ARTS The Michigan Daily Tuesday, September 24, 1985 Page 5 The Dirty Dozen: A ton of bricks By arwulf arwulf 'VE BE EN BRASSED this r weekend, and it'll take awhile for the echoes to recede. Brass horns, direct and distinct as magnesium flares, have followed me around, of- fering their energies whenever needed. Eighty years of Jazz raced by me in one day. { Sunday dawned with hasty preparations for a street appearance Still wobbly from a night out with the Persuasions at the Ark, I assembled myself for Second Lining with th Dirty Dozen Brass Band, schedule to play in the street at the Ann Arbo Art Association's block party on Liberty twixt Ashley and Main. . This was in celebration of the loth anniversary of Eclipse Jazz, and th eight piece New Orleans ensembl was expected to appear at noon. Ca trouble outside of Chicago, however brought them in several hours late although nobody seemed to mind a Mr. B kept us busy with hot boogi woogie and blues. horn. He emulated the trombone stylings of Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, built his own novel and greazy style, split up with the Duke for a hiatus in the late 40s and through the 50s. He initially left to join Benny Goodman. Then came a period of wandering. There are some rarities afoot, issued on a tiny label that nobody's ever heard of, dating from '44 and thereabouts, featuring some names that I'd never associated with Cootie: Bud Powell, Pearl Bailey, - Cleanhead Vinson and Lockjaw Davis. We were mightily grateful to our chum Max Dehn, a freeform DJ at CBN, for coming up with this un-' speakably rare disc! Cootie's return to the Ellington organization came in 1962. He con- tinued to play nastily and powerfully for the remainder of the Duke's life, and brought out his horn to assist the Mercer Ellington band in waxing a farewell LP in '74 when Duke left us. Capping this two hour Cootie E festival (and I must say this was ap- d propriate) was the first airing of r Lester Bowie's latest release. An n ECM effort, and one of Lester's most ambitious to date, "I Only Have Eyes h For You" is a small riot in group im- e provisational brass. Lester, as you may know, is a foun- r ding member of the Art Ensemble of r Chicago, a clever devil up from St. Louis, always appearing in his white , lab coat and wire rimmed glasses. His trumpet stylings stem directly e from the virile maneuverings of Cootie Williams. Lester has perfected the rast, the smear, the blaaat, and the shriek. He's an undeniable in- fluence on young fellows, notably the commercially successful Wynton Marsalis, who incidentally has very little patience with the tomfoolery of which Lester is so fond. This new LP features what Mr. Bowie calls his "Brass Fantasy"; three trumpeters in addition to him- self, two trombones, a french horn and a tuba. The drummer is Philip Wilson. Bob Stewart, the tuba. The 'bones are held by Rahsaan Roland Kirk's last trombonist, Steve Turre, and the formidable Craig Harris, who tore up with David Murray's band recently, and has put in some hard blowing with Sun Ra's Arkestra. The entire album is dynamite. The title cut is undeniably the most ominous treatment of the Busby Berkeley romantic standard of the 1930s ever recorded. For this tune alone the album stands as a master- piece.' I left the station in time to catch the second set to the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Union Ballroom. Unfor- tunately the tuba player had fallen ill just after the sound check, depriving the ballroom audience of the big sound we caught in the street that af- ternoon. They were in no way impeded by this missing unit. You'd think a New Orleans marching band would fall apart without the backbone horn, for this is the very testicles of the operation. There has rarely been such an energetic and stimulating perfor- mance in this city. Certainly I have to think back to the outdoor Blues and Jazz Festivals to recall anything so exciting. Janell (Chi-Lite) Marshall sang and rattled off the main beat on a snare slung neatly in front of him. Benny Jones pounded the bass drum, also slung from his gyrating frame. This beat entered every single crumb of masonry, and the place shook dangerously. Roger Lewis played baritone sax and a tiny curved soprano as well. Kevin Harris held the trombone. And the trumpeters, Gregory Davis and Efrem Towns, blasted us mercilessly. The chairs emptied as the crowd danced like lunatics. The band descended the stage and marched around the hall, with a second line of 50 dancing in their wake. Eclipse Jazz is ten years old, and they've gone and celebrated it in the grand tradition of the Crescent City. cootie is gone, and Lester has taken another giant step on etched vinyl. Get to your feet, put your arms in the air, the music will keep happening for ever and ever. You can obtain your own copy of Lester Bowie's latest album and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band's disc as well, by inquiring at Schoolkid's Records or any other hip record store in the Ann Arbor area. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band played a stirring medley of New Orleans jazz tunes at the Ann Arbor Art Association's block party. II I wore a slice of a truck's inner tube on my head, with the time-worn goggles and red skull cap, and a loud blue & white hound's tooth suit. Hanging from my shoulder was a "rusty snare drum. On my back was a wild assemblage of dead radios, WC- BN bumper stickers, Hawaiian Cyprus greens, ferns, lilies and chrysanthemums, a guitar neck and a plastic clown head donated by hip cab driver and Jazzophile Greg Dahlberg. This was all wired and twined to an aluminum ariel antenna on a bamboo frame. I carried pennywhitles, bells. a tuning fork, and a steel clarinet This boy is probably the area's only non-Euclidian clarinettist. And, propped up with gin and tonic, I stood with my back to the Old Town, facing the Fleetwood Diner, gently squeaking an irrational blues. Yours rin the war against boredom. The Dozen arrived, all eight of them, and began blowing a stirringly ballsy medley of New Orleans stan- dards. After the first minute I put my horn aside and confined myself to pounding the snare with a tin pen- nywhistle. Liberty Street was packed tight with grinning folds soaking in the Real Thing, straight up from New SOrleans, this their last stop on an exhaustive tour. We cheered and Wstomped as they gave us about 15 minutes right there in front of the Liberty Inn. John Sinclair stood smiling and following their every move, delighted to see them here in Treetown. John has been telling me about the band ":ever since he caught them in New Orleans a couple of Mardi Gras ago. By his own admission he's gone quite goofy on the subject, and given the chance, he'll have another 50 poems out on the subject in no time. I wandered up to him and we ex- changed pleasantries. Elsewhere I have elaborated on what an inspiring fellow John Sinclair was in the early 170s when he inadvertantly turned me on to Sun Ra Colatrane, and a thousand other creatures of wonder, live and on records. Today, 1985, he's still actively spreading the music. The band had stopped, and were saving up their energy for the gig slated for that evening in the Union Ballroom. I moved quickly, racing to hit the radio station at six o'clock. Having hosed off and gotten out of that hideous suit, I slid into the WCBN studios at one minute 'til, ready to team up with the honorable Dave Crippen for a special two hour tribute to the recently departed Cootie Williams, ace trumpeter from the Duke Ellington orchestra. Cootie's trademark was the plunger mute, (the plumber's helper), while he could be just as sassy on the open Saving Shnhies is If Elzabeth Barrett and Robert Browning had AT&T's 60%and 40%d'scounts, it would have been a terrible loss for English literat 611.1 / I ^. ire. \., ;, And of course, she wouldn't have had to onlyc restrict her feelings to a mere sonnet's length, either. throi After all, you can always think of one state more way to tell someone you love them when you're on the phone. dista Let us count the ways you can save. with Just call weekends till 5pm Sundays, or can s from 11pm to 8am, Sunday through Friday, exha 1 911 n ^A i - A 7/T., T"% T% -%_ R -* :ur state-to-state calls. Call between 5pm and 11pm, Sunday ugh Friday, and you'll save 40% on your -to-state calls. So when you're asked to choose a long ance company, choose AT&T. Because AT&T's 60% and 40% discounts, you satisfy your heart's desire without usting your means. I - - _ - -- - = _ - - - - - - - - 9