Monday, September 28, 2009

Preservation Hall Recordings to release Animated Music Video!

PRESERVATION HALL RECORDINGS TO RELEASE
BRAND-NEW ANIMATED MUSIC VIDEO IN CONJUNCTION WITH
ST. PETER STREET SERENADE
AN ITUNES DIGITAL MUSIC & VIDEO PACKAGE:
LAUNCHING OCTOBER 20, 2009

October 20, 2009 – New Orleans, LA – 12:01AM:
It’s Toon Time! Visit PreservationHall.com at midnight on October 20th as we launch a brand-new animated music video for the Preservation Hall / King Britt re-mix of “St. James Infirmary.” Animated by Lafayette-based animator James Tancill in the style of Max Fleischer (Betty Boop, etc.), the video is an animated romp that plays out like a storybook caper set against a backdrop of beloved New Orleans characters and institutions. Featuring animated versions of Clint Maedgen, Ben Jaffe, King Britt, John Brunious Jr., Sweet Emma Barrett, Ronnie Numbers and Mr. The Turk (of The New Orleans Bingo! Show) and more, this darkly lush imagining of the song’s narrative features more than enough ghostly fun to make it the perfect Halloween release!

ABOUT ST. PETER STREET SERENADE:
Following in the tradition of our 1996 recording, The Preservation Hall Hot 4 with Harold “Duke” Dejan, St. Peter Street Serenade is a collection of five small-arrangement performances of traditional jazz selections featuring vocalist Clint Maedgen and a variety of special guests. Embracing the new era of the independent online release, Preservation Hall Recordings has decided to make this very special package available for digital download only. Available exclusively from iTunes, these five tracks are available individually or as part of a package that includes the brand-new animated music video for “St. James Infirmary,” as well as the very popular videos for “Complicated Life” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.”

TRACK LISTING:
1. Exactly Like You
The Preservation Hall Hot 4 featuring guest vocalists Clint Maedgen and Topsy Chapman.
2. I’ll Fly Away
The Preservaiton Hall Hot 4 featuring guest vocalists Clint Maedgen, Topsy Chapman, Jolynda Phillips and Yolanda Windsay
3. St. James Infirmary
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, as led by John Brunious, Jr. and remixed by legendary Philadelphia DJ and producer King Britt (Sister Gertrude, Digable Planets) and Preservation Hall Creative Director Ben Jaffe.
4. I’m Alone Because I Love You
The Preservation Hall Hot 4 featuring Clint Maedgen
5. Le Petit Fleur
The Preservation Hall Hot 4 featuring Ralph Johnson
6. St. James Infirmary
Animated Music Video
7. Complicated Life
Music Video
8. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
Music Video

MORE ABOUT THE CARTOON:
PRESERVATION HALL RECORDINGS PRESENTS
-ST. JAMES INFIRMARY-
A BRAND-NEW, LOCALLY PRODUCED ANIMATED MUSIC VIDEO

Preservation Hall Recordings is proud to present a brand-new, locally produced animated music video! Directed by Lafayette-based teacher and animator James Tancill, the music video for the Preservation Hall / King Britt remix of “St. James Infirmary” by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is an animated romp in the style of Max Fleischer (Betty Boop, etc.) that plays out like a storybook caper set against a backdrop of beloved New Orleans characters and institutions both old and new. Audiences familiar with the iconography of New Orleans music and culture will thrill as characters and beloved landmarks from the past and present find new life in an animated tableau.

Set to music by The Preservation Hall Jazz Band (as led by dearly departed bandleader John Brunious, Jr. and remixed by legendary Philadelphia DJ and producer King Britt (Digable Planets, E-Culture) and Preservation Hall Creative Director Ben Jaffe) the video for “St. James Infirmary” follows the antics of Ronnie Numbers and Mr. The Turk of The New Orleans Bingo! Show through a dark and mischievous imagining of the song’s classic narrative as sung by Clint Maedgen (PHJB, The New Orleans Bingo! Show). Starring animated versions of Clint Maedgen, Ben Jaffe, and King Britt; and featuring appearances by such departed icons as John Brunious Jr., Sweet Emma Barrett, and Marie Laveau in such familiar settings as Preservation Hall, Jackson Square, and the long-defunct Pontchartrain Beach amusement park, “St. James Infirmary” is the third music video from Preservation Hall Recordings to feature the cross-over appeal of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and The New Orleans Bingo! Show.

“We were looking for a fun way to visually document some of the great icons of New Orleans music and culture. What better way to bridge the past and the present than with a modern cartoon in an instantly recognizable, classic style. And made right here in New Orleans! ”
-Ben Jaffe
Son of Preservation Hall founders Allan and Sandra Jaffe

ABOUT THE PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND:
Since opening its doors to the public in 1961, it has been the mission of Preservation Hall to showcase the national treasures of traditional New Orleans jazz music. Forty-eight years later, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band still represents the best opportunity for music fans the world over to experience the planet’s happiest music. Boasting a direct lineage from the earliest incarnations of New Orleans jazz, the current roster of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band features some of the Crescent City’s finest and most exciting musicians. These unforgettable, multi-generational players proudly carry on the traditions passed forward from the most prolific jazz heritage on earth.

ABOUT KING BRITT (in his words):
Well, bios are funny because they tell the story of the past of who you are in the present. I try to only live in the present and the future (as I said, try). Even though beginning my career in 1990 on the now legendary house label Strictly Rhythm as E- Culture, being Silkworm in the groundbreaking, Grammy winning Digable Planets, starting Ovum Recordings with Josh Wink, producing platinum remixes for Macy Gray, Solange, Donna Lewis and hundreds of others, winning the highest grant in the country as the first dj/producer, The Pew Fellowship or starting my empire, FiveSixMedia, I still try to live in the NOW and not the then.

So of course, now, I am a father, fiance', musicologist of sorts and media revolutionary. My label and company FiveSixMedia, set the example of an individual who is able to live outside the box and show what freedom truly is. Doing my own thing on my own time and assisting other to move into that space as well.

The future is bright because I say it is. Stop and smell the flowers.


ABOUT VISUAL ARTIST JAMES TANCILL:
A former native of New Orleans displaced by Hurricane Katrina, James Tancill now lives in Lafayette, Louisiana with his wife Jo Ellen. Currently an instructor of visual art at the University of Louisiana, James has a BA and MFA from the University of New Orleans. Having spent most of his time in New Orleans projecting films for local theatres and teaching drawing and cartooning at the New Orleans Charter Middle School, it was only natural that he would eventually form his own animation company. Motivated by his passion for film, music, and classic cartoons, as well as by his deep love of all things New Orleans, James is very proud of the collaborative effort by which he and Ben Jaffe of Preservation Hall have captured the city of New Orleans in what may be the city’s first locally-produced animation about the city itself.

HISTORIC RECORDINGS AVAILABLE
EXCLUSIVELY BY DIGITAL DOWNLOAD FROM
PRESERVATION HALL RECORDINGS AND ITUNES

New Orleans’ Billie and De De and Their Preservation Hall Jazz Band (1966)
Recorded at Preservation Hall on April 26, 1966 by noted jazz historian William Russell, New Orleans’ Billie and De De and Their Preservation Hall Jazz Band stands as testament to the extraordinary power of one of Preservation Hall’s earliest lineups. Born in Marianna, Florida in 1907, Billie Goodson Pierce was a passionate player of ragtime and blues piano. From her teenage turn playing for blues legend Bessie Smith to her lean depression-era years playing the honkytonks of the French Quarter’s lower Decatur Street, this self-taught player would later become one of the most widely heard performers in the history of New Orleans Jazz. Born in New Orleans in 1904, Joseph “De De” La Croix Pierce was the Creole son of an established brick mason who fell in love with the trumpet at an early age and spent his life balancing his father’s blue collar assertions with his own musical aspiriations. Married on March 28, 1935 with George Lewis as best man, Billie and De De Pierce rarely worked a job that they didn’t play together. With De De on cornet and Billie on piano, the couple had already been together for thirty years by the time this album was recorded. Joined by George Lewis on clarinet, Cie Frazier on drums, Louis Nelson on Trombone, Narvin Kimball on banjo, and Chester Zardis on bass, this record captures some of the greatest jazz musicians from the first half of the twentieth century in the midst of one of the most remarkable comebacks in New Orleans history.
TRACK LISTING:
1. Peanut Vendor 6. Sallee Dame
2. Just A Closer Walk With Thee 7. Lonesome Road
3. Just a Little While To Stay Here 8. Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet
4. St. James Infirmary 9. Freight Train Blues
5. Eh La Bas 10. Let Me Call You Sweetheart

Here Come Da Great Olympia Band! (The Olympia Brass Band, 1974)
Founded in 1958 by alto saxophonist Harold “Duke” Dejan, The Olympia Brass Band operated continuously for more than 45 years before Hurricane Katrina scattered its last remaining members to new homes across the country. Boasting an all-star lineup and an intense New Orleans parade repertoire, The Olympia Brass Band was truly one of the greatest in a long tradition of New Orleans marching organizations. Through their standing Sunday night engagement at Preservation Hall, appearances in films like the James Bond feature “Live and Let Die,” and their many European tours, The Olympia Brass Band brought the vibrant street music of New Orleans to music lovers all over the world. Recorded in 1974, at the height of their glory, Here Come Da Great Olympia Band features leader Harold “Duke” Dejan backed up by a dozen legends of New Orleans Brass and traditional jazz, including Emmanuel Paul, Milton Batiste, and Kid Sheik Colar. Also, included here for the first time, the digital version of this classic album is accompanied by three previously unavailable tracks from the Olympia Brass Band’s 45rpm single, Mardi Gras 77.
TRACK LISTING:
1. Everything’s Lovely
2. Down By The Riverside 8. Westlawn Dirge
3. Just A Closer Walk With Thee 9. Didn’t He Ramble
4. The New Second Line 10. I Got A Woman
5. Lord, Lord, Lord, You Sure Been Good To Me 11. Mardi Gras In New Orleans
6. Precious Lord Take My Hand 12. Sing On!
7. Olympia On Parade 13. Strutting With Olympia
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