State Street Traditional Jazz Band. (Courtesy photo)
PHIPPSBURG — Old-school New Orleans jazz will hit the stage when State Street Traditional Jazz Band performs at the Phippsburg Congregational Church at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 11.
Founded in 1989, the members of the band are bonded by a passion to play and preserve traditional New Orleans “Preservation Hall” jazz. John Page, the band’s founder and leader, has spent much of his life playing, studying and interacting with some of the most influential New Orleans musicians of his generation. While he discovered the trumpet at age seven, it was not until the early 1970s, as a Maine Maritime Academy graduate shipping out of New Orleans, that Page became enthralled with the ‘original’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Paying homage to music birthed over a century ago, the band has been featured on the WCSH TV program “207” and has performed at the University of Maine, Victoria Mansion, the Rockport Opera House and many key Maine venues and festivals. Initially performed in New Orleans and throughout the Louisiana Delta region following World War I ,jazz moved north out of New Orleans, and in the course of the move it inevitably began to change. Many musical greats kept the original sound alive. Their number included the Original Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Louis Armstrong.
Also one of the founding members of Bellamy Jazz Band, Page helped to assemble an ensemble of highly-skilled players for the State Street band.
On piano, Doug Protsik has been part of the Maine music scene for 45 years, his reputation stretching throughout the U.S. and abroad. He has appeared on NPR’s “A Prairie Home Companion” and is also known for his folk performances on fiddle and accordion. Protsik also directs the Maine Fiddle Camp.
Clarinetist Barry Daniels, a founding member of the band, has been playing since age 9. He has played with the WWI Veterans Marching Band, Bellamy Jazz Band and the National Sidewalk Over Easy Brass Band with Strings.
Paul Mattor will be guest appearing on banjo. As a three year old his mother placed a massive tenor banjo on his lap, which was the gateway to years of musical passion as an upright and electric bassist in widely diverse groups and styles from Finnish dances to surf rock – never straying too far from his traditional jazz roots.
Bill Thurston has played drums with The Bellamy Jazz Band and numerous bands on engagements that have taken him from Moosehead Lake to The Copley Plaza in Boston.
Parker Kenyon on trombone has been playing professionally for over 40 years. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, he has played with Pat Colwell and the Soul Sensations and other Maine bands.
Tom Wilbur on tuba is a founding member of the State Street Traditional Jazz Band and plays in multiple bands locally.
The Phippsburg Congregational Church is located at 10 Church Lane (at Parker Head Road) in Phippsburg. Tickets are available at the door. Admission is $15 for adults, $8 for students. Advance tickets are $12, and are available at brownpapertickets.com. Children under 8 attend for free. Doors open at 7 p.m. For more information, call (207) 389-1770.
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