Writing about the 60th anniversary of the Queen City Jazz Band got me to wondering where they ranked among the longest continuous-performing trad jazz bands that are still working. According to my unscientific research, the top honor goes to the Salty Dogs, who got their start on the campus of Purdue University in 1947.
Chet Jaeger began to use the Night Blooming Jazzmen name for his bands as early as 1952, but it wasn’t official until 1975 when the group hit the festival circuit representing the Society for the Preservation of Dixieland Jazz.
It was in 1970 that a banjo-playing surgeon and a dentist who played the piano gathered a group of fellow professionals to play for a testimonial dinner in the San Francisco Bay area. The group became the Natural Gas Jazz Band a year later, and according to leader Dr. Phil Crumley “has been on life-support ever since.”
Other familiar bands that have been around since the 1970s include: New Black Eagles, Uptown Lowdown, Fulton Street, High Sierra, Don Neely’s Royal Society Jazz Orchestra, and High Society from San Diego. The early 1980s introduced us to the Cell Block 7, Scott Anthony’s Golden Gate Rhythm Machine, Grand Dominion, Devil Mountain, Blue Street, and the Side Street Strutters.
The Grove Street Stumpers have been holding forth Monday nights at Arthur’s Tavern in Greenwich Village since 1953. Allan Jaffe founded
