Nagel Heyer has taken upon itself to reissue two live performances in Hamburg by trumpet player/vocalist
Byron Stripling and some very good friends. The only previously unissued cut is "I'm Confessin' That I Love You." Although consistently written off by some as old fashioned and jaded, many jazz musicians love to play this traditional jazz, (Dixieland, if you must), irrespective of the jazz genre they are usually associated with. Take bass player Greg Cohen, for instance. He is one of the foremost avant-garde musicians on today's scene. But he's here strumming his bass doing "Slow Drag" Alcide Pavageau on such cuts as "If I Could Be With You" and "When It's Sleepy Down South."
The play list, with fresh exciting arrangements by
Randy Sandke, runs the gamut of
Louis Armstrong material from the Hot Five and Hot Seven periods to material he used during his later years. Tunes like "Struttin' With Some Barbecue" and "West End Blues" changed the face of jazz playing and singing forever and influenced virtually every jazz musician of note who came after.
Stripling's trumpet and vocalizing, while not copying Armstrong -- his trumpet doesn't reach for those very high notes Armstrong was noted for and his voice isn't as gravelly -- yet takes on the same joie de vivre that oozed out of every Armstrong performance, albeit live or on record.
Stripling sounds so earnest on "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans," one feels he is itching to get in the first plane back to the Crescent City. And he ends with Armstrong's signature "Oh, Yeh."
Stripling's friends play with like feeling and verve.
Kenny Davern on "If I Could Be With You" plays a clarinet as sublime as one will ever hear.
Joel Helleny's full trombone sound dominates "Big Butter and Egg Man" with Greg Cohen's bass once more deeply involved. The group brings the house down with a rousing "Tiger Rag" fortified by Allan Vache's excellent clarinet solo and
Joe Ascione's pulse quickening drumming. And, of course, there's the presence of the inestimable
Bob Haggart on bass on six cuts. He was playing this music before some of his cohorts on this session were born. This is a fun album and is recommended. ~ Dave Nathan