Sad News

Ann Rabson (1945-2013)

Ann Rabson, blues singer, pianist and member of Saffire—The Uppity Blues Women, died yesterday at her home in Hartwood, near Fredericksburg, VA. She had been battling cancer for several years. She was 67.

Ann Rabson was born in New York City on April 12, 1945. She began performing as a solo artist in 1962. She became an internationally-known musician relatively late in life. She was working as a teacher at Germanna Community College when she formed Saffire with two of her students, Gaye Adegbalola and Earline Lewis. Here's the story of Saffire's beginnings.

Their first CD, Uppity Blues Women, was released by Alligator in 1990. They subsequently recorded seven 'Gators, plus a greatest hits compilation. Earline Lewis was replaced by Andra Faye in 1992. In addition to their fine musicianship, the three women were known for their bawdy sense of humor, and for writing original songs and choosing songs to cover that took a feminist perspective on the blues. Their final CD, Havin' the Last Word (2009), was accompanied by a farewell tour. 

Ann also released four solo albums, including Music Makin' Mama, on Alligator in 1997. Here's the title tune.

Last year, she teamed with guitarist Bob Margolin to record Not Alone on Vizztone. It is nominated for a Blues Music Award as the best acoustic album of 2012. The winners will be announced in May.

Eddie C. Campbell

Bob Corritore's Newsletter reports that Chicago singer and guitarist Eddie C. Campbell suffered a stroke and a heart attack while touring in Germany last weekend. Eddie is a member of the second generation of Chicago electric bluesmen that includes Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Luther Allison, Magic Slim, Carey Bell and Eddy Clearwater. Those that survive are now in their seventies. His latest CD, Spider Eating Preacher, was released on Delmark last year.

The Wildest Guitar

Mickey Baker (1925-2012)

Guitarist and singer McHouston “Mickey” Baker died of heart and kidney failure on November 27 at the age of 87 at his home in Montrasuc-la-Conseillere, near Toulouse, in the south of France. While he is best known for his duets with Sylvia Vanderpool, Mickey Baker's influence on rock and roll guitar was every bit as great as better-known guitarists such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Ike Turner. He is less well known because many of his greatest recordings were made as a sideman, his name not appearing on the label.

McHouston Baker was born in Louisville, KY on October 15, 1925. His mother, Lillian, who was black, was 12 years old when he was born and it is believed that his father was a white musician who passed through Louisville at the time. He spent his earliest years in and out of orphanages, sometimes getting into trouble with the law. He made his way to New York in 1941 at the age of 15. He took up the guitar because he couldn't afford his first choice, a trumpet. He aspired to be a jazz musician, and his first gig was with a bebop group, Jimmy Neely's Incomparables. However, after the success of Pee Wee Crayton's guitar instrumental “After Hours Blues,” he decided he could make a better living playing rhythm and blues.

Mickey's Baker's first career was as a session musician, where he became the guitarist of choice for almost all New York R&B recordings in the '50s. He played in sessions for Atlantic, RCA, King, Decca, Okeh and others, often accompanied by his friend Sam “The Man” Taylor on tenor sax, backing such vocalists as Ruth Brown, Ray Charles, Joe Turner, the Drifters, the Coasters, Louis Jordan, Wynonie Harris and Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

Meanwhile, he recorded several instrumentals under his own name and pseudonyms such as “Big Red McHouston.” His first session was for Savoy (“Riverboat”/”Guitar Mambo”) in 1952. His biggest hit (at least in the New York area) was “Shake Walkin'” for Rainbow in 1955. In 1959, he released an instrumental album for Atlantic, The Wildest Guitar, which has grown in reputation over the years. Mickey's instrumentals for labels other than Atlantic are collected on the CD Rock With a Sock, released by Bear Country, a German reissue label.

While with Rainbow, he began a second career, recording duets with Sylvia Vanderpool (later Sylvia Robinson), who had previously recorded as “Little Sylvia” for Columbia, Savoy and Jubilee. They had a couple of moderately successful records, most notably "Real Gone Lover," but in late 1956, their Latin-tinged pop song, “Love is Strange,” went to #1 on the R&B charts (#11 on the pop charts). Mickey and Sylvia recorded a couple of dozen other songs, one of which (“There Ought to Be a Law”) charted, but many of them sounded like “Love is Strange” retreads. After Sylvia retired, he recorded with Kitty Noble as Mickey and Kitty.

The melody and guitar riff of “Love is Strange” were written by Bo Diddley under the title “Paradise,” but he never recorded it. He “gave” the song—or maybe sold it for a small amount—to Mickey, who retitled it and wrote the lyrics. After it became a hit, the Chess Brothers, who published Bo Diddley's songs, initiated a lengthy lawsuit that was eventually decided in Mickey's favor.  (Chicago guitarist Jody Williams, a member of Bo Diddley's combo at the time, also claims authorship of the riff.)

Most people assume the man who talks/sings with Tina Turner on “It's Gonna Work Out Fine” is Ike Turner—and he did sing it when they performed it live. However, Mickey Baker was the voice on their 1959 record.

In 1962, Mickey Baker moved to France, in part because African-American musicians were more popular and faced less discrimination in Europe. He lived in Paris for a while, then moved to the Toulouse area. There he embarked on a varied third career. He played and recorded blues and jazz, working with other American expatriates such as Champion Jack Dupree and Memphis Slim. He studied with European composers and began writing and recording classical music. He wrote a series of successful jazz guitar instruction books. Here he is in the '60s playing a song called “South of France Blues,” with Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax, for French TV.

My favorite album from his European period is a 1973 CD he recorded as McHouston Baker for Maison de Blues. Called Mississippi Delta Dues, it includes country blues songs by Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House, Leroy Carr, J. B. Lenoir and three of Mickey's own compositions. It was released on CD in 2006 and is well worth seeking out. This song is not on the CD, but this 1972 performance of the New Orleans novelty tune "How Come My Dog Don't Bark?" is the closest to McHouston Baker singing country blues that I could find on the internet.

Unfortunately, Mickey Baker's death received little notice in this country. In the next few weeks, I will try to catch up with some other important deaths that occurred in late 2012, when I was not blogging.

Odds and Ends

While you're reading, here's the title song.

The SFJazz Center

Last Wednesday night was the grand opening of the SFJazz Center in San Francisco, a $64 million facility said to be the first stand-alone building specifically designed for jazz in the U. S. The opening concert, hosted by Bill Cosby, featured many notables, including Joe Lovano, McCoy Tyner, Joshua Redman, Chick Corea and Esperanza Spalding. The 700 seat auditorium was financed by SFJazz, a Bay area nonprofit organization.

 © Matthew Millman for The New York Times

Now would be a great time to be living in San Francisco. Check out this neat picture.

Jimmy Adler

The Pittsburgh East section of the Post-Gazette had an article this week about Pittsburgh bluesman Jimmy Adler. Jimmy and his band won the group competition of the Pittsburgh Blues Challenge, sponsored by the Blues Society of Western Pennsylvania. They will travel to Memphis to participate in the International Blues Challenge beginning Tuesday night. This is an extremely competitive event. You can't just be a cover artist. You must perform six original songs. Here they are doing one of those originals, “Midnight Rooster.” Good luck to Jimmy and the band.

Tina Turner

Tina Turner has come a long way. She has applied for citizenship in Switzerland, where she has been living since 1995 on the shore of Lake Zurich with her partner, record executive Erwin Bach. She is giving up her American passport.

This is a reminder of the fact that, during the latter half of the 20^th century, many jazz and blues artists emigrated to Europe. First of all, they found more work there. Europeans like our music better than we do. Secondly, black artists say they experience less discrimination in Europe than in this country.

It's also a good excuse to play this cool 1969 video.

Best Blues CD of 2012

Talking Guitar, by Paul Rishell

2012 was a good year for blues recordings. An unusual number our greatest blues performers released new CDs last year, including Lurrie Bell, Eddie C. Campbell, Shemekia Copeland, Robert Cray, Dr. John, Buddy Guy, Magic Slim and the Teardrops, Janiva Magness, the Mannish Boys, Bonnie Raitt, Otis Taylor, and Joe Louis Walker.

It was a year of surprises, too. Who would have expected, for example, a terrific new CD from guitarist Milton Hopkins and singer Jewel Brown, two veteran Houston R&B performers who made their recording debuts in the '50s? It's also good to hear again from soul music great Mighty Sam McClain, who has struggled to make his music available.

But more than anything else, this was the year in which acoustic blues made a well-deserved comeback. Billy Boy Arnold, Rory Block, the Heritage Blues Orchestra, John Primer, and the duo of Hans Theessink and Terry Evans all released CDs, all or a significant portion of which featured acoustic guitar playing. Living Blues, the premiere blues magazine, devoted its October issue to “The Next Generation of Acoustic Blues,” profiling seven promising new performers, most of whom have not yet been recorded. Let's hope that's only temporary.

It's also been a year of respect for the past. Billy Boy Arnold's CD is a tribute to Big Bill Broonzy. Rory Block's profiles Rev. Gary Davis. And Maria Muldaur has assembled an anthology of contemporary blues women singing Memphis Minnie's songs.

I've heard previous CDs by guitarist and singer Paul Rishell and his partner, harmonica player and singer Annie Raines. I even own one. But they didn't prepare me for the excellence of Rishell's new CD, Talking Guitar. The 62-year-old Rishell, who says he has been studying blues guitar for 47 years, has mastered the intricate picking styles of ten pre-war country blues giants, including Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tommy Johnson, Leadbelly, and Charley Patton. To these 11 songs (there are two by Fuller, his favorite), he adds two original compositions done in the same style. He is joined on three tracks by Raines on harmonica. Here they are performing one of the originals, “I'm Gonna Jump and Shout,” live.

Let's be clear. This is not Paul Rishell doing these old songs in his own personal style. These tracks follow the original recordings fairly closely. This gives the CD more variety than most acoustic blues outings. In an April Living Blues interview, he explains that he made this CD for “people who don't know that much about country blues.”  (What does that say about me?)

I want them to be able to listen to these songs and pick out the parts and hear how great these guys really were without being intimidated by the fidelity of the recordings, which, in many cases, makes the songs almost impossible to listen to.

This is Paul Rishell the guitar teacher talking. Some of his guitar lessons are available free on the internet. Here's his introduction. You Tube will lead you to the other parts.

Rishell again:

That's how I think of myself: as helping people hear this music because it will help them make their life better. It's no joke. It's the truth.

Here are four honorable mentions.

• Billy Boy Arnold, Billy Boy Arnold Sings Big Bill Broonzy
  
  

• Shemekia Copeland, 33⅓
  
  

• The Heritage Blues Orchestra, And Still I Rise
  
  

• Otis Taylor, Contraband
  
  

I'll share my recommendations of some of the best historical jazz and blues CDs of 2012 in a future post.

Jimmy McCracklin (1921-2012)

Jimmy McCracklin, described as “the face of Oakland (CA) blues,” was one of the more prolific rhythm and blues singer-songwriters of the postwar era. His popularity endured for 65 years, from 1945 to 2010.  He died of complications from diabetes in a nursing home in San Pablo, CA, on December 20. He was 91.

He was born James Walker in Helena, Arkansas, on August 13, 1921. McCracklin was his stepfather's name. His family moved to St. Louis when he was seven, where he learned to play piano from blues legend Walter Davis. He served in the Navy during World War II. After the war, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where he made his living as a boxer and a singer. 

His first recording, “Miss Mattie Left Me”/“Mean Mistreated Lover,” appeared on the Globe label in 1945. He recorded for several different producers in the late '40s and early '50s, most notably Oakland entrepreneur Bob Geddins and the Bihari brothers, owners of Modern Records. Many of these songs were credited to Jimmy McCracklin and his Blues Blasters. They were recorded under less than ideal conditions, and both his singing and piano playing can be somewhat raggedy and out of tune. Some of the best of his early records are collected on the Acrobat CD, Jimmy's Blues, 1945-1951. The complete Jimmy McCracklin from 1945-1954 can be found on three Classics CDs.  His recordings for the Modern label, including unreleased sides, are collected on two Ace CDs.  

Here's one of his earliest songs, “Rock and Rye,” released on the Courtney label in about 1946.

His biggest hit was “The Walk,” a dance tune recorded in Chicago for Chess Records in 1958. The background riff played by his guitarist, Lafayette Thomas, found its way onto many other records, most notably Freddy King's instrumental hit “Hideaway.” “The Walk” reached #5 on the R&B charts and led to a contract with a major label, Mercury Records, but no followup hits.

In the '60s, he charted twice on Art-Tone and four times on Imperial, where he recorded his second major hit, the popular New Orleans-style ballad “Think,” also known as “Later On.” His most popular recordings from 1956 to 1969 are found on the Razor & Tie CD, The Walk: Jimmy McCracklin at His Best.

He recorded for Stax in Memphis in the '70s, and JSP in England in the '80s. He ended his recording career with two well-received CDs for Bullseye Blues, My Story (1991) and A Taste of the Blues (1994), which featured guest artists like Lowell Fulson, Johnny Otis and Irma Thomas. Here he is with Irma Thomas in 1991 singing “Tomorrow.”

Jimmy McCracklin wrote many other songs, most notably “Tramp,” which was a hit for Fulson and the duo of Otis Redding and Carla Thomas. He also claimed to have written “The Thrill is Gone,” which is usually credited to Roy Hawkins.

He continued to perform at blues festivals almost until his death. His last appearance was in 2010. Here's a live performance from 2007, with Jimmy singing a song he calls “At the Club.” Although the lyrics are different, R&B fans will recognize it as Amos Milburn's “Chicken Shack Boogie.”

Advance Planning

The Newport Jazz Festival

The Newport Jazz Festival program has been announced. Among the artists performing are Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding, Chick Corea, Joshua Redman, Robert Glasper and Natalie Cole. Here's the complete lineup. Tickets are on now on sale.

rhodeislandtravelhandbook.com

The festival is takes place Friday through Sunday, August 2-4. The Friday night event is held in downtown at the Newport Casino. Reserved seats cost between $40 and $100. Two-day passes to the festival at Fort Adams State Park are $74 ($84 at the door). If you want to sit up front, there are reserved seats for $90 and $125.

I've only been to the Newport Jazz Festival once. The venue is much smaller than it looks in photographs. You have to take a bus from the parking lot to the entrance. The factor which limits attendance, however, is not tickets. It's very difficult to get a room in or around Newport, so you must plan well in advance.

Wayne Shorter

On February 15, Artist Share will will release a CD recorded last year, not at the festival, but at the “Newport Jazz Festival Gala event” held in conjunction with it. Performers on the CD include Dianne Reeves, Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Anat Cohen, Lionel Loueke and others.

Chicago Blues Festival

2013 is the 30^th anniversary of the Chicago Blues Festival. For the first time, it has been expanded from three to four days, June 6-9. It is held in Grant Park and admission is free. The lineup has not yet been announced. I'll keep you posted.

Best Jazz CD of 2012

Centennial by Ryan Truesdell and the Gil Evans Project

When I was fortunate enough to host The House of Blue Lights on WIUP-FM, on my final two programs of each year I would present my choices for the best blues and jazz CDs of the year, along with runners-up, the best historical CDs, and my choices for the worst blues and jazz CDs of the year. (It's a lot easier to pick the worst CDs when you work at a radio station that gets free stuff. These days, I try to avoid buying turkeys.)

My choice for the best jazz CD of 2012 is Centennial by Ryan Truesdell and the Gil Evans Project. Gil Evans (1912-1988) was a jazz composer, arranger and bandleader, active from the '30s to the '80s, and best known for his collaborations with Miles Davis, Birth of the Cool (1949), Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1958), Sketches of Spain (1960), and Quiet Nights (1962). Ryan Truesdell is himself a young composer-arranger, a protege of Maria Schneider. He co-produced her CD Sky Blue—my choice for the best CD of 2007. Maria Schneider studied with Gil Evans. Several of the musicians on Centennial are regular members of the Maria Schneider Orchestra.

When Ryan Truesdell began doing research on Gil Evans, the Evans family granted him access to Gil's manuscripts and he discovered about 100 compositions and/or arrangements that had never been recorded. He chose ten of them. The CD was funded through Artist Share, which solicits contributions from fans over the internet. The title Centennial reflects the fact that it was released on May 13, 2012, the hundredth anniversary of Evans' birth. Here is Ryan Truesdell explaining the project and ending with a now-obsolete appeal for contributions.

The songs span the period from 1947 to 1971. Five of the earliest are big band arrangements written for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Here is one of them, “The Maids of Cadiz,” a different arrangement of which appears on Sketches of Spain.

Much of the creative tension on the CD comes from the contrast between these arrangements from an earlier era and the more modern-sounding solos. The three longest pieces are “Punjab,” an Evans composition with an Indian flavor, anchored by Dan Weiss on tabla; “Barbara Song,” an Evans arrangement of a Kurt Weill song, featuring a long and inventive vibraphone solo by Joe Locke; and a medley of three Evans compositions, “Waltz/Variation on the Misery/So Long.” The tenor sax solo by Donny McCaslin on this 19-minute cut is a highlight of the CD.

For me, the only discordant note is a 1957 arrangement of “Smoking My Sad Cigarette,” sung by Kate McGarry, whose lyrics seem strangely out of place on a 2012 record.

Luciana Souza

Centennial has been nominated for three Grammy Awards: the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, the Best Instrumental Arrangement (for “How About You?,” one of the Thornhill arrangements), and the Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist (for “Look to the Rainbow,” sung by Luciana Souza).

Here are four honorable mentions that I also strongly recommend:

• Ravi Coltrane, Spirit Fiction.

  
  

  
  
• Jazz Soul Seven, Impressions of Curtis Mayfield.

  
  

  
  
• Branford Marsalis Quartet, Four MFs Playin' Tunes.

  
  

  
  
• Gregory Porter, Be Good.

Coltrane and Marsalis are familiar to most jazz fans. Jazz Soul Seven is an ad hoc group assembled for this session that includes Wallace Roney on trumpet, Ernie Watts on tenor sax, and Phil Upchurch on guitar. The CD contains 12 instrumental versions of Mayfield songs, including almost all of his greatest hits. Gregory Porter is a jazz singer-songwriter whose lyrics are inventive and thoughtful.

I'll present my choices for best blues CD and the best historical CDs in subsequent posts.

A New Blog

I've wanted to start a music blog for quite a while.

About a year ago, I began writing Thinking Slowly, a blog about the implications of social science research for politics in this country. Unfortunately, I've been inactive for several months while recovering from an injury. In the last few days, I've resumed Thinking Slowly. While I'm feeling ambitious, now is a good time to start writing about music.

Blues and the Abstract Truth will be about my two favorite musical genres, jazz and blues. Blues is defined broadly to include rhythm and blues and soul music. Other musical genres may slip in occasionally. I'll be writing about blues and jazz from the beginnings of recorded music up to and including the present, but you'll find that I'm strongly imprinted on the post-World War II period—roughly between 1945 and 1970—when when both of these musical forms exploded in both creativity and popularity.

You can expect to read reviews of recent jazz and blues CDs (although I don't hear as much new music as when I was a disc jockey and I got to listen to all the free stuff the record companies sent to the radio station.)  I'll comment on live performances I've seen. (I live in Pittsburgh, which has struggling blues and jazz scenes.) I'll also try to keep you posted on the latest blues and jazz news. Sadly, that news often includes obituaries of both prominent and obscure musicians.

In the past, I've discovered that it's much easier to write about music history than to write about the music itself. It often seems that I lack the vocabulary to explain why I like a particular piece of music. I hope you'll bear with me as I try to learn how to express myself as a music reviewer.

The name of the blog honors the 1961 Impulse LP by composer, arranger and saxophone player Oliver Nelson, which you can listen to in its entirety on You Tube—and I hope you will. In spite of my fondness for the title, it will be obvious that most of what's written here is opinion rather than “abstract truth.” I look forward to reading your questions, comments and criticisms.

Last January through June, I posted five articles about music on Thinking Slowly. I've moved them over here, where they are a much better fit.