This Month on Riverwalk Jazz
The Jim Cullum Jazz Band Presents
9/1 The Harmful Little Armful: The Incomparable Fats Waller
From serious compositions to silly ditties, a celebration of the great jazz pianist and composer with signature tunes guaranteed to put a bounce in your step.
9/8 Licorice Stick Gumbo: The Masters of New Orleans Clarinet
Special guest, clarinet dynamo Evan Christopher spotlights the rich legacy of jazz clarinet players from the Crescent City—including Johnny Dodds
9/15 Butterbeans & Susie: A Vaudeville Cabaret
Broadway’s Vernel Bagneris and New Orleans’ Topsy Chapman bring back the rollicking days of vaudeville and the saucy comedy of Butterbeans & Susie.
9/22 A New Generation: The Jim Cullum Jazz Band & Clarinet Virtuoso Dave Bennett
Clarinet ‘phenomenon’ Dave Bennett explores the musical legacy of Benny Goodman and the infectious sounds of Swing with The Jim Cullum Jazz Band.
9/29 Jim Cullum’s Jazz Cabaret – Live at Pearl Stable Austin musicians Albanie Falletta, Erik Hokkanen and J.D. Pendley offer their homage to Django Reinhardt and flex their creative muscles on originals and jazz standards.
Note: Riverwalk Jazz public radio broadcasts are recorded well in advance of their air dates. The above listings do not reflect live appearances by the Jim Cullum Jazz Band at The Landing and elsewhere.
You can find the JCJB concert calendar here.
Butterbeans and Susie
Butterbeans and Susie, stars of black vaudeville from the 1920s through the ‘50s, had a major influence on mainstream white comedians. Comic Godfrey Cambridge said, “Butterbeans and Susie originated the routine…that later got translated into George Burns and Gracie Allen.”
Jodie Edwards and Susie Hawthorne were both teenage chorus dancers in a T.O.B.A. vaudeville show when a publicity agent offered them $50 each to get married on stage at the Standard Theatre in Philadelphia in 1917. It started out as a joke, but they stayed together for life.
Read more about Butterbeans & Susie here >>
Bix’s “Final Room” Featured in New York Times
- Bix Beiderbecke
On August 5, an item appeared in the City Room section of the New York Times by Corey Kilgannon, about the last apartment of Jazz Age cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. This past August marked the 80th year since Bix’s death, and the 40th annual Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival was held that same week in Davenport, IA. Appearing at that event was The Jim Cullum Jazz Band as well as Dick Hyman, Vince Giordano and other Riverwalk Jazz guest artists and former JCJB band members.
Read the entire Times article here >>
Stay in Touch with Jim Cullum
Connect with Jim and fans like you on Facebook and Twitter.
To find out when The Jim Cullum Jazz Band is coming to your town in 2011, and for a schedule of live performances at The Landing in San Antonio, TX, view our event calendar.
To reserve a table at The Landing (for large parties and weekends), send email: reservations@landing.com or call 210-223-7266 after 6:00 PM Central Time.
Where to Hear Live Jazz
Information on live performances by your favorite guest artists appearing on Riverwalk Jazz.
Regular Gigs:
Calendar of August Festivals, Concerts and Parties
Photo Credits
- Fats Waller courtesy musicradar.com
- Johnny Dodds courtesy Red Hot Jazz Archive
- Butterbeans & Susie courtesy American Vaudeville Museum
- Dave Bennett courtesy davebennett.com
- Erik Hokkanen, 2007 courtesy flickr.com
- Butterbeans & Susie courtesyhttp://www.last.fm
- Jim Cullum courtesy Riverwalk Jazz
- Rebecca Kilgore courtesy the artist.
- New Black Eagle Jazz Band courtesy http://www.blackeagles.com
- Fats Waller © Bettman/CORBIS
- Landing sign courtesy Riverwalk Jazz
Rebecca Kilgore: Some Like It Hot: The Music of Marilyn Monroe
Reviewed by Will Friedwald in the Wall Street Journal , August 12.
Reprinted from The Wall Street Journal ©2011 Dow Jones & Company. All rights reserved.
From a distance, the show at Feinstein’s this week appears to be a musical tribute to a non-musical icon—the most famous face in the history of American culture. Yet right off the bat, singer Rebecca Kilgore and tenor saxophonist Harry Allen prove that, as with Fred Astaire and Shirley Temple, there is indeed a Marilyn Monroe Songbook, a unique body of music that’s no less hers than her own celebrated body.
Read the entire review here >>
Read another review in the New York Times by Stephen Holden here >>
New Black Eagles Observe 40th Anniversary
New Black Eagle Jazz Band in 2011
Leave it up to the New Black Eagle Jazz Band to find a unique way to celebrate their 40th anniversary. It’s probably more appropriate to say “a unique place” in which to celebrate.
On Sunday, September 18 from 1 — 5 PM, the Eagles along with special guests and their multitude of fans will gather in a 28,000-square-foot hanger surrounded by vintage aircraft and automobiles for an afternoon of classic jazz and nostalgia.
Thomas “Fats” Waller in the Digital Age
- The Fats Waller Website has photos, sound files, memorabilia, a discography and more.
- The Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University maintains the “Fats Waller Forever” site.
- View a collection of Waller videos on YouTube.
- The Waller page on redhotjazz.com has a plethora of sound files.
Jazz Fest at Sea 2011
If you’re a fan of Swing, Classic Jazz, Chicago Jazz, Traditional Jazz, and The Jim Cullum Jazz Band, plan to be on board the Jazz Fest at Sea this coming October 22-29—one of the premier jazz cruises of the year. The ship, the MSC Poeisa, departs from New York to Canada/New England for 7-nights of jazz and fun.
Not only will you have your choice of performances each evening of the cruise, but you are also invited to the afternoon sessions on our day at sea.
Featured artists include The Jim Cullum Jazz Band, The Warren Vaché/John Allred Quintet and The Allan Vaché Swingtet. For more information, visit the Jazz Fest at Sea website.
Just Ask
Just ask and we’ll answer your questions about The Landing, The Jim Cullum Jazz Band and Riverwalk Jazz on the radio.
Dear Riverwalk:
Your Jazznotes and radio program about Lester Young were most enjoyable, and I was surprised to see your comment about the C-melody sax. My second husband and soulmate, Mac Caldwell was a friend and admirer of the elder Jim Cullum when young Jim (whom he also admired and enjoyed) was just starting to play with his band. Mac collected antique band instruments, and among them was an old C-melody sax that he had let my granddaughter play just for fun. After he died, that is all she wanted of his things. Although she plays French horn in her junior high band, she spends practice time that she should be utilizing on her horn, on that saxophone. I have played in Dixieland bands for decades (drums), but never had been told of the history of the C-melody sax in that genre before I saw it in your Notes. I guess we have something really special. Thanks for your very informative JazzNotes—I’m always learning something fascinating and wonderful there.
Marney Caldwell
Editor Responds:
Marney, we’re very gratified to know that our JazzNotes pages have once again fulfilled their purpose. The C-melody saxophone was, like the tenor guitar, a “convenience” instrument that manufacturers of the 1920s offered to fill a need—to give the less musically-schooled a “short-cut” to musical competence. In the case of the C-melody, the problem was reading and transposing C (concert)-pitch sheet music on the B-flat tenor sax. The 4-string tenor guitar was sold as a solution for 4-string tenor banjo players faced with the daunting task of re-learning fingerings to play the newly popular 6-string guitar. An unintended consequence of these instruments’ popularity was a small but distinctive change in sound quality of the jazz produced on them. They are all but forgotten today except for the tiny cadre of players who pursue the authentic sound of 1920s’ hot jazz heard on recordings of the era.
