The Famous Castle Jazz Band In Hi-Fi

 

Farewell Blues

The Famous Castle Jazz Band In Hi-Fi

Cover by Arnold Roth

Produced by Lester Koenig

Recorded August 18, 19 & 20, 1957 at the Good Time Jazz studio in Los Angeles

Sound  by Roy DuNann

Good Time Jazz GTJ L-12030

1958

Monte Ballou - Banjo

Don Kinch - Trumpet

George Bruns - Trombone

Bob Gilbert - Clarinet

Freddie Crews - Piano

Bob Short - Tuba

Homer Welch - Drums

From the back cover: In 1949, When GTJ began operations, there were four traditional jazz bands on the West Coast, each of them in tis own way, unusual, to say the least. In Los Angeles, Kid Cry had made his remarkable comeback with his Creole Jazz Band, and the newly organized and spectacularly popular Firehouse Five Plus Two were also livening things up. The group which began the great world-wide traditional revival of the 1940's, Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band, with Turk Murphy and Bob Scobey, were at Hambone Kelly's across the bay from San Francisco, in El Cerrito. And, in Portland, Oregon was the talented gourd of jazz lovers, amateurs de jazz, as the French say, who called themselves the "Castle Jazz Band." These groups, despite their many differences, had several things in common: they believed in the New Orleans style of ensemble improvisation; they sued the repertoire of tunes developed  by King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, and in Ory's case by himself, plus ragtime classics; and they were characterized by a happy, spontaneous, "good time" feeling.

The Castle Jazz Band was a cooperative venture, with Monte Ballou as leader. Part of the enterprise was a record label, Castle Records, which they organized to document their doings. Under the stewardship of Harry Fosbury, during their two most active years, 1949 - 50, the band produced a series of ten-inch 78 rpm records which delighted collectors. Unfortunately, these sides never achieved the wide distribution they deserved, and because of the limited technical facilities available, were not of suitable quality for release on Long-playing records. When GTJ discard the original members of the hand were still around, it was decided to reassemble them and re-records twelve of the best sides that had down originally with the benefit of the ultimate in today's hi-fi techniques.

The evening of Sunday, August 18, 1957, the band began arriving at GTJ's studio in Los Angeles. The Ebullient Monte Ballou flew in his Thunderbird, stopping at San Francisco to pick up pianist Freddie Crews, Bob Short, his tuba, and his photographer wire. Shorty, arrived from Las Vegas in a Panhard. Drummer Homer Welch, trombonist George Bruns, and trumpeter Don Kinch had migrated to Los Angeles some years before, and were on hand to greet their visiting colleagues. After a half hour or so of hand-shaking, convivial drinking and much laughter, Ballou kicked off the tempo Kansas City Stomps, and the Castle Jazz Band was playing again to end a seven year hiatus. From the first few bars it was apparent that they'd lost none of their remarkable group feeling and spirit. If anything, intervening years had served to give them more assurance, and a more thorough mastery of their instruments. The session proved to be, as Ballou said, "The most fun we've had in years!"

The unusual quality of the band is derived from the personalities of the musicians who comprise it. Monte Ballou, banjoist, vocalist and leader, is an entertainer who, for many years, has made his living playing at sales meetings, conventions, political rallies, and other varied gatherings, singing lyrics which he improvises from sketchy facts given on the job. He calls it a "calypso type" improvisation, although the music is unrelated to the calypso style. "I have sung," he notes, "to and about Toeernors, Mayors, Presidents of corporations, Senators, hoods, actors, brokers, bankers, salesmen, musicians, and I have sung about pin-ball machines, automobiles, taxes, sex, psychiatry, cosmetics, bread beer baseball, nuclear fusion, foreign aid, etc., etc." He was born July 21, 1902, in Waterport, New York, moved to Uniontown, Pennsylvania as a boy, and in 1911 to Portland. In 1916 he learned to play the mandolin, and picked up the ukulele the next year. Shortly after the first wWorld War he bang listening to records by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and by Bert Williams. He began polishing banjo and soon got a job with "Fletcher's Harmony Four – A Good Seven Piece Orchestra." A series of jobs followed. Chinese restaurants, hotels, ballroom, roadhouses, cabarets private parties in Oregon and on the road. He worked as a banjoist until 1932 when he switched to guitar. By the late 1930s he was singing and acting as a night club master of ceremonies. Jazz was an avocation, indulged in mostly via record collecting. He became internationally famous among collectors as the possessor of the only extant copy of King Oliver's Zulu Ball. In 1948, in Portland, he organized a band with the same personnel heard on the present album, later to be known as the "Castle Jazz Band," but originally a "spasm" band which played for two hours each Sunday at the Portland amusement park. "We strolled as Hawaiians, Keystone Ops, hillbillies and Spaniards," Ballou recalls.

Following their successful Dixieland Jubilee appearance of '49 the Castle Jam Band opened its own club. In 1951, after the cooperative dissolved, Ballou opened a second club in Portland, with a new band which included Bob Gilbert, Freddie Crews and Bob Short. In 1954, Ballou sold the club and joined Doc Evans' band for a mid-West tour. In 1955 he joined Turk Murphy's band for a while, then returned to Portland. Currently Ballou continues his unique occupation as singing improviser, and in addition has a jazz band (Gilbert is still with him) at Rosini's two nights a week, plus casuals in the area.

Don Kinch was born May 14, 1917 in Kelso, Washington. He lived in Souther California in his teens, graduating from High School in San Diego to the life of a professional  dance band musician, including his long-time friend, George Burns. When musical jobs were scarce, both he and Bruns worked in a variety of skilled non-musical jobs – in shipyards, steel mills and as carpenters. After leaving Balou in 1950, he and Bruns joined Turk Murphy's Band for two years. In the mid-1950s he began doing a great deal of work on both trumpet and string bass at Disney (the Micky Mouse Club) and other studios. In 1958 he took up tuba to play with the Firehouse Five Plus Two. Since the FH5, of course, is a part-time activity, he also plays cornet (he recently switched from trumpet) with other Los Angeles jazz groups. 

George Bruns was born July 3, 1914 at Sandy, Oregon, and has been a professional musician all his life. He plays trumpet, trombone, clarinet, piano, string bass, tuba and drums. During the period of the Castle Jazz Band's greatest activity he was musical director of Portland's station KEX. He played trombone with the Castle group; when he left in 1950 and joined Turk Murphy, he played tuba and string bass. In 1952 he and his wife, singer Jeanne Gayle, had a night club act in which he was featured on all the instruments. In 1953 he worked at UPA, the cartoon studio in Hollywood, composing and conducting film scores, and in 1954 went to  work for Walt Disney, where he has since composed music for a host of Disney feature films (he wrote the sensation hit, The Ballad Of Davy Crockett). TV programs (he did all three of Ward Kimball's award-winning space shows), and cartoon subjects. He is regarded as one of the best film composers in Hollywood, but devote his many activities still finds time to play jazz with various local groups, including the Firehouse Five for whom, since he plays all the instruments, he acts as chief substitute.

Bob Gilbert was born September 14, 1922 in Coos Bay, Oregon. He grew up in Portland, stared playing clarinet in grade school and played in his high school band, and various local dance and jazz groups. He was a B-17 pilot in World War II, after which he joined the General Electric Company. He ask been with GE for the past twelve years, currently in Portland as Advertising & Sale Promotion Specialist. During the years he has continued to play jazz for kicks, mostly with Monte Ballou and the Castle groups. In 1952-53 he was sent by GE to Schenectady, New York, and while there plays for a year with trumpeter Rex Stewart. He is still with Ballou, playing at Rosini's two nights a week.

Freddie Crews was born in Seattle April 16, 1922, grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and has worked pjrofeeionaly in a number of clubs in Washington and Idaho. His interest in jazz became active in 1946 when he met Bob Short in Portland, and heard many of the old jazz records Short owned. He became especially interest in the work of Jelly Roll Morton and the ragtime players, and hs since improved a number of rags. Hi joined the Castle band at the time they opened his club, and remained with Ballou after the original Castle group disbanded. In 1953 he moved to San Francisco, and a job with Turk Murphy. Subsequently he worked in the Bay Area as a single, and is currently at both the Honeybucker and the Sail 'N in San Francisco.

Bob Short was born August 26, 1911 in Kirksville, Missouri, got his first cornet at the age of eight, took lessons and played in a Sunday school orchestra. His high school bandmaster persuaded him to learn the tuba, and he began playin ti professionally in 1928. He had moved to Los Angeles, and worked speakeasies, lodge picnics, both swing and sweet dance bands, plus some time in the Los Angeles burlesque theaters. During World War II Short served aboard an aircraft carrier. He was discharge in 1945 and began laying in various jazz groups. Red Fox in Los Angeles, Jack Teagarden in Portland, four years with Ballou and the Castle Jazz Band, several years playing both tuba and cornet with Turk Murphy form 1952, and a stretch with Bob Scobey. In June 1958, he had his own five piece group at the Sail ' N in San Francisco. Short's hobby is flying and he has operated his own flying school.

Homer Welch was born December 30, 1912 in Portland, and began playing drums when he was ten. He played in both high school and college orchestras, but music has always been his avocation. His main activities have been in radio. He was program director a KGW, Portland's NBC outlet, president of the local Press Club, active in many other community groups, and had played with a local Portland dance band for a number of years until 1945 when he quit music. Ballou persuaded him to unpack his drums in 1948 when the Castle Jazz Band was organized, and Welch remains with them until 1951 when he moved to Hollywood to work as a producer-director for NBC radio. He now works in advertising and radio in Dan Francisco.

From the time if its inception the Castle Jazz Band was enthusiastically received by jazz fans and critic. Writing in The Record Changer for May, 1949, George Avakian said the State of Oregon was a "better place to live" because of them. "The mob has a hell of a good time," Avakain concluded, "and turns out some fine music in the process." And in he Record Changer review of the Los Angeles Dixieland Jubilee of October 1949, Jack Lewerke wrote, "The band has an enthusiasm that was transmitted to the audience, and no other group during the entire evening seems to have the power to once again bring that audience enthusiasm back to the same level." Listening to this album is not difficult to see why they were so popular. The fact that jazz was an avocation gave the group an exuberant and enthusiastic quality; but is members' divergent main interests also made it impossible for them to continue as band. Thus, this album is the only available record of one of the very best tradition jazz outfits of the revival period. – Lester Koenig - June 22, 1958

Sweet Georgia Brown

Royal Garden Blues

I've Been Floating Down The Old Green River

At A Georgia Camp Meeting

Carless Love

Tiger Rag

Dippermouth Blues 

Smoky Movies

Kansas City Stomps

The Torch

Ory's Creole Trombone

Farewell Blues