Musings by trombone player, Bill Rayne

The band is now readying for our Thursday (Dec. 3rd) noontime concert for the Portland Conservatory of Music at First Parish UCC on Congress Street, with an entirely different program except for the choice of one tune:  I'll begin my account of our bell tower concert with remarks on that number.
 
SHINE, immortalized in Louis Armstrong's vocal punctuating the wryly engaging use of racial stereotype in the lyric, is one of the rollicking standards of Dixieland music. Our version, sung by banjoist Jeff Grosser (see the cover of the current All Frets Magazine) is with a different, less controversial lyric.  The song was among my early choices for this concert, and after listening to Jim Archey's trombone leading a Sidney Bechet recording into out-choruses of barbecue temperature, my resolve was set.

"Andy" and I also sang harmony on IS IT TRUE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT DIXIE ('36, Calssar, Lerner, Marks,) my old stand-by for street and parade.  And, we never get enough of Andy's vocals.  Often it is he, our "curator" of neglected verses, that puts songs back into performance for us as originally intended (usually verse/ chorus, and so on.)
 
I put SWEET SUE - JUST YOU('28) into the program for our new trumpeter David Langzettel, who reveres modern players like Herb Pomeroy as well as idolizing Louis Armstrong for that giant's inestimable gifts, informing traditional jazz.  Eric sang the vocal and, just as pleasingly, supplied Tuba on the release of the last chorus, in which we go out on a favorite riff associated with Honeysuckle Rose ('29, Razaf, Waller.)
 
Clarinetist Bob Pillsbury was featured on CREOLE LOVE CALL, based on an Ellington work.  One of our sources was a cut by Pee Wee Erwin in which the "echo" chorus starts it, but we reserve the "echo" for going out.  Bob starts the number as a lone horn voice, plumbing the bottom notes of his instrument.  David needed to learn the "echo," and together we found we liked it as a trumpet-trombone duo, beginning with my fifth note and his third.  Bob plays out the rest of this last chorus alone.  We - and the audience - were spellbound.
 
At pianist Olin Sawyer's suggestion I wrote-out an obligato based on Amazing Grace for trombone to play behind Bourbon Street Parade, in Oly's arrangement called NEW ORLEANS FUNERAL MEDLEY (which wasn't so easy! and I shelved, in turn, a related project involving Flee As A  Bird To The Mountain melded with Just A Closer Walk With Thee.  I was glad I kept in 'Closer Walk,' anyway, because we did the loveliest gentle "stroll" with it.) 
 
Just so, we opened the second set with Amazing Grace in 3/4 time and followed Oly's plan into Bourbon Street, with the obligato.  The charm of this event was unshakeable by now.  Starting Trog's Blues (I think a trog is a cave dweller) in the wrong key was without event, as David calmly anticipated the seamless modulation Oly would find, to bring us in.  Also this set, with the traditional AT THE JAZZ BAND BALL, we tapped the success of the first band to release jazz recordings (1917, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band.)
 
I stepped down front and told of seeing my first cakewalk at a very early age, then sang CAKEWALKIN' BABIES FROM HOME, with a few kicks at the end...one of our favorite crowd-pleasers.  Soon another Clarence Williams number (with his brother Sheldon, 1919) ROYAL GARDEN BLUES served to acknowledge, in closing, each musician, by name and instrument.  Following this, as an encore, was Oly's arrangement of ORIGINAL RAGS, by Scott Joplin - a number we always enjoy.
 
Andy and Olin usually do such "producing" for this band, and my formulating this concert, with input from them and the other men, was a great experience.  Our audience that night clearly caught on to our charge of enthusiasm, and enhanced the fun we were having, with them, getting the show on.

(By telephone, the band can be reached by calling Eric Anderson, 207-829-0963 or, Olin Sawyer, 207-781-4889.)
Biography

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Note: Someone who was there said "I don't know anyone who wasn't flying high when it was over."      Marce