Reviews by Arthur "LoveWhip" Shuey
Reviews by Arthur "LoveWhip" Shuey
It has been several years since we heard from Luther "Badman" Keith, a Detroit blues guitarist/vocalist who early mastered the greatest necessity of a real bluesman -- being larger than life. Every blues legend attends every blues performance and recording session, and every blues artist is in constant competition with those legends. Luther "Badman" Keith thoroughly understands this; he accepts and meets the challenge, rising above not only the mundane problems on which blues lyrics are based, but also the hot, hot talents he works with and his own gold-flecked dajiki, custom-made guitar, out-of- control persona. One must admire and enjoy the fascinating, impassioned result.
The 13 song titles on the CD case and the synopses of their origins provided in liner notes seem incredibly innocent compared to the actual recordings ... Like a small-type proviso reading, "adult supervision suggested" on a box of dynamite. Okay, "Gonna Give Up Drinkin'" really is about that idea of quitting that accompanies my hangovers and yours, but "Badman" gives us the idea that his hangover is worse, and the high that preceded it better, than anything we mere mortals could possibly experience. Similarly, "Sleeping With The Devil" may be something we've all done, awaking with a highly unpleasant person, but, hearing him, one must believe that "Badman" actually woke up with a pitchfork-toting bitch with horns and a tail.
It's a little big band format, with horns and keyboards joining Keith's guitar-driven power trio for the session. As such, it's an outfit capable of rocking any space with serious, urban blues. While only Marvel Comics could come up with a backing band that is truly Keith's equal in performance, this group comes pretty close. I don't think this man is capable of putting out a record that isn't great.
Rock-Blues-Rock. In general, this record has every bit of the trad. blues album's first person singular perspective. At the same time, it contains not only a full dose of trad. rock's density and scream, but also a good sampling of 21st century world percussion and even the extremely current big organ sound being brought back most prominently by Steve Winwood.
There's really a lot going on here. Smoky jazz plaints, casual blues shuffles, drum-driven Texas boogie that somehow still has room for keyboards and more create a full spectrum of call to dance, relax and groove. In short, this is a band that can do anything, anywhere. KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THE DELGADO BROTHERS.
J.T. RossLiner notes and press materials play him up as a new Little Walter Jacobs. Not even close. Mr. Ross should use promo people and descriptions that do not build false expectations. Loaded duplicates the Chess Studios sound of 45 years ago, but there, the comparison to Little Walter ends. As a final sad commentary on the P.R., Ross is a perfectly good artist with no need whatsoever for the protective shadow of Little Walter Jacobs or anyone else.
Okay, not perfectly good. Arrangements are mainstream mediocre. Lyrical topics are too big for old-style blues rhythm beds, and for Ross's voice ... He's singing about global injustice and impending apocalypse in a voice that's perfect for singing about drunken jealousy on a Friday night. His harp playing's mean, in the good sense, and the Chess-style recording is a pleasure, but overall, this is an album released a couple of years before artist readiness.
Here's a strange combination -- A colorful, wonderful, natural storyteller surrounded by hugely urban and electric arrangements. Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans sounds like a country boy who'd like to be chewing a toothpick or piece of straw and leaning on a split-rail fence cleaning black dirt form under his fingernails with the Barlow knife that lives in the back pocket of his overalls. The band sounds like the Saturday Night Live Orchestra. You hear his voice and want to hear him at a pig pickin'. The band kicks in and you want to hear them in a pretty slick, $10-cover nightclub, which is pretty upscale for blues these days.
Please distinguish between observation and objection here. To label the sound "disjoint" is not to label it "bad," but simply to caution blues fans that this one takes second, third and ongoing listens to hear comfortably. Slim's songs utilize a big, flexible, jazz-capable band as well as any, and the band really is better than most. Horns work together to create menace. The piano skips from top to bottom of what passes for melody in blues like a counterpoint vocalist. The stories themselves are authentic and interesting. "Shed My Blood in Mississippi," this critic's personal favorite, tells us that Slim's played, lived, and probably let his guard down all over the world, "Viet Nam to Amsterdam," but did so safely until going to Clarksdale, Mississippi for a Blues Museum engagement and being mugged and seriously beaten.
Buying this album is like making a place bet at the track. Sometimes, as in my pleasure at the novel sound, those are the most rewarding bets of all.
Want to see an ideal live setlist? Pick this CD up and read the back cover. "Big 10-Inch Record," "Louie Louie," "Great Balls of Fire," "Please Send Me Someone to Love" and "How Sweet It Is" are all here for the jukebox/olides radio/dj crowd. For the more discerning, "The Last Thing I Needed," "Hoy Hoy Hoy" "Stranger in My Hometown" and "Someday" fill out the bill. For a working musician trying to keep true to his roots while at the same time paying the rent, setlist strategy is a huge part of daily labor. Al Copley, Roomful of Blues co-founder/keyboardist/vocalist, is a working musician, one to take notes from.
He's not a great singer. He's an A- pianist in a world where A+ players often scrape by. His arrangements and sidemen lack the exciting old Roomful touch, which, one gathers from listening to Jump On It, must be credited in large part to Greg Piccolo and other members of that great band. Yet this album stands well on its own, because Copley has good sense. He knows what to do on a bandstand, and he does it well in the studio here. Former partner Greg Piccolo may inject more adrenalin into his opening passages with alto sax, bigger horn sections, more instrumentation and sharper arrangements, but Copley's continuous hammering on listeners' boogie and shag nerves put him in the big leagues. I would not care to follow this man at a festival or package gig, and I don't think Greg Piccolo would, either.
He's also a bit of a romantic with a knack for bouncing the raw, frayed ends of his voice off of sweet piano phrases to express poignancy very well. This is music for shallow shagging and shuffling, but also for nostalgia and turning leaves. This record is an ideal silver wedding anniversary gift. Al Copley is a festival act to hope for and encourage.
Not as good as attending a live performance, but many of the band's strengths are crystal clear on this record. Shrimp City Slim's impeccable left hand piano bass lines are international star quality. Chuck Morris's harmonica is the best sales pitch traditional Hohner Marine Bands could have, doing what only those harps can do, and at the same time playing a pivotal role in inventing "Low Country Blues." John Etheridge is what oldtime blues players called "a fatback drummer," giving a thick, piquant coating to every tune. Guitarist Silent Eddie Phillips has been Shrimp City's foil and bandstand partner for a long time and shaped the sound of a region, somehow combining fun, power and a subtle elegance in all his phrasing; going from rhythm to lead passages seamlessly.
"Low Country Blues" is now a long, long way from its roots in good blues record collections. It's a separate and distinctive sub-genre of the blues, fun, funky, tastefully sparse, full of earthy lust and humorous asides and, in a nutshell, accessible. Shrimp City Slim demands of himself and his teammates that they entertain, and that, after all, is what audiences want. Culled from several live shows, these dozen tunes are not only to be enjoyed, but congratulated.
Shrimp City Slim's band backs a gospel/blues-style chanteuse on a dozen tunes, six by Ms. Jackson and six by Shrimp City Slim himself on this fine example of Low Country Blues. Cut live in a day, it's a "warts and all" release. One hears a tremendous leap in confidence from Ms. Johnson when she goes from "Can You Handle This," a straight ahead, mildly raunchy SCS number, to "The River," penned by Ms. Johnson and delivered by the band as a gospel/country hybrid.
This is an honest, human record, yet at the same time, a real showcase for everyone involved. One really wants to see Ms. Johnson and the band after hearing each of these cuts, pat them on the back and say, "Wow, great job!" She hasn't quite talked herself into being larger than life, and one needs to be larger than life to be convincing as a blues singer, with larger problems, larger vices and larger powers to get by in spite of them than the people in the audience. She's got the voice; she's done the homework. When she pleads, you hear her pleading. She's good and she'll get better.
The approach Clapton took to J.J. Cale songs ("Cocaine," "After Midnight") is taken again here. The task is made easier by Ellison's use of some Clapton sidemen, and by the fierce competition he faced in rising to top respect and recognition in Tulsa, which has always been a guitar town.
He favors a distorted, raspy, congested sound for his singing, or maybe he really sounds like that, in which case it's a good thing he's a fine guitarist/singer/songwriter, because he'd never make it as a telemarketer. Under that weird tone is a southern voice, and a sweet one, with the phrasing habits(emphasis on the beat rather than the afterbeat, massage of closing syllables, careful enunciation, lingering on all "oo" sound opportunities, affection for the "G" sound) of classic East Coast beach crooners. Burnside Records, long associated with earthier blues acts, has been going out on some limbs lately, and it is to the credit of this important label that they can maintain a vision of good music without getting stuck in a single sound groove.
There are co-writing credits here, but all 12 songs are Ellison creations. They sketch stories and are generally of the "here are some feelings; bet you've had them, too" type. If one absolutely must listen as a critic, there are some rough edges on horn and percussion tracks, inferring that the artist generally works without these accompanists, leaving the overall sound just funky enough for blues fans. Tastefully recorded organ is played effectively to mortar all the other bricks together, and the piano is gorgeous, minimalist, blue-eyed soul that Randy Newman or Leon Russell would be proud to claim.
I like it. I'll play it at home a lot to make guests happy without sacrificing my own preferences.
Nothing sounds as stale as cautious jazz. On the fourth, final disc of this set, Oscar Peterson sits in with the bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and all those great players sound as if they're deathly afraid of making the first mistake, so they hold back. They hold back everything. Other than that disappointment, this is one sweet, sweet collection. If there are four CDs and half of one fails to heat one's blood, that leaves 87.5% of the set intact and superlative. There are few 87.5% superlative releases out there. There are a lot of merely "superior" releases, but this one, at its best, is far beyond "superior," because Oscar Peterson himself is far beyond "superior." Repeatedly, liner notes accompanying the release give up on finding adequate description and praise for Peterson's talent, and said liner notes were written by Keyboard magazine editor Ernie Rideout, who supports himself by trying to describe and praise artists like Oscar Peterson.
Most reviewers will probably follow Rideout's lead and admit failure in defining Oscar Peterson, but will point out what he does for others' playing, which is to bring out their best. Featured bandstand partners on this release include Benny Carter, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Herb Ellis, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Stephane Grappelli, Freddie Green, Coleman Hawkins, Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, Toots Thielemans and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, and that's about 30% of the list. An equivalent song title sampling frm the set includes "Au Privave," "C-Jam Blues," "Caravan," "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans," "How Long Has This Been Going On," "Soft Winds," "Stella By Starlight," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Summertime" and "That Old Black Magic." Being "old school," Peterson and his partners know that their mission is to make these standards non- standard, yet they never cop out (or bop out) and simply race one another away from the melody. This is modern jazz based in swing, baby, and not wanting it is like not wanting fresh spring air.
In their heyday, the Modern Jazz Quartet failed to wow critics. This newly released anthology must be based on the suspicion that standards have changed in the four or five decades since these recordings were originally issued. Okay, here's the deal -- these guys seasoned their jazz with a little classical feeling, but refrained from both the inventiveness of jazz and the drama of classical. Thus, rather than "chamber jazz," an easily appreciated form, MJQ delivered cocktail lounge jazz. They favored beat over afterbeat, draining soul and blues opportunities from their music. Indisputably professional, they made no mistakes, took no chances, and produced background music.
I think this is a good collection to learn tunes from, because there's nothing in the recordings to distract, but, outside of an elevator, there is little other reason to listen to it.
When you play this one for friends, they're going to ask you to burn copies for them. Good critics discourage this practice, so be forewarned. Prepare your polite, ethical refusal to make illegal CD copies in advance. The reason they're going to want copies of this 1960-vintage recording is that it's great. It's swing, it's bebop, and it's that best of all jazz accomplishments -- an intelligible conversation between gifted equals. You don't just get to know the songs, but the players as well. You get to know that Ben Riley (drums) is an instigator, that Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (tenor sax) is impatient, that Johnny Griffin (tenor sax) is a romantic, that Junior Mance (piano) is a diplomat and that Larry Gales (bass) is a nurturer.
It's not hard bebop. Hard bebop works the drummer constantly, but everyone else on the bandstand takes turns, meaning they get to rest and cycle in and out. On this record, everyone's working. Actually, everyone's rushing a bit. Listeners sense a competition between the saxmen, and the saxmen seem to sense that the competition is a race. The fast numbers rain notes down fast enough, unfortunately, to de- emphasize tone, and the slow cuts are actually mid-tempo. While, generally, the record accomplishes all that a small combo jazz record can accomplish and is a great, classic, highly desirable release, it would be better if one could simply listen to it and find it great rather than finding it great by comparison.
Art is all very well and good, but there is a lot to be said of craft, too. Some of the most revered figures in Western Art, William Blake and M.C. Escher, to name two, proudly referred to themselves as craftsmen rather than artists. Tenor saxman Red Holloway might do the same. He is a studio giant, a man whose work you have probably heard without knowing it on myriad pop, R & B, blues and jazz albums, television themes and even porn film soundtracks over several decades. Coast to Coast is a follow-up to Keep That Groove Going, a Holloway / Plas Johnson release that's entered the record collections of many serious tenor players since its release a couple of years ago. Here, teamed again with jazz/light funk guitarist Melvin Sparks, George Benson band alumnus organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, former Les McCann Trio drummer Paul Humphrey and Frank Wess, whose tenor sax fame dates back to his mid-'50s work with Count Basie. It seems that Holloway prefers a second tenor sax, the best available, to bring out his own finest work.
Relying on less known material than Keep That Groove Going, Coast to Coast presents the players more strongly than its predecessor simply because, if listeners don't know the songs, they are unable to anticipate and mentally hum along with them. It's a different kind of listening. An elder statesman and proselytyte of The Groove, Holloway and the band come out swinging with "Still Grooving," a title track that would have served admirably as a detective series theme circa 1961. In the spirit of "Dragnet" and "77 Sunset Strip," it puts the listener behind the wheel of a car, looking for trouble, sex, whiskey, whiskey, sex and more trouble, but not necessarily in that order. There are ballads here, noticably a little weaker than the real Groove numbers, but the Groove is what this is about -- a groove of rich, rich, roll-up-the-sleeves-and-take-an-extra-handkerchief-for- the-sweat tenor sax. The organ, enjoying a general usage spike as a bass instrument at the moment, is dead on target, the drums admirable and perfectly recorded, Sparks chording and quick-bend soloing with much stronger purpose than on his own records.
I am not confident that I can tell Holloway's work from Wess's accurately throughout a whole session with this record, but I think that's part of the point. They are in agreement on tone and phrasing ... When two people are going to the same place, they're likely to end up on the same road, and that's certainly happening here. I urge blues, jazz and R & B fans to get on that road with them. Buy the record.
Don Friedman's doing what Stan Kenton and Bill Evans did for earlier generations -- bringing strong classical influences to jazz. As he is doing so on Waltz For Debby in a trio format, there is a specific whiff of chamber music to the result. It is akin to, yet in no way mimicking, the Claude Bolling series that centered on Suite For Flute and Jazz Piano that was for so long a favorite public radio piece. Seeing the title, "Waltz For Debby," one expects a completely original set of tunes, yet only four of the ten pieces are Friedman's. Surprisingly and bravely, he brings his unique chamber jazz approach to Cole Porter, Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Johnnie Mandel and Williard Robinson tunes as well, meeting the challenge of producing a coherent, easily discernable theme with his weave and others' material.
Airy, skillful and cerebral.
Joe Chambers plays drums, vibes and marimba. He's a well known and respected, 61-year old New York jazzman, and the rest of the band, Gary Bartz(alto and soprano sax), Eric Reed(piano and synthesizer), Rufus Reid (bass) and Bobby Sanabria were probably bandstand and studio friends from way back who were happy to be part of this recording. More ambitious than most regional jazz projects, with three originals, challenging, rehearsed interpretations of standards and bebop classics, this record has a familiar enough sound to judge superior.
As a drummer, Chambers is not exactly in an obvious frontman's driver's seat, but he's brilliant, and it shows early on. It's the way he plays off of his partners while playing with them. It just plain sounds as if there's more going on here than the same cast could do with any other drummer. It's modern, small combo jazz; at times the players start off on a standard and seem to be in a race to see who can get the greatest distance from the melody fastest, but it doesn't seem quite as "bratty" with this drummer in charge. "Surrey With The Fringe on Top(yes, the one from Oklahoma)" is to the original what Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" was to the Julie Andrews version.
Reviews by Arthur "LoveWhip" Shuey