Adrian Cox: the Music of Jelly Roll Morton - April 3

(Screenshot by Russell)

Adrian Cox (clarinet, vocals)

In recent weeks Adrian Cox has been based in the south of Bulgaria, today our live streaming clarinetist relocated to somewhere in the north of the country. That 'somewhere' just happened to be a local hostelry owned by Buster Bloodvessel. Yes, the bald-headed ska popstar, as was, and still is!  A different location, the same excellent hour's worth of clarinet playing and occasional vocals. Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Pepper got the show underway against a backdrop of an ancient map of Eastern Europe with more than one hundred of Cox's parishioners online. 

Mamanita featured an unusual - unusual that is, for Cox - heavy vibrato. Five tunes in before Cox took a first vocal...Ballin' the Jack, as popularised by the 1913 stage show The Ziegfeld Follies, Cox finger-snapping the time. Excellent. Cox fulfilled a request by a Tyneside acquaintance for Smokehouse Blues before moving on to another vocal number, the New Orleans' funeral parade staple Oh, Didn't He Ramble. To close, James Scott's Climax Rag.              

Russell       

Set list: Red Hot Pepper; Grandpa's Spells; Someday Sweetheart; Mamanita; The Chant; Smokehouse Blues; Oh, Didn't He Ramble; Climax Rag.