Customer Reviews

Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: Piano Blues

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While this is a fine album, it is not the soundtrack of the TV show. On the show, Dave Brubeck played a breath-taking blues about twenty minutes into the program. Marcia Ball played an incredible solo piano and vocal of Red Beans. Duke Ellington was featured on tape playing a rousing CJam Blues with Mingus and Roach. These artists are on the CD, but NOT playing what we saw and heard. I bought the CD because of them and feel a little cheated. If they were to re-release this album with the original soundtrack numbers, it would be a major improvement.

This wonderful CD was just released and is a companion to the PBS series airing in September. A powerful collection of blues pianists that will satisfy every taste. Jimmy Yancey, Thelonius Monk, Art Tatum, Otis Spann, Big Joe Turner, A. Ammons round out an all-star cast of boogie, stride, left and right hand romps and just plain ole good-time piano. Piano lovers - Take Note!

"Piano blues"? Hm, yes, and some jazz and R&B and a little bit of soul.

Most of this is fine music, no doubt about that, but it's not a very good overview of piano blues. Mac Rebennack (Dr John) is a fine R&B pianist, but he is not a bluesman, and neither are Ray Charles or Fats Domino or Thelonious Monk or even the great Count Basie.
And even though the juxtaposing of Jimmy Yancey's primitive version of "How Long Blues" against the harmonically sophisticated reading of the song by Count Basie and his orchestra is interesting in principle, the song was written and composed by one of the best blues pianists of all time, the great Leroy Carr. Why isn't his original version here?

As I said, good music, but a pretty bad overview of piano blues. You can't really take a collection of piano-based blues music seriously when it doesn't include a single track by Memphis Slim, Roosevelt Sykes, Big Maceo Merriweather, Sunnyland Slim, or "Champion" Jack Dupree. And Lafayette Leake's superb instrumental "Slow Leake" would have been a perfect addition - why isn't it here?

If you are already an experienced blues fan, this CD does provide an interesting insight into how the blues has permeated soul, jazz and R&B, but for a relative newcomer, "Piano Blues" doesn't cut it. It fails to introduce the listener to some of the best and most influential blues pianists of the past hundred years.

I agree that they might have come up with a more descriptive and less- misleading title for this CD which is, as it turns out, meant only as an introduction to the 5-CD box set of Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues - A Musical Journey - featuring music contained in the PBS TV series.

I should also point out that there are 20 tracks here, not the 18 shown above. From track 12 on they are listed erroneously and so I have shown the corrections here, along with the recording dates shown in the liner notes: 12] Piney Brown Blues - Big Joe Turner & Jay McShann - 1974; 13] Mission Ranch Blues - Jay McShann & Dave Brubeck - first release - recorded September 21, 2002; 14] The Ladder - Joe Turner - Feb. 25, 1975; 15] Honey Dripper - Dr. John - 1981; 16] World Full Of People - Henry Townsend - Oct. 12/13, 1999; 17] Big Chief - Dr. John - first release - July 1, 2003; 18] Carmel Blues - Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins & Marcia Ball - first release - September 21, 2002; 19] Travelin' Blues - Dave Brubeck - first release - September 21, 2002; 20] How Long Blues - Dr. John, Pete Jolly & Henry Gray - first release - July 1, 2003.

Recording dates for the first 11 tracks are: 1] May 4, 1939; 2] December 30, 1938; 3] June 24, 1939; 4] September 11, 1945; 5] December 10, 1949; 6] 1949; 7] November 1953; 8] February 18, 1959; 9] 1961 or 1962 in Copenhagen; 10] September 17, 1962; 11] November 19, 1968.

In the liner notes are a single introductory page by Martin Scorcese, two pages by Clint Eastwood under the title The Film And The Music, and three pages under the title The Music by Nat Hentoff, author of Listen To The Stories and American Music Is. There is also a discography of the contents, along with pictures of Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Dr. John, and two nice shots of Clint with Jay McShann and Ray Charles. Another page of notes talks about the making of the films.

What drew me specifically to this fine compilation was track 4, a # 2 R&B hit for Johnny Moore's Three Blazers in early 1946 which spent an incredible 23 weeks on those charts [the only thing keeping it from # 1 was Lionel Hampton's Hey Ba-Ba-Re-Bop which stayed at # 1 for 16 weeks]. But when I began listening to it I realized what a gem I had purchased, including those tracks by living legends and produced here for the first time.

There's some great stuff on this CD: folks who like their piano blues straight-up will treasure tracks 1, 2, 13, 15, & 18; those who like a little vocals with their piano blues will favor tracks 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 16, 17, & 20.

Tracks 10, 11, & 19 are too jazzy for my taste and the screeching vocals on track 7 literally made my dog get up and leave the room. Track 3 is pleasant enough, but it's really a big band number and thus it sounds a bit out of place on this collection. Tracks 6 & 14 are played so fast that they're more irritating than anything else.