Oliver-Smith Incomparables: Stomp Your Stuff

Although he was best known as a pianist, the late Jelly Roll Morton was never shy when it came to blowing his own horn. Among Morton's claims was that he had "invented" jazz, an assertion that almost surely stretches the truth but is virtually impossible to disprove. What is known is that Morton was playing a form of jazz as early as 1904 and that he and a later band, the Red Hot Peppers, helped place "hot jazz" on the musical map a century ago via a series of recordings in 1926-27 for the Victor Talking Machine Company. Those recordings and other works by Morton inspired pianist Andrew Oliver and drummer Hal Smith to form an all-star band in 2024 to reassess Morton's musical designs and bring them up to date for a 21st-century audience, using as its name one that Morton himself had introduced for one of his earlier ensembles, Jelly Roll Morton's Incomparables.

While Morton wrote only one of 13 tunes on the Incomparables' debut album, Stomp Your Stuff, his style and spirit are ever-present as the septet stomps and shuffles its way through a medley of blues, rags, ballads and "hot" jazz whose ancestry is almost as old as jazz itself. The group's makeup is probably quite similar to that of Morton's, including, besides piano and drums, clarinet, cornet, alto sax, trumbone, guitar (or banjo) and string bass (or tuba). There is one vocal, by trombonist T.J. Muller, on Morton's lone entry, the bluesy "Honey Babe."

What is clear from the outset is that these virtuosos (no reach to call them that) are steeped in the music of Morton's era and have no problem surmounting the intricacies of charts that are in many cases quite difficult to master. Improvisation, which has always served as the heart and soul of jazz, and no doubt was present even before Morton's early refinements, is in the best of hands here with eloquent statements by Oliver, Muller, clarinetest Andy Schumm, cornetist Colin Hancock, banjoist Jacob Alspach and bassist Dan Anderson reinforcing Smith's rock-solid timekeeping.

The ensemble makes a fiery entrance on Bill Krenz's exuberant "Stomp Your Stuff" before the blues makes its first appearance via Boyd Senter's "Bucktown Blues." James Scott's lyrical "Grace and Beauty" leads to a second blues, Fred Rose's "Jimtown Blues," Earl Baker's buoyant "Mill Creek Shuffle" and Morton's "Honey Babe" before the group shifts into high gear again on Wingy Manone's robust "San Sue Strut." The moderately-paced "29th and Dearborn" precedes a tio of high-stepping gems, "Mobile Blues," "Dallas Stomp" and what composer Oscar Gardner chose to name the "Original Chinese Blues." Not a trace of Chinese there but an ample amount of swinging ragtime jazz. The Incomparables close the exhilarating session with Fred Longshaw's shuffling "Daddy Do" and Mel Stitzel's blistering "Café Capers."

Music from a bygone era? Yes. As lively and refeshing today as it was then? Yes again. Stomp Your Stuff serves as a reminder that good music need never go out of style, especially when played with the kind of expertise and enthusiasm exemplified by the remarkably talented Oliver-Smith Incomparables.