More Tangled Roots of Jazz and Islam: Idris Mohammad

Idris Mohammad

The story of Idris Mohammad could be titled ‘Just Takin’ Care of Business’.  For all his life, from his birth in New Orleans in 1939 (apparently to a South Asian father and French mother) until very recently, Idris Mohammad has simply kept his head down and played what has been asked of him, usually from the bottom of the drums to the top.  And in the process has blazed a trail that has been trod by almost every drummer who has followed him.

Even though he didn’t pay much attention to the accolades he was getting from the jazz and R&B greats (Neville Brothers, Lou Donaldson, Roberta Flack, Pharoah Sanders, Curtis Mayfield, Rahsaan Roland Kirk to name just a few) who lined up to hire him, he was, by the mid-70s, considered to be one of the modern era’s great ‘jazz’ drummers. It is a title he has never felt comfortable with. “I had never heard of Art Blakey or Max Roach,” he confesses, “until I moved to New York.” And by that time most of his work had been with R&B artists who were attracted to his funky gumbo rhythms from New Orleans.  “I was never a jazz drummer,” he insists. 

Believe him or not, he is credited with basically inventing the Acid-Jazz style of drumming which mixes jazz trimmings with funky, organ and horn driven soul and R&B.

In the 80s he moved to Europe (Austria and UK) to ‘give my kids an education’ before returning to the States and heavy recording and touring schedule.  When Art Blakey and Max Roach, the two colossi of the jazz trap sets, started including Idris in references to the ‘greats’, the hard working, humble, pioneer of the drums finally gave in and accepted the praise.

His album Power of Soul is as hot today as it was when it came out in 1974.  Probably the best example of the drummer at the peak of his driving, leading percussion making, it is another very interesting chapter in the tangled connection between Islam and American jazz.

            Track Listing

01.  Power of Soul

02.  Piece of Mind

03.  The Saddest Thing

04.  Loran’s Dance

here

The Tan Canary: Johnny Adams

Johnny Adams

An old favourite is always a good way to end the week. Johnny Adams was a famous singer from New Orleans known as the Tan Canary for his clear, soaring falsetto and soulful stylings.  Like so many of his African American peers he started singing by praising the Lord in his local church but crossed over to the Devil’s music around 1960.  Several of his first hits were either written by or produced by a teenaged young white piano player named Mac Rebbenack (Dr John).

Adams started out recording for New Orleans-based label Ric Records but throughout the sixties jumped to labels in LA and eventually found a home and his best success in the late years of that decade with a Nashville label, SSS.  Though he never troubled the higher registers of the charts much in the 70’s he continued to perform in New Orleans and tour the world. And in the process was able to explore a wider range of singing styles, including jazz inspired albums. 

In 1998 he succumbed to cancer and left one of the great musical cities of the USA feeling as if a part of its soul had died. Over the years many of New Orleans’ finest had lined up to work with Johnny, including Harry Connick Jr., Dr. John and Aaron Neville.

This collection is some of his earliest work with Ric and Ron Records.  Each cut is a little gem in the vein of the lush sounds of Bobby Blue Bland. And that falsetto at the top of an incredibly expressive voice is simply magnificent.

            Track Listing:

            01 (Oh Why) I Won't Cry

02 Life is a Struggle

03 A Losing Battle

04 Nowhere to Go

05 Oh So Nice

06 I Want to Do Everything For You

07 You Can Make It If You Try

08 Teach Me To Forget

09 Let the Winds Blow

10 I Solemnly Promise

11 Who Are You

12 Come O

13 Someone For You

14 Lonely Drifter

Listen here.

Crescent City Gumbo: Allen Toussaint and Dr John

Bourbon Street by Debra Hurd

My recent post on Texas music got me in the mood for another slice of Americana.  The one thing that is beyond dispute, regardless of what conclusions you draw about American politics (Newt? You’ve got to be kidding!), its late Imperialistic tendencies, fast food and big cars, guns and reality TV, the recent smashing of MegaUpload and the grossly misnamed World Series (!), Americans know how to groove.

New Orleans is a city I’d like to spend more time in.  My only visit was for too short but the Crescent City is a place even those who don’t know it well, think they know well.  It’s got that special aura of a very welcoming funky city. It was  a destination my friends and I often thought about for Spring Break and though poverty made the trip impossible I just knew it would be place I could get along in.

You certainly couldn’t grow up on American music without knowing about New Orleans. The birthplace of jazz and Louis Armstrong and home to a number of blues, jazz and R&B musicians too high to count.  For me it was Dr John’s funky Right Time, Right Place that stood out from all the other radio noise in the early 70’s.  His voice seemed to ooze out from under the earth and conjured up an image of a dancing troll in my teenaged mind.

Years later friends of mine had a band that seemed forever stuck in the ‘cult sensation’ twilight zone: cool to a huge bunch of fans but never able to get the break through hit.  In a final attempt to go for gold, The Wallets ($5 to whoever remembers them), got Allen Toussaint, to produce a record.  Sadly, though the music shimmered and snapped off the wax even the Wizard of New Orleans was unable to get the big labels to open their wallets.

Tonight I share two utterly brilliant albums by the two aforementioned musical Einsteins.

Allen Toussaint, (pointing at you above)  is simply one the most influential and important producers and musicians of popular music in America. He began his career playing in bands in and around New Orleans but made his name in the 1960s as a producer of great R&B artists like Aaron Neville, The Meters, Ernie K Doe, Lee Dorsey and Irma Thomas. He also wrote a string of hit songs, which others sang and which have made his older years more comfortable.  His songs were covered by everyone (yes, no exaggeration) from the Yardbirds, to Otis Redding and from the Rolling Stones and the O’Jays. In 1998 he was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.

So in demand was he as a producer of the highest quality and creativity, that his own recording career dimmed and was almost forgotten. But in 2009 he emerged again with a gorgeous record of jazz songs, The Bright Mississippi, written by some of the greats of American music, (Ellington, Monk, Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton). His interpretations of them are simply stunning. I’ve listened to this album over and over the past several days.  Leading a star studded cast of New Orleans musicians like Nicholas Payton (trumpet), Marc Ribot (guitar) Don Byron (clarinet) Toussaint’s piano playing is assured, polished and relaxed. "He's the greatest pianist alive, only no one knows it... including him." So says, Van Dyke Parks, a not to shabby referee.

Dr John, the King of New Orleans, has been a friend and colleague of Allen Toussaint’s for years. And while I keep trying, it is proving impossible to select a favorite Dr John album.  But Duke Elegant is one of the best and fits nicely with The Bright Mississippi. Like that album it is a personal tribute to jazz, in this case the music of Duke Ellington.  Where Toussaint’s album is a quiet one, almost meditative, Duke Elegant takes some of Ellington’s most famous songs and attaches them to a R&B/funk machine that is running hot. What comes out is not jazz but it certainly is elegant.

         Track Listing:

         Bright Mississippi

            01 Egyptian Fantasy

02 Dear Old Southland

03 St. James Infirmary

04 Singin' the Blues

05 Winin' Boy Blues

06 West End Blues

07 Blue Drag

08 Just A Closer Walk with Thee

09 Bright Mississippi

10 Day Dream

11 Long, Long Journey

12 Solitude

Listen here.

            Track Listing:

            Duke Elegant

            01 On the Wrong Side of the Railroad Tracks

02 I'm Gonna Go Fishin'

03 It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)

04 Perdido

05 Don't Get Around Much Anymore

06 Solitude

07 Satin Doll

08 Mood Indigo

09 Do Nothin' 'Til You Hear From Me

10 Thing's Ain't What They Used to Be

11 Caravan

12 Flaming Sword

Listen here.

A Journey Up Highway 61: New Orleans

There is no other road in the United States, and possibly the world, more tangled up in, more soaked up with, more in bed with music than Highway 61.  Running from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of Lake Superior that laps the American border with Canada,  ‘61 Highway’ (as ‘Mississippi’ Fred McDowell referred to it) is American music’s throbbing jugular vein. The lifeblood of the blues, r&b, gospel, country, and rock n’ roll is circulated throughout the land and pumped back refreshed and born anew by way of the highway and its innumerable capillaries that the flow across the continent.

Four fabled cities, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville and Chicago, sit along, or close, to the highway. Four mighty genres of American music, jazz, soul, country and blues were given life along the route.  I’m sure it has been asserted many times before, that if ever one wanted to understand the roots (and the myriad branches) of modern popular music, there is no place more essential than that trail of bitumen that follows the Mississippi River through the very heart of the North American plain.

The next few posts will focus on music from along Highway 61 (and to be precise, a few of its major tributaries).  I will select at each stop, four records that have emerged from or represent the local soil. My choices may seem quixotic. My general preference being  to avoid the obvious or ‘the much covered’.  If this strikes some as intolerable or ignorant, so be it.

And so let’s begin the road trip through American music.

The Source: New Orleans, Louisiana.

For a city revered as the Mother of Jazz, New Orleans has in fact, such a rich musical culture one could spend an entire life in the Crescent City and never become bored with or come to the ‘end’ of its musical offerings.  Blues, funk, zydeco, r&b and brass band music , drum and fife, jazz and Cajun all have unique New Orleans roots or incarnations.   Here is just a very tiny sample of music from America’s most euphonious city.

The Neville Brothers are one of New Orleans’ beloved grand families. And Institutions. Their story is best told by themselves. The only thing I’ll do is rave about their music. It is funky, soulful, passionate, angelic, angry, never static and dancifying. Yellow Moon (1989) is not just one of my favorite New Orleans albums, it is a genuine Desert Island disc.  Something you never want to be too far away from.  It was my introduction to the Nevilles.  Years on, I remain amazed by the beauty and strength of the music. The way in which the vocals not just blend with the instruments but seem to match them and even transform themselves into another sort of instrument. And we should never underestimate how difficult it is to cover Bob Dylan and create something fresh.  Their version of The Ballad of Hollis Brown is haunting and nearly surpasses the original.

Track Listing

.        My Blood

.        Yellow Moon

.        Fire And Brimstone

.        A Change Is Gonna Come

.        Sister Rosa

.        With God On Our Side

.        Wake Up

.        Voo Doo

.        The Ballad Of Hollis Brown

.        Will The Circle Be Unbroken

.        Healing Chant

.        Wild Injuns

 Listen here

‘Champion’ Jack Dupree spent his earliest years in the same orphanage (Colored Waifs Home for Boys) as Louis Armstrong did. His parents were killed when their home was razed by the KKK. Though he left New Orleans (travelling up Highway 61 to the northern cities of Chicago and Detroit) as a teenager that sense of abandonment defined ‘Champion’ Jack’s music forever. 

Forever and Ever was made in 1991 the year before his death, and after a triumphant return to his hometown, after nearly four decades in Europe. This is not in the same league as his greatest albums, especially Blues from the Gutter, but it is still a wonderful record. From the cover which shows Jack dressed up as member of the Yellow Pocahontas tribe of Mardi Gras Indians, a unique New Orleans sub-culture, to some of the most harrowing songs he ever recorded (They Gave Me Away, a forlorn retelling of his being sent to the orphanage), this is a very personal record. As always, Jack has fun, chuckling and making snide comments to the band, throughout. And of course, he shows plenty of his ability to tickle the ivories.

Track Listing

     1.    They Gave Me Away

     2.    Hometown New Orleans

     3.    Skit Skat

     4.    Poor Boy      

     5.    Forever and Ever

     6.    Yellow Pocahontas

     7.    Third Degree

     8.    Dupree Special

     9.    Spoken Intro

    10.  Let’s Talk It Over

    Listen here

Dr John aka Mac Rebennack like the Neville Brothers is a New Orleans icon with a capital I. Only his fame is probably wider spread than the siblings.  I’ll skip details of his history as they are well known.  Though N’awlinz Dis Dat or D’Udder was made in 2004, a year before Hurricane Katrina ravished his beloved city, this record sounds like a ‘let’s celebrate New Orleans’ outing. With a heavenly host of local stars (Cyril Neville, Nicholas Payton, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Eddie Bo, just to mention some) the Dr claws his piano and sings his lungs out as he leads his accomplices through a collection of songs about or made famous in the Crescent City.  A fantastic, taut, diversely paced and hellishly performed collection that goes down as not just one of Dr John’s but New Orleans best albums.

Track Listing

1.    Quatre Parishe

2.    When the Saints Go Marchin’ In (feat. Mavis Staples)

3.    Lay Your Burden Down (f. Mavis & Dirty Dozen Brass Band)

4.    Marie Laveau (f. Cyril Neville and Mardi Gras Indians)

5.    Dear Old Southland (f. Nicholas Payton)

6.    Dis, Dat or D’Udder

7.    Chickee le Pas (f. Cyril Neville and Mardi Gras Indians)

8.    The Monkey (f. Eddie Bo and Dave Bartholemew)

9.    Shango Tango (f. Willie Tee)

10. I Ate Up the Apple Tree f. Randy Newman)

11. You Ain’t Such a Much (f. Willie Nelson & Snooks Eaglin)

12. Life’s a One Way Ticket

13. Hen Layin’ Rooster (f. B.B King &  Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown)

14. Stakalee

15. Eh Las Bas (f. Leroy Jones)

16. St James Infirmary (f. Eddie Bo)

17. Time Marches On (BBKing, Willie Nelson & DDBBand)

18. I’m Goin’ Home (Cyril Neville)

Listen here

 The final selection for this start up Highway 61 is Watch What You’re Doing’ by Herlin Riley, one of America’s best jazz drummers. From a musical New Orleans family, (yet another one!), Riley began his professional career backing Ahmad Jamal before taking over the drumer’s stool for Wynton Marsalis’s band in the late 1980s. Watch What You’re Doing’ is regarded as one of the best jazz records of the first decade of this century, and has been one of my consistent favorites, especially the killer closing track, Blood Groove, for years.

Track Listing:

1.    Watch What You’re Doing

2.    New York Walk

3.    John Lewis

4.    Soscalalah Blues

5.    Sunshine in My Pocket

6.    Coodie Coo

7.    Warm All Over

8.    Myrosa’s Mirage

9.    Blood Groove

Listen here.

Next stop: Northern Mississippi and the Delta.