Summertime - Eli Newberger 1996
With our Climax Jazz Band, when we were visiting the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1974 we met a band, the New Black Eagle Jazz Band from Boston, that just like our band had been formed in 1971. Our two bands together played a session in a cafe along Bourbon Street. A friendship developed that made both bands visit each other many times. We went to Boston, they came to Toronto or we met at jazz festivals worldwide. The tubaist of the Black Eagles was Eli and I have known him ever since. One of my highlights was organizing a hot five-type setting where we would jam a few Louis Armstrong Hot Five tunes. With a three piece frontline, our Jack Vincken on banjo and Eagles’ Eli on piano. Eli was a master pianist in that setting, both in hard swinging accompaniment as well as in excitingly creative solos. Eli certainly realized his function as a rhythm man and his solos set him apart from most tuba players.
In this duo performance as well as in the other clips with M’N’M we see an Eli who is shown in a consummately creative situation.
I’m very happy to have received these videos from him and it is with great pleasure that I show these to all you jazz lovers around our globe. In this clip you see Eli together with banjo master Jimmy Mazzi who also sings the vocal in an unique manner.
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