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New Orleans Nightcrawlers: Live in Algiers |
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New Orleans
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Sunday, 22 January 2006 06:39 |
New Orleans Nightcrawlers
Live in Algiers
By John Sinclair
The Nightcrawlers blasted onto the New Orleans brass band scene in the mid-1990s with an extremely interesting premise: could an all-star ensemble of musically mature, highly skilled white transplants from all over America with backgrounds in ragtime, traditional jazz, bebop, R&B and swing make an authentic contribution to the long-established native black brass band idiom?
The Nightcrawlers eponymous initial recording for Rounder Records provided a most positive answer. Boasting impressive original compositions and arrangements, imaginative improvisers, precise ensemble playing and a contagious joi de vivre all their own, the Nightcrawlers quickly established themselves as a popular addition to the city's extensive menu of memorable musical offerings.
Because its members have always stayed extremely busy with regular work in bands from the Dukes of Dixieland to Dr. John, the Nightcrawlers live engagements have been relatively rare. Yet the ensemble has continued to grow through regular rehearsals and their occasional public performances: adding new material, replacing key players, getting looser and ever more comfortable with the brass band context and the band's permanent repertoire.
Finally, for their third album release, the Nightcrawlers have decided to show off their exuberant on-stage sound with this exciting program of new and tested material played for an enthusiastic crowd at the Old Point bar in Algiers, an ancient sector of the city situated across the Mississippi River from the French Quarters and downtown New Orleans.
Here the core members of the Nightcrawlers Matt Perrine, Kevin Clark, Barney Floyd and Ken Snakebite Jacobs are joined by their current bandmates: trombonist Rick Trolsen, reedman Jason Mingledorff, and the dynamic drum team of Tanio Hingle (New Birth Brass Band), Kerry Fat Man Hunter (Sixth Ward Big Shots) and Howard Smiley Ricks, a long-time Mardi Gras Indian Chief from the West Bank who has traveled the world playing percussion with Dr. John and his band.
The new New Orleans Nightcrawlers are on fire here from the opening cut, and they flame ever brighter as the set unfolds, unveiling splendid new works by Matt Perrine ( Can of Worms, Stone Puppy ) and Jason Mingledorff ( Red's Cap, Mardi Gras Mumbles ), throwing a collective salute to WWOZ Radio ( 90.7 ), swinging the hell out of Kevin Clark's compelling arrangement of the Tito Puente/Santana favorite Oye Como Va and the now-familiar Tom McDermott arrangements of Steve Masakowski's Sidewalk Strut and his own Martin's Mambo.
The set peaks in true brass band fashion when Martin's Mambo erupts into a fervid chant and segues into Stanton Moore's soulful Tchfuncta, triggered by an exultant recitation of New Orleans funk history by Craig Klein which proudly connects the Nightcrawlers to the tradition they have so enthusiastically embraced. Then Chief Smiley Ricks takes everything to a fever pitch with his impassioned, wholly idiomatic delivery of the Mardi Gras Indian anthem On That Day, and vocalist Debbie Davis emerges to close the show over the band's rousing reading of the wildly self-referential Black Water : I wanna hear that funky brass band and dance that honky tonk!
This is the place to find it, dear friends, with the New Orleans Nightcrawlers in full flight at the Old Point bar across the river, and like they say in the Sixth Ward, it ain t gonna be nothing nice. Put on your honky tonk clothes and your favorite dancing shoes, turn up the volume on your CD machine and get ready to kick em up high. This is what brass band music is all about.
New Orleans
April 10, 2000
(c) 2000, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
New Orleans Nightcrawlers
Live at the Old Point in Algiers
1 Can of Worms (Matt Perrine) (5:26)
2 90.7 (Nightcrawlers) (5:22)
3 Oye Como Va (Tito Puente) (7:08)
4 Sidewalk Strut (7:30) (Steve Masakowski)
5 Red's Cap (Jason Mingledorff ) (6:47)
6 Stone Puppy (Matt Perrine) (6:45)
7 Mardi Gras Mumbles (Jason Mingledorff) (7:22)
8 Martin's Mambo (Tom McDermott) (9:04)
9 Tchfuncta/On That Day (Stanton Moore/Smiley Ricks) (6:28)
10 Black Water (Patrick Simmons) (6:39)
Produced by Matt Perrine, Jason Mingledorff, Mark Bingham & Tracey Freeman
Executive Producers: Dale Triguero, Barney Floyd
Kevin Clark, trumpet, arranger (3)
Barney Floyd, trumpet, flugelhorn
Craig Klein, trombone & vocals
Rick Trolsen, trombone
Jason Mingledorff, tenor saxophone & clarinet, arranger (5, 7)
Ken Snakebite Jacobs, baritone saxophone
Matt Perrine, sousaphone, arranger (1, 6, 10)
Kerry Hunter, snare drum
Cayetanio Hingle, bass drum & cymbal
Howard Smiley Ricks, percussions & vocals
Special Guests:
Debbie Davis, vocals & percussions(10)
Tom McDermott, piano (8), arranger (4, 8)
Recorded live at the Old Point Bar by Tim Stambaugh, Algiers, LA, March 24-25, 2000. Additiional recording by Mark Bingham at the Boiler Room, April 1-4, 2000
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