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Thursday, October 1, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Arts/Entertainment
Little Saints march onto Jazzhaus stage tonight
Nashville band serves up a vegetable soup of music styles
By BRIAN BARESCH
Staff writer
Nashville's rock-jazz-country Appalachian-gospel-blues band Little Saints has so far avoided the pressure in rock music to sound like everyone else. The five-man group's first album, "Slapping Houses," contains every kind of sound except Native American chants.
Bassist Scot Evans said the amalgam of styles had kept the Saints from getting wide attention from large record labels and promoters because the music was hard to classify.
But he said the band didn't object too much. "We don't ever want to become too closely characterized," he said in an interview from Nashville, Tenn.
Evans and keyboardist Randy Parsons, guitarist Jart Holmes, saxophonist Freeman D'Angelo and drummer Grog Eisnagle will demonstrate their music mix tonight at the Juzhaus, $92½ Massachusetts St.
Evans described the Saints as a vegetable soup of musical styles.
"We all come from different areas, different upbringings and from different musical backgrounds." he said.
Holmes, who with Parsons writes the group's lyrics, has experience in jazz, bluegrass and folk music. He and Parsons teamed up with Evans and Eisnagle at a jam session in 1982 at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. D'Angelo joined the group last year.
Evans was born and raised traveling with his father's band, The Four Saints. That experience and his degree in music theory helps him keep the band abreast of new music.
One problem the band has faced is being a rock band from Nashville. Evans said that most people still play their instruments only, so rock fans in other towns sometimes stayed away from their performances.
None of the band members is from Nashville. They moved there from South Carolina because the rock scene in Nashville was healthy, and the country reputation, and because of the inexpensive recording studios.
Evans said the band was getting away from country sounds in its newer material and letting the style coalesce more, but Little Saints still won't be homogenizing its sound.
The music on "Slapping Houses" is raw but strong rock with strong influences from jazz, folk and country. A lot of the images come from the South, such as the storm-whipped houses in "Get Inside."
Most of the tempo is upbeat, with toe-tapping rhythm and sing-along lyrics. Beyond that, the music defies description: A folksy, Appalachian sound will suddenly be joined by D'Angelo's bluesy saxophone. The transitions don't jar, however, and create a pleasant overall effect.
"Randy or Jeff or both come up with the lyrics," Evans said, then the band works on the music. "It comes out kind of weird."
Evans said Little Saints was negotiating with several record labels for future albums, but that nothing had been worked out yet. The larger labels are hesitant to take them because the music is difficult to pin down, he said.
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SENIORS Announcing Hilltoppers
The Jayhawker Yearbook is happy to announce the Hilltoppers. The Hilltopper Awards were established in the 1930s as the Jayhawker's way of recognizing those seniors who have made high calibre contributions to the University and/or the Lawrence community and consistently displayed unselfish, responsible leadership in non-academic areas of campus life. The award was re-established in 1984 in order that outstanding seniors may once again be recognized.
Criteria for selection include:
involvement and leadership in campus and community activities
—unselfish service to the campus and community
—respect of the nominee's peers as well as his or her professors
—references that can address the quality of the nominee's service
-a GPA of about 3.0,however grades will not play an extremely important part in the selection
The nominations will be screened by a committee that includes KU faculty, student representatives, and the Jayhawker staff. Anyone can nominate a senior for this award and seniors can nominate themselves by picking up an application. Nomination forms and applications will be available at the SUA Office, 4th Floor Kansas Union, and the Yearbook Office, Jayhawk Towers, 003A. Deadline for acceptance of nominations is Tues., Oct.20, and the deadline for applications is Fri., Nov. 13, 1987.
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