There is only one seven-piece New Orleans-style jazz band with a steady gig in New York City—the High Society New Orleans Jazz Band, co-led by Simon Wettenhall on trumpet and Grammy-winner Conal Fowkes on piano. Gianni Valenti, who owns Birdland Jazz Club, has booked them for an open-ended residency, Thursdays at 5:30 pm, downstairs at the club (the room they call the Birdland Theater). It’s an intimate room. Food and drink are reasonably priced. (I had a hamburger and fries for dinner; the bill was $20.) If you like traditional jazz, this band—which is essentially Woody Allen’s jazz band, without Woody—is not to be missed.
A friend and I took our seats—front-row center, which is always my favorite place to be—at Birdland Theater. The seven musicians took the stage. Trumpeter Simon Wettenhall led the band into their opening number, “Come on and Stomp Stomp Stomp,” a Fats Waller composition that Johnny Dodds’ Black Bottom Stompers first recorded in 1927. And the sound that hit me was just glorious.
First off, I loved that fat, rich, well-rounded tone of Wettenhall’s trumpet—hitting me right smack in the face. It’s one thing to listen to a recording in your home; it’s a greater, much more intense and rewarding experience to hear the music being created “live,” so close to you that you feel like you are a part of it. His attack was sure and vigorous.
