TubeNet

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/30/195945367 ... d-thats-it

When I first heard the linked preview audio track I thought there must have been some mistake - it sounds nothing like the traditional Pres Hall at all.

They get a bit more trad on most of the other songs but it still way different than what you might expect.

Lots of Sousaphone, but maybe a bit over-produced sound processing going on overall.

I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy that one! Just one man's opinion.

I hate to say this publicly, but I have no reason to expect anything positive or negative from Ben.

That sax player is really, really strange. His style is sort of a blend of Trumbauer, Koz, G, Sandborn, and some 8th grader. When he sings, he stands off to the side from his chair, puts his hand up like he's trying to deflect the sound to the rear, and has a really strange tone. People were laughing at him, thinking it was some sort of stunt. He, nor anyone else, wasn't laughing. His playing completely turned me off, especially considering the other players who were there that night---Kellan, and Pistorius are the two who I can remember at this point.

This is a very strange album.

There really is no single "Preservation Hall Jazz Band", but the live shows are usually still of good quality. They have gone to having some of the brass bands in once a week or so.

^

Jesus. This thread makes me want to troll again.

I went to college with Ben. He's a good guy, we hung out on occasion. He's always been more into Mingus than Oliver. And he inherited a sweet, sweet gig. Glad to see him doing something with it that won't turn him into a bitter old man.

We have records of the old ****. What gets preserved by playing just like they did in front of microphones in the 1920s? Certainly not the live experience -- just ask anyone that checked their phones between sets and then drove home in a car that gets better than 15 mpg.

But ideals aside, it's not a bad record. Some of the more commercial tracks bored me, but there's some nice stuff on there.

I saw the "touring" version of PHJB last month. None of the people in this picture (NPR link) were at that concert. The band I saw, for lack of a better word, sucked. I mean no disrespect to the musicians doing the playing, all of whom I'm sure are very fine players in other settings, but their sets were so timidly played as to border on the inaudible, their solos cliched, and their arrangements bland and whitewashed. The vocals were out of time and delivered with the same pathos normally reserved for reciting the digits of pi. I understand being on autopilot in a performance (I did it constantly in my theme park days), but this was a level of disengagement I hadn't encountered.

Again, I don't think this was because of "the players." This, in my observation, was a result of "the brand." PHJB artistic management, be it Ben Jaffe or others, have realized that audiences in largely Caucasian flyover states (like mine) 1.) don't listen to dixieland bands 2.) have a preconceived, Disneyfied idea about dixieland that involves parading around to When the Saints with parasols and crawdads and 3.) will only hear the PHJB once in their life. So why not streamline the process and draw up a just-add-water show where you can drop any player into the system and criss-cross the country putting on that show?

I like this album if for no other reason than it is something other than another Saints chorus, played to a faux-NOLA parade through the auditorium aisles.

Unrelated: several years ago (maybe 2001?), I saw the "real" PHJB in a big-city orchestra hall. Ben Jaffe didn't play any tuba, at least at that show, the band still featured some of the long-term guys, including a then-ancient Narvin Kimball. They were fine, but I was floored by Ben's comparative youth and couldn't picture how he organized a national tour with a half dozen other guys who looked like they might not live long enough to see intermission. I'd youth-anize the band for my own sanity, too.

On the title track, "That's It", It sounds like they are actually "double tuba-ing" it! It sounds great!!