LITTLE JACK MELODY AND YOUNG TURKS REUNION OF SORTS, WITH TH, MARCH 24 IN AUSTIN, AT SWAN DIVE, AND F, MARCH 25 IN DENTON, AT DAN'S SILVERLEAF, PLUS DENTON ARTS/JAZZ FEST SUNDAY, MAY 1, PLUS THE RE-PRESSING OF LJM'S LIVE ALBUM, NOISE AND SMOKE!
Denton, TX 3/8/11- News news and news, a much-needed and sadly-belated website update, years in the making. What's my problem? People want to know, or do they? Thanks for asking, but just too busy w/ various things, some of it boiling down to a whole lot of Brave Combo gigs, the hotseat bass chair which I've populated for going on two yrs now. Busy busy busy on that front, plus in my capacity as a freelance writer, enough about that, and part-time secretary, and fulltime man-about-home, enough about that. Excuses, excuses, and every one of them w/ a toothsome veracity all-too-rare in this modern world, which has ceased to be comprehensible anyway. Enough about me.
What I need to be telling you about is the Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks reunion gigs that are upon us. Can a band have a reunion when it never actually broke up? Good question, and one that I won't be pondering here, in the interest of time. (Parenthetically, I'm typing about 175 wpm right now, in case you couldn't tell. Hang on, gotta visit the icebox for a New Amsterdam Abbey, a Belgian-style ale that I'm overtly fond of at this moment. Gimme 20 seconds here… Yardarm be damned.)
But picture this no really:
Mike Stinnett, YT emeritus on sax and clarinet
Dave Dorbin, YT charter emeritus on tuba
Norm "Chopper" Bergeron, YT emeritus on drums
Brad "Mr. Williams" Williams, YT in aeternum de profundis on harmonium
Little Jack Melody, YT frontispiece on singing, tenor banjo, remedial cornet
All on stage at the same time! Playing songs from LJM albums On the Blank Generation, World of Fireworks and my charmed life! Harmonium-heavy! Horsedrawn, wheezy, Luddite-encrusted! Oompah for your loompah! Reedy dervishing skirmishing! And a bomp-bam-boom-brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-splang! Austin! Denton! Then requiescat in pace until the next reunion of these fine and tenderized musical souls? Only The Shadow knows, and Lamont Cranston is not commenting by tweet nor tincan string.
So the hell of it is is that Stinnett and Chopper are both living in Austin now, have recently played gigs together, one of which was at Swan Dive, both of them agreeing that 'wow what a perfect venue for an LJM reunion seems like old times why don't we light a fire and put a bug?' Which they did, approaching me in tandem w/ this thought, this proposal, next thing you know Dorbin has been drafted, coming in from the verdant backwash of NJ somewhere, and Mr. Williams being still in Dallas and available and up to speed all the way around so how could you say no?
Next thing you know, Denton has been added to the micro 2-date reunion tour, might as well whatthehell, and why not while we're at it.
So here are the specs for real:
Do not miss and you can't afford to anyway, Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks, as delineated above, at Swan Dive, Austin, TX, Th March 24, with a 9:00 showtime. Very cool vibe of a room, w/ an open-minded booking policy that makes this band and this venue the most natural fit in the world. Find out more on the website: www.swandiveaustin.com Highly recommended.
And then the next night, dude do not miss and I mean that, second date of the tiny tour, same lineup and concept, but this time at Dan's Silverleaf in Denton, TX, and just to be clear, that's Friday, March 25, with a 10:00 showtime. The coolest venue in Denton in forever, and I should know, and not making this up, and learn more on the website: www.danssilverleaf.com Highly recommended.
These shows threaten to be unrestrainedly tremendous, so make your plans now to attend.
Hey but what about it's that time of year again anyway, almost? Of course I'm talking about the Denton Arts and Jazz Festival, where LJM et al, (not sure at this writing about the YT personnel for this occasion, come to think of it), will be performing on Sunday, May 1, Courtyard Stage, at 4:30 PM. One of the coolest festivals in this part of the world, and it's free and you gotta do it you just gotta, I'm just sayin. More here, all the details: www.dentonjazzfest.com Highly recommended.
(And then you could stick around and catch Brave Combo at 7:00 that same night, closing out the festival as is tradition, making big noise from the Jazz Stage, look for me on bass and say 'hey.' More here: brave.com/bo Highly recommended.
Hey and don't forget before I run out of steam here, and before these calluses on these spatulate fingertips let me down, that the fourth CD in the LJM canon, Noise and Smoke, long too long out of print, is back in action, re-pressed and ready to go to good homes once again. Man o man and the excitement is drumroll palpable, a mighty roar of affirmation hallelujahs drifting over the housetops of our land coast to coast as one voice, as if miracles could still happen. How do you spell hyperbole?
No but really and I mean it, Noise and Smoke is finally back, thanks entirely to an anonymous great soul who took it upon himself to float the boat and finance this re-pressing venture. Originally released in 2000, if memory serves, the CD was recorded live at the original Dan's Bar right here in Denton, with the personnel being Mr. Williams on keyboards, Jeff Novack on largemouth bass, Jacob Duncan on reeds, and Chris Michael on drums. A wonderful document of a caught-in-the- line-of-fire LJM and YT night, where we came pretty close to firing on all eight, most of the time. Should be available to you at any/all of our live gigs, and hopefully if you click your way over to the "store" area of this website it'll be buyable there. Highly recommended.
Dang, this update has gotten too long. What's my word count? Who's counting? Gotta go in any case, and thanks for being here, and your patience. We hope to see you in the near future. Come to a gig, say hey, have fun, and enjoy yourself while you can. We'd love to see you.
Until then,
Over and out,
LITTLE JACK MELODY
Denton, TX
THE OFFICIAL BIO AS OF RIGHT THIS MINUTE
Little Jack Melody adopted his current nom de guerre from a Beat Generation minor player, and fashioned LJM and his Young Turks as a protest group on two fronts: first, with its anachronistic instrumentation of harmonium (pump organ), tuba, tenor banjo, sax/clarinet, and Roaring 20's style trap kit, the band was a Luddite response to the age of digital synths and "the mandate of creating every sound under the sun plus a bunch of new ones that we don't even have names for yet"; secondly, many of his original songs shared the tradition of protest and commentary that characterized the spirit of the cabaret movement in Europe.Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks became a melting pot of its leader's enthusiasms. Jack found inspiration in the confessionals of Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and Tom Waits; he was intrigued by the subtleties of Raymond Carver, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill; he was moved by the sheer power and humanity of Hubert Selby Jr., Henry Miller and Carla Bley; he found metaphors in circuses, Salvation Army bands and Melville."On the Blank Generation" was released in 1991 and met with conspicuous critical acclaim. Effusive reviews rolled in from "Musician," "Rolling Stone," Kurt Loder in "Esquire," "Keyboard," "Texas Monthly," and National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" did a feature spot on the band and the CD, raising LJM's national profile.1994 saw the release of "World of Fireworks," which managed to elude critical notice almost entirely. "my charmed life" was unleashed in 1997 and marked a turning point in the band's evolution, a transitional period that saw the departure of tuba, its replacement with upright bass, and a more open-ended approach to instrumentation. "I decided to let the songs call the shots on that CD," LJM suggests. "If it said, 'gimme some field bells,' then we found it some. If the song said, 'I really need a couple of suspended Chinese tam-tam googongs and an analog synth,' then we brought 'em in."A live album, "Noise and Smoke" was recorded at a club in Denton and released in 1999. Harnessing the live energy of the band, complete with between-song banter and various spontaneous serendipities, the CD comes close to representing the genuine article.The band's personnel has been in a near-continual state of flux, with Young Turks coming and going with maddening regularity. By latest count, there have been at least 28 full time members of the band, and a full reckoning of occasional subs might yield a head count of another 25.At present, Little Jack is experimenting with a scaled-down approach to his music. "Right now I'm playing bass, Brad Williams is on all sorts of keyboards, and Don Cento has joined on guitar," Melody reports. "First time I've had a guitarist in the band, and it's really pretty cool. Maybe that's why every other band in the world has one. Man, if I'd only known…"
Here's a couple of videos by the great Suzie Kidnap. First, "My Charmed Life," a day in the life of Little Jack Melody and his Young Turks-- playing, driving, breaking down, playing, driving, getting lost. Repeat. Followed by Kidnap's poignant take on "On the Blank Generation (The Cake Song)," the title cut from the first LJM CD.
