A Friday Cornucopia @ Bix Fest, Racine, Wisconsin - March 13

(Review by Russell)

An overnight addition to the hotel lobby...a hand sanitizer (that's sanitizer with a zee, after all, this is the US of A). Things were becoming serious. As Bix Fest's record fayre opened for business at 9:00am it was eerily quiet. 

Dealers had travelled a distance - hundreds, thousands of miles, it's a big country. Every 78 you could ever want to add to your collection was here, every 78 you don't ever want in your collection was here. New-fangled LPs by the pickup truck load, even newer new-fangled CDs by the pickup truck load, reams of sheet music, books, magazines, t-shirts, ephemera, anything and everything broadly covering late nineteenth century popular song through to thirties' swing material was here and, what's more, most items were available for just a few dollars. 

You travel from Newcastle, England to Racine Wisconsin. You rummage, you could buy just about everything but, reluctantly, come to the conclusion that you would exceed your luggage allowance many times over. And then...what's the odds? There they were, not one, not two, but three mint condition LPs recorded by long-time friend of Mike Durham's Classic Jazz Party, Mr Keith Nichols, $5 each! One of them a collaboration with the Classic Jazz Party's Claus Jacobi, which one to snap up? Answer: Buy all three! Coals to Newcastle...Oh, yeah, Jerry Walburn's Duke Ellington on Compact Disc AN INDEX AND TEXT OF THE RECORDED WORK OF DUKE ELLINGTON ON COMPACT DISC, AN IN-DEPTH STUDY (Marlor Productions, Hicksville, N.Y., 1983) at $2 couldn't be left behind. It wasn't. 

Rumours began to swirl. The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band from New Orleans wouldn't be flying in due to Covid-19. Later, the word was Miss Jubilee had pulled out. Wow! This was serious! Thankfully a mid-afternoon lecture by Phil Melick did go ahead. Mr Melick runs Elk City Records out of Charleston, Missouri. His subject? The mellophone. A musician, Melick certainly knows his stuff. It struck your correspondent that our lecturer inhabits a world not dissimilar to that of the British brass band scene - ie we know of it but not about it. Melick's expertise was not in question, musicial illustration accompanied his talk, the mellophone goes way back with recordings and archive photographic material of the instrument's jazz pioneers supporting a most informative presentation.   

A planned 'Rare Films' session failed to materialise as local Wisconsin historian Ron Brosnig was unavailable on the day. Undeterred, organisers of the 31st Tribute to Bix Fest set-up a hot jam session led by Andy Schumm. Sitters-in were many, not least members of Chicago's superb West End Jazz Band (including the excellent trombonist Frank Gualtieri) and trumpeter Peter Ho who later in the festival would lead his Paradise Harmonians Dance Orchestra.

The night was young. From nine o'clock Old Crow Nite (Old Crow is a deadly straight bourbon beloved of Bix Fest's Phil Pospychala) with its Late Nite Record Spinning session entertained 'til gone 4:00am. Bix Fest 2020 was up and running. 

Russell