Oliver Smith Incomparables • Stomp Your Stuff

Imagine if Jelly Roll and his Red Hot Peppers of 1926 had had the opportunity to record 13 additional selections. What if cornetist George Mitchell, trombonist Kid Ory, and clarinetist Omer Simeon (or Johnny Dodds) along with Morton in a four-piece rhythm section had had a few more sessions in which to make history. They might have sounded very much like the group that pianist Andrew Oliver and drummer Hal Smith gathered together to make Stomp Your Stuff 99 years later, in 2025.

Jelly Roll Morton did use the name “Incomparables” early in 1926 with a different group to record “Mr. Jelly Lord.” The new Incomparables features Oliver, Smith, cornetist Colin Hancock (who plays alto on one song), Andy Schumm on clarinet (switching to cornet once), trombonist T.J. Muller (also heard on cornet on one number), guitarist-banjoist Jacob Alspach, and Dan Anderson on bass and tuba. The frontline (each of whom are multi-instrumentalists) are perfect for this project, Oliver has the Jelly Roll Morton piano style down perfectly, Alspach and Anderson sound as if they are refugees from late 1920s Chicago jazz groups, and Hal Smith could pass for one of Morton’s drummers.

This is a wonderful set, particularly for fans of Jelly Roll Morton’s recordings. The repertoire is drawn from the library of the Melrose Brothers’ publishing company. The Incomparables perform such numbers as “Stomp Your Stuff,” James Scott’s “Grace And Beauty,” “Jimtown Blues,” “San Sue Strut,” “29th and Dearborn,” and “Café Capers” with short solos, arranged and jammed ensembles, and lots of constantly changing activity. Oliver takes “Dallas Stomp” as a piano solo while “Mill Creek Shuffle” is played by a trio comprised of Oliver, Smith and clarinetist Schumm. The same combo with Muller added on cornet and vocal perform the only Morton tune on the set, “Honey Babe,” a number recorded by Jelly Roll in 1928 but never released.

This highly enjoyable and often-rousing set is an absolute must for those who love 1920s jazz.

Stomp Your Stuff
Turtle Bay TBR 26007
www.turtlebayrecords.com

Scott Yanow

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.