Big Bill Bissonnette, RIP

[jeffcrom]

I wanted to post a memorial tribute to Bill Big Bissonette, who will not be known to many folks here, probably. I just learned that he died two months ago, June 26, 2018, at the age of 81.

Bissonette was a trombonist, drummer, and record label owner, specializing in traditional New Orleans revival music. As a trombonist, he was enthusiastic and unoriginal, imitating the style of his idol, Big Jim Robinson as well as he could. I've got a couple of albums that he plays drums on, and I remember his playing as a trad jazz percussionist to be similarly competent and imitative.

His Connecticut-based Easy Riders Jazz Band was a decent revivalist band, and was famous for inviting "real deal" New Orleans musicians up for New England tours. In this capacity, he made one of his most important contributions to jazz by putting together "The December Band" for a series of concerts in Massachusetts and Connecticut in December, 1965. The December Band combined four New Orleanians - Kid Thomas Valentine, Big Jim Robinson, Captain John Handy, and Sammy Penn - with four members of the Easy Riders. The December Band is legendary among fans of latter-day New Orleans trad jazz. Six LPs were recorded during the tour - including The December Band, Volume Two on Bissonnette's Jazz Crusade label. That one is included as one of the 250 albums in the book The Essential Jazz Records, Volume One: Ragtime to Swing by Max Harrison, et al. That tour also brought Captain John Handy to the attention of someone at RCA - he subsequently recorded two albums for them.

The Jazz Crusade label, inconsistent as it was, probably represents Bissonnette's greatest achievement. He relied too much on the Easy Riders rhythm section, which was kind of archaic, but recorded some excellent New Orleans-style music in the 1960s. He then retired from music and sold his recordings to the Jazzology group, where many of them can be found now. But he started playing again and revived Jazz Crusade in 1990 and had a pretty good 20-year run. I was on his mailing list, and enjoyed getting those catalogs four times a year. The latter-day Jazz Crusade issued some excellent music (along with plenty of mediocre stuff), with cheaply printed inserts that I suspect Bissonnette made at home. Among the highlights of the later Jazz Crusade are seven CDs from Sidney Bechet's 1945 run at the Savoy Cafe in Boston, with trumpeters Bunk Johnson, Peter Bocage, and Johnny Windhurst

Right now I'm listening to a 1999 Jazz Crusade CD, Walking With the King, by Gregg Stafford with the Easy Riders. In the liner notes, Bissonnette talks about how things had flipped since the 1960s - back then the New Orleans musicians were the old guys, and the Easy Riders were the eager youngsters. On this album, Stafford (who plays great here) is the youngster at 45.

I corresponded with Bissonnette back in the day, and was surprised at range of music he enjoyed listening to. I remember that he was a Caruso fan like me. RIP, Big Bill, and thanks for your modest, but very real, contributions to jazz.

Edited August 28, 2018 by jeffcrom

[lipi]

Thank you for posting this, Jeff.

(And those "Jazz Nocturne" Bechet CDs are annoyingly difficult to find. I got the MP3s from Amazon, of course, but I believe I only have one of the actual discs.) Edit: I take it all back: Amazon now lists all the CDs, too.

Listening to Victoria Spivey with the Easy Riders Jazz Band now, in honour of BBB.

Edited August 28, 2018 by lipi

[jeffcrom]

And there are a bunch of copies on Ebay. They're listed as imports because Bissonnette sold his remaining stock to a British label, I believe.