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Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers: Live at Tip's |
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New Orleans
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Tuesday, 24 January 2006 02:06 |
Live at Tip's
Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers
Basn Street Records
By John Sinclair
It's hard to imagine now, but swing was once America's popular music. From the end of the Depression to the end of World War II, guys like Benny Goodman (the "King of Swing"), Glenn Miller, and the Dorsey Brothers hit the top of the charts.
Swing music evolved through the agency of genius Americans like Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Don Redman, Bennie Moten and the great Louis Armstrong, the trumpet giant from New Orleans who pioneered the role of the jazz soloist.
Swing has always been the thing in New Orleans, and on the present-day scene trumpeter Kermit Ruffins has established himself as its living embodiment, the Big Butter & Egg Man who's gone back to where Pops left off and picked up the torch.
On stage with his blazing new big band and here at Tipitina's with his smoking quintet, the Barbecue Swingers, Ruffins shows off his juicy trumpet chops, his endearingly personal vocal stylings, and a warm, relaxed approach to the music that brings the sound and feeling of the swing era back to contemporary life.
As a man as well as a musician, Kermit Ruffins is as New Orleans as it gets, a truly singular individual who's developed his unique musical persona by exposing himself to an ever-widening circle of influences. Tuned into standard pop and R&B fare as a youth, Kermit acquired his taste for traditional jazz from schoolmate Philip Frazier, a budding tuba player and prospective bandleader with whom he would form the Re-Birth Brass Band in 1982.
Six albums released over the next 12 years propelled Re-Birth into the international spotlight and took the band to Europe, Japan, Africa and all over the USA. Ruffins flourished in the brass band setting, but his voracious listening and study habits led the young trumpet man to seek a broader outlet for his burgeoning musical appetite.
In the early 1990s Ruffins started up a weekly Wednesday night jam band based at the Little People's Place, a tiny watering hole owned by his mother-in-law. Regulars included neighborhood trombonist Corey Henry and drummer Jerry Anderson, two youngsters with big ears and swift chops who shared Kermit's fascination with bebop, swing, big bands, funk and hip-hop.
Wednesday evenings at Little People's featured several hours of great music and culinary kicks provided by Kermit himself--big pots of red beans and rice, turkey necks or file' gumbo. Kermit also cooks for the Sunday afternoon second-lines in Treme, where he follows the crowds in a pick-up truck with a grill smoking on the back and a tub of cold Buds.
After several months the Kermit Ruffins Jam Band had mastered a repertoire of traditional New Orleans, swing band and bebop favorites and started calling itself the Barbecue Swingers. In 1992 Kermit signed a five-year deal as a solo artist with Justice Records and released three fine albums: World on a String, The Big Butter & Egg Man, and Hold On Tight, featuring the regular band members and special guests.
The Barbecue Swingers developed into a popular attraction around town and went out on several well-chosen European tours and U.S. club and festival dates, while Ruffins also began organizing his long-dreamed-of big swing band with charts by Wardell Quezergue, Irving Mayfield and others.
In 1997 Kermit decided not to renew his contract with the Texas firm and struck out on his own, presenting the big band in a series of well-received performances and working up new material with the Barbecue Swingers.
By this time the small group had cohered into a tight, lustrously fluid unit centered on the interplay between Kermit's mighty trumpet and Corey Henry's ever more coherent trombone. Anchored by Emile Vinnett's sparkling piano, the fat sound of Kevin Morris on bass, and the fiercely swinging drums of Jerry Anderson, the Barbecue Swingers address the entire history of the music--from brass band jazz and swing to bebop, hiphop and funk--with a shared fluency in its traditions and a brash, contemporary stance that endears them to people of every sort.
The Barbecue Swingers have also evolved into a perfect vehicle for Kermit's completely distinctive vocal stylings and an effective foil for his earthy, equally distinctive personality, which works well to sell the band's unique repertoire and its penchant for straight-ahead swinging. Kermit exudes down-home New Orleans charm and loves to clown onstage, infusing the band's performances with humor and good feeling.
All of this can be heard on the program under hand, from ancient songs like "St. James Infirmary" to idiosyncratic Ruffins originals like "Smokin' with Some Barbecue" and "What Is New Orleans," street funk grooves like "Do The Fat Tuesday" and a reprise of the Re-Birth favorite, "Do Whatcha Wanna," hip jazz tunes like "Chicken And Dumplings" (clearly a tribute to the godfather of funk, pianist Horace Silver) and "Just Showing Off," plus a thrilling instrumental outing on "Killing Me Softly With His Song" that shows off Ruffins and Corey Henry in all their virtuosoistic glory. Henri Smith from WWOZ Radio brings the band on, and they go off with a crystalline version of Henri's theme, the ever-popular "Star Spangled Banner."
There's nobody else like Kermit Ruffins and no band like the Barbecue Swingers. You can hear that in every phrase from Kermit's mouth and in every note this fantastic New Orleans band plays. It doesn't get any better than this, and if you can't have your fun with this outfit, dear friends, it's time to call the ambulance.
--New Orleans
December 16, 1997
(c) 1997, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
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