When you hear single-string bass player Peter Ford sing “Digga Digga Doo,” you know you’re in for something special.
Sporting a snappy vest and an art deco tie, Ford’s the dapper, light-haired lad who coordinates the calendar for the Brooklyn’s Baby Soda Jazz Band. He also handles the lion’s share of the vocal chores and lays down the bottom for the band’s traditional sound.
Ford brings the Baby Soda Jazz Band back to Central New York for a concert at 8 p.m. Friday, June 1, at Kellish Hill Farm Music Barn, 3192 Pompey Center Road, just south of Manlius. Admission costs $10; 682-1578.
The Baby Soda Jazz Band – a loose-knit musicians’ collective often including cornetist Ed Polcer or trumpeter Bria Skonberg – last performed at Kellish Hill Farm on June 2, 2010.
Led by banjoman Jared Engel and trombonist Emily Asher, the quintet’s music inspired Kellish’s country-oriented audience to get up and dance like experienced second-liners.
“These people were clapping and yelling and dancing all over the place,” exclaimed Fayetteville jazz band leader Dick Ames, who attended the 2010 concert with his daughter, Marcia. Ames is president emeritus of the Jazz Appreciation Society of Syracuse and the leader of the Bear Cat Jass Band
When the Baby Soda band comes back June 1, Engel, Asher and Ford will be joined by clarinetist Adrian Cunningham, trumpeter Gordon Au and drummer Kevin Dorn.
Baby Soda routinely achieves an authentic New Orleans sound on tunes such as “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You” and “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue.” Ensemble interaction creates memorable moments as when the brass players trade licks with clarinetist Cunningham on a freakish version of “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.”
The band calls its music “Street Jazz,” an apt term for a combo that regularly holds forth at NYC’s Washington Square Park.
Besides playing on the street and in the subway, the Baby Soda Jazz Band can often be found entertaining at some of the Big Apple’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 at babysoda.org.
