record collection revisited: Eric Clapton & J.J. Cale, "Road To Escondido"

Eric Clapton's 2006 album "Road To Escondido" was in many ways, a journey.  Clapton tells the story that he and Cale got together to make the record and how concerned he was about disturbing Cale, who some have claimed is reclusive despite his legendary songwriting credibility having penned tracks recorded by Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bryan Ferry and others.  Clapton and Cale did get together and recorded "The Road To Escondido", released in 2006.  It's a departure for Clapton who (though he's covered classic Cale compositions like "After Midnight" and "Cocaine"), had not recorded with him up until this album even though the two have been friends and musical collaborators.

An all star cast of musicians plays on the record including drummers Jim Karstein, Steve Jordan and Abraham Laboriel Jr., bassists Gary Gilmore, Willie Weeks, Nathan East and Pino Palladino (three of them have played with Clapton in touring bands while Gilmore was a fixture in Cale's early bands), Walt Richmond and the late, great Hammond B3 player Billy Preston (who played with The Beatles before they broke up, had a successful solo career, and, playing with Clapton off and on until his death), guitarists Doyle Bramhall II., Derek Trucks, Albert Lee and John Mayer (before his solo career really took off), and numerous other percussionists and horn players, plus, Dennis Caplinger on fiddle and Taj Mahal on harmonica.

Trucks and Bramhall were integral parts of Clapton's touring band in 2006-2007 as well.  Clapton and Cale produced the record along with Simon Climie who has produced records with Clapton in the past.  This record is not too flamboyant compared to a lot of Clapton's blues inspired or pop oriented albums of the past.  Since this record, Clapton has gone on to release a new self titled album and did a live album and subsequent tours with Steve Winwood in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

This album is mellower for a blues/rock record, but it's no less exciting to listen to as Cale's prolific and well crafted ability as a songwriter shines through.  Cale penned eleven of the songs while one is a Brownie McGhee cover ("Sporting Life Blues"), one is composed by Clapton, about his children, and there is a blues entitled "Hard To Thrill" co-written between Clapton and Mayer.  It is the songwriting that gives this album it's strength and at least a couple of the Cale numbers might be recognizable.

It is a pleasure to listen to.  It's bluesy, but not over the top.  Sparse, yet full in terms of the sounds and the content of the songs.  A great record to be sure.

Track listing:

1. Danger
2. Heads In Georgia
3. Missing Person
4. When This War is Over
5. Sporting Life Blues
6. Dead End Road
7. It's Easy
8. Hard To Thrill
9. Anyway the Wind Blows
10. Three Little Girls
11. Don't Cry Sister
12. Last Will and Testament
13. Who am I Telling You
14. Ride The River

The Crusaders & the tradition of jazz tenor saxophonists from Texas

I am writing in this post about another of my favorite jazz fusion bands, The Crusaders.  They actually started as a hard bop band in the 1960s called The Jazz Crusaders.  But, it wasn't until the '70s during the jazz fusion era that they started hitting their stride.  Most of their members came from Houston, Texas.  The lineup in the '70s included tenor saxophonist Wilton Felder, trombonist Wayne Henderson, Larry Carlton on guitar (who was also doing solo work and work with Steely Dan at the time), Stix Hooper on drums and Joe Sample on keyboards (primarily Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos).  Joe Sample and Wilton Felder were friends going back to before the band even began.

Their well known albums came in a string between 1974 and 1979.  These include:

"Southern Comfort" 1974
"Scratch" 1974 (a live record)
"Chain Reaction" 1975
"Those Southern Knights" 1976
"Free As The Wind" 1977
"Street Life" 1979

Each album is similar and yet different.  "Street Life" (the title cut off the 1979 record) was their most commercially successful song and album, with Randy Crawford on lead vocals for the title track.  The Crusaders have a sound that draws less on grandiose and sonically stratospheric sounds of some other fusion bands like Return To Forever or Mahavishnu Orchestra.  They are more of a rhythm & blues band.  ...And, Wilton Felder follows in a tradition of sorts regarding tenor saxophonists who have come out of Texas. 

Some of these players include Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Buddy Tate, James Clay, David "Fathead" Newman and John Coltrane.  Wilton Felder is relevant to that category.  Here is a link to an article on the influence of the tenor saxophone as far as the style of playing.  The article is dated from 2007. 

http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-01-25/music/music/texas-tenors-times-two/

This is a footnote.  The Crusaders have had slightly revised lineups over the years including an album in the 1990s as the Jazz Crusaders where Felder and Hendrson played with another group of musicians not including Joe Sample.  More recently, they released a record in 2003 called "Rural Renewal" including Sample, Felder, Steve Baxter (another Houston native) on trombone, Freddie Washington on bass and Ray Parker Jr. (of "Ghostbusters" fame) on guitar.  They are a great band.  Check them out.

Rediscovering Chuck Berry

One of the early innovators of rock & roll, (Chuck Berry) I have rediscovered tonight through VH1 Classic airing the 1987 concert film "Hail, Hail Rock & Roll".  Berry's 60th birthday celebration which included Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Julian Lennon, Robert Cray, Linda Ronstadt and Etta James.  The core members of the band were Steve Jordan on drums, Johnnie Johnson on piano, Chuck Leavell on organ, Joey Spampinato on bass, Bobby Keys on saxophone and Ingrid Berry on vocals.

He wrote a BUNCH of songs, all of which are standards of rock & roll to this day.  The first time I heard Chuck Berry was hearing "No Particular Place To Go" on a car songs compilation at age six or seven (around 1992 or so).  The full discography can be found at www.chuckberry.com.  His biggest hits of course are "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958).  He had singles on the charts every year between 1955 and 1961 with others to follow at different times between 1962 and 1979. 

So, if you have heard of Chuck Berry and what he did (or even if you haven't), check out his catalog of songs.  He, along with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and Bill Haley have to be the pioneers of what was known then and always will be known as rock and roll. 

the blues

Beyond the jazzier realm of my musical interests and knowledge, my heart and soul lies embedded within the blues.  This form of music (along with jazz) is what started the great tradition of American roots music.  Country music (as in bluegrass or country & western music) came later, as did rock and roll.  But the blues pretty much gave birth to all of that and was contributed by the sounds heard in the '20s and '30s in the Mississippi Delta.  Of the Delta blues men, the most well known have to be Son House and Robert Johnson.  Muddy Waters (who also came from Mississippi in a town called Rolling Fork) and his longtime guitarist Hubert Sumlin, can also be listed as originators.  Waters and Sumlin pioneered electrified blues when each moved to Chicago in the 1950s.

Then of course, after the successes of Waters, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Reed and others in Chicago, British rock and roll bands (The Rolling Stones, Cream, The Who), as well as later rock bands from the south such as the Allman Brothers, took this blues formula and supercharged it.  The guitar playing in rock and roll is traced back mostly to blues but there are other areas like country that also influenced it.  Still, the idea of bending notes or playing slide guitar with a glass medicine bottle or beer bottle, comes strictly from The Delta.  My musical tastes have begun to cover more modern interpretations.  But, the blues is where I always draw from, even if I'd decide to go down a more jazz influenced road.

There are many great innovators in blues still today whether they come from Mississippi, Chicago, Texas or anywhere else.  It will always stay alive.  It's not all about misery and woe, either.  It's a natural emotion that everyone experiences whether those emotions are happy or sad and that's part of the appeal of the music just as much as the sound of it.  I could go on and on and on about my love for blues.  But, it has to be heard to be discovered and the music will continue to be carried on to new generations.

Return To Forever "Medieval Overture"

Here is another of my favorite Return To Forever pieces entitled "Medieval Overture" which was of course the opening song for their Minneapolis show and pretty much every show they've done on their current tour.  This performance of the tune took place in Israel, just before their U.S. tour began.

Return To Forever Setlist 8/24/11 Minneapolis, MN @ Orpheum Theater

Here is the set list from the 8/24 Return To Forever gig as a follow up to the review.  They are culling material from the same set list for most of the shows.  But they obviously have a formula that they know will work out.  This comes from the band's website http://www.return2forever.com

1. Medieval Overture
2. Captain Senor Mouse
3. Sorceress/Shadow of Lo
4. Renaissance
5. After The Cosmic Rain
6. Romantic Warrior
7. Spain

Encore:

8. School Days

Deodato

Keyboardist and producer Eumir Deodato is someone who I've begun listening to lately.  He is a Brazilian born jazz fusion artist and has some intriguing recordings.  The heyday of his career was the 1970s but I have only just discovered his work and it's good stuff.  Here is one of my favorite songs entitled "September 13".  The tune is in the key of A minor and has a very similar sound and structure to "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" by the Allman Brothers released about a year earlier.  The Allman's tune came out in 1971 while this composition was published in 1972.  There were standard stereo and quadrophonic mixes of this track.  Here is the link to the quadrophonic mixed version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SuoGIga99A&feature=related

Enjoy this tune.

Favorite albums: Lee Ritenour: "Rit"

I have recently discovered jazz fusion guitarist Lee Ritenour again after listening to some of his work back in the 1990s during a phase when the only music I'd listen to was contemporary jazz.  It is his 1981 recording, "Rit" which has the edginess of a pop record of that era but also contains Ritenour's technical virtuosity as a guitarist, particularly his deft slide guitar work, accompanied by well delivered pop/jazz/R&B vocals by his collaborators Eric Tagg and Bill Champlin.  The drums are handled by legendary percussionist Harvey Mason either live or synthesized, and there are keyboards on the record and great, snappy Fender Jazz Bass bass lines.

To some, "smooth jazz" may seem trivial.  Like elevator or shopping mall music.  But it became popular in the '80s and '90s and for my money, the musicians have the technical ability to make their recordings sound good.  Ritenour is one of those.  Ritenour, along with Harvey Mason and David Foster produced the record.  Highlights include "Mr. Briefcase", "(Just) Tell Me Pretty Lies", "No Sympathy" and "Good Question" which is a synthesizer and open E tuned bluesy slide guitar tour de force.  Although, Ritenour's slide playing is raw, it also has a polished element about it.  OK, so pure blues players or Duane Allman devotees may think, "eh, it's just a phoned in attempt at playing slide."  Well, this slide guitar aficionado thinks otherwise.  Check out the record.  It is on the reissue label, Collectables.   

"Rit" track listing:

1. Mr. Briefcase
2. (Just) Tell Me Pretty Lies
3. No Sympathy
4. Is It You?
5. Dreamwalk
6. Countdown (Captain Fingers)
7. Good Question
8. (You Caught Me) Smilin'
9. On The Slow Glide
10. No Sympathy (reprise)

Some of my favorite albums: Miles Davis "Bitches Brew"

Ah, where to begin with this record.  "Bitches Brew" in all honesty was the beginning of jazz/rock fusion in 1969 when Miles Davis and his crack team of ace musicians laid down a sound that would turn the jazz world on it's ear.  The "Bitches Brew" record has to be heard to be believed.  This along with some of Miles' later work in the '70s is simply mind blowing in a virtuosic and technical sense. Not to mention, later recordings by him like "Live Evil" and "On The Corner" are ten times more tripped out, even than this one!

Miles on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone, John McLaughlin on guitar, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, and Larry Young on a trio of Rhodes electric pianos, Dave Holland and Harvey Brooks on bass, and the tandem of Lenny White and Jack DeJohnette on drums, propel this track into the stratosphere.  It is something that has to be heard to be believed and SOUNDS simple, but must be completely and intricately complex, somehow.  The whole album floored me when I first heard it.

Here are the links to the record via YouTube video (for "Spanish Key").  Will post other tracks if possible.  This album proves Miles' genius and innovation.

"Spanish Key" Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v/lxzxuA06e6M&feature=related

"Spanish Key" Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v/TWnFCH56Ixk&NR=1

Check it out.

Walter Trout @ Famous Dave's BBQ & Blues Club, Minneapolis, MN 9/3/11

Last Saturday night I had a chance to see blues guitarist Walter Trout at Famous Dave's BBQ & Blues Club in uptown Minneapolis.  Good show.  Two bands played, including Trout.  The first was a blues cover band which did pretty well.  Both bands had phenomenal Hammond B3 organ players as I guess the venue must have a B3 and Leslie speaker onsite for gigs.  The keyboardists were VERY talented.  Trout's singing was good as he could surely put the feeling into a blues tune whether it was one of his own, or a cover song.  Unfortunately, as a  player, he left something more to be desired, repeating similar blues bending phrases and trying to sound like Buddy Guy (playing a Stratocaster through a cranked amp). 

But, in the end, he just seemed to repeat something that has already been done before in the realm of Chicago blues.  Trying to sound like Guy, Hendrix or Clapton, but, not really picking up with a keen listener's ear stylistically.  Despite that, it was a good show, although a late one as I did not stay for the ending songs due to time constraints.  The opening act (not sure of their name), played for way too long and that kind of botched things.  A good gig, yes.  But, there could have been more musically to satisfy me.