CD: Preservation Hall Jazz Band - That's It!

As the name suggests, New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band was established to promote traditional New Orleans Jazz. This release is the band’s first of original material, and the fact they haven’t been short of a tune since foundation in 1961 only confirms what any jazz-lover will already know, that the traditional New Orleans repertoire is pretty well represented in the record catalogue already.

The famous community spirit of New Orleans is reflected in two characteristics of the city’s music in particular: the quality of the ensemble playing, and the relaxed approach to genre. While the New Orleans tradition is sometimes seen as a purist, conservative genre, in fact the city’s culture was openly collaborative, and would often have jazz musicians playing as sidemen in many varieties of blues and funk bands. And so, while about half the tracks are more or less swinging jazz, there’s also “Rattlin’ Bones”, a kind of pantomime voodoo blues, a couple of forcefully, straightforwardly upbeat songs, “Come with Me” and “I Think I Love You”, and a gospel piece, “Dear Lord (Give Me the Strength)”.

The instrumental ensemble is riotously good, with improvisation that sounds both organised and anarchic. The pummeling tuba rhythm in “Sugar Plum”, the reeds in “Yellow Moon” and piano in “Emmalena’s Lullaby” effectively teleport the listener to New Orleans. The use of singers from within the band, another feature of the New Orleans ensemble tradition, is less successful: the voices are in one or two cases simply not strong enough to fill their line, resulting in a breathless croon. But that aside, the band has bravely attempted a more ambitious and encyclopedic recreation of the New Orleans musical culture than was, perhaps, commercially necessary. If you can’t have Mardi Gras in your living room, this is the next best thing.