That dark-haired associate during a keyboard in a videos that follow is James E. Dapogny, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus and highbrow emeritus of song (theory) during a University of Michigan School of Music, where he taught from 1966 to 2006. Professor Dapogny has finished endless erudite work on Jelly Roll Morton and James P. Johnson. Professor Dapogny’s investigate of Johnson’s work, in particular, came to delight in a large-scale reformation of DE ORGANIZER and THE DREAMY KID, dual Johnson operas (the initial with a words by Langston Hughes) once suspicion to be lost.
But a dark-haired associate is also Jim Dapogny, a stomping pianist whose solo and garb personification are now identifiable — he is his possess male either kindly exploring a ballad or stomping a blues. And he is a unequaled garb pianist — like Basie or Ellington, James P. or Fats, he knows only what to play to pull a organisation though powerful it. (I hear a barrelhouse pianists of a Twenties and Thirties — consider of a blues pianists and Frank Melrose, afterwards supplement on a traceries of Hines and Stacy, a force of Sullivan, a habitual walk with startling harmonies.)
But Jim is also a pleasant arranger and occasional composer. The arrangements you’ll hear on a performances next are so splendid: we can hear them subliminally (horns humming behind a solo, personification a symphonic line sweetly) or we can admire them out in a open. But a Dapogny opening is never only a fibre of solos: he thinks orchestrally as a bandleader as good as a pianist. You’ll also hear a wily sell between Jim and Marty Grosz about a arrangements — not to be taken wholly seriously: “I know each thing we know from Marty’s records,” says Jim. “That explains it,” retorts Marty.
Both a male and a song are gratifying, full of surprises. we never took a category with a Professor, though I’ve learned a good understanding in his spontaneous onstage seminars at Jazz during Chautauqua (to contend zero of his recordings — another post in itself).
This set was called TUNES FOR JOE in respect of a late Jazz during Chautauqua commander-in-chief Joe Boughton, who adored poetic and infrequently problematic repertoire in preference of a themeless blues, SATIN DOLL, or SWEET GEORGIA BROWN, that would make him frightened — he indeed left a room when these things happened.
In this set, a players are Jim Dapogny, piano and arranger; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Dan Barrett, trombone; Scott Robinson, Dan Block, reeds; Marty Grosz, guitar; Frank Tate, fibre bass; Pete Siers, drums.
The set starts with BREEZIN’ ALONG WITH THE BREEZE, informed though not mostly played. Hear Jim’s comping behind Scott’s solo, Pete’s striking carillon behind Jon-Erik. And a whole opening has a poetic figure and change between a created passages — played with good pitch — and a solos that raze out of them:
COUNTRY BOY (not COUNTRY BOY BLUES by Willard Robison), a paean to farming life, beautifully rural from a initial notes. What a flattering song! (Composer credits, please, Professor D?) And we hereby christen a wail actor before famous as “Jon-Erik” as “Bunny Kellso.” Dapogny’s coda is value watchful for, too — this rope knows how to take a time:
THAT THING — pleasantness of Roy Eldridge, a tighten relations of a Henderson band’s D NATURAL BLUES, brings what Jim calls “malice,” or what Dicky Wells called “fuzz” to a Chautauqua bandstand — so well. The piano pause is both climbing and musing, and a coronet solos advise Mister Cootie and Mister Vic — good accomplishments. Hear a stone this rope gets in a final garb chorus!:
Finally, a curtsy to Old Chicago — with a dance that’s easy to do / let me deliver it to we — SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE. Memories of Tesch and Condon, of Frank Chace and Don Ewell, too. If this is “Dixieland,” give me more, generally a altogether hardness of a rope and a reed “conversation,” Kellso’s lead, Barrett’s commentaries. Pete Siers plays that hi-hat behind a leaping Kellso in a best Catlett / Tough demeanour — blessings on his head:
Wonderful song — solos and ensembles that demeanour behind lovingly to a past though impregnate it with appetite and individualism. Jazz, not nostalgia — really most alive, even if a repertoire is apparently “historical.”
Why a Italian title? “At a end, go behind to a head,” some-more or reduction — instructions to a actor or thespian to lapse to a opening when a square is “over” once. For me, those instructions have a special meaning. These are a final video performances we will be posting from a 2011 Jazz during Chautauqua: we know I’ll be returning to these and others for edification, devout uplift, and good fun. What a swell-egant celebration it was! And special interjection to pianist Jim and Professor James for nonetheless another rocking convention in poetic improvisation.
It competence sound too tighten to THE GODFATHER, though we consider of Jim as CAPO, too — in a aged Italian clarity of “head,” or “chief.” He is someone special.
