CD review by Bert Thompson in Just Jazz june 2005As everyone who loves traditional jazz and has visited New Orleans recently knows, good jazz, like a good man, is hard to find. One of the few places where one can find it is Fritzel's Bar on Bourbon Street, especially during the French Quarter Festival. However, one would hardly expect to find church music played there on a Sunday morning, perhaps, but that is precisely what happened last year—April 18, 2004, to be exact— when Jack McLaughlin, from Australia, and Kjeld Brandt, from Denmark, got together to record an album of hymns and gospel songs. Both are clarinet players and are most ably accompanied here by John Van Buuren (banjo), Rachel Hamilton (piano), and Craig Goeldner (string bass), all also from Australia. The applause one hears comes from a small audience of aficionados who heard of the recording plans and turned up to partake of a rare experience.
Like so many clarinet players who play traditional jazz, both McLaughlin and Brandt were initially inspired by George Lewis, and also like most—or, at least, the better ones—they ultimately found their own voices. Lewis was a trail blazer back in 1954 when he recorded the classic Jazz at Vespers album on the Empirical label. Since then there have been many jazz albums of religious music recorded, but none that I can recall featuring two clarinets. (Through overdubbing, George Lewis played a duet with himself on one track on the George Lewis Plays Hymns LP by his trio issued on the Milneburg label in 1964.) Here we are treated to loving renditions of these tunes, the two clarinetists creating exquisite harmonies in their duets as they listen to each other carefully, improvising, most of the time quite successfully—no small feat given the fact that they get together so seldom, living as they do on almost opposite sides of the globe. Their joint appearances are limited usually to those they make once a year at the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans. There is no attempt to make this a "cutting" contest—each plays for the benefit of the other, not trying to see how many notes he can squeeze into eight or sixteen bars or how he might "top" the other. Rather it is a case of which note or notes will best fit or complement what the other is doing. The result is an unusual feast for the ears of beautiful clarinet playing in the "old New Orleans Style," one seldom heard these days, with its hallmark vibrato. On a few tracks McLaughlin plays an Eb metal clarinet, the kind favored by clarinetists in the old New Orleans brass bands, but most of the time he stays with the metal Bb Albert system instrument. Brandt also plays a metal clarinet, but his is a double bell Boehm system instrument, made of 99% silver.
While most, if not all, of the tunes on this CD will be familiar, their renditions are refreshingly different. There is a quiet beauty to them that is not often to be found. This unusual CD should not appeal only to those who play clarinet; it will also provide an hour and a quarter of enjoyment to anyone who simply loves good music, period. Those who took the trouble to rise early enough to be in Fritzel's Bar in New Orleans at that ungodly hour of 10:30 a.m. that Sunday were fortunate, indeed. We are equally fortunate in having this recording of that morning's proceedings, thanks to Big Bill Bissonnette, owner of Jazz Crusade Records. It should be available from the usual sources, but if all else fails you can contact Jazz Crusade Records at 585 Pond Street, Bridgeport, CT 06606, U.S.A., or their web site www.jazzcrusade.com for ordering information.
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