TUBA
FATS Tuba Fats' Chosen Few Jazzmen Jazz
Crusade
Tuba Fats is New Orleans’ most famous tuba player with
a career that spans more than 40 years. He has played with
the Gibson, Doc Paulin, Tuxedo, and Olympia Brass Bands and
was a founding member of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. He and
his band, the Chosen Few Jazzmen, play most days in Jackson
Square and gig around various New Orleans clubs at night.
This recording came about when Bill Bissonnette attempted
to purchase a session that Fats had recorded and released
in the 1980s for his Jazz Crusade label. The original tapes
had been lost, so all Fats could offer was what was on the
original LP—not enough for a CD release. Bissonnette
suggested getting the musicians together and recording new
material to release with the older material. Tuba ended up
putting together a group comprised of mostly new players,
with a couple from the original sessions. These included “Stackman”
Callier, who played and recorded with New Orleans legends
such as Fats Domino and Lee Dorsey, newcomer Kenneth Terry,
Darryl Adams, Gerald “The Giant” French, Darryl
“Lil’ Jazz” Adams, and Eddie Boh Paris.
Bissonnette and Fats also decided to record the band as a
jazz band rather than a brass band, and so Jazz Crusade house
pianist and banjo player Reide Kaiser and Emil Mark were called
in as well.
The result is one of the best traditional New Orleans jazz
albums you are going to hear. Beginning with the spiritual
“Lead Me Saviour” and continuing through such
stalwart tunes as “Hindustan,” “Amazing
Grace,” and “Ice Cream” Tuba Fats provides
the basis for a band that is swinging at literally every turn.
Unlike many traditional groups who play a literal imitation
of the music played by black musicians in New Orleans in the
1920s and 1930s, these guys sound like the real deal—which
indeed they are. In other words, if a real New Orleans marching
jazz band from the 1920s could have continued to play, with
the same personnel, right up until today, this is what their
sound might have developed into. Listen to the rendition of
“Amazing Grace,” done in waltz time, and marvel
at the fusion of gospel and blues heard in Darryl Adams’
alto sax solo, or the very pretty ensemble section at the
end of the piece.
Each of the six black New Orleans musicians performs a vocal
on one track, and all acquit themselves well, unleashing their
energy, spirit, and good humor. By the time the CD is done
you will feel as though you really understand just how jazz
developed in the Crescent City at the turn of the last century.
You’ll have a feel for the interlocking pieces of jazz,
blues, and gospel. And most of all, you’ll have had
a hell of a lot of fun.
