A slight stretch for this column, the Blue Moon Marquee is a spirited New Orleans blues band. On New Orleans Sessions which has the music from two dates recorded a year apart, guitarist-singer A.W. Cardinal and bassist-singer Jasmine Colette are joined by pianist B.C. Coogan, baritone-saxophonist Danny Abrams, either Nicholas Solnick or Brett Gallo on drums, and, for two songs (neither of which have drums), Jon Atkinson on harmonica.
To give one an idea of Blue Moon Marquee’s sources and influences, on their New Orleans Sessions CD, in addition to four original blues, the group performs a song apiece by Memphis Minnie, Leadbelly, Bo Carter, Charlie Patton, and Lonnie Johnson, plus “St. James Infirmary” which is credited incorrectly to Irving Mills.
Starting out with the 32-bar stretched out blues “Black Rat Swing’ (sung by Ms. Colette), the group covers a variety of moods and grooves including the goodtime “Ain’t Going Down,” an uptempo “Shake It And Break Out,” the rock and rollish 1950s-style blues “Trickster Coyote,” the rollicking “Red Dust Rising” and an intense rendition of “St. James Infirmary.” Atkinson’s harmonica playing is a strong asset on the two songs on which he appears while baritonist Abrams’ spots add variety and drive to the music. Both of the co-leaders are effective singers with Cardinal also contributing many concise guitar solos.
In its renditions of vintage material and a few of its own compositions, Blue Moon Marquee puts on a well-rounded performance during their enjoyable and fast-moving set.
New Orleans Sessions
Blue Moon Marquee
www.bluemoonmarquee.com
Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.
Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.
