Billy Butterfield Joins Andy Bartha - Take Me to the Land of Jazz

Delmark 243

With over a century in the can the number of forgotten in jazz far outweigh the remembered. Legions of players have plied the trade but only a fraction reside in the canon. The ratio logically increases the farther a person goes back and Andy Bartha is one such figure on the outs. Air Force-educated in the art of the cornet, Bartha gigged in Detroit and St. Louis and sharpened his professional chops on the road. Fame proved elusive and he ended up retreating to Florida without cracking the big leagues.

A generation older and bearing a slightly higher stature through his youthful stints in the big bands of Bob Crosby, Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman, trumpeter Billy Butterfield fits the bill of over-the-hill hepcat too. He sat in with Bartha’s Dixieland lounge combo in the early 70s in their shared locale of Fort Lauderdale. The results were originally released on tiny Art Records, an imprint revered among collectors for its small cache of records by calypsonian Blind Blake. Past prime they may very well be, but these lions in winter still exude enough heat to keep their audiences warm and happy.

This Delmark reissue gathers dates from two Floridian watering holes that showcase a nonet and an octet separately. The later ensemble taped at Ray Gluth’s Life Lounge occupies the disc’s first ten tracks and finds Bartha and Butterfield as congenial sparring partners in the frontline. Also among the horn battery: Ed Hubble doubling on trombone and baritone; Larry Wilson on clarinet and most intriguing to my sensibilities, John Dengler on bass sax. Outside of Roscoe Mitchell, Hamiett Bluiett and a certain late period Rex Stewart recording it’s rare to hear the whale shark of the saxophone species in smaller combo jazz settings. A listener bitten by the bass sax bug pretty much has to flip back to trad and Dixieland bands/recordings to find it employed as a viable solo voice. Dengler doesn’t disappoint, brandishing his axe with enough muscle to fell trees.

The band has a good showing breathing salubrious life into such pastured warhorses as “St James Infirmary” and “Basin Street Blues.” On the former tune a phalanx of growling brass smears and slurs the familiar forlorn melody as the reeds riff ribald counterpoint behind them. Bartha supplies a passable somber vocal and the rhythm section of guitar, piano, bass and drums keeps appropriately lugubrious time. Harmonizing solemnly on the theme to “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” the duo does an emotional dime-turn and leads the ensemble into a jubilant reading of “Dixie.”

The final five tracks come from a gig at the Top Gallant Room of the Moonraker Restaurant taped a few years earlier. While the audience dines on pan-seared surf and turf and knocks back twin-olive martinis Bartha sans Butterfield leads his crew through another affable set of Nawlins standards. Highlights include “Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave Me” and rollicking, set-capping “Careless Love.” Dengler’s back on the cumbrous bass sax, battening down the bottom end with a returning Karle on string bass. Larry Schram’s Brillo® pad banjo brings the band even more in tune with its roots.

Odds indicate that Bartha and Butterfield aren’t familiar surnames to most folks under the age of 60 (or over 60 for that matter). But traditional jazz fans who rely on Delmark for their semi-annual dose of such tonic will find the medicine spooned here both efficacious and palate-pleasing. Others with open ears outside the demographic will probably find themselves inveigled in equal measure.

~ Derek Taylor