The Next One

Duke Ellington was once asked by an interviewer, “which of your many classic compositions is your favorite?”

His answer, “the next one.”

Here in Panoramaland, we’ve been releasing a new track every month since May 2014 through our Song-of-the-Month club, Good Music For You, always with great anticipation. We hope you enjoy the music on this CD, our second sampler from the GMFY series. And if you’d like to hear more, visit our website (PanoramaLandNOLA.com) and join the club to receive…

The Next One

Thanks for picking up our second sampler, The Next One, comprising 13 tracks from our Good Music For You club. These tunes represent the best material we put out in that monthly series between January 2015 and January 2017. To hear and purchase any or all of the music in our catalog of over 100 tunes, or to subscribe to the Good Music For You club, visit PanoramaLand.BandCamp.com.

Good Music For You is the monthly digital track-drop from the Panorama Jazz Band, an all-acoustic party outfit from New Orleans. The sounds come from anywhere people like to play, dance and celebrate: especially New Orleans, the Caribbean, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

This album begins and ends with Caribbean New Year celebrations. There are also two Christmas songs, as well music for two Jewish holidays, Hanukkah and Purim. Plus you’ll hear special guest clarinetist Dr. Michael White, vocalists Yulene Velásquez and Jane Harvey Brown as well as piano man, singer and raconteur Davis Rogan.

We really appreciate your support and we hope you like the music. We’ve certainly enjoyed making it for you!

Ben Schenck
Panorama Jazz Band / Panorama Brass Band / Panorama Records
New Orleans, LA

Album Credits

Produced by Ben Schenck
Mastered by Lu Rojas at Oak Street Recording, New Orleans, LA
Artwork, Graphic Design and Liner Notes by Ben Schenck

Individual Track Notes and Credits

1) Cuando El Mundo Comenzó (released Jan 1, 2015)

What better way to celebrate the start of a new year than with a merengue whose title recalls the creation of the world?

A few years ago, banjoman Patrick Mackey’s brother took a trip with his wife to St Croix in the US Virgin Islands. While they were there, they heard a band called Jamesie and His Musical Kafooners playing traditional Crucian “scratch” music and bought a cassette. They gave the tape to Patrick who was captivated by one of the tunes which he eventually transcribed and arranged for Panorama.

Although the tune originates from St Croix, Cuando El Mundo Comenzó (“When the World Began”) is a merengue which is the national music of the Dominican Republic. Check out Doug’s stick pattern as he and Patrick set up the groove before Ben comes in on clarinet to run down the melody. After Steve joins in on tuba and Aurora takes over the lead at the repeat of the form (on alto sax), Matt (accordion) and Patrick lay down a montuno for Charlie to solo over on trombone. From there on out, the heat builds steadily until, by the end of the track, you’ll hear the Panorama Jazz Band cooking just about as hot as they ever have.

2) Recordando A Venezuela (“Memories of Venezuela,” released Oct 1, 2015)

In September 2015 we put out the first, titled Esperanzas (“Hopes”), of two Venezuelan waltzes. Your Venezuelan waltz from October 2015 features the wonderful Venezuela-born, New Orleans-living vocalist, Yulene Velásquez, and her husband, accordionist Michael Ward-Bergman, in a lovely, nostalgic rhapsody called Recordando a Venezuela (“Remembering Venezuela”).

Lyricist Gerardo Petit wrote the poem in the early 1970s upon encountering a statue of “El Libertador,” Simón Bolívar, in Central Park, New York City. The words tell of his longing for his homeland and his pride in being Venezuelan. The lyrics were set to music by award winning Venezuelan composer Manuel Delgado and we present here our version arranged by Ms. Velásquez and Panorama clarinetist Ben Schenck.

(Spanish lyrics and English translation below.)

3) Hanukkah On Japonica (released Nov 1, 2015)

In November 2014 we put out a klezmer number, based on old Hassidic melodies, that we called Home for the Holidays. It was loosely intended as our first annual Hanukkah release. This year’s drop is called Hanukkah on Japonica and features a traditional Jewish bulgar (“The Voliner Bulgar”) with a Hanukkah song (“Sevivon”) folded in.

Japonica Street is the “lowest street in the upper Ninth Ward,” right next to the Industrial Canal. In this recording, we imagine the drums and clarinet calling everybody out of their houses to come celebrate the Festival of Lights. The accordion, tuba, banjo trombone and saxophone quickly fall in and it soon becomes apparent that “a great miracle happened there!”

4) Jingle Bells (released Dec 1, 2015)

For our annual Christmas release 2015, we presented another familiar tune in an unfamiliar style: Jingle Bells as a Bulgarian rachenitza. This folk dance, an up-tempo seven, fits the melody of Jingle Bells and gives listeners a challenge on the dance floor (hint: the beat pattern is 4+3).

The track opens with a tuba vamp originated by the legendary Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen and borrowed from the Treme Brass Band’s 1995 recording of Food Stamp Blues (from their album Gimme My Money Back). After one time down, Matt Schreiber (accordion) and Ben Schenck (clarinet) give lengthy ad lib solos on different makams (Turkish scales), energy building, until at last the band finally breaks into 4/4 (cue the sleigh bells). Then, with the return to the top, once again in seven, it somehow feels this time like the right way to celebrate Christmas.

5) Purim In The Quarter (released Mar 1, 2016)

Drunken revelers in masks and costumes rolling through the streets of the French Quarter followed by a raucous brass band! Wait a minute, didn’t we just do that? But this isn’t Mardi Gras, this time it’s the Jewish holiday of Purim.

These drunken revelers are members of New Orleans’ Krewe du Jieux, led by reveler-in-chief LJ Goldstein. Purim is the Jewish holiday celebrating the biblical story of Esther in which she and her cousin, Mordecai, triumph over Haman, adviser to the Persian king, who wants to kill all Jews in the Empire.

Your Panorama track for March 2016, featuring the Panorama Brass Band, is a medley of two pieces coming from a pocket of Europe where Jewish communities (along with their Yiddish culture, language and music) survived the Holocaust. The first, originally titled “Bessarabian Bulgar” comes to us via the late Moldovan clarinetist German (pron. “GAIR-mon”) Goldenshteyn (1934-2006) who emigrated to the U.S. in 1994, bringing with him close to a thousand authentic Jewish melodies. Goldenshteyn, working with American clarinetist Alex Kontorovich, provided a direct bridge to the modern klezmer revival from the old, mostly extinct, pre-war klezmer scene of Eastern Europe. For more of that music, check out his wonderful and important CD, German Goldenshteyn: A Living Tradition.

The second tune in our medley, “Khasitsky Horo,” is from a terrific contemporary Ukrainian band, Konsonans Retro (on their wonderful CD A Podolian Affair), from whom we’ve borrowed material in the past (see Trombon Hora on our live CD, Dance of the Hot Earth.)

We recorded this one (as well as last month’s offering, Geljan Dade) on Ash Wednesday, 2013, after a brutal Carnival schedule that left us all exhausted but happy. We somehow managed to get ourselves up and into the studio the next day, our chops tired but strong, for the recording session. We’ll be releasing the results, on an occasional basis, for the next several years.

Many thanks to banjo man Henry Sapoznik, director of the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture and executive director of Living Traditions for going over our liner notes and for releasing Mr Goldenshteyn’s album, German Goldenshteyn: A Living Tradition.

Thanks also to klezmer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and raconteur Mark Rubin, who plays tuba on that album, for bringing Goldenshteyn’s music (including BessarabianBulgar) to Panorama Brass Band.

And another thanks to accordion wizard and Panorama’s alto horn man Patrick Farrell, who transcribed the “Khasitsky Horo” from the Konsonans Retro album A Podolian Affair.

6) Shame Shame Shame (released May 1, 2016)

This song, 25th in the Good Music For You series, represents our first foray into the realm of top 40 pop music. Shame Shame Shame by Shirley and Company, hit the charts in 1974 and made it to #1 on the Soul charts, #12 on Billboard.

Here’s the New Orleans connection. Raise your hand if you remember the old R&B hit, Let The Good Times Roll. How about Feels So Good, both by an act called Shirley and Lee? That’s the same, Shirley, Shirley Goodman, born in New Orleans 1936, as you hear on “Shame Shame Shame.” She was in her teens and twenties in the 1950’s with Lee and in her thirties and forties in the 1970’s with “Company,” featuring the Cuban-born singer from Newark, New Jersey named Jesus Alvarez.

Our version employs more of a samba feel while maintaining the Cuban clave beat and spotlights New Orleans vocalists Jane Harvey Brown (who you can also hear on our second album, Panoramaland) as well as Ben’s brother-in-law, New Orleans bandleader, songwriter, piano player and HBO character, Davis Rogan.

Another interesting factoid: Shame Shame Shame was written by Sylvia Robinson who, you may already know, had a #1 hit, under the name Sylvia, in 1973 with a record called Pillow Talk. Later, she and her husband founded Sugar Hill Records where she was the driving force behind such seminal hip-hop records as Rappers Delight by the Sugarhill Gang and The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Panorama’s mission is to make good-time dance music without requiring any electricity and, toward that end, it seemed high-time we stepped off into the wonderful world of Disco. Let us know how it feels.

Lyrics

Can’t stop me now hear what I say
My feet got to move so get out my way
I’m gonna have my say
I’m going to every discotheque
I’m gonna dance dance dance ooh

Till the break of day I say

Shame shame shame, shame on you
If you can’t dance too
I say shame shame shame shame shame shame shame
Shame on you
If you can’t dance too

Don’t stop the motion
If you get the notion
You can’t stop the groove
‘Cos you just won’t move
Got my sun-roof down
Got my diamonds in the back
So put on your shaky wig baby
If you don’t I ain’t comin’ back

Refrain

If you don’t want to go
Remember one monkey don’t stop no show
My body needs action ain’t gonna blow
Yes I’m going out, I’m going to find a dancin’ man
If you really think you’re fast
Try to catch me if you can

Refrain

Instrumental

Refrain

Don’t stop the motion
If you get the notion
You can’t stop the groove
‘Cos you just won’t move
Got my sun-roof down
Got my diamonds in the back
So put on your shaky wig baby
If you don’t I ain’t comin’ back

Refrain

Shame. Shame. Shame on you, if you can’t dance too.

7) La Mazouk En Avant (released July 1, 2016)

The Creole mazurka, “la mazouk,” is a fashionable dance in the Caribbean, featuring a syncopated three beat pattern. Instead of a waltz, think of a beguine (such as Serpent Maigre, our May 2014 release) with an extra beat.

We learned this month’s track-of-the-month, La Mazouk En Avant, from a recording made by Martinique clarinet hero Eugène Delouche in 1953 that featured a vocal by David Martial. Our version spotlights New Orleans chanteuse and Panorama collaborator Jane Harvey Brown (check out our May 2016 release, Shame Shame Shame, as well as three tunes on our Panoramaland CD, Don’t Touch Me Tomato, Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen and If You Love Me). You will also hear instrumental solos by Panorama saxophonist Aurora Nealand and our trombonist Charlie Halloran.

Special thanks to the France-based vocalist Sylvain Padra, originally from Martinique, who transcribed the lyrics from the original Delouche recording as well as to the Haitian-born, New Orleans-living teacher, Yves Conséant, for providing the English translation.

The mazurka is beginning.
The gentlemen are pointing,
The ladies who accompany them
Have their hands on their hips.
Dresses, skirts, gold shoes,
Necklaces, madras scarves,
Creole skin of Martinique,
You can say they are pretty.
They are beautiful!
They are sweet, sweet, sweet!
They are pretty, pretty!
There is none other, none other like them.
Young and old who pass by,
Strangers who arrive.
They will say there is no other place
As sweet as Martinique.

8) Blue Star Jubilee (released August 1, 2016)

Friends, here it is – Panorama’s 100th track of all time, the “Blue Star Jubilee.” And this one’s a banger.

We released our first album, Another Hot Night in February, in April 2003 and those 16 songs put us on the trajectory that has led to this moment. Katrina slowed us down a little, becoming parents slowed us down a lot, but now, 13 years later, we offer you number 100 and hope that you enjoy it.

Although we don’t know the tune’s original title, Plave Zvezde (“Blue Stars” in the Serbian language) is the name of the Roma wedding band from whom we learned this month’s presentation. The arrangement was brought in by Panorama Flugelhorn man JR Hankins with input from Patrick Farrell (who you will have heard on alto horn with the brass band and accordion on the Jazz Band’s first 2 albums). The form is basically a series of super-bad riff patterns with a couple solo breaks and an ad -lib section featuring the alto saxophones.

As you may know, trumpets and trombones are fashioned with a “cylindrical bore” where the inside diameter of the tubing is roughly the same from the mouthpiece to the bell where it finally flares out to amplify the sound. Because none of the Panorama trombonists were available for the May 4th recording session, we took the opportunity to feature our rotary-valve euphoniums (aka “Tenor Horns”), played by Shaye Cohn, John Gerken and Matt Schreiber as well as the flugelhorn, played by JR. These use a “conical bore,” the inside diameter gradually increasing along their length, and are the same instruments favored by brass bands in the Balkans for their warm, broad yet agile tone. To hear their special quality, listen to the Flugel break on the D section where JR and the mids get into a two-way thing accompanied by the drums.

When discussing the plan for the ad-lib section, alto saxophonists Tomas Majcherski and Aurora Nealand announced that they had a concept for a two-alto thing and asked that we grant them free reign. Steve Glenn (tuba) and Dan Oestreicher (bari sax) came up with a bass vamp and the rest of us filled in around it.

Another lovely feature of the session is the room where we recorded it. Ben’s brother-in-law, pianist, songwriter, singer bandleader and HBO character Davis Rogan, lives in an historic house in New Orleans’ Treme neighborhood. The living quarters lies above what had been a hardware store back in the day but now serves as Davis’ office, practice space and man cave. But from it’s days as a brass band rehearsal space, the walls are covered in murals depicting brass band musicians and listing many of the old-line outfits such as the Eureka, Excelsior, Onward and Olympia as well as contemporary groups like the Dirty Dozen and the Rebirth. And Panorama hopes to one day rank in that number.

Rumor has it this is also the room where the Lil Rascals Brass Band recorded their seminal 2001 album, “Buck It Like A Horse. In mixing the session, Don Godwin (baritone horn emeritus) loved the room sound so much he used it as the basis of the mix, only riding up the individual mics in spots. Take a listen and let us know how it feels to you.

And for our other 99 tracks, visit our Bandcamp page under the name “Panoramaland.”

9) Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think) (released, September 1, 2016)

On September 1st, 2005, 11 years before this songs original release, the members of your personal Jazz Band all found themselves in unfamiliar places watching television as their hometown was inundated by the waters of Lake Pontchartrain and their compatriots struggled to survive in the chaos that ensued. Clarinetist and bandleader Ben Schenck, along with his wife and her brother, piano-man, bandleader and songwriter (and eventual HBO character) Davis Rogan, managed to find a soft place to land with good friends in Baton Rouge from where they were able to plot their return to New Orleans.

Our offering for this September 1st features Davis and Ben playing and singing the perennial favorite, “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think).” They have each written a new verse on the same theme and Davis also gives a monologue in praise of those New Orleanians who brought a little piece of home with them wherever they went in the aftermath of the levee failures.

Also check out Shame Shame Shame, our release for May, 2016, which features Davis along with New Orleans chanteuse Jane Harvey Brown on vocals.

Lyrics

Ben
You work and work, for years and years,
You’re always on the go.
You never take a minute off,
Too busy making dough.
Some day you say, you’ll have some fun,
When you’re a millionaire.
Imagine all that fun you’ll have in your old rocking chair…

Chorus
Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.
Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink.
The years go by as quickly as a wink.
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself! It’s later than you think.

Davis
You save and scrimp, you scrimp and save,
You’re toiling every day.
Then through a series of complex derivative swaps
Your savings go away.
Stability is relative, you’ll always have that fear.
My advice for investing is to buy your friend a beer.

Ben
I met a man from ’round the block
With two artificial lungs.
Can’t smoke no more, can’t drink no more
But he still likes to have his fun.
He says to me, “I’m going down
But I’m still in the game you know.
So you run home and get that clarinet and I’ll play the piano.”

Davis
(Monologue in praise of New Orleans’ Katrina expatriates)

Chorus

10) Tolú (released October 1, 2016)

Ben met clarinetist Dr. Michael White on the Mall in Washington DC back in the Summer of 1985. They struck up a conversation that day and within a couple years, after Ben relocated to New Orleans, they became fast friends. Now, over 30 years later, they have finally made their first recording together!

The selection, a cumbia titled Tolú, was written and originally recorded by the great Colombian clarinetist and bandleader Lucho Bermúdez and his Orchestra. Cumbia music, Bermúdez’ stock in trade, originates from among the Afro-Latin people along Columbia’s Caribbean coast and this tune’s title refers to a town in that region.

The number opens with a dialogue between the trumpets and the saxophones before turning the stage over to the clarinets, Michael and Ben, riffing in G minor. After a repeat of the form, Dr. White takes off on an ad lib solo with the midhorns punctuating in accompaniment and Boyanna urging him on with the tenor drum. The band gradually builds behind the soloist, adding saxophones and then trumpets, to the point where, just as they are closing in, the clarinets join up and slide into more G minor riffing, which then dissolves into diminished chords. At that moment the trumpets announce a return to the out-head after which Michael gets the last word atop an extended minor chord to bring the whole party to an end.

Special thanks to Matt Knowles, propietor at Domino Sound, a record store on Bayou Road, who slipped Ben a Lucho Bermúdez cassette several years ago and said, “y’all should play some of this stuff.”

Thanks also to Davis Rogan in whose “man-cave” this session was recorded. See also our August 2016 release, Blue Star Jubilee which was also recorded that day.

11) Bagopolier Freylekh (released November 1, 2016)

For the first two years of our song-of-the-month-club, in November, even though it was still several weeks early, we released a Hanukkah themed tune. See Home for the Holidays (Nov 2014) and Hanukkah on Japonica (Nov 2015). In both cases, except for a brief reference to a Hannukah song called “Sevivon” in our 2015 edition, the music was comprised of traditional Jewish instrumental melodies for which we fashioned new titles to repackage them as holiday songs. Call it show biz or perhaps “The Folk Process.”

Your Panorama track for November, Bagopolier Freylekh, is another Jewish instrumental melody but this time let’s skip the pretense. It’s just a hard-rocking klezmer tune played by a brass band full of swagger. This is another one from Panorama Brass Band’s legendary Ash Wednesday 2013 session at Piety Street Studios. Dig also Norma La De Guadalajara (Feb 2015), Geljan Dade (Feb 2016) and Purim In The Quarter (Mar 2016). On this number you’ll hear the gang, tired but tight from a busy Carnival schedule, banging out a wedding dance that feels here more like a rowdy street party.

The title refers to a “freylekh,” or happy dance, from the city of Bogopol, now called Pervomaisk, located on the Southern Bug river in Ukraine. We learned it from our alto horn player, Patrick Farrell (you will hear him establishing the tempo at the very top), who learned it from a recording by the great Harry Kandel. (The Kandel recording is titled “Bapolyer Freylekhs.” Check it out.)

Clarinetist Harry Kandel (1885-1943) emigrated to the US from Lemberg, Galicia (now Lviv, Ukraine) in 1905. After stints with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and John Philips Sousa’s band, he started Harry Kandel’s Famous Inlet Orchestra in Philadelphia, 1916, recording extensively for Victor, Brunswick and Okeh records.

Much gratitude to Wikipedia and the hundreds of writers and editors who make it what it is. We’ve donated to support their work and YOU can too!

12) Wassail Wassail (released Dec 1, 2016)

Do you love Christmas but need some new music for your playlist? Here is a traditional English wassail song you may not have heard.

The word “wassail” goes back to medieval times in England and means “to your health.” Revelers there still go house to house singing and toasting the residents who are expected to provide mulled wine or cider to add to the frivolity.

Our Yuletide offering this year features New Orleans vocalist Jane Harvey Brown. Folks here are no strangers to a drunken ramble and Jane’s sassy, brassy tone never fails to start a party.

“Joy be to you and a jolly wassail!”

For it’s your wassail and it’s our wassail…
And it’s “joy be to you” and a jolly wassail.

There was an old man and he had an old cow
And how for to keep her he didn’t know how
He built up a barn for to keep his cow warm
And a drop or two of cider will do us no harm

No harm, no harm, no harm, no harm…
And a drop or two of cider will do us no harm

Oh where is the maid with the silver headed pin
To open the door and let us come in?
Oh master and missus are sitting by the fire
Pray think upon poor travelers a-travelling in the mire

For it’s your wassail and it’s our wassail…
And it’s “joy be to you” and a jolly wassail.

13) Ba Moin En Ti Bo Doudou / Happy Birthday (released January 1, 2017)

Happy New Year! Break out the black-eye peas and cabbage.

This song, released on New Year’s Day, 2017, was made to celebrate the moment a few days earlier when we reached the break-even point and your personal jazz band was suddenly able to continue creating and releasing new music for you without losing money.

Recorded in a hastily arranged session on Wednesday, December 28, it was our quickest turnaround to date. Once it became suddenly clear that we would indeed achieve financial solvency in 2016, we knew we had to get something together by January 1st. And for this one we’ve pulled out all the stops.

“Ba Moin En Ti Bo Doudou” (“Give Me A Little Kiss Sweetie”) is another of our Creole beguines that we play at damn near every gig. This party includes a run-down of the melody, a quick version of “Happy Birthday” (which has the same chord changes – play it at your next birthday bash!), a trombone solo, an alternate version of the melody played by two clarinets, and a percussion throwdown before the clarinets recap the head (up a whole step) and take it out.

(BTW – this particular version of our recording was edited for release on The Next One. Earlier versions included an ad lib section that didn’t quite work and did not include the above mentioned percussion throwdown. We feel that this is the swingin’est of the three and think you’ll dig it!)

Y’all are beautiful and we love you! Again, with gratitude, happy new year. Let’s be sure to get together in 2017.