from: The New York Times

Music Review
Cup of Southern Joy (Northern, Too)

John Ellis is a North Carolina-born tenor saxophonist with a smart and generous flow who’s spent a lot of time studying and playing in New Orleans. But he’s a New Yorker now, and his new band, Double-Wide, combines musicians of both cities. Gary Versace, who plays Hammond organ, lives here; the sousaphone player Matt Perrine and the drummer Jason Marsalis live in New Orleans.

The tenor saxophonist John Ellis performing with his band Double-Wide at the Jazz Standard on Tuesday night.

The band, and its new album, “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow” (Hyena), aim directly at pleasure. But at the same time this is not rowdy music. Double-Wide’s gig at the Jazz Standard on Tuesday felt almost miniaturized by the musicians’ narrative control over improvising, and comically transparent as a music with a clear high-end (Mr. Ellis’s light-toned melodic improvising, Mr. Marsalis’s cymbals), a middle (the organ and snare drum) and a low (the boom of the kick drum, the braaap of the sousaphone).

This all felt intentional. Double-Wide’s sound is bright and clever, a mixture of new jazz with old rhythm and blues and parade music; it’s a kind of pop-art remake of Southern vernacular (click here to read more...).

Click here and read the full article at NYtimes.com.