Year in Review: Gratitude for 2015!

As 2015 wraps up, I'm looking back in gratitude, folks. 

I had the opportunity to lead a band in Cleveland for the first time, and was blessed that musicians as fine as Gene Epstein (upright bass), Bob McGuire (banjo + guitar), Bill Fuller (drums), George Foley (piano), Jim Davis (cornet), and Bryan Thomas (bass) thought it worthwhile to spend their considerable talents and musical wisdom appearing on a bandstand with Eric Seddon's Hot Club, at one time or another, throughout the year.

Eric Seddon's Hot Club: Gene Epstein, Bill Fuller, Eric, Bob McGuire (photo: Sheri Parks)

I'm similarly grateful for the talents and enthusiasm of all the guys in Hot Djang---Brad Smedley (guitar), Reed Simon (jazz violin), Kevin T Richards (guitar), and Bryan Thomas (bass). I think those who come to our gigs will tell you, it's always special when we dig into that gypsy jazz and inspire each other on the spot.

Hot Djang! : Kevin Richards, Brad Smedley, Eric Seddon, Reed Simon, Bryan Thomas (photo: Kim Yanoshik)

Without venues, and all the hard work that goes into them, bands like ours wouldn't have a place to play. I'm grateful for all the Nightclub and Restaurant owners and managers--and all the people who have played a major role in giving the Hot Club a chance to entertain and share our music, including, but not limited to:

All the folks at The Wine Spot on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights, with special thanks to principal clarinet emeritus of the Cleveland Orchestra, Franklin Cohen, and Cheryl Carter for helping my band have a great debut last March through the ChamberFest Cleveland Uncorked Series...

The Hot Club's Debut at the Wine Spot in March 2015

As anyone who has lead a band knows, oftentimes the hardest gig to get is the second gig--we were fortunate that Michael Adams stepped in and offered us a job at his Rockefeller's Restaurant.

Then Colleen Miller invited us to the Music Box Supper Club--one of the most exciting venues for live music in Cleveland. The retro-jazz club flair of the Supper Club, decking our band out with the skyline of Cleveland for a backdrop, and top notch sound guy Mat Whipple, made for some great gigs in the
flats.

I'm grateful that Pete and Bonnie Kaczor  hired us for their party this summer, and that we had the chance to play a great venue like Milo and Linda Valenti's restaurant in Beachwood.

Eric Seddon's Hot Club, live at Valenti's 

It was a great honor for us to get the stage at what is already hallowed ground in the jazz world this past fall: BLU Jazz + in Akron, thanks to the invitation of Mike Wyatt II and Tony Troppe. 

And my thanks goes out to everyone at the British American Club, who gave us a venue to play a unique tribute to the great Acker Bilk, and who met our playing with such intelligence and enthusiasm...

A huge thank you to all of our fans who travel to these venues to hear us: your enthusiasm; the way you shout for solos, the joy on your faces when we come off the bandstand, is so inspiring.

Most importantly, I am deeply grateful for my wife, Elisa, and our kids, who understand my need to live this music, who are willing to walk this road of the jazz life, and who love it and celebrate it with me.

Finally, I'm grateful God gave me lungs and an ability to sing through that miraculous piece of African Blackwood that some geniuses in Paris shaped into a horn we call a clarinet. May my song always be one of gratitude and praise.

God Bless you all--thanks for a wonderful 2015. Let's hit it again in 2016!

Eric Seddon (photo: Kim Yanoshik)

Jazz Clarinet Christmas Tunes

A very short, impromptu list, but here are a few tunes to help you Swing in the Season:

Artie Shaw Jingle Bells (1950)

Benny Goodman: Jingle Bells (1935)

Pete Fountain: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Pete Fountain: Santa Claus is Coming to Town/Jingle Bells (1960)

Pete Fountain: Christmas is A-Comin' (1960)

Eddie Daniels: Sleigh Ride 

Bill Smith: Greensleeves

Duke Ellington: The Nutcracker Suite (lots of good clarinet work on here)

Acker Bilk: When A Child Is Born

Need some Hot Jazz for your Christmas party? Your Holiday party? Your New Year's Party? Your Birthday Party? Your "I Just Wanted To Party" Party? Book Eric Seddon's Hot Club! We still have dates available!

Hot Jazz Christmas Party featuring Eric Seddon's Hot Club

Swing into The Season with our Hot Jazz Christmas Party, live at the Music Box Supper Club: December 9th at 7pm! The $7 admission includes the craft cocktail du jour! We'll be playing your favorite Retro Jazz numbers along with a selection of Holiday tunes, all served sizzling hot with a side order of cool...

Eric Seddon, clarinet
Bob 'Mad Dog' McGuire, banjo + guitar
Gene Epstein, bass
Bill Fuller, drums

The Hot Club Heads Back to The Box!

We're happy to be heading back to one of the top nightclubs in Cleveland:

ERIC SEDDON'S HOT CLUB
LIVE @ 
THE MUSIC BOX SUPPER CLUB
Wednesday December 9th  
7pm. 

Come on down to the Flats and join us!

Eric Seddon * clarinet

Bob 'Mad Dog' McGuire * banjo + guitar

Gene Epstein * acoustic bass

Bill Fuller * drums

Book Review : Tom Sancton * Song for My Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and White

Jazz clarinetists are particularly fortunate when it comes to autobiographies. Contributions to the genre include some of the most important players in the history of the instrument: Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Barney Bigard, Woody Herman, Pete Fountain, and Mezz Mezzrow have each published volumes, and at least one of them—Sidney Bechet’s Treat It Gentle—ought to be considered a masterpiece of American literature in its own right. Among the more recent books written by jazz clarinetists, however, is an extremely important memoir by Tom Sancton: New Orleans native, one time Paris Bureau chief for Time magazine, and trad jazz clarinetist.

Sancton’s book is entitled Song for My Fathers: A NewOrleans Story in Black and White (Other Press, New York, 2006). Beginning with the New Orleans jazz funeral of Doc Celestin on December 18, 1954, we’re given more than a glimpse into a crucial two decades of Crescent City history, unfolding through the eyes of young Tom Sancton. Son of a reporter and aspiring novelist, whose mother was a southern belle, he is thrown into the world of Creole and black jazz musicians during the foundation of Preservation Hall. His perspective is unique: a white kid in that milieu, at a point in time that will never be repeated—when musicians like George Lewis, Creole George Guesnon and Sweet Emma Barrett pioneered the early jazz revival.

The book is masterful, combining many genres seamlessly. A coming of age story, a chronicle, an analysis of oral tradition music making, with the flair and page-turning quality of a novel, this is simply one of the best books about jazz, and about New Orleans, I’ve ever read. Through much of it, Sancton’s adolescence on display as he learns to play clarinet, falls in love for the first time, and tries to balance his passion for jazz with school and other obligations. We overhear him taking music lessons from Lewis and Guesnon; in the process becoming privy to their struggles, ambivalences, and hesitations, as they were finally showcased and given a share of success for the music they helped pioneer and preserve. Throughout the book, the figure of his father looms large: the younger Sancton’s admiration, then disillusionment, with his father is skillfully and poignantly told, settling into a sober middle aged reassessment. None of this interferes with the musical aspect of the story—instead, like the quality of New Orleans jazz itself, Sancton’s life and the music become inseparable.

Like Sidney Bechet’s autobiography, this written demonstration of the life becoming the music, and the two flowing in and out of each other, is the most remarkable aspect of the book. Anyone who seriously involves themselves with New Orleans jazz must eventually come to this conclusion: it is the life one lives, and the depth of one’s soul, that must come through the music. There is no faking it. And Tom Sancton fakes nothing: you can smell the Zatarain’s, feel the humidity, taste the danger of bullets being thrown during a parade, get lost in the tunes—you can experience with him a type of hero worship turning bitter, then mellowed, then resolving into something like pure gratitude. I picked this volume up on the recommendation of a friend from NOLA, and at first wasn’t so sure what to think. It ended up giving me a far deeper appreciation of music, life, and the relationship of the two.

[ This review first published in the September 2015 edition of the EARLYJAS Rag ]

'Topsy' at Nighttown

Sat in with jazz violinist extraordinaire Reed Simon last night for a couple of numbers at Nighttown in Cleveland Hts. This solo from Topsy was caught on a fan's iPhone: