Joey DeFrancesco, Up Close And Personal (at PM Woodwind, Evanston IL - June 11, 2022)

 

Anyone who is semi-serious about playing a musical instrument needs to have a skilled professional in their network to tweak, repair and improve their equipment. I know a very good brass repair guy in the Chicago area (Dana Hofer); he helped me reincarnate my tenor and bass trombones earlier this year. I also know several harmonica technicians that do the painstaking work of fixing up my beat-up chromatic harmonicas. For saxophones and other woodwind instruments, the top dude around is Paul Maslin of PM Woodwind in Evanston IL.  Tucked away on a side street just west of the commuter rail tracks, PM Woodwind is perhaps the world's best source of saxophone repair services and deep woodwind knowledge. Paul collects and re-sells rare instruments, too. Great players from all over the U.S. and beyond seek out help from PM Woodwind.  Not surprisingly. Paul Maslin is a killer saxophonist and all of his repair folks also play. To truly understand and customize an instrument, you must know how to play it.

PM Woodwind has a side room at their store front, a small space used for lessons and rehearsals of local groups. Paul's stature among sax players is substantial, and several major names have stopped by to conduct free master classes/performances in that space. I suspect they do this to stay in the good graces of this sax repair guru. Tower of Power's horn section played there and so has Ravi Coltrane (John Coltrane's offspring) and Dave Liebman.  These events generally attract other sax players; I managed to sneak into one earlier this month because my partner is an awesome flutist who knows Paul well. The featured artist was Joey DeFrancesco aka Joey D.

If you know nothing about Joey D, I feel a little sorry for you. He has been called a modern Mozart, started playing the organ at 4 years old and had his own band by the time he was 10. Columbia Records signed him when he was 16 years old. Miles Davis hired Joey D  when he was 17 to play in one of the last Miles Davis groups.   Joey D is a giant that rejuvenated the Hammond B3 organ jazz idiom. Since he is such an insatiable, questing musical force, he has picked up other instruments - trumpet and, more recently, saxophone.  Oh, and Joey sings, too.  Mr. DeFrancesco has had prodigious output - 39 records as a leader and work with a broad range of musicians, from Elvin Jones and James Moody to Ray Charles and Van Morrison.

He came to PM Woodwind to play sax; no organ on the premises (and no trumpet, either).  Joey D's interest in the sax is partly genetic - his grandfather played the instrument. Joey D fooled around with the horn in the 1990's with limited success. He set it down for 25 years. In 2019, he recorded some tunes with the great tenor sax man, Pharaoh Saunders, and said "I gotta play sax now."  The man has an insane work ethic and started shedding like a madman.  By the time he got to the PM Woodwind side room on June 11, he could go toe-to-toe with almost any jazz tenor sax player around. It was a stunning display by a guy that has only been playing sax seriously for 3 years.

PM Woodwind can only hold a small audience, but very knowledgeable and enthusiastic folks were in attendance.  Since it was a master class, Joey D took questions. One of the more remarkable things he said - he doesn't read music very well and mostly plays by ear/by memory. He also said that the trumpet is the "least forgiving instrument" that he plays. The brass player's embouchure requires constant work to stay functional - a week off and the muscles begin to atrophy.  Since I play trombone, I know what he said is true. He also told us that his wife is his business manager, and that he couldn't be very successful without her guidance and expertise.

It was a very intense 90 minutes, and then Joey D split for his gig at the Jazz Showcase in downtown Chicago. This guy has been playing professionally for 41 years and he is only 51. He is still in the 4th or 5th inning of his game. It's hard for me to wrap my head around that factoid.

So if you didn't know Joey D, now you know. 

Appreciating Music I Don't Like At All.

 

I am a fan of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  I think he has more heart and than most celebrities, and he really found his voice on the show once Trump got elected. One of the reasons I enjoy the show is the presence of Jon Batiste and Stay Human - a terrific group of superstar musicians that amaze me every time I tune in. 

I was a bit surprised recently when a featured guest on the Colbert show was Michael Buble'. I have heard snippets of this fellow's music and did not like it at all. He struck me as the musical equivalent of American cheese (although he is a proud Canadian). Processed, manufactured, packaged in plastic, inauthentic - yuck. He also covers songs that I love when performed by others - he does a somewhat flat version of "You Don't Know Me" by the great songwriter, Cindy Walker, which was covered by Ray Charles . Brother Ray's cover is the definitive version for me.  Buble's cover of "Feelin' Good" is a bland experience when compared to the awesome version of this tune that was done by Nina Simone in the mid-60's. I judged Michael as the Pat Boone of his generation. Boone did awful covers of great songs originally performed by Black R&B/rock & roll artists - "Ain't That A Shame" by Fats Domino, "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard, and so on. Boone was exploiting the work of the original artists.

But Michael Buble' has pipes.

He can definitely sing. He has come up with a product that lots of people like - it introduces folks to music that they might not know about. And he came from nothing - he's the son of a commercial fisherman. I admire him. He deserves respect. I shouldn't be such a judgmental jerk.

I think it's good to be a musical omnivore. I play instruments that are off the beaten path - harmonica and trombone -so I listen to lots of weird stuff.  Classical music, jazz, blues, R&B, funk, rock, hip-hop, country, Latin music, Irish music, Bangla music and all the other genres coming from cultures in Africa and Asia - it all is worthwhile. I love Dolly Parton, Snarky Puppy & Little Nas X. I am trying to listen to the stuff I don't like - it expands my spirit and with music, there is always more to learn.

Five Songs for 2020

 

It is six days before Christmas.  I don't know about you, but our Christmas will be modest and a little weird.  We will be having a very small gathering of folks that are "in our bubble" - a handful of family members.  Many family members and friends will be absent as we follow the recommended novel coronavirus protocols.  I am not complaining - we are very lucky because we have been healthy through the Covid-19 crisis (for the most part).  I know a couple of folks that died of Covid and it is a horrible, lonely way to die.

Whenever I feel messed up, I turn to music for solace.  The spirit that allows us to create music is the spirit that I view as my Higher Power.  It is an incredible, mysterious expression of humanity that allows us to connect and love each other.  I have made a short list of five songs that helped me through the year, and I hope that they might help you, too.

• Hold on by Tom Waits:  This is a brooding, heartfelt song filled with real poetry, delivered in Waits' raspy, whiskey soaked baritone. "Oh you build it up, you wreck it down; then you burn you mansion to the ground." That's killer.  And, man, we all need to hold on right now as this Covid crisis pounds against us.
• You Haven't Done Nothing by Stevie Wonder:  One of Stevie's angriest songs, as relevant now as it was in 1974 when he released "Fulfillingness First Finale."  And you can still dance to it
• You Were Cool by the Mountain Goats (John Darnielle):  John Darnielle has a way with stories.  I think everyone knows someone that might have been the subject of this song.  I can think of several people that lived these lyrics. Bittersweet stuff, and since we have time to think during this pandemic, this song helps me to remember people I have forgotten  for a while.
• America The Beautiful by Ray Charles: Brother Ray turns this old song into a real hymn to our nation.  He performed this at the 2001 World Series, right after 9/11.  Lest we forget, this is still a great country, in spite of the mess we are in right now.
• I Wish That I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free:  The great jazz pianist and educator, Billy Taylor, wrote this song, but Nina Simone owns it.  This is another song that remains as relevant today as it was in the 1960's. Nina was a ferocious performer, channeling her bipolar illness into the highest art imaginable.  Watch this video to the end to see her drop the mic like a boss!

I hope these songs lift your spirits a little bit during this strange holiday season. Music is a healer, and we can all use some healing right now.

Remembering Lowell Fulson

A dozen years have passed since Lowell Fulson died and I am still digging into his work. I think that he ranks with the other major blues poets - Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson, Son House and the rest. I have memorized one of his lesser-known, later songs - "Thanks A Lot." This is one of those tunes that tells a perfectly formed story - in this case, it is the tale of a married man resisting the advances of an unmarried woman. This song has some terrific couplets - here is one I love; "My wife would not suspect because her trust in me is deep; But I would suffer anyway. My conscience would not let me sleep." Arnold Schwartznegger should have listened to this song every day.

Lowell was born in Tulsa OK, allegedly on a Chocktaw Indian reservation. He claimed to be part Cherokee and part Chocktaw - it might be true. He learned to play the guitar and worked with Alger "Texas" Alexander when he was 18 years old in 1940. Lowell toured with the Texas bluesman until 1943 when he was drafted. After he got out of the service in 1945, he ended up in Oakland California. He started up his own band, which included some amazing cats - a young Ray Charles on piano, David "Fathead" Newman on sax and many others. Lowell began uncapping a string of classics in 1948 with "3 o'Clock Blues," a slow, sad tale about a wayward woman. This tune was B.B. King's first big hit.

Lowell's most famous tune is probably "Reconsider Baby," a mid-tempo blues with clever lyrics. This song has been covered by everyone - Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa and every singing blues guitar player in the world. Lowell had some other big songs ("Tramp," which is a favorite sample used by Ice Cube and many other hip hop artists), but none as huge as "Reconsider Baby."

Lowell Fulson played for over five decades, shutting down his act in 1997 when his health started to fade. He died in 1999; he was almost 78.

This is a guy that deserves to be celebrated - he was a soulful, funky dude that contirbuted a lot to contemporary music. He had a solid baritone voice and played terrific blues guitar. He was a huge influence on Ray Charles. Why isn't he famous, dammit?

James Brown Again

We had a Sunday family dinner, and my adult daughter, son-in-law and grandson were in attendance. Little Patrick (aka the Pie-man) started walking about 2 weeks ago; he has the 15-month old toddler swagger, the confidence of a first-born son. He also has music in his head already - beat-boxing and chanting his happy nonsense syllables. I thought that he might like to hear some tunes, so I plugged in the iPod to the sound deck and hit the James Brown section of the device. JB was a crazed genius; it still saddens me that he is gone. JB and Ray Charles - I think about them often.

And when "Popcorn" came through the speakers, the Pie-man started to dance. James Brown, comin' 'round again, with the next generation.

As the Tower of Power tune said, "It may be a different age; but I'm on the same page; 'Cause there is one thing I've found; I'm still diggin' on James Brown."