This CD collects recordings that folklorist/anthropologist Frederic Ramsey Jr. made of Warren “Baby” Dodds in 1946, and the Laneville-Johnson Union Brass Band and the Lapsey Band in 1954. Dodds was the pre-eminent New Orleans drummer of his time, playing with Bunk Johnson and Fate Marable before contributing to canonical ‘20s recordings by King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong. When Ramsey recorded him in an empty Chicago studio in 1946, Dodds’ star had long since passed in favor of swing, and subsequently be-bop, but his solo drum demonstrations prove that Dodds had lost none of his clever style in the intervening years. If Dodds’ drumming represents the vertebrae of early jazz, then the rural brass bands here represent the lifeblood that animated jazz in the South. Recorded outdoors and at night (the players worked all day) these rural Alabaman brass bands forgo tunefulness and polish for pure elemental wail. The recordings might be a tough listen for fans accustomed to the mastery of Armstrong and Oliver, but what the bands possess in heart and determination more than makes up for anything they lack in technical ability.