The Boy With The Bull Fiddle On His Back! Double Bass Blues by Andrea J. Loney

ZIIIIIIIIIIIIP!

HUMMMMM...

"EPIC SOLO, NIC!"

String bass player Nic takes a bow to the applause of his peers as practice breaks up and the kids in the band pack up to go home.

After school orchestra practice Nic straps his big double bass on his back and makes his way across town. It's not an easy trip.

Nic's trip begins with a shortcut over a backyard fence--with quite a tussle between his double bass case and a determined dog. Bass fiddle on his back, he has a crowded bus ride, a run through the rain, and a clamber up several flights of narrow stairways--until he at last knocks on Granddaddy's door.

"LOOK WHO'S HERE!

LITTLE NIC!!"

Little Nic takes his place and the jazzmen jam together--each one, but as one.

Andrea J. Loney's Double Bass Blues (Alfred A. Knopf, 2019) is told in rhythmic language, exuberantly illustrated by Rudy Gutierrez in swirling colors and firm, sure-handed line from rehearsal to jam session in a natural progression in which music, words, and feeling come together as one. Says School Library Journal, "Colorful, full of movement, limited in text but loaded with emotion, this is an ode to the diversity of music...."

Razza-Ma-Jazz! Stalebread Charlie And The Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band by Michael Mahin

You've probably heard of jazz music. Skippity-bippity-be-bop and all that. And you've probably heard of country: twang-alang-alang. But what about spasm band music? Sing-taka-taka-pat?

Well, considering that one of the most famous spasm bands of all time was formed by a bunch of kids, I suppose I'd better tell you about it.

Back in 1895, life in the Storyville section of New Orleans was catch-as-catch can, and Stalebread Charlie and his buddy Warm Gravy were often hungry, filling their bellies with fast food, a beignet or a apple nabbed from a shopkeeper and a fast get-away from the cops. They hated to have to steal, so Stalebread started to give some thought to a better way to make some money.

As he pondered, he heard the brassy sound of a trombone and a ragtime tune played on a piano somewhere near.

"Gravy! We'll start a band. We'll never be hungry again!"

They found a piece of stovepipe for a megaphone and filled a can with pebbles. Stalebread sang into his pipe and Gravy gave his can a shake-a shook-a. It was a start, and soon Cajun stopped by with his tissue-paper kazoo and Monk added his pennywhistle to the mix. They weren't exactly a hit at first. Their first earnings were more like bribes. People gave them a few pennies to go play somewhere else.

But they added more boys and more instruments--a washboard, spoons, and a tambourine for percussion, a bass fiddle and guitar made from boxes, and Stalebread Charlie learned to play the heck out of a zither. They learned all the popular songs and spiced them up with their razz-a-ma-tazz, and they learned to perform in front of the popular dance halls, theaters, and restaurants to catch crowds of folks with a few nickels to spare. They became famous--so famous that the great actress Sarah Bernhardt made a special trip down to Storyville just to hear them. She even tipped them with a silver dollar, which must have bought the band a lot of beignets! And they gave themselves a name--

THE RAZZY DAZZY SPASM BAND!

Michale Mahin's forthcoming Stalebread Charlie and the Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Clarion, 2018) tells in lively picture book form the true story of one of New Orleans' street waif bands, the famous one led by Stalebread Charlie himself, Emile Lacoume.

The jambalaya of music that was to be jazz was bubbling forth in the streets of New Orleans in the years around the turn of the 20th century. A gumbo of musical ideas added by folks from the Southern highlands and the fertile fields of the deltas, from Africa and the Caribbean, from France, Spain, and Sicily, from Cajuns and Creoles, all came together there as the urchin bands grew up with the music. In fact, Emile's band even helped name the music he helped create. The Razzy Dazzy Spasm band became so well-known that a slightly older group of teenagers--with real instruments, already playing in Papa Laine's Reliance Brass Band--decided to steal their name, but when the spasm boys fought back, the older boys picked a new name, The Razy Dazy Jazzy Band, which helped give a name to the music they all played.

Lacoume's Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band comes back to colorful life in Mahin's pithy account of a seminal period in American music, illustrated with artist Don Tate's lively double-page spreads of the band of boys, their alley-cat mascots, and the people of old New Orleans when it was "the land of dreams." Both Mahin and Tate append special notes filling in the history of jazz and the part played by children's street bands and particularly the real Stalebread Charlie, a.k.a., Emile Lacoume, who went on to play with most of the famous musicians of his time in New Orleans. With illustrated directions for young readers on how to make a homemade kazoo for their own spasm band, this new book is a humorous, historical, and inspirational story of the making-something-from-nothing spirit and love of music, a true piece of Americana also great for reading aloud.

Michael Mahin is also the author of Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters (read my review here).

Missing Horn Mystery: The Jazzman's Trumpet (A Kit Mystery) by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

"And now, ladies and gentlemen," said the announcer, "the moment you've all been waiting for. The King Jazz Hour will announce the winner of the free concert tickets...right after a word from our sponsor, Sudso Soap."

"Another commercial? I just want the waiting to be over!" Kit exclaimed.

The announcer's voice returned. "Okay, folks, we've picked a postcard at random for the lucky winner who will win two front-row tickets to Swingin' Slim Simpson's one-night show at the Burns Theater right here in Cincinnati Saturday night. So without further ado, the name of our winning listener is...

Miss Kit Kittredge!

Like most folks in 1934, twelve-year-old Kit is swing jazz crazy. So is her dad, and when he tells her that he remembers Slim Simpson, the famous bandleader, from his high school days right there in Cincinnati, girl reporter Kit suddenly has an idea. Perhaps there's an article for the Cincinnati newspaper in this for her to write. Perhaps she can wrangle an interview with the jazzman through Mrs. Burns, the owner of the theater for whom Kit had already solved the mystery of her stolen cashbox. Kit quizzes her dad for information about the famous trumpeter and his band, and prepares her pitch for a story with the news editor. Gibb thinks it sounds like a good story about a big event and a local guy who's made the big time in jazz and gives her some clippings from the newspaper's "morgue," the file of earlier stories for background information.

After school the next day, with her notebook and well-sharpened pencil, Kit heads down to Burn's Theater and discovers something disturbing. The big glass display case at the front of the theater has been smashed and the promotional poster for the concert has been torn up and tossed on the sidewalk. Mrs. Burns is dismayed at the broken case, but agrees to help Kit meet Swingin' Sam Simpson and some other musicians and arrange an interview for the following afternoon. But then they discover that a strange message has appeared on the marquee out front:

GET OUT SLIM--OR ELSE!

It look like somebody wants Swingin' Slim's show to be a flop. But Kit's interview with Slim goes well, and with her background information and some great quotes from the star about swing jazz, Kit has high hopes that her by-line article will be good enough to run in the metro news section of the Sunday paper. But when she returns to the theater, something has happened that may mean there will be no concert at all by Swingin' Slim Simpson.

Hootie Shay, the baritone sax player, was barreling up the aisle at full speed. "Did you see anyone go through that lobby?" he asked Kit sharply.

"I...no, I didn't," Kit said.

"Darn!" said Hootie, wringing his hands. "Sorry, kid, but we're in the middle of a situation here. Somebody got into the theater and got into the greenroom while Slim went for an interview.

Somebody stole Slim's trumpet!"

It looks like Kit Kittredge is going to be wearing both her girl detective and girl reporter hats in Elizabeth Cody Kimmel's The Jazzman's Trumpet: A Kit Mystery (American Girl Beforever Mysteries) (American Girl, 2016). It's up to her to solve the theater mystery and find Slim's one-of-a-kind trumpet to save the show and her article. The show must go on, and the resourceful Depression-era heroine of the Kit Kittredge series is on it, in this installment in the spin-off Kit Mysteries series.

There are plenty of unexpected twists and turns and some sidekick sleuthing with her friend Stirling and some unexpected help from her mysterious new friend Trixie in a detective story set engagingly in the early 1930s swing music scene. Author Kimmel adds an appendix "Inside Kit's World," which brings young readers up to speed on the Depression days when the big bands ruled the radio and great horn players were becoming media stars. For fans of all the American Girl mysteries and particularly those who are fans of swing dancing, this one is the cat's whiskers.

The Kit Kittredge series, begun by author Valerie Tripp with Meet Kit: An American Girl, 1934 (American Girl), introduces middle readers to the period of the first year of the Great Depression, when Kit's father loses his job and heads west to find work while her mother turns their comfortable two-story home into a boarding house, Kit pitches in with her newspaper route, and the parlor radio is the main source of entertainment. Middle readers get the sense of a time different from their own, a time of great change, and get to know a resilient and adventurous character who manages to adapt to her own time.