community weblog - [ Blues ]

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- John Penney  [ 5/8/2007 - 16:54 ]   #

 

"Naughty, Bawdy & Blue" in stores Now!

When most people think of the blues they think of a man with a guitar at the crossroads or on a back porch in the Mississippi Delta. But America's fascination with the blues began with a recording by a woman, a Vaudeville singer in New York City backed by a jazz band. The year was 1921, the singer was Mamie Smith, and the record was, "Crazy Blues." It sold over a million copies and demonstrated that there was a huge market for records by and for African-Americans. Record companies went into a feeding frenzy, signing women to sing what has come to be known as the "Classic Blues."

Over the next decade the likes of Mamie, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Sippie Wallace, and Victoria Spivey would sell millions of records, travel the country in their own Pullman railroad cars, and play to sold out houses wherever they went. As Maria Muldaur says in Boogie & the Blues Diva, "These women were America's first Pop Stars."

At the 2004 Motor City Blues & Boogie Woogie Festival Maria and James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band recreated the look, the feel, and the sound of this seminal period in American musical history. But the concert and television program represent but two of three parts of the project. During the week before the performance Maria and the band recorded over a dozen songs at Solid Sound in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The result is the new album on Stony Plain Records,  "Naughty, Bawdy & Blue." The album is dedicated to Maria's friends Sippie Wallace and Victoria Spivey, and includes a duet with Bonnie Raitt on Sippie's "Hesitation Blues." You can hear samples of all the songs in Maria's Musical Oasis.

Maria will be touring extensively to support the new album - check the schedule here - and will be performing with James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band on Sunday September 3 at the largest free jazz festival in North America, the Detroit International Jazz Festival, held annually in downtown Detroit.

 

 

- John Penney  [ 5/8/2007 - 12:44 ]   #

Boogie Woogie legend Big Joe Duskin died Sunday May 7 at his home in Cincinatti from complications arrising from a long battle with diabetes. You can read the obituary in the Cincinatti Inquirer here.

 Big Joe, the “gentle giant,” was a perennial favorite of ours, performing at the first three Motor City Boogie Woogie Festivals from 1999-2001. He was honored as the first inductee of the Boogie Woogie Hall of Fame in 1999 in hometown Cincinnati, Ohio.  A professional musician since the age of 16, Big Joe’s grace and style belie his size and his other profession -- working 30 years as a Cincinnati police officer.  Big Joe has always mixed his musical talents with his love of gospel.  In fact, Big Joe’s love of Boogie Woogie got him in trouble with his Baptist preacher father. While in his 80s, Big Joe’s father made Joe promise that he wouldn’t play “the Devil’s music” until after his death. What no one could predict was that Big Joe’s father would live to 104 years of age.

Joe first heard piano played in his local church.  “I used to have to walk through a swamp filled with alligators to get to church,” Joe recalls.  “And the only way I escaped a beating for being out late at night was because my uncle would find me behind the piano and take me home in his wagon.  He used to get me to slip under the porch when we got home, before my old man could come out. Then, when my father started hollerin’ for me, I would get out from under that porch and tell him I’d fallen asleep under there.”

When his family moved to Cincinnati, Joe was able to teach himself to play the piano.  “I used to play the same song over and over and over, the only song I knew, Coon Shine Baby.  Folks would close their doors when I came onto the porch.  They’d say, ‘Oh no, here’s the Duskin boy again.  Don’t let him near the piano.  He’s gonna play that damned song again.’  ‘Cause at the time, we didn’t have a piano at home.” 

- John Penney  [ 2/6/2007 - 16:24 ]   #

Legendary pianist and Motown Funk Brother Joe Hunter was found dead in his apartment in Detroit on February 3, 2007.  Click here for Detroit Free Press writer Brian McCollum's obituary.

Joe was the Master and Ceremonies for the 2003 Motor City Boogie Woogie & Blues Festival. AMRF President Ron Harwood remembers Joe fondly:

It is a great loss to the music community and a great personal loss to hear of the passing of “Ivy” Joe Hunter. Joe was a very special person, kind to everyone and always with a smile on his face. Over the past few years I had the privilege to visit with Joe, interview him and have him perform on our 2003 AMRF Motor City Blues and Boogie Woogie Festival. His interviews were a special treat to an old ethnomusicologist like me, because Joe brought Detroit’s music history to a vibrant and lively – and sometimes romantic crescendo as he rollicked across two decades of Hastings Street stories.

To be sure, Joe Hunter was a terrific piano player, someone who could capture an audience with either a solo boogie number or a smile-filled vocal; but mostly, Joe was a unique character. There was never a time that I saw Joe off in a corner. On the contrary, he was always where the action was, filling his friends with stories of dozens of great recording sessions, personal histories of the great Motown singers and always recognizing the guys in the band who made such special backdrops for the gospel/soul voices that Barry Gordy discovered.

I was also blessed with the opportunity to hear Joe’s straightforward explanations on the evolution of R&B music from gospel and country blues – and of course – Boogie Woogie. Joe felt comfortable playing almost any style because he was an entertainer at heart with no special axe to grind for one musical genre over another. He simply loved to play, loved to talk, and loved life. I know for sure that he’s giving piano lessons on the other side and grinning from ear to ear. We will miss you Joe.

Here is a slideshow of pictures from 2003.               

- John Penney  [ 11/22/2006 - 09:49 ]   #

The words may change, but it’s the same refrain every year: “It doesn’t get any better than this.” It’s Founder Ron Harwood, understated as always, saying 15 minutes into the Big Band Boogie Woogie show, “I guess this was a good idea.” And Judy Greenwald, the most expressive member of our group, standing by the sound board with her jaw on her chest saying over and over again, “Oh….my…..God!”

It was the Friday audience dancing all night long to Calvin Cooke, Alberta Adams, Johnnie Bassett, Sir Mack Rice, and the Howling Diablos. It was the Saturday house, still packed, demanding yet another encore from the big band at 12:30  in the morning.

We don’t put our shows together the way most people do. We don’t book artists just because they'll provide the biggest draw, and we don’t measure success by how many tickets we sell. We don’t try to make as much money as we can by paying the artists as little as possible and charging as much as possible for tickets. Rather, at the AMRF the artists come first, and we try to keep ticket prices as low as practicable in order to encourage folks to come see and hear music and musicians that they might not otherwise experience.

Our rewards come in the form of comments like these from audience members:
 
“Thank you one & all for the ALL-TIME BEST BOOGIE WOOGIE FESTIVAL to date!”
 " AWESOME!"
"…the BEST concert I have ever been to in my life with major dance parties in the   balcony!"
"… the best night of my life!"
"I thought I was in heaven!"
"I never knew what Boogie Woogie was, but NOW I do!"
"I'll never be the same!"
"Why wasn't EVERYONE THERE???"

 And like this, from Big Band Boogie Woogie Music Director, Bassist and Band Leader Paul Keller:

 “…everything about the show was great. I loved every minute of it! Again, thank you for the opportunity and the means for us to participate in this glorious project! It was an epic saga of immense depth, breadth and magnitude! It was a lot of work by a lot of people. The final result was spectacular!!!”

By the end of the weekend, we had turned some audience members on to music they either didn’t know existed or didn’t think they really liked, and had given the artists a weekend that bore little resemblance to “just another gig.” And we made many, many new friends.

Like I said, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Photography by John Collier, shown at work above.
(c) 2006 American Music Research Foundation

WATCH FOR "BIG BAND BOOGIE WOOGIE" AND "DETROIT BLUES & BEYOND"
ON TV AND DVD IN 2007!

Sir Mack Rice works the crowd with Thornetta Davis up front

Watch the slideshow!

l-r, Charles Boles, Mr. B, Bob Seeley, George Bedard, Dave Bennett, and Red Holloway do the boogie woogie!

Watch the slideshow


Thanks to our Sponsors!

          

 

- John Penney  [ 11/20/2006 - 10:43 ]   #

Ruth Brown was one of the most important women in the history of R&B, not only as a performer, but as a champion of artists' rights. I had the pleasure of working with her some years ago at the Detroit Jazz Festival, and came away from that experience with even greater admiration and respect for her. She was an incredibly gracious woman. We mourn her passing, but celebrate her life and legacy. You can find her music here.

l-r, Billy Eckstine, Ruth Brown, Count Basie, unidentified woman

 

R&B pioneer Ruth Brown dies at age 78

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pioneering rhythm and blues singer Ruth Brown, known as "the girl with a tear in her voice" for emotion-laden singing, died on Friday at age 78 after a stroke and heart attack in Las Vegas, friends said.

Brown was the best selling black female artist of the early 1950s with songs including "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean," "So Long," "Teardrops From My Eyes," "Oh, What a Dream," and "Mambo Lips."

Her hits for Atlantic Records were so huge that record company became known as "The House that Ruth Built."

But her work with Atlantic Records ended in 1961 as her gutsy, belting style fell out of favor.

Her career faded in the 1960s and she was reduced to taking menial jobs, including that of a maid, until a revival of her work in 1970s. In later years she hosted her own National Public Radio show, "The Harlem Hit Parade," on the great black blues and R&B singers of the 1940s, 50s and 60s and won a Tony award for her work in the musical revue "Black and Blue."

When she left Atlantic, the company said she owed them $30,000. When her career revived, she led a battle for artists to receive royalties from record companies.

Besides being known as "The Girl with a Tear in her Voice," she was also called "The Original Queen of Rhythm & Blues," "Miss Rhythm & Blues," and "Miss Rhythm," a nickname given to her by Frankie Lane,

When she revived her career, she starred in Allen Toussaint's off-Broadway musical "Staggerlee" and appeared in John Waters' film "Hairspray" as Motormouth Maybelle.

She was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.

Singer Bonnie Raitt said, "Ruth was one of the most important and beloved figures in modern music. You can hear her influence in everyone from Little Richard to Etta (James), Aretha (Franklin), Janis (Joplin) and divas like Christina Aguilera today.

"She set the standard for sass, heartache and resilience in her life as well as her music, and fought tirelessly for royalty reform and recognition for the R&B pioneers who never got their due. She taught me more than anyone about survival, heart and class. She was my dear friend and I will miss her terribly."

- John Penney  [ 10/24/2006 - 10:43 ]   #

 

Watch the trailer!

"Recorded at the Redford Theatre in October 2004, this program highlights 60 years in the history of American music. Maria Muldaur performs with James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band, recreating performances of the Classic Blues divas of the 20's and 30's. Butch Thompson, of "A Prairie Home Companion" fame, performs turn of the century ragtime and classic boogie woogie from Pinetop Smith. Detroit's Alma Smith performs mid-40's boogie woogie and blues, and the amazing Jason D. Williams performs Louis Jordan's "Caldonia," from the mid 40's, and the seminal rock and roll of Jerry Lee Lewis in the 50's.

56 minutes + 40 minutes of bonus material.
$25 includes shipping and handling

BUY ONLINE

OR CALL: 1-866-270-5141 between 9am-6pm Eastern

                                   

- John Penney  [ 7/25/2006 - 12:49 ]   #

 

 

 

July 24, 2006                            

 The Associated Press

MEMPHIS — Jessie Mae Hemphill, whose award-winning blues career lasted decades and was heavily influenced by her upbringing in rural Mississippi, has died, a spokeswoman for the singer's foundation said. She was 71.

Olga Wilhelmine Mathus, the founder and president of the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation, said the artist died Saturday from complications of an infection that may have resulted from an ulcer. Hemphill died in a Memphis hospital after checking in a week ago.

"She did not want to be operated on," Mathus said. "I think she was ready to go."

Hemphill embraced music at an early age and came from a family of musicians in northern Mississippi. Her great-grandfather and her grandfather, Sid Hemphill, were fiddle players who passed on their love of music. Her aunt, Rosa Lee, was also a performer who recorded several albums.

Jessie Mae Hemphill began playing guitar at age 7 or 8, and later moved on to other instruments.

She lived in Memphis for 20 years, and played the clubs on the city's famous Beale Street before finding an international audience.

"She brought a lot to the blues culture," Mathus said. "She was a pioneer for women in blues and women in general. Her music was very inspiring to a lot of people."

In 1993, Hemphill suffered a stroke that paralyzed her left side, leaving her unable to play guitar. She retired from touring and returned to Senatobia, where she lived with her dog, Sweet Pea.

She recorded one final album a decade later titled Dare You to Do It Again.

Mathus said funeral arrangements were incomplete.

Jessie Mae Hemphill won the W.C. Handy Award for Best Traditional Female Blues Artist in 1987 and 1988.  In 1991, Hemphill won the Handy Award for Best Acoustic Album.
 
 

- John Penney  [ 7/6/2006 - 16:46 ]   #

 

Joe Weaver at the 6th Annual Motor City Blues & Boogie Woogie Festival in the Redford Theatre, 2004
(c) American Music Research Foundation

The loss of Joe Weaver hits particularly hard for us at the AMRF; he has been a friend for many years. One of my favorite memories is of Joe playing piano for Alberta Adams in President Ron Harwood's basement at the post-festival barbeque' in 2004. In 2006 Joe was to be one of the featured performers in our"Detroit Blues Legends" program. His passing reafirms the sense of urgency we feel about our mission.

Late last year Ron and I had a conversation about how to further that mission -  to promote, preserve, and document American music and the musicians who create it. Our festivals serve all three elements: The live performances and resultant television programs promote the music and musicians, while the raw recordings of the performances and on-camera interviews with the performers are documents that preserve their legacies. 

But this format is self-limiting because we can only document those artists who are still performing and can come to us. The urgent need is to document those artists who are close to the end of their careers, and even more urgently those who are no longer performing. I remember Ron saying that a bit of his soul dies every time another great one passes without his or her story being captured on camera.

At present we depend on outside personnel and equipment to record our Festivals. We determined that one of our goals should be to acquire equipment that would at least allow us to go to the musicians and get their stories, particularly those of the elder masters no longer performing. 

It is still a goal. Being an "arts and culture" non-profit, particularly in Michigan, presents a tough row to hoe.

In the meantime, we figured we should use this year's festival to present artists who may not perform much longer. This was the genesis of the "Detroit Blues Legends" program. When we all sat down to start considering specific artists for the event back in February, Joe was at the top of the list.  We knew at the time that he was ill, and determined that we would try to get his interview recorded before the festival.

For a variety of reasons, we didn't. And I know I can speak for all of us at the AMRF when I say that with Joe's passing, a bit of all our souls has died. Joe Weaver was a gentleman, and his role in the evolution of the Detroit music scene cannot be overstated. We will miss him.

Below is Susan Whitall's piece from the Detroit News.

 

July 6, 2006

Joe Weaver: 1934-2006

Musician pioneered R&B in Detroit

Susan Whitall / The Detroit News

Joe Weaver, one of the key figures of the 1950s Detroit R&B scene, died Monday in Providence Hospital in Southfield of complications from a stroke. He was 71.

Weaver, pianist and bandleader with his Blue Note Orchestra, was a human thread linking the 1940s big band era with the '50s R&B era, a musical mix that led directly to Motown.

First, he performed jump blues and jazz in the very early '50s, then throughout that decade performed as the Fortune Records house band, backing up the Fortune roster, including Andre Williams and Nolan Strong and the Diablos.

"Joe was playing some pioneering funk grooves and R&B, way back in the early '50s," said his friend and manager, R.J. Spangler, on Wednesday. "Joe had it all. He could play New Orleans-type beats, doo-wop, jump blues, soul and down and dirty, lowdown blues."

Later, Weaver and his band, the Blue Notes, worked for Berry Gordy Jr., playing on early Tamla sessions such as "Shop Around" for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

A lifelong Detroiter, Weaver was still a student at Northwestern High School when he met guitar player Johnnie Bassett. With several friends they formed the Blue Notes and started winning talent shows at the Warfield Theater on Hastings Street.

Bassett remembered his friend and colleague fondly as someone who didn't spend a lot of time analyzing his musical importance.

"Joe wasn't the type of person who was seeking to be a big name," Bassett said Wednesday. "He just liked to be in the limelight and have fun with what he was doing at the time. He was always laughing and joking. He was always upbeat, regardless of what was going on."

Weaver, Bassett and the Blue Notes would practice in the back room at Joe Von Battle's record store on Hastings, since they were friends with Von Battle's son.

Von Battle had a primitive recording machine in his back room, and he recorded one of those sessions and titled it "1540 Special" (alluding to the street address of King Records). The record, Weaver's first, was released on the Deluxe label, a subsidiary of Cincinnati-based King.

Weaver and the Blue Notes won "best band" so often at the Warfield Theater in the early '50s that they were made the permanent backing band. They performed that function for top Detroit acts such as Little Willie John and John Lee Hooker at the Warfield and at clubs around town such as Basin Street in Delray and the Phelps Lounge on Oakland.

Once at Fortune Records, the legendary Detroit record label located (later) on Third Avenue, Weaver cut many records as an artist with the (then) Blue Note Orchestra.

Several of the Funk Brothers, Motown's famed session band, have credited Weaver's early work for Tamla/Motown as being key in the formation of the Funks since many of them cycled in and out of Weaver's band.

Despite all his work, in the '60s Weaver packed in the precarious life of a musician to work on a Ford assembly line for 30 years.

It was at a backyard barbecue at Bassett's house in the early '90s that blues promoter/musician Spangler first met Weaver and persuaded him to play out again.

"He was still working at his day job, but he was getting ready (to play)," said Spangler. "It didn't take much persuasion."

Weaver was a bubbly raconteur, regaling friends and reporters with colorful tales from his long musical career.

He liked to tell of the time he and the Blue Notes were backing up the volatile Andre "Bacon Fat" Williams.

Williams was complaining all through his set about how badly he thought the band was playing, which wore on Weaver's nerves, so the bandleader instructed his musicians to stop playing. "Don't play another note, let Andre sing a cappella!"

In 2002, Weaver got together with two old friends, Stanley Mitchell of Stanley and the Hurricanes and solo singer Kenny Martin, both '50s hitmakers out of Detroit, to form the Motor City Rhythm and Blues Pioneers.

The R&B Pioneers released a self-titled CD that year. In May of this year, in one of his last public appearances, Weaver was honored at the Detroit Music Awards with a Distinguished Achievement Award.

Weaver is survived by three daughters; Zenobia, April and Belinda, and his girlfriend, Sue Williams. Funeral arrangements are pending.

- John Penney  [ 6/7/2006 - 11:23 ]   #

AMRF Director John Penney attended the first Great Lakes Blues Society Summit in Windsor Ontario over Memorial Day weekend. While we are not precisely a blues society, our mission certainly includes the maxim of "keeping the blues alive," and we have collaborated with the Detroit Blues Society since the beginning - they are always at our Festivals.

John made a lot of new friends, a lot of new contacts, and had a lot of fun. We will shortly receive and post links to all the blues societies that participated so that you can keep up to date with blues news you can use. In the meantime, here is the press release from Big City Blues Magazine:

Great Lakes Blues Society Summit, May 26-28, 2006

Eight states, two countries and twenty blues societies and organizations met May 26, 27 and 28, 2006 in Detroit, MI and Windsor, Canada to form a partnership and establish regional live blues music tours and beyond.  Plus by working together blues societies and organizations that reach thousands of blues enthusiasts will attract more sponsorship and support for blues music.

After “too much fun” from Friday night’s Motor City Pub Crawl, May 26th with unforgettable highlights of Pricilla Price and Artie “Blues Boy” White’s performing together at Detroit’s #1 juke joint—The Mississippi Connection and next at Detroit’s downtown river front club--Currents where Luther “Badman” Keith and Lady Sunshine sang together for the first time ever, the Great Lakes Blues Society Summit began their business meeting the following morning on Saturday, May 27th in Windsor.

Discussion topics included issues that such as increasing membership, fundraising and blues education. The primary goal for the 2006 Great Lakes Blues Society Summit was accomplished and eight blues societies made a commitment to work together for a fall acoustic tour with Bobby Rush “unplugged.” A spring electric tour will follow.
 
Future partnership projects for the Great Lakes Blues Societies were discussed and may include a compilation blues CD, blues calendar, working with Koko Taylor’s Celebrity Aid Foundation, Gimme 5! fundraising for New Orleans musicians and a possible project with Habitat for Humanity’s Musicians Village in New Orleans.

 The Great Lakes Blues Society Summit received a very positive response. Thanks to everyone who attended and especially to Robert Jr. Whitall and Ted Boomer for organizing this groundbreaking event.
 
Mark your calendars for 2007 Great Lakes Blues Society Summit – May 25-27, 2007.

Great Lakes Blues Society Steering Committee: Ted Boomer, Robert Jr. Whitall, Shirley Mae Owens, Danny Graham, And Rolly Hough

Great Lakes Blues Societies/Organizations Summit 2006 Roll Call:
American Music Research Foundation
Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival
Black Swamp Blues Society
Big City Rhythm & Blues Magazine
Bluesfest International
Blues Foundation
Canada South Blues Society
-Windsor Chapter
-Bruce County Chapter (Incardinate)
-London Chapter
-Kitchener Chapter
Charleston West Virginia Blues Society
Detroit Blues Society
Hot Blues & Barbeque
Kitchener Blues Brews & Barbeques
Koko Taylor’s Celebrity Aid Foundation
Mid-North Michigan Blues Society
Saginaw Bay Blues Society
STLBlues.net
West Michigan Blues Society
Western New York Blues Society

Other Great Lakes Blues Societies & Organizations that are interested but were unable to attend: Alpena Blues Society, Capital Area Blues Society, Chicagoland Blues Society, Cinci Blues Society, Marquette Blues Society, Monroe Library Series, Tawas Bay Blues Society

For more information about the Great Lakes Blues Society Summit/Organization contact: Ted Boomer – ted@thebluesfest.com - 519-977-9631 or
Robert Jr. Whitall – blues@bigcitybluesmag.com or 248-582-1544

- Ryan Hertz  [ 6/6/2006 - 16:06 ]   #

By BOB CHRISTIE, Associated Press Writer

PHOENIX - Billy Preston, the exuberant keyboardist who landed dream gigs with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and enjoyed his own series of hit singles including "Outta Space" and "Nothing From Nothing," died Tuesday at 59.

Preston's longtime manager, Joyce Moore, said Preston had been in a coma since November in a care facility and was taken to a Scottsdale hospital Saturday after his condition deteriorated.

"He had a very, very beautiful last few hours and a really beautiful passing," Moore said by telephone from Germany.

Preston had battled chronic kidney failure, and he received a kidney transplant in 2002. But the kidney failed and he has been on dialysis ever since, Moore said earlier this year. ... [MORE]

- John Penney  [ 3/16/2006 - 11:44 ]   #

 The New Masses Presents
      AN EVENING OF AMERICAN NEGRO MUSIC
          “From Spirituals to Swing”
          (DEDICATED TO BESSIE SMITH)
      FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 23, 1938
         Carnegie Hall

John Hammond conceived of this concert as a political statement set to music:  “...the Negro people have produced some of the most amazing musicians the world has ever known,” and they deserved better than the oppression and discrimination they were subjected to.

Hammond was born on December 15, 1910 in an eight-story mansion on New York’s upper east side, an heir to the Vanderbilt fortune. As a child he discovered a Columbia Grafanola in the servant’s quarters, and by the age of 12 was collecting recordings of “early Negro and country artists.” His grandmother had a player piano and he also began collecting jazz rolls. At the age of 17 he snuck up to Harlem to hear Bessie Smith, telling his parents he had to go out to play string quartets. For the rest of his high school days he inhabited the Harlem clubs, frequently the only white face in the room.

While a student at Yale Hammond returned to New York on weekends and spent his nights in Harlem. During his sophomore year a recurrence of jaundice forced him to drop out, but by then Hammond had determined that he wanted a career in the music business.

His father sent him to “The Millionaire’s Club” in Georgia to recuperate. As Hammond says in his autobiography, “I returned to New York physically recovered and emotionally enraged. The habit of discrimination was so encrusted by centuries of acceptance that both black and white knew no other way to act. I had walked through my first southern Nigger town, the son of the president of a private club for millionaires, many of them Southern, all of them white and Protestant. To know better was no longer enough. I had to do something.”

For Hammond doing something meant promoting the artists and music he loved. As an independently wealthy man he was able to pursue his passion as he saw fit. As a young man he wrote about jazz for music magazines, invested in concerts, produced his first records, and hosted the first ever radio program devoted to jazz. He traveled the country by car, seeking out new talent.

At the center of his vision was a concert that would “bring together for the first time, before a musically sophisticated audience, Negro music from its raw beginnings to the latest jazz,” but it took years to find a sponsor that would underwrite the talent search and Carnegie Hall production. In early 1938, the Marxist publication, “New Masses,” agreed to sign on.

Hammond contacted a talent scout in North Carolina and set out to find his performers. Robert Johnson was at the top of Hammond’s list but had been killed by his girlfriend earlier in the year. “Big Bill” Broonzy was signed instead. Hammond also signed many of the performers he had discovered in New York, Chicago, and Kansas City.

In the printed program for the event Hammond laid out the show, not in the order of performances, but in the order by which the music evolved. There were eight parts:

Introduction During which recordings made by the H. E. Tracy expedition to the Africa were played.

I. Spirituals and Holy Roller Hymns
Mitchell’s Christian Singers were a group of laborers from North Carolina that sang a cappella on Sundays. Hammond went to their home, a back country shack without water or electricity, to sign them up.Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a forerunner to Mahalia Jackson, a singer and guitarist who played a “Holy Roller” style of hymns that straddled gospel and the blues. She played mostly in churches but had done one night at The Cotton Club, which brought her to Hammond’s attention.

II. Soft Swing 
The Kansas City Six featured Lester Young (cl. tsax.), Buck Clayton (tr.), Eddie Durham (electric g.), Freddie Greene (g.), Walter Page (b.), and Joe Jones (dr.) Their music straddled swing and dixieland styles of jazz.
 
III. Harmonica Playing
Hammond went to North Carolina to sign Blind Boy Fuller, but Fuller was in jail. Living next door was blind harmonica player Sanford (Sonny) Terry, and upon hearing him Hammond signed him on the spot.

IV. Blues
It had been Hammond’s dream to feature Bessie Smith, but she had passed on by the time the concert was in production, so he signed Ruby Smith – no relation to Bessie – accompanied by James P. Johnson, one of the originators of the “stride” style of piano that straddled the transition from ragtime to jazz.Hammond discovered blues shouter Joe Turner and his colleague boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson in Kansas City, and first brought them to New York to perform at The Famous Door in 1936. In 1938 he brought them back for a guest appearance on Benny Goodman’s “Camel Caravan,” and they stayed to perform in Carnegie Hall. Bill Broonzy had moved from Arkansas to Chicago in 1924, where he had become a major figure in the blues scene. The Carnegie Hall performance marked the first time he had played for a white audience. Jimmy Rushing was the vocalist in Count Basie’s band, and Helen Humes was a volcalist Hammond had discovered in Louisville, Kentucky and recommended to Basie. They both performed with small groups at Carnegie Hall before performing with the orchestra.

V. Boogie-Woogie Piano Playing
Pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis had shared a rooming house with Pinetop Smith in Chicago from 1927 to 1930. Smith had a hit with the recording of “Boogie Woogie” in 1928. After he passed away in 1929, Ammons and Lewis continued to develop the form. At Carnegie Hall they played solo, duo, and six-handed with Pete Johnson. The Spirituals to Swing concert began the boogie-woogie craze in this country. Ammons and Lewis were recorded together at the very first session for Blue Note Records in January of 1939.

VI. Early New Orleans Jazz
 Sidney Bechet (cl. ssax.), Tommy Ladnier(tr.), James P. Johnson (p.), Dan Minor (trb.), Jo Jones (dr.)

VII. Swing
 Count Basie and His Orchestra

The concert was oversold to the extent that chairs for an additional 400 people had to be put on stage, and a second “From Spirituals to Swing” concert was staged on Christmas Day, 1939.

- John Penney  [ 2/21/2006 - 13:44 ]   #

The roots of blues, rhythm & blues, jazz, and rock 'n' roll are all in New Orleans, and the evolution of the music is inseperable from the evolution of the city.

"Gumbo" is the most common metaphor for New Orleans, and it most apt. A good homemade gumbo can take days to make - mine generally take three or four. The first thing you make is the roux, flour cooked in fat that provides the smoky foundation for the dish. Next you add stock, and finally you add the stuff - crawdads, shrimp, chicken, sausage, greens, whatever.

The gumbo that is New Orleans took centuries to make, and the roux was made in the earliest days of the original settlement.

The eminent New Orleans scholar Pierce Lewis has described it as, "an inevitable city on an impossible site." Inevitable because it is at the mouth of the Mississippi River, and impossible because there really isn't a "mouth." Rather, for 200 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, there is nothing but swampland.

The site of the original French city, commissioned in 1718, has been described as, "wretched." It is too hot, too humid, prone to flooding and hurricanes, and the swamps bred untold numbers of disease-laden mosquitos. Respectable Europeans who had a choice did not choose to live in New Orleans. The original settlers were mostly hustlers, thieves, and opportunists.

The first slaves arrived directly from Africa in the early 1720's. But the French Catholic attitude towards slavery was quite different from that of the English Protestant colonials, and it resulted in a relatively large population of "free people of color" from the earliest days of the colony.

In the first place, slaves were allowed to earn money. City masters often loaned their slaves to others as wage laborers, and slaves were given the weekends off, when again they could work for wages. They used the money to buy their freedom.

Additionally, the French were quite open about secual liasons with slaves. Their mixed race offspring were frequently raised as free men or given their freedom when the father died. Many received an education, some going back to France for it.

These original settlers are the Creoles of New Orleans. They are French speaking Eurpoeans and Africans and, most importantly, everybody in between. In 18th century New Orleans there was no stark distinction between black and white, as there was in the English colonies. Africans and Europeans shared both genes and cultures, and the mixing of many rich shades of brown, both physically and culturally, was essential to the roux.

Another crucial ingredient was the infusion of Native American culture. Africans and Native Americans had much in common. They were both oppressed by the white man. They shared similar beliefs about nature and man's place in it. And they shared a love of music and dance. They were natural friends and allies.

Native Americans orchestrated the first documented escape of African slaves from the colony in 1725. The first account of Africans dressing as Native Americans - a sign of respect among neighboring tribes - comes from the Mardi Gras celebration of 1746.

Rampart Street in New Orleans demarked the inland boundary of the original city. Just outside the rampart was an open field. There are many conflicting stories, but it is apparent that it was a gathering place for Native Americans.

Creoles and Africans began to gather there too. There are stories about Creoles and Native Americans playing lacrosse together on the field. Over time, it evolved into a marketplace.

In 1744 this field was legitimized as the "Place de Negroes," where on weekends free people of color could gather openly to do business, trade news and gossip, and just hang out together. Slaves were allowed to join the congregation, and on Sunday afternoons they would come with traditional African drums and instruments. They would play music and sing, and dance.

Within a few years their numbers grew to hundreds, and Europeans, Creoles, African Americans, and Native Americans would all gather on this field for the weekly musical celebration.

The translation is not exact, but Place des Negroes became Congo Plain, and then Congo Square.

France ceded Louisiana to the Spanish after the Seven Years War in 1763, bought it back in 1800, and within three years sold it to the Americans. French Canadian refugees, the Acadians that came to be known as Cajuns, began arriving in 1764. And a few decades later black, white, and mixed race refugees from the slave revolts in Haiti began to arrive in large numbers. Sailors and settlers from all over the world would come, and some would stay.

Through all of this the Sunday afternoon gatherings continued in Congo Square, with more or less legitimacy. The Americans outlawed them in 1811, but the congregations simply reemerged elsewhere. So in 1817, in the interest of keeping them under watchful eyes, the city reestablished Congo Square as a place where, on Sunday afternoons, slaves could celebrate their heritage. As the city grew and flourished over the next century, this celebration of song and dance became renown throughout the world.

Congo Square is the cauldron in which the musical gumbo of New Orleans was cooked, and musicologists and historians point to all the stuff and stock added during the heyday of the 19th century as the source of most American musical genres.

But the roux was made much earlier, and without it the gumbo would not have been possible.

- Ryan Hertz  [ 1/17/2006 - 14:08 ]   #

By Regis Behe
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, January 12, 2006

A lifetime devoted to the music of a single musician might seem to be a myopic pursuit.

For Ernie Hawkins, it's the opposite. His study of the music of Rev. Gary Davis Jr. has opened him up to a kaleidoscopic array of sounds by one of the greatest musical innovators of the 20th century.

"Gary Davis could play blues, jazz, rags, gospel, any kind of music in any key," Hawkins says. "He had a style of playing where he could improvise, particularly blues, in any key. But he was not just improvising."

The CD release party for Hawkins' new album, "Rags & Bones," is Saturday at the Rex Theatre on the South Side. His fifth release, it continues Hawkins' exploration of a music that inspired him to journey to New York City to seek out Davis after graduating from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1965.

"I was an 18-year-old kid from Pittsburgh who didn't know anything about anything," Hawkins says, "sitting in front of this guy who was this blind seer, a great genius who had rewritten the whole way of playing guitar. I look back on it and it's kind of amazing I was just sitting there." ... [MORE]

- Ryan Hertz  [ 1/9/2006 - 11:17 ]   #

David K. Mathews wears his musical passions on his sleeve. Well, not his sleeve exactly, more like his biceps, back and pecs.

Decked out in a tight, white muscle shirt, Mathews testifies to his wide-ranging keyboard pursuits with his numerous tattoos, starting with the Tower of Power logo on his burly right bicep that commemorates the years he spent playing organ with the great East Bay funk band in the mid-1980s. Just below that is a jaunty image of Fats Waller from his 1930s heyday, ink that served as motivation for Mathews to explore the demanding Harlem stride piano style.

"I really wanted to learn how to play some Fats Waller, so I thought maybe if I got a tattoo of him, I'd have to be able to back it up, and that's what happened," says Mathews, 46, during an interview at an Albany cafe. "I'm really a funk, soul, R&B guy, and I see the tattoos as kind of a rock 'n' roll thing. It's just like one of the guys in Def Leppard."

The aesthetic may be rock, but you'd have to look far and wide for a metal player capable of navigating intricate post-bop lines on the Hammond B3 organ. That's what Mathews will do at Yoshi's on Monday, when he celebrates the release of his excellent album "The Coltrane Connection" (Jesse's Dad Records). Featuring Bay Area saxophone great Mel Martin, the prodigious drummer Deszon X. Claiborne and Barry Finnerty, the first guitarist recruited by Miles Davis, the project focuses on another area of Mathews' investigation, the lithe, harmonically sophisticated jazz organ sound developed in the mid-1960s by Larry Young and Don Patterson. ... [MORE]

- Ryan Hertz  [ 11/21/2005 - 10:39 ]   #