The New Orleans Jazz Vipers

When Eric and Sarah took a trip to New Orleans and saw the Vipers, they became a big inspiration for the formation of the Hot Six out of elements of the Sidecars and Get Off Downtown.

Our best wishes and prayers go out to the people of New Orleans, and to all the musicians there who've inspired Americans at large and the world to push harder and make more music.

It's good to see the Vipers are still online; at least their servers are up. I've been meaning to add them to the sidebar. We'll keep checking back for news.

Upcoming Gigs

Update (8/12): Bump!
Update (8/26): Bump! Bump!
Update (8/26): Bump! Bump! Bump!


Here's some dates to add to your calender as we look ahead toward the fall:

Saturday, Sept 3
12:30 - 2:30 PM
The Sidecars will be playing Western Swing as part of the Plaza Jazz Series at the Diggs Fountain Plaza on the corner of Clifton & Ludlow, in Clifton, near the heart of Cincinnati's famous Hospital District.

Pssst! Hey! Keep the evening of Sept. 10th open. Something might happen. I'll let you know....

Saturday, Sept 24
12:30 - 2:30 PM
This time it's the Hot Six's turn, playing hot jazz and featuring the cool voice of Sarah "Cadillac" Johnson. More of the Plaza Jazz Series, still at the corner of Clifton & Ludlow.

Tags: music, gigs, live music, swing, western swing.

Let me put on a fresh pot

Today is Singing Cowboy Day at Keep the Coffee Coming, and I almost missed it. Kat has music from Gene Autry, Frankie Laine, Montana Slim, and Tex Ritter.

And don't miss the Boswell Sisters.

Seeing the Boswells so close to those singing cowboys reminds of that fantastic recording that Bing Crosby and the Boswell Sisters made of San Antonio Rose. You know the one -- the one with the ocarinas. WMKV used to play it every afternoon, it seemed.

Vincent Price and the Blue Glaze Mento Band

I'm not going to pretend to be cooler than I am. I'd never heard of Mento before, and while I was looking for images of Vincent Price, the actor, I stumbled across this page dedicated to Vincent Price, master of Mento music, who passed away in 2004. This traditional Jamaican music sounds to my virgin ears a bit like a cross between Calypso and Dixieland jazzUncle Dave Macon.

There are four, full-length audio excerpts at the bottom of the page. They're in unprotected WMA format; if you have MediaPlayer 9 and iTunes 4, you can convert them to a portable format, such as .mp3 or AAC.

Courtesy of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.

Gene Autry, Itinerant Bluesman (.mp3)

Some stories never get told because they don't suit anybody's purposes. Those are my favorite stories. You've probably heard the story about how Gene Autry was discovered by Will Rogers:

Born in Tioga, Texas, on September 29, 1907, Orvon Gene Autry bought his first guitar at the age of 12 for $8. By the late 1920s, he was working as a telegrapher for the railroad in Oklahoma. While he was singing and playing in the office one night, Gene was discovered by the great cowboy humorist Will Rogers. Rogers advised the young Autry to try radio, and the rest is history. [Link]

And you may have heard that, unlike slick dudes such as Roy Rogers (aka Leonard Slye), Gene was a real Texas cowpoke. From a profile written in 1934:

Recently in Oklahoma a group of young men of the town arranged to have him attempt to ride an outlaw horse, evidently thinking he couldn't do it. He was able to prove his cowboy training, and successfully rode the horse.[Link]

What you won't hear about, most likely, is the kind of music Gene was playing when Will Rogers found him -- rough, hard-edged west-Texas Blues, with more than a suggestion of Jimmie Rogers.

Here's an early, pre-Hollywood recording of Gene, singing of love and betrayal, with murder on his mind (courtesy of The Internet Archive):

Atlanta Bound (.mp3)

Rauß!, Little Dogie, Schnell, schnell!

"Der Alte Cowboy" is the German title of the Western standard "The Last Roundup." Here's a link to an .mp3 of the Comedian Harmonists' recording of Der Alte Cowboy, courtesy of WFMU's Beware of the Blog:

Called "Jewish-Marxist noise" by the Nazis in 1932, this German singing supergroup broke up two years later after it was prohibited from performing due to the non-Aryan heritage of half its members. This piece of fluff was recorded a month before the split. Download MP3

In 1997, the story of the Comedian Harmonists was told in an award-winning German-language film. I haven't seen the movie, but I've been digging the music for the last several weeks, and I like this track more and more each time I hear it. Give it a listen.

Tags: music, mp3.

Vintage Bourbon -- Bourbon Street, that is.

Here's a terrific article at frenchquarter.com about the scene on Bourbon Street in New Orleans during the burlesque heyday of the '30s and '40s. Great pics. Via Plep.

BBQ Video

If somebody put this movie together to try to make fun of Americans, all I can say is they failed miserably. As my buddy Joe used to say, by the time they got to the end, I had to put down my chicken just to wipe away a tear. (Link to Quicktime movie -- it's a big 'un.) Via Boing-Boing. (Confidential to Mark F. in NYC: It's called "Dueling Banjos." Sheeesh.)

Smokin' and Drinkin' on the Big Rock Candy Mountain

Check out these MP3 posts at Big Rock Candy Mountain:

Gonna Get Tight: with MP3 downloads of drinking songs from solo Tommy Duncan, Moon Mullican, and the Sunshine Boys.

Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette: The canonical version of the titular song by Tex Williams and His Western Caravan, and a pistolical version by that son-of-a-gun Johnny Bond; plus silky chanteuse Peggy Lee with the torch song "Don't Smoke in Bed" (as Charlene Darling said of Salty Dog, "That one always makes me cry.") Roger Miller and post-Dylan folk/virtuoso Nick Drake are also represented digitally.

Say Catfish, can't we get some of your vinyl digitized? That kinda bally really brings in the marks. I know I've never seen a rerelease of those Doughboys radio shows.

My best quality is my humility....

This interview with Jake Speed on CincyMusic.com is worth reading, not only because he says nice things about the Sidecars, but because he's such a humble and generous person, with great insights into music and the musical life.

But mostly because he says nice things about the Sidecars:

....
13. Name the top five live performances you've seen that blew your mind.
The top five live performances that blew my mind in 2004 were:
....
2. The Sidecars at my wedding.
....
20. Name a few of your favorite Cincinnati Bands.

The Sidecars [First out of the gate!].....

Read the whole thing and find out who Jake likes almost as much as us.