1 Original Jelly Roll Blues 3’’:55

Jelly Roll Morton

2 Alabamy Bound 4:03

Henderson / DeSilva / Green

3 Aunt Hagar’’s Children’

’ ’s Blues 4:36
W.C. Handy

4 Black Stick Blues 3:04

Sidney Bechet

5 The Pearls 5:19

Jelly Roll Morton

6 ‘T’ain’’t Clean 3:33 ‘

‘Boyd Senter

7 Otis Stomp 4:16

Andrew Oliver

8 ` re
Si Tu Vois Ma Mèe 6:17
Sidney Bechet

9 The Camel Walk 2:58

Schafer / Mack / Brymm / Smith

10 The Crave 4:58

Jelly Roll Morton

11 I Believe In Miracles 3:38

Lewis / Wendling / Meyer

12 Ole Miss 3:15

W.C. Handy

13 Turtle Twist 2:52

Jelly Roll Morton

14 What A Dream 2:51

Sidney Bechet

all arrangements by the quartet

LJCD16
 Catalogue available from www.lejazzetal.com

FA8501 (LJCD14) LJCD13 FA 527

LJCD12 LJCD05 (FA522) LJCD15

FA 505 (LJCD09) LJCD08 FA513 (LJCD07)

The Dime Notes
The Dime Notes
LJCD16
Recorded and Mixed at Master Chord Studio,
London, Engineered by Dougal Lott, Assisted
by Michele G. Catri
www.masterchordstudio.com
6th June 2016
Mixed by Dave Kelbie & Andrew Oliver
9th June 2016
Mastered by Minerva Pappi at Waudio,
Helsinki
© & c 2016 Lejazzetal Records, London
Produced by Lejazzetal Records
Package design & artwork by Dave Kelbie
assisted by Kathryn at Prestset
prestset.co.uk
Manufactured in the EU by The Digital Audio
Co Ltd
the-digital-audio.co.uk
LJCD16
Photos
Frontcover & inside spread - Annabel Moeller
Booklet inside - In page order - Dressing room
by Dave Kelbie, David Horniblow by Stephanie
Oliver, Andrew Oliver by Aaron Davies, Tom
Wheatley by Nima Hajirasouliha, guitar spread
video still, BW spread by Tom Sankey, Dave
Kelbie by Alexander Soloviev, Andrew at
the Steinway by Michele Catri, BW David
Horniblow by Tom Sankey, Andrew Oliver by
Tom Sankey
Booklet front cover Dime Note artwork by Tiny
Little Hammers
Sleeve notes by Evan Christopher
www.clarinetroad.com
Thanks to Mirella Hodzic, Michele Catri, Dou-
gal Lott, Minerva Pappi, Dylan Fowler, Annabel
Moeller, James Huertas, Evan Christopher, Dy-
lan McConnell
Management: Lejazzetal London UK
Dave Kelbie, Lejazzetal
dave.kelbie@gmail.com
www.thedimenotes.com
www.lejazzetal.com
THE DIME NOTES

In the last fifty-plus years, since Chris

Barber and Ken Colyer, some might say that
traditional jazz in the UK has come a long
way. Others might argue that it’s simply
come full circle. Either way, here we are
in 2016, nearly a century since the first
recordings of music marketed as ’jazz’, with
a recent revival of music anchored in pre-war
jazz styles. Among the current generation’s
enthusiastic practitioners, who can be heard
all over the world, are the four UK based
musicians herein whose group, The Dime
Notes, specialises in early jazz, stomps
and swing. Owing to a kinship of musical
interests, marked professionalism and a
confluence of other circumstances, they
have already achieved a true ‘band’ sound
with a maturity that is quickly distinguishing
them from the pack.

Their presentations have the cool, casual

flow associated more with New Orleans
than their rough-edged British predecessors
who often belied the sophistication and
intricacies of this music. But whereas many
groups on today’s scene are likely unaware
of the debt they owe to veteran bandleaders
such as Chris Barber, Humphrey Lyttleton
or Alex Welsh (I suspect some musicians
who got into this music because it seemed
fashionable had never heard of Humph
until he collaborated with Radiohead), the
Dime Notes have direct connections to the
earlier UK tradition. About the same time
that Andrew Oliver arrived from his native
Oregon, reedman David Horniblow returned
to London having finished a tenure in the
Barber band. Bassist Tom Wheatley’s father
is Martin Wheatley, a talented guitarist of
note specialising in 1920s and 30s stylings.
And collaborations with other longtime
devotees of swing such as trumpet-man
Enrico Tomasso have reduced the degrees
of separation between the Dime Notes and
many great musicians before them, even
Louis Armstrong.
The longevity of the better early UK ‘Trad’
bands is testimony to their broad repertoire,
stylistic flexibility and musicianship, all
qualities the Dime Notes share. But another
significant aspect shared by both revivals is
the acceptance of traditional jazz as music
for dancing as well as listening. The Dime
Notes appreciate that rarities like The Camel
Walk work equally well for the current crop
of Lindy Hoppers and swing dancers as they
do for concert-goers who, from a seated
position, delight in the band’s propulsive,
driving energy and the way in which skilled
performers like these can bring history alive.
Indeed, the Dime Notes are a band becoming
just as popular with the bearded veteran jazz
record collector set as the bearded hipsters
attracted to the genre’s vintage dimension.
They’re also just as much at home in the
East London bars, restaurants and funky
clubs that have proliferated over the last
decade as they are in concert venues and
cultural centers who boast progressive,
diverse programming.
On this note, though one might wish that
the surviving historic jazz clubs evolved
their organisations to attract new listeners,
the Dime Notes are among a generation
of DIY bands that utilise a newer model.
Mobility and effective use of social media
platforms enable them to build an audience
less dependent on geography or knowledge
of the music. This ‘world music’ aesthetic,
encouraged by their rhythm guitarist, Dave
Kelbie, who brings years of involvement
with European Gypsy music, allows them
to embrace the diversity of less traditional
venues. Even more significantly, it builds a
more inclusive community, based not upon
nostalgia or cliché notions of authenticity,
but around the experiences the music can
provide.
It’s surely quite liberating to be unconcerned
with distinctions of ‘revivalists’ vs
‘traditionalists’. Whereas post-war interest
in African-American culture including the
traditional music of New Orleans had
social and political underpinnings, the
current allure reflects this more globalist
perspective. Musicians today generally
feel free to explore their leanings without
justifying or defending their breadth of
influences. Take for example, Andrew
Oliver, the band’s leader and pianist who
is the quintessential musician’s musician.
His dedication to commanding many styles
and genres of music nearly to the point of
obsession has suited him well in his career
thus far, especially for this project that
mirrors the philosophy of the colorful Jelly
Roll Morton, who first sparked Oliver’s
interest in jazz.
Morton figures prominently in the band’s
aesthetic, and much of the Dime Notes’
attention to his material focuses on his
compositional approach, especially his solo
conceptions that are orchestrations unto
themselves. Though Morton’s claim that
he invented jazz is arguable, his assertions
that the music’s origins had requisite
components of all ‘finest class musics’
from blues to opera, rhythms both hot and
sweet and what he called ‘Spanish Tinge’,
are undeniable. In this spirit, one hears in
Oliver’s virtuosity his classical training, jazz
studies including university in New Orleans,
and influences of diverse world musics such
as Mandinka traditions of West Africa and
Argentine Tango.
Several selections recorded here
demonstrate the band’s predilection for the
multi-strain works by Morton and others.
They allow a move away from soloing
on a single theme, in favor of following
the narrative arcs created by contrasting
sections and grooves. For example Morton’s
Original Jelly Roll Blues, often just Jelly
Roll Blues and The Pearls, expansions of
Morton’s 1938 solo demonstrations rather
than reductions of his band recordings,
retain their compositional integrity up to
the respective ‘trio’ sections. But after the
statement of these third strains, salient
compositional elements give way to
personal interpretation. In Jelly Roll Blues
in particular, the habañera, found in the
indigenous musics of New Orleans from
Morton’s time to the present, comes like
a welcome upshift of gears leading into
a stompy out-chorus that sits back with
a New Orleans swagger instead of the
forward-leaning momentum more typical of
‘British Trad’.
These varied rhythmic feels are welcome
in a musical genre that often suffers from
a sense of sameness. Andrew Oliver’s
study of Morton as well as Argentine
tangos and milongas make the Dime
Notes’ interpretations of works like The
Crave almost more ‘Spanish-tinged’
than Morton himself. David Horniblow’s
supple phrasing that evokes the Creole
clarinetists he admires, floats over these
rhythms well, and the drummer-less rhythm
section encourages space, subtlety and
transparency that can be lacking in larger
ensembles. Besides, old-time ‘musicianers’
always preached the idea that, in New
Orleans music, everyone has to be the
drummer. One senses that these musicians
know this well and drums are not missed in
the least. This is especially so in the driving
four-feel created by Kelbie and Wheatley
reminiscent of the swing of Ray Brown and
Herb Ellis with Oscar Peterson or the two-
feel that stomps like Johnny Dodds in his
Southside Chicago days.
Like the better pioneering bands of the trad
boom in the UK, the Dime Notes favor tunes
less commonly performed. But by retaining
vamps, verses and other ‘lost’ parts of the
older popular songs, the vehicles retain
a density that prevents them from feeling
watered down. Standards like Alabamy
Bound, for example, which gives a nod to
Fletcher Henderson’s version here, stay
fresh, while the rarity of novelty numbers like
‘Tain’t Clean or The Camel Walk allow the
band to focus on melody and groove without
concern of listener pre-conceptions.
A straight-forward rendering of Morton’s
Turtle Twist reveals that they have done
their homework well, but make no mistake,
the Dime Notes are not a repertory band.
They are also not gratuitously or carelessly
mixing genres and trying to create a wild
hybrid, despite their collective experience
in other musical styles. Instead, while
responsibly working with the style-specific
vocabularies of their individual instruments,
their explorations try to imagine an organic
progression for these traditions. A good
example is Tom Wheatley’s conversational
slap bass solo on Aunt Hagar’s Blues.
“Pops” Foster, Steve Brown or Chester
Zardis revolutionised the instrument even
more than they defined a style and Wheatley
reminds us that the spirit of the early jazz
pioneers was actually quite modern, even
avant garde.
David Horniblow’s attention to Sidney
Bechet, who is well represented by the
album’s ballad, Si Tu Vois Ma Mère as well as
the swinging What a Dream and Black Stick
Blues is another example of how genuine
interest and love for the style is clear without
being derivative or unimaginative. Other
influences directly informing his clarinet
style, rich with the ‘hot’ rhythmic energy of
the 1920s, include Barney Bigard, Johnny
Dodds and Jimmie Noone. However,
although the quartet features a single lead
voice, Oliver often evokes stylists such as
Earl Hines to add dazzling interplay against
the clarinet. This provides a fullness to the
texture and captures the collective spirit
music-making integral to New Orleans
music.
It is important to mention the sonic quality
of this debut recording, which is congruous
with the band’s standards. Just as the Dime
Notes strive to exude a contemporary,
not nostalgic character, so does the
recording. Dave Kelbie’s LeJazzetal label,
internationally recognised for promoting the
highest quality jazz and European Gypsy
music, favors the boldness of live acoustic
recording, yet with the highest technical
standards possible.
One Andrew Oliver original, Otis Stomp,
inspired by a small Oregon town called
Otis Junction made it into the mix as well.
It starts as a thank you to their heroes like
Morton before steaming ahead into a solo
section that is progressive without being
anachronistic. Maybe it’s a harbinger of
things to come for the band, occasionally
billed as “London’s most stylish vintage Jazz
band.” But for now, this first outing reveals
well that the Dime Notes are on their way to
raising the bar for presenting early repertoire
in a nuanced way.

EVAN CHRISTOPHER
clarinetroad.com