by a trumpet, clarinet and trombone, then downing huge quantities of lager and being accompanied by their drummer chucking his kit down a fire escape and you get a pretty good idea of how it sounds.

The Dixieland One Step by the Original Dixieland Jass Band

This recording from 1917 is now universally considered the first ever jazz recording.  It's odd that white musicians should have pipped African Americans to the post for this accolade but it came about because the black New Orleans trumpet player Freddie Keppard  turned down the offer to record in that year. His reason for refusing was that he didn't want other musicians listening and stealing his licks!

The recording is pretty wild and we should be grateful that 78 rpm records could only hold about two and a half minutes of music.  We recreate the rough and ready nature of the music by having four fifths of the band play instruments that they don't really play (they like to think they do but they don't really).  


So what do you think of the original and very first jazz recording?

The Jazz Repertory Company's - 100 Years Of Jazz In 99 Minutes