The Rag Messengers • Grand Boubousse

The Rag Messengers consists of Exequiel Celada on clarinet and soprano-sax, pianist Auguste Caron, and drummer Orphélie Luminti. The trio is very much in the 1920s tradition although it sometimes stretches a little beyond that era. Celada’s clarinet playing is reminiscent of Omer Simeon when he played with Jelly Roll Morton, pianist Caron is a fine stride player who makes the absence of a string bass unnoticeable, and Luminti’s drumming is what one might have heard from Gene Krupa when he played in trad settings.

On Grand Boubousse, the trio performs swinging versions of quite a few obscurities. It begins with the title tune, Omer Simeon’s hot number from a 1954 trio date with pianist Sammy Price and drummer Zutty Singleton. Among the other highlights are a pair of James P. Johnson tunes rarely heard in this format (a relaxed “Snowy Morning Blues” and an uptempo “Harlem Strut”), Caron’s stirring romp “Le requiem de Norak,” and Willie “the Lion” Smith’s “Here Comes The Band.” A touch more modern but no less rewarding are a gloomy ballad (“Pastel”), a tangoish waltz (“Miranda”), a clarinet-drums duo version of “Joshua Fit The Ballad Of Jericho,” and an adventurous version of “Mary’s Waltz.”

Although none of the three musicians in the Rag Messengers have names that will be familiar to American jazz fans, Grand Boubousse is well worth acquiring.

The Rag Messengers • Grand Boubousse
Camille Productions TRMO 3
www.camille-productions.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.