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Born in Germany and raised in Atlanta, Marty Martin brings musical and comedic horsepower to each Ruby Red's event. A graduate of local Atlanta's Redan high school, Marty went on to attend and complete 4 years at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. During those schooling years Marty worked in various amusement park musical shows including summers at Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta, Elitch Gardens in Denver and Kennywood and Idlewild Parks in Pittsburgh. Somewhere in there he squeezed in tours with The Affordable Floors, George Gee's Make Believe Ballroom Orchestra and the Sterling Brothers Circus.
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In 1991, Marty moved back to Atlanta to work at the newly revived Ruby Reds Warehouse in the newly revived Underground Atlanta. In addition to playing with the Ruby Red's Band, Marty got involved in the operations of the bar and restaurant and gained considerable experience as a valued and trusted member of the Ruby Red's management team.
In 1992 Marty, Rocky Ball, and Hal Johnson opened Fanny Moon's Beer Hall in Underground and formed their own house band, "The Fanny Moon's Big Butt Band." Marty forever guided the course of the Big Butt Band when he hefted an unused toilet onto the bar one night and made that his seat. The toilet became so recognized as a trademark of the band that Marty carried one to every Big Butt Band gig for years!
After the 3 partners closed Fanny Moon's in 1996, Marty took over a family business, Fred Martin Welding Co., in Atlanta. He continues to play extensively around town with the George Carere Orchestra, the Kroger Band, the Bowling Night Band and the Ruby Red's Band. His distinctive vocal and trumpet techniques are impressive to see and awesome to hear.
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L.A. Tuten
TUBA
L.A. Tuten hails from Atlanta, Georgia (one of the few natives left!) but never considered playing a Tuba until just a few years ago. 'L.A.' (that's Laurence Arthur to those in the know) started out playing in Rock N' Roll bands as a bassist... electric bassist, that is. After high school he opted to study trombone at Georgia State University... then got the itch to play jazz bass and headed for the Berklee School of Music in Boston.
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After a stint in Beantown, L.A. headed back to Atlanta for lots of local gigging with Rock N' Roll, Jazz and Blues bands. He headed up the well-known Seed & Feed Marching Abominable Band as Conductor and Arranger (and trombonist) between 1980 and 1988. Then he spent a year playing electric bass with the late, great "Thumbs"Carlille... world-reknowned Nashville guitarist.
L.A. found strange and unsteady work with Atlanta-based nationally-known recording artist Colonel Bruce Hampton (Landslide, Capricorn / Warner Capricorn / Sony) during a four-year stint between 1988 and 1992 where he played electric bass. He performed with Hampton's various groups, including Colonel Bruce Hampton and the Arkansas Travellers, and the Stained Souls, featuring Alligator recording artist Tinsley Ellis.
From there he became bassist and arranger for EM/World recording artist Elise Witt, where he appeared on two albums: Mezzanine (1993); and Open The Window (1997). It was around 1990 when L.A. took up the tuba, and L.A. hasn't been the same since (neither has the tuba). L.A. came aboard in 1991 as the tuba player in the Ruby Red's revival band in Underground Atlanta where he worked nightly with Rocky Ball and Marty Martin.
Soon, local clarinetist Don Erdman, while forming his Hotlanta Jazz Band, hired L.A. for the tuba chair. L.A. immediately began national and world tours as well as recording for Don and found himself on 2 recordings: Live in Spain (1992); and Happy Feet (1994). L.A. also toured the world with Hotlanta; including France, Spain, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Singapore, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and the United States.
In 1997, L.A. moved briefly to Finland, giving up his tuba chair to fellow tubist, Hal Johnson. By 1998, however, L.A. was firmly BACK in Atlanta and gigging all over town on both bass and tuba.
Now L.A. maintains a critical roll in the band, playing tuba and serving as the principal booking agent for the group. In 1998 L.A. launched his own Web creation business, Tuten Web Services and, in addition to his Ruby Red's work, remains one of Atlanta's top calls on tuba, upright acoustic and electric bass. L.A. recently toured China with The Atlanta Pops and remains a regular with that prestigious musical organization.
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Rocky Ball is the lead banjo player of the current Ruby Red's Band. Rocky was born and reared in Thunderbolt, a small shrimping village on the Georgia coast near Savannah. As a child he studied piano and played in church, eventually playing music in bars and clubs along Savannah's famed River Street to help pay his way through art school.
Rocky moved to Atlanta in 1973 to study Commercial Art at Georgia State University and soon founded the Raz'Mataz Jazz Band at Six Flags Over Georgia. Raz'Mataz began working throughout the Southeast playing Dixieland Jazz. In 1976 Rocky switched from the piano to the banjo and soon landed a gig with the Ruby Red's Band in Underground Atlanta, one of 5 banjo players that played regularly with this group.
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In 1978 Raz'Mataz was summoned to perform at Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and eventually the band members formed a partnership to write, produce and perform a variety of live entertainment in several amusement parks around the country including Stone Mountain in Atlanta, Dorney Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Elitch Gardens in Denver, Colorado.
In 1992, after 14 years as Kennywood's Director of Entertainment, Rocky partnered with fellow musicians Marty Martin and Hal Johnson to form their own nightclub, Fanny Moon's Beer Hall, in Underground Atlanta. They formed the Big Butt Band to serve as the house band for the club. After 4 years as club owners, the Big Butt Band closed Fanny Moon's and sought other interests in addition to continuing to perform individually and as the Fanny Moon's Big Butt Band.
Rocky launched a freelance graphic design business, ArtWorks Graphics, finally putting his art school experience to use. He can regularly be found playing with several Dixieland bands in the Atlanta area including George Carere's Riverboat Drifters, the Dixieland Stompers, Don Erdman's Hotlanta Jazz Band, Lee King's Chick-fil-A® Moo Cow Band and the Ruby Red's Band. Rocky also plays solo banjo at events throughout the Southeast.
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Flambeaux
Drums
FLAMBEAUX - French for: "He Who Spits The Fire..." or Spanish for: "Fire-Breath"... or Polish for: "Flaming Boyfriend"...
...but in Atlanta, Flambeaux means only one thing... hard-driving back-beats behind the Ruby Red's Band! Flambeaux added the missing ingredient that Dixieland music had been searching for... Rock n' Roll drums!
When he's not pushing the band he's blowing fire out of his mouth! Many people want to know what he keeps in that little flask and how anything that can be THAT flammable can be taken internally without instant death. Only the Flambeaux knows...
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PLEASE NOTE:
The following government agencies have requested that any information regarding the true identity of the person known as Flambeaux, or any inquiry aimed at determining his complete name, address or one of his many telephone or personal pager numbers, should be directed to those same agencies listed below.
Although Flambeaux cannot be reached directly - you may leave an e-mail for him at the following address and his associates will direct it to him. To assure that your message will get to Flambeaux, please place the following sentence, exactly as it appears below, in the SUBJECT of your message:
"The Lazy Brown Dog Crawls Easily Under the Couch of the Sleeping Yellow Cat"
...and send it to: flambeuxxx@yahoo.com
Agencies seeking to speak with or question in detail, the person, or persons, known actively, directly or referentially, as Flambeaux, also known as (a.k.a.): Flambo, Flambow, Flamebo, Flameboy, Flambeau, Flamborini, Fan-Go, Fan-Dough, Fandango, FramBlow, FlamJo, FlamJoe, FangJoe, Joe, WangGo, WangGrow, Wang, Marge, or Adolph are listed below:
[NOT in order of importance]
FBI - Federal Bureau of Intelligence
ATF - Department of Alchohol, Tobacco and Firearms
CIA - Central Investigation Agency
GBI - Georgia Bureau of Intelligence
RED DOG - City of Atlanta exclusive S.W.A.T. team
RED DOG - Popular beer
USAF PROJECT BLUEBOOK - Special Operations for study of sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects
PROJECT MJ-12 - Agency investigating alien landings and abductions.
JFB - Jet Fuel Board investigates unlawful possesion and explosion/expulsion of regulated airfighter fuel.
CITY OF ATLANTA FIRE DEPARTMENT - Investigates illegal fires and torchings. Issues fire permits for establishments and individuals.
M.A.D.D. - Mothers Against De-natured (alchohol) Drummers
D.A.M.M. - Drummers Against Musical Moments - this group wants to HONOR him with an award ceremomy.
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Hal Johnson
TUBA
Hal 'Shorty' Johnson moved to Atlanta in 1966 as a partner in a new banjo/sing-along establishment called the Ruby Red's Warehouse. He immediately formed the Ruby Red's Band to play at the club and has been leading that group ever since.
Hal hails from Portland, Oregon where he grew up listening to Monte Ballou's Castle Jazz Band through the thin walls of a bathroom. Hal was too young to get into the club where Monte played but he realized that the stall of a bathroom in the building next door backed up to the stage in the club... when sitting in one of the stalls he could hear the band perfectly... so he spent a lot of nights occupying the third stall from the left and learning all of the tunes on tuba.
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Hal and his high school buddy, Ernie Carson, eventually worked their way into Monte's band at the ripe old age of 15. After a stint with Monte in Portland, Hal followed Ernie to San Francisco to join the famous Turk Murphy Jazz Band at Earthquake McGoon's. Hal worked for Turk for several years and gigged around San Francisco as the banjo parlor craze caught on. Soon, Hal packed family and tuba in the car and struck out for New Orleans to open the Red Garter banjo/sing-along club in the heart of the French Quarter.
After several years in New Orleans, Hal thought there might be an opportunity to open a banjo/sing-along parlor in Atlanta, Georgia and soon arrived in Atlanta to form the Ruby Red's Warehouse Band. He was joined by Ed Cuneo, Buddy Cooner, Peanuts Fitch, Bill Rutan, Ernie Carson, Jon Zimmerman, Paul Thomas, Dave Marty, Big Dave Hanson, Joe Grubbs, Dick Bowman, Mike Puckett, Skip Derringer, Stew Magee, Ron Beisel, Jerry Garcia, and Rocky Ball at various times over the 10 year run of the club.
After 2-3 years of great success at Ruby Red's, the band and the club moved to a new location, Underground Atlanta. The club became the magnet for Dixieland and Traditional Jazz musicians from around the south and Hal recorded many live albums during Sunday afternoon jams sponsored by the Atlanta Dixieland Jazz Society right in Ruby Red's Warehouse. Hal began booking the Ruby Red's Band throughout the Southeast and the group remains in high demand even today, some 38 years later.
Hal's venture into the booking agency business eventually led him to work for the Atlanta Division of the Ray Bloch Agency where he produced major performances for a variety of nationally known entertainers including Barbara Mandrell and Crystal Gale. In 1990 Hal left Ray Bloch to form his own booking agency, Entertainment Atlanta, and partnered in a new venture to revive the Ruby Red's Warehouse in the NEW Underground Atlanta. In 1992 Hal joined with Marty Martin and Rocky Ball to launch Fanny Moon's Beer Hall and enjoyed a 4-year run there.
Hal took a brief leave of absence from Fanny Moon's in 1995 to tour Japan with Ernie Carson and in 1996 Hal joined the Hotlanta Jazz Band of Don Erdman and began touring Europe, the Far East and America. Hal remains as busy as ever playing with several bands in the Atlanta area. Over the years Hal has played or recorded with every major Traditional Jazz musician of note including Monte Ballou, Turk Murphy, Joe Darensburg, George Probert, Ernie Carson, Bob Greene's World of Jellyroll Morten, Wild Bill Davison, "Smokey" Stover, and more.
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Bill Rutan
BANJO
Bill Rutan is a banjoplayer's banjo player. His extensive tune knowledge is exceeded only by his vast playing experience and crowd 'savvy.' Bill has worked with the Ruby Red's Band since 1967 playing thousands of dates of every imaginable kind. He virtually created solo banjo work in Atlanta with his strolling Southern Gentleman routine and is one of Georgia's busiest musicians.
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Bill began his playing career in various clubs in the San Francisco area including the famous Red Garter. In 1964 Bill went to Florence, Italy to spearhead the Red Garter's European expansion, performing there until 1967 and returning occasionally to play jobs in the United States, including the 1964 New York World's Fair. During this time period he was also performing in the Red Garter in New Orleans and even opened his own nightclub briefly in Memphis. In 1967 Bill moved to Atlanta, Georgia to join the Ruby Red's Band and has remained there since.
He has performed with such noted artists as: Ernie Carson, Joe Darensburg, George Probert, "Smokey" Stover, Nick Fatool, Bob Haggart, Eddie Miller, Johnny Mince and many more. Bill stays busy these days with solo banjo work and with bands like Ruby Red's, Don Erdman's Hotlanta Jazz Band and as an accompanist to legendary folk singer Frank Hamilton.
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"Big Dave Hanson" was born in Los Angeles, California and, thanks to his career Army dad, moved often, attending and playing music in three high schools before finishing up in Lawton, Oklahoma. His professional career began there as a civillian member of the combined 77th & 97th Army Show Band, playing lead trombone. He was tutored by the older, seasoned Army musicians and soon knew that his vocation would be music.
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An unexpected trip to Denton, Texas, the home of North Texas State University, gave him access to a rehearsal with the famous "1:00 pm. Lab Band". Stan Kenton heard the rehearsal and offered to hire the entire trombone section! Since Dave wasn't a student, he was the only one able to accept that offer. The summer of 1958 was spent travelling by bus to venues all around the Southwest, with such great musicians as Maynard Ferguson, Milt Bernhart, Vido Musso, Pete Condoli and others!
At the end of that summer, Dave's family transferred to Europe and Dave followed in 1961. Dave's dad was the Special Services officer and soon had him playing with some local jazz groups around the 7th Army areas. Later, Dave played with the Grundig Recording Orchestra in Munich where he also completed his college degree at the University of Maryland in Munich.
In 1963, Dave moved to San Francisco and was soon working with Bill Napier, Bill Ericson and Carol Leigh. A response to a newspaper ad for a trombone player opened a door in New Orleans and presented the opportunity to play at the Red Garter, where the soon-to-be Ruby Red's alumni (Hal Johnson, Bill Rutan, Peanuts Fitch, Ernie Carson, Stew Magee) had just left for Atlanta. New Orleans was musically very rewarding and a learning experience as Dave shared bandstands with people like Louis Cottrell, Placide Adams, Danny Barker, Wendell Eugene, Frog Joseph and a host of newcomers, such as George Finola, Les Muscott, Orange Kellern and Iron Lips DeSaro.
Somewhere in there Dave reached burnout and ventured to New York City to play at Your Fathers Moustache, where he soon found himself as the substitute trombonist, traveling from club to club, so the resident bone player could take a vacation. Substitutes were scarce because the Mustache bands (as well as the groups at the Red Garter) used the trombone as a melody instrument, requiring those players to be adept at the demanding tune lists published by franchise owner Joel Sciavone. Few trombonists could move into this 'melodic' world but Dave proved to be more than up to the challenge.
Ed Sullivan heard the Mustache band, liked their spirit and Dave soon joined the group that warmed-up Sullivan's live audience 18 minutes before each Sunday evening's taping. This weekly appearance led to a performance with the Mustache band on Ed Sullivan's Christmas show in 1968.
The "road band" was Dave's next activity for the Mustache as he performed with the group in a number of industrial shows, the last being a two week tour with Flip Wilson. This tour came through Atlanta, and Dave, always on the lookout for friendly local players with whom he could sit in, found his way to Ruby Red's Warehouse.
The band liked Dave and Dave liked the band and before the evening was over Dave was offered and accepted a job with the Ruby Red's Warehouse Band. He joined Peanuts Fitch and Hal Johnson and became accquainted with Flambeaux (then a waiter at Ruby Red's). Within a few months the club moved from its Ellis Street location to its new digs in Underground Atlanta.
Dave became a mainstay at Ruby Red's and soon was recording with many of the Traditional Jazz World-Class musicians that were drawn to the club in private concerts on Sunday afternoons sponsored by the Atlanta Dixieland Jazz Society. The Ruby Red's Band, often with Dave as the leader, made appearances at Atlanta Falcons games, University of Georgia football games, and Atlanta Braves baseball games. The band played in Underground at Ruby Red's Warehouse for 8-9 years, closing in 1976. At this time the band hit the road and Dave found himself playing in country clubs and hotel ballrooms and private pool parties throughout the Southeast.
As Atlanta's economy began moving quickly into the Convention destination market the Ruby Red's Band made a smooth transition into this market as well. Soon the band was in demand for conventions, meetings, store openings, land auctions... every imaginable venue in which a dixieland band could be used. And as the economy went through a variety of fluctuations in the 70's and 80's Dave proved to be irreplaceable because of his ability to play the melody. As bands began to reduce in size due to economic squeezes, Dave could lead the band melodically.
Dave is currently the Vice-President of the Atlanta Frederation of Musicians and continues to play with jazz bands in Atlanta an throughout the country, including...
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Stew Magee
TRUMPET / TROMBONE / TUBA
Stew Magee's career has spanned over forty years in the entertainment business as a musician, bandleader, and nightclub manager/owner and entertainment agent. Instrumentally, Stew plays all the brass including, trumpet, cornet, valve trombone and tuba.
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During the last twenty years Stew Magee has performed for countless public and private events including many years as bandleader for the prestigious Capital City Club of Atlanta. His bands have entertained presidents Carter, Reagan and Clinton. He performed a warm-up show for the legendary Frank Sinatra and has performed for many other celebrities over the years too numerous to mention. His favorite performance was when he was asked to accompany Tennessee Ernie Ford on trumpet during the national anthem of a San Francisco '49ers game at Candlestick Park in 1970.
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Joe Grubbs
TROMBONE / TUBA
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Lee King
TRUMPET
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Tubaist Mike Puckett has been playing professionally since the age of seventeen. His 35+ years on the Atlanta music scene have included time with The Original Ruby Red’s Band, The Raz'Mataz Jazz Band, Don Erdman's Hotlanta Jazz Band, Ernie Carson’s Capital City Jazz Band, Sammy Duncan, Peach Blossom, The Bourbon Street Jazz Band, The Southside Jazz Band, The Atlanta Tentet and Fanny Moon’s Big Butt Band. Mike has also toured with Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini and Clyde Beatty/Cole Brothers Circus. He was for many years the Principal Tubaist with the Atlanta Ballet & Opera Orchestra. Mike is a versatile performer who doubles Upright Bass and Euphonium. He is also an accomplished Arranger and Musicologist specializing in the study of early jazz.
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Dick Mott
BANJO / TENOR GUITAR |
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