This one's for Nancie Beaven, one of this blog's most ardent readers, currently ensconced in Connecticut. Nancie is a great admirer of the Hot Antic Jazz Band and of its cornetist, Michel Bastide. Several times during the 2010 Whitley Bay International Jazz Festival, I had ample opportunity to see why. The HAJB also sported Jean-Francois Bonnel (reed and cornet master) and Martin Seck (vigorous pianist, whom I saw in 2009 with Les Red Hot Reedwarmers) on this occasion, as well as Jean Francois Dubois on banjo and Christian Lefevre on brass bass--or is it a sousaphone? Thanks to Bill Lowden for supplying the last two names, which had eluded me.
A lovely melody by a composer new to me, called HOW STRANGE:
SUNDAY, in honor of Bix, the Jean Goldkette band, and even the Keller Sisters and (their brother) Lynch:
CHICAGO RHYTHM, suggesting not only a time and place, but also Jimmie Noone in his heyday:
Finally, an enthusiastic solo piano reading of THE PEARLS, by “Jelly Roll Martin":
Some band!
