The Ear Inn is located at 326 Spring Street in the Hudson Square (or the west end of SoHo) area of lower Manhattan. Originally, this address was the site of the James Brown House, a historic Federal-style townhouse built around 1817. The ground floor of this land marked building is home to The Ear Inn, one of the oldest continuously operating bars in New York City. For the last 18 years, this location has been home to Jon-Erik Kellso and The EarRegulars’ Sunday night residency. Like the long-lived Eddie Condon’s and Jimmy Ryan’s jazz clubs, The Ear Inn dedicates itself to early jazz, performing it from inception to the Swing Era (ca. 1915 - 1940).
Trumpeter Jon-Erik Kellso and guitarist Matt Munisteri co-founded the band, the EarRegulars, in 2007. While performing as a core quartet, the EarRegulars regularly welcomed musicians to sit in, partaking in the conversational tone of the performances. Live at the Ear Inn is the long-awaited documentation of Kellso’s traditional jazz that had long ago become a mainstay of the location. They recorded the seven collected selections on January 15 and 29, 2023.
The setlist for the show touches on small combo jazz from just the other side of traditional Dixieland to just before Be Bop. But it does so by blending these evolving styles in an organic and exciting way. As the best jazz musicians do, they did not arrange or rehearse any of the seven performances. Kellso relied on his partners’ musicianship and familiarity with the material, called a key, and away they went. The style of jazz orbits that of the “Hot Jazz” popularized in the 1930s and ‘40s by Paris’ Quintette du Hot Club de France. Featured are Heywood and Cook’s 1926 piece, “I’m Coming Virginia,” and Don Redman’s “No One Else But You,” released in 1928. The band saved the best for last with Luis Russell’s “Back O’ Town Blues” (composed for Louis Armstrong in 1946) and sung here but Russell’s daughter, Catherine, an expert in this brand of jazz.
This disc has patiently hung in there for a review at WMR. I am on an early jazz jaunt and was glad to begin with Live at the Ear Inn.