Side Street Strutters begins its April 22 performance in Waukegan with the first jazz song ever recorded and commercially released, “Livery Stable Blues.”
It’s not a tune every jazz aficionado might know, but it’s the perfect opening to the concert which is dedicated to the 100 years of jazz, focusing mostly on the first 50 years.
“It’s going to be a little bit of a history lesson,” said Rob Verdi, saxophonist and founder of Side Street Strutters.
The Strutters’ rendition of “Livery Stable Blues,” will include a trumpeter’s imitation of the whinny of a horse, featured on the original recording, as well as the moo of a cow, he said.
“Blues is one of the earliest forms of jazz. It’s simply constructed and many people could play and sing the blues,” Verdi said.
Performing since 1983, the group is touring to celebrate the many styles of jazz, including Dixieland and big band.
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“This show we’re touring in Waukegan is celebrating the 100th anniversary of recorded jazz,” Verdi said.
Side Street Strutters has won first place honors in various national and international jazz competitions. The ensemble, which added a female vocalist 10 years ago, has performed at festivals in Europe and the U.S. as well as recorded 12 CDs.
In addition, the group entertained guests at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Calif., for 22 years.
Verdi played saxophone in high school and found jazz to be the most appealing musical style.
“It was the feel, the rhythm, and most importantly, the fact that the focus of jazz is improvisation,” he said. “Jazz really focuses on that. You play together as an ensemble, and in the middle of all that you get to take a solo, and you never know what’s going to come out. It’s an intimidating process, but it’s also fun.”
Verdi visits schools as a guest artist and offers workshops to young jazz players to help them get over their fear of improvisation, he said.
Side Street Strutters, which includes his brother, Vince Verdi, on clarinet, focused on Dixieland jazz style for the first few years, he said.
“It didn’t take us long to expand into big band, swing, Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman,” he said.
At the Waukegan concert, the group will also perform, “Muskrat Ramble,” a traditional Dixie tune written in 1926, as if it were being played on an old-fashioned Victrola record player, he said. “It sounds as if there are skips we play on the arrangement. We end up playing a phrase four or five times in a row.”
He also promised a tap dance number that “will wow everybody. Tap is very rhythmic and an expressive art form. Its history parallels jazz,” he said. “Think about all those great dancers like Fred Astaire who did tap.”
The group will also perform tunes like “Sing, Sing, Sing,” made famous by Benny Goodman. “And we’ll pay tribute to Louis Armstrong’s ‘It’s a Wonderful World,'” Verdi added.
That piece has beautiful lyrics, he said, and the group’s singer, Meloney Collins, will perform that piece with the band. “She is just wonderful. She’s so dynamic and fun,” Verdi said of Collins who also has performed at the Goodman Theatre.
Verdi brought Collins to the band about 10 years ago because “so many of the great bands had great vocalists,” he said. “That’s how Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra got their start. The lyrics back then, they were like poetry. These songs really come to life when someone sings them.”
Side Street Strutters’ latest album, “Vinyl Jazz on CD,” celebrates the history of jazz and includes some of the pieces the group will perform in Waukegan.
“We get together with a thought process and a vision and something new to challenge us every few years,” Verdi said. “We’ve gone through different phases including performing arrangements with symphony orchestras, including the Houston Symphony.”
The Side Street Strutters members enjoy meeting the audience in the lobby after concerts, he said. “We get wonderful comments like: ‘You played “Stardust,” and that’s the first song my husband and I danced to at our prom.’ It really warms our hearts when we hear that,” Verdi said.
His favorite comment, he said, was from a woman who told him, “Honey, I could get a facelift tomorrow and not feel as young as you made me feel tonight.”
Side Street Strutters: 100 Years of Jazz
When: 3 p.m. April 22
Where: Orlin Trapp Auditorium, 2325 Brookside Ave., Waukegan
Tickets: $30
Information: 847-336-1016; lakecountyconcerts.org
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
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