Eight Dice Cloth • The Songs and Arrangements of Armand J. Piron

New Orleans’ Eight Dice Cloth forges a new path with their latest album, The Songs and Arrangements of Armand J. Piron, a vibrant tribute to one of the Crescent City’s most influential jazz pioneers. Recorded to tape by engineers Morgan Orion and Ian Wood, this grant-funded project supported by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation showcases the band’s devotion to reviving early jazz gems. Led by clarinetist and alto saxophonist Kala Chandra, Eight Dice Cloth approaches the compositions of Armand J. Piron with a fresh yet reverent touch. Recording to tape is practically a fetish of young musicians, but in this case, it does add an appropriate vintage touch. Compared head to head with recordings of Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra from the pre-1925 acoustic recording era they can sound like happily remastered versions. The ensemble; Jean-Paul Brion (trombone), Nathan Wolman (trumpet), Christopher Booth (violin), Dylan Grove (washboard), Aaron Gunn (tenor banjo), Jacky Blaire (guitar), and Zachary Thomas (upright bass), weave a tapestry of sound that feels both timeless and invigorating, whether you are a jazz historian analyzing each cut with all the most classic versions of these titles dancing in your head or idly looking out at the Bywater streets and dreaming about when they were dusty, this set satisfies. Armand J. Piron, a violinist and composer born in New Orleans