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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:

I have the blues before sunrise, with tears standing in my eyes    (X2)
It’s such a miserable feeling, a feeling I do despise…
Today has been such a long, old lonesome day (X2)
I’ve been sitting here thinking, with my mind a million miles away.

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 30th 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 20th 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

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What Makes Jazz So Endearing And Enduring

America’s Special Music

I have loved Jazz (and Blues) music for as long as I can remember, virtually from first exposure. It has enriched my life more than I can say. Therefore, I take particular pleasure in explaining why and how this music is so special. I have done that for years in personal presentations and I’ll do so now in occasional posts. Since I’m covering a vast topic in manageable portions, this is the first in a periodic series.

In a well written piece for the Smithsonian (https://music.si.edu/story/jazz), Dr. John Edward Hasse says, “Often acclaimed as America’s greatest art form, jazz has become accepted as a living expression of the nation’s history and culture, still youthful, difficult to define and impossible to contain, a music of beauty, sensitivity, and brilliance that has produced (and been produced by) an extraordinary progression of talented artists.”

Agreeing that it is futile to attempt a formal definition of Jazz, I think of it as America’s ultimate melting-pot art form, with something for everyone. Rather than defining Jazz, I find it more useful to explore characteristics that enhance the music’s impact and the listener’s pleasure. Let’s consider seven of them.

1. Call and Response Patterns

A leader calls out a theme and a chorus responds. The response might reflect or amplify the call, or it might diminish or contradict. The pattern may repeat or change. The tone of the exchange can be worshipful or profane, affectionate or adversarial, calm or feisty.

There is something especially satisfying about call and response. It can occur in any setting – between a preacher and the congregation; the lead singer and the backups; the reeds and the brass; or a singer and his or her guitar – or someone else’s. The back-and-forth works so well because it reflects our human need to communicate, whether the content is intellectual (thoughts/ideas) or emotional (feelings/passions).

Even amid the glories of Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5 and Hot 7 recordings, “West End Blues” is above and beyond. One of several reasons I think of it as the most important three minutes of popular music ever recorded is an extraordinary call and response passage between Armstrong’s voice and a clarinet.

Jazz is not the first music form to benefit from call and response. Indeed, Jazz inherited the technique from field hollers, work songs, spirituals, and the Blues. The trail does not stop with Jazz, either.

I remember realizing one day why “Sincerely” by the Moonglows is one of my two or three favorite Doo Wop songs: the lead guitarist sets up an exquisite call and response with the vocal. It makes a good record truly great. It’s amazing what I learn when I really listen.

2. Tension and Release

Nearly equal to call and response in impact and pervasiveness within Jazz is tension and release. There are dozens of ways to create tension in the music and equal numbers of ways to satisfactorily resolve it. This is another remarkably effective way to engage the listener emotionally.

Devices utilized to achieve tension and release include: gradual increases or decreases in tempo, volume, or intensity; repetition; contrast; sudden changes in rhythm, key, or harmonic approach; dissonance; and almost anything unexpected that nevertheless works.

I love to play Duke Ellington’s masterpiece “Ko-Ko” in presentations not only for how many of the above techniques are used, but how well. The effectiveness of the dissonance is mind boggling, and it was recorded on May 6, 1940. Yes, 1940.

3. Rhythmically Compelling

It is generally difficult to listen to great Jazz without moving some part of your body. During the big band era of Jazz, so-called Swing was the most popular dance music in the world. Duke Ellington probably said it best with a song title: “It Don’t Mean a Thing If it Ain’t Got That Swing”.

So, why not just say “It’s got to swing” rather than “Jazz tends to be rhythmically compelling”? Because the pulse of the music can be thrilling even when it’s not the sort that lends itself to finger-snapping on that swinging 4/4 beat. (Though, that is exactly what happens when the music swings that way.)

An example is poly-rhythmic drumming. The great drummers who emerged during bebop and hard bop were masters in sustaining multiple rhythms simultaneously. It’s great fun trying to count how many different rhythms Art Blakey plays at once in his classic drum solos (as in “Free For All” on Blue Note or “I Mean You” with Thelonious Monk on Atlantic).

There are examples even post-bop, when the lines delineating measures were fading. Few sounds are more compelling than drummer Elvin Jones’s “circular rhythms”. He accents at the perfect moment given what the soloist is doing, rather than at predetermined intervals. So the listener does not tap every four beats, but sways with the music’s energy as one might with the ocean’s waves.

4. Instrument as Voice and Voice as Instrument

Great Jazz players consider the instruments they play extensions of their voices. There are many examples, of course. Eric Dolphy seemed particularly intent on “speaking” through his instruments, especially the bass clarinet. One of John Coltrane’s countless contributions to the music was to extend the “vocabulary” and the “syntax” available on the tenor and soprano saxophones.

Similarly, great Jazz singers consider their voices musical instruments. Horn players loved Sarah Vaughan, considering her one of their own. It’s not just the scat singing, by the way, although scatting (in which one sings wordless notes where words would be expected) has made the point most directly ever since Louis Armstrong’s “Heebie Jeebies”.

Then there is scat’s mirror image, vocalese, in which the vocalist inserts words while singing famous instrumental solos. Leading proponents include Eddie Jefferson, King Pleasure, and Lambert Hendricks and Ross.

Thus, the lines between the vocal and the instrumental blur in Jazz. Categorization is less important than effectiveness when it comes to communicating through music.

Whether singing or playing, though, having your own “voice” is critical to attaining greatness. One does not confuse other singers with Sarah, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, or Betty Carter. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane have innumerable followers and imitators; yet, it is almost impossible to mistake anyone for them after a few notes.

5. Improvisation

Composition and arrangement are vital to Jazz, and the genre has been blessed with many who are truly great at both. To this day, if one were to ask leading music critics from all fields to name America’s greatest composer, I believe Duke Ellington would win that poll.

Nevertheless, rare is the major work of Jazz in which improvisation is not an essential element. Improvisation is the lifeblood of Jazz; it is also the most misunderstood feature of the music. A friend, explaining why he does not like Jazz, did me the favor of articulating the perception: “Why would I want to listen to a group playing around with songs? Practice on your time, get it down pat, and let me know when you’re ready for me to listen.”

Improvisation is not a bunch of musicians with no familiarity with the material or each other just playing and hoping something good emerges, however. It is an approach that places the onus for developing all the best ideas inherent in a piece on the musicians as well as the composer. The performer has an opportunity, in fact a responsibility, to enhance the material provided. The player is creating, composing, on the spot. This requires tremendous technical skill (see Virtuosity, below), a nimble and fertile mind, and vast knowledge of the resources available for reference while improvising.

Astounding listening skills are also needed for artists improvising in a setting other than solo performance.

Legit Jazz musicians are almost always good at this, and often great. The potential for something special, profound even, always exists. When such magic happens, it’s unforgettable. Anyone who’s followed the music for a while has such stories to tell.

If the idea of composing on the spot seems puzzling, so (to a Jazz fan) does the notion of going to a concert hoping that an artist recreates a recent album without making “mistakes”. If that’s the goal, the best that can happen, why not listen to the beloved album in the comfort of one’s home and save the fortune it costs to attend a pop star’s concert?

6. Virtuosity

It is hard not to notice how good Jazz musicians generally are, technically, on their instruments. This is another area that is not as well understood as it could be, however. It is certainly true that all the greats have spent countless hours “wood shedding” (practicing) to attain their “chops” (skills/facility on their instruments). John Coltrane was famous among his peers for practicing incessantly, even between sets at gigs, and for falling asleep late at night with a sax on his chest.

It must be tempting after working so hard to get that good to simply show off with a blizzard of notes at every opportunity. While something like that can appear to be happening at times in a jam session, especially when it has turned into a can-you-top-this cutting session, virtuosity alone is never enough.

Virtuosity or near virtuosity, then, is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of succeeding in Jazz. When we say someone “can play“, skill is a part of that, to be sure, but there is more.

Virtuosity is a means, not an end. The end sought is the creation of great music. (See Improvisation, above.) I have seen no better explanation of this than a quote from bassist/composer/arranger Charles Mingus: “Once you achieve technical facility, you’re either a musician or you’re not. You’re either a creative person or a stenographer.” He wasn’t kidding, by the way. Nicely playing cliches in the solos allotted was the surest way to get oneself fired by Mingus. This could occur not only in mid-concert, but in mid-solo.

One last thought: Virtuosity comes in many shapes, sizes, and flavors. When a true innovator comes along, critics and musicians alike can look foolish if they pounce before understanding. When Thelonious Monk first appeared on the scene, more than a few proclaimed that he couldn’t play. All Monk did was change our concepts of space and time in music. His oeuvre places him in the first rank of American composers, and the leading competition promoting excellence in playing for young musicians is named after him.

7. The Cry of the Blues

The last characteristic is hard to describe or even name. I know it when I hear it. Further, I miss it when it’s not there. I have wrestled with what to call it. Whether I read it some where, had it suggested to me in conversation, or simply came up with it, I have settled on the Cry of the Blues. (If appropriate, I’ll attribute in a future post.)

It’s a sound and a feeling, more than the song form known as the Blues with its typical characteristics (12 bar, AAB, etc.). Most of the material sung by Billie Holliday over the years was not, technically, the Blues, but our ears do not deceive us. Every note, every syllable, she ever sang was the essence of the Blues.

When the material being played or sung is felt and meant by the artists, a part of who and what they are, the music is more likely to be felt by, and mean something to, the listener. Hopes and dreams, frustrations and loss, triumphs and setbacks: it’s all in there. It’s the stuff of life.

Coda

These essential characteristics of Jazz came mostly or entirely from the cultures of Africa, especially West Africa. We know how they got here. Out of the suffering of a people emerged this magnificent art form. Its riches are always available for the taking – not just in April (Jazz Appreciation Month). And they deserve to be recognized and celebrated all the time – not just in February (Black History Month).

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong


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Otis Rush: An Appreciation

As Good As It Gets

Any New Year is awash in lists: best movies, best albums, notable deaths. I don’t know how many lists in that last category included him, but we lost one of the all-time greats, the irreplaceable Otis Rush, on September 29, 2018. Considering that he never received his due in either public fame or fortune while alive, the quality of the obits was a pleasant surprise.  Nevertheless, I am compelled to write. If you have never heard him, you owe it to yourself to experience all the Blues can be.

Rush was the singer/guitarist who had it all: a rich, versatile voice, a knowing way with a lyric, and remarkable skill on the guitar. Indeed, he is my second favorite guitarist – just behind Buddy Guy and a hair ahead of T-Bone Walker, B. B. King, and Earl Hooker (John Lee’s cousin and the greatest guitarist you’ve never heard of, unless you are a Blues aficionado; I’ll write about him someday).

Otis either wrote or was drawn to lyrics with a wry wisdom, and he knew what to do with those lyrics.

Then there was his voice. You don’t need a special voice to be a great Blues singer, but Rush proved that having one is no impediment, either. He could have been a pop star crooner, had he been inclined. Most assuredly, he was not so inclined, and his artistic integrity as a bluesman did his wallet no favors.

It’s tempting to delve deeper into the details of his brilliance. For example, no one could bend a note quite like Otis Rush. I am told that his playing a right-handed guitar upside down gave his note-bending a different sound. (Albert King, another great lefty who played a guitar strung for right-handers, was also justly renowned for bending notes, so there may be something to it.) Rush’s playing, like his singing, was not just different, though, but spine-tingling.

The details are secondary to his total impact as an artist, however. With Rush, the whole clearly exceeds the sum of his considerable parts. Why? What else is going on? All these skills were bound in a package of passion so powerful and authenticity so undeniable as to rivet the listener. He could play as fast as he wanted, but would not do so at the expense of a song’s integrity. Rush integrated the bent notes, the soaring voice, the perfectly chosen notes (and silences) not to show off but to convey feelings triggered by the music. This is Blues at the highest level. It is human communication.

Recordings

Otis neither recorded nor played live as often as would be expected for one so gifted. There were many reasons for this, some of which apparently involved his moods and his health.  The good news is that there are still plenty of opportunities to hear him, most ranging from very good to truly great.

It was a song by Otis Rush that made me a Blues fan long ago. I was very young, probably no more than 10 or 11, but my older cousins had gotten me into rock and roll already. I stumbled upon the Blues Show on Penn’s radio station, WXPN, on a Saturday evening (a show that is ongoing and still very well done, by the way).  It did not take long to have that “So THIS is where all the great stuff comes from” moment. That insight was not enough, however,  to prepare me for what I felt one night on first hearing a spell-binding guitar intro, followed by an impassioned vocal, an even better guitar solo, a clever “punchline“ vocal chorus, and a guitar “outro” that may be the best of all. I was hooked on the Blues for life.

The only problem was that the song was in the middle of a long set and the host never identified the song or the artist. That it was longer than a standard three-minute song and had something to do with gambling was all I knew. Over time, I realized that Otis Rush was the artist, the song was “Gambler’s Blues”, and the album was Mourning in the Morning on Cotillion, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records. It took me years to get my hands on that record, the first of many such quests that music fans know well.

The performance remains a marvel. One might have thought that B.B. King’s classic “Gambler’s Blues” on Blues Is King (his second greatest album, in my view, after Live at the Regal) would never be topped. One would have been wrong. The rest of the Mourning album is somewhat controversial among fans – some thinking it overproduced and containing material unworthy of Rush – but, in addition to “Gamblers’ Blues”, there are stellar remakes of two songs that had helped establish his reputation (“It Takes Time”, “My Love Will Never Die”) and his remarkable take on one of the genre’s recurrent themes, “Reap What You Sow”. True story about the latter: Someone for whom I once played it exclaimed, “My goodness! What did she do to him?”

Otis first recorded when bassist and prolific song writer Willie Dixon brought him to Eli Toscano, the owner of Cobra Records in Chicago. The result was a series of landmark recordings in the history of urban blues. Issued from 1956 to 1958, the best of these Cobra recordings, such as “I Can’t Quit You Baby”, “All Your Love (I Miss Loving)”, “Three Times A Fool”, “It Takes Time”, “My Love Will Never Die”, and the astounding “Double Trouble”, are essential listening, and a great place for listeners to start. (Quick aside: Any compilation of Otis’s Cobra recordings that is complete will also include a couple clunkers. Dixon apparently insisted that certain of his own songs be included for Otis to record despite not being up to the quality of others. It’s hard to imagine Rush would have chosen [shudder] “Violent Love”, for instance.)

One of nine artists to participate in a three-record series for Vanguard called Chicago/The Blues/Today!, Otis laid down only five tracks, but they are superb. Rush also shares the bill, with Albert King, on Door to Door (Chess); among his six sides on the album is the magnificent original of “So Many Roads”.

Other studio albums worth considering include: Right Place, Wrong Time (Bullfrog); Troubles, Troubles (Verve); Any Place I’m Going (Evidence); Ain’t Enough Comin’ In (Mercury); and Lost In The Blues (Alligator).

Among albums that capture Rush live: Tops (Blind Pig); Otis Rush and Friends Live at Montreux [the friends being Eric Clapton and Luther Allison] (Eagle Records); Double Trouble (Rock Beat); and Cold Day in Hell, All Your Love I Miss Loving, and So Many Roads, all on Delmark. The last of these was recorded in Tokyo in 1975, and the roar of a very large crowd of fans who really get what they’re hearing is exhilarating.

I’m tempted to say there is no such thing as a bad Otis Rush record. I do have this caution on one, though: Screamin’ and Cryin’ (Evidence) was recorded live at a time when Otis was clearly in a bad place in his life. It makes for uncomfortable listening, at least for me; in that sense, I cannot recommend it.

Seeing Otis Rush Live

I managed to see him twice. The first was at the Commodore Barry Club in Philadelphia, backed by a group of some of the better bluesmen in the Philly area, the Dukes of Destiny. From the looks on their faces, these musicians were as thrilled to play with Otis Rush as I was to finally see him. The second was at a Chicago blues club in Lincoln Park, backed by his Chicago blues band. In each case, he was in total, scintillating command.

No one is going to do better describing what it was like to see Otis Rush at his best than Robert Palmer did in his classic 1981 book Deep Blues (Viking), so I’m not going to try:

“The set…was devastating. The first tune rocked, with Otis snarling the words out of the side of his mouth, and then he settled down to slow, minor-key blues, an idiom in which nobody can touch him. ‘He’s so good, man,’ Muddy Waters had told me, and Muddy does not dispense praise lightly…That night at the Wise Fools [Pub], during one forty-minute set, Otis focused all his extraordinary talents. His grainy, gospelish singing carried the weight of so much passion and frustration, it sounded like the words were being torn from his throat, and his guitar playing hit heights I didn’t think any musician was capable of – notes bent and twisted so delicately and immaculately they seemed to form actual words…The performance, if you could call it that, was shattering and uplifting all at once, the way blues is supposed to be…Otis Rush had something else – an ear for the finest pitch shadings and the ability to execute them on the guitar, not as mere effects but as meaningful components in a personal vocabulary, a musical language. He was playing the deep blues.”

Coda

At the top of his game, Otis Rush had no superiors, and few peers. I have listened to the original “Double Trouble” (Cobra, 1958) dozens of times. The next time it fails to send chills down my spine will be the first. Not for nothing, as they say, did Stevie Ray Vaughan name his band.

Palmer was onto something with his aside “The performance, if you could call it that…” above. Such authenticity is all to the benefit of the lucky listener. Feeling at this depth is a rare, profound treat.

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong