by
Dave Bowman
Littleton, Colorado [Summer 2001]
As Ken Burns so eloquently
illustrated in his recent PBS documentary, jazz began in New Orleans. The
totally American music form continues today and is rapidly gaining a new
found following. One of the great purveyors of this classic sound
is Colorado's own Queen City Jazz Band.
Queen City Jazz Band members include Bill Clark (leader, tuba, vocals) Lance Acker (saxello, clarinet, bass sax) John Bartmann (trumpet) Mark Janicki (trombone, vocals), Marl Shanahan (drums), Jim Tracy (arranger, banjo, recorder, percussion) Bill Morse (piano), Hank Troy (piano), Wende Harston (vocals). Photo courtesy
Queen City Jazz Band |
Queen City has been around since 1958. They formed when Denver disc jockey, Harney Peterson, suggested the city needed a good jazz band and opened his home for groups to get together to jam. Peterson helped the fledgling Queen City group find their first performance venue, an old roadhouse where they played off and on for the next 30 years. Now they play nationally and internationally, thrilling audiences with the great sounds of the 1920s jazz era. The group, together in its present form for eight years, recreates the style of Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver and Ma Rainey, and is one of the most recognized revivalist jazz bands in the country.
"The music changes every time we play it, and I think that’s the fun part," says band leader Bill Clark (also a music professor at the University of Colorado, Denver). "We like to be spontaneous!"
Other band members include an accountant, a retired school music teacher, a retired commercial artist, a city engineer, two professional musicians and actress Wendy Harston. Together they produce a sound that is as fresh and fun today as it was 80 years ago. In addition to festivals—their favorite venue—and concerts across the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe, together, they have also produced 20 CDs.
In 1998 Queen City Jazz Band recorded "Forget Your Troubles," 16 classic jazz tunes ranging from New Orleans ragtime to big band arrangements. Louis Armstrong standards "Potato Head Blues" and "Basin Street Blues" are faithfully covered giving the horn players room to provide their chops. Seven of the cuts feature strong sassy vocals by Wende Harston who sings in the old blues style from the 1920s. This lady can do the bump the bawdy with class and a wink on songs from Bessie Smith's "Kitchen Man" to Ma Rainey's "Hear Me Talkin’ To You." If she isn't steaming she surely fries "The Chicken Medley" combining "There's Nobody Here But Us Chickens" and "The Chicken Ain't Nothin' But A Bird."
Their 2000 album, "Hot Time," headlines with "There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," and features other Wende Harston vocals including "Women be Wise," "Lock and Key and "The Devil’s Goin’ to Get You" and "Chantez Les Bas." Band leader (and tuba player) Bill Clark takes the mike with "Willie the Weeper" and musicians Mark Janicki and Jim Tracy will bounce you right out of your seat with "Heebie Jeebies." Other cuts include favorites such as "Dead Man Blues," "Savoy Blues," Everything’s Gonna Be All Right" and Canal Street Blues."
If you have long been an aficionado of swing jazz or recently wondering what all the the rave is; now you can have a clarinet and banjo in the same band, check out the Queen City Jazz Band and their Forget Your Troubles.
For more on Queen
City Jazz Band, look them up on the web at www.dmamusic.org/qcjb
or email Duane Sutfin
at dsutfin@cs.com. Copies of their
CDs may also be ordered at Blue Sky Music, Montrose, CO, 970 252-9526.