Jam Logs, the Podcast of The 1937 Flood

Our Vanessa Coffman has grown up in a very musical family. Her mom, Julianne, is a singer and today teaches music in the Cabell County schools. Her dad, Gary, also an educator, played sax in Marshall University jazz bands back in the ‘90s. So it’s not surprising that both her young siblings also play assorted instruments and sing. Veezy’s memories of childhood are filled with the sounds of her dad playing some of our greatest jazz standards of all times — “‘Round Midnight,” “Take Five,” “Georgia on My Mind” — and when at about 7 she wanted to be a sax player like her dad, it was Gary who taught her those first notes. The two of them still regularly jam together; some of our favorite new pictures in the Flood album are of the Coffmans playing duets, at home and even on the beach last summer. Well, today is Gary Coffman’s birthday, so here’s a little surprise from his Flood family: His favorite saxophonist playing his favorite tune. From a recent Flood gathering, this is Earle Hagen’s classic “Harlem Nocturne.” Aw, tell it, Veezy!

 Singer/songwrirer Bob Gibson was a very early arrival on the folk music scene in the late 1950s. In fact, Bob was already so well established by the time of the 1959 Newport Folk Festival that it was he who introduced the crowd to a then-unknown Joan Baez. His songs were recorded by everybody from Peter, Paul and Mary and Simon & Garfunkel to the Byrds and Bob Dylan. Perhaps Gibson’s best-known song is “Abilene,” which he wrote with Lester Brown and John D. Loudermilk in the early 1960s. Bob always said he was inspired to write the song after watching cowboy star Randolph Scott’s film “Abilene Town,” which was set in Abilene, Kansas, the railhead town at the end of the Chisholm Trail. The Flood’s been doing some version of this tune for at least a decade now. Here’s the 2021 rendition, with Randy rocking the vocal harmonies, supported by sweet solos from Veezy, Doug and Sam.

 So much about a good evening of music depends on the chemistry of the people in the room, and last night there were some wonderful people in the room. Our dear old friend, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin dropped in with his sweet fiancé Gina Raynard. Man, any room that Gina and Paul are in is suddenly brighter. And, of course, when Paul unpacks his mandolin, we’re all ready to trot out the old tunes. Of course, chemistry is also about the elements that are not in the mix; this was our first get-together since last weekend when we learned of the Covid-related death of our mutual friend, the extraordinary banjo picker Rick Harmon. Stories of Rick went around the room, and perhaps the best tune of the night was this one, sung his honor.

 There are some nights when the music just can’t wait to get out, when everybody seemed to come to the room in the same groove. Last night was such a night, and I think we all knew it from the first notes of the first tune.

 More than a decade ago, Doug Chaffin taught us a beautiful, mysterious waltz called “Ookpik.” At the time, he usually played it on fiddle or mandolin, but it’s had many configurations for The Flood, depending on who was sitting around the table when the tune comes up.  Lately Doug’s brought the song to his guitar for a lovely duet with Veezy Coffman’s sax.  Now “ookpik” is an Inuit name for the “snowy owl” that is native to Alaska. The late British Columbian fiddler Frankie Rodgers used the word for his title when he composed the piece back in 1965, and ever since then there’s been magic in a melody that seems to somehow capture a stately dance of wings in a cobalt blue sky.

 More than a decade ago, Doug Chaffin taught us a beautiful, mysterious waltz called “Ookpik.” At the time, he usually played it on fiddle or mandolin, but it’s had many configurations for The Flood, depending on who was sitting around the table when the tune comes up. Lately Doug’s brought the song to his guitar for a lovely duet with Veezy Coffman’s sax. Now “ookpik” is an Inuit name for the “snowy owl” that is native to Alaska. The late British Columbian fiddler Frankie Rodgers used the word for his title when he composed the piece back in 1965, and ever since then there’s been magic in a melody that seems to somehow capture a stately dance of wings in a cobalt blue sky.

We started playing the wonderful Diamond Teeth Mary Blues & Arts Festival in downtown Huntington…  oh, it’s been seven or eight years ago now, and we always love coming back, but lord, and never more than this time. After the seemingly endless Covid shutdown, this’ll be our first public show in more than a year. We’ll be on stage at the festival at 2 o’clock this Saturday afternoon. Come on down for blues, food, art and good fellowship. To get in the mood, here’s a tune we’re working up for our set. We join in progress as The Flood finds its way to St. James Infirmary. Remember, we’re at the Diamond Teeth Mary Blues & Arts Festival at 2 p.m. Saturday at Heritage Station, at 210 11th Street in beautiful downtown Huntington.  

There’s nothing at all wrong with doing public shows — shoot, we in the band are such hams that we all get a charge out of puttin’ on and showin’ off on stage — but we live for the weekly jam sessions, when we just kick back and play for each other. These nights are a musical crazy quilt, zigzagging all over our eclectic repertoire, zipping from a zany jug band tune to a sweet ballad and then back again in the span of dozen minutes. Here’s a typical moment. Fresh from that raucous blues stomp, we suddenly land out the softest sod of our evening’s stroll together, this gentlest of all Irish tunes, compliments of the poet William Butler Yeats.

 In blues parlance, the term “easy rider” is code for …oh, well, many things. Maybe a rovin’ gambler or a lover, maybe a pimp… Y’all just talk among yourselves and let your imagination gallop away with that one. The easy rider starts appearing in blues songs more than a century ago. W.C. Handy featured an easy rider in his great “Yellow Dog Blues” back in 1912, but of course, that text was covered in an earlier sermon from this pulpit. Well, a decade or so after Handy, another of our heroes, Hudson Whitaker — better known to the denizens of night music as Tampa Red — brought out a new version of the story and it’s that tune that’s been rattling around our heads lately. Well, last night our old buddy, hamonicat Jim Rumbaugh dropped by to sit in and we just had to introduce him to the tune. Here’s the result, with tasty solos and fills by Jim, Randy Hamilton on bass and, of course, on the tenor the soulful Miss Veezy Coffman.

 At a recent rehearsal, we tapped Veezy Coffman to choose the last tune of the night. Without hesitation, she called for “Honeysuckle Rose.” You know,  sometimes we’re amazed at the affinity she has for songs that are, some of them, nearly five times older than she is. But then again, listening to her loving, lively treatment of this great old Fats Waller jazz classic affirms for us all over again that music has a lot more to do with head and heart than it does with ticks on a clock or numbers on a calendar. Ah, tell it, Veezy!