photo by Jenn Chan Lyman

Glamour Bar brought New Orleans to Shanghai this week, channeling the Prohibition vibe from back in the dark days of zero alcohol in the States circa 1919-1933. Tonight’s line-up includes Theo Croker, band leader and trumpeter; Andres Boiarsky, tenor/clarinet; Nicholas Bouloukos, piano; Curtis Ostle, upright bass; Jonathan Parker, alto sax; and Alex Ritz, drums.

The set opens up with a standard (‘Black and Blue’) that I’m sure everyone over thirty recognizes. I think. It’s been a long time since I heard this kind of down-home vibe, especially in Shanghai. They’ve broken down the stage for this performance and the band is acoustic, with just an amp for the upright bass. The melancholy sound of the trumpet brings me right back to Bourbon Street and I’m looking for ladies flashing their breasts and those ubiquitous, lime green Hurricane drinks that got me properly wasted back in 2000. This isn’t the French beret or big band supper club type of jazz. The bass beat is lonely, yearning, and jones-ing for more, painting a picture of the 20’s: patrons rebelling against Prohibition (aka the Nobel Experiment), ne’er-do-wells running bathtub distilleries, moonshine in mason jars, and all sorts of crazy business surrounding speak-easies and other underground establishments.

The horns lay it down one after another: Croker, defiant on the trumpet; Boiarsky, plaintive on the clarinet; and Parker, soulful on the alto sax. The rhthym section is muted today, with Ritz doling out grievances on a pared down kit, with just a kick drum, a snare, and two small cymbals. Enough of this temperance bullcrap, gimme more alcohol! FUWUREN!!!

Croker encourages everyone to dance with Fats Waller’s 1929 ‘Ain’t Misbehavin,’ which should deliver a solid piano solo as Fats Waller was one of those cracking, influential pianists back in the early days of jazz (think Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton). Bouloukos doesn’t disappoint, throwing down a spirited piano solo, followed by Ostle’s fat and friendly bass. Ritz’s patter-pat rhythm fits the mood to a tee and I am wanting to misbehave. No, seriously. The band encourages the audience to get involved with a second line, a New Orleans tradition of audience participation. There’s a call and response, with the ‘call’ as a horn motif and the ‘response’ as a holler from the audience, “Yeah!”. The slap-happy tune gets the whole band up and moving through the crowd. In a traditional second line, as the band parades through the crowd, a ‘second line’ of shiny happy people follow them around enjoying the music, which in tonight’s case is the ‘Whoopin’ Blues,’ a song that Parker explains is “as old as God.”

Alright, time to put this machinery away and enjoy the night. Good times to be had. Next time I’ll be in a flapper dress and a shiny headband, sporting a cigarette holder as I kick up a sizzling Lindy Hop!

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