The Curse—or How Bob French and Butch Thompson Saved The Day

Well, we’ve gone and done it again. On Wednesday, the Southside Aces warbled away into microphones in order to stick a fork into the perfectly barbequed, tender meat of our latest recording. That made me sort of uncomfortable to say. Steve insisted that what we were doing wasn’t overdubbing vocals, but “underdubbing.” If you want to know exactly what that means, you’ll have to ask him. He conducts workshops and autograph sessions after gigs at the Stop and Shop on 17^th and East Lake Street. Confession: I appropriated, purloined, pirated and otherwise directly stole that joke from Erik. Although how do we know Steve doesn’t sign autographs at the Stop and Shop? We don’t keep tabs on him. We again employed Mr. Lance Conrad, the owner and talented engineer of Humans Win! studio (the exclamation point is his). Before our vocal night, we Aces men first spent two chilly February nights up in his Nordeast, Minneapolis joint to capture all the sounds necessary from the brass, reeds, strings and skins. The chill was kept outside, though, as all six of us were staring at each other in this room:

Now with the vocals, we have a carton chock full of jazz, some assembly required. It will be a good handful of months, however, before you can put your ears to it, so until the time comes I’ll be building up your excitement. Can you even tolerate the thrill? All sarcasm aside, I’m actually in a tizzy wanting to get it into your hands! Instead, for the time being I’m going to have to content myself sharing with you some of the originals that inspired us to play and record these great tunes. 

I’m going to begin with The Curse. Over the years, you may have heard Erik announce “Bogalusa Strut” from the stage as his favorite tune. It’s a great song that gets in your hips and stays there, moving you around despite yourself. Back in 2005, when we were figuring out which tunes we wanted to record for our 2006 release, Bucktown Bounce, it was a natural selection. The Aces found the song from a couple different directions. There was Erik, who came to the tune through one of his mentors, the late New Orleans drummer Bob French. 

Bob in the New Orleans Times Picayune. Click here for his obituary

My route to the tune was through my mentor Charlie DeVore of the Hall Brothers Jazz Band. The original was written by Sam Morgan and recorded by his band in 1927. It all came from this:

Bogalousa Strut

In the video, check out the first picture of the Sam Morgan Jazz Band. You can see a young Jim Robinson on trombone. You may also have noticed that Sam spelled his tune  “Bogalousa Strut.” That is how they spell the name of the Louisiana town down there, after all. At some point we jazz folk all dropped the O after the L. Maybe it’s because silent Os are dangerous. 

So while you were listening to that, did you run and get your copy of Bucktown Bounce? Maybe you scanned the tune list up and down and couldn’t find the song. It’s because we simply couldn’t get it done. We tried and we tried, until we got fed up with ourselves and left it alone. “Oh well,” you think. You try to be philosophical because there’s always going to be a tune or two that doesn’t make the cut. We were disappointed, but didn’t yet think of the song as cursed. But then came the 2010 sessions for A Big Fine Thing. Take after take of the tune only served to produce enough wincing to get a headache. I believe Erik was the first to say, “That song is cursed.” What was wrong with us? Dave, our band archivist, likes to point out that we could release a whole album of failed “Bogalusa” takes. Don’t worry. That won’t happen unless we get really famous, pass away after long and glorious careers, and our record company (because we’d actually have a record company if we were famous) thinks they could drag a few extra bucks out of you, the fans, if they released all our garbage. They could call it Bogalusa Cut. Or how about Bunch-a-Losers Strut.

It wasn’t the song’s fault, though, and we still loved it and kept working it out on our many stages. The Bob French version originally guided us. He had even added a vocal about a troubled girl—not in the Morgan version—that we used. On top of that, we began to dig into the Hall Brothers recording. Young Butch Thompson produced an epic clarinet solo with the band building up behind him all the way. He starts out alone, and on each chorus they keep adding instruments until they run out of musicians. It’s exciting stuff. 

Check out young Butch on the left. If you have your magnifying glass handy.

So here we are in 2014, after all this absorption and hard work, ready to break The Curse! Right? For us, it would be a double homage. Maybe The Curse could be overcome by the inspiration of two bands. In fact, Bob just passed away in 2012, and this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Hall Brothers recording. Talk about inspiration! We better do it right.

We set a good Bob French tempo, not quite as slow as he liked to do it, but still with that great mischievous bounce that he perfected. Like a man walking by a bunch of women hanging out on a stoop. We all relaxed into that for a couple of minutes, followed by the middle section, where the rhythm guys laid down a couple of choruses by themselves. This was so we could “underdub” Bob’s vocal later. Then came my clarinet odyssey, the Hall Brothers portion of the homage, where I was supposed to burble along by myself to start things, just like Butch did half a century ago. What happened? Dave accidentally played through for a bar, almost yelling an expletive as he did it. 

You have to understand something. Dave NEVER makes a mistake like that. I’m not exaggerating. He NEVER does. We all finished the take, sort of pounding away at it with a lack of dynamics born of frustration, and looked at each other mystified. None of us blamed Dave. It had to be supernatural causes. Did The Curse grab Dave’s arms and force him to play through, like some sort of evil windup monkey drummer?

I’d like to build the drama here. Tell a story of a baker’s dozen of takes each ruined mysteriously. A mistake here, a power outage there, the ghost of a Gypsy woman appearing before Robert pointing her long, bony finger at him, a ceiling tile falling on Zack’s head. The camera spinning around the room showing the men, pale and sweaty, lashing out at each other in frustration as the tension grows and the night wears away, but then…just when they were going to throw in the towel someone grittily says, “We’re going to break this curse if it’s the last thing we do!” They take deep breaths and you see a finger hit the record button, and they valiantly forge on to victory! That’s a good tale, but I’m actually glad I don’t have to tell it that way. As it turned out, victory was right around the corner. We got it on the next take. No drama, we just plain got it! The Bob French mischievousness combined with the Hall Brothers buildup is story enough. The Curse was lifted, and I can’t wait for you to hear it. 

The Lineage Of Inspiration

“Hey, Rick! What was that that shot my dad’s finger off?” If I’d had any doubts about where I was, if, as the medical professionals say, I wasn’t oriented to place, then that woman’s shout brought me into focus. My place in the world on this night was the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Aerie #34.

I was in the ballroom, and the shouting went on in the bar, so I wasn’t privy to the visual. A man, presumably Rick, replied with a laugh, “I think it was a BB gun. A Red Ryder BB gun.” Another man’s voice weighed in, “No, that how you shoot your eye out.” The woman who was the source of the inquiry had had enough. She was intent on the truth. “Come on, you guys! What was it that shot his finger off?” The men just kept laughing. We would never find out.

I was there to play some jazz music, not compare gunshot wounds. The Southside Aces would feature the Hall Brothers Jazz Band. It was like an Inspiration Funhouse of Mirrors. The Aces inspired to play the music of the Hall Brothers inspired to play the music of King Oliver, Sam Morgan, etc. Hall Brother stalwart, Charlie DeVore, has unerringly guided me to all those original inspirers as well, thus the reflections break off, come back, go deeper, sometimes become moderately distorted. Speaking of distorted, how about this analogy? But the jazz music can be a funhouse, and the owner of the carnival, Charlie, would himself be seated in the cornet chair. Stop me! Enough already!

We wouldn’t be able to get our guitarist for the night, Mark Kreitzer in his chair until at least halfway through the first set, so we had to behave like a combination brass band/dance band. Charlie suggested we begin with “Bugle Boy March.” “Do you know that one?” he asked. I shook my head and Erik said, “Not yet. But we know ‘Bourbon Street Parade.’” Who doesn’t? So we started the night roasting that chestnut. Steve sang “My Blue Heaven,” and we rendered “I Want Somebody To Love” in a sweet but stompy fashion. Just then, Mark knocked on the ballroom side-door to be let in. The band, aided by Charlie’s vocal, went on with “We’ll Understand It Better By And By.” Mark put the Western in the Swing warbling “Jambalaya On The Bayou.” As per usual, I called a waltz for the good folk at the Eagles, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Charlie asked, “Do you guys play the verse?” Erik answered with mock terseness, “Not. Yet. Charlie, you’re pushing us!” We then stuck a fork in the set with our good friend, David West, singing “San.” We did know the verse on that one. 

Dave had brought the record sleeves of his entire collection of Hall Brothers albums and 45s. He had affixed them to the curtain behind the band. This meant we were even more of a visual spectacle then usual. Audience members came in closer during the break to peer at all the artwork.

The feature set was a doozy. As Charlie would say later, “I love playing all those songs, but I’ve never played them all in one set!” I risked the ire of the dancing crowd by having Charlie give some historical context as to just why we were playing these songs. Why the Hall Brothers played them originally. I have to say he conducted himself rather circumspectfully, if I may take liberty with the usage of the word. I know it’s a dance, and the dancers like when a band moves along, but I believe everyone in that room benefited from an understanding of the lineage of performance. 

Our first tune, for instance. The Sam Morgan Band in New Orleans records “Bogalusa Strut” around 1927. A young Jim Robinson plays trombone in that band, and goes on to be one of the main trombonists of New Orleans jazz from the fifties through the seventies, and was one of several New Orleanians who mentored the Hall Brothers. The Hall Brothers go on to record the song themselves in the sixties. In that recording, Butch Thompson takes a gazillion choruses on his clarinet. The band arranges to break it down so that on his first chorus he’s all by his lonesome. They then start the layering with the bass, going chorus to chorus adding rhythm men one at a time, finally Russ Hall on the trombone and Charlie on cornet. It’s a great record. So here we are in 2012, and I have the temerity to recreate that moment. I hold myself together, and we’re off!

“Sing You Sinners” was Hall Brother Doggie Berg’s vocal. Doggie, of course, is no longer with us (I wore one of his ties in honor of the occasion), so Charlie did the singing. It involves stops, key changes, odd forms, and a coda. All the Aces had huddled up before the set to go over the roadmaps on several of these songs. Mark already was beginning to doubt his memory on this one. Dave helped him out with some pointers, but especially when he said, “And if you don’t get it, it’s all right. You’d only be blowing history.” 

The Luis Russell tune, “Saratoga Shout,” was a bit rough but solid. Charlie sang “Waiting At The End Of The Road.” We ripped up “Stevedore Stomp.” Then Charlie sang what’s become one of his classics, “Mister Johnson.” We finished with what might be my new current favorite, “Deep Henderson.” The band loves it. The dancers expressed specific enthusiasm for it. And with that, history circles around once again. Charlie told me about the Hall Brothers whipping dancers into a frenzy out on the Funky Butt Dance Floor at the Emporium of Jazz with “Deep Henderson.” Here we are decades later moving a new generation of dancers around. Talk about deep. 

We hold a raffle during these features. Erik told the crowd we would be “raffling off an actual Hall Brother.” We didn’t, of course, but we raffled off their recordings. We always have a food portion of the raffle as well. A trip to Ingebretsen’s, Minneapolis’ own Scandinavian store on 16^th and east Lake, and I had procured a jar of herring in Cajun Sauce. Erik wove this story, “Since we’re a band of Minnesotans, with some Scandinavian heritage in there, playing the music of another band of Minnesotans who play the music of New Orleans, we thought Cajun herring was appropriate for the occasion.” What could be better to represent a Minnesota/Louisiana connection than Scandinavian/Cajun pickled fish?

The third set was looser now that the history was, well, history. Butch Thompson sat in. He wore his Sorrels and a green knit cap. He sat down and apologized for his attire. “No, it’s great,” I assured him, “You’re providing a direct tie-in to the Eagles.” This is funny, though it may sound a bit snooty. But it’s true! When we show up in our New Orleans black pants, white shirt and tie, we invariably stick out. But truth be told, the Eagles only has to look at you once up and down and they accept you as you are. Have I mentioned how I love this place?

The music of the last set began with “It’s Tight Like That,” vocals by Charlie and myself. Charlie spun Mary Ellen around the dance floor while Butch and I sweetened up the night a bit with “Sweet Lorraine.” When Charlie stepped back onstage, Erik said on mic, “Hey Charlie, nice of you to show up.” Charlie charmed us with “A Porter’s Lovesong To A Chambermaid.” Then the absolute surprise of the night! Butch Thompson sang! He and Charlie harmonized on “Ready For The River.” A great Jimmie Noone moment. The evening finally ended with Steve singing “Going Down To New Orleans.” 

This, people, was a fantastic night of music. It really brought clarity to the lineage of inspiration up here in Minnesota, at least as I’ve experienced it. Charlie and Butch are perhaps two of the speediest people I know when it comes to sidestepping compliments that run along the lines of “You guys have inspired us to play this music!” They quickly point to the originals of the music, saying they deserve all the credit. But I wouldn’t be playing this music if it wasn’t for all those Hall Brothers and their commitment to playing the music that inspired them.