Mid-century jazz and Jordan

During the last couple of years, jazz scholars have discovered several recordings hidden in boxes at the Library of Congress and in record company vaults, while other valuable music has been made available by relatives of musicians who passed away a long time ago.

Blue Note Records has begun issuing much of that music, including a live recording by Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane at a Carnegie Hall concert New York in 1957, an astonishing performance that captures both musicians near the peak of their powers: An historic record and a great find that’s available on both CD and LP.

Another historic recording was recently made available by the widow of Charles Mingus, whose 1964 concert at Cornell University is the second in a series of mid-century Blue Note issues that are as important as anything released by Mingus and his group during the height of their fame. They include Eric Dolphy on alto, flute and bass clarinet; Clifford Jordan on tenor, Johnny Coles on trumpet, Jaki Byard on piano and Danny Richmond on drums.

That’s a lot of talent on a college campus, where you seldom hear this kind of brilliant jazz anymore.

The third in this series of important jazz CDs that were recorded in the 1950s and 1950 is the Horace Silver Quintet performing at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958.

Michael Cuscuna, a longtime producer at Blue Note, discovered the recording at the Library of Congress and in the vaults at Columbia Records. Columbia’s superior sound was used for the CD, which contains 44 minutes of Silver’s funky hard-bop jazz issued as “Live at Newport 1958.”

Silver, who is still performing at the age of 79, was making a name for himself as a pianist who hired the best up-and-coming sidemen. Appearing with him at Newport were Junior Cook on tenor, Louis Smith on trumpet, Gene Taylor on bass and Louis Hayes on drums.

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The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will screen four short films next weekend to mark Louis Jordan’s 100th birthday as part of the seventh annual Ozark Foothills Filmfest.

Jordan, a native of Brinkley who helped invent rhythm and blues, the forerunner of rock-and-roll, is perhaps the most important musician to have come out of Arkansas.

His music is timeless — his hits included “Caldonia,” “Saturday Night Fish Fry” and many more. If you’ve never seen him on film — he was a fine singer, but he was also a great actor, comedian and saxophone player — catch him at UALR at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 5, when “Caldonia” (1945) and “Beware”(1948) will be shown at Dickinson Hall. “Caldonia” is an 18-minute “soundie,” which were used to promote records at movie theaters before there was MTV. “Beware” is an almost hour-long film that showcases Jordan’s acting and comic talents, along with his singing and saxophone playing.

At 5 p.m. next Saturday, you can also catch “Three Cheers for the Boys” (1944) and “Swing Parade of 1946,” along with other soundies and rare clips.

You can also see excerpts of Jordan’s films on YouTube, or listen to his best records on “Let the Good Times Roll” (MCA), a two-CD compilation of his Decca hits between 1938-1953, when he was at the height of his popularity.

Diehard fans should get his nine-CD box set from Bear Family Records, also called “Let the Good Times Roll,” which contains his entire Decca output, from the earliest recordings when he was still developing his style till the 1950s, when rock-and-roll, which he helped develop, pushed him out of the limelight.

But he kept on recording and performing for several more years, until he passed away in 1975. He’s still very much remembered by his Arkansas fans who appreciate his tremendous contribution to music and popular culture and honor him every year on his birthday.

Now if only someone would restore his crumbling house in Brinkley.

Aretha releases record of the year

Record of the year: Aretha Franklin’s “Rare and Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul,” a two-CD set from Rhino that discounters sell for about $15, which is a bargain.

The music is from her heyday at Atlantic Records, where she did her finest work. Many of the tracks are familiar — “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You),” “You’re All I Need to Get By,” “You Keep Me Hanging On,” “Fool on the Hill,” while others are less well known — “The Happy Blues,” “My Way,” “Suzanne” — but it’s all Aretha, and it’s all first-rate soul, even the rehearsals, demos and the false starts — especially the unreleased stuff that shows the queen hard at work because she’s a perfectionist, sounding youthful and enthusiastic, aware of her talents and always giving her best.

Aretha has performed in public for some 50 years — first as a singer in her father’s church in Detroit, then seeking fame and fortune at Columbia Records, where she floundered until Atlantic signed her in the mid-1960s and made her a superstar.
Aretha’s long run as the greatest soul singer of them all is especially remarkable in a field that’s been dominated by men – Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett — all of them dead, incidentally, while others have faded from the scene, but Aretha keeps on recording and selling out at concert halls, sounding as great as ever at 65.

St. Louis bluesman Big George Brock is much less famous and wealthy than Aretha, but he’s also one of our favorites. The septuagenarian harpist-blues shouter has been steadily recording in recent years — perhaps more often than any living bluesman — and his latest is one of the best of the year: “Live at 75” (Cat Head) was recorded last May at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Miss., before an appreciative audience.

Brock, who was born in Mississippi in 1932, and his band play deep blues, the kind Muddy Waters created in Clarksdale some 65 years ago. This is the sound that gave birth to rhythm and blues, rock-and-roll and soul. Big George rocks with the best of them, and here’s hoping he keeps playing and recording for many more years. Muddy would be pleased.

Jimmy Burns is another Mississippi-born bluesman who’s finally getting a chance to record. A decade younger than Brock, Burns recorded “Live at B.L.U.E.S.” (Delmark) in Chicago, where he’s lived for the last 50 years, and it’s another one of our favorites from 2007.

It’s solid Chicago blues by way of Clarksdale played before an enthusiastic audience (there’s also a DVD of the performance). Burns is a fine guitar player and singer whose rocking band proves blues is far from dead: With “Live and B.L.U.E.S.,” the spirit of Muddy Waters, Jimmy Dawkins, Robert Lockwood and others lives on into another century.

The harp player Carey Bell, another Mississippi transplant who moved to Chicago in the 1950s, made his last record for Delmark just months before he died.

“Gettin’ Up: Live at Buddy Guy’s Legends, Rosa’s and Lurrie’s Home” with his son Lurie Bell, who plays a mean guitar, is deep Chicago blues, performed the way it’s supposed to be played: Loud and unadorned and straight from the heart.

The personnel also includes Bob Stoger, another Mississippi bluesman from Chicago, on bass. You can see them perform on the DVD version of the CD, giving you a front-row seat in two well-known clubs and Lurrie’s apartment, played Windy City style as they have now for more than half a century.

Delmark has also reissued several important blues records from the 1960s and early 1970s, including the late Arkansan Robert Junior Lockwood’s “Steady Rollin’ Man,” Sleepy John Estes’ “Electric Sleep” (reissued as “On the Chicago Blues Scene”) and Eddie (Cleanhead) Vinson’s “Kidney Stew Is Fine” with T-Bone Walker. These are essential recordings.

A small label, Broke and Hungry Records, continues to record Jimmy Duck Holmes, the Bentonia, Miss., bluesman who plays the haunting blues of the region popularized by Skip James. “Back to Bentonia” was Holmes’ debut record a couple of years ago, and his latest, “Done Got Tired of Tryin’,” is equally as good.

He plays a lot of James and other blues classics, including songs by the late Jack Owens, another Bentonia bluesman.
Now there’s only Holmes, who, at 59, is the youngest of the bluesmen under review. He’s keeping the Bentonia sound alive and could, if we’re lucky, pass on this rare art form to a new generation of musicians.

Another small label, Bluesland Productions, has issued a remarkable CD called “The Last of the Jelly Roll Kings” by two Arkansans, the drummer Sam Carr and the late harmonica player Frank Frost. They hung out together near Helena for many years with Big Jack Johnson of Clarksdale. (Carr, the son of blues legend Robert Nighthawk, still lives on a farm near the casino in Lula, Miss.) Frost and Carr were recorded for this CD in Helena in 1993 in 1997, including several tracks at the King Biscuit Festival.

This is Arkansas blues at its best: Frost was a great harmonica player (he also played guitar and organ), and Carr, before he suffered a stroke a few years ago, was the best drummer in the Delta.

“The Last of the Jelly Roll Kings” is as good as any blues made across the river in Mississippi. This is the kind of music that’s often overlooked and deserves special mention as one of the best of the year.

Enjoy the music.

It’s Biscuit time in Helena

The Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival in downtown Helena — formerly the King Biscuit Blues Festival, although it’s still the Biscuit for most fans and it’s still free — will kick off next Thursday with several strong acts and will continue through next Saturday with plenty more good music, and there’s still lots more across the river the following afternoon in downtown Clarksdale, Miss.

If you were thinking about going down to Helena for just a few hours on Saturday, consider making it a long weekend, but take your camper or tent with you since the motels in the area are probably sold out.

The festival changed its name a couple of years ago, after a New York outfit bought the rights to the King Biscuit logo and threatened to hold a competing festival in Memphis (that hasn’t happened yet). But the Helena festival is still going strong, drawing thousands of visitors from all over the world. (See www.bluesandheritage.com for a complete listing.)

The musicians at this year’s festival may not be household names — the original blues giants are mostly gone, including Arkansas native Robert Lockwood Junior, who performed at King Biscuit just about every year and passed away last November at the age of 91 — but 94-year-old Pinetop Perkins is scheduled to appear Friday, and there will still be plenty of good music by young and old artists, who will keep the blues alive for at least a couple of generations.

The festival opens with several winners of blues competitions, followed by blues elder statesman and educator Sterling Billingsley of Mississippi and then gospel-blues singer Diunne Greenleaf of Houston.

Wayne Baker Brooks of Chicago, son of blues great Lonnie Brooks, follows Greenleaf. Mississippi blues-soul legend Bobby Rush performs with Blinddog Smokin’ and the evening ends with the Lee Boys, a sacred-steel band from Miami.

Friday’s festivities start early in the afternoon with two important Mississippi Delta bluesmen, Lil’ Dave Thompson and drummer Sam Carr, the son of famed bluesman Robert Nighthawk, both originally from Helena, where Nighthawk is buried. (Carr lives across the river in Dundee, Miss.)

Smokin’ Joe Kubek of Dallas comes on with Bnois King of Louisiana, combining Kubek’s heavy guitar playing with King’s jazz guitar and vocals.

Friday evening, it’s Pinetop Perkins, a festival favorite, with his sidekick Bob Margolin, who both played in Muddy Waters’ band.

Up next will be a great blues showman, Chicagoan Lil’ Ed Williams and his Blues Imperials. Wearing a fez, he evokes the spirit of his uncle, the late great J.B. Hutto.

Sherman Robertson of Louisiana will add a touch of Cajun music to the festivities, followed by three incendiary guitar players, North Little Rock’s own Michael Burks, who will be joined by Larry McCray and Carl Weathersby.

That’s Friday’s impressive lineup on the main stage, but nearby on the Houston Stackhouse acoustic stage, don’t miss Louisiana wizard Eugene (Hideaway) Bridges and Mississippi bluesmen Bill Abel, Cadillac John and Jimmy (Duck) Holmes.
Bridges also appears at noon Saturday on the main stage, followed by Alabama bluesman Willie King and Terry Evans from Los Angeles.

There’s plenty more on Saturday:

Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets (without the late, great Sam Myers), Robert Lockwood Junior Band (without Robert). Then it’s 70ish Hubert Sumlin (Howlin’ Wolf’s guitarist) and Helena native Willie (Big Eyes) Smith (Muddy Waters’ drummer). Cajun bluesman Kenny Neal is next, followed by the Mannish Boys from Texas.

Try the gumbo on Cherry Street between the acts.

On Sunday afternoon, you might cross the river to downtown Clarksdale, where several musicians will perform in front of Cat Head music store, including Fat Possum recording artists Robert Belfour and T-Model Ford. Across the tracks at the train depot (where Muddy Waters caught a train to Chicago 65 years ago), it will be the amazing Rooster Blues artist Robert Bilbo Walker.

Then you might make it over the nearby Hopson Plantation, where several musicians will honor Pinetop. The nonagenarian keyboardist might or might not play, because his mother warned him about playing the blues on Sunday, but he might play a couple of bars if his mother looks down at him from heaven and tells him it’s OK.

It’s great music, and it’s all free, except for the Hopson program (where they serve some of the best barbecue in the Delta), but try to tip the musicians whenever you can. They’re not rich. That’s why they call it the blues.

Stax marks 50 years of great music

If you remember Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft,” the Staples Singers’ “Respect Yourself,” Eddy Floyd’s “Knock on Wood,” Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” Booker T. and the MGs’ “Green Onions” and the Mar-Keys’ “Last Night,” you would have enjoyed a concert last month in Memphis commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stax record label.

It seemed as if almost all of the label’s surviving artists showed up for a stirring concert at the Orpheum Theater (Redding, unfortunately, died in a plane crash 40 years ago). For nearly three hours, you could hear ’60s and ’70s soul and a little gospel hosted by rapper Chuck D. and “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson.

The concert was a benefit for the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, which is built on the site of an old movie theater that served as a Stax studio and record shop on McLemore Avenue in Memphis.

The museum is an impressive showcase for Southern black music and history, and anyone who likes soul should make the trip to Memphis.

Jim Stewart, who founded the label with his sister, the late Estelle Axton, did not attend the concert. (Stewart and Axton had combined the first two letters of their last names for the company’s name.) Also absent was Al Bell, an Arkansas native who ran Stax in the last decade of its existence, before it went bankrupt in 1975.

The concert was organized by Stax’s longtime publicist, the ever-cheerful Deanie Parker, who had recorded a couple of singles for Stax when she was still in high school in the early 1960s.

Isaac Hayes, the headliner for the evening, shuffled out in a cape toward the end of the concert and sang his hits, including “Walk on By” and “The Theme from Shaft,” and he conducted a small orchestra for part of the performance for an enthusiastic sellout crowd.

Hayes hasn’t aged much since the 1970s, but he looked like he’s slowed down a bit, maybe from the discomfort of arthritis or some other ailment, or maybe he was smarting from being dropped from Comedy Central’s “South Park” cartoon program, where he’d done a voiceover for several years. But because he’s a Scientologist and the show had skewered Tom Cruise, another Scientologist, the church had told Hayes to move on.

The program’s creators recently killed off his character, dumping him off a cliff and disfiguring his face, and I suspect Hayes wasn’t amused.

He still looks like the black Moses and is still a charismatic entertainer (his “Presenting Isaac Hayes” CD is one of our Stax favorites), but he was far from the only big-name attraction: Booker T. and the MGs did their obligatory “Green Onions,” and trumpeter Wayne Jackson of the Mar-Keys stepped up and did “Last Night,” and there was still plenty more.

Otis Redding’s sons, Dexter and Otis III, performed with gusto, which would have pleased their dad, who died in a plane crash in 1967 at the age of 26. To think he’d only be 66 today and probably making great records. Otis’ boxed CD set “Dreams to Remember” from Rhino, as well as live recordings at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles are worth checking out.

Still looking great after all these years, Camden’s own Mable John sang a couple of numbers, including “Your Good Thing (Is About to End).” Mavis Staples of the Staples Singers, whose solo career is still going strong, sang “Respect Yourself” and a couple of other of the group’s hits.

William Bell (“I Forgot to Be Your Lover”), Edddie Floyd (“Knock on Wood”), Angie Stone (“Woman to Woman”) were among the other performers, plus the Soul Children with J. Blackfoot and young talent that Stax has signed now that the label has been revived under new ownership.

Gospel singer Rance Allen pretty much stole the show with his tent-revival performance. A veteran of the gospel circuit, he recorded for a Stax subsidiary. Allen is a big fellow — he’ll tell you he’s built for comfort — and was a crowd favorite.

He came back onstage with a couple of rousing finales with all the performers, who sang the Staples’ “I’ll Take You There” and Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” two songs that helped shape modern music.

Of course many great Stax artists are no longer with us: Little Milton died a couple of years ago, but you can listen to his “Walking the Back Streets” CD. Other late greats missing were Pops Staples (all the group’s Stax releases are terrific), as well as Rufus Thomas (“The Best of Rufus Thomas: Do the Funky Somethin’” from Rhino), although his daughter Carla (“Gee Whiz” from Collectables) still performs occasionally.

Also missing was Albert King, who grew up in Forrest City and Osceola but passed away in 1992 and is buried in Edmondson (Crittenden County) off I-40. His records apparently keep selling well since Stax continues to reissue them. They’re almost all first-rate. Some carry the Atlantic logo since Stax leased its best stuff to Atlantic, but almost all were recorded in Memphis and rank among the best blues of all time, quite an achievement for a label that was famous for soul.

His “King of the Blues Guitar” gets a top rating in the “Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings.” A previous but shorter version of that CD is called “Born Under a Bad Sign” with wonderful liner notes by Deanie Parker. All the hip white kids bought the record in the late 1960s and it has the immortal lines, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, you know I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” Cream and other rockers copied the song and made millions off King’s genius.

There are at least 15 of his Stax/Atlantic records in circulation (including several live recordings in San Francisco and Montreaux, Switzerland), making him one of the most prolific of all the Stax artists, surpassing Otis Redding, who died just as he became a superstar, and Isaac Hayes, who was still at his zenith when the company went under.

King (real name Nelson) made several fine records before and after his Stax years. He’s heard on “Door to Door,” his earliest singles recorded on the Parrot and Chess labels in the 1950s and also includes previously unissued Chess singles by the great Otis Rush from 1960.

Albert’s “Complete Bobbin and King Recordings, 1959-63” includes the rest of his earliest releases, when he developed his soulful singing style and powerful guitar playing, but was still under the influence of B.B. King (no relation, despite Albert’s claims to kinship, although they were both born near Indianola in the Mississippi Delta). Albert would develop his own signature style, and we’ll put him up there with B.B. and Freddy King in the blues pantheon. No wonder his fans call him King Albert.

You might also enjoy “In Session” with Stevie Ray Vaughan, recorded in a Canadian TV studio in 1983 but not issued till 1999.

Albert’s later work is featured on “Blues from the Road” (Fuel), a double live CD that’s out of print and is selling on eBay for $50 and more. At times he and his band didn’t make that much money in a single night.

Visit his grave sometime in Paradise Grove Cemetery in Edmondson and leave him a small bottle of Jack Daniels with some change.

How they play blues in Chicago

Carey Bell, the Mississippi-born harmonica player who passed away earlier this month in Chicago at the age of 70, was among a dwindling number of bluesmen who learned from the giants who had also moved North after the Second World War: Little Walter Jacobs, Big Walter Horton, Junior Wells, James Cotton and others.

There was so much talent in the Windy City, you could hear terrific blues almost every night, and soon Bell, who was born Carey Bell Harrington in Macon, Miss., became part of the city’s busy music scene — it was the world’s most important city for the blues before the giants passed away.

There are still a few of them left: Buddy Guy keeps doing great work, and so does Jimmy Burns (see review below). Bell’s latest and probably his last, unfortunately, is called “Gettin’ Up Live” (Delmark). It’s been released as a CD and a DVD and includes his son Lurrie on guitar and some vocals, along with the great Bob Stroger on bass and was partly recorded at Buddy Guy’s Legends in downtown Chicago, as well as at Rosa’s Lounge on the north side. Four numbers were recorded in Lurrie’s home. This is a modern classic. Bell often played in Arkansas: We caught him a few years ago at Riverfest and at Cajun’s Wharf, when it showcased prominent bluesmen who passed through the area.

Both the CD and the DVD that have been issued simultaneously let you experience what Chicago blues is all about. Bell was a fine harmonica player and had a decent voice, and to watch the video and hear the CD is like going into a neighborhood bar and catching a glimpse of the music Mississippi transplants have been playing in Chicago for more than 60 years. (Although seminal artists like Big Bill Broonzy, who was born in Mississippi but grew up in Arkansas, predated most of the Mississippi musicians when he moved to Chicago in the 1920s and helped establish the city as the blues capital of the world.)

Bell was recorded at the two Chicago clubs last year, although he looks more frail in the segment from Legends, filmed last fall a few months after his appearance at Rosa’s. He died a few months later, but he left behind a wonderful legacy with his last CD and DVD. There are a couple of bonus tracks on the DVD, which you should get if you can’t afford both. It’s all here: A great band cooking on “What My Mama Told Me,” “Baby Please Don’t Go,” “Last Night,” “Stand by Me” and much more.
We love this stuff.

You might also listen to his “Heartaches and Pain,” a 1970s record that Delmark released in 2004 as part of a series recorded by Ralph Bass, who was a prominent producer for Chess in its heyday. It also features his son Lurrie, who might consider forming a band with his musical siblings and make it down to Arkansas one of these days.

Jimmy Burns is another Mississippi blues artist who’s moved to Chicago and he, too, has a new Delmark CD and DVD called “Live at B.L.U.E.S.” This is his fourth record from Delmark.

Burns, still in his 60s, is a fine guitar player and singer who is a native of the Clarksdale, Miss., area. I’ve never seen him perform, although we stood together a while back while we were watching (I think) Mavis Staples at Ground Zero in Clarksdale. He is a quiet type who turns into a dynamic performer once he gets onstage. He performs for nearly an hour on “Live at B.L.U.E.S.”

It’s real blues for real blues fans. He should keep singing “Country Boy in the City” and “Wild About You Baby” for a long time.

Terrific music from a favorite label

Robert Bilbo Walker was performing New Year’s Eve at Sarah’s Kitchen, a small eatery in Clarksdale, Miss., playing many of his songs from his old Rooster Blues CDs, “Promised Land” and “Rock the Night: Live in Chicago.”

Wearing a wig and white tuxedo, the 70-year-old Walker is a showman who sounds a lot like Chuck Berry (Walker even does a duck walk). Walker is a fine guitar player and singer and mixes several musical styles into his repertoire: Fifties rock-and-roll he listened to on the radio, country blues he heard growing up in the Delta (he was born on a plantation outside Clarksdale), as well as urban blues he picked up in Chicago and country music he’s heard in Bakersfield, Calif., where he’s lived and worked most of his life.

“Promised Land” and “Rock the Night” were produced by Living Blues founder and impresario Jim O’Neal, and they capture the gritty music and spontaneity of juke-joint blues: It’s not slick or flashy blues, but it’s genuine and honest and never boring.

You could listen to Robert Walker all day and not get tired of him. (You might also want to check out another one of his CDs, “Rompin’ and Stompin’” from Fedora.)

Rooster Blues is still my son’s favorite record label (and mine too, come to think of it), which issued some 30 records that are all excellent and a joy to listen to.

Quite an achievement for a small label that is no more, although O’Neal has a new label, Stackhouse Records, which we reviewed last week.

When you listen to a Rooster CD, you get the real blues with a terrific sound that O’Neal creates in the studio or sometimes in a club. Rooster Blues recorded many of the greatest blues musicians of the last 25 years, from the late Larry Davis of Lonoke County to Lonnie Shields, formerly of Helena and now living in Philadelphia; from harmonica wizard Willie Cobbs (who wrote “You Don’t Love Me”) and who still lives in Monroe County) to Willie King, an Alabama bluesman who may be O’Neal’s greatest find.

England native Larry Davis’ “Funny Stuff” was produced by St. Louis musician Oliver Sain, who plays saxophone and organ on the CD, which is on at least one list of all-time great blues records — it’s that good.

Johnnie Johnson, Chuck Berry’s pianist, also appears on “Funny Stuff,” with Davis’ guitar playing and gritty singing dominating the proceedings.

O’Neal usually writes his own liner notes, which are the best in the business. He’s the Whitney Balliett of blues criticism. (Jazz critic Balliett, who treated musicians with the same respect O’Neal does, passed away recently.)

Rooster Blues covers are striking and the liner notes attractively laid out: The cover of Willie King’s “Living in a New World” (pictured here) is one of our favorites: It captures the music, which is best when played in a small juke joint, the dancers gathering around musicians who wear street clothes just like King does in his old knit shirt and baseball cap and jeans and sneakers.

When we asked O’Neal about his favorite Rooster Blues CD (which is like asking a parent about his favorite child), he said Willie King’s “Freedom Creek,” his debut CD that won a Handy Award for record of the year, would be on top of his list.
“I felt that the first Willie King album was the most important one, the one I was glad to have recorded if I had done nothing else,” O’Neal told us.

“But I usually felt that there was something important about each album,” he continued. “It was easier to maintain that sense by continually recording new artists rather than do the proper businesslike thing and record several albums apiece by a few artists, develop the name recognition . . . but I just wasn’t into that. I would just let them go on to another label if they felt I wasn’t keeping up with what they needed to do.”

O’Neal would make one or two records with his musicians, and they’d move on, but each record was carefully planned and executed, so obscure musicians like Roosevelt (Booba) Barnes, who made one CD called “The Heartbroken Man,” is a modern masterpiece.

Besides Larry Davis, Rooster recorded other Arkansas musicians, including Willie Cobbs’ “Down to Earth” and Lonnie Shields’ “Midnight Delight and “Portrait.” Terrific music.

There were a whole slew of other Rooster artists, most of them transplanted southerners living up North: Big Daddy Kinsey and Kinsey Report’s “Bad Situation,” D.C. Bellamy’s “Water to Wine,” Lady Bianca’s “Rollin’,” Eddie C. Campbell’s “Hopes and Dreams,” Otis Clay’s “Soul Man: Live in Japan” on a double LP.

Also Eddie Clearwater and Otis Rush’s “Filmdoozie,” Magic Slim’s “Grand Slam,” Lonnie Pitchford’s “All Around Man” (where he plays the didley bow, a single-string guitar), Philadelphia Jerry Ricks’ “Many Miles of Blues,” Eddie Shaw’s “In the Land of the Crossroads,” Valerie Wellington’s “Million Dollar Secret” and Arthur Williams’ “Midnight Blue.”

Although they’ve left the South (Big Daddy Kinsey is no longer alive), Super Chicken, who recorded “Blues Come Home to Roost,” which is his best CD, still lives in Clarksdale, while Johnny Rawls, who made “Can’t Sleep at Night” with L.C. Luckett, lives in Memphis. An all-star lineup.

Rooster also issued “And This Is Maxwell Street,” a three-CD box set of live recordings of blues musicians playing for tips in a Chicago neighborhood in 1964, including Helena’s Robert Nighthawk, whose son, the drummer Sam Carr, following in his father’s footsteps, appears on Robert Bilbo Walker’s live CD that was also made in Chicago.

What they all have in common is a talent for the blues, played brilliantly, brought together under one label by Jim O’Neal.
Here’s hoping he’ll record the next Otis Rush (one of O’Neal’s favorites) and share his discovery with us. Rooster Blues and Stackhouse CDs are available from www.bluesesoterica.com.

Great pianist leaves a huge recorded legacy

Andrew Hill, perhaps the most important jazz pianist of the last 40 years, passed away a week ago last Friday at the age of 75, but he leaves behind an enormous body of recordings that are as wonderful and innovative as anything in modern jazz.
As a musician, he ranks with the giants of the post-war era: Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, Ornette Coleman (who won a Pulitzer Prize for music just days before Hill passed away) and a handful of others.

Fortunately for jazz fans, Hill recorded during three different phases of his career for Blue Note, the premier jazz label that continues to put out a prodigious amount of outstanding jazz despite a downturn in record sales as young people download music from the Internet.

Serious jazz seldom sells very well, and it wasn’t till Blue Note was relaunched in the 1980s with strong financial backing that nearly all of Hill’s recordings were issued over the next 20 years. Blue Note is owned by the giant EMI group, which seems to be subsidizing the label’s serious music, although Norah Jones’ success on Blue Note has also helped with cash flow.
Alfred Lion, Blue Note’s co-founder, called Hill his last great discovery, and he certainly was the most durable: I can’t think of any other Blue Note artist from the 1960s whose recorded output has spanned over more than four decades, although some ’60s survivors still occasionally record for the label, including trumpeter Charles Tolliver, who often backed Hill, as recently as last year on Hill’s triumphant “Time Lines” with Greg Tardy on tenor and clarinet, John Herbert on bass and Eric McPherson on drums. Tolliver also appears on the recently reissued “Dance with Death” with Joe Farrell on tenor and alto saxophone. (See review of Tolliver’s new CD below.)

Hill explored new sounds well into his 70s, and he seldom repeated himself, playing his new compositions till the end, usually with younger musicians who appreciated his genius. There was a mystique about when he hinted he was born in Haiti (he was born in Chicago) and shaved five years off his age, so he seemed very young when he made his early Blue Notes. He was in his late 20s, instead of his early 20s, but still he made an impressive debut.

His Chicago background had steeped him in R&B and bebop, but his music evolved over the years and was never boring. Listening to “Time Lines” is to hear a great musician who kept stretching his abilities to the limit.

Although he made one record in the 1950s for a tiny label and kept on recording for others when he wasn’t with Blue Note, it was on this label that Hill made his reputation. Back in 1963, Hill was in the studio on a couple of recording sessions behind two first-rate tenor saxophone players, Joe Henderson on “Our Thing” and Hank Mobley on “Straight No Filter.” Lion liked what he heard and asked Hill to play his original compositions on his own recordings.

Lion recorded his new star almost constantly through the 1960s. Hill made eight recordings, but, for financial reasons, many of them were not released until much later. “Passing Ships,” recorded in 1969, was recently discovered in Blue Note’s vaults and released three years ago, featuring Joe Farrell on tenor, alto and flute, Woody Shaw and Dizzy Reece on trumpets, Julian Priester on trombone, Howard Johnson on tuba, Ron Carter on bass and others.

Hill began recording for Blue Note as a leader in November 1963 with “Black Fire,” also featuring Henderson and Davis, with the addition of Roy Haynes on drums. The next month, Hill recorded “Smoke Stack” with two bassists, Davis and Eddie Khan, and Haynes again on drums.

Hill followed a month later with “Judgment!” again with Davis, but this time including Bobby Hutcherson on vibes and Elvin Jones on drums.

“Point of Departure,” Hill’s masterpiece, came out two months later, which suggests how much time he spent with Lion in the recording studio. “Point of Departure” gets a crown — the highest rating — in the “Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD” and features an all-star lineup of Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone, Eric Dolphy on alto saxophone, flute and bass clarinet, Richard Davis on bass and Anthony Williams on drums.

Hill’s 1960s output also includes “Andrew!” and “Compulsion” with John Gilmore on tenor (who played in Sun Ra’s Arkestra and would influence John Coltrane).

Blue Note recently also reissued Hill’s “Grass Roots” with Lee Morgan and Woody Shaw on trumpet, Booker Ervin and Frank Mitchell on tenor saxophone, Jimmy Ponder on guitar, Ron Carter and Reggie Workman on bass and Freddie Waits and Idris Muhammad on drums.

“Lift Every Voice” has Shaw and Morgan on trumpets, Benny Maupin on alto saxophone and others. “Pax” features Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Joe Hen-derson on tenor, Richard Davis on bass and Joe Chambers on drums.

When not under contract with Blue Note, Hill made several excellent records with smaller labels, such as “Nefertiti” (Inner City Records), “A Beautiful Day” (Palmetto Records) and “Homage” (Test of Time Records).

The Blue Note CDs, in particular, constitute a pretty good history of modern jazz, and a boxed set of Hill’s complete Blue Note recordings would be a fitting tribute to his memory.

Till then, listen to any of his records and hear modern jazz at its best.

Other Blue Note releases we’ve enjoyed lately include the above-mentioned Charles Tolliver, whose big band CD, “With Love,” includes a young pianist named Robert Glasper, who must have made Andrew Hill proud. Sixties Blue Note artists on the record include Howard Johnson on baritone sax and bass clarinet, Stanley Cowell on piano, Cecil McBee on bass and a bunch of younger musicians who play their hearts out.

It must be expensive to record a hard-working big band these days, especially one that sounds this good — almost all the compositions are Tollivers’ — so give them a listen and turn up the volume.

Pianists have played an important part in Blue Note’s history (from Thelonious Monk to Bud Powell to Horace Silver to Andrew Hill), and the label continues its tradition with a new release from Steve Kuhn, who played briefly with John Coltrane. Kuhn’s swinging “Live at Birdland” includes two other Blue Note stalwarts, Ron Carter on bass and Al Foster on drums.
The fine CD is a short refresher course in the history of jazz, featuring standards (“If I Were a Bell,” “Stella by Starlight”), tunes by jazz greats (Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation,” Kenny Dorham’s “Lotus Blossom”), a little Debussy and Billy Strayhorn (“La Plus Que Lente” and “Passion Flower”) and also a couple of Kuhn’s compositions, “Two by Two” and “Clotilde,” as well as some Fat Waller and more.

This is a classic trio that should keep recording.