COLIN HANCOCK’S JAZZ HOUNDS featuring CATHERINE RUSSELL

CAT & THE HOUNDS

Turtle Bay Records

Colin Hancock’s Jazz Hounds, featuring Catherine Russell, gives us a flash-back glimpse into the 1920s vaudeville houses and speakeasies of that era.  This band represents music of the deep South from Louisiana to Texas, from Alabama to Georgia, from Florida to as far west as California. They reach back to days of development, when black American music, especially ragtime, mixed with Caribbean and African beats, then blurred with Latin rhythms with something black folks are famous for, the art of improvisation. African American people can take one thing and reshape it into another, with artistic liberty and calculated creativity.  While blues music has existed longer, prominent in this early 1900s music, it’s those blues that rooted jazz. So developed new music. It was dependent on a lot of integrating the blues into this blend of cultures.

This album dates back to Mamie Smith and the ‘Father of the Blues’ W. C. Handy.  Musicians knew that if you just flatted the fifth of the chord, you could develop a song into a popular blues tone. Back in 1938, Handy cashed a royalty check for $25,000 for his “Yellow Dog Blues.”  Bessie Smith made a high-paying living singing the blues.  Catherine Russell reminds me of that style and era of music.

Concert promoter, George Wein was assembling his artists for the 2019 Newport Jazz Festival.  He wanted to call it The History of Jazz and was hoping to hire acts that perpetuated the various types and years of jazz development. Colin Hancock’s band was asked to participate.  But then COVID-19 hit. Performance spaces shut down! In only a few years later, Wein himself passed away.

At a house party in Brooklyn, Hancock provided the entertainment with legendary ragtime pianist Terry Waldo in a duet setting. Catherine Russell witnessed that presentation, joined them for a couple of magical numbers, and the rest is history. That’s how Colin Hancock’s Jazz Hounds got started. The album, “Cat & the Hounds” gives a nod to Catherine’s nickname. This band is bringing alive the Black Music of the 1920s.

Catherine Russell’s voice is perfect for this music.  She sounds emotionally connected and sings with a deep soulfulness, wrapping her mouth around the lyrics like she’s sucking on a sweet piece of caramel.

Jerron Paxton’s harmonica opens their first tune, sounding like a train chugging away from the station. It’s called “Panama Limited Blues” and Cat sings, “I got the Choo Choo Blues, had um all night & day.  Cuz that Panama Limited, took my sweet man away.”

It sounds familiar, like that tune “I hate to see that evening sun go down.” Like a lot of blues numbers, you can slip that St. Louis Blues tune right into these chord changes. She follows this with a song Bessie Smith recorded: “Cake Walkin’ Babies (From Home).”  The band offers joyful support, with a two-feel on the bass and the horns punching happily behind the rhythm section.  Evan Christopher shines on his clarinet solo and the tuba part, played by Kerry Lewis, pushes the song forward.

This unique band brings us a complete picture of the early African American popular music that incorporated gospel and spiritual syncopated music into the mix. It is a music rooted in blues with ragtime, African rhythms and the influence of Afro-Cuban and Latin rhythms.

CAT & THE HOUNDS BAND MEMBERS: Catherine Russell, vocals; Colin Hancock, corner/c-melody saxophone/bandleader; Jon Thomas, piano; Ahmad Johnson, drums; Jerron Paxton, banjo/guitar/vocals/harmonica; Dion Tucker, trombone; Evan Christopher, clarinet/coprano & alto saxophone; Kerry Lewis, tuba; SPECIAL GUEST: Vince Giordano, bass saxophone.

 

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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