SPAC Audience of More Than 2,400 Likes Preservation Hall Jazz Band

by Marilyn Nason, The Post-Star, August 2, 1971

For the more than 2,400 who came to Saratoga Performing Arts Center last night, it was a fun night from beginning to end.

And the six gentlemen who comprised the Preservation Hall Jazz Band were the reason. Without fanfare, elaborate costumes and amplifiers, this sextet just played and played and played.

The house lights stayed up the entire performance, rarely done at SPAC. The toe-tapping, hand clapping, “yeah man” sounds from the jazz buff audience never let up from beginning to end

Five of the six musicians are definitely well over 60, but to close your eyes and listen to them play, you would never
know it.

Allan Jaffe, tuba, is definitely much younger but he, too, had that unmistakable jazz beat.

They won everyone’s respect by starting right on time at exactly 8:30 and needed no “warm-up group” to precede them. Once started, they never stopped except for intermission, going from one up-tempo tune to another. Some were recognizable, others not. But it made no difference. What really counted was the pure jazz sound and beat, the musicianship personified of all.

Their ability to do a solo, quickly step aside for another member to star, then blend into perfect melody was infectious.

De De Pierce on trumpet, a tiny, gray haired man with distinctive Creole features, was an especial delight. He sang both in French and English. The singing of jazz in French seemed appropriate to their New Orleans background and the music they epitomized.

All come from New Orleans, make this their home base and play the pure classic jazz so much a part of America itself.

For those who have watched these performers in their “native” setting, the 18th-century dilapidated French Quarter, seeing them on the vast SPAC stage with its beautiful surroundings is quite a contrast.

But last year and again this year, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band made the mammoth amphitheater stage its own.

Throughout the program, they offered no indication of the tunes. But Jaffe did introduce the musicians. Besides himself and Pierce, they were James Edward “Sing” Miller, piano; Josiah “Cie” Frazier, drums; “Big Jim” Robinson, trombone; Willie Humphrey, clarinet. Robinson occasionally got up to offer a brief dance step and led the audience in hand-clapping by waving a handkerchief.

Prior to last night’s performance, the American Dressage Institute presented the first of a series of exhibitions of classical writing on the amphitheatre lawn. They will be repeated Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 7:45 p.m. this week for performance ticket holders.

Tonight at 8:30 it will be The Who. Perhaps the 25,000 record crowd of last year for Chicago may be broken tonight. Live closed-circuit TV screens will be used again this year for tonight’s lawn crowd. Initiated last year successfully for Chicago, the system requires a 10-man technical crew. It will also be used for the return of Chicago Sept. 3.

Movie singer-actress Ann-Margaret has reportedly been signed for Aug. 23 replacing Steppenwolf and Baldwin and Leps.