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Live review: Preservation Hall Jazz Band
If you were among the discriminating cognoscenti who partook of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s set at the Wildflower Stage on Sunday night, you have a right to strut a bit. You were, after all, among the couple of thousand or so folks (yeah, I’m talking about you, you Dan Auerbach and Spearhead fans) who weren’t climbing each other’s shoulders for a glimpse of Girl Talk or queuing up for Pearl Jam. There is more to life than headline acts.
And no matter how many chart-toppers ACL books, I hope there will always be room for acts like PHJB. They are among those heirloom performers who carry the torch and maintain the foundations for all the myriad acts that populate the ACL stages.
They’re a barrel of fun, to boot. A multi-generational array of jazz men, they’ve been spreading the gospel of classic New Orleans jazz and Dixieland since Preservation Hall opened its doors in the French Quarter in 1961. Today, the group is helmed by Benjamin Jaffe, the son of Allan Jaffe, who helmed the first incarnation of PHJB. But though the players change (though the virtuosity seemingly does not), the repertoire remains a timeless blend of rags, jump blues, brass band music, Dixieland, hot jazz and American standards.
The group was tearing through “Shortbread” when I arrived, about 10 minutes into the set, and they had no sooner tied that up prettily than they lit into Louis Armstrong’s “Ol’ Man Mose.” “Tailgate Ramble” followed, as did “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate,” with bassist Walter Payton taking a rare lead vocal.
“Sugar Blues” led into a long excursion that eventually meandered it’s way into “When the Saints Go Marching In,” which morphed into “Mama Don’t Allow” and even a fragment of the football Saints’ fight song (“Who dat?/Who dat?/Who dat say dey gonna whip dem Saints?”).
But for my money, the high point of the evening came a little earlier, when the band lit into the public domain standard, “Ice Cream,” and the tuba player hauled out a cooler full of ice cream bars and drumsticks, which the group tossed out to the sweaty crowd like Mardi Gras beads. It was, hand’s down, the best bit of showbiz of the whole weekend.
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Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: ACL 2009: Sunday, ACL Festival 2009
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By Ivan
October 5, 2009 10:54 AM | Link to this
If anyone has any video of the last song by the group “When The Saints Go Marching In”, I would love to get a copy - I was one of the lucky guys who got to go up on the stage with them.
And yes, the show was awesome.
Thanks, Ivan
By Ivan Milman
October 5, 2009 12:53 PM | Link to this
This was a great show! The rhythm, timing and sound of the band was fantastic.
If anyone has any video of the last song, I’d appreciate it if I could get a copy - I was up on stage when they were doing “When The Saints Come Marching In”>