Tim Niland is a lifelong jazz and blues fan, who
began blogging about music five years ago. In real life, he is a
public librarian living in New Jersey.
The era before Chess Records was a vibrant one for blues music in Chicago with the likes of Tampa Red, John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, and the great Big Bill Broonzy presiding over a vibrant scene. Broonzy welcomed the influx of musicians from the generation that followed as well, passing the torch to a new group of legends to be. Muddy Waters never forgot the kindness shown to him by the older man, and paid his respects by cutting this classic album of Broonzy related material in his own style of electric Chicago blues. Cut with a killer band including Otis Spann on piano, James Cotton on harmonica and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith on drums, the music cruises through a wonderful selection of music.
Muddy absolutely swaggers through Broonzy's "Just a Dream (On My Mind)" and "When I Get to Drinkin'" and his own "Done Got Wise" and simmers the slow blues of contemporary Otis Rush on "Double Trouble." The band is with him every step of the way, Cotton had just replaced Little Walter and was eager to strut his stuff, and Spann's deep and delicate piano added extra depth to all the songs. With these attached to a rock solid foundation of Smith's no nonsense drumming and Muddy's man's man vocals it adds up to one of the classic albums of the blues.
Topics:
blues ,
muddywaters ,
bigbillbroonzy
This two CD set brings together some very intense and transitional music recorded by John Coltrane in 1965. This was a fascinating period in his career, as his longtime quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums... Read More Topics:
jazz ,
johncoltrane
For blues fans, the Juke or in this case Jook Joint has taken on the mystical place of a temple, where the Word of the blues is passed down from the musician-priests to the eager supplicants, who contort and speak in tongues on the dance floor. This... Read More Topics:
blues ,
variousartists
“Big” John Patton never quite achieved the fame of fellow organists Jimmy Smith or Brother Jack McDuff, but he was a potent and soulful force on the instrument in the 1960’s, cutting some well received albums for Blue Note before drifting... Read More Topics:
jazz ,
bigjohnpatton
Anthemic sounding rock 'n' roll with the "big" sound like Bruce Springsteen, Arcade Fire, et. al. The character studies are quite interesting, almost beat like in their studies of the underside of American youth. Musicians running from the... Read More Topics:
rockandroll ,
theholdsteady
Watermelon Slim and the Workers play the straight-up workingman's blues, for people who walk the hard road every day and are trying to make ends meet. Slim has been a soldier, truck driver and everything in between, and their latest album continues their... Read More Topics:
blues ,
watermelonslim
Like many of the legends of the blues, guitarist Earl Hooker moved to Chicago in the post-war years from his birthplace of Mississippi. Earning a place for himself in the pantheon with his unique slide guitar and his aversion to singing, Hooker never... Read More Topics:
blues ,
earlhooker
In some recent pictures, guitarist Marc Ribot looks like that professor you had in college… complete with scruffy salt and pepper hair and a wry smile. But this belies the heart of a radical musical polymath that still beats within him. Jumping... Read More Topics:
jazz ,
marcribot
The Allmusic blog has anice post about the music of trumpeter Woody Shaw:"Although Shaw would continue to record for various labels up until his tragic death in 1989, he never quite achieved the commercial success he deserved. Nonetheless, he is... Read More Topics:
jazz ,
blues ,
woodyshaw
John Zorn - Filmworks XIX (Tzadik, 2008): For this release, John Zorn puts down his saxophone and picks up his composing pen, to write eleven short sketches for the animated short film, The Rain Horse which was directed by Russian animator Dimitri Geller.... Read More Topics:
jazz ,
johnzorn ,
larryochs