The Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra is in the home stretch of a project that has been in the making for years. Brent Wallarab composed a 4 movement, 1 hour 20 minute long jazz suite as a tribute to Richmond, Indiana’s Gennett Records and the jazz greats that recorded there in the 1920s: King Oliver, Jelly Roll, Hoagy, Bix, and Louis.

It is named The Gennett Suite and recognizes the critical role that these musicians, this studio, and the state of Indiana played in the worldwide popularization of Jazz and the development of a distinct American identity and character.

The recording was held in Bloomington by the 17 member BWJO in August 2022 and the final editing, mixing, and mastering is now complete with CD and vinyl pressing, the CD set to release on June 8th, 2023 (the vinyl due later in the year based on availability to limited, high in demand pressing capacity).

Noted jazz historians John Hasse and David Brent Johnson have written the liner notes, the classic artwork for the cover and discs is dutifully beautiful, and there was even a documentary (the recording session and interviews with key principals) that was taped.

CD 1:
1. Movement 1: Royal Blue
2. Movement 2: Blues Faux Bix

On what is a humble, organically cultured, and thrillingly elegant from start to finish new recording, designed in four movements, each of which elevates one of the major jazz tributaries flowing into the Gennett studios in the early 1920s, the first is Movement 1: Royal Blue, where the mood vivaciously swings and sways as much as the music.

Celebrating some of the label’s earliest stars, tracing the evolution of jazz from an idiom of collective improvisation - represented by Tin Roof Blues, recorded in 1923 by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings - to a soloist’s art in the hands of Louis Armstrong, Wallarab illustrates this transition with an interlude that leads from Tin Roof Blues to the contemporaneous classics Chimes Blues and Dippermouth Blues; all Gennett recordings made by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band starring Armstrong, who had arrived in Chicago in 1922.

Along next is the methodically cultured Movement 2: Blues Faux Bix, which focuses on Armstrong’s white counterpart, cornetist Box Beiderbecke, whose cooler sound and more measured approach provided a Midwest alternative to the sounds of New Orleans. Something you pick up from the beginning of the piece, as the sharper Armstrong edges and dips are gone, replaced here by the more smoothly lined, richer swing-hued rhythms and melodies coming forth.

This movement combines several songs Beiderbecke recorded for Gennett with his band The Wolverines - the early classics Wolverine Blues and The Jazz Me Blues - and Beiderbecke’s eidetic Davenport Blues, recorded under his own name and here starring Wallarab’s longtime band-leading partner, trumpet ace Mark Buselli.

CD 2:
3. Movement 3: Hoagland
4. Movement 4: Mr. Jelly Lord

The third is Movement 3: Hoagland, which reminds us that one of the earliest architects of the Great American Songbook - Hoagland Howard (Hoagy) Carmichael - played his own role in the Gennett story, as a fledgling songwriter and confidant of other musicians on the scene.

A languishing style that makes you want to sit down, lay back, close your eyes, and drift off to a much less stressful time, where the music from jazz clubs enabled you to sink into a most comforting musical world, on Carichael’s classic Riverboat Shuffle, Wallarb recombines sections of the melody to build suspense and create an irresistible propulsion.

But the real highlight is Wallarab’s extraordinary recomposition - and saxophonist Greg ward’s emotionally transcendent interpretation - of Star Dust, which many consider to be the greatest single American popular song.

Carmichael first recorded Star Dust at Gennett in 1927. It grew out of his friendship with and admiration for Beiderbecke: Carmichael sought to capture the dreamy quality of the cornetist’s improvisations in this indelible through-composed melody.

Asking himself if the world really needed another arrangement of Star Dust, Wallarab decided that he would only submit a new arrangement if he could come up with a different approach. Thus, he ended up with a fantasia based on the original theme, incorporating elements from European classical composers in subtle ways.

The fourth and final work is Movement 4: Mr. Jelly Lord, which honors Jelly Roll Morton, the first notable jazz composer, whose 1923 Gennett collaboration with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings helped put the new studio and its fledgling label on the map of American recording.

At first, delicate, honed and quietly playful, yet bolstered with a more than flirtatious, perky, playful and most definitely vibrantly spirited affair, Morton’s earlier arrangements had a seminal impact on his peers and imitators: and in King Porter Stomp, he gifted the world with a classic composition that has inspired new treatments by artists from Fletcher Henderson to Gil Evans to avant-jazz guitarist Noël Akchoté.

In 1994, Mark Buselli and Brent Wallarab co-founded the Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra and with over 1000 public performances to their credit including a 12-year residency at the world-famous Jazz Kitchen, the BWJO has cemented their place within the historic Indianapolis jazz scene and is proud to be a part of the city’s illustrious musical legacy.

Although not a native Hoosier, Wallarab has spent the majority of his adult life in Indiana, and he has taken a keen interest in the state’s pivotal role during the early days of the recording industry. Gennett’s importance in spreading jazz throughout the country and across the world has always been so inspiring to me, he explains.

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