For 50 years the Queen City Jazz Band has kept its focus on performing the great sounds of New Orleans-style Dixieland Jazz. Thanks also go to you, our fans and audiences, who have kept coming back to hear more!

Jazz in the Golden Age

Denver’s Queen City Jazz Band Celebrates an Amazing Fifty Year History

Common practice is for a family to bestow golden goodies on the folks who are celebrating 50 years of their adhesion.  But in a stunning turn-about, it was the audience, or extended family, who were showered with hours of solid gold performances.  Denver’s much cherished Queen City Jazz Band spent the weekend of March 28-30 marking their fiftieth anniversary with some eighty are-now and once-were band members, congregated from all corners of the U.S.   Beginning early Friday evening and continuing until Sunday almost drained into the week, set after set proved that quality musicianship has been a constant with this band.
    
Friday night’s opening concert was held at the Gaslamp Grill, née Monvue Village, the original venue from 1958 until 1972 which was booked solid within about six hours of availability.  A nostalgic setting with a capacity of some one hundred, tight but intimate quarters, was a great emotional kick-off for the celebration. Original founder and leader, trombonist Alan Frederickson, welcomed us all, and read a letter of congratulations from fellow-founder and pianist, Bill Murray, presented by the band’s first manager, Ed Grogan.  Lindy Scialla, drummer and a World War II veteran, had joined the band early on.  These two musicians, guys in their eighties, showed they could play hotter than a jar of jalapeños. (See what 50 years of practice will do.)

In fact, everyone was. Ray Leake on piano, Maurie Walker on banjo and Bill Clark, leader and tuba--all had joined the band in the 1970s. Steve Bauman on trumpet and Lance Acker, reeds, were alumni of the marvelous teen-band of the early eighties, The Pearl Street, and had also played with the QC later in that decade.  Steve Bauman, it was reported, had had to retrain his lip for this gig, but his playing was awesome. In fact, the entire band played as if inspired. Trading on banjo was Rory Thomas with Johnny Montagnese sitting in on drums, and Eric Staffeldt joined or relieved Frederickson with his delicious tromboning.

To be expected and awaited were Frederickson’s quips, as his dedication to “Gumperson’s Disease”.  To quote Alan, “Like all other great performers there is a charity for which we play.  Gumperson’s Disease.  Why Gumperson’s, you may ask.  When we started out all the good diseases were taken.  Gumperson’s Disease is the rarest of all diseases.  There are no known symptoms.  Gumperson felt good until the day he died.  If you feel good, you might have it right now.”  As superb as the music is, it seems to be the spice of Frederickson’s dry humor that many look forward to and expect.

Saturday’s concert at the Ramada held some 250 to 300 people, with every seat taken. It was often musical chairs, as Montegnese took over drums for Schialla who then was replaced by Marl Shanahan.  The trumpets of Dave Moldenhauer, John Bartmann, Wes Mix, Ron D’Ascenz and Bauman took turns or frequently blended.  Staffeldt stood in for, or joined, Frederickson and John Bredenberg and Roger Campbell joined or substituted for Acker on reeds.  Jim Calm shared tuba billings with leader and organizer, Bill Clark, and Thomas and Ed Turner alternated banjos with Walker.  Trading off on piano were Ray Leake and Hank Troy, with student and scholarship winner Mike Smith often invited in as well.

The cherry on the top was vocalist Wende Harston, singer with the band for the past fifteen years, and a real link to the jazz age with her authentic Blues style.  Numbers like Nellie Lutcher’s Fine Brown Frame, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom delivered in her husky alto and often complete with gyrations, inevitably bring down the house. Excellent vocals were also delivered by Wes Mix, Maurie Walker, Bill Clark and Steve Bauman.

Sunday’s concert at Teikyo University Theater, literally filled to the rafters, opened with the present band members.  Later sets added Lance Christiansen on reeds and trumpet, Mike Whited on drums and Bill Ponterelli on clarinet. And again, Harston’s swingin’ Blues rocked the building.  A most moving moment was a duet played by Acker on a 1926 saxello and Troy on piano titled If You See My Mother, and dedicated to Billie Sutfin, wife of Duane Sutfin, long time manager of the band.  Billie spent some twenty years working for the band and died about a year ago.  She particularly loved that poignant piece.

Mid-concert Sunday was a ceremony awarding small Oscars to those individuals and couples who have given substantial aid to the band.  They were: Ed Grogan, first manager, Susie Gentry, wife of leader Clark, Jeannie Peterson, who with her husband Harney originally put the band together, Mark Janicki, once clarinetist, trombonist and money manager, Juanita Greenwood, long-time companion of Frederickson and founder of Summit Jazz, Duane Sutfin, past manager, Bill and Betty Holcomb, and Hank Troy, present pianist and secretary of the Queen City Jazz Foundation. 

Over all, playing eleven sets and some fifty pieces, the category of quality was quite generally A+ with the finales of Big Bear Stomp, Snake Rag and Panama blowing us all away with an ensemble of the multitudes.

Incredibly, the energy was still there as many of the band went on to their regular Sunday night bar gig at the Bull and Bush.  Owners Dean and Dale Peterson are ardent and supportive jazz fans, even sponsoring a band dinner the prior Friday evening.  The band still had it, but I didn’t.  I left before it was over, but not for lack of quality.  Kudos are due, big-time, to leader and organizer, University of Colorado at Denver Professor Bill Clark.  Bill gathered the masses of musicians, organized entertainment and food, wrote a schedule for the sets, and herded them all smoothly into place, presenting the multitudes with music and memories they can brag about in the years to come. 

Kudos too, to those who gathered the memorabilia for a fascinating book titled, We Came to Play, celebrating the anniversary and funding The Queen City Jazz Foundation which in turn, funds scholarships for jazz students at UCD. 

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