A Great Big Butter And Egg Man

The Dakota in Minneapolis was never a venue I thought I would call a home away from home. It had this stigma in my mind of being somewhere that I wasn’t welcome and somewhere that I couldn’t afford. I made a leap last year into the Dakota’s orbit, and now I try to go back as much as I can. It doesn’t matter who is performing or what style of music they play. Shows at The Dakota are now something I crave, so when there wasn’t anything in town on Monday night that I was dying to see, I took a leap and decided to head out to The Dakota. It’s not that I wasn’t dying to see the band at The Dakota, but I knew nothing about Southside Aces. What I did know was that a night at the Dakota is far from a night wasted, and, after a delicious dinner (shout out to the chef for the delicious pesto cavatappi), I was whisked away into Southside Ace’s world, which, by the end of the evening, was a world I never wanted to leave.

Southside Aces is a local Twin-Cities jazz band that focuses on traditional New Orleans jazz. I know what you’re thinking– what in the heck do a couple of Minnesotans know about New Orleans jazz and what gives them the right to play it? I feel like that’s a fair question because, honestly, as the band was setting up, I was thinking the same thing, but within their first song, that question was squashed. Although I’ve never been to New Orleans, so I can’t truly say that the music of Southside Aces transported me there, I can say that there was something just a little spicy about their arrangements and their performance in general that I feel like really had a New Orleans vibe (or at least what I assume a New Orleans vibe would be).

I loved how all over the place Southside Ace’s set was. I can’t name all the songs they performed or even all the artists they paid homage to throughout their set on Monday, but I can tell you that I enjoyed the Louis Armstrong song I recognized a lot. I can also tell you that, although I didn’t know any of the other songs they performed, I felt just as captivated by what they were giving me as I would from a band where I knew every word of every song. The members of this band just had a way of playing with such ferocious passion, truly putting their heart and soul into every note. This went across the board and applied to all six men on stage. Each one of them clearly has a talent, but, more importantly, clearly loves being on stage and performing.

I don’t have the right words to describe Southside Aces’ music. Sure, it was jazz, but I know it goes much deeper than that. I grew up in a jazz household. My dad is the king of jazz and has an extensive record collection to prove it. Honestly, it turned me off from the genre. Maybe it was because no matter what kind of jazz I hear, I can hear my dad’s voice in the back of my head saying, “That’s not real jazz.” You see, he’s an avant-garde kind of guy. I grew up on Cecil Taylor, and I’m pretty sure there was a hidden altar to Sun-Ra in our basement that I didn’t know about. My dad liked and still likes the creative, the obscure, the insane, and that is not at all what the Southside Aces were. They were straight-up jazz. The stuff that my dad would always say, “What a bunch of hacks, where’s the soul?!” Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh because, again, you could feel the passion of this band with every passing beat, but that was where my head was at for some of the set. That being said, Southside Aces had a sense of humor that reminded me a bit of the way my dad talks about the genre.

There were a lot of French songs performed on Monday night, but there were no Frenchmen in the band. This led to butchered pronunciations of song titles, which were quickly judged by other band members. Between that and sousaphone player Erik Jacobson wondering what happened to Eric Johnson’s trombone and asking if a kid had put a sandwich in it (there must be a story here but Eric is actually a middle school teacher so, as Erik mentioned, we all know what kind of day he had had prior to getting to this show), there was something so perfectly informal about Southside Aces’ performance. They made their sound accessible and relatable to me with this sense of humor that shone throughout the set. They made me comfortable in the setting and, at one point, even had me clapping along because, well, they told me to, and it was like having an uncle talk you into something– it didn’t take much for me to give in. By the end of the night, it felt like the members of Southside Aces were longtime friends of my soul, and the people sitting around me were just friends I hadn’t met yet, but we were all sharing this beautiful night together, so, well, we were good friends by the end of it all.

Before spending many nights at The Dakota, I never would have expected this from shows here. Again, something about the supper club setting, the fancy food, and the cloth napkins led me to believe that The Dakota was a place just out of reach for my dive-bar-loving soul, but nights like Monday night are a good reminder of how wrong I was to ever think that. Any place with music is a home away from home for me, and any band like Southside Aces that showcases their talent while not taking themselves too seriously is a band for me.