|
Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1992 |
 |
|
Features
|
|
Friday, 10 February 2006 00:04 |
Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1992
By John Sinclair
Twenty years ago, when the giants of the modern blues and jazz idioms walked the earth, gathering major blues and jazz artists together on one stage and mixing genres in a single presentation was far from commonplace. The Newport and Monterey Jazz Festivals featured well-established jazz stars; the various Pop Festivals spotlighted rock and folk acts with the occasional blues or R&B artist thrown in; and the fledgling New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival--now the model for multi-cultural mass musical events--was just beginning to juxtapose artists like Duke Ellington, Mahalia Jackson, Professor Longhair and Fats Domino.
When this writer was given the opportunity to program the 1972 Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival, it was my intention to break new ground by structuring a series of stage shows which would point up both the links between the blues, jazz and R&B idioms and the diverse directions taken by some of their major practitioners, providing an opportunity to compare and contrast both artists and idioms in a live performance setting.
Combinations of artists like Howlin' Wolf/Junior Walker & the All Stars/Sun Ra & His Arkestra (Friday night), Muddy Waters/Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers/Art Ensemble of Chicago (Saturday afternoon), Little Sonny/Dr. John/Pharoah Sanders/Bobby 'Blue' Bland (Saturday night), Freddy King/Archie Shepp/Sippie Wallace/Luther Allison (Sunday afternoon), and Miles Davis/Otis Rush/Marion Brown/Lightnin' Slim (Sunday night) were designed to produce leaps in consciousness and new understandings as well as a series of diverse musical entertainments for open-minded but somewhat captive listeners who had been lured to Otis Spann Memorial Field by the promise of Festival.
The passage of years has taken many of these great jazz & blues artists from us--Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Hound Dog Taylor, Freddy King, Sippie Wallace, Miles Davis, Lightnin' Slim--while the ever-increasing commonness of the Festival setting itself has reduced the excitement of seeing and hearing legendary performers amassed before us in mind-boggling array.
At the same time the relentless narrow-casting techniques perfected by the entertainment industry in the years since 1972 have cemented the artificial barriers between the genres in the service of ever more efficient marketing and consumer exploitation.
Contemporary jazz fans, for example, have little interest in the blues, and all too frequently lack exposure to historical jazz composers and improvisors as well. Blues lovers typically have even less interest in hearing jazz of any stripe. And pop music fans inhibit a universe of their own, one which has been carefully purged of any reference to the roots and branches of the blues and jazz idioms developed by African-American artists over the past 100 years.
There is a continuity, a living, working relationship between blues, jazz, gospel and related African-American musical forms which goes beyond entertainment into the vital cultural history of our nation. To grasp this continuity is to understand the development of African-American music as a means of expressing the ever-changing reality of life outside the mainstream of white America--the struggle to make beauty and art out of oppression and adversity and to communicate these forms and standards of beauty to the world at large as a means of overcoming their social invisibility and of attaining, ultimately, world-wide recognition of their own humanity.
From this perspective, then, may we perhaps view the newly revived Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival as a way to follow and weigh the contributions of several important post-World War II blues and jazz artists and some of their artistic progeny.
There are in fact three such figures of major consequence to be heard at this year's festival--Robert Jr. Lockwood, Charles Brown and Sonny Rollins--plus two significant Rollins followers in Archie Shepp and David Murray, three distinctive modern bluesmen--Snooky Pryor, James Cotton and Son Seals--plus the important pianist and blueswoman Katie Webster, and one man who stands above category, the Right Reverend Al Green.
And then there are those who have reached artistic maturity since the first Ann Arbor Festivals: pianist Don Pullen, who was a member of the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop at the 1973 Festival; singer-guitarist Bonnie Raitt, who performed with Sippie Wallace at the 1972 Festival; guitarist John Nicholas and harmonica man Steve Nardella, who performed with the late Boogie Woogie Red and others in both 1972 and 1973; vocalist Maria Muldaur; Ann Arbor guitarist George Bedard and pianist Mr. B (Mark Braun).
And, finally, there are several outstanding representatives of the modern-day Motor City sound, including drummist/composer Roy Brooks, the excellent female jazz group Straight Ahead, the exciting array of urban bluesmen--including Mr. Bo, Uncle Jesse White, Johnny 'Yard Dog' Jones, and The Butler Twins Blues Band--performing as the Blues Factory All Stars, and the powerful retro-R&B sounds of vocalist Thornetta Davis with The Chisel Brothers.
The senior artist present, pioneering electric guitarist Robert Jr. Lockwood, is another link to the 1972 Festival and, more significantly, a pivotal figure in the development of the modern blues idiom. Born in Marvell, Arkansas, on March 27, 1915, and schooled by his mother's boyfriend, the legendary Delta bluesman Robert Johnson, Robert Jr. traveled and played with Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) while still a teenager.
Lockwood moved on to St. Louis and Chicago later in the 1930s and made his first recordings in Chicago in 1940 before returning to Arkansas and joining up with Sonny Boy Williamson again in time to back up the harmonica giant on his daily KFFA radio show, King Biscuit Time, at the end of 1941. Here he began to translate the Delta blues tradition into the language of the electric guitar and popularized this new sound throughout the Mississippi Delta. By 1943 he was featured on KFFA with his own six-piece band, taking the music another step into the future by blending the Delta blues with jazz and popular music.
Robert Jr. moved to Chicago at the end of the 1940s and became a mainstay on blues recording sessions, developing the role of the rhythm guitar into a fine art on countless recordings by Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Sunnyland Slim, Willie Mabon and other blues giants. He resettled in Cleveland in the early 1960s and has remained there since, performing and recording infrequently until the contemporary blues boom brought him back into the limelight.
Pianist/vocalist Charles Brown is a pioneer in another phase of the development of modern music: Rhythm & Blues. Born in Texas City, Texas, in 1920, Charles resettled in Los Angeles during World War II and soon became a featured member of Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, a pop combo modeled on the Nat 'King' Cole Trio. Their 1945 recording of "Driftin' Blues" became one of the best-selling records of 1945-46 and established the trio as one of the most influential groups of the post-war period. Their soulful urban blues stylings helped set the pace for the rhythm & blues explosion which transformed black popular music during 1945-54.
Charles Brown cut a series of magnificent R&B recordings for Aladdin Records between 1949 and 1956, including such standards of the idiom as "Black Night," "Trouble Blues," "Hard Times" and his perennial favorite, "Merry Christmas Baby." He stands alongside Roy Milton, Amos Milburn, Wynonie Harris, Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson, Percy Mayfield and Ray Charles as one of the most important R&B artists of the modern period, and his playing and singing are every bit as satisfying today as his ground-breaking work of the 1940s.
Sonny Rollins--our greatest living tenor saxophonist--was born in New York City on September 7, 1930 and has been a major figure in jazz improvisation since his first recordings with Babs Gonzales, Bud Powell and J.J. Johnson in 1949. Deeply rooted in the music of Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, Louis Jordan and other masters of the 1930s and 40s, Sonny developed his unique sound and attack as a sideman with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet between 1950-56 before unleashing a series of astonishing recordings under his own name on the Prestige, Blue Note, Riverside, Contemporary, MGM and Atlantic labels, including such essential documents of the period as Saxophone Colossus, Tenor Madness (with John Coltrane), Brilliant Corners (with Thelonious Monk), Plays For Bird, Way Out West, Freedom Suite, and Newk's Time.
At the peak of his popularity, Rollins retired from public life during 1959-61 in order to concentrate on developing his music in the context of the major innovations then being made by John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra and other pioneers of post-bop improvisatory music. Sonny reemerged in 1962 and made his mark with a series of exciting recordings for RCA Victor and ABC/Impulse Records. While the quality of his many Milestone albums during the contemporary period has varied, Rollins has continued to grow as a performer and improvisor to the point where he is utterly without peer on stage.
Veteran bluesman Snooky Pryor--born in Lambert, Mississippi, on September 15, 1921--is an important transitional figure who helped bring the Delta sound to Chicago in the early 1940s, where he often worked with his harmonica idol John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson and guitarist Homesick James. He was teamed up with Floyd and Moody Jones in the Maxwell Street blues scene by 1945 and soon became one of the most popular performers on the street, cutting influential urban blues records for the Planet, JOB, Parrot and VeeJay labels from 1948 into the late 1950s.
Snooky retired from public life until the late 1980s, reemerging with two excellent albums on Blind Pig Records and a hot CD from Antone's Records featuring a whole album's worth of new compositions. He continues to update the Delta blues tradition and remains one of the music's living treasures.
Harmonica star James Cotton represents the next generation of the Delta blues. Born in Tunica, Mississippi in 1935, James was only six years old when he fell under the spell of Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) on King Biscuit Time on KFFA. Four years later the child prodigy met his idol and started traveling and playing with Sonny Boy.
At 15 Cotton moved to West Memphis and started his own band, recording the legendary "Cotton Crop Blues" for Sun Records under the direction of the young Ike Turner. Cotton worked with Howlin' Wolf and then joined the Muddy Waters Band, following Little Walter, Junior Wells and Big Walter Horton and staying with Muddy some 12 years before beginning a long career as a bandleader and recording artist based in Chicago.
Pianist/vocalist Katie Webster, the "Swamp Boogie Queen," began her professional career in 1955 at the age of 13 after her family moved from Houston, Texas to Oakland, California. Katie stayed behind to follow the music and soon joined the band of South Louisiana recording artist Ashton Savoy. By 15 she was a regular session player on classic sides by Savoy, Lightnin' Slim, Slim Harpo, Lazy Lester, Phil Phillips ("Sea of Love") and countless others.
In 1964 Ms. Webster was "discovered" by Otis Redding and toured with him as his pianist and opening act until his untimely demise in 1967. During the early 1970s Katie established herself as a touring attraction in Europe and the U.S., signing with Alligator Records in 1987.
Tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, one of the leading lights of the jazz revolution of the 1960s, is a native of Philadelphia who began his recording career in 1961 as a member of the Cecil Taylor Unit. Following a stint as co-leader of the New York Contemporary 5 (with Don Cherry and John Tchicai), Archie signed with ABC/Impulse Records at the urging of John Coltrane and cut a series of classic albums starting with Four for Trane and Fire Music. A tenured professor of music at Amherst College, Shepp continues to record and perform all over the world. He was featured with his group at the 1972 Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival.
The incomparable Al Green was born April 13, 1946 in Forrest City, Arkansas and began his performing career working with his father's gospel group. Featured vocalist with the Creations and with Al Green & The Soul Mates by 1967, Al Green hooked up with Memphis producer Willie Mitchell two years later and unleashed a string of magnificent soul singles which helped define the sound of the 1970s, including "Let's Stay Together," "I'm Still in Love with You," "You Ought to Be with Me," "Let's Get Married" and other masterpieces of the idiom. Al left the popular music arena after being "born again" in 1974 and returned to the church, working as pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis and recording as a best-selling gospel artist for Word Records.
Guitarist/vocalist Son Seals, born August 13, 1942 in Osceola, Arkansas, is one of the most powerful players and performers on the contemporary blues scene. Son grew up under the bandstand of his father's Dipsy Doodle Club in Osceola, starting in music as a drummer for Robert Nighthawk and converting to guitar around 1960. He worked out of Chicago with the great Earl Hooker in 1963, joined Albert King as a drummer during 1966 and then returned to Arkansas, where he built up his guitar chops and played around Little Rock until his father's death in 1971 sent him back to Chicago for good. Seals cut his first record as a leader for Alligator Records in 1973 and has helped lead the modern blues explosion ever since.
Tenor saxophonist/composer/bandleader David Murray, born in Oakland, California on January 19, 1955, grew up under the spell of Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Albert Ayler, later assimilating the influences of Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Lester Young to become a complete modern tenorman. He came to New York City in 1975 as part of the modern West Coast invasion--in company with Arthur Blythe, Butch Morris, James Newton and others--and quickly established himself as a leading voice of the newest wave in jazz. He works with a trio, quartet, octet and big band, now recording for DIW/Columbia. His Festival quartet features keyboardist Don Pullen, himself a major Blue Note recording artist and bandleader who came to prominence as a member of Charles Mingus's Jazz Workshop in the mid-1970s.
Guitarist/vocalist Bonnie Raitt was a fledgling recording artist when she made her first appearance at the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival in 1972 accompanying legendary blueswoman Sippie Wallace, one of her biggest influences as a performer. Twenty years of intelligent, soulful music later, Bonnie finally hit the jackpot in 1990 with her Grammy-winning Nick of Time album and is now a major attraction everywhere. A guitarist since the age of 9, Bonnie's roots are in the music of Ms. Wallace, Victoria Spivey, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters and other Delta blues players and singers.
Vocalist Maria Muldaur is a veteran of the folk music boom of the 1960s who has matured into a stunning blues-and-jazz singer with impeccable taste and a fantastic repertoire, drawing on classic material by Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and 1950s R&B recordings ("It Ain't the Meat, It's the Motion"). She emerged as a performer with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band in the mid- 60s, had a hit single with "Midnight at the Oasis" in 1974, and has continued to labor in the vineyards of blues-and-jazz-influenced pop music, recording with artists as diverse as Dr. John, Stevie Wonder, Jr. Walker, Ry Cooder, Ray Brown and Benny Carter. Her new recording is on New Orleans' BlackTop Records, backed up by Dr. John, the Neville Brothers and Amos Garrett.
Guitarist John Nicholas, born in Westerley, R.I. in 1948, is like Raitt and Muldaur a veteran of the East Coast folk-blues scene. He grew up musically under the powerful influence of Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Muddy Waters and his guitar mentor Hubert Sumlin. His first band included Duke Robillard, Fran Christina and Steve Nardella before Nicholas and Nardella emigrated to Ann Arbor in the early 1970s. Johnny worked several years with the great Big Walter Horton, appearing at all three Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festivals between 1972-74. He is currently featured with harmonica master Snooky Pryor on Blind Pig Records.
Steve Nardella, George Bedard & Mr. B are three Ann Arbor-based bluesmen who have made strikingly original uses of their classic blues influences. Nardella is an excellent harmonica player in the Little Walter tradition and plays fine guitar in a variety of blues-based styles. Bedard is another versatile guitarist who plays blues, rockabilly and early rock & roll styles with great authority. Mr. B (Mark Braun), a native of Flint, Michigan, studied blues piano with the masters, including Little Brother Montgomery, Roosevelt Sykes, Sunnyland Slim and Boogie Woogie Red. His series of fine recordings as a pianist and vocalist includes outings with legendary jazz drummers J.C. Heard and Roy Brooks, who is featured on his new release, My Sunday Best, for Ann Arbor's Schoolkids Records.
Detroit-based jazz quintet Straight Ahead, recently signed to Atlantic Records, is making a mark on the contemporary jazz scene with its fresh, distinctive sound and all-woman lineup of violinist Regina Carter, vocalist/percussionist Cynthia Dewberry, pianist Eileen Orr, bassist Marion Hayden and drummer GayeLynn McKinney. Straight Ahead was a big hit at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival this past spring and--with confreres Geri Allen, Kenny Garrett, Robert Hurst and others--represents the best of the new generation of contemporary Detroit jazz masters.
Thornetta Davis & the Chisel Brothers are further proof that the Motor City Sound continues to develop and grow. Consistently voted "Best Contemporary R&B Band" for the past several years, the group represents a most happy marriage between the powerful, gospel-inflected approach of vocalist Thornetta Davis and the blues-based guitar-rock of the Chisel Brothers, who first established themselves on the Detroit scene of the 1980s as the Buzztones.
The Blues Factory All Stars features a healthy sampling of the cream of Detroit's modern crop of blues artists who continue to extend the Delta nlues tradition into the 21st Century. Guitarist/vocalist Louis "Mr. Bo" Collins (a veteran of the 1973 Festival), harmonica man/singer Johnny 'Yard Dog' Jones, pianist/vocalist Uncle Jesse White, and the Butler Twins Blues Band with guitarist Jeff "Tire Man" Grand represent the growing stable of bluesmen who are being recorded and promoted by Detroit's Blues Factory Records, headed by blues-lovers Steve Sanchez and Mark Foreman.
--New Orleans
Summer 1992
(c) 1992, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
John Sinclair, Creative Director for the original Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festivals, has written music journalism since the mid-1960s for downbeat, Jazz & Pop, Coda, Wavelength, Playboy and many Detroit-area publications. Now based in New Orleans, Sinclair is a popular radio producer/host on WWOZ-FM and continues to perform his blues and jazz poetry with musical accompaniment. He has designed and taught courses in Blues History and Roots of Rock & Roll at Wayne State University and will soon celebrate the release of his first major recording, fly right --a monk suite with pianist Ed Moss on New Alliance Records.
3.1.6104]]> |
|
Share Link: 
