Southside Aces at 370 Sets, St Paul (June 24, 2025)

Another summer day, another free concert series in the Twin Cities. The 370 Sets is a Tuesday afternoon “happy hour concert series” in downtown St. Paul at the Osborn370 building. It is produced by the Saint Paul Downtown Alliance, with weekly free shows from June 10th to August 12th from 4-6pm. On this third session of the series, the Southside Aces was performing.

Southside Aces is a band performing traditional New Orleans jazz. They’ve been at it for over twenty years, with eight albums, including 2022’s Minneapolis Bump, that has 15 original songs with, as they say, “a 21st century take on the Jazz Age”. Getting set up on a beautiful afternoon (particularly so in the covered patio’s shade), the band got themselves ready to go as a sextet (clarinet, trumpet, trombone, sousaphone, guitar, and drums). That era of jazz is such a particular sound, and was there from the very start. With trombone and clarinet solos out of the gate on Anytime, the rhythm of the afternoon was set. A Louis Armstrong original followed and we were told, “he didn’t write many but the ones he did were a little odd; this one is about delivering dairy”, and the trumpet player sang with a bit of Armstrong flair. A great sousaphone solo (yes, I just wrote that) was followed by the obvious trumpet work. These guys demonstrated their ease with each other, tossing nods and points or very short words to move through the various instrumental solos and back to the group simply and cleanly.

A bit of banter about many of the band members mentors, The Hall Brother Band, had a significantly long story that ended with, “I can talk as long as any trombonist needs to get ready”. The laughter in the band was infectious and the mood in the audience was a light and happy one. Returning to Armstrong, the band played one of his earliest recorded songs, Canal Street Blues, and was the first for every band member to get a dedicated solo. I should note that clarinetist Tony Balluff’s banter included a lot of history and was a fun and useful connector between the songs. A fun joke about the fact that most of the songs they play “are in the public domain” led to one of the oldest songs yet (from 1919), Breeze, Blow My Baby Back to Me, a slower number. That clarinet sound contrasting with the brass instruments was a key part of Southside Aces’ draw, but it’s the total combined effort of the group that made this such a joyful listen.

A cover of an Amy Winehouse song, Back to Black, was a surprisingly effective interpretation, and thankfully, instrumental only. Side note: Who knew that guitar and sousaphone complement each other so well? Onto an original from the band, G’s Goodbye was right in line with the older songs, with an extended trombone solo.

During a brief intermission, I chatted with drummer Andrew Gillespie about the recent jazz fest and the joy of playing on a nice summer evening. Getting back into the music with I Wanna Walk You Home had a slower feel and the first singing we had had for a while. Finishing up with The Happy Feet Blues, Southside Aces closed out the evening well; early enough for everyone to do any number of things on a long summer evening.