Let’s begin today’s wearing of the green with Bob Wilber (here under the photo of Louis Armstrong that graces the rear wall of Smalls Jazz Club) and Ehud Asherie performing “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue.” Lil Hardin Armstrong’s original evokes a man walking with attitude as he proudly shows off the fine “barbecue” on his arm on parade day in New Orleans. Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five first recorded it in 1927, and Pops reprised it in even more impressive fashion on this 1938 recording. This new take, which includes the rarely heard verse following Asherie’s solo, shows that Wilber has lost nothing to age as he blows bold and beautifully on his curved soprano saxophone on his 84th birthday, March 15, 2012.
Here’s a short stack of Irish favorites beginning with Keith Jarrett’s sublime reading of “Danny Boy.”
Johnny Griffin “The Kerry Dance” (composed in 1879, attributed to James L. Molloy, b. County Offaly, Ireland, 1837-1909
Lester Young & Nat King Cole “Peg O’ My Heart” (composed in New York in 1913 by Alfred Bryan and Fred Fisher) Nat was born on March 17, 1919.
Ben Webster plays “Danny Boy” at 4:10 in this medley of “In a Mellotone/Danny Boy/Mack the Knife”
