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Ghost Train Orchestra record in the can
By Brian Carpenter on March 11, 2010 7:26 AM
I've recently finished mixing the debut Ghost Train Orchestra album with producer Danny Blume (Klezmatics, Sex Mob). The album is called "Hothouse Stomp". New arrangements of dance music from 1929 Harlem and Chicago. I formed this band when Heather Kuhn, a programmer for the Regent Theater, a historic vaudeville theater in Boston, hired me as musical director for the theater's 90th anniversary. I was interested in 1929 in particular, that being a transitional year for jazz, and so I went about exploring, transcribing, and arranging this music from that era.
The album covers four of the most important (and I think overlooked) jazz bands of that year: Charlie Johnson's Paradise Orchestra, Tiny Parham and His Musicians, Fess Williams' Royal Flush Orchestra, and McKinney's Cotton Pickers. This music that has not been heard live for 80 years and the original recordings, if you can find them, are of very bad quality. Since the Regent Theater shows three years ago, I've been developing this band live at Barbes. I've retooled the original arrangements to add strings, musical saw, voice, and a few other surprises. Last November we recorded at Avatar Studios with Grammy-award winner Danny Blume (Klezmatics, Sex Mob) and just recently finished mixing. I've just posted three mixes up on the Facebook page. Enjoy.
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