How could little Red Ridin’ Hood have been so very good and still keep the wolf from the door? It’s a question we’ve all pondered, but who knew there was a song about it written in 1926? Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs – maybe. The Chicago Cellar Boys – definitely.

This is my second time seeing the Boys.  I loved their whole set, but their revelation about that “modern child” “runnin’ wild” was one of my favorites, among a set list that included songs from the 1920s and 30s written by Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, George Gershwin, and others.

My other favorite was Waller’s Truckin’, covered in 1973 as Everybody’s Doin’ It by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Truckin’ by The Grateful Dead is a whole different song), though it made me wish I could have seen Ina Rae Hutton and Her Melodears perform it live, even though Ina’s dancing was more tap than truckin’ (about which I’m not complaining), which, of course, led me to a short clip of a jazz dance instructor demonstrating truckin’ steps along with some others.

Seeing the video of Ina and her all women band also made me thing of Some Like It Hot, but, returning to reality, I also thought about the Boys’ clarinetist/trumpeter giving the beat at the start of each song, which is all fine and good, except it seems like too much to ask of everyone to play the correct notes and contemporaneously maintain the same beat for more than about three measures. I think playing very short songs is the answer.

I also noticed that the piano player held his right shoulder slightly higher than his left, which led me to a website about posture and piano playing. With all these distractions, it’s amazing that I was able to enjoy the music, but I did.