Tuba Skinny & The Island City Jazz Band

Many years ago -- late '70s/early '80s -- there was a "trad jazz" ensemble that played every Friday night at The Electric Co., a pizza & beer joint in Friday Harbor, where my parents lived.  They were comprised of a few retired professional musicians (jazz & orchestra), some talented amateurs from the island, a music teacher at the U., and various hangers-on and sit-ins who might, or might not appear.  They played an odd collection of Dixieland, old vaudeville tunes, novelty hits from the '20s, New Orleans jazz, ragtime, Le Jazz Hot and whatever else the beers eventually brought out.  The Electric Company seated about 20, and make that 6 if the band was playing because they took up half the floorspace.  But the owners didn't mind because their beer sales soared the longer they played.

My dad, being a huge jazz fan, started taking me there when I was in town.  Soon enough, I anticipated the trip and brought my brand new Nakamichi 550 cassette deck with me.  They didn't mind if I set it up on one of the tables, with the stereo mic two feet from the trumpeter & leader, Tom Skoog.  I got a nice rousing 90-minute set on tape and sent him a copy, as requested.  Then the tuba player wanted a copy, and then the banjo, and then the bass...  Screw it, I said, and sent the master cassette to Tom.

A couple months later he brought the band into a local studio and professionally recorded them, and the LP did a brisk business at the pub.  Pretty soon a second, then 3rd, then 4th LP appeared.

Alas, the tuba player crashed his plane and died.  The trumpeter retired (again), and the band kind of fell apart.  Their albums of course have never been reissued on CD, and are now collector's items (priced accordingly).  More's the pity -- it was good clean fun.

Tuba Skinny play the same kind of music, with the same elan, and you can hear why the band was so much fun to record.


They even had something of a local hit, in 1983, with "Elwha On The Rocks" about a Washington State Ferries captain who grounded his vessel trying to show off for his girlfriend.
https://sanjuanupdate.com/updatepix07/elwarocks.mp3

Holy crap.  Shaye Cohn is a pretty damn impressive pianist too.

Well after resisting the urge for as long as I could (seven months) I finally broke down last week and ordered the ICJB albums from E-Bay. Starting in on digitizing the first one this weekend. Whoo-Boy! This stuff is even better than I remembered it. The players, particularly Don Anderson the trombonist, are shivers-up-your-spine virtuosic. And the recordings are fucking amazing.

Five minutes of perfection.