Al Hirt - Struttin' Down Royal Street

Album Title: Struttin' Down Royal Street

Catalog Number: CAS-2138

Artist: Al Hirt

Genre: Dixieland

Format: Vinyl

Year: 1967

Record Label: RCA Camden Records

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TRACKLISTING:

A1. (02:43) Keep On The Firing Line

A2. (02:52) There's A Great Day Coming

A3. (03:12) This World Is Not My Home

A4. (02:25) I Shall Not Be Moved

A5. (03:02) Just A Closer Walk With Thee

B1. (02:38) Do Lord

B2. (02:50) Just A Little While

B3. (02:33) Lily Of The Valley

B4. (02:12) Pleyel's Hymn

B5. (02:35) Oh, Didn't He Ramble

Playing Time.........: 00:27:08

MATRIX NUMBERS:

A Side Center Label: CAS2138 UCR-3652

B Side Center Label: CAS2138 UCR-3653:
A Side Run Out Etching: UCR-3652-1S A2 R
B Side Run Out Etching: UCR-3653-1S A1 R

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

(From the back of the album jacket)

STRUTTIN' DOWN ROYAL STREET        AL HIRT

Mono CAL-2138

Stereo CAS-2138

Orchestra Conducted by Marty Paich

Arrangements Adapted by Marty Paich

"Did he ramble? Did he gamble? Did he lead a good life?" Listen to this strange and exciting music.

A fascinating sidelight to musical Americana is commemorated in this album by a man who witnessed it many times as a boy.

Al Hirt says, "The New Orleans Negro funeral is something that I grew up with. It was really something to see—and hear. Although it was, first of all, an event, it was the music, the strange and exciting music, that really made it what it was.

"Here in this album, we have tried to capture the sound and flavor of the spectacle. Using a big band—with clean playing and intonation—we tried to create the same exciting beat, the idea and feeling."

The pattern of the funerals was a firmly established tradition. On the way to the graveyard, the musicians played slowly and solemnly, following the trumpeter or cornetist who was always the leader. Generally, there were one or two cornets, one or two clarinets, banjo, tuba and drums. After the burial—to the accompaniment of such rhetorical questions as "Did he ramble? Did he gamble? Did he lead a good life?"—the band would turn around and march back toward the center of town, swinging bombastically and contagiously all the way.

Such ceremonies, common not only in New Orleans but all over the South and as far west as Colorado, have not died out entirely. To find authentic source material, Hirt and his clarinetist Pee Wee Spitelera checked with members of the Eureka Brass Band, which, to this day, plays for funerals.

"We included just about all of their repertoire," says Al. "Mostly Baptist hymns, plus a few others that fit the idea—Do Lord, Great Day Coming, Pleyel's Hymn, Keep on the Firing Line."

Some tracks are composed entirely of after-the-funeral march music with a strong pre-ragtime flavor; others include the introductory pre-funeral dirge. Typical of the latter is Just a Closer Walk with Thee, with its somber drum roll, spirited solos and the strange, almost calliope-like unison sound of the clarinets, the hard-driving last chorus and the return to a march feeling with the percussive ending.

The big size of the band in this album, incidentally, is not incongruous. One veteran New Orleans guitarist has stated that it was not unusual to see funerals that had several bands in the procession, because the deceased was active in a large number of social clubs, all of whose members offered their services. On such occasions, had the participants been equipped with first-class instruments, plenty of time to work together, and the general level of musicianship that prevails throughout this album, it is not unreasonable to speculate that this is the way they would have wanted to sound.

I wish it were possible to bring this studio band to New Orleans, send it struttin' down Royal Street (which is a continuation of St. Charles Street going downtown from Canal), and watch the crowds gather under the Pied Piper-Samson-Tarzan leadership of Al Hirt. It would probably raise the greatest ruckus since 1917. That, you may recall, is the year Storyville was closed down forever.

LEONARD FEATHER

IMPORTANT! RCA Camden's monophonic records can be played on stereophonic phonographs. RCA Camden's stereophonic records must be played on phonographs equipped for stereophonic reproduction.

Library of Congress Card Numbers R67-2849 (Mono) and R67-2850 (Stereo) apply to this recording.

TMK(S) ® Radio Corporation of America • Marca(s) Registrada(s) ©1967, RCA, New York, N.Y. • Printed in U.S.A.