Luxury Experience - Kermit Ruffins – We Partyin’ Traditional Style!

Get ready to par-tay with New Orleans’ Jazz from trumpeter, singer, composer Kermit Ruffins’ – We Partyin’ Traditional Style! with his band, The BBQ Swingers released on the Basin Street Records label. Traditional New Orleans Jazz has never sounded better, so roll up your carpets, get out your parasol, and get ready to dance!

Kermit Ruffins – We Partyin’ Traditional Style!: Chinatown, Exactly Like You, Careless Love, I Guess I’ll Get The Papers And Go Home, Jeepers Creepers, When It’s Sleepy Time Down South, Treme Second Line Intro, Treme Second Line, Over The Waves, All Of Me, Marie, When The Saints Go Marching In

Personnel: Kermit Ruffins – trumpet, vocals, Shannon Powell – drums, Steve Pistorius – piano, Richard Moten – bass, Don Vappie – banjo, Lucien Barbarin – trombone, Tom Fischer – clarinet, Mykia Jovan - vocals

Kermit Ruffins – We Partyin’ Traditional Style! was produced by Tracey Freeman and Executive Producer Mark Samuels on the Basin Street Records label.

When Edward Nesta and I were planning a Mardi Gras theme party for our niece, Nicole’s birthday in November, we went to our enviable collection of CDs and found the perfect music to accompany cocktails and hors d’oeuvres with Kermit Ruffins’ latest release, We Partyin’ Traditional Style! Born in New Orleans, this native son of The Big Easy started playing trumpet in the 8^th grade and has never looked back, continuing to grow as a trumpeter, singer, composer, and bandleader. For this release, he pays homage to old style New Orleans Jazz with music from the start of the 20^th century and continues with songs from the 1930s.

We Partyin’ Traditional Style! features 12-tracks of traditional New Orleans Jazz that will have you dancing with or without a parasol in your hand from the opening track until the CD closes with you wishing that there were just a few more tracks on this deliciously fun release.

The release opens with the track, Chinatown, written by William Jerome, Jean Schwartz, and Paul Rodriguez with an excellent drum solo and the rollicking brass band sound that defines New Orleans Jazz, and then does an easy slide into the incomparable 1930 song, Exactly Like You, written by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields with its banjo opening and catchy lyrics.

Next in the line-up is the traditional song, Careless Love, which was “one of the best known pieces in the repertory of the Buddy Bolden band in New Orleans, Louisiana at the start of the 20th century, and has remained a Jazz standard and Blues standard.”

I Guess I’ll Get The Papers And Go Home written by Hugie Prince, Dick Rodgers, and Hal Kanner follows, its lyrics lamenting, “Yes, I guess I'll get the papers and go home , Like I've been doin' ever since we've been apart…” Kermit continues with the 1938 Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer song, Jeepers Creepers that had us on the dance floor jumping around 30s style, and he keeps the 1930s vibe going with the song, When It’s Sleepy Time Down South, a tune written in 1931 by Clarence Muse, Leon René, and Otis René.

Kermit takes the lead and shows his prowess and composer on the next two tracks, Treme Second Line Intro, and Treme Second Line. Treme “is one of the oldest neighborhoods in New Orleans and is an important center of African-American and Creole culture, and the modern brass band tradition.” Second Line is defined as “a tradition in brass band parades in New Orleans, Louisiana. The “main line” or “first line” is the main section of the parade, or the members of the actual club with the parading permit as well as the brass band. Those who follow the band just to enjoy the music are called the “second line.” The second line's style of traditional dance, in which participants walk and sometimes twirl a parasol or handkerchief in the air, is called “second lining.”

Over The Waves written by Juventino Rosas (1868 – 1894), the popular Jazz standard All Of Me written in 1931 by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons, and the 1929 Irving Berlin song Marie follow before the closing track, When The Saints Go Marching In, which is an American Gospel hymn and the quintessential theme song when it comes to traditional New Orleans music, that had us dancing with our parasols all the way into the dining room for a New Orleans culinary feast. As they say in New Orleans, “Laissez les bons temps roulez” (Let the good times roll).

So, pick up a copy of Kermit Ruffins – We Partyin’ Traditional Style!, mix up a batch of traditional New Orleans cocktails like the Sazerac or the Hurricane, serve Shrimp Remoulade, Creole Gumbo or Jambalaya, and throw yourself a party – New Orleans style, no matter where you live. Do not be shy, dare to be bold, Kermit Ruffins will show you the way to party traditional style!