Joseph “Brother Cornbread” Thomas
THAT’S A PLENTY
This track comes at the recommendation of the great New Orleans trumpeter Mark Braud, whom I’ll be profiling next week. I had asked Mark for a good version of the standard “That’s a Plenty,” and he immediately responded with this. Featuring the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band from a live 1964 television broadcast in Germany, YouTube seems to be the only place where it exists online. This is a departure from prior blog entries as I typically try to stick with album recordings only. But in the interest of documentation, I went ahead and pulled off Joseph’s clarinet choruses at the top of the solo section.
There’s not a ton of information online about Joseph “Brother Cornbread” Thomas, but a nickname such as “brother cornbread” certainly warrants more. There is, however, a recent book published in 2013 by Sally Newhart entitled, The Original Tuxedo Jazz Band: More Than a Century of a New Orleans Icon. For those seeking more information this would be a good start.
What’s obvious from the title alone is that this band operated for a long time, with different bandleaders and configurations along the way. They are credited as the first jazz band to perform at the White House in 1953. The live version presented here in 1964 was led by Albert “Papa” French on banjo, and features Jack Willis on cornet, Joseph Thomas on clarinet and vocal, Walden “Froghead” Joseph on trombone (another splendid name), Jeanette Kimball on piano, Frank Fields on bass, and Louis Barbarin on drums. The broadcast includes four numbers: “Eh La-Bas", “Just A Closer Walk,” “Didn’t He Ramble,” and “That’s A Plenty.”
“That’s a Plenty” is typical of many traditional numbers in that it has an extended form with several repeated sections. The solo section is much more contained, a simple 8 bar progression over I-VI7-II7-V7-I. After the rather dense ensemble passages, this makes an ideal soloing tune typically taken at fast tempos. Thomas has the first solo and plays two choruses that embody classic traditional vocabulary:
Thomas’ style is soundly vertical and arpeggio based. He uses almost the same pattern over the Bb chord in multiple places:
Over the G7, he squarely outlines the chord tones in a similar fashion with the 9th included as a passing tone.
When Thomas does deviate from this vertical approach, he uses a traditional chromatic technique using the minor third to major third:
…as well as adding the raised fourth to go chromatically from the third to the fifth:
It would be hard to find a better example of traditional playing than “Brother Cornbread” Thomas. His melodic language is clear and effortless, an excellent reminder that phrases which are executed the cleanest are often the most impactful.
