| Album Title: Breakin' It Up On Broadway Catalog Number: CS-8528 Artist: The Dukes Of Dixieland Genre: Dixieland Format: LP, Stereo Year: 1961 Record Label: Columbia Records
TRACKLISTING: A1. (6:13) Runnin' Wild A2. (2:47) Old Fashioned Love A3. (2:43) How Are Things In Glocca Morra? A4. (3:05) Oh, Lady Be Good A5. (2:58) Ain't Misbehavin' A6. (2:46) Hey, Look Me Over B1. (3:09) The New Ashmolean Marching Society And Students Conservatory Band B2. (2:45) Lida Rose B3. (2:53) If I Were A Bell B4. (4:24) I Can't Give You Anything But Love B5. (2:20) From This Moment On B6. (3:38) Adrift On A Star
Playing Time.........: 00:39:41
MATRIX NUMBERS: Vinyl Labels A-Side: XSM 54875 Vinyl Labels B-Side: XSM 54876
ADDITIONAL NOTES: (From the back of the album jacket)
For a taste of the Twenties just a taste — listen to Runnin' Wild. It was written in 1922, about ten years before Frank and Fred Assunto were born. But their dad, Papa Jac Assunto, remembers it. He taught the boys a lot, and they picked up a few things on their own. Check the selections in this album; some date back to Papa Jac's time, but many were heard on Broadway for the first time a few years ago. As the Dukes of Dixieland play them, you realize why this is one of the most popular instrumental groups in the country today.
Recently, trumpeter Bobby Hackett was questioned by a callow youth about Dixieland. The mild-mannered jazz pioneer said, "Please; Dixieland is a dirty word—it's so unnecessary."
Says Joe Delaney, who represents the Dukes of Dixieland, "I think Bobby's statement fights those people who insist on pigeonholing Dixieland, who insist some of it is jazz and some isn't. There's a small, stubborn hard core that feels only certain tunes and only the forms in which they were first played are the true forms of Dixieland jazz. But many people who hear the Dukes for the first time say, 'I don't particularly care for Dixieland, but I sure like what you fellows play.' "
The Dukes cannot be pigeonholed. They're now appreciated by young people (some of the young hipsters are coming around!) and even by that most critical group, fellow jazz musicians. "For the past few years," says Delaney, "the boys have played jazz festivals and they've had to make the audience swing whether they came to hear Basie or Miles or Kenton!"
But their most enthusiastic fans are in the older generation, and Delaney thinks that Papa Jac is largely responsible. "Dad was near 50 when he played outside of New Orleans for the first time. The boys were working in Chicago without him. Freddie's wife, Betty, who had been singing with the band, became pregnant, and so we sent for Papa Jac to replace her temporarily as the special attraction. People love watching him work sitting up there with his two sons."
The performances on this album, the Dukes' first for Columbia, present the group at the peak of their twelve-year career. Freddie organized the group in 1949; among its early members was Pete Fountain. The Dukes won a Horace Heidt audition, toured for awhile, then returned to New Orleans and replaced Sharkey Bonano's band at the Famous Door for 44 months. (Santo Pecora, Bonano's trombonist, was one of Freddie Assunto's idols.) Meanwhile, Papa Jac Assunto, who holds a degree in business administration from Tulane University, was teaching and directing the band at Redemptorist High School. He joined the group when he received the call for help from Chicago, and he's been trouping ever since.
Runnin' Wild, written in 1922, was used as the title song for a 1923 Broadway musical. (Columbia producer John Hammond recalls the original Colonial Theater show at 63rd Street and Broadway with James P. Johnson conducting the band in the pit.) After an ensemble chorus, with Papa Jac on banjo, come two choruses by Jerry Fuller, West Coast clarinetist who spent five years with Jack Teagarden. He is followed by Gene Schroeder, veteran of more than ten Eddie Condon years. After a solo by bassist Jim Atlass (formerly a member of jimmy Giuffre's trio), leader-trumpeter Franks Assunto asserts himself, followed in turn by brother Fred on trombone. Before they take the tune out, Frank pushes them to repeat the first 16 bars twice, modulating each time. The tension builds until they happily take the tune home.
Frank's trumpet calls the introduction to Old Fashioned Love (also from Runnin' Wild), which is distinguished by Schroeder's piano solo. The vocal in How Are Things in Glocca Morra? (from Fiman's Rainbow, 1946) is by Frank who, says Delaney, had the potential to become a performer in his own right, aside from his work with the Dukes. "He's gaining greater recognition as a trumpet player all the time." John Hammond says Frank's trumpet chorus in Glocca Morra sounds "like Armstrong in the old days." "No," says Delaney, "Berigan."
Oh, Lady Be Good (from Lady Be Good 1924) is kicked off by bassist Atlass and guitarist Jim Hall (another Giuffre alumnus) and Freddie follows with an adagio chorus; the ensemble comes in at the release, supported by Hall, who then takes a hard-swinging chorus that Basie-ite Freddie Green would be proud of. This selection includes a beautifully understated chorus by Frank, using his mute (Could he have been listening to Miles?)
With Atlass playing bowed bass, Frank plays the verse to Ain't Misbehavin' (from Connie's Mot Chocolates, 1929); Hammond remembers that "Armstrong was in the pit band on this show. It played at the Hudson Theater and Louis sat on a stool right next to Fats Waller." Listen to Fuller playing clarinet on this one. The Scots motif to Hey, Look Me Over (from Wildcat, 1960) closes Side One. Frank is featured on flugelhorn, which he plays, interestingly, with the same kind of boyish innocence he achieves as a singer. After choruses by Fuller and Schroeder, the group takes an uninhibited, swinging last chorus.
The New Ashmolean Marching Society and Students Conservatory Band (from Where's Charley? 1948) opens with Freddie and Papa Jac on trombone, while drummer Charlie Lodice uses parade sticks. The ensemble sounds like an old marching band at the end of a great parade, playing for all they're worth. Lida Rose (from The Music Man, 1957) has Frank and Freddie alternating leads, with Papa Jac strumming away behind them
If I Were a Bell (from Guys and Dolls, 1950) has an appropriately bell-like opening and tag; in between. Frank and Freddie share the honors After a brief piano introduction, the group then plays I Can't Give You Anything But Love (from Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1928 ) a moody, petulant chorus by Fuller follows, but he seems to get happier as he goes along. Then Jim Atlass insists on a chorus, Schroeder makes a strong statement and the ensemble wails, with Jim Hall playing solid rhythm guitar all the way.
From This Moment On (written in 1950 for Out of This World, but used instead in the film version of Kiss Me. Kate is a virtuoso piece for Jerry Fuller and he plays it with driving intensity. Delaney says, “Jerry's been with the group a couple of years. He has great tone, great conception, but the Dukes are their own severest critics and Jerry’s a case in point. On the stand he'll just kill you with something he plays. But in the studio, he becomes conscious of the engineer, the A&.R man, me, the other guys—he is like a doctor performing an operation. He becomes clinical. Then it's a case of relaxing him without sacrificing that intensity."
Jacques Offenbach can now rest in peace. The Barcarolle from his Tales of Hoffman converted to Adrift on a Star for The Happiest Girl in the World 1961 been given its final, definitive, due. With Papa Jac on banjo Freddie Assunto plays the melody in the most plaintive manner imaginable. But the Dukes will have their way and it has to swing. After an ensemble chorus, Lodice uses sticks on the rim of his snare behind Jerry Fuller.
When this album was recorded,. Charlie Lodice had been with the Dukes a scant week. He had been recommended by veteran Dixieland drummer Nick Fatool. who said. "When I can't work a gig, this kid does, use him.”
He joined the Dukes recently for the first time on the opening night of their return engagement at New York's Roundtable. Says Delaney, "There aren't many musicians who could walk in cold to the Roundtable with a drummer that they'd just shaken hands with a couple of hours before, knowing they had to play Randall's Island; then fly to St. Louis, then fly back to New York and record; and all this time, they played the Roundtable every night.”
Lodice plays as if he has been with the Dukes for years. Fuller seems to play his chorus sarcastically, with tongue-in-cheek (not easy) and they end with the kind of enthusiasm that led John Hammond to comment at the end of the recording session. "Dixieland sessions aren't easy—if the guys don't realty feel it, then it just isn't worth anything. But this is something else—they really swing—that's what's so fantastic.”
-Billy James | 
