Swamp Blues
LP The Old Masters TOM-25
The Little Ramblers was a logical band name when some members of the California Ramblers wanted to play with fewer people and do something more spontaneous, free from the arrangements, or at least free to use what they wanted from them.
Here they are in July 1927, on their last session under that name.
Chelsea Quealey plays trumpet, heavily influenced by Red Nichols, and Sam Ruby and Bobby Davis take care of the reed work.
Well, not entirely because it starts with the goofus, which is also a reed instrument, and of course there is the big bass sax, both instruments played by Adrian Rollini. Whatever high expectations we have, he never disappoints us. Here, among other things, he plays some beautiful notes, some of the highest to come out of his sax, in a short duet with the trumpet.
The tune is partly a 12-bar blues and partly an 8- or 16-bar theme. Though rather simple on the surface, it has a special beauty that may also come from the fact that it starts normally in Bb and, in the end, has transposed to the unusual key of Gb.