President and CEO Lonnie Davis and artistic director Ocie Davis have been delivering JazzArts programming and monthly Jazz Room concerts for over ten years – and Holiday Editions from their first year onwards. Previous Jazz Room Holiday Editions were staged at Booth Playhouse or McGlohon Theater to accommodate larger Yuletide audiences, but the eleventh edition had to be unique, virtually streamed over Facebook and YouTube, and sourced from multiple locations in the US and abroad. Hosting garrulously in a seasonal Santa cap and a garish fa-la-la jacket, Curtis Davenport certainly established a festive tone. Yet all wasn’t merry on the playlist from nine different ensembles – and all wasn’t Christmas, since time was set aside for a Chanukah segment.
Leading off from New Orleans was Matt Lemmler, whom we had last seen at the Stage Door in an August 2019 jazz tribute to Stevie Wonder. For that Jazz Room event, Lemmler had fronted a ten-piece band from the keyboard. This time, clad in full Santa attire, Lemmler launched into Vince Guaraldi’s “Linus and Lucy” from A Charlie Brown Christmas without even a trio, accompanied only by Don Caro, a rather interesting and unique drummer. Lemmler didn’t toy much with the beloved 1965 soundtrack album, improvising only a little, but his follow-up vocal on Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here,” from the same album, certainly changed the flavor. A small band of cute little cartoon kiddies sang on the original vinyl from the CBS Special, but Lemmler’s style evoked the late Dr. John, though there wasn’t the same signature rasp in his voice.
The next group was homegrown and JazzArts-bred, namely the JazzArts All-Star Youth Ensemble playing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” Holland Majors seemed to anchor the quartet from the electric keyboard, but it was Olivia Ratliff who had center stage and the spotlight, playing electric bass and singing the vocal. Tenor saxophonist Gustavo Cruz was consistently fine on both his solos. Majors also took two brief solos, impressing me more when he switched off his piano mode and went with his organ sound. Since this webcast also doubled as a fundraiser, Davenport aptly pointed out that educational programs working with musicians and combos such as these were a prime destination for contributions to JazzArts.
Davenport was most effusive when he introduced the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and rightfully so. The New Orleans institution not only brought the largest ensemble to the party, they also boasted the most impressive video production in their down-home setting, easily MTV quality. As tenor saxophonist Clint Maedgen sang “Please Come Home for Christmas,” there were close-ups of the brass, Ronell Johnson on the trombone and Branden Lewis on the trumpet, enriching the texture. Side shots of the rhythm section showed us drummer Walter Harris in the foreground, bassist Ben Jaffe near the middle of our screens, and pianist Kyle Roussel in the distance with his back toward us. Yet there were also closeups of Roussel in the final cut, and shots of hands were near enough to render his wristwatch larger than life-size on my computer monitor. Maedgen’s vocal was as recognizably New Orleans as Lemmler’s had been but in a bluesier vein.
While I couldn’t begrudge JazzArts for saving the second Preservation Hall selection for the finale of the program, it was a bit cruel to have Robyn Springer follow in their wake with such spare backup. Lovell Bradford was listless and quiet at the electric keyboard and Ocie Davis, armed with a bell shaker in one hand and a brush in the other, hardly helped Springer to even smolder, let alone burst into flame, as she sang the coquettish “Santa Baby.” A more robust backup could have added some edge to Springer’s savvy rendition the lyric before she finally heated up toward the end. There was a welcome flourish of scatting the vocalist before her fadeout, sprinkled with Bradford’s holiday coda.
Springer recorded her spot at Wonderworld West End Studios, the same local spot as the JazzArts All-Stars, so the interval with the Preservation Hall combo gave the Holiday Edition a more credible continuity. No exits, no entrances, and no new setups were necessary to sustain the flow. Our next excursion was to Chicago, where we reverted to a duo performance with a less claustrophobic camera placement than we’d seen for Lemmler. We could see the full height of bassist Junius Paul as he accompanied Corey Wilkes, playing muted trumpet on “Winter Wonderland.” Without much texture to the arrangement, Wilkes’ straightforward unveiling of the melody was a bit bland, but he opened up impressively with multiple choruses of dazzling variations on the theme. Discreetly, the trumpeter exited from the screen – well, almost – while Paul demonstrated that he also had formidable improvising skills.
We returned to the local studio, where Israeli-born guitarist Amos Hoffman (now based in Columbia, SC) supplied us with our Chanukah interlude, “Cad Katan,” backed by Davis and bassist Sam Edwards. You can more easily check out this song, commemorating the “Little Jug” of oil that lasted eight days at the Holy Temple when the Maccabees reclaimed Jerusalem in 160 (the Chanukah miracle), by spelling it “Kad Katan” in a Google or Spotify search box. Hoffman’s first pass through the melody was very much at the deliberate pace of most recordings, with perhaps a reggae lilt layered on. Each successive chorus markedly quickened the pace, triggered by Davis at the drums, truly swinging by the time we reached the out-chorus. Over the course of this instrumental, Davis switched from mallets to drumsticks to kickstart Hoffman’s fleet repeat, switching yet again to brushes when he shared a chorus with Edwards, trading fours as the bassist unsheathed his bow. These exploits were nearly as eye-catching as the handless Caro’s had been behind Lemmler. One of Caro’s arms proved capable of grasping a stick, but the other needed the assistance of an elastic armband. Switching from one kind of drumstick to another was itself a feat.
Our trip overseas to watch Sasha Masakowski sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was arguably the most claustrophobic of the evening – and certainly the most poignant. Accompanied only by guitarist Per Møllehøj in the corner of a Copenhagen garret, Masakowski sang a reduced arrangement by her father, renowned New Orleans guitarist Steve Masakowski, that appears on the newly-released Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Live at Snug Harbor New Orleans) album by the Masakowski Family. Sasha is anything but a belter. She sang so sweetly, making this “Merry Christmas” especially forlorn each time she reached the final eight bars and their pandemic-pertinent lyric, “Through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow.” Given his own solo, Møllehøj underscored the intimacy and solemnity of Masakowski’s performance. Showcasing Jason Marsalis as its most recognizable guest artist, the Masakowski Family album manages to cover two other songs performed at the Holiday Edition, making it a worthy gift.
“Christmas Time Is Here” was the first of these covers and “The Christmas Song,” presented at Wonderworld West End by Mac Arnold & Plate Full O’Blues, was the second. Immortalized with his bassline in the “Sanford and Son Theme Song,” Arnold is doubly unorthodox as a bluesman. He plays his bass left-handed and, even more outré, his instrument is handmade with a gasoline can – like the gas-can guitar he learned to build and play when he was growing up on a sharecropper’s farm in South Carolina. You wouldn’t expect the 78-year-old’s rendition of the Mel Tormé standard to sound like Nat Cole’s, but Arnold was not far from the weathered timbre and expressiveness of Tony Bennett to my ears – and Austin Brashier’s brief solo reaffirmed that Holiday Edition was blessed with more than a couple of fine guitarists.
Roxy Coss‘ most recent Quintet album was one of the best in 2019 to my ears, and the tenor saxophonist was able to gather a fine quartet into her cramped New York dwelling – with a video camera or two, a grand piano, and the grand pianist from her quintet, Miki Yamanaka. Coss put a little more mustard on her opening chorus of “Let It Snow” than we heard on the plainer expositions by Lemmler and Hoffman, handing off the bridge to Yamanaka to add color to the arrangement, and both women swung their solos heartily when the real blowing began. The gals gave a guy a piece of the action, taking turns in trading fours with drummer Jimmy Macbride before taking back control for the last chorus. It was arranged like the opening statement, except for Yamanaka getting the last word and adding a Count Basie-like coda to her exit.
With the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s encore came an extra treat, 88-year-old clarinet icon Charlie Gabriel performing the valedictory vocal, “We Wish You All.” This Christmas song is unknown in the annals of Google, Spotify, and AllMusic, listed simply in the closing credits as performed by the band without specifying a composer. Could have been a world premiere for all we knew, sung with youthful gusto by Gabriel and very much in the vein of that quintessential New Orleans native, Louis Armstrong. Nor was there anything as newfangled as a solo during the half-chorus between Gabriel’s gorgeous vocals: Johnson on the trombone, Maedgen on tenor sax, and Lewis on a muted trumpet all jammed together. Big finish, of course.
