Set list:
1. Animule Dance
2. Livery Stable Blues
3. Froggie Moore
4. The Stampede
5. Daddy Won't You Please Come Home
6. Crock-O-Dile Cradle
7. King Kong Stomp
8. Black Beauty
9. Clap Yo Hands
10. I Get The Blues When It Rains
11. Gully Low Blues
12. Old Man Sunshine
13. Star Dust
14. Tiger Rag
"Close your eyes," writes the Chicago Tribune's jazz critic Howard Reich on The Fat Babies, "and you'd think the calendar had flipped back nearly a century, when both the Green Mill and the music were new and Chicago itself was emerging as a jazz nexus." A seven-piece jazz band that interprets classic styles of the 1920s and 1930s, The Fat Babies were founded in 2010 by string bass player Beau Sample. The repertoire these young musicians play is from their grandparents' heyday, but they dispatch the music of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jelly Roll Morton, and King Oliver with verve, style, and buoyant dance rhythms. For their Festival debut, Sample leads the ensemble in an evening of story and song featuring Chicago vocalist Amanda Wolff. We're counting chickens for any number of Animal selections, from Oliver's Snake Rag to Morton's Wolverine Blues.
This program is generously underwritten by the Helen B. and Ira E. Graham Family.
This program was recorded on November 8, 2013 as part of the 24th annual Chicago Humanities Festival, Animal: What Makes Us Human: chf.to/2013Animal