Palomar Trio: (from left) Kevin Dorn (drums), Mark Levinson (clarinet, tenor sax), Mark Shane (piano). ‘We’re something more than mere musicians,” says Levinson. ‘We’re archeologists.’
By David McGee
THE SONG IN OUR SOUL
The Palomar Trio
Turtle Bay Records
United by their mutual affection for classic swing music of the ‘20s through the ‘40s, and especially for the sound and style of the Benny Goodman Trio’s groundbreaking ‘30s recordings, Dan Levinson (clarinet, tenor sax), Mark Shayne (piano) and Kevin Dorn (drums) have been holding forth in New York City since the mid-‘90s, keeping the faith while reinvigorating forgotten gems of an earlier time. The Song in Our Soul, a play on the Fats Waller-Alex Hill chestnut, “Keep a Song In Your Soul,” which kicks off this album in lively, strutting fashion with a spirited dialogue between Levinson’s tenor sax and Shayne’s piano, finds the trio confidently plumbing 10 other tunes described by Levinson in his liner notes as “waiting to be rediscovered—and needing to be.” Further, he says, he and his bandmates, grown weary of playing “the warhorses” are now “something more than mere musicians. We’re archeologists. This album is the product of decades of extensive study.”
‘In a Shanty in Old Shanty Town,’ a million seller for Johnny Long and His Orchestra in 1946 and a 10-week chart topper for Ted Lewis and His Band in 1932, when it was written for the movie The Crooner by a trio of writers, one of whom was popular singer-songwriter-pianist-actor Little Jack Little, who, 34 years later, was name-checked by Ed Norton in The Honeymooners’ episode “Young at Heart.” The Palomar Trio, from The Song In Our Soul.
Four numbers alone are associated with Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra, the club itself being a Chicago institution for jazz musicians in the ’20s, when the likes of Louis Armstrong, Eddie Condon, Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy McPartland, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and other stalwarts were regular after-hours visitors. One of those Apex numbers, “Delta Bound,” penned by the aforementioned Alex Hill, gets under the skin with its dark, thumping beat and ominous melody made unsettlingly dark by the clarinet’s taut, haunting lines and Shayne’s restrained responses as the song rolls out at a languorous pace with the clarinet weaving a Dixieland feel over and around the piano’s mellow, bluesy conversation. For the most part, though, the trio keeps it spirited and smooth, stretching out on solos that render its vintage repertoire vital and fresh. There’s much to admire at each turn, Fred Rose’s lovely “Roses in December,” never recorded by the Goodman Trio but preserved on a live recording from the Manhattan Room at the recently razed Pennsyvania Hotel, features a gracious tenor sax-piano conversation over its light shuffle tempo, with the Palomars honoring the Goodman Trio’s “special treatment” of “making it swing without stripping it of its melodic and harmonic virtues,” as Levinson notes. One of the album’s most bracing workouts is its delightful sprint through “In a Shanty in Old Shanty Town,” with Levinson’s tenor sax and Shane’s piano each taking exhilarating solo turns stretching the melody in scintillating directions and even giving drummer Dorn a rollicking solo. The song was a million seller for Johnny Long and His Orchestra in 1946 and a 10-week chart topper for Ted Lewis and His Band in 1932, when it was written for the movie The Crooner by a trio of writers, one of whom was popular singer-songwriter-pianist-actor Little Jack Little, who, 34 years later, was name-checked by Ed Norton in The Honeymooners’ episode “Young at Heart.” On another mellow note, the Trio’s version of “The Day You Came Along” is especially engaging when Levinson’s warm, reflective tenor sax and Shane’s bright, sensitive piano parts align beautifully in texture over Dorn’s steady tempo. The tune dates from a Coleman Hawkins recording in 1933, the year it was written by Arthur Johnson and Sam Coslow, but is better known as one of Bing Crosby’s superb vocal performances from the same year, in the film Too Much Harmony. The album closes with a frisky workout on another of the four Apex Club Orchestra’s recordings, “River, Stay ‘Way From My Door,” an occasion for all three Palomars (Levinson on clarinet) to take spirited solos and send the customers home happy.
‘River, Stay ‘Way From My Door,’ The Palomar Trio, from The Song In Our Soul
‘River, Stay ‘Way From My Door,’ Jimmy Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra, original recording from 1931
Bing Crosby introduces ‘The Day You Came Along’ in the 1933 film, Too Much Harmony, directed by A. Edward Sutherland
Bing’s epochal recording of ‘The Day You Came Along,’ with Jimmy Grier conducting the orchestra. Issued on Brunswick 6644, recorded in Los Angeles, August 27, 1933
‘The Day You Came Along,’ The Palomar Trio, from The Song In Our Soul
In his notes Levinson admits he much prefers “being on the road less traveled, displaced in time, alongside these faithful stalwarts who speak my language and share my passion. Had he the power to time travel, he admits, he’d “set the dial to 1927. That’s the year all roads converged, all rivers flowed together, and, for a fleeting moment in time, jazz became a supernova.” He goes on to enumerate the jazz giants who strode the Earth at that time—you know the names, from Louis to Bix to Benny to Jelly Roll (who is represented here with a sweet and dreamy “Sweetheart O’ Mine,” a modified 1926 piano version of his “Frog-i-More Rag” from 1923) to Teagarden to Hines to Webb, et al.—and no matter how familiar the names and the music they created, the list remains awe-inspiring. Set the Wayback Machine for ’27, and I’ll be there.
