Baby Soda

One of the most electrifying trad-jazz performances of the year was heard in one of the unlikeliest of venues on June 2 when the Baby Soda Jazz Band blew the roof off of the Kellish Farm Music Barn, 3192 Pompey Center Road, just south of Manlius; rhbamericana.com/.
Kellish Farm, owned by Kathy Kellish and Rick Harding, has been presenting old-time country and bluegrass concerts for more than a year now, but Baby Soda from Brooklyn was its first foray into Dixieland.
Led by banjoman Jared Engel and one-string box bassist Peter Ford, the quintet’s music inspired Kellish’s country fans to get up and dance like experienced second-liners.
“These people were clapping and yelling and dancing all over the place,” exclaimed JASS President Emeritus Dick Ames, who attended the June 2 concert with his daughter, Marcia.
“I wonder how many JASS members enjoy country music,” Ames mused. If we can gauge our members’ interest, he said, it’s possible JASS could book some double bills at Kellish Farm mixing trad-jazz and country acts.
With Big Easy cornetist Kevin Louis doubling on percussion Baby Soda achieved an ultra-authentic New Orleans sound on tunes such as “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You” and “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue.”
Louis played a series of dynamic duets with trombonist Emily Asher on numbers like “Sweet Sue” and “Eerie Blues.” The brass players also traded licks with Australian clarinetist Adrian Cunningham on a freakish version of “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.”
Peter Ford sang all the vocals with panache, notably “When You Wore a Tulip,” “Exactly Like You” and “Digga Digga Doo.” For an encore, however, Emily Asher unleashed her cool coloratura on “Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home?”
The answer is “Yes, immediately!”
Baby Soda calls its music “Street Jazz,” an apt term for a combo that regularly holds forth at NYC’s Washington Square Park. The band is actually a collective, an adaptable group of talented New York musicians including cornetist Ed Polcer and his brass-blowing son, Ben.
“There are scores of restaurants, bars and clubs in both [New York and New Orleans] where young audiences are listening and dancing to these young bands,” the elder Polcer wrote in a February letter to Jazfax. “I’d love to bring them up your way for a concert.”
Besides playing on the street and in the subway, the Baby Soda Jazz Band can often found entertaining at some of New York’s finest venues such as Cafe Moto, The Jalopy Theatre, The Knitting Factory and the Plaza Hotel. The collective has released two CDs, Jazz Roots Elixir and Cures Everything But The Blues.
Check them out on YouTube.com or at myspace.com/babysodaband. - Jazfax

Reason number 7,365,278 to love New York City: Washington Square Park is back and as good as it ever was. Last Tuesday, the Washington Square Music Festival hosted a swing concert with the Baby Soda Jazz Band, an ensemble featuring a trombonist, guitarist, saxophonist, one-string box bassist, banjo player, clarinetist, trumpet player and female singer. With your eyes closed, you could have been on Bourbon Street. With them open, there was no doubt you were in New York’s most historic and politically active park. Around 300 people gathered around the stage. Japanese tourists danced swing steps while toddlers jumped up and down to the 1930s sounds. Tourists snapped pictures. Korean students were up to their knees in the newly refurbished fountain. A juggler amused a group on a grassy knoll, while a group of “Star Wars” fanatics practiced light saber techniques. Music, chess, a children’s playground, a dog run and performances around the fountain are a daily part of life in the park. Of course, the occasional smell of marijuana pervaded the heavily policed park. (Local residents are making an effort to hire off-duty cops to ensure the park does not go back to its sometimes drug-heavy reputation.) On this night, the park shone. - NY Daily News

Baby Soda must have found a time machine. There’s just no way their music is made in the 21st century. It’s like the soundtrack of Prohibition, basement breweries, and silent pictures. It’s nostalgia for a time long gone, like some cobweb-covered record buried in a milk crate. This street jazz band lists its musical influences as “New Orleans brass, jug music, southern gospel, and hot jazz.” Baby Soda is currently home to 18 different members and they play every instrument you’d hope they would, including washboards, pots and pans, one-string box bass, trumpet, banjo, and saxophone. The band has busked through the streets and subways of their native New York, but also graced the stages of many fine venues in the city including the Village Vanguard, the Knitting Factory, and the Jalopy Theater. The Baby Soda Jazz Band will perform this Friday (June 4) at Nietzsche’s. The show starts at 10pm with the Springville All Star Marching Band, who have four rules: No stages. No microphones. No guitars. No flutes. Baby Soda leads the parade through the rich history of American music. Party like it’s 1933. —peter vullo
- Buffalo ArtVoice