International Jazz Banjo Newsletter

The Strummers held their 14th annual Spring Fling the weekend of March 23-26,2006 at the Holiday Inn in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Our Headliner this year was Kurt Abell.
He did a great job at the Spring Fling with all his medleys. Songs you never hear! One of them was a big hit with all of us "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road" only Kurt could pull that off, with a special skunk hat and all! I still have it stuck in my head! However, the way he plays banjo is different than most other banjoists. Not only complex songs in medleys, but also lots of very musical ideas and passages of moving bass lines and inner voices to color and accompany himself. His alternative chords come from moving those inner voices so that not only does the melody sound wonderful, the way he moves from one chord to another in his chord melody's is just astounding! I have never seen someone with such a great ability to stretch for those notes he gets, but the notes and the way he uses them convinces me he is one of the few masters of that art form on any instrument! His workshop was one of the best we have had. All who attended walked away with a new sense of how rythum should be done and how to listen to it also.
We started off on Thursday evening with a Lobby performance by Dave Frey and Paul Doerner. As our attendees were heading for the Main Ballroom for the Strummers concert, they entertained on their plectrum banjos. The concert by the Strummers was held for the local area Senior Centers and Retirement homes. We had a full house with about 500 people in attendance for the concert. Tom Fee directed the band through memory lane on over 40 songs from the Tin Pan Alley era. Kurt gave us a teaser mini-concert for 15 minutes to show what people some of what they could expect in his one and a half hour concert on Saturday night.
Friday afternoon and we opened the registration table and had the first 4 of our lobby performances. Paul and I have the philosophy that as soon as you walk in the door of the hotel, there should be something happening musically from that point on. We had Dr Jeff Grosser and Friends play for an hour and then Steve Caddick and Friends play for an hour and then the Ross Hubbell Trio from Chicago play Gypsy Jazz for an hour. To finish off for the afternoon lobby performances we had Kurt Abell play for an hour.
Friday night we had the Providence Mandolin Orchestra, directed by Mr. Mark Davis, play in concert on the main stage followed by the Ross Hubbell Trio. Ross and Larry were accompanied by a local jazz great on bass,Mr. Steve Morawiec. Jamming followed the concert until the wee hours of the morning.
Saturday morning we had the 3 workshops. Eric Anderson gave a workshop on: "The Bass Line, the Foundation, Where it all Begins" He is Tubist from Maine. Also from Maine this year Dr. Jeff Grosser gave a workshop on "Banjo Playing is a Right and Left Brain Exercise: A Left Hand, Right Hand, Science, Art, Knowledge, and Technique Activity" Kurt Abell gave a 2 part workshop on: 1. "Slaying The Frustration Dragon" and 2."Rhythm Is Our Business" During this same time we continued with our lobby performances. They included: The Red
Suspenders, Dave Frey and Friends and a wonderful performance by Mike Hashem and friends. Mike played banjo and had 2 cornets and a bass with him. Great stuff!
At 1pm the "All Star Concert" was held in the main ballroom where all who wanted to participate were given a 12 minute time slot to show their stuff! Many played in this concert as it lasted over 5 hours! Many local singles, duos, trios etc played their hearts out for the overflow audience.During the weekend we had a vendor room with many people selling their music related items. Among them was Dr Gil O'Gawa who spent many hours fixing and adjusting banjos for many players. In the main lobby we had Gary and Maria Hicken taking photos of anyone who wanted to have a good photo of themselves made and also Kurt stood for 2 hours to have his picture taken with many of our attendees. This was a new idea for the Spring Fling and I think it just might catch on. Nothing says great memory like a photo.
Saturday night had only the one concert with Kurt Abell on stage as described at the beginning of this article. After Kurt's concert, the jamming started up in full swing in several areas. Once again it went on into the early hours of the morning. Sunday morning and it was time for Tom Fee's annual "Gospel Jam" where he projects hymns, gospel tunes etc up onto the big screen. In between the songs out come the stories and jokes. We many of those this year also.
One of the highlights was to see Dave Frey's new banjo created by Renee Karnes. Solid Ebony with engravings and carvings and over a pound of mother of pearl and abalone in it. What a graveyard for shell it is! Someone said that we had so much going on, you could not possibly see it all.
Well that is about it for the Spring Fling for this year. Paul and I would like to extend our personal invitation to you all to come next year. The dates
are: March 22-25, 2007 right at the Holiday Inn in Mansfield Massachusetts, USA.
My best,
Steve Caddick.