Preservation Hall Jazz Band plays a mix of styles at SPAC
by Woody Klein, Bennington Banner, June 21, 1980
With halting, dainty steps, they shuffle on stage, hunched over like frail old men. They look as if they should be carrying canes, not clarinets or trumpets.
But when the older folks of Preservation Hall Jazz Band start to play, they exude an energy that seems inexhaustible, as if Dixieland were a magic elixir with a spark that no number of years could extinguish.
No elixir is that strong. Most of the original members of Preservation Hall have died. Only three members of the current band — trumpeter Percy Humphrey, banjoist Narvin Kimball, and clarinetist Manny Crusto, all of them black — look like relics of the high era of Dixieland.
The other four are younger, and several of them are very good indeed. They come out of other eras of jazz, and play a style that isn’t quite Dixie, but which blends well with the old, driving beat of “New Orleans” style jazz very well.
The Preservation Hall Jam Band reminds me of the 1964 Yankees. Their Mickey Mantles and Whitey Fords are aging, but they still zip that fastball or hit it out of the park. The rookies and young ballplayers play ably enough to win, but not with quite the special kind of magic that will make them the cornerstones of a new dynasty.
Playing at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center here Monday, Preservation Hall opened with a number that was an unspoken seminar in the way that Dixieland works. On stage at the start of the performance were the drummer, the piano player, the banjoist, and the trumpeter. The first three of those instruments are the backbone of the rhythm section. They provide the solid beat while the trumpet player blows the melody.
From the wings, the clarinet player ambled on stage, decorating the melody and filling in the beats around the trumpet. The clarinet harmonizes with the trumpet and, with its flurries of notes, provides much of the racing feeling of Dixieland, the feeling that the musicians are all a little bit out of time and are racing to catch up to each other.
Next on stage stepped the trombone player. In Dixieland, the trombone is somewhere between the rhythm section and the lead. With its limited range, it has none of the flexibility of either the trumpet or the clarinet, yet because it can slide freely between notes, it makes the listener feel that the music is being shot out of a cannon.
Last was the helicon, an 80-year-old instrument like the tuba. Not strictly necessary, the helicon provides a deep bass rhythm that frees the piano and drums for occasional breaks. It makes the rhythmic foundation of Dixieland all the more solid.
Preservation Hall’s players exhibit an interesting mix of styles. Humphrey on trumpet makes good use of dynamics and a rasping tone during his solos. He relies more on variations in rhythm than on melody for his effects. He sings the same way, using a throaty, graveled voice to add character to his otherwise unexceptional singing voice.
On clarinet, Crusto is more accomplished in the upper register, where his swooping shower of notes improvises on the melody. He is a perfect complement to Humphrey, who leaves the melody more or less alone. Crusto occasionally varies his tone as well, but when he plays in the chalumeau, or lower register, his tone suffers considerably.
Pianist James “Sing” Miller plays quite differently from both Crusto and Humphrey. His style comes out of a later period than Dixieland, and has echoes of such modern pianists as Thelonious Monk. Miller pounds out clusters of notes in unconventional rhythm. He “colors” the music, using dissonance and complex chords not usually associated with Dixieland.
Miller is also the ballad and blues singer of the ensemble. His voice is higher than Humphrey’s, sweet, deep, and crooning like Big Joe Williams. Because his voice is lyrical and soothing to listen to, he doesn’t need the rasping jazzy sound that Humphrey uses.
Banjo player Narvin Kimball’s banjo style is best suited to the blues. On the fast numbers, his strumming banjo acts as a percussion instrument, rattling more like a snare drum than singing like a guitar. The slower blues allows Kimball the freedom to syncopate the rhythm and to pick out melody on the strings. He too sings, in a high tenor voice suited to old spirituals but also effective singing harmony over Miller.
Least effective was the trombonist, Frank Demond, whose style sometimes bordered on parody. He is the showman of the group, clowning on stage and showboating. Dixieland has been around so long that it is full of clichés, and Demond’s playing sometimes lapsed into hackneyed phrases. His first spotlighted solo came on “Basin Street Blues,” probably a bad choice. It’s hard for anyone to top the work of Jack Teagarden on that one.
All these disparate styles somehow managed to blend into a working ensemble. None jarred with the other, and the variety made the music more interesting perhaps than it would have been as straight Dixieland.
Whether the younger members of the band will be able to carry the energy that Humphrey and Crusto instill in Preservation Hall remains to be seen. Dixieland will remain a living form of jazz as long as people play it that way, as jazz, and not as some form of nostalgic tribute to an unreal “golden era” of American music.
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