Cherry, Blue and I played at Cherry's sister's wedding at the "Old School' on Kingland, GA. It's a historic one room school house build for black students in 1921. With unbelievably great acoustics! We played a few originals and a few songs that would have been "hot" back then, St. Louis Blues, Ballin' the Jack, etc. Long trip, but very satisfying show & congrats to the bride and groom!

Read about the old school here
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/022503/met_11838614.shtml

they were historic... well NOW they're historic, but there aren't many examples of this particular type of school-building left, so it's cool to be in it.

We're working up for two or three gigs here, plus we're going to be the band that kick off "North City Farmer's Market" on June 4. Should be a fun event, with a cook-off, local vendors, and of course... us! I'm working on writing some new originals, and getting the band up on four old WC Handy Songs... we have three in the hopper—St. Louis Blues, Memphis Blues, and Yellow Dog Blues—and Beale Street Blues will round out the quartet.

Folks at the wedding of all ages really got into some of the old tunes.

We've got everyone on the recordings now, but a couple vocal parts, so we're on our way. Sounds pretty good!

I've been fortunate over my life to be able to absorb and squeeze out several styles of music, so come to one of our shows and you're likely to hear jazz, blues, country, rock, ragtime, ballads, showtunes, with classical and Bollywood influences. Our players come from all different backgrounds too, people have played in the St. Louis Philharmonic, various jazz, dance and show bands, punk rock, neo-soul, so we can put a lot of cool stuff together.

I love learning new songs, writing new songs, and when you do all that you want to get them "out" as soon as possible, but you do run the risk of too much too soon. So I've declared May "backup vocal month." We're going to take all our songs and put in the backup vocals we've been saving for "later," and bolster up everything we have.

As a friend of mine just said "It's amazing how many people think they can do a show without have to rehearse." Even the symphony has to put in some practice.

One song that's taken a lot of practice is "Miss Brown To You," it's a song from the 30s sung originally, I think, by Billie Holliday. It's got bizarre jazz chords aplenty, and a melody that doesn't have a lot to do with the music underneath it. So it's taken awhile, but it's songs like these that are often most rewarding when you have them good to go, because you know what you did to get there.

We're off to play an out-of-state wedding soon. Then back here for Jake's Steaks and Blue Agave.
want more info? drop me a line at jerryrabushka@gmail.com.

Jake's Steaks!

We'll be playing at Jakes Steaks on Laclede's Landing from 8-11 PM on Saturday, April 23. It's our first time there, so we're excited at the opportunity. At the moment we're laying some tracks for "Good Times Comin' 'Round." Bass player Tiffany Borrine put down the bass part over the weekend.... I put down an organ track & our guitarist Berrell Spade is laying his track. It's a gospel-tinged good timin' number so the organ seems like the right choice, with a little bit of piano in there as well. I'm old enough that I'll say we're "taping" but there really isn't any tape involved anymore.

Many of the songs we're recording/playing are from a musical I'm slowly working on called Kansas Cabana. It's set in a club, with a manipulative owner named Zeke who uses and abuses the folks that perform for him. The music will be ragtime, jazz, blues, even a bit of folk. Sort of an old-style feel. I wrote the songs to be challenging - but it's a cool sense of accomplishment when we learn them.

Anyway perhaps we'll see you at Jake's!

In the studio

We're excited, we've taking the direction to make some pro-sounding recordings of some original tunes! First on the docket are "Buck Street Blues" and "Good Times Comin' 'Round." We're going to keep this CD jazzy-bluesy-R&B.

Our "Release party" is scheduled for April 30, where the "Buck Street" single will be out. Look like we'll be playing two shows, at the Handle Bar on Manchester at about 5 PM and Blue Agave in Belleville at 9:30 or 10 pm.

We recently played a show at Urban Eats... you can find a live version of "Good Times" at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HDDFUQKs_M

Also happy to announce we've booked a show in Duluth, Minnesota on August 12, and plan to build a tour around that.

A bit about us

Thought I'd just talk a bit about what we do... first we have three shows coming up, you can find out about that at reverbnation.com/theraggedbladeband.

We'll play at Urban Eats on March 20th, it's an art-brunch at 11 am. So we'll try to keep it kinda laid back.
Then at Queen of Sheba on March 26th, in U. City, then April 30 at The Blue Agave in Belleville. So maybe something will come up in between.

I guess right now what sets us apart: we do music that folks don't normally do. I write a lot of our material, so I'm pretty sure no one's doing that. It covers a lot of genre...country, blues, rock, jazz, ballads, showtunes, funk, etc. I listen to a variety of styles and try to funnel them in and out through my brain and add a personal touch to them.

Also we have started playing music from the rag era: we do a few standards like St. Louis Blues and Ballin' the Jack, and some lesser known songs of the day, plus rags such as Maple Leaf, St. Louis, and a few obscure rags like Fontella and Hurricane. Mostly the reaction has been pretty positive, people like hearing that stuff, and it's a rare opportunity to hear someone do it live.

So anyway I'll get to practicin' for the next show.

First post (an original title!)

Hey there and welcome!

I plan to use this blog for a couple things: first we'll keep you posted on what's up at Ragged Blade; our band, theater, and useful stuff about people involved.

Second, I used to have a music review column and I'll revive it & write about some artists that cross my path. It won't be my practice to trash anyone's music so much as introduce you to sounds that are worth checking out.

You can find us on facebook at "The Ragged Blade Band" as well as "Jerry Rabushka, Playwright."

I'm usually pretty informal, but I've got a backlog of music & stuff to write about, so I'll try to get started on it pretty soon.

Jerry Rabushka
Artistic-director, co-founder of Ragged Blade, St. Louis, MO
playwright, actor, director, composer/songwriter, arranger, pianist, trumpeter, singer, magazine editor.

Well that explains why I don't have a business card.