Mojo blues -- Stumptown Jazz 2002

Mojo blues -- Stumptown Jazz 2002
I consider myself lucky to have been and actually still am a member with this great jazz band. Pianist and leader Gary Peterson replaced all the musicians in his band in the late nineties and I was invited to become their cornetist. The band was rather popular at the American jazz festival scene and after 25 years with Climax Jazz band this became for me a welcome change after we had moved from Toronto to the Canadian westcoast in 1996.
I found the members very musical with an appreciation for the early styles of honest jazz. Unfortunately I had the feeling that the band's manager, not a musician, was not too happy with our new style approach. This has not helped in the further promotion and consequent bookings. Now in 2008 Stumptown is almost extinct.
One of the finest reedplayers I ever played with in a band is Phil Hatton, originally from Perth, Australia. All the others are West Coast Americans with a great knowledge and appreciation of the early jazz music. Trombonist Rex Rice and banjoist Dave Brown come from the Seattle area while Gary, tubaist John Walling and drummer Bill Franklin are from the Portland, Oregan area.
The posted clip is a tune I heard first by Lovie Austin's Blues Serenaders from 1926 and later I was inspired by a recording of this tune by the French band called " Le Petit Jazzband de Mr Morel. I worked out a similar arrangement of this great but seldom heard tune.
Bob Erwig

Category:

Music

Tags:

• jazz
• classic
• traditional
• revival
• stumptown
• peterson
• erwig
• hatton
• rice
• brown
• walling
• franklin