If You Ever Visit San Antonio

Sounds like the title of a song.

If you ever visit San Antonio, TX, US, you'll likely visit the famous Riverwalk. There's not a lot of live music there, mostly places to eat and shop. Some may find it too "touristy." However, there is one place you should check out if you visit the city and enjoy jazz.

It is called Jim Cullum's Landing and Jim Cullum's band plays live jazz there almost every night of the week. Rebecca Ferguson told me about this place, but what she didn't mention was that the Jim Cullum Jazz Band plays very traditional jazz. When we walked in, I could hear that traditional New Orleans sound in the first tune they were playing. They play a lot of Louis Armstrong, and the second night we went, they played a couple of W.C. Handy tunes while we were there. They played a lot of other tunes I didn't recognize, but it was all great stuff. The first night we went was Christmas Eve, and I guess the piano player was away. The second night we made it there was Boxing Day, and they had their piano player who was terrific, and then he stepped aside for another piano player who turned out to be a previous member of the band. He was fantastic as well.

Their rhythm section has a drummer whose kit gets great crappy sounds (I mean this in the best way), upright bass, and a guy who either plays banjo or a guitar looking thing that has four strings. Then you have piano, and up front trombone, Jim Cullum on cornet, and a guy who switches between clarinet or sax. It's a small club, but they use very little amplification, just on vocals and Jim in between songs.

They also have a radio show that can be streamed online. I hear their monthly newsletter is very cool too, but I have not seen it yet. More info about those can be found here. http://www.riverwalkjazz.org/

There are YouTube videos and a Facebook fan page to join if you're into that sort of thing.

On the chalkboard on the wall by the door is this quote by Louis Armstrong.

“Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.”

Mon, 2009 12 28 at 3:44 AM |Permalink for this entry

Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Blues Gig

For the past I don't know how many years, I've been focused on the blues. Learning it, playing it, writing it, listening to it, anything I can get. It hasn't been an exclusive thing. There have always been other forms of music I have enjoyed. But underneath it all, has been the blues. Whatever else I was doing, I always wanted to get back to the blues. The top of my list in previous posts of bands or artists I wanted to play with were, you guessed it, blues artists.

Lately, I've been feeling something else. Donny Hathaway. Stevie Wonder. Hall & Oates. Diane Birch. Hitsville USA. Soulsville USA. Even Kenneth Scott. I've been feeling a whole different soul thing lately. Not that most of this stuff is new to me, but I've just been getting into it a lot more. I don't think there's any reason, it's just one of those things.

That's not to say I don't love the blues. Nor does it mean I don't want to play the blues anymore. It might just be because this is great music, and since I've been playing these kinds of gigs, I've been getting into it. You may have noticed, I can be a bit single-minded about things. That may be all this is.

Or maybe, I'm subconsciously trying to justify buying a real Wurlitzer electric piano.

Sun, 2009 12 20 at 12:58 PM |Permalink for this entry