JUST HERE, RIGHT THERE - Tiger Dixie Band

JUST HERE, RIGHT THERE (CVLD046)

Tiger Dixie Band

And one day a tiger began to play...
“From Italy to New York City”

1. WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN (Traditional)
What is this sound? What is this music?

The question caught me on the eighth of the twenty-five steps, white like my hat, of that big ship which had crossed the ocean to take me to America.
A strange music which I had never heard, notes which were reflected like distant waves among the reflections of windows hanging on houses which were so high that they could even keep the sun off.
Day after day the sea had dandled me and in its blue I had belched out all my past. But now I was in New York, in the big city and I had decided to caress it plungeing into the graceful and gentle arms of a siren with deep green eyes like an orgasm eight thousand miles away from the rocks which pierced my window, like the wish to begin all over again and feel alive.

Tribute to Scott Joplin
2. MAPLE LEAF RAG (Scott Joplin)
“ From New York to New Orleans”

The train wheels started moving slowly and took me with them to the south. That shoeless guy with an orange mandolin silenced old people and children and his melody was playing in my mind while we were riding the flat rufflings of the Mississippi. Beyond the wooden seats, harsh like the face of the black man in front of me, my thoughts were running around in a world where the horizont had no limits.
In New Orleans, where art, sex and prayer used to meet every night to free in the air that jazz music by hearing which even the moon could not help smiling, Henry Matranga told me that my sweat would never be rewarded but that serving whiskey to smart black people was anyhow a job. And one night a man smiled to the mirror while licking a brilliant hanging between his teeth of the colour of milk, then he sat in front of the piano to conquer the crown of a melody belonging to a moment with the flavour of eternity.

Tribute to Jelly Roll Morton
3. WOLVERINE BLUES (Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton)
4. PANAMA (William H. Tyers)
5. TIN ROOF BLUES (Leon Roppolo, Paul Mares, Ben Pollack)

But my tears fell down into the whiskey when a man who spoke my language got on the stage and started playing with his band a piece with a crazy rhythm. Its title had something to do with a tiger, but at that time he did not know it. Very soon however that sound which seemed to be faster than time would have been captured in a sound track. And in that black spinning circle those notes would have gone around the world to amuse men and women whom I would never meet.
Then the black pianist stopped licking his brilliant, got up, took his hat and without saying a word went away, slowly.

Tribute to D. J. LaRocca
6. FIDGETY FEET (D.J. LaRocca – Larry Shields)
7. TIGER RAG (D.J. LaRocca)
“Nov. 1917, The closing of Storyville – From New Orleans to Chicago”

One night came some uniforms with golden stars on their chest and Storyville disappeared like a comet of notes and left its children sitting in the dust. So I put on my new shoes and went to Chicago where a strange musician whose mouth was similar to a bag, touching the sky with his cornet, had emotions vibrate and dance happily on the edge of soul.

Tribute to Louis Armstrong
8. MUSKRAT RAMBLE (Edward “Kid” Ory)
9. BASIN STREET BLUES (Spencer Williams)
10. STRUTTIN’ WITH SOME BARBECUE (Lillian Hardin Armstrong)

One Sunday on the ferryboat a boy kicked the score, tidied his blond hair and came out with a solo. Suddenly the boat started turning around and got lost in the wind of Chicago in a whirl of sounds, as if the whole city had decided to wear those notes which seemed to combine in a late summer melody the black and the white colours of jazz.

Tribute to Bix Beiderbecke
11. BILL BAILEY (Hughie Cannon)
12. ROYAL GARDEN BLUES (Clarence & Spencer Williams)
13. WHO’S SORRY NOW (Ted Snyder)
14. I’VE FOUND A NEW BABY (Jack Palmer & Spencer Williams)

“Just Here, Right There - Back to Italy at present day”
Now I have come back where I was born dozens of years ago. I am sitting with my eyes closed while the sun is sinking slowly along the mountain. A far sound draws my attention: a group of musicians produces well-known melodies, they play and laugh with the passion of a century which is only just born. I look at them and smile while my feet follow a rhythm which, flying over the sea, echoes in space and time. I close my eyes again and someone whispers in my ear: “Just here, right there”.

15. THE DISCLAND (Maurizio Scomparin)
16. THE REVENGE OF THE ELEPHANT (D.J. LaRocca, Paolo Trettel)
17. GOOD MORNING BLUES (Fiorenzo Zeni)

18. WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN (Traditional)

TIGER DIXIE BAND
Paolo Trettel (trumpet)
Luigi Grata (trombone; tuba on 11, 12, 16)
Stefano Menato (clarinet; soprano sax on 5, 9, 17)
Giorgio Beberi (bass sax; tenor sax on 5, 9, 11, 12; out on 17)
Enrico Merlin (banjo; acoustic guitar on 5, 9, 17; add. mandolin on 1)
Carlo Alberto Canevali (drums, percussion)

Special guests:
Fiorenzo Zeni (tenor sax on 2, 10, 12, 16, 17; soprano sax on 11)
Beppe Pilotto (acoustic bass on 5, 9, 17)

Production: Velut Luna / Tiger Dixie Band
Executive Producer: Marco Lincetto
Sound Engineer: Marco Lincetto
Digital Editing and Mastering: Fabio Framba
Project and storyboard: Enrico Merlin
Photos: Sergio DeCarli
Novel: Andrea Manfredi
English Translation: Francesca Menna
Layout: L’image
Trading Consultant: Yair Wahl

Recording was made at Public Auditorium, Chiuppano-Vicenza, Italy, on October 22-23th, 2000, using the ultimate and the most advanced digital technology, based upon Prism Sound Dream AD2 24Bit/96kHz AD converter.