Bluesy Blues

We are not sure why, but we have been listening to Muhal Richard Abrams repeatedly. This particular blues number has been a favorite. It's always nice to see jazz artists drenching themselves in the blues and the roots of our music. The blues were perfected in big band jazz ensembles that mastered call and response, tonal variation, and that inexplicable quality of our music, "soul." 

Blue Midnight

A classic from Little Walter, the man who could produce a sound with the harmonica no one else could match. Apparently, a young Albert Ayler toured with Little Walter, perhaps another sign of how deeply imbued Ayler's music was with the blues.

Rawalpindi Blues

One of the highlights from a legendary Carla Bley album. Brings back good memories...

Señor Blues

We here at the blog are currently constructing a Horace Silver playlist. While we are mostly drawn to his recordings featuring Joe Henderson, especially The Cape Verdean Blues and Song For My Father, we are forcing ourselves to listen to music from his various outfits and eras. Always the master of a funky Latin number, "Señor Blues" shows off Silver's mastery of a minor blues in 6/8 time. Silver, as always, shines in live performances with his deep blues and percussive piano style. 

Get Low-Down Blues

An excellent musical summation of all the elements of the Bennie Moten band of the late 1920s. Beginning with a ragtime-styled introduction, the song abruptly shifts into a low-down blues featuring some scat vocals and "hot" playing. Moten's band has become one of my favorites of 1920s-1930s jazz.

Blue Rondo à la Turk

All this talk of the Final Fantasy VII remake has brought back memories of Dave Brubeck, clearly the inspiration for some of the videogame's soundtrack. The confluence of the blues with Turkish time signatures works so well. Further proof of the elasticity of jazz and modern music.

Dahomey Dance

Reminiscing over McCoy Tyner's passing has returned this gem to my thoughts. Featuring Eric Dolphy on alto sax, this bluesy nod to our Fon forebears is a blue stroll along the path of jazz's past and future. Dolphy cannot help but express himself in that irrepressible manner of his, moaning and wailing on his alto the path forward for jazz in the early 1960s. McCoy Tyner's solo is an assertion of his own utterly singular style, and a perfect example of the relevance of the blues to jazz. This is our music. 

Blues People: Negro Music in White America

Amiri Baraka's Blues People is a fascinating read on the socio-cultural context of African American music as it pertains to the place of Black Americans in US society. While mostly centered on the blues, the text examines Black music from its African origins and the shouts, hollers, and spirituals of pre-Emancipation to the avant-garde jazz of the 1960s. While it owes much to its era and the impact of Herskovits can be strongly detected in the early chapters, it shows how the Afro-American developed a distinct music in their American context. So, regardless of how one feels about the accuracy of claims of African origin or retention, Baraka, like Gunther Schuller, presents a plausible theory of the ways in which the African past lingers in Black music.

It's an ambitious work that relies on a paradigm of double consciousness as seen in music, as well as certain sociological assumptions or conclusions about social stratification of Blacks and the question of assimilation in relation to the evolution of musical styles. Personally, I find Baraka's dismissal of ragtime problematic (ragtime's more serious composers and performers did look to African American folk traditions, not just marches or the American popular song) , as well as some of the assumptions about the black middle-class as devotees of assimilation (perhaps a result of his reliance on the seminal study of Frazier), but he is generally quite persuasive. Some may take issue with his attitudes on the literature of the Harlem Renaissance and gender dynamics in Black America, too.

The "blues continuum" concept for understanding Black music after the rise of radio and "race records" is an interesting way of understanding the continued links connecting country blues, urban blues, jazz, and R&B, not to mention the reaction and counterreactions that characterize the rise of of bebop, R&B, and avant-garde jazz. The cleavage between the Black masses and the bourgeoisie of the race are also interesting dynamics to consider in terms of the transformation of jazz in the 1920s and 1930s. Gunther Schuller's study of jazz includes some of these insights, but not quite in as forceful a manner as that of Jones, although the former certainly includes greater musicological insight and analysis.

Baraka brings to the table a deeper understanding of the blues as it pertains to African American culture and identity than Schuller, however. He also demonstrates why it is that jazz in particular, of all the blues-influenced forms of Black music, could appeal so widely and become flexible enough to absorb all kinds of influences so that whites and middle-class blacks could become innovative in it. For that reason, Blues People should continue to be read as a study of music as a way of understanding Black America and the social context of its music. Jazz aficionados have much to learn from this, in spite of its shortcomings. 

Mournful Serenade

Jelly Roll Morton's "Mournful Serenade" sounds eerily similar to Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo," an excellent example of the blues informing Ellington's tonal jazz compositions. Morton's number, of course is more obviously rooted in the blues with growling trombone and the New Orleans sound.

Moten Swing

Another gem of the early Swing era in jazz, "Moten Swing." Bennie Moten's group, the nucleus of the legendary Count Basie Orchestra, showcases that uniquely Kansas City Swing sound of swingin' rhythms and blues. Moten's rhythm section and use of the horns for its bluesy riffs is impeccable here. 

Toby

A gem representative of the bluesy Southwest style of jazz in the late 1920s and 1930s. Gunther Schuller's Early Jazz praises it as an exemplary piece, with good reason. Possessing an impeccable swing and drenched in the blues, one can see the origins of the Count Basie Orchestra with Bennie Moten's group. The swinging rhythm is infectious, truly jazz at its best in this era. Prince of Wails is also worth a listen. 

Bessie Smith's A Good Man Is Hard To Find

Although I have always associated this classic blues song with a New Orleans singer who sang it in Louisiana Creole, Queen Bessie always knew how to belt the blues with her powerful voice. To hear her perform live must have been quite the treat. 

Pfrancing

Forgot about this bluesy gem from Someday My Prince Will Come. Endless delight from this, also known as "No Blues."

Are You Glad To Be in America?

Although James Blood Ulmer has not occupied much of my jazz interests, I couldn't pass on an opportunity to hear him perform at one of the more interesting jazz venues. Unfortunately, I incorrectly assumed Ulmer was playing with a band, but it was just 90+ minutes of Ulmer wailing on his electric guitar with thick electric Delta Blues licks, folksy singing, Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Chile, and "Rock Me Baby." It was very calming music, reaching back to the origins of the blues while straying far from jazz throughout. Indeed, it was drenched in the blues and a quasi-West African desert blues mood that left the audience mesmerized. Ulmer joked throughout the show, even referencing Trump in "Are You Glad to be in America?" Personally, I would have preferred some jazz material, although one song dedicated to Ornette Coleman may have been from the latter's fusion years. 

Saint Louis Blues Louis Style

A definitive take on W.C. Handy's classic, "Saint Louis Blues." Handy's use of the habanera rhythm illustrates how "Latin" music has been part of the jazz repertoire for over 100 years, and part of the reason why I annoyed by the ways in which some define "Latin Jazz" as a genre or sub-genre of jazz. Moreover, Armstrong's honking orchestra did in the 1920s what came to define early R&B so well with artists like Louis Jordan.

Country Town Blues

Powerful example of Ornette Coleman's mastery of the blues, also featuring Charlie Haden's thick basslines and powerful foundation for Ornette and Don. Beautiful music although not "Ramblin", and proof that Ornette never left behind the blues. Haden's brief solo hints at some other composition by Ornette or a standard but I can't recall which song he's alluding to...

Art Ensemble of Chicago Blues

Great black music, past and present. Art Ensemble of Chicago's "Barnyard Scuffle Shuffel" pays tribute to the blues past of Chicago and African-American music in that quintessentially Art Ensemble of Chicago way. Think "Theme de Yoyo" but instead of funk, AEC tackles the blues form in a rather humorous and light-hearted way while threatening to fall apart. 

Requiem (For Charlie Parker)

Lennie Tristano is one of the more interesting jazz figures I know little about. Despite listening to some of his early explorations in 'free jazz' and noting his influence on other jazz titans I adore, mainly Mingus, I am still largely unfamiliar with his corpus of work. Nonetheless, I like what I have heard so far. Songs like "Requiem" illustrate a creative side, mainly in the 'fusion' of classical and blues influences for a song honoring Charlie Parker. By writing such a spiritually-charged blues, "Requiem" brings to mind Alice Coltrane's "Turiya and Ramakrishna," although she does not adopt any classical-styled introduction to her composition. 

April Fool!

Eric Dolphy on flute in 1960, displaying his playful side. Early Eric Dolphy recordings aren't free-jazz or necessarily avant-garde, but much like Ornette's early work, one can sense great things in the work, as well as a singular voice. Moreover, Dolphy always knew how to get down to bluesy numbers, too. 

Ornette Coleman's Sadness

Ethereal 1962 recording of Ornette Coleman. What I love about Ornette Coleman is his blues roots. He never forgot his Texas R&B roots, which really imbues this lament with more tragedy. The effective incorporation of various strings only enhances Coleman's penchant for multi-layered textures of sound. Truly an excellent paean for an all-too familiar human condition, and key to the blues.