Sneakers Jazz Band with Michael Ray
Sneakers' Bar & Grill
Winooski VT
June 4, 1996

Source:
Sony 737a (at front table, centered directly in front of the instruments) > Sony D6 > Sony RCD-W50c (w/ SBM) > CD-R > AIFF > Audacity > FLAC

taped by pete grrrrrshon (editor@signaltonoisemagazine.org)

disc 1:
1.) unknown title (traditional NOLA march often played by the Cosmic Krewe)
2.) Blue Monk (Monk)
3.) House of Gold (Harvey)
4.) Sex in the Church (Somerville)
5.) Caravan (Tizol)
6.) Dooji-Bop Scuffle (Harvey)

disc 2:
1.) Boogie Stop Shuffle (Mingus)
2.) unknown title
3.) Red Planet
4.) unknown title
5.) unknown title, very familiar, sounds like a Bird tune
6.) Minor Annoyance (Harvey)
7.) Little Sisters (Harvey)
8.) unknown title

personnel:
Paul Asbell: electric guitar
James Harvey: trombone
Joey Somerville: trumpet
Dave "The Truth" Grippo: alto saxophone
Michael Ray: trumpet
Bruce Sklar: piano
Clyde Stats: upright bass
Jeff Salisbury: drums

there was also some instrument switching: James Harvey plays drums on disc 1, track 6, and plays piano on disc 2, tracks 6 and 7. Etta James' drummer Chip White plays on disc 2, track 5. Clyde Stats arrived late, and consequently doesn't appear on the first two tracks.

This was sort of a warm-up gig for the band's opening set a few nights later for (if I remember right) the Mingus Big Band on the Flynn Theater mainstage during the Discover Jazz Festival. However, the Sneakers Jazz Band played weekly at this tiny Winooski restaurant very consistently for about a decade, with more or less the same personnel. In June of '96, James Harvey was just arriving back from several years in California, playing alongside his friend Peter Apfelbaum with Don Cherry and in Apfelbaum's Heiroglyphics Ensemble. Michael Ray was coming to Burlington a few times each year in the mid-'90s to play with the Cosmic Krewe's Vermont-based lineup and to sit in on gigs like this one. Those were the days!

Tried to smooth out a couple of tape flips ... I think the only loss of music was the intro to "Minor Annoyance". Fade out at six minutes on the second disc's final track at the CD's limit presumably happened manually during the original tape-to-CD transfer some five years ago ... I never expected anyone else would be interested in this stuff, and there probably isn't much music missing anyway. The master tapes still exist, but they're being cared for at the Vermont live music archive in Vermont ... I may well have them sent down to Houston one day to transfer whatever small amount of additional music might remain. For now, hope you'll enjoy what's here!