Norrie Cox & His New Orleans Stompers
"Dance Hall Days"
(Delmark)
Delmark Records is one unusual record company. They've released albums from avant-garde pioneers like Sun Ra and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago as well as underground blues icons like Robert Nighthawk and Magic Sam. So then, how about some old-fashioned New Orleans music by a guy from Milwaukee who was born in England? While Norrie Cox's trad-jazz pedigree is geographically suspect, his innate grasp of New Orleans music is anything but. Inspired by now-legendary clarinetists from the Big Easy, like Johnny Dodds and George Lewis, veteran Cox is a steadfast bandleader who keeps the rhythm rolling. Along with Charlie Devore playing cornet, trombonist Jim Klippert and Mike Carrell playing banjo and guitar, he presides over the Stomper's front line with festive enthusiasm and bold confidence. Drawing from a exceedingly rich repertoire that was first established nearly a century ago, Cox and his gang of Midwest jazz elders breath new life into compositions by Irving Berlin, Guy Lombardo and Ellington altoist Johnny Hodges, as well as revitalizing traditional tunes like "Jerusalem Blues." Keeping the song melodies right up front and their tempos within a danceable range, these graybeards play obscure-yet-essential New Orleans music that was once associated with names like Jelly Roll Morton, Wingy Manone and Kid Thomas. With their jazzbo vocabulary down pat, Cox and his Stompers take those bygone "Dance Hall Days" and bring them into the next century without missing a beat.
by Mitch Myers
copyright 1999 New City Communications, Inc.