Neal Siegal's video: John Gill s Gotham Jazz Festival 2019 Jazz Band

One of the main draws to the 2019 NYC Gotham Jazz Festival was to hear a band that was hand-picked by, banjoist, John Gill (an uncompromising old school traditional jazz purist, who knows and plays that real thing- having played with one of Turk Murphy's bands). This is just a teaser. Sure enough, this "All-Star" band delivered gut-bucket saloon jazz of the most authentic and compelling kind I've ever heard live. I was genuinely moved to the brink of tears over those "she done him wrong songs" - and John's charming self- deprecating persona and his manly unaffected vocal delivery only added to it. L-R: Jim Fryer (tmbn), Brian Nalepka (bs), Dan Block (cl), Kevin Dorn (dr), Simon Wettenhall (tmpt) Conal Fowkes (p) and John (bnj, voc, bandleader). The added fact that is very likely to be John's last NY performance before moving to New Orleans made it even more bitter-sweet and alone justified my attendance. He is going to be very sorely missed here in NYC!