Turtle Bay Records Presents "The Song in Our Soul"

TURTLE BAY RECORDS PRESENTS SWING ERA DEBUT ALBUM

BY THE PALOMAR TRIO

THE SONG IN OUR SOUL

Released November 17, 2023 on Turtle Bay Records

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On THE SONG IN OUR SOUL, THE PALOMAR TRIO harkens back to the early days of swing music with a trio recording of tunes that are mostly lesser known but nevertheless helped to usher in a new era.

The Palomar Trio comprises some of the top New York-based players who are aficionados of music from the 1920s and 30s. Saxophonist and clarinetist DAN LEVINSON has a 35-year career specializing in traditional jazz and swing music. The 2017 winner of Hot House Magazine’s “NYC Jazz Fans Decision” award for Best Clarinetist, he has performed with Mel Tormé, Wynton Marsalis, Dick Hyman, Bria Skonberg, Ed Polcer, Howard Alden, Jon-Erik Kellso, and many more prominent artists. He spearheaded the 2023 release Celebrating Bix! on Turtle Bay Records.

Pianist MARK SHANE had an extended tenure as house pianist in New York’s “Eddie Condon’s” jazz club. A soloist at major jazz festivals throughout the world, he has toured with the Smithsonian Jazz Repertory Ensemble under the direction of Bob Wilber and was featured in the 50th Anniversary Benny Goodman memorial concert at Carnegie Hall. Among his many accomplishments are playing jazz piano for the Twyla Tharp Dance Company as well as for the Grammy-Award-winning soundtrack of the film “The Cotton Club.” Shane also played a Royal Command performance for HRH Princess Anne at London’s Festival Hall.

For many years, KEVIN DORN has been one of the busiest drummers in traditional jazz. Besides playing at numerous jazz festivals and jazz parties, including the JVC Jazz Festival, he has performed with top artists like Ken Peplowski, Warren Vaché, Harry Allen, Catherine Russell, Bob Wilber, Dick Hyman, Jon-Erik Kellso, and Vince Giordano, among many others. He currently performs regularly with many bands, including Woody Allen's New Orleans Jazz Band.

The musicians have been heavily influenced by early jazz legends like Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, and especially by Benny Goodman’s trio recordings. In fact, the name of the group is an homage to Goodman, whose performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles in 1935 is considered the beginning of the swing era. It made Goodman an icon and attracted a wider audience to the music.

Of course, Goodman is famous for his big band performances, but his small group work produced groundbreaking records that enjoyed huge sales and wildly popular live performances. Goodman said of the first time he performed with Teddy Wilson in a small group at a party, "That night Teddy and I began to play as though we were thinking with the same brain." Levinson echoes that sentiment about his performances with Shane and Dorn, “I often tell people that this is my desert island group. We have incredible chemistry. We don’t try to copy performances from the period; rather, we all speak the same musical language and communicate with one another through it.”

Levinson, Shane, and Dorn have been playing together off and on for around 23 years. Like most performing artists, the Covid lockdown was very difficult for them. Although they could not perform before a live audience, they got together to jam in Shane’s music room in his home and shared their music on a couple of livestreams. This album came to fruition when they were approached by Scott Asen, the head and founder of Turtle Bay Records, to make an album. The label specializes in showcasing the best contemporary jazz players playing the best tunes of yesteryear.

The music on THE SONG IN OUR SOUL comes from tunes the trio chose to jam on during the lockdown. They had dozens of songs to choose from and recorded 25 of them. The hard part was whittling it down to the final 11 that would appear on the album. Rather than choosing the most well-known tracks, they simply chose the songs they felt swung the most.

They open the album with the Fats Waller and Alex Hill composition “Keep a Song in Your Soul,” which became the basis for the album’s title and reflects the band’s deep attachment to the music. Four of the tunes were originally recorded by Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra, including “Delta Bound,” “Wake Up! Chill’un, Wake Up!,” “El Rado Scuffle,” and “River, Stay ’Way from My Door.” The Apex Club, where Noone’s band performed seven nights a week beginning in 1926, was a popular hangout frequented by jazz musicians including Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy McPartland, Gene Krupa, Bud Freeman, Joe Sullivan, and Eddie Condon. Even Maurice Ravel came to listen to them.

Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra performed “Roses in December” for the 1937 film, The Life of the Party. Levinson was inspired to include it from a live performance that was captured by the Benny Goodman Trio featuring Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa. Shane re-harmonized “It’s Been So Long,” which was written by Harold Adamson and Walter Donaldson for the 1936 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cinematic extravaganza The Great Ziegfield.

The remaining tracks were not inspired by prior recordings but are songs the band likes to play. “In a Shanty in Old Shanty Town,” written in 1932, sold over a million records. Coleman Hawkins recorded “The Day You Came Along” with an all-star band under his own direction in 1933. It was also recorded by Bing Crosby for the 1933 film Too Much Harmony. “Rompin’ in ‘44” was recorded by clarinetist Edmond Hall in 1944 for the Blue Note label with his All-Star Quintet featuring Teddy Wilson, Red Norvo on vibes, and Carl Kress on guitar.

Although the bass is the link between the rhythmic and melodic elements in a band, like Goodman’s iconic trios, THE SONG IN OUR SOUL creates a full, swinging sound without it. Levinson says, “I’ve heard many pianists try to fill in for the missing bass, but that isn’t the sound I was looking for. It takes a musician of Shane’s caliber to create harmonies so full and rich, you don’t notice there is no bass.” Indeed, it takes musicians of the caliber of Levinson, Shane, and Dorn to reimagine these songs from another era to create modern, hip tunes while preserving the zeitgeist of the original music.

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THE SONG IN OUR SOUL was released on November 17, 2023, on Turtle Bay Records and is available at Turtlebayrecords.com and all digital platforms.

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