Courtesy of Dizzy Atmosphere
Sitting with Christopher Voelker as he discusses the various forms of jazz that he loves is akin to taking a class in the subject, but with coffee and no test at the end. Over the course of an hour earlier this week, Voelker sat at a table in Soulard Coffee Garden and spun great stories about former clubs here, musicians that have been inspirations, and the hopes he has for a new CD of 15 tunes, delivered by his band Dizzy Atmosphere.
That group has been active since 1999, when Voelker scored a Wednesday-night residency gig at Brandt’s, a cafe in University City that served as a transitional point between younger and older musicians. Then and for some years to come, Voelker shared that stage with folks such as Mae Wheeler, John Norment, Peanuts Whalum, and others, who themselves dipped back into performances into Gaslight Square and its own antecedents.
“Dizzy Atmosphere began its career there,” he recalls. “It was a big thrill for us, especially because of the vibe there and the neighborhood. I had just recently returned to St. Louis after 20 years in Boston and a couple of years in San Antonio. To revisit the Loop, one of my childhood and adolescent haunts, was a revelation.”
Twenty years have passed since then, Brandt’s is a barbecue joint and the group’s gone through a few iterations. Currently, the band consists of Voelker on violin, Jon Ferber on guitar, and Richard Tralles. On their current disc of standards, four tracks feature vocals: three by Ferber and another by Tralles, who stays busy in several acts around town. Because he and Ferber will need nights off for other gigs, Voelker keeps a phone handy, with several, talented players able to pinch hit.
For the album, though, it’s the core of Voelker, Ferber, and Tralles that gives life to classics such as “Caravan,” "In a Sentimental Mood,” “Do You Know What It Means to Miss Orleans,” and “Sweet Georgia Brown,” the one track to feature guests, in this case guitarist Joe Park and sax player Ben Reece. The songs of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli are well-represented.
“I’d been talking with John and Richard about doing something like this and, through a friend, we were able to do a little bit of recording at Gaslight with Mark Cange. This is someone I knew I could enjoy working with, and we were just thrilled by the good results. It seemed that he was able to understand everything we wanted in terms of sound quality and what we wanted to hear in the final mix.
The comfort level was there on multiple. In their recording engineer. In their ability to knock out cuts in one or two takes. In their ability to pluck tracks from a 100-song backlog, so much so that Voelker says the tracks were “picked out of your hip pocket during the sessions. We just called the tunes that we really wanted to record.”
At this point, Dizzy Atmosphere’s self-titled work is slowly making its way to local music shops, and there’s not a digital release to point to. However, you can pick up a copy at Euclid Records in Webster Groves and at Trusty Chords Record Shop in Voelker’s hometown of Edwardsville, Illinois.
