The Seacoast Stompers began a new Decade at the Acton Jazz Cafe with another full house, on a beautiful, sunny, cold New England winter day.  They opened with their usual tune, an upbeat At The Jazz Band Ball.  But that was the only thing that was usual. 

Leader pianist Frank Stadler announced that they would try something different.  Ordinarily he brings in a list of tunes, they work at trying different styles, changing the keys, making sure they do not duplicate any melody.  But they are jazz musicians, and generally ignore the list anyway.  This time he asked the band members to rotate picking the tunes, tempo and keys.  So with this team of first-rate jazz musicians, off we went into superb Dixieland Jazz for the next three hours! Eat your heart out, World!

Note: Pictures are all thumbnails - click on picture for full size.

Steve's turn - he counted out the beat for a drum intro into Don't Be That Way, flipping and tossing the batons like the pro that he is.  Bob had a marvelous, string bass solo, with Steve backing him softly with rim shots.  (A rimshot is the sound produced by hitting the rim and the head of a drum at once, with a drum stick, usually played to produce a more accented note, and typically played loudly.) But soft rim shots are possible.

Craig's clarinet was scorching on After You've Gone; Scott, not wanting to be left behind, played a full chorus of  rapid-fire cornet.  Moving to the other end of the 'stage' by the drum, Craig and Steve reminisced with memories of Benny Goodman - Gene Krupa duets.

With no one actually controling the tunes, ending tags became a problem, after flubbing a couple, they made a rule for no tags, but that is dull and unacceptable to Dixieland musicians, so they played all 7 tags in one tune and got it over with.

The afternoon ended with a barrel-burning China Boy, and left everyone making reservations for the first Saturday in February and hoping for another beautiful New England winter day - with no snow!