UP THE MISSISSIPPI WITH
THE PHENOMENAL DUKES OF DIXIELAND

VOLUME 9


One of the absolute horrors of record collecting is that quite often the record collector
(me) will come in contact with old rancid Dixieland albums from the distant past...

Now, there aren't that many "genres" of music I despise...but fer crying out loud,
Dixieland has just got to be the worst sort of music devised by civilized man.

They say it (Dixieland) spawned modern Jazz but that's like saying
that prehistoric people eating dirt spawned the modern culinary art of sushi
or that geese and ducks are related because they both waddle.

Really...Dixieland is the American equivalent of horrid Polish Polka music
(and I can talk, because i'm half Polish) - but anyway, I happened to be
scouring through a bunch of cardboard boxes of old records the other day
at the swap meet when my eyes chanced to meet an actual Dixieland album
and I normally would have simply tossed it (the album) on the ground and
stomped repeatedly on it...but this particular Dixieland album had something
quite exotic and universally appealing...it had a great cover!





I won't drool over it too much here, but the photo illustration on the cover of this album by
The Dukes of Dixieland is smooth as silk and wacky all around...it's possible these gents
aren't even the real Dukes of Dixieland but perhaps stunt musicians out for some bucks
(you never can tell in the dirty lowdown world of old, forgotten and rancid Dixieland music)

The thing I really like about the cover art is that all the "Dukes" have playing cards
stuck into their various colorful Dixieland top hats and...here are some closer views...






Vertical tromboning is the best tromboning!






Plenty of playing cards to fund even the largest of poker games!






Where's this guy's blue coat today?






Tuba players don't get any easy breaks!






Which leads us to this guy and his checkerboard trousers,
all-knowing grin, bright green tie and strange banjo technique!