BLAST FROM THE PAST: THE ORIGINAL BLACK EAGLE JAZZ BAND

My old friend and former bandmate Tony Pringle recently sent me this photo of one of the earliest appearances of our Black Eagle Jazz Band in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1970. (That's me on the right sporting an afro and a Harvard crew shirt.) Other members of the band are Pringle on cornet, Ray Smith on drums, Jim Klippert on trombone, Eli Newberger on piano, and Dave Duquette on banjo.
Tony and I put the original group together in about 1969. Tony, a computer engineer, had recently arrived from Liverpool (via Ohio) and was looking for musicians who shared his passion of George Lewis-style New Orleans jazz. Somebody gave him my name, so he showed up at my dorm at Harvard one day and we immediately decided to put together a group of like-minded musicians in the Boston area. The guys in this photo were the first "generation" of the Black Eagles.
Soon after this photo was taken, Pam Pameijer took over on drums;  Duquette moved to Texas and Peter Bullis filled the banjo chair. That was the group that recorded with Chester Zardis on bass in 1971 and played that year in the second New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, with Kid Ory on the front row. Ory shook our hands after the concert and praised the band—an unforgettable moment. Later that year, I graduated and left for Oxford, Klippert moved to California, and the band continued under Tony's leadership as the New Black Eagle Jazz Band. More than four decades later the NBEJB is still playing and prospering.

NEW ORLEANS MAG TOUTS "HYMNS & SPIRITUALS"

Jason Berry (bless his heart) made this nice mention of our "Hymns & Spirituals" CD in his latest column for New Orleans Magazine. Excerpts:

Clarinetist Tommy Sancton and pianist Lars Edegran do a splendid job on instrumental versions of  songs from those early quartets and the repertoire of street bands. Hymns & Spirituals. New Orleans Quartet (NOL-CD-99) culls 14 songs that were recorded at live performances in Trinity Episcopal Church, between 2007 and ’09.

Since Sancton returned several years ago to his hometown after a journalist’s career in Paris, the one-time student of the peerless George Lewis has become a mainstay of the traditional jazz community. On numbers like “In the Garden” and “Abide With Me,” Edegran’s anchoring work on piano gives Sancton room to roam; his lines quaver and soar like a vocalist in flight. Of all the instruments in the classic jazz ensemble – or a parade band for that matter – the clarinet is the woodwind that, at its best, comes closest to intoning a feminine essence.

In his memoir, Song For My Fathers, Sancton writes of his lessons under George Lewis: “He would go up and down the horn, weaving in and out, sometimes harmonizing with the melody, sometimes leaving space and playing a counterpoint, something laying down a rhythmic arpeggio. His tone was gorgeous, especially when he let his horn sing out on the long notes with his plaintive vibrato.”

The “plaintive vibrato” is every clarinetist’s goal, fusing the sadness and sweetness that give church song an essence of the blues. “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” has a slow moody blues melancholia to fit a harmonizing quartet, with no musical accompaniment, or a clarinetist undulating across a landscape of African-American memory, the notes supplanting the tolling lines of sorrow.

Lars Edegran’s supple piano gives Hymns & Spirituals a base line to dramatize the nature of melody, a songline that draws its beauty, instrumentally and in human voices, which swing together.

Order online:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tommysanctonlarsedegrann

NEW CD HAS ARRIVED!

With the release this month of this GHB album, a new band is born. Actually it is a band that's been playing together informally at Preservation Hall and the Palm Court Jazz Café for some time now. Now we have a name and an official lineup for this debut CD.

The name: The New Orleans Legacy Band

The lineup: Tommy Sancton (clt.), Lars Edegran (piano) — co-leaders; Jason Marsalis (dms); Kerry Lewis (bass); Clive Wilson (tpt); Ronell Johnson (tbn and vocal)

The tunes: City of a Million Dreams, High Society, There Goes My Heart, Un Hombre Fiel, Just you Just Me, I Want a Little Girl, Somebody Stole My Gal, You Tell Me Your Dream, Love Me or Leave Me, Make Me a Pallet on the Floor, Yearning, Strike Up the Band.

The session was recorded at Audiophile Studios (just above the Palm Court) on December 20 and 21, 2010, engineered, edited and beautifully mastered by Richard Bird. The sound quality is superb. The CD (BCD-527 on the GHB label) can be ordered by mail at Jazzology/GHB Records, 1206 Decatur Street, New Orleans LA 70116, or on line at jazzology.com. Or better yet, buy it from us directly on our gigs and save the tax and shipping. We're at Preservation Hall most Sundays (see schedule on this site).

FRANCE'S BETTENCOURT SCANDAL IN VANITY FAIR

Anyone who has been following this blog since last summer may have wondered why it suddenly went silent in July and August. (Probably nobody noticed or wondered anything at all, but just in case...) The reason is that my June 27 post on France's Bettencourt scandal attracted the attention of Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who asked me to do a full-blown piece on this juicy saga for his magazine. Though I had expected to spend the summer luxuriating in France, eating exotic food and pecking away at a new novel in my spare time, I eagerly accepted Graydon's offer. Abandoning my beloved chaise longue, I launched into ten-hour days of reading press clippings, pumping the Internet, tracking down sources and doing interviews over steaming expressos and, I confess, the occasional gourmet meal in a Parisian restaurant. The reporting and writing job devoured my whole summer, but now that it's out in Vanity Fair's November issue, as Edith Piaff sang, "Je ne regrette rien." It's an intriguing tale about an 88-year-old hieress who gave more than a billion dollars (that's nine zeros) to her fawning dandy friend, photographer/artist François-Marie Banier, and nearly brought down the French government in the process. Check it out:

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2010/11/bettencourt-201011

TOMMY SANCTON QUINTET AT TRINITY 9/26

Sorry about the late notice, fans (fans? Do I have fans?), but my quintet is playing at Trinity Church this Sunday 9/26 at 5 p.m., as part of the Trinity Artists Series. The group features Seva Venet on guitar, Nobu Ozaki on bass, Lars Edegran on piano and myself on clarinet (see photo). We'll be joined by the delightfully exuberant trombonost Ronell Johnson (see my earlier post:

http://tinyurl.com/2drbweu) for a program of Gospel music and New Orleans Jazz standards. Trinity Episcopal Church, 1329 Jackson Avenue, New Orleans 70130, (504) 522-0276.