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Recorded in the 1950s. Papa was one of those founders of traditional jazz, playing sporting houses in Storyville, etc. There are a lot of rough edges on this, but the music is as authentic as you get.
Each song is amazingly familiar, bringing back fond memories of many evenings of dancing to Papa Celestin's band in New Orleans and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This music has not lost its appeal and is beautifully presented here.
On the first there's a Louis Barbarin on drums; I guess a relative of the famous drummer Paul Barbarin. You've got to love these guys. Playing up a storm for us way down south in Galilee, as Louis Armstrong used to say. He leads two different contingents of players. Some of the tunes really smoke. Well, he said something like that I think.
There's an historic name. Really, you've just got to. Alphonse Picou plays clarinet in the second group. Papa Celestin's vocal on Marie La Veau by itself is worth the cost of the album--that rich gutbuckety baritone. He sings on five of the fourteen song selections and his first four--Down by the Riverside, Oh Didn't He Ramble, Marie La Veau, and When the Saints Come Marching In--shouldn't be missed. Occasionally the ensemble work sounds a tad sloppy but then they get it back together and hot it up.
Five stars for the genuineness and authority of the playing, which beats the pants off of mere technical proficiency without heart, without soul, without the blues.
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