Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Is the show broadcast live from the Landing in San Antonio? A. Riverwalk is taped before a live audience. When we first started producing the shows, they were broadcast live, but we found that many of the local stations were taping them for later broadcast anyway, so it was easier for us to tape them in the first place. Most of the shows are produced in San Antonio, although we do some taping at various venues on the road such as Stanford University and the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. The taped shows are uplinked weekly to the Public Radio satellite from a CD broadcast master and downloaded by the individual radio stations nationwide.

Q. The sound quality you guys get on the air is really first-rate. How are the shows taped? A. Riverwalk is recorded direct-to-DAT by Reelsound Recording Co. of Austin; Malcolm Harper is the Technical Director. The recording control room is a semi trailer (designed by Tom Hidley, world-renowned designer of audio trucks and studios) parked on the street level above the Hyatt Riverwalk. In the trailer, 24 tracks are mixed down to stereo DAT. We use equipment by Aphex, Meyer, Sanken, Neumann, API, and others. Piano is provided by Baldwin. Most of the post-production is done in California. Chris Lindsley does most of the editing and Ed Greene provides 2-track signal processing. Some of the post-production is done at Skywalker Ranch and the Music Annex in Northern California.

Q. When do you tape the shows? A. The shows are taped at various times throughout the year, usually several at once.

Q. How can I attend a taping? A. Here is the updated page about live taping sessions:http://www.riverwalk.org/taping.htm. Keep in mind that you can see and hear the Jim Cullum Jazz Band performing live six nights a week at the Landing in San Antonio, Texas, except when they tour. For more details, visit the Landing website at http://www.landing.com.

Q. I heard a song on your show which I really liked. Do you have a tape of it available? A. Usually, individual songs are not available, but you can now directly and securely purchase online the 8 CDs in the Riverwalk Vintage Jazz Series derived from Riverwalk shows. Our CD catalog is here: http://www.jazzbymail.com/albums_rw/rwmain.html

Q. Which of your CDs should I buy? A. All the them. The latest one (released November 1998) is Deep River. You can now purchase all of the selections online here http://www.jazzbymail.com/albums_rw/rwmain.htmland use your credit card with a secure server. By the way, your purchases help to keep Riverwalk on the air.

Q. Can I hear the shows on my computer? A. Yes. There are now many Public Radio stations nationwide carrying Riverwalk which are currently streaming their signal on the web. You can now hear the current season of Riverwalk streamed to your computer (in real time) via the web from many more sources and at more times. Weekly time choices now range from Monday through Sunday. As before, there are still available archived on-demand at Yahoo! Broadcast.com: 5 hours of unreleased Riverwalk broadcasts, plus 8 Riverwalk Vintage Jazz Collection CDs and 3 Jim Cullum Jazz Band studio CDs in their entirety.

Here's our page that contains all of the links to our streamed media: http://www.riverwalk.org/audionet.htm

Q. Can I download MP3's of your shows? A. No. Currently, Riverwalk is not being offered in the downloadable MP3 format, which compares favorably in sound quality to that of a CD.

Q. How often do you guys rehearse? It must take hours of practice to get that tight ensemble sound. A. Most of the rehearsals for the shows take place beginning several weeks before the week of production, and then also during the production process itself. In general, though, the individual band members have already done most of their important preparatory work well before joining the band; they have devoted most of their professional lives to specializing in historical jazz and have already acquired a broad familiarity with the music, its requirements and performance practices.

Q. Is all of the music improvised, or is some of it written out? A. Jazz is a unique musical form which employs both spontaneous improvisation based on a song's chord changes, and written arrangements. The main arranger for the show is pianist John Sheridan. Some of the arrangements are much less formal and exist only in the minds of the musicians, and so are called "head arrangements," for which intros, solo order, endings, etc. are sometimes organized into "legends" or text format.

Q. Why is there no saxophone in the band? A. Even though the saxophone was featured frequently in early jazz bands, Jim Cullum decided early on that focusing on the clarinet would help define the particular band sound that he wanted.

Q. How are the show subjects chosen? A. Ideas and suggestions for the shows are contributed and developed by the band members and others. The final decisions are made by the co-producers, Jim Cullum and Margaret Moos Pick.

Q. My Public Radio station doesn't carry Riverwalk. What can I do? A. Call or write to the Program Director at the station and gently encourage him/her to carry the show. Program Directors do pay attention to the wishes of their listeners and members. Keep in mind that some Public Radio stations have a set format, i.e. all Classical, etc., but most are now featuring jazz programming on the weekends.

Q. My Public Radio station carries Riverwalk, but it's on at 6:00 AM! Yikes! A: As in the above answer, your local Program Director can schedule a better time slot for the show if enough listeners make their preference known. Also, there are many Public Radio listeners who hear us in their cars during their daily commute to work, so for some of them 6:00 AM is not a bad time.

Q. Does the Jim Cullum Jazz Band ever travel to my area? A. Yes, the band travels about 6 weeks out of every year. You can see the touring itinerary here: http://www.riverwalk.org/events/calendar/itinery.htm. You can contact Zajonc/Valenti Management in Ann Arbor (800-650-8742) about arranging an appearance in your area.

Q. Do any of the Riverwalk guests ever appear with the band on tour? A. Yes. The guest artists who tour with the band most frequently are: William Warfield, who presents Porgy and Bess and Showboat with the band; and Dick Hyman, who presents programs concentrating on Fats Waller or other early jazz figures. The JCJB also occasionally appears with Banu Gibson and her Hot Jazz.

Q. Who plays at the Landing when the Jim Cullum Jazz Band is away on tour? A. Small World, a very entertaining and swinging jazz vocal group, performs for the JCJB at the Landing and also regularly on Sunday nights on the outdoor riverside patio. Tommy Loy, a well-known veteran jazz trumpeter and entertainer from Dallas TX, is another frequent guest performer heading up an all-star band on weekends.

Q. How long has the band been playing together? A. Jim Cullum and his father Jim Sr. started their first band in San Antonio in 1962, the Happy Jazz Band. The present band members and the year they joined the band:

Jim Cullum, Cornet....1962 Howard Elkins, Banjo/Guitar....1979 John Sheridan, Piano/Arranger....1979 Don Mopsick, Bass....1991 Ron Hockett, Clarinet....1999 Mike Waskiewicz, Drums....2000 Kenny Rupp, Trombone....2000

Q. Why doesn't the band play the tried-and-true Dixieland standards more familiar to me, like the bands on Bourbon St. in New Orleans do? A. We don't hear this question asked much anymore since so few people nowadays seem to be aware of what even these so-called "standards" are, but the answer is still important:

The truth is, we actually do perform quite a few of the "good old good ones," as Louie Armstrong used to call them. Visitors to the Landing will often hear "old chestnuts" like That's a Plenty, That Da-Da Strain, Tin Roof Blues, Ole Miss, Royal Garden Blues, Willie the Weeper, South Rampart St. Parade, Milenberg Joys, Sensation Rag, etc. since they were important tunes originated by important figures in early jazz such as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, W.C. Handy, The New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Bob Haggart, Jelly Roll Morton, etc. and have become "evergreens" of the classic jazz repertoire.

Other tunes we often play started off as Tin Pan Alley pop tunes from the turn of the twentieth century up to the WWI era: Alice Blue Gown, Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland, Somebody Stole My Gal, My Little Margie, My Gal Sal, etc. These are included because they were recorded by important early jazz artists.

You will never hear popular Scott Joplin ragtime tunes such as The Entertainer (theme from the motion picture The Sting), Maple Leaf Rag, or pop tunes like What a Wonderful World, or New York, New York. Tunes such as these are often not associated with the jazz canon per se, or became popular in later years because of movies and television, and found their way into the playlists of more commercially-oriented bands. We do play the familiar hymns Just a Closer Walk With Thee and When the Saints Go Marching In, but not at the Landing: they are included in our Jazz Mass performed as part of church services. To see when and where the next Mass is scheduled, look at our Touring Itinerary.

But there is far more in a typical nightly JCJB playlist that no one in the audience is likely to have ever heard before, and we believe that this is as it should be. The world of classic jazz is vast and full of treasures, and we would rather spend our limited time with you sharing the jewels we have discovered rather than serving up yet another comforting rendition of what you may have heard on Bourbon St. a long time ago. Hoagy Carmichael's Washboard Blues, James P. Johnson's Yamekraw, overtures to Porgy and Bess and Showboat, very rare tunes such as Jelly Roll Morton's Freakish, others rarely heard like Zero, Thanks a Million, Stomp Off, Let's Go, Ostrich Walk, etc. can often only be heard at the Landing, performed in unique arrangements as only the JCJB can. It's quite a daunting responsibility to the music and to our listeners, and we wouldn't want to blow it.

There was a sign in the old Landing: "Listen Closely to the Real Stuff."

Q. What do the Jim Cullum Jazz Band members do during the day? Do they have any other careers besides music? A. All of the band members are full-time professional musicians, and several have music degrees from prestigious colleges and music conservatories. They are fully occupied by a yearly schedule of performing at the Landing, touring, teaching music, and preparing Riverwalk shows, so there's really no time for anything else. See the band biography page.

Some Landing visitors insist that we all must have other jobs since we appear to be having too much fun up there on the bandstand to be professional musicians. The most frequently guessed professions: lawyer, physician, accountant, college professor, school principal, banker, or something else other than what would fit their stereotype of what a jazz musician should look like.

One can only surmise from this: the questioner has had little previous exposure to jazz music and musicians, or perhaps that people shouldn't enjoy their work.

We're here for you.

Q. Do you teach music? A. Yes. Since 1993, The JCJB has been on the faculty of the Stanford Summer Jazz Workshop held each year near the end of July. Students from ages 12-17 attend from all over the US, many receiving their first exposure to classic jazz. The whole band performs selected examples of jazz masterworks, then the band members give individual private lessons as well as master classes in the history of jazz as applied to each instrument. The students also get a chance to "sit in" and play with the band in a larger group setting.

During the course of the year, the JCJB also gives one-day clinic programs at High Schools and College-level music programs throughout Texas and the US.

The Jim Cullum Jazz Band in partnership with Pacific Vista Productions is currently developing the RIVERWALK JAZZ FOR CHILDREN, an after-school jazz music program for elementary and middle school students in association with the San Antonio YMCA.

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