Performance

Betty Carter

At Baker's Keyboard Lounge

Oct. 27-Nov. 2

Detroit's own Betty Carter, a long-time Motor City expatriate, made a brief but stunning visit to her home town early this month by way of a 6-day stay at Baker's, the exceptionally tasteful jazz showcase at Livernois just south of 8 Mile Road. Delightfully accompanied by the attentive trio of pianist John Hicks, bassist Stafford James, and drummer Clifford Barbaro, Ms. Carter treated her small but warmly supportive audience to a series of brilliant vocal performances which completely validated her widely-proclaimed status as the greatest jazz singer presently active.

Please note well the phrase "jazz singer," for Betty Carter is much more than a singer of songs, however expressive; she is a jazz musician whose instrument is her voice, and she approaches her exquisitely-chosen material as an improvising instrumentalist attacks blues, pop standards and original compositions: with a firm grasp of melodic structure and chordal underpinning and an equally strong determination to infuse this raw material with her own powerful personality. That she succeeds so beautifully song after song after song is a testimonial not only to her unparalleled performing excellence but to her unique conceptual genius as well.

Ms. Carter's late set Saturday night, upon which this review is based, opened with a solo piano showcase for the New York veteran John Hicks, followed by three sparkling trio pieces which built perfectly to Betty's wistful treatment of "This Dream (Makin' Dreams Come True)", a song which in its lyric content and its aptness as a vehicle for her overwhelming improvisational attack could well serve as her signature tune. Betty's lyrics to Randy Weston's "Berkshire Blues" received a convincing, humorous reading, and the hotly insistent "Please Do Something," an up-tempo plea to a timid lover for simple sexual satisfaction, provided a thrilling exhibition of Ms. Carter's vocal and musical virtuosity.

A contemporary of Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, and many of the giants of modern improvisational music since 1945, Betty Carter pays homage to their work while making their music absolutely current with her own arrangements of material associated with the masters. "Don't Weep For Lady," a moving remembrance of Billie which Ms. Carter recorded for ABC Records long ago (she now produces, manufactures, and distributes her own recordings including "Just Friends" and "I Didn't Know What lime It Was"; and a newly-chosen vocal version of Sonny Rollins' tongue-in-cheek reworking of "Wagon Wheels" completed the set, with a truly smoking piece called "Swing Me, Gate" and an incredible reading of the off-beat standard "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" leading to the extended 'scat" vocal tour-de-force with which Ms. Carter closed the show.

More careful promotion of the engagement would have netted Betty Carter the audience her work deserves -  and indeed demands - here in Detroit, but hopefully her next Motor City appearance will not catch so many followers of "the real thing" napping. There is no conceivable substitute for the kind of musical experience which Ms. Carter offers, and no defensible reason why she should remain in popular obscurity as she has for too many goddamn years. Congratulations to Clarence Baker for possessing the good taste to bring us Betty Carter, and please, kind sir, please bring her back!

-John Sinclair

Herbie Hancock

with the HeadHunters; and Ramsey Lewis at Masonic Temple, Fri. Oct. 31

On a promotional tour for his latest album, "Man-Child", Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters speared cerebrums at Masonic Auditorium last week. It was also homecoming time for native son Bennie Maupin, the Headhunters' saxophone sustainer from Detroit.

A pioneer in the new electronic fusion music, the Headhunters manage to retain a soulfulness and variety of improvisation missing from what is often an over-formulized "jazz/rock." The rhythm section is as funky as they come. But overlaying the R&B beat are the textures of Hancock's all-synthesized soars and the involuted new-jazz saxophone wailings of Maupin.

Hancock continues to exhibit an ever-growing growing grasp of the use of synthesized sound, coming up in each concert with new techniques to aid the expression of electronic emotion. But without Bennie Maupin, the Headhunters would have far less impact. Maupin cooks enough to make you scream. A long-time member of the Hancock entourage, dating back to Herbie's pre-electronic ensemble, Maupin, who still lives in Detroit, has performed with the likes of Miles Davis, Andrew Hill, Marion Brown, Chick Corea etc., and is surely one of the finer masters of his idiom today.

Unfortunately, at least for this reviewer, the show, originally scheduled by promoter Bob Bageris to open with Billy Cobham, commenced instead with Ramsey Lewis's new group. Except for an occasional fine piano flourish, Ramsey hasn't really done anything very moving re ceptly, excepl his work with Earth, Wind and Fire on "Sun-Goddess," where EWF clearly made the LP. The vocalists in the new group are weak, and the playing rarely goes anywhere beyond one basic safe level. Sitting through Ramsey's set was just that - sitting, waiting for Herbie to appear.

A parting note - it might be more interesting if Hancock would not completely abandon, as he did at Masonic, using the acoustic piano whatsoever. Otherwise, a first-rate performance from the popular recording artists, and special kudos to Benny Maupin.

-David Fenton

The Spinners

At Olympia Stadium, Detroit, November 2, 1975

They'd had to leave in the late Sixties because Motown Records just wasn't giving them their due. The choicest material always went to the Temptations first, then to the Miracles, the Supremes, and the 4 Tops. So they went to Philadelphia where genius composer/arranger/producer Thom Bell was able to lavish on them the attention they deserved. Four years and a dozen hits later they returned.

Earlier that evening, at a special testimonial dinner, the Spinners had been awarded the key to the city. By the end of the night it was clear that the people of Detroit had awarded them their hearts. It was, as WCHB dj Claude Young announced, "Homecoming 1975," and with a vengeance, for Detroit's own Spinners.

Ann ("I Can't Stand The Rain") Peebles opened the show. She was energetic and warm in performing her old hit and a new single, "If You Need Somebody". Then, from Detroit's East Side, came Al Hudson and the Soul Partners. Al moved with high feeling through a number of recent soul hits including "It Only Takes A Minute, Girl", and Al Green's "Love and Happiness". He also did a sparkling job on the old Otis Redding evergreen, "I've Been Lovin' You Too Long" (his curren t single) and proceeded to break up the house with his spirited, humorous imitation of James Brown's dancing. There's a bushel of talent in these homeboys -  watch for them.

After a brief intermission that included a pretty fierce exhibition of knockout karate, it was time for The Spinners. They charged out in concert, wearing elegant ice-cream suits, as slick and sassy as you please, and did "Fascinating Rhythm". They settled down in short order to their own hits - "I've Got To Make It On My Own," "I'll Be Around" (one brother was so inspired he jumped onstage and started dancing), "Sadie," and others. Lead tenor Pervis Jackson is a central attraction, a dancer, and, despite his claims in "Love Don't Love Nobody" to the contrary, a rapper, and he had the house fervently, repeatedly testifying.

At one point the group broke into an amazing, hysterical Las Vegas revue and aped in turn Tom Jones, the Marvelettes, the Mills Bros., The Supremes (they came out in wigs), the Ink Spots, Elvis Presley, and Louis Armstrong. The grand (really!) finale was "Mighty Love," and 10,000 electric Detroiters lit up cavernous old Olympia with a mighty love of their own. A triumphant return, to say the least, for Detroit's prodigal sons.

-Bill Adler

Bonnie Raitt

with Sippie Wallace; Robert Pete Williams; and Buddie Guy and Jr. Wells at Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Nov. 1, 1975.

Bonnie Raitt's singular appeal and strength is in her roots. She reaches all the way back to the classic blueswoman of the Twenties for both her joyful bawdiness and her righteous, don't-mess-with-me self-assurance, and has come up with a stance as modern as the diaphragm. So it was a rare thrill, not to say a near-miracle, for all concerned that Bonnie could simply turn to the wings and welcome onstage Detroit blueswoman Sippie Wallace, the direct source of much of her inspiration, who, coincidentally, was celebrating her 77th birthday that night.

Bonnie graciously explained later, "It was from Sippie that I first learned this type of song, where I didn't always have to be on the shaft side of a relationship", which point of view was potently set out as she kicked into her own "Love Me Like A Man".

Apparently Bonnie, who is touring nationally with folk poet/drunkard Tom Waits, decided to take full advantage of her Ann Arbor date by arranging with UAC, campus promoters of the affair, to book country bluesman Robert Pete Williams, and Chicago blues artists Buddy Guy and Jr. Wells, in addition to Sippie. It was an evening of musical entertainment and instruction that easily spanned diverse locales, epochs, and idioms, all the while demonstrating the unbroken lineage connecting these artists.

Robert Pete Williams, whose talent was first discovered, or at least first recorded, at the Angola State Prison, played a pleasant, idiosyncratic opening set. The handsome, fiftyish bluesinger eschews the standard 8 or 12-bar forms. He'd sing a line and play his guitar simply and effectively for as long or as short as he felt like. It made for some diverting country music.

Guitarist Buddy Guy and vocalist premier harmonicat Jr. Wells have, in the past 5 years, probably performed their sweaty, boozy more often in Ann Arbor than anywhere else other than their native Chicago. This night the band was relatively subdued, at least visually. Highlights included every solo Buddy took and the band's performance of Jr.'s greatest hit, "Messin' With The Kid."

When Sippie hobbled out (she suffered a bad stroke three years ago) the first thing she did was to improvise a loving tribute to Bonnie on the piano. She then sang a churchy blues, "Loving You The Way I Do," "Mighty Tight Woman," and the gospel tune "Stand By Me." It was all very affecting and the crowd responded with a standing ovation and then sang her "Happy Birthday."

Bonnie came out with a strong four-man band that was easily able to reproduce her recorded sound, minus the strings, of course (just as well, I say). She was loose and lovely and clearly moved by the affection Ann Arbor showered on her. She wove her spell from familiar material done with her usual passion, including "Everybody Cryin' Mercy", "Give It Up Or Let Me Go" (on which she played a beautiful slide guitar solo), "Fool Yourself," "Angel From Montgomery," etc.

Sippie came out and she and her protogee muscled their way through "Women Be Wise" and "You've Been In Love Too Long," joined onstage by Sippie's dancing machine of a granddaughter, Tammy. Everybody was up and rocking - the only way, after all, to end an evening of such energy and inspiration.

-Bill Adler

New McKinney Cotton Pickers

At the Academy of Art Museum, Cranbrook

Sunday, November 2

The second of the "Detroit's Jazz Today" concerts at Cranbrook's Academy of Art Museum this fall featured the pride of Detroit, that relentlessly cooking 13-piece orchestra known as the New McKinneys Cotton Pickers, for an afternoon of historical but in no way out-of-date Motor City Music.

Named tor the original McKinney's Cotton Pickers, an internationally-acclaimed, Detroit-based aggregation of the 1920's and 30's, and boasting a number of charts copied directly from the book of the original orchestra, the NMCP is deeply and conspicuously rooted in the classic pre-"swing" big-band tradition, yet full of all the energy and drive of 1975 -all in all, an immensely satisfying musical treat, as their Cranbrook concert amply demonstrated.

Using an historical framework for the first half of the program, the NMCP sketched the origins and elements of the original Cotton Pickers' conception, touching on the small-band group-improvisational music popularly known as "dixieland jazz"; going down into the straight-out blues with a soulful alto saxophone solo by the great Ted Buckner and some fine piano from Chuck Robinette; and proceeding through a number of pieces associated with the early big-band days in Detroit.

Don Redman's zippy "Zonkie," a number composed for the original McKinney's Cotton Pickers when the seminal jazz arranger was in residence here as the orchestra's musical director in the 20's, brought vocalist Dave Wilborn - an original Cotton Picker, no less - into the spotlight over some exquisite horn voicings. Wilborn stayed in front for a re-creation of the MCP's smash hit "Baby Won't You Please Come Home," which again promenaded some lovely horn section writing plus the tasty clarinet obbligato- of bandleader Dave Hutson.

Another ground-breaking Motor City aggregation of the 20's, the Jean Goldkette Orchestra (which boasted early white jazz greats Bix Biederbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, and the Dorsey brothers Tom and Jim), was honored by the NMCP's version of "My Pretty Girl," a spirited chart led by Hutson's hot clarinet and featuring some delightful stop-time stomping. The great Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman's early employer, was the next to receive homage for his arrangement of the booting "Stampede," leading to another Ted Buckner feature on a tune he composed, played and sang with the immortal Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra of the 30's and 40's, a novelty jump number called "24 Robbers" which was a clear precedent to the popular late 40's R&B renditions of Louis Jordan, Lucky Millender, and any number of others.

Buckner, who doubles with the Jimmy Wilkins Orchestra and stays busy all over town, was featured once more on Benny Carter's "China Doll," a popular anthem of the 30's and early 40's. Carter also served briefly as Musical Director tor the original Cotton Pickers early in his career as one of America's most respected saxophonists, arrangers and band-leaders, and Ted Buckner - Carter's peer in playing excellence as well as experience - sparkled in solo as usual.

The first hall of the concert was a model of entertaining, educational, musically and visually exciting big-band performance. Dave Hutson's spoken introductions to the historical material were a tremendous boon for the audience - largely young people, with a pleasing number of original MCP fans having a ball in their midst - and the music was excellent in every way. A program of more original MCP charts was promised for the second half, which I was forced to miss due to pressing commitments elsewhere, and I'm sure the remainder of the program was, if anything, even more stirring than the segment I was privileged to witness.

Please do yourself the favor of catching this smoking orchestra at your earliest opportunity - too much great Afro-American music of the past 75 years or so has been suppressed as a result of the imperatives of the recording industry and its relentless quest for the next "new thing," but the NMCP has resurrected and re-charged one of a jazz's earliest and most vital forms, and they truly "make it new." Coming next at Cranbrook: TRIBE, Sunday , December 7th, dropping a musical bomb on Pearl Harbor Day. As the oldtimers would say, "Be there or be square!"

-John Sinclair