MEDIA
New Release! June 3, 2022
Minneapolis Bump
Fifteen Original Songs Inspired by the Jazz Age
Southside Aces have released their newest album, Minneapolis Bump, containing fifteen original compositions by clarinetist Tony Balluff. The band celebrated the release with a concert at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis on June 3rd, 2022.
This is the band’s eighth full-length album. Songs inspired by the stars of the early jazz firmament — Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington, to name just a few. A 21st Century take on the Jazz Age.
“Mr. Balluff and his colleagues have followed the inner logic of traditional jazz to create these works -- they are a transmutation of an older style into something that sounds similar…but that is, nonetheless, new and different. If you see [Minneapolis Bump], buy it.”
John Beckmann — Prairie Uprising
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How Long Blues
Butch Thompson & Southside Aces
with Charlie DeVore
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The Southside Aces had the pleasure of joining piano virtuoso Butch Thompson onstage every month throughout 2019 to create music redolent of the New Orleans dance hall, out of which came their album, How Long Blues, a live recording from one of those nights. The septet recorded at Crooners Supper Club, making Fridley, Minnesota the center of the hot jazz universe for those few hours. Their sounds were captured along with the wily vocals of special guest Charlie DeVore. They released the album from the Belvedere Stage of Crooners on October 24, 2020.
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Butch Thompson
The original Music Director of MPR's nationally syndicated variety show A Prairie Home Companion, can boast of a jazz career spanning over six decades — although he really isn’t the type to boast. A jazz piano master, with a particular mastery of Jelly Roll Morton, he has made regular appearances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest and festivals all around the world. He also was clarinetist for regionally acclaimed jazz pioneers, the Hall Brothers Jazz Band, and since the 1960s has led the Butch Thompson Trio, which spent two decades on A Prairie Home Companion. Additionally, he is a noted early jazz historian, creating and hosting the radio program Jazz Originals for 25 years.
Charlie DeVore
The inimitable cornetist and vocalist for the Hall Brothers, has himself spent over sixty years playing New Orleans music, entertaining with a unique wit and authentic jazz heart.
Southside Aces
The sextet has been playing early jazz since 2003, covering a range of music from Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong, all the way to George Lewis and Preservation Hall Jazz Band. It has been their great fortune to be mentored by jazz luminaries like Thompson and DeVore, and to carry on the tradition of this great American music.