Jazz Review : Gremoli Marches On in True New Orleans Style

FULLERTON — During Gremoli’s performance of the New Orleans traditional jazz number “Lead Me Savior” at the Fullerton Hofbrau on Thursday, the beer hall-and-restaurant jukebox kicked in and a grunge-rock beat began blaring through the speakers. But the five-piece group never missed a beat as the decidedly more aggressive and amplified rhythm briefly overshadowed the combo’s own sounds.

The jukebox was quickly disabled, and Gremoli kept on wailing, brushing off that bit of intrusion as if it never existed. The bass and banjo pulsed. The clarinet soared. The cornet chuckled. And the trombone slid through a series of guffaws.

The incident served as a tidy image of longevity. The type of music Gremoli plays--traditional New Orleans sounds in the style of the Crescent City’s Preservation Hall Jazz Band--has seen musical fads come and go. But it just keeps marching along.

The audience for New Orleans music may not be as big as those for grunge or rap, but it has stood by the genre for a period that’s measured in decades rather than months.

And new interest seems to be building, as young aficionados search for the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, and clubs such as the Derby and Atlas Bar & Grill in Los Angeles offer retro-sounds that hark back to the ‘30s, the ‘20s and beyond. It seems like everyone, as in the line from “The Saints Go Marching In,” now wants to be in that number.

But it’s important to note that Gremoli is no Dixieland band. The group, which leader-clarinetist Ron Going estimates has some 200 songs in addition to the obvious standards, plays in the New Orleans marching-band and dance-hall tradition, a style heavy with improvisation and less commercial than its more familiar, southern counterpart.

*

Thursday’s show (Gremoli has an indefinite Thursday run in progress at the Hofbrau) featured such obscure numbers as Sam Morgan’s “Bogalusa Strut,” Ma Rainey’s “Jelly Bean Blues” and a George Lewis tune, “Underneath Hawaiian Skies,” which had disappeared for some 40 years until it was rediscovered in 1991 on an obscure, private-label 78 found in someone’s attic.

Between sets, Going explains how the the band (Gremoli is an anagram of Gilmore, the surname of the group’s original cornet player) is constantly unearthing new material in what he calls the “true folk music of New Orleans.”

Together since 1989, the band consists of Going, cornetist Ted Thomas (who replaced founding member Denis Gilmore), banjo player Vic Loring, bassist Mike Fay and trombonist Jim Leigh. Occasionally, the ensemble is joined by drummer Bert Thomas, a Northern California resident.

Going takes a moment between numbers to spin anecdotes about the material to follow or explain its origins. Before leading the group into “Hiawatha Rag,” he tells how a group of New Orleans musicians assembled in the 1940s to record the piece looked at the music and said, “We always called it ‘Lizard on a Rail.’ ”

That tune, a mid-tempo piece with a pulse like a heartbeat, held almost polka-like passages that featured a clean blend of horns. Trombonist Leigh took a vocal turn on the ballad “Breeze” after cornetist Thomas cried his way through a suitably melancholy solo.

The group’s ensemble play is in the true New Orleans style with each horn leading and playing off the others as a theme progresses. The tight framework is provided by Loring’s sharp banjo beat in unison with Fay’s string bass, which makes for a pulse as regular as a sleeper’s breath.

Gremoli has a self-produced CD, “Hot, Tight and Ready,” that gives a good overview of its style, and it makes appearances around the state at jazz club gatherings and trad-jazz festivals. In the Orange County area, the group frequently appears at the Capistrano Depot in San Juan Capistrano and is featured this weekend at the Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festival.

*Gremoli appears today at the Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festival. 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the Doubletree Lounge, LAX Doubletree Hotel, 5400 W. Century Blvd., Los Angeles; also from 10 p.m.-midnight at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 9801 Airport Blvd., Los Angeles. On Sunday, Gremoli again appears at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 9 p.m.-midnight. (310) 521-6893. Also Sunday at the Rio Grande Bar and Grill, 26701 Verdugo St., San Juan Capistrano. 1 p.m. Free. (714) 496-8181. Gremoli plays Thursdays at the Fullerton Hofbrau, 323 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton. 7:30 p.m. Free. (714) 870-7400.