Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Preservation Hall Jazz Band Heats Up

-By Eric Hansen of Deseret News

Life can be measured by the things on your "bucket list" and the things you never knew were on there in the first place. They include those truly memorable nights in your life that when someone asks about them, or when something reminds you, you can't help but pause for a moment and smile.
One of those nights happened for me in New Orleans a year ago with my sisters. After a great meal on a balmy night, we sat down and heard some live jazz. It was real, New Orleans jazz — in the heart of the French Quarter.

 
The music, beats and improvisation were so infectious that the slapping of my hands on the tops of my thighs would later turn to bruises. I slapped with such gusto that I couldn't help myself.
I tried to be more careful Sunday night at Red Butte Garden as the Preservation Hall Jazz Band took the stage, but it was hard.

The large band, clad in attire that could pass for costumes from the movie "Men In Black," delicately wailed — if that's possible — from one classic to the next.


Kicking it off with "They Come to Play" and "On the Bayou," the band, featuring guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle, clarinet, piano and plenty of brass, talked little and played a lot and seemed to have a fantastic time doing so.

In a joint effort, much like the CD released in 2011, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band played with the Del McCoury band, creating a night of vintage New Orleans jazz, with a little bit of classic bluegrass sprinkled in...



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