Recording live concerts is always a challenge, and not one that is guaranteed to be met as it should be. The Heritage Hall Jazz Band is a classic group of New Orleanians with leader Gregg Stafford on trumpet, Freddie Lonzo on trombone, Roderick Paulin on tenor sax, Mari Watanabe on piano, Mitchell Player on bass, Shannon Powell on drums, and Steve Blailock on guitar. Their success on this CD is considerably diminished, however, by the fact that it begins with the mix way out of balance, with a heavy piano sound distorting everything else. The opening cut is, unfortunately, the brass band favorite “Just a Little While to Stay Here.” Watanabe is a fine piano player, but when she virtually drowns out a Lonzo solo you know something is wrong.

Recorded in Hampton, Virginia, the performance itself is an exciting one, with Gregg Stafford going out of his way to remind his post-Katrina audience that New Orleans is still home to some of the greatest music and finest musicians in the world. Stafford introduces “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans”—which he sings in a highly personal style—by telling us, “This song has more meaning than it ever had before.” It’s an interesting thought when one considers that it was written by two pros from the northeast and introduced in a 1947 movie, New Orleans, which featured Louis Armstrong as a butler and Billie Holiday as a maid.

“Some Of These Days” comes off well despite the technical problems because of some very good solos, and the overall sound improves a bit as things go along and is decent by the point when we hear singer Jewel Brown. On her first couple of tunes, she is primarily scatting, riffing and exhorting the band to stay hot, but she winds up by doing a first rate job on “It’s A Wonderful World.” For once, we hear it without a slavish imitation of Armstrong, thoughtfully treated as the simple and beautiful song that it is. This would have been a very nice CD had it been free of technical problems, but that’s a pretty big if.