The Complete P.T. Stanton’s Stone Age Jazz Band (3 CD)

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air.  ― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard Gray’s line about the flower could be a metaphor—in part, at least—that applied to many traditional jazz bands from the days before the advent of festivals and of the internet. Many bands, such as the one that is the subject of this release, went largely unknown and unappreciated by almost all but the jazz fans in their locality. Today, however, thanks to the internet such anonymity no longer prevails—witness, for example, Tuba Skinny and the Shot Gun Jazz Band, to mention just two. Their recognition, extending beyond New Orleans, is worldwide. Lacking such means of disseminating their music and their name, the Stanton band was largely known only to jazz fans of the San Francisco Bay Area, their home turf. Fortunately, one of the band members, Earl Scheelar, acquired several tapes of the band’s performances, which form the basis of this three-CD set. Despite the title, however, it is not the “Complete” recordings, as at least one other recorded performance was issued in 1991 on a Stomp Off LP S.O.S. 1228 and also on cassette (but never reissued on CD). Two of the tracks from that performance on the Stomp Off LP are repeated on vol. 3 of this CD set, “Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet” and “There’s Yes, Yes in Your Eyes