The text below was shamelessly copied from cyberspace. edit: http://rhumba.com/alaska/cowboy_jazz.html
Cowboy Jazz existed in a variety of forms during its seven-year history. The band pictured above is likely the band that logged the most miles, though in fairness, it is possible an earlier configuration featuring drummer Charlie Crane holds that distinction.
Taken by Road Manager Nick Sharp, outside Washington DC's legendary rock'n'roll haunt Desperados, this photo became the back photo for the group's second LP, Swing Boogie.
Personnel (L-R) are:
Tony DeFontes (bass), Denise Carlson (fiddle, vocals), Kate Bennett (vocals, rhythm guitar), Barry Sless (lead and steel guitars), Brian Alpert (drums), Deanna Bogart (piano, saxophone, vocals).
"Swing Boogie" [39 Minutes]
MATTER OF FACT
A COWGIRLS DREAM
JEANNE-MARIE STOMP
SANTA CRUZ BLUES
ROCK-BYE-BOOGIE
MORNING SKY
CROSS-COUNTRY BLUES
SWING BOOGIE (LIKE NEVER BEFORE)
HOW CAN YOU TELL?
720 IN THE BOOKS
"That's What We Like About the West"[40 minutes]
Baby, Don't Call
Cow Cow Boogie
Sugar Moon
Don't Be Blue
Sophisicated Mind
That's What I Like About the West
Too Much Fun
Stickin' to My Honey
Hey, Good Lookin'
Country Blue
Nagasaki
Cowboy Jazz's "That's What We Like About the West" is a cross between traditional pop vocal groups, western swing and country-rock -- a unique and heady brew of roots music that never stays in one place for too long. The group runs through a number of standards -- including country songs like "Cow-Cow Boogie" and "Hey Good Lookin'" and pop songs like "Sophisticated Mind" -- as well as originals that are in the same vein. It's great fun that sounds unlike anything in country and roots music. ~ Thom Owens, All Music Guide
This is a vinyl rip from my collection. Enjoy this incredibley awesome band!
37MB, WMA 9.1 64kbps
http://rapidshare.com/files/77958719/Cowboy_Jazz.rar
42 comments:
Kayaker,
Thanks for posting this. An incredible band. I can remember how much Damian played them. Barry Sless is a great steel player and guitarist, and Deanna Bogart went on to receive fame
with a solo career after the group disbanded....you are bringing back such great music with these postings.
Everyone should download these vinyl rips....FEAST YOUR EARS!!
Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas,
VanFan
Feast on bro!
Thanks again for the feedback Vanfan!
Chicken Legs and Nighthawks up next!
Thanks for this one. I used to go see them at No Fish Today in Baltimore. They always put on a great show. I have a copy of "That What We Like About The West" but had never heard "Swing Boogie"
By the way Barry Sless is still very active as part of the extended Grateful Dead family. He is a member of the David Nelson Band and has also played with Bob Weir's Ratdog as well as Phil Lesh and Friends.
I've seen Deanna but never Cowboy Jazz. You are fortunate multielvi...
Thanks for the feedback!
Oh, I'm SO happy right now, listening to this stuff for the first time in (eek) 20 years.
Thankyou so much for sharing this.
JB,
You are welcome, thanks for your comment and hope you find something else here and let me know.
Enjoy!
Cowboy Jazz considered Colorado their home off the road -- a place to relax and boogie with friends. Once or twice a year they would play at Mishiwaka, a bar and dance hall overhanging the river up Poudre Canyon above Ft. Collins, drawing hundreds from the Boulder-Denver area.
I knew Kate Bennet before CJ was formed -- used to see her sing at parties.
I'm sure I saw CJ play every year from the early 80's into the 90's, and my old LPs of the band were practically worn flat from overplaying.
I lost all of my music in a storage-unit fire in 1996, and have missed CJ greatly. I happened to google CJ today and found your site with this music. It's like reconnecting with a long-lost friend you thought had died. Thanks for making the LP's available.
I have lost contact with Kate (and her husband at the time Ken, who ran the sound and mixed tapes and such). It would be so great for them to reissue the music on CDs!
Oh, as others have said, Barry Sless was such an incredible player. He could actually bend strings on his telecaster and sound like a pedal steel. Glad he's still goin' strong.
Jerry S.
Listening to the music after so long got me to wondering what happened to the band members.
I felt a big loss when tracking down Denise and found this entry on the Dead Rock Stars website: "Denise Carlson (Denise A. Carlson-Long) - Died 5-3-2006 ( Western Swing ) Born 4-13-1956 in Rochester, MN, U.S. - Singer and fiddler - Was a member of Everybody And His Brother, Cowboy Jazz and Denise And DeNephews."
Found that Kate Bennett got a degree in music, taught music, did acting, and may even be playing with a country-rock band Pearl Creek.
Dianna Bogart is like real famous -- tons of web sites featuring her, her group, the feature articles in major music magazines, etc.
Brian has a website "rumba.com" with some stories about the band, particularly one visit to Alaska.
Barry also has a lot of info on the Web, and seems to be playing music with no less passion than when I saw him play so exquisitely.
If you get a chance, do a little Googling cause there's lots of stuff out there about a really unique group - Cowboy Jazz.
I really appreciate you posting these albums, Kate Bennett, one of the singers in Cowboy Jazz, is my aunt and I grew up listening to them. The albums we have are not in great shape so I never ripped them. It's been a long time since I've heard them.
Thanks,
Jackson
Jerry, You are too kind for sharing your bit on Cowboy Jazz...thanks from me and others that benefit from feedback like yours!
Thanks for sharing the google stuff and sad to hear about Denise Carlson, I had no idea....
Small world Jackson. Thanks for sharing. We appreciate it!
Here's a bit more info about Denise and Cowboy Jazz:
Denise Carlson, born in Rochester, MN, studied classical violin from age 8, winning numerous scholarships and competitions. At age 15 she won a competition which gave her a solo performance with a local symphony featuring a Mozart concerto. High school friends encouraged her to try improvisational techniques where she found a wonderful new outlet and discovered a natural gift to simply play "off the top of my head."
Her first gig came right after high school in Rapid City, SD, playing with the house band in a local club. It was there that she started singing in public. When the opportunity to play with a blue grass band came along, Carlson grabbed her violin and moved west to Denver. It was there that she met musical soul mate Kate Bennett who performed with her and band members as part of the group, Everybody and His Brother. Five years later, Carlson and Bennett moved to the East Coast and formed Cowboy Jazz.
Many tours and years later Carlson was performing freelance work, when she was invited to perform on a local broadcast of Radio from Downtown singing and playing jazz violin where she met and impressed National Public Radio’s (NPR) feature reporter Susan Stamberg. Stamberg enjoyed the performance so much that Carlson was asked for an interview to be aired on the nationally syndicated radio program Weekend Edition Saturday.
[http://www.salisbury.edu/newsevents/fullstoryview.asp?id=766]
Jerry,
When I receive a comment like this with great info on the bands I love, It's what keeps me motivated to keep posting.
Thanks for the feedback!
Wow, I can't thankyou enough. I"ve been looking for these albums for almost 20 years. They were played until the tapes just gave out..I'm from Towson , Md area and remember seeing the band in downtown Baltimore and D.C. many times. I can't wait to get these into my MP3 player and on CD's . You made my day, month and year by sharing.
Priscilla
my pleasure priscilla
Hi there -- I'm the guy who wrote the copy describing Cowboy Jazz, "shamelessly" copied above. (It is copyrighted you know -- a credit and a link might have been nice!) Having played in Cowboy Jazz for four years, it's very nice to see the comments here. I saw Deanna at a gig just last night and she mentioned this blog to me -- she found it courtesy of Kate. So word DO get around :) A few other bits of stuff worth mentioning -- the band's original drummer, Charlie Crane still lives in Baltimore and gets out to play - sometimes with the Dave Nelson Band. Sadly, the band's second bass player, Tony DeFontes, also died, some years ago, also (like Denise) of a drug overdose. How sad in both cases. Tony and I were close while in the band together; I miss him very much. I am still playing quite a bit, primarily in the DC area, though sometimes the road does call. If anyone wants to read the variety of stories I wrote about my experiences in Cowboy Jazz and other bands, the url is: http://rhumba.com.
Thanks for all the nice comments!
--Brian Alpert
Brian,
I posted a link this morning for the "shamelessy" copied text from your page. To be honest, I saw no copyrighted notes on that original link, but do apologize and hope you'll forgive me. When I posted this page, I knew next to nothing about the band. And really had no idea anyone else ever heard of them or cared. The response has been overwhelming. I also received several emails from old time fans out there expressing their thanks. Deanna Bogart is the only member that I had even heard of. It is thanks to WHFS that I was turned on to the band and why I actually went out and purchased a couple of their LPs.
My huge regret is never getting to see them live.
Thanks for the feedback Brian...I'll be more careful next time around....
Hi again -- not a big deal -- all is forgiven! That's a little pop-up sub-page for this story:
http://rhumba.com/frames/alaskaframe.html -- I guess all those pop-ups ought to have (C) verbiage. No biggie -- such are the vagaries of the web and search engines. Again, it's nice to see your, and all, the nice comments so many years later. CBJ played a lot of great music in a lot of great places for (obviously) a lot of nice people. Glad the albums are still putting a few smiles on other nice faces.
--b
Thanks Brian!
I just wanted to thank you for this site!! Denise was my aunt (my favorite aunt, actually). I may be biased, but she was the most musically gifted person I will probably ever know, and was a great inspiration to me. The last few times she came back to Rochester to visit, I was able to play duets with her (me on piano). I had always wanted to play a duet with Aunt Denise, so I'm so happy I was able to do that not once, but twice. :-) Denise's death devastated me, but I have so many great memories of her to make me laugh and smile.
Katie
Katie,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about your Aunt Denise!
Hope all is well with you and yours...
Kayaker
Cowboy Jazz music maybe got around more than they knew. I picked up a copy of 'thats what we like about the west' at an import shop in Sydney maybe 20 or 25 years ago, and loved every inch of it. So did all my mates. We never saw or heard or knew any more about them.
My turntable got destroyed a few years after and I didn't hear them again - or any other of my records. Then I found your blog - and hey they sound just as fresh as they ever did.
Particularly enjoyed Sugar Moon, so apt and fortuitous. Its just coming up to June, when they start crushing the Sugar here in Queensland.
Thanks so much for this post.
Cheers PineappleSkip
PineappleSkip,
Awesome to hear feeback all the way from Oz! Hope to hear from you soon!
Wow, thank you so much for posting all of this information. I grew up listening to tapes my father made of both albums during endless road trips through Wyoming in the early 80's. Loved the sound then, love it now and I bet I still remember every word!
Riian,
Thanks for the feedback...Enjoy!
These two albums are in my top 10 all time favorites. I wish they had record 50 more. I love them and thank you profusely for putting them in digital form. If my vinyl copies ever wear out I have backups. Thank you, thank you.
50 more albums woulda been great Steve!
This album was one of my favorites many years ago--I used to play "Too Much Fun" all the time and dance to the song with my little daughters, who are full grown women now. My copy of the album was broken in two (long story), and the album was never issued as a CD, to my knowledge. So I was happy to find your site as I was cruising around the net. Thanks for this blast from the past.
Glad you found it here, and thanks for leaving some feedback!
Today is my brother Tony;s 52nd birthday and I miss him dearly. Nice post from Brian. Regrets about Denise, as I did not know. To Barry, Deanna, and Charlie, keep going for it! Love, Michael DeFontes
Brian, I was going to ask if you were there when you guys hit the poor horse. Tony said all he heard before impact was everyone up front sucking in air....Michael D
I'd like to add a big thanks to making this music available. I just saw Barry play with Phil in SF for NYE and it always reminds me of 25-30 years ago. So many years since those incredible nights at No Fish Today. Believe it or not, I still hear Cowboy Jazz occaisionally on the local radio -- KPIG outta Santa Cruz!
Best regards to Balto from San Mateo,
Alan R
Thanks for that Santa Cruz!
Happy New Year!
Thanks so much for for posting this. I also saw Cowboy Jazz many time in Baltimore at No Fish Today during my college years. I even used "Baby Don't Call" on my answering machine for years. I have the album on vinyl, but no way to get it to MP3. Thanks again. Now my husband can hear what I've been raving about all these years.
Thanks for the feeback. hope your hubby enjoys this great band!
Oh! So excited! I wore out the cassettes of both albums & could never find them on CD. Before google, I could never figure out who they even were. It's amazing & great to have this old mystery cleared up. I don't know why I even owned them to begin with. Wow, it's great to hear that music again. Thank you!!!!!
Thanks for the feedback and gratitude...The feedback on this post is off the charts!
I helped with public radio promotion of their tour, apparently the last one, in S.E. Alaska in 1987. Still have the t-shirt, what a wonderful time that was.
Robert
Thanks for sharing that Robert
These records are the artists and Rounder Records copyrighted intelectual property. Why do you feel it is ok to distribute it freely like this? These artist are still alive and working. They are hard working small time musicians - not rich and famous. Please tell me how is this different from, say, people walking in to your store and thinking its ok to help themselves (and anyone they can find) to your merchandise which you don't currently have out for sale simply because it's not readily available? Shame on you for stealing from the musicians who's music, efforts and investment you enjoy so much.
working musician, I understand what you are saying. But...1st off, these are crappy bitrates and are posted here to get the music out there and not for stealing. If you could purchase this music from Rounder this post would be deleted. If they are not available for sale, what is the harm in sharing so that others canb be made aware of this great band?
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