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One area of jazz that seems to be comparatively little-discussed here is the music produced by the classic jazz revival. What I mean by this is that style of jazz based around the models of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, the earlier ragtime and stride pianists, as well as the Original Dixieland Jass Band, which experienced a revival in the late 1930s, as an alternative to the then-dominant swing and/or big band styles. Dixieland, hot jazz, Trad, New Orleans Jazz, Chicago style, San Francisco style, ragtime, New Orleans marching band, and the rest. There are a few threads here and there touching on this music: I started one specifically on European trad around a year ago. There is also a good thread somewhere about New Orleans marching band records. But other than that, I am impressed at how little comes up on this music when searching the Organissimo database. I'm not sure of the comparative commercial and cultural impact that the Dixieland etc. revival actually did have at its height, as against swing and bop. Clearly it was a major movement within jazz, though. It created the careers of younger revivalists like Lu Watters or Ken Colyer, it led to a renewed surge of interest in the careers of surviving greats like Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Eddie Condon, Jack Teagarden and Pee Wee Russell, and it uncovered "unappreciated" talents like Bunk Johnson or George Lewis. Histories of jazz, these days typically written from the point of view of bop fans, often have a little bit of space dedicated to the movement. Typically, this is to set the classic jazz revival up as an antagonist to the bebop movement that arose at roughly the same time. But there is rarely much said about the music or the movement itself. In the internet age, this music seems to be basically forgotten. Going by the substantial amount of revivalist records that are still readily available on the second hand circuit (often cheap), and the prevalence of references to it in non-jazz culture (Spike Jones, Country Joe and the Fish, Bonzo Dogs and the Star Wars Cantina scene music, being classic examples), it must have been a substantial part of the jazz ecosystem in its time, even if, with age, it has mostly withered away. With that introduction, I'd be very interested to hear forum members' recommendations for which albums and records, in their views, represent the key musical 'moments' of the revival. That could be either because they are Important (capital I) records historically, or because they are among your personal favourites, or both. For the purposes of this thread, let's take music recorded from or after 1939 as the timeline. Most of this stuff presumably comes between 1939 and roughly 1955(?). So, bonus points for music released after the initial wave had subsided. Ideally, LPs or classic contemporaneous compilations or reissues (although that's unlikely to be possible for the earliest parts of the revival genre's emergence). -------------------- Some examples from my side, in deliberately careless order: - Muggsy Spanier - The Great 16! - 1956 compilation of 1939 sides, that I think are regarded as a major step in heralding the revival. - Eddie Condon's Commodore recordings - Essentially laying down the template for 'Chicago style' Dixieland. I'm typically allergic to box sets, but the Condon Mosaic is one I would definitely buy. - Percy Humphrey - New Orleans The Living Legends: Crescent City Joymakers - One of my favourites from the Riverside series of Chicago and NO 'living legends'. Filled with blues and pre-war hokum stylings, but lots of space for actual solos. - Jack Teagarden - Mis'ry and the Blues - A personal favourite from Teagarden's later period, mixing croaky blues songs with upbeat Dixieland. - Dave Dallwitz - Ern Malley Jazz Suite - From 1975. Australian trad that goes somewhere that is a lot more advanced compositionally than one would expect from this kind of music. - Henry Allen - Ride, Red, Ride! - A great bluesy group with Coleman Hawkins, from 1957. A mix of styles that refuses to be hidebound and mixes up trad, swing and blues (they aren't really different in this setting). Lots of fire in the playing. - Howard Alden and Ken Peplowski - Pow Wow - From 2006. Swing and trad-rooted playing that sometimes goes quite far outside, with an emotional core to it that it really like. - Lu Watters - San Francisco Style - 1946 recordings that are probably the cornerstone of what became known as 'dixieland', taking the King Oliver and Hot Sevens template into a heavily arranged direction, and introducing Turk Murphy, Bob Scobey and the rest of the team. Certainly an Important one for inspiring the movement. - Louis Armstrong - Satchmo at Symphony Hall - A live record from 1947. A classic of Louis Armstrong's return to something closer to his original style, with a great group including Teagarden and Hucko. I like it more than the more famous Ambassador Satch and Satch plays Fats records. - Tuba Skinny - Owl Call Blues - Currently very popular group in the surviving revivalist circles. Basically a retro mix of Dixieland and pre-war blues styles. It sounds like the kind of music that would be played in a barroom scene in some half-arsed immersive theatre. This record seems okay to me, but I haven't enjoyed any of their others. - Pee Wee Russell - Ask Me Now - I know this is a favourite with a lot of members. A nice mixture of Russell's clarinet with a group playing in later styles. I love this record. - George Lewis and Kid Thomas Ragtime Stompers - My favourite of Lewis's records. A lot of people find it slapdash but for me that is the charm here. Loose with a lot of feeling. - Black Eagle Jazz Band - S/T - Taking the Watters Dixieland style but upgrading the arrangements for the 1970s. - Dejan's Olympia Bass Band - Here Come Da Great... - An excellent and very funky marching band record from the early 70s. - John Handy - John Handy's Quintet - From 1966. Adding a bit of R&Bish chaos to the trad mix. - Kenny Davern and Humphrey Lyttleton - This Old Gang of Ours - A lovely relaxed transatlantic session from the 1980s. I really enjoy Kenny Davern's clarinet playing. - Bunk Johnson's earliest sides - The New Orleans folk revival's big discovery. Controversially loose, then as now. - Wally Rose - Ragtime Classics - A nicely boomy recording of ragtime revisited, from Lu Watters' pianist. Recorded in 1958. - Shel Silverstein and the Red Onions - A comedy Dixieland record by the illustrator and comedian. Repeatedly my Spotify Wrapped most listened to record. Aggressive vocal Dixieland that plays on what I assume was the testosterone-heavy associations of the varsity crowd who followed this music at the time. - Sammy Remington and the Mouldy 5 - Reed My Lips - A 2006 record from New Orleans with Big Bill Bissonette on drums. Clear George Lewis influence to my ears. I really enjoy this one. - The Best of Ball, Barber and Bilk - Budget British trad comp on Pye that somehow got to number 1 on the British charts - probably a commercial high point of British trad. - Sidney Bechet's Blue Note recordings from 1945 - Packaged in multiple different formats. Bechet's postwar style in it's muscular glory. Any others that you can think of would be welcome. I've been listening to this music for a while now, but it can be hard to find out about it. It would also be interesting, quite aside from recommendations of records, to hear people's recollections of the revival movement, its musicians and its fans, or just any comments that they might have on the revival, where it went and how it played out.

Bo Dollis, longtime Big Chief of the Wild Magnolias New Orleans Indian gang, died today at home. He was 71. Under Dollis' leadership, the Wild Magnolias were the first Mardi Gras Indian gang to fuse the traditional songs and chants with New Orleans R & B and funk. The process started in 1970, when Dollis and the Wild Magnolias did some "experimental" (for lack of a better word) gigs with The Gaturs, Willie Tee's funk quartet. There is a stunning recording of Dollis and The Gaturs performing the traditional "Ho Na Nae" at the 1970 Tulane Jazz Festival. It's very tentative at first - it takes a few measures for The Gaturs to figure out what key Bo is singing in - but by the time it ends six minutes later, it's some kind of incredible psychedelic Mardi Gras funk. After that performance, Dollis and the Magnolias went into the studio and recorded a single: "Handa Wanda," parts one and two. A couple of years later, they recorded another single and a full album for Polydor, with Tee, his brother Earl Turbinton on saxophone, Snooks Eaglin, and others. Many other albums followed, and the Wild Magnolias performed frequently as a band, not just a Mardi Gras social organization. For many of those years, the great guitarist June Yamagishi, a Japanese transplant, was the sparkplug of the band. I saw Bo Dollis and the Wild Magnolias perform a couple of times; one pre-Katrina performance at the Funky Butt on Rampart Street was one of the funkiest shows I've ever witnessed. The band was great, and Dollis just soared. Part of the ensemble was a Wild Magnolia in full Mardi Gras regalia who didn't sing, didn't play percussion, and didn't even dance; his sole function was to stand there and look pretty. So long, Big Chief.