CD Review
by Bert Thompson
GEORGE KNOBLAUCH'S BLACK DIAMOND JAZZ BAND—"I'M GOING AWAY
TO WEAR YOU OFF MY MIND" (Merry Makers Record Company MMRC-CD-27).
Playing time: 51 mins. 22 SECS.
Borneo*; Alligator Hop**; Broken Promises#‡; Tiger Moan; I'm Going Away to
Wear You Off My Mind; Black Wall Tunnel Blues**; Sax-O-Phun; Harlem Rag;
Salty Bubble; Waiting for the Evening Mail#; Sorry; I Don't Want to Go Back to
You; My Baby Knows How*; Razzy Dazzy‡‡; Mad Dog. Recorded in Berkeley,
Calif., March and April, 1989.
Personnel: George Knoblauch, banjo, leader, vocal#; Franco Finstad, cornet; John
Howard, reeds; Brent Bergman, trombone; Marty Eggers, piano; Tom Downs, tuba;
Bill Gunter, percussion, vocal*.
**add Charlie Sonnanstine, 2nd cornet ‡Marty Eggers, 2nd cornet; Bill Gunter,
piano; ‡‡Tom Downs, jug.
After the thriving traditional jazz scene of the late nineteen forties and the fifties,
the sixties saw a decline in such activity in the San Francisco Bay Area. Turk
Murphy hung on through that decade in his club Earthquake McGoon's, the first
version of which opened in 1960, but not a lot else was available. With the advent
of the seventies, however, things began to change. Jazz societies began to form all
over the Bay Area as well as elsewhere, and with them came the formation of quite a
number of bands. The first of the Sacramento festivals occurred in 1974, and other
festivals followed all up and down the state, particularly during the eighties. It was
at this time George Knoblauch formed the Black Diamond Jazz Band in Stockton,
California, in 1982. Like many bands, it followed the path blazed by Lu Watters
and Turk Murphy, lasting until 1992 when it reduced to a quintet named the Black
Diamond Blue Five, which modeled itself stylistically on the Clarence Williams
Blue Five and which is still performing. During the ten years of the Black Diamond
Jazz Band's existence, the band issued two recordings, one on its own label in 1983
and the other in 1989, a cassette on the Merry Makers label, MMRC 119. It is that
cassette which is reissued here as a CD.
What struck me most about this recording is how tight the band was. While they
played from arrangements—many of them by Charlie Sonnanstine, featured here
on a couple of numbers, and Robin Wetterau - room was still left on the solos for
improvisation. So the band does not sound stilted, and the playing is amazingly
fresh and clean, given the youth of some of the musicians at the time. The lead
horn, Franco Finstad, was all of twenty-one then, Marty Eggers twenty-two, and
Brent Bergman twenty-three. All of the men on this recording are still quite active
in various groups today (none with the Black Diamond Blue Five, however, other
than George Knoblauch, of course) except, perhaps, for Franco Finstad, of whom I
have not heard anything recently, although it seems unlikely that he will not be
playing somewhere.
The tune list is quite broad-ranging, allowing the band to demonstrate its versalility
as well as providing the listener with a smorgasboard of not-often-heard tunes. Joe
Oliver is well represented, not with the more familiar numbers but with the lesser-
known ones such as Alligator Hop and I'm Going Away to Wear You Off My Mind.
Bix is recognized with Sorry, Turk Murphy with Razzy Dazzy, Lu Watters/Clancy
Hayes with Broken Promises. There are even several tunes that almost no one will
have heard before—Charlie Sonnanstine's Black Wall Tunnel Blues, Ray Ronnei's
Salty Bubble, and I Don't Want to Go Back to You by Franco Finstad and Marty
Eggers. Sax-O-Phun, a novelty piece, is not my cup of tea, but it further evidences
the variety of the band's repertoire, as does Harlem Rag, taken a tad too fast, I
think. Tiger Moan and Mad Dog are another pair that one does not hear often, if at
all. And as I said above, all are well played. One might have hoped for a few more
tracks to augment the playing time, but it would seem such were not available.
So here you have a chance to witness—and enjoy—some of what was going on in
the eighties in Northern California. The CD is available from Ted Shafer at Merry
Makers Record Company, 926 Beechwood Circle, Suisun City, CA 94585, tel. toll-
free 1-866-563-4433) for $16.00, post paid, and probably from World Records or
another mail order source.
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