The Andy Biskin Quartet: Early American: The Melodies of Stephen Foster

The songs of Stephen Foster (1826-64) seem to have seeped into our American DNA, especially for those of us of a certain age. We sang "Oh! Susanna," "Old Folks," "Camptown Races" and other Foster gems in elementary school—badly, if memory serves me, with an unrestrained, window-rattling youthful gusto on "Oh! Susanna." Those melodies are part of us now.

New York-based clarinetist Andy Biskin discovered the simple beauty and straightforward storytelling aspects of Foster's melodies after a chance playing of "I Dream of Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair" on a restaurant gig. He has since developed a deep interest in Foster's material that he brings to the fore on Early American.

Biskin and his cohorts—Pete McCann (guitar and banjo), Chris Washburne (trombone, tuba) and John Hollenbeck (drums)—craft a sometimes light-hearted and often whimsical sound, infused with warmth and an old-timey feeling, as they play some of Foster's best-known songs. You could call it Americana folk music chamber jazz, with a forward-leaning focus when Biskin's arrangements give the familiar melodies some idiosyncratic twists and turns, updating these timeless sounds with the likes of McCann's searing electric guitar solo on "There's a Good Time Coming."

Biskin slips in six of his own compositions to complement Foster's songs. On his "Thin King Thinking" the clarinet sings the blues in front of a thick tuba growl, before the band slides into an loose-limbed disassemble, like a drunken house band in a mid-19th Century house of ill repute; and on "Kid Proof" the group romps, taking turns, sharing the moments of sound—a tuba huff, then a drum clitter-clat and a clarinet trill, the guitar issuing spikey notes all around them.

The opening and closing tracks are brief moments (less than a minute each) from just after Foster's time, the tinkle of a wind-up music box from the late-1800s playing "My Old Kentucy Home, Good Night!" and "Old Folks at Home." In between you hear Andy Biskin's updated yet still reverent take on the sounds of Stephen Foster.

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