The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Not well known, but Molly Reeves is a great rhythm guitarist. She's mostly in New Orleans, but occasionally elsewhere. She sings, and sometimes plays the melody, but mostly she just plays rhythm, and does it well. She's in several groups, including the Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band, and gets around. This video with the New Orleans Jazz Vipers (one of the best NOLA groups, makes Tuba Skinny sound like amateurs) is an example. She's driving the drummerless band. There is usually a trumpet, but not this time. This is rhythm guitar as it should be.


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  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgosnell
    Not well known, but Molly Reeves is a great rhythm guitarist. She's mostly in New Orleans, but occasionally elsewhere. She sings, and sometimes plays the melody, but mostly she just plays rhythm, and does it well. She's in several groups, including the Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band, and gets around. This video with the New Orleans Jazz Vipers (one of the best NOLA groups, makes Tuba Skinny sound like amateurs) is an example. She's driving the drummerless band. There is usually a trumpet, but not this time. This is rhythm guitar as it should be.

    She sounds good. Back in the 30s, the archtops were kings because the only gigs they'd have were Depression rent parties in apartments.
    No one could afford a piano, so my father would play four to the bar rhythm on his D'A with a horn player or two playing the melody.
    Singers, bassists and pianists only played with the big bands, so vocalists were almost considered a novelty back then.
    This meant that singers were looked upon as the useless idiots that they really are, and musicians were kings.
    Things were better back then...

  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgcim
    She sounds good. Back in the 30s, the archtops were kings because the only gigs they'd have were Depression rent parties in apartments.
    No one could afford a piano, so my father would play four to the bar rhythm on his D'A with a horn player or two playing the melody.
    Singers, bassists and pianists only played with the big bands, so vocalists were almost considered a novelty back then.
    This meant that singers were looked upon as the useless idiots that they really are, and musicians were kings.
    Things were better back then...
    And I should have thought that people just sang along with the music.


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  5. #4

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    That was fun!

  6. #5

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    I think I've seen her playing a tricone in another WWOZ live video, is that possible?

    What's the archtop she's playing here? I caught a quick glimps of the sides that look like mahogany rather than the common maple.

  7. #6

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    She plays a National now and then, and I think sometimes other guitars. She has been in NOLA for years, and with various groups. It's certainly possible you saw her on a WWOZ video. I haven't kept close tabs on her, I just see her in a lot of videos. Lately she's been playing with the Shake 'em Up Jazz Band, an all female group with some excellent horn players. Chloe Feoranzo is a great clarinetist, and has been since her early teens, although she hasn't been in the latest few videos of the group. She's also played with many groups all over the country, and is in tons of YouTube videos. Another guitarist I like is Albanie Falletta, who started in Austin, was in NOLA for some time, and apparently has moved to New York City now.

    Here's Albanie, Chloe, and Kala Chandra, a very capable guitarist himself.


    This may be the video you're thinking of, RJVB. They do need the clarinet, but they get by.


    I'm not sure what guitar Molly was playing in the first video. It looks like a vintage Gibson, but there doesn't seem to be a logo on the headstock, possibly refinished. Probably little original left on it, a player grade for schlepping around the French Quarter. Sounds good, though.

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgosnell
    This may be the video you're thinking of, RJVB. They do need the clarinet, but they get by.
    Yep! The name of the group already rang a bell, in fact.
    They certainly get by (I never noticed the absence of a clarinet)!

  9. #8

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    This music just makes me feel good.

  10. #9

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    Some people don't like trad jazz (or New Orleans jazz, or whatever you want to call it), but I have loved it ever since I first heard it as a kid. Probably the first album I ever bought was by the Dukes of Dixieland. I don't understand how anyone could dislike it, but then there are many things I don't understand, and never will. It's happy music, even St James Infirmary.

  11. #10

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    Molly is quite talented. I have followed her for years. She can play, sing and write tunes.
    Last edited by Stringswinger; 08-12-2022 at 12:36 AM.

  12. #11

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    Another Molly Reeves fan here. Being a clarinet fan I often go back to this one: