OKOM! That's Our Kind Of Music! Here are a few upcoming festivals not too far from Central Ohio where you can be sure to catch some of your favorite trad jazz bands!
Sadly we must record the passing of a noted fellow musician, but joyfully we must celebrate the considerable contributions of that musician to our part of the world over a long and distinguished musical career. We'll not try here to reprise the accounts of the life of Ann Young that have appeared in several major central Ohio journals since her passing in March, as these already have been seen and read by the many of her fans that are now reading this humble paper. But it is Ann's dedication to the music and musicians, her performances with groups that we know and have known, and particularly her support and encouragement for COHJS that we wish to commemorate and firmly lodge in our memories.
Her long and dedicated career with the Chuck Selby orchestra at Valleydale and elsewhere in our region are well remembered by those of our COHJS members who were around at that early time, as are her more recent ventures with her own smaller groups in numerous local venues. Notable in our memory are the several years of Holiday Inn-on-the-Lane sessions with the Ann Young Trio alternating Tuesday evenings with Mike Evans' Toll House Jazz Band. In addition to performing with her own group on her own nights, as often as not she would attend the Toll House alternate Tuesday gig, even sitting in to sing a few tunes with the band, to the enjoyment of all present. Ann also was a member and frequent attendee at COHJS events, both before and after her marriage to Dr. Tennyson Williams, and she and "Tenny" were always very positive in their enthusiastic support of the COHJS mission.
We take this public opportunity to pay tribute and honor the life and memory of Ann Young.
Passage | Anne Young Jazz singer a local favorite
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 03:06 AM
By Amy Saunders, The Columbus Dispatch
Even as her health began to fade, Anne Young remained as dedicated to performance as she had been nearly all her life.
The jazz singer, with a career spanning almost seven decades, died last week.
Eight days earlier, the 83-year-old had used a walker to take the stage for the usual Anne Young Trio gig at Jimmy V's Grill & Pub in Westerville.
"She could hardly move, but, when she sat down at the stool, it was just like 'OK, it's showtime,'" keyboardist Andy Launer said. "She would never miss a gig."
Born in Marion as Ann Youngblood, she later adopted the stage name Anne Young.
She began performing while still in high school, singing six nights a week at a Mount Vernon club. In the 1950s, she was hired as the featured vocalist in the Chuck Selby Orchestra - the well-known house band at the Valley Dale Ballroom.
After the 1979 death of Selby, whom she had married, she assumed leadership of the band for a decade before starting the Anne Young Trio.
The group performed most recently at the Holiday Inn on Lane Avenue, then Jimmy V's.
With few groups still playing big-band music, the trio always attracted a regular audience, said Mario Nedefkoki, owner of Jimmy V's.
"They thought she had an unusual and great voice," said Tennyson Williams, who married Young in 2009.
"But I suspect the real clinching thing was her personality. It was her grace."
New and old friends of ours will populate this fine 1920s & '30s dance band on stage at Makoy Center, as they stop in on the way home from their annual pilgrimage to the Coon Sanders Nighthawks fans bash down in Huntington. Interestingly, the affable and genial leader, cornet player and master of ceremonies, Mike Bezin, will double on drums for this performance and will rely on the very talented Andy Schumm, here with his own band last March, to handle cornet duties. Mike's wife, Leah (aka Leah LaBrea), a band leader on her own, will handle banjo, guitar and vocals, while our old friend and veteran tuba player, Mike Walbridge, pumps out the bass notes. Filling out the strong front line will be two fine Chicagoland musicians whose names will be familiar to most of us, John Otto on clarinet and alto sax, and Frank Gualtieri on trombone.
Past appearances here have been enthusiastically applauded by listeners and dancers alike as they expertly execute their arrangements of the hot jazz music that was all the rage as it developed in early 20th century dance halls, aided and abetted by the likes of Fletcher Henderson, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, Paul Whiteman, and countless other composers, arrangers and musicians that were very active at the time. See related blog post
NEW ADDITIONS FINALIZE COHJS FALL SEASON!
NORTHSIDE JAZZ BAND - September 11 -- On their way to the EarlyJas Fall Festival in
Strongsville, by way of the Rusty Nail in Kent, for a preliminary performance, warm-up, and jam session
with Northeast Ohio musicians on the following weekend.
GLENN CRYTZER'S SYNCOPATORS - October 9 -- A special for our dancers, the touring house
band from Seattle, Washington
For the Fall Harvest of Bands and Holiday Charity Event - November 13, these ever-popular Ohio groups:
We offer these photographic mementos of the March 27 COHJS Bix Beiderbecke-themed concert by Andy Schumm and His Gang in the hope that it may trigger both animated visual, as well as audio, memories of
the experience for the many who were there, and a wish that they had been there among those who were unavoidably absent that day. It was truly a great presentation -- of "the good stuff" as Andy himself calls it!
Join us for a delightful afternoon at The Makoy Center with these top notch hot jazzers from Chicago!
The West End Jazz Band has, for the past 34 years, recreated the classic music that typifies the twenties and thirties using original arrangements and instrumentation that is true to the style of the era. Featured are the pure jazz numbers, the nonsense songs, the up-tempo tunes and also the beautiful ballads. This was the type of music for dancing and for those zany times when youth ran wild and made whoopee; songs such as "Hop Off," "Stockholm Stomp," and "The Charleston;" and the beautiful ballads like "Whose Honey Are You" and "Stardust." Their book is full of great standards, obscure songs, as well as a number of straight dance medleys and waltzes that reflect the romantic and sweet side of that era.
West End Jazz Band Sunday, May 15, 2011
2:00pm-5:00pm
The Burgundy Room at The Makoy Center
5462 Center Street Hilliard, OH 43026
Tickets
Sold at the door only.
$20 - Non Members
$15 - Members
$10 - Students and Dance Club Members
Free admission to those 18 or younger accompanied by a paying adult.
Music Educators free when accompanying students (more info)
We love seeing dancers on the beautiful dance floor at The Makoy!
Bring your friends and family - this is a great concert for all ages!
Snacks and refreshments available at very affordable prices.
Andy Schumm and His Gang to present the music and history of the incomparable Bix Beiderbecke for the Central Ohio Hot Jazz Society
...As leading interpreters, cornetist Andy Schumm and His Gang arrive from the 1920s & '30s jazz haven, Chicago, to present a tribute to the legendary musician who, most authorities say, was the "greatest hot cornet player and most inspired jazz musician of his time".
Band Personnel:
Andy Schumm - cornet
John Otto - clarinet/alto sax
Dave Bock - trombone
Jim Dapogny - piano
Rod McDonald - guitar/banjo
Beau Sample - bass
A video preview!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
2:00pm-5:00pm
The Burgundy Room at The Makoy Center
5462 Center Street Hilliard, OH 43026
Tickets
Sold at the door only.
$20 - Non Members
$15 - Members
$10 - Students and Dance Club Members
Free admission to those 18 or younger accompanied by a paying adult.
Music Educators free when accompanying students (more info)
More about the band members:
Andy Schumm
Andy Schumm is willing to do whatever it takes to play the good stuff.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Andy began taking piano lessons when he was 6 years old. He dabbled as a trumpet player in grade school and high school until he found his true passion for jazz while studying with Mike Plog, a well-known modern jazz trumpeter. At the University of Illinois, Andy studied trumpet and cornet with Tito Carrillo and began arranging under the tutelage of program director Chip McNeill.
His fate as a ’20s musician was sealed one night after hearing Bix Beiderbecke’s transcendent recording of “At the Jazz Band Ball” on an authentic Victor horn machine. Andy started sitting in with Dixieland bands and, ironically, discovered that he could get more work as a ’20s musician than a modern player – yeah, man! While he is heavily influenced by Bix, Andy draws inspiration from a variety of musicians including Red Nichols, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Jabbo Smith and Tommy Dorsey (especially in his covert recordings as a trumpeter!). He also enjoys listening to Johnny Dodds and Herb Morand.
Andy is currently a full-time musician traveling the world and touring with various groups. One such group is the Archipelago Project which is a non-profit educational outreach group advocating musical arts for young students and their teachers through performance, residency and consultation.
John Otto
JOHN OTTO, reedman extraordinaire, is a full-time jobbing musician and piano technician who has performed and recorded with many well-known bands all over the country.
John’s mother was a soloist in church music, musicals, weddings and an accomplished jobbing musician herself. His dad played trombone for fun and liked listening to big bands in the late 1930s. He had swing and jazz records collected in the closet, which John found most enticing upon discovery at a very early age.
John started learning piano in grade school and changed to clarinet upon entrance into junior high school. In high school, his musical mentor was Wellington Schiller, a full-time musician and teacher. Wellington would loan John his Red Nichols records, which had quite a profound impact on him by grooming his ear for melody and rhythm. Some additional instruction from the late well-known Carmen Dello helped set him up for success.
John’s first job was working in Bolingbrook, Illinois, at an amusement park called Old Chicago (an enclosed shopping mall with circus bands and traveling acts such as vaudeville shows) while in high school, but he quit to enroll in college. Although John can play great jazz in many forms on clarinet and saxophone, his abilities in the hot dance category are supreme. Some of John’s recent work has been subbing with the St. Louis Ragtimers, though you will find him about Chicago and its surrounding ‘burbs playing jazz, swing, Dixieland AND hot dance.
Jim Dapogny
Jim Dapogny - The stride and swing piano tradition of the early 20th century is preserved through the playing of pianist and musicologist James Dapogny. Together with his small combo, the Chicago Jazz Band Dapogny has recorded seven albums of ragtime, New Orleans and Chicago jazz, and small-band swing. The band has made semi-regular appearances on National Public Radio's "A Prairie Home Companion," and has been featured on albums by the Andrews Sisters-like trio Chenille Sisters and late jazz-blues pianist Sippie Wallace. Deeply influenced by the piano playing of Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941), Dapogny wrote the liner notes for a series of Morton's recordings issued by the Library of Congress and Rounder Records and edited the scholarly book Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton: The Collected Piano Music, published by Schirmer, Inc.. Dapogny has recorded two albums -- Laughing at Life and Original Jelly Roll Blues -- featuring his interpretations of Morton's music. The holder of a doctorate of musical arts in composition, Dapogny has taught at the University of Michigan since 1966. He received a faculty recognition award and Thurnau professorship for outstanding teaching in 1982. Dapogny has served as an editor and editorial board member for Jazz Masterworks Editions, a collaborative project of Oberlin College and the Smithsonian Institute.
June 24-26 in Elkhart, Indiana
