Ralph Carney’s Serious Jass Project – Seriously (Smog Veil Records)
It may well be one of the oldest cliches in the book (almost as old and cliched as saying “one of the oldest cliches in the book”) to suggest that one ought not judge a book by its cover. In the case of this record, despite a few factors that might make the urge difficult to resist, a listener shouldn’t jump to conclusions, easy though they may be to form. Ralph Carney might be familiar to some through his work with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and in more recent years his nephew Patrick’s band the Black Keys. The use of an antiquated form of “jazz,” rarely seen after 1920 or so, might give off the suggestion of some dip through jazz’s dustiest vaults. And the cartoonish cover art, in conjunction with multiple variations of the word “serious” in the titles of the band and the album (once for fact, twice for facetiousness – or so one might assume), lend the thing a sort of R. Crumb/Lounge Lizards-style zany run-down of a few of American popular music’s less-traveled back alleys. Or perhaps, as such artists and documentarians never failed to highlight, some reminder that our grandparents’ generation was capable of music as energetic and lascivious as anything produced today.
Ralph Carney’s Serious Jass Project – Seriously (Smog Veil Records)
It may well be one of the oldest cliches in the book (almost as old and cliched as saying “one of the oldest cliches in the book”) to suggest that one ought not judge a book by its cover. In the case of this record, despite a few factors that might make the urge difficult to resist, a listener shouldn’t jump to conclusions, easy though they may be to form. Ralph Carney might be familiar to some through his work with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and in more recent years his nephew Patrick’s band the Black Keys. The use of an antiquated form of “jazz,” rarely seen after 1920 or so, might give off the suggestion of some dip through jazz’s dustiest vaults. And the cartoonish cover art, in conjunction with multiple variations of the word “serious” in the titles of the band and the album (once for fact, twice for facetiousness – or so one might assume), lend the thing a sort of R. Crumb/Lounge Lizards-style zany run-down of a few of American popular music’s less-traveled back alleys. Or perhaps, as such artists and documentarians never failed to highlight, some reminder that our grandparents’ generation was capable of music as energetic and lascivious as anything produced today.
And the first song, a take on Buddy Tate’s “Blue Creek Hop,” might have the producer of such an assumption thinking that he or she was correct. There are the up-tempo jazz passages one might well have heard coming out of Storyville in the earliest years of the 20th Century, but they’re dislocated from a strict connection to a specific time and place with the addition of lap steel (upon which the ghost of Bob Wills is smiling, I’m certain) and the occasional dissonant quasi-free jazz saxophone squall during the solos. But the irreverence of the first song quickly gives way to a loose, free-wheeling reverence of the sort of small band swing and jump blues that propelled much of American popular music in the pre-rock and roll era.
Looking at the songwriting credits, there are certainly some names familiar to anybody acquainted with music from this period – Rogers & Hart, Coleman Hawkins, and Duke Ellington all find their work represented. Ellington’s body of work sees the highest level of representation, with his songs comprising more than a quarter of the album. It’s little surprise either – even the shorter, somewhat more obscure parts of his back catalog often tended towards an experimental spirit unmatched by his contemporaries. The band seems to devour these songs more voraciously than the others, most notably on a track like “Echoes Of Harlem,” and it can be difficult to tell whether they’re so readily embraced because they lend themselves to a more open interpretation, or because their forward-thinking arrangements deserved a more respectful treatment than, say, “Happy Feet” (which closes the album).
And so it can be difficult to pinpoint the group’s motivations exactly. There’s certainly a curatorial approach, but it doesn’t attempt any sort of encyclopedic overview. The band’s reverence for the material is obvious, but it’s not the sort of grim, studious Ken Burns approach. These are songs played by knowledgeable musicians who, rather than trying to convince anybody of the breadth of their knowledge, sound like they’re having a good time tearing through a few old songs. There’s not much revision of the material; no documentation of its sources or inspirations aside from songwriting credits, and no attempt to contextualize it. This album may not knock the Earth off its axis, but it’s definitely a solid set of songs that doesn’t play into the hands of retro camp, or the sort of scholarly examination that often implicitly relegates music like this to a distant past.
