Dynamic Musical Duos

In the tribute to McCoy Tyner (post of 3/9/20), I referred to him and Bobby Hutcherson as a “dynamic duo”. This got me thinking about other such musical pairings. There are many, and what makes the best collaborations special varies tremendously.

Perhaps they push one another, or enhance each other’s strengths by contrast. It might be a case of talents that mesh so perfectly that they seem to have been born to play together. Maybe it’s just inexplicable. Whatever it is in any given case, the listener knows that when these two artists got together, live or in studio, magic happened.  

Here, then, are five dynamic duos to savor: two Blues, two Jazz, and one where Jazz and Blues meet.

Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell

Already familiar with Leroy Carr? If so, you are (or are on your way to becoming) a Blues aficionado. Yet, he should be better known, as one of the greatest and most important early stars of the Blues. His songs have been covered, in whole or in part, by countless artists. Legendary singer/pianists, from Nat King Cole to Memphis Slim to Charles Brown to Mose Allison to Ray Charles and beyond, are in his debt.

Francis “Scrapper” Blackwell’s single-line runs on the guitar perfectly complemented Carr’s piano and vocals – making them the first duo who simply had to be included here. And what piano and vocals they were! Carr’s voice was a remarkably rich yet supple instrument. It might have been the envy of the smoothest crooners, if not being used to sing unflinching blues. Similarly, his piano playing, while firmly rooted in barrelhouse blues piano (the gut-bucket precursor to boogie-woogie), was somehow suavely sophisticated without giving an inch on grit.

Some call Carr the first urban blues musician. He and Blackwell both moved to Indianapolis as children, Leroy having been born in Nashville and Scrapper in Syracuse, South Carolina. Together, they created a sound less raw than early rural blues of the deep South, and paved the way for the plugged-in city blues that later evolved in Chicago and elsewhere. If not urban, they were certainly urbane.

Carr’s very first record, 1928’s “How Long, How Long Blues”, was a big hit for the time. There followed many songs that would take their place among classics of the Blues canon, and Carr wrote most of what he sang. Among them are “Hurry Down Sunshine”, “Midnight Hour Blues”, “Barrelhouse Woman”, “Southbound Blues”, the dance tune “Bobo Stomp” and “I Believe I’ll Make A Change”.

That last one, recorded 8/14/34, may well have inspired Robert Johnson’s “Dust My Broom” in 1936 (which later evolved into Elmore James’ signature song). It features superb lead guitar by Scrapper Blackwell. In truth, he was always more than an accompanist; every one of Carr’s greatest recordings was enhanced greatly by Blackwell’s telepathic interplay. There is some scholarly support for the notion that Scrapper had significant input in the composing as well.

To my ears, the masterpiece is “Blues Before Sunrise”.  It follows the Blues’ standard AAB format (opening line, repeated, then resolved by a closing line), but the lyricism, set to a majestic melody, is striking:

While there is grace, majesty, and poetry to his blues, Carr (like most songwriters) wrote about what he knew. His entire, brief life was spent in the Jim Crow era and his recording career (1928-35) straddled the Great Depression. The menace of violence is often present, sometimes front-and-center, and Carr’s lyrics celebrate his alcoholism. The juxtaposition of such content with his pleasing, skillful delivery can be as jarring as it is understandable.

When Carr sang he’d “rather be sloppy drunk than anything I know”, he apparently meant it. In “Hustler’s Blues” he sang, ”Whiskey is my habit; good women is all I crave” before matter-of-factly predicting “I do believe the two will carry me to my grave”. He was right about the whiskey; it shut his organs down in April of 1935, a month past his 30^th birthday.

Buddy Guy and Junior Wells

Although they individually established themselves on the Blues scene, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells spent more time touring and recording together than any other dynamic duo mentioned here – despite periodic breaks. An album cover once referred to them as The Original Blues Brothers – an apt description, considering the dues they paid together through the years. I’ve seen Buddy Guy more often than any other musician or group. Nearly half of those shows were with Junior, even though he died 22 years ago, .

Each was a master of his instrument, and each sang more than well enough to be the lead star in a band. Any group they co-led was automatically an all-star band. On harmonica, most players in the generation following Little Walter Jacobs and Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller, as opposed to Sonny Boy I, John Lee Williamson) clearly followed one master or the other. Wells was the most intriguing blend of the two, combining Walter’s powerful, saxophone-like attack with Sonny Boy’s plaintive lyricism. Among guitarists, Buddy has no peer. Calling anyone “the greatest guitarist” is looking for trouble, of course. So, let’s just say he’s my favorite, because I’ve seen him play things no one else could conceive of, much less attempt.

Junior always struck me as a real character, and top billing seemed more important to him than to Buddy when they were together. Live, they handled it as Muddy Waters might have suggested: A set would begin with the band playing an instrumental or two. Then: “Are you ready for Star Time? Ladies and gentlemen, BUDDY GUY!” Buddy would make his entrance, sing a couple, and then say something like this: “It’s Star Time again. Put your hands together for JUNIOR WELLS!” Junior would sing three or four and then they’d alternate the rest of the set.

Here’s the thing: they did not sulk or go through the motions when not singing. Indeed, they each played their best behind the other. This might help explain why some of the best Buddy Guy records are Junior Wells albums. There are plenty; I’ll mention two.

Hoodoo Man Blues on Delmark (1965) is a landmark as the first urban blues album: (a) for Delmark records; (b) for Junior and Buddy; and (c) to capture a working Chicago blues band in studio as they would sound in a club. It’s Delmark’s #1 seller and appears regularly on “best ever” and “dessert island album” lists. Recommended tracks? Yes, all of them. (Amusing sidenote: early pressings list Buddy Guy as “Friendly Chap”, mistakenly thinking Chess would object.)

Some tracks on It’s My Life, Baby! on Vanguard were recorded live at Pepper’s Lounge in Chicago; others in studio. All capture Junior and Buddy at the top of their game. Even the rather silly “Stomach Ache” features phenomenal guitar by Buddy. The title track is Chicago blues as rip roaring jazz. The top highlight, though, is “Look How Baby” with Junior’s impassioned vocal and a remarkable duet between Buddy’s guitar and Fred Below’s drums. It’s avant-garde blues. (BTW, most of the same tracks, with a few others, also appear on Best of the Vanguard Years.)

The first time I saw Buddy after Junior died in 1998, he spoke of him, then said “Damn, I miss him.”

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

On first blush, this might seem an odd pairing. Yes, they were two icons of American music, but…

Ella was the First Lady of Song, a virtuosic singer’s singer. With perfect pitch and an encyclopedic memory for songs, Ella brought a beautiful and personal tone across a huge range.

Louis had brought unprecedented virtuosity to Jazz on cornet and trumpet, but his voice was gruff and gravelly through a limited range. His approach to singing seemed playful, sly, almost casual. Many know Louis as the cute older fella who had a hit with “Hello Dolly”. That misses not only his earlier Hot 5 and Hot 7 masterpieces that were arguably the most important popular recordings of the 20^th Century, but also the astounding gifts he brought going forward.

Jazz impresario Norman Granz brought them together on his Verve record label, and provided them with stellar support. Three albums issued: Ella and Louis, Ella and Louis Again, and Porgy and Bess. Each was met with deserved critical acclaim and commercial success. If you love the great American songbook, you’ll want them all. If you don’t, you still might want them all. Other options include compilation and “Best of” albums.

Riches abound; you can’t go wrong as a listener. “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off” has never been a favorite of mine, but I couldn’t help but smile at their rendition. Virtually everything else is sublime. What Louis creates as counterpoint to Ella’s lead in the first chorus of “Stars Fell On Alabama” must be heard to be believed. Then they switch and Ella returns the favor. There is “Summertime” as you’ve never heard it, and the best version of “Stompin’ At The Savoy” since Chick Webb’s original.

Any notion that this is a questionable pairing fades quickly into other impressions: (1) While it is true that Louis’s vocal instrument lacked the beauty and range of Ella’s, in his own way he was no less the virtuoso vocalist. And, of course, Louis’s trumpet gave him a second voice. (2) Ella could be as sly and playful as Louis. (3) The cliché that “Timing is everything” is true. (4) In the end, these are kindred spirits as well as other-worldly talents. Their contrasting mastery accentuates each other’s genius.

As in sports, the truly great make it look, or sound, easy.

Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk

Again we have two icons. Pianist Thelonious Monk is often and justly called one of the high priests of Bebop. Actually, he is a genre unto himself, a game-changer who re-imagined space and time in music. Art Blakey served as the talent scout, bandleader, and poly-rhythmic drummer extraordinaire of Hard Bop.

Blue Note co-founder Alfred Lion was one of the few who “got” Monk right away. He acted on his convictions by recording him from 1947 to 1952 even though sales were lackluster. By the time fans, critics and even musicians finally caught on, Monk was elsewhere. But the originals of some of Monk’s greatest compositions (e.g. ”Straight, No Chaser”, “Epistrophy”, “Misterioso”, “Evidence”, “I Mean You”, “’Round Midnight” “In Walked Bud” and “Criss Cross”) are on these early Blue Note records. On every one of them, the drummer is Art Blakey.

So, the uncanny chemistry between Monk and Blakey had early origins. It helped that Monk was a particularly percussive pianist and Blakey was (along with Max Roach) the most melodic of drummers. They went their separate, legendary ways, but any recording on which they both appear is a must-have. The early Blue Notes are highly recommended, of course. My favorite, though, and indeed one of my all-time go-to records, is a reunion on Atlantic records (#1278) aptly called Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk.

Any of the six tracks is a marvel. I use “I Mean You” in presentations to demonstrate all that is possible in Jazz when great players, who are also great listeners, improvise. Never coasting when comping (accompanying a soloist), Blakey and Monk are constant sources of ideas, perfectly fitting whatever the soloist is creating. At one point behind Bill Hardman’s trumpet solo, Monk’s piano and Blakey’s drums have such a call-and-response blizzard going, I can’t imagine how Hardman kept his bearings. Such instantaneous and spontaneous invention leaves one in delighted awe. So does Blakey’s drum solo, a poly-rhythmic tour-de-force.

Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson

Shortly after Jay McShann passed away on December 7, 2006, a radio station (probably NPR) aired an archived interview with the pianist/bandleader that contained a notable story. The story (paraphrasing it from memory) was of an impressionable young McShann on his first night in Kansas City.

He was a pianist from Oklahoma looking to make a name for himself in the Big City. His first stop was at the largest musical venue in town. When he stepped inside the cavernous space, he saw a piano player on stage banging out furious boogie-woogie. There was also a very large man making his way up to the stage.

McShann wondered what the man clambering up the steps was going to do. He wasn’t carrying an instrument, and there was nothing awaiting him on the stage – not even a microphone. He reached center stage just as the pianist completed one chorus and began the next. Opening his mouth as he turned toward the audience, Big Joe Turner filled the room with sound. Big Joe Turner didn’t need a microphone, no matter how large the room – especially when singing with Pete Johnson.

Jay McShann was transfixed as chorus after chorus washed over him, singer and pianist pushing each other to ever greater heights. He quickly realized two things: (1) He was in the right place; and (2) he had work to do if he was to make his mark in this town.

Any list of the greatest boogie-woogie pianists includes Johnson, along with Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, and Jimmy Yancey. The form is either bluesy Jazz or jazzy Blues, or both, combining the feel of the Blues with the swing of Jazz. Propelled by insistent bass patterns played with the left hand, boogie-woogie freed pianists to improvise blues-drenched melody endlessly with the right hand. Recordings featuring Johnson, Ammons, and Lewis in various combinations (occasionally all three) in rollicking face-offs make for exhilarating listening, but there’s no better way to hear Pete Johnson than backing Big Joe.

It takes nothing away from the great Jimmy Rushing (“Mr. Five-by-Five”) to call Turner the best of the Kansas City Blues shouters. Those thinking they’re unfamiliar have probably heard him belt out the original “Shake, Rattle and Roll” among other essential precursors to Rock‘n’Roll. These rhythm and blues staples are as entertaining as they are important, but earlier work with Pete Johnson had already long established Big Joe as the Boss of the Blues.

Friends and collaborators since teen years in Kansas City, Turner and Johnson paved the way for a boogie-woogie craze ignited by their appearance at John Hammond’s legendary Carnegie Hall concert From Spirituals To Swing on December 23, 1938. Their seminal work isn’t always easy to come by, but the Atlantic label got them together again in 1956 for Turner’s The Boss of the Blues Sings Kansas City Jazz. Highlights include versions of classics like “Roll ‘Em Pete” (probably the song that first inspired Jay McShann), “Cherry Red”, and one of the greatest covers of Leroy Carr’s “How Long Blues” ever recorded.

Conclusion

There are dynamic duos, presumably, in all musical genres, but those settings in which improvisation is central provide extra room for dynamism to flourish. Thus, we focus here on Jazz and Blues. (That, and the fact that I don’t have anything to say about Simon and Garfunkel you haven’t heard before, or thought yourself.) A long list of pairings to consider immediately came to mind; narrowing down which duos to include was the hard part.

If you’re thinking “How could he not do ________ and ________?” , well, maybe I should have. If this post is well received, it won’t take much persuading to do it again. I also feel the urge to write about unsung heroes: that is, great but relatively unknown or perpetually underappreciated musicians who have made a difference.

Happy listening!

Ken Bossong

© 2020 Kenneth J. Bossong