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The Gate City Jazz Band entertained about 25 folks brave enough to travel in the subzero temperatures for the annual Upper Mississippi Jazz Society Mardi Gras celebration Sunday.
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Carol Crisp, left, and Bernard Paddock of Alma, Wis., dance to the music of the Gate City Jazz Band of Winona during the annual Upper Mississippi Jazz Society Mardi Gras celebration Sunday at the Monarch Public House in Fountain City, Wis. (Photo by Andrew Link/Winona Daily News) |
Masks, beads and umbrellas fueled the fire as Dixieland jazz reverberated under the tin ceiling, and Cajun spices from the shrimp gumbo and chicken etouffee filled the air.
“If you can’t go to New Orleans, this is just as good,” said Lori Ahl, Monarch owner, clapping her hands to the music.
Apparently, Mardi Gras festivities don’t have to stop just because it’s the dead of winter or that the holiday is technically over.
“We try to get it around Fat Tuesday,” Ahl said. “Sometimes you have to have Lent and Mardi Gras at the same time.”
The Mardi Gras celebration kicks off the season for both the Irish pub and the longtime Winona band, who will start playing from 6 to 8 p.m. the last Sunday of every month through October.
The Gate City Jazz Band and the Monarch owners don’t remember exactly how long they’ve had the festival, but it’s somewhere around 10 years. In that time, Ahl’s husband John Harrington said the Monarch has grown close to the band and the fans.
“All these people have become our friends. For many customers, it’s the one chance for them get out and see what’s new,” Harrington said. “There’s no other place you’re going to hear this style of music consistently.”
Duane Peterson, a self-taught banjo player, formed the Gate City Ragtime Dixieland and Philharmonica Society with Maurice and Cecilia Schuh in 1978. A year later, he founded the Upper Mississippi Jazz Society.
The 8-piece band later shortened its name, the band members changed and so did the times, Peterson said.
“It’s a limited audience,” he said. “This music hasn’t been played popularly since the 1940s. ... I keep looking up old songs nobody uses anymore.”
Peterson is the only remaining founding member, but songs like “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home” and “When the Saints Come Marching In” have stayed in rotation.
Sunday’s band lineup, trumpet player Tim Klinkner, Larry Price on the clarinet, Ken Bloom playing trombone, Margaret Cassidy singing, Leo Lentz on the tuba, Steve Kulas on the drums and Dan Barr playing piano.
The band plays jazz, blues, swing, Dixie and swing, and they’ve become a hometown favorite.
Carol Crisp, 76, wore a sparkly checkered mask and had purple, green, pink and yellow beads around her neck. She helped her husband Bernard Paddock, 77, take off his glasses and put on a silver mask. Umbrellas for the second line march completed their look.
“By 8 o’clock is when (the band’s) really cooking, so we try to keep them for another hour,” she said.
The Alma, Wis., couple called themselves “jazz aficionados.” They’ve traveled the country to get a good jazz fix, but didn’t have to go too far Sunday.
Crisp said the Monarch normally would be a packed, but it’s more than the weather that keeps fans away: The audience is getting older.
“That’s why we need to encourage young people to listen to this kind of music,” she said. “We don’t want it to go away.”
Contact reporter Amber Dulek at amber.dulek@lee.net or (507)453-3513.
wsutowniealum wrote on Feb 12, 2008 9:06 AM: