Alex Belhaj's Crescent City Quartet: Sugar Blues

Trad jazz isn't trending on Twitter or climbing the charts, but that doesn't mean it's completely irrelevant in today's musical landscape. There's still a segment of people, both on the delivering and listening ends, who enjoy the way multiple horns can snake around one another in a polyphonic dance of joy, supported and driven by guitar and bass below. Many of these people find themselves drawn to New Orleans, where the music first took firm shape, and that's where the story of this project begins.

Michigan-based guitarist Alex Belhaj visited New Orleans in the spring of 2010, and that trip proved life-altering for him. Upon his return from NOLA, Belhaj immersed himself in the waters of traditional jazz. He soaked up those sounds on record, caught quite a lot of live music, and wound up assembling this band, comprised of fellow trad jazz travelers from Ohio and Michigan.

Sugar Blues—the debut recording from Alex Belhaj's Crescent City Quartet—is a good-time affair, complete with high-flying horns, simple-but-pleasing vocals, and chugging rhythmic fixtures. There's nothing terribly surprising here, as little is left undiscovered in the early twentieth century contributions of men like Clarence Williams, Sidney Bechet, and Jelly Roll Morton, but this music isn't being sold as surprise; it's sold, instead, with honesty and verve.

Upbeat moments abound ("Weary Blues" and "Viper Mad"), the music takes breezy turns ("His Eye Is On The Sparrow"), and the spirit of the blues persists as Belhaj and his men perform. Ray Heitger's clarinet and Dave Kosmyna's cornet comfortably carry the weight of history and the spirit of the Crescent City, Belhaj's guitar and Jordan Schug's bass lay the groundwork on every number, and the charmingly plain vocals of Belhaj, Heitger, and Kosmyna deliver the gospel according to old world jazz. There's not much risk on Sugar Blues, save for a brief bonus track that delivers avant-dixieland clamor, but there remains plenty of reward(s) in the music that Belhaj and his band mates have made.