Doc Otis and the Junker Jazz All Stars

I met my Bassist Kathleen while we were both members of the experimental, free form “Gas Tank Orchestra’ where we played instruments all made from discarded automobile gas tanks picked up off the streets of New Orleans. Back then she didn’t know I was a piano player. After our Pori Finland, Jazz Fest Show in 2001 I stayed on in Europe and signed on as the Accordion player for the Cyclown Circus Which toured Europe by Bicycle: putting on free circus shows for children in refugee camps. The first Junker Jazz All Stars, formed in 2003, were dispersed by Katrina , Except for Kathleen,

Kathleen Kraus on bass-Whiskey butt, New Dopey singers -who will not relinquish her ninth ward house.

And now we have a new line up which includes:

Sean Dawson, Aka ‘Dante’ on trumpet , a professional magician -Bust out Burlesque -He has yet to make my piano disappear.

Steven Pollier,-World Friendship Inferno -Sax( bringing his New York hard bop sax edge) who was raised and earned his chops in Brooklyn where he was a tavern operator as he is in New Orleans. We’re glad to have him.

Kathleen doesn’t have a regular day gig. She spends almost all her time re-building her lower Ninth Ward home and shows up to gigs with blisters on her hands in all the wrong places for a bassist.

With my newer, stronger, Line up I take my improvisational experience with the gas tank orchestra, and as a circus performer , to create a sound that is both traditional and loose, classic and sincere. We’ve played it for young punk rockers and retirees and it always hits home.