Freddy Aune And His Speakeasy Trio - A "Knight" At The Gaslight (LP, Mono) (Very Good Plus (VG+))

Media Condition:  Very Good Plus (VG+)
Sleeve Condition: Very Good Plus (VG+)
Country:    US  
Released:  1961
Genre:       Jazz
Style:         Dixieland

Comments:
[BLOW OUT SALE !!! 50% or more OFF on 30.000 ITEMS] FEW LIGHT SCUFFS, LIGHT COVERWEAR, SOC
 

Notes:

Liner notes: 

The first time I walked into the Speakeasy Room of the Chicago Gaslight Club, I couldn't believe what I saw and heard. I had seen the rest of the club with its plushy carpets, gilded wall paper and marble bars. I wanted to see for myself. A line of twenty people squeezed toward the back phone booth through which you get in. After half an hour's wait I finally reached the door, pushed the buzzer, and a little window slid back. "Yeah, waddya want?" a girl's nasal voice snapped. "Joe sent me," I answered. "O.K, Sucker," the voice booed in the best Texas Guinan style, "c'mon in." The door yanked open, and the first thing that hit me was the music blasting from the opposite wall. It sounded like an eight-piece dixieland band at full tilt. They were beating out the hottest version of 12th St, Rag I'd ever heard. The capacity crowd was going wild, stamping and whistling.

I peered through the smoke toward the old upright piano. What I saw almost floored me. All that music was being made by just three people. The clarinet player was wailing out an ear-splitting high note, while he directed with his head bobbing up and down. The piano player was punching the keys like Jack Dempsey. I don't think I've heard anyone beat a piano like that since the roaring twenties. The banjo player's left foot was thumping a mile-a-minute. He plunged his strings so his chords cracked like drum beats. Then while the piano took over for a moment, the leader put his clarinet down and grabbed a trumpet. He blew some real screamers. A waitress in a shimmy dress and beads got carried away and started to Charleston. Pandemonium broke loose.

Here it was 1961, and three guys were playing jazz and carrying on as if the stock market had never crashed in 1929 …

Fortunately they've recently moved in three microphones and let the tape recorders roll, and captured the fabulous Speakeasy just the way it is: the band tooting through the roof: the audience clinking mugs and banging on the tables with their mallets; the doorbell ringing insistently; and the shimmy queens cutting their capers. This album is the next best thing to having the whole shebang in your living room.

Some guys who play jazz in noisy, smoky saloons are in a world by themselves, and act as if they wish the audience were in Siberia. But these Speakeasy boys are gentlemen. Night after night, cheerful and friendly, they play almost any request a customer comes up with. I've been amazed to hear them knock out a long-forgotten tune at the drop of a hat, making up their own wonderful arrangement on the spot. Freddy Aune, a virtuoso on the clarinet, trumpet, all saxes, flute and piccolo, has a vast background to call on. He's played about every kind of job in the music business. He's been an all-around man in the studios of NBC and CBS in Chicago, fronted his own dance band in California and Chicago, worked for Percy Faith and Red Nichols as a key sideman: writes, sings, plays and pro duces advertising commercials in his own business and somehow found time to develop into a showman who is the moving spirit of the trio. Pianist Art Gronwall goes back to the Volstead era when he played with Ray Miller, Gene Goldkette, and jobbed with jazz names like Eddie Condon, Wingy Manone, and the immortal Bix Beiderbecke, who inspired his full-chord piano style. Orville "Slim" Pickens has plunked a banjo in jazz groups all over the East and Middle West. He's in great demand for his effervescent personality and his rhythmic drive. Who else could make a banjo snap like a drum, and then turn around and play solos full of pretty chords. The three of them go to together like gin, vermouth and an olive. They're an unforgettable musical concoction, you've got to hear to believe.

A1. Opening Skit And The Shiek Of Ararby 3:11
A2. Get Out And Get Under 2:28
A3. Bill Bailey 1:59
A4. Alexander's Rag Time Band 2:57
A5. Piano Roll Blues 1:38
A6. 12th Street Rag 1:42
B1. Riverboat Shuffle 3:09
B2. It's Been So Long 2:14
B3. A Good Man Is Hard To Find 2:43
B4. Muskat Ramble 3:20
B5. St. Louis Blues 2:40
B6. When The Saints Go Marching In And Closing Skit 3:28

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