Peter Breslow for NPR – When Marcia Ball sits down at the piano, the barrelhouse blues that jump out is enough to frighten any set of nearby keyboards. The 69-year-old has been playing Texas boogie and New Orleans blues for 50 years. Her latest album Shine Bright, available now, carries on the tune.

Over the years, the Louisiana-born performer’s skills have been compared to Professor Longhair, Memphis Slim or Fats Domino. By growing up near New Orleans, she got to experience the music firsthand. Ball says her vocal style is partially inspired by soul superstar Irma Thomas and that she is still amazed by Thomas’ performance ability today.

“I saw her last week and she opens her mouth just barely, she smiles and sings and that magnificent voice still comes out as it has since I was 13 and she was maybe 20,” Ball tells NPR’s Scott Simon. Her 12-track album, produced by Steve Berlin, pulls from that effortless influence.

“Everything about this record is light and bright,” Ball explains. She even insisted on wrapping up a piano in aluminum foil for the album cover art after being inspired by a similar piece of art from a preacher from Elloree, S.C.

 

Listen to Full Interview

Marcia Ball on TKA

Check out the May 2018 issue of JazzTimes featuring cover story Kurt Elling, as the Q & A discusses poetry, melody, fake Twitter feuds & Life’s big questions.  Elling’s new album, The Questions, (Okey/ Sony Masterworks) was released in March 2018 and co-produced by Brandford Marsalis.

Kurt Elling on TKA

Grant Britt for NO DEPRESSION – Marcia Ball has always been a line straddler. Born in Texas, raised in Louisiana, Ball has crossed over so many times in her 50 year musical career that those state lines are a musical blur, a smudged border between Texas twang and Louisiana second line. The title cut was recorded in Austin, but has a jangly New Orleans second line strut. “When you feel the spirit, step into the light,” Ball instructs her followers, name-checking Martin Luther King as well as Irma Thomas as prime examples of bright shiners.

Ball assembled a stellar cast for this effort, recorded at two Austin studios and Dockside Studios in Maurice, Louisiana. In addition to her touring band, bassist Don Bennett,drummer Corey Keller, guitarist Mike Schermer, and Eric Bernhardt on tenor sax, Ball has Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin on bari as well as producing the project, with Cajun accordinist/guitarist Roddie Romero and fellow Hub City Allstars bandmate Eric Adcock on B-3 guesting on some cuts. Fiery singer/guitarist Carolyn Wonderland is brought in to add her Bonnie Bramlett-style vocals to the mix as well.

“I Got To Find Somebody” is vintage Ball, Fess’s carnival rhythms driving the party, Berlin and Bernhardt’s dueling bari and tenor honking like a ’50s Huey Piano Smith and the Clowns session.

 

Read Full Review on No Depression

Marcia Ball on TKA

Who is the Planetary Prince? According to keyboardist and composer Cameron Graves, it’s him. The title and concept go back long before the 35-year-old pianist struck his first piano key but in the past few years, Graves has surveyed a fair amount of the Earth as a member of the West Coast Get Down, a Los Angeles-based collective that also includes saxophonist Kamasi Washington, keyboardist Brandon Coleman and drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr.

 

Following on the heels of his 2017 critically-acclaimed debut album Planetary Prince, the fleet-fingered pianist is ready to continue the message with an EP entitled Planetary Prince: The Eternal Survival EP featuring dynamic no-holds-barred live performances from Washington, Bruner, trombonist Ryan Porter, bassist Carlito del Puerto, guitarist Matt Haze and special guest Stanley Clarke as well as a few previously unreleased studio sessions.

 

Three of the five tracks were recorded in 2017 at Graves’ record release party held at the world-famous Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood, a room that has boasted more than 600 live albums including from Carole King, Elton John, The Eagles, Tim Buckley, Donny Hathaway and Merle Haggard. “The Troubadour was one of the first places that Return to Forever played,” says Graves. “Stanley was going to be performing with me. I had one of the guys there! It was just a legendary situation.”

 

Planetary Prince: The Eternal Survival EP Track Listing:

 

1. “Planetary Prince” (Live)
2. “Black Narcissus” (Live) (feat. Stanley Clarke)
3. “The End of Corporatism” (Live) (feat. Kamasi Washington & Ronald Bruner, Jr.)
4. “Titan”
5. “Kahuna”

 

 

The titular track features a rambunctious band engaging a rambunctious crowd for maximum energy. With a grand piano squeezed onto the tiny honky-tonk stage, Graves pounces on a riff that is more OzzFest than Monterey. Washington with his saxophone and trumpeter Philip Dizack pull the tune closer to a bullring, chomping with a matador’s confidence.  Bruner keeps the procession tight from his drum kit going through stellar solos from Graves and Washington. “Ronald and I are telepathic,” says Graves. “I know where he’s going to go. He knows how I sound. I have a quirky sound. Ronald has a very precise sound. He compliments what I do.”

 

The origin of the Planetary Prince comes from the Book of Urantia, a 20^th century philosophical manifesto. “It’s a spiritual book. It talks about the different Planetary Princes that rule each planet in this solar system and other solar systems. There is a consciousness of the planet.” The book has proven to have a considerable influence on Graves’ outlook on life and his music. “It compliments the music that I write. I like to write advanced music. I can write pop music but I’m very much into metal music — death metal music. That’s a big influence on my writing. That dark element in there it’s just a cool compliment.”

 

Joe Henderson’s “Black Narcissus” features Stanley Clarke on upright bass for a straight-ahead display of chops and melody. Clarke has proven to be a mentor for many of the West Coast Get Down collective, employing and collaborating with many of them including taking Graves on the road for the past four years. “The West Coast Get Down used to play a club in Hollywood called Piano Bar. That’s how we all got our sound. Everybody would come through the Piano Bar including Stanley Clarke’s son Chris. It came up that Stanley was looking for someone to do keyboard stuff. And next thing I knew I was on tour.”

 

Clarke is the musician responsible for Graves understanding of the tune, often calling it from the bandstand as an ode to the giants of jazz. “Cameron is an unusual kind of musician,” says Clarke. “It’s hard to put a label on him. You can’t say he’s a jazz musician, rock musician, classical musician. He’s well versed on all those genres of music. Very few piano players have a technique like he has.”

 

“I have a little bit of hip-hop in there and a little bit of Indian music too though,” clarifies Graves. “I played tablas for six years. I immersed myself into Indian music. Because I draw from all those styles, there is a certain quirkiness to my playing. It has this off-beat, on-beat, off-beat constant playing around with the rhythms. I’m in and out of every type of scale. I feel like everything works with everything in music. The dissonance and the consonance comes together to create that magic.”

 

That magic is on full display with “The End of Corporatism.” “It’s like a fast 7. I love to write in 7. 7 is just my favorite number. I love the feel of 7. It has a very advance feel to it.” The advanced meter giddiness is propelled by a soulful band sound. The horns work in tandem while guitarist Matt Haze adds his own muscle. Washington offers a breathless solo imbued with melody and defiance.

 

“I’m very much into the title of that song,” Graves says with a smile. “I come from a whole family of martial artists. We’re ready.”

 

“Titan” is the first of two unreleased studio recordings featured on the EP. “I used to play that at Piano Bar all the time. It has a dark theme to it. I pulled that melody idea from the movie The Fifth Element. ‘Titan’ goes into the dark but it’s a journey into the light. It’s a wormhole.” The instrumental workout rumbles with angst, bassist Hadrien Feraud hums with electricity as Graves unravels an anxiety inducing display of unparalleled technique. It is an authoritative display matched only by trombonist Ryan Porter’s carefully constructed retort.

 

“Kahuna is a Hawaiian belief. It’s almost like a Hawaiian religion,” says Graves. “It’s a spiritual practice. I put it together with the Book of Urantia. You have to put it together to get a great spiritual grounding. When I was studying spirituality, I was getting way into the Kahuna belief system and I got so inspired.” It is also the final track on this EP. Not quite imbued with an island vibe, the band still finds a deep pocket. Graves amazes with a mature pace but unwavering technical prowess. A solo by trumpeter Philip Dizack further highlights the inclusiveness.

 

A little over a year after releasing his recorded debut, Graves is here to show that he is not only surviving but thriving, blessing the solar system with the unmistakable sound of the Planetary Prince, bound for the stars.

 

 

Suraya Mohamed for NPR – “This is me coming back full circle in my life,” Dee Dee Bridgewater told NPR right before this Tiny Desk performance. Ever since her teenage years, she’s wanted to make her latest album, Memphis… Yes, I’m Ready. Now, a gorgeous 67 years young, Bridgewater is connecting openly with her roots, her birthplace and the town she’s loved all her life.

When she was just three years old, her family moved from Memphis, Tennessee, to Flint, Michigan. Years later, Bridgewater could still hear the soul sounds of Memphis on WDIA, the first radio station in America programmed entirely by African-Americans for African-Americans. She recalled, “I could catch it when I was in Flint as a teenager and I would listen to it after 11:00 at night, because that was the only time I could get it — when all the other stations were off the air. I know it was real, ’cause I went through it and these were all songs I heard on WDIA.”

Bridgewater brought three of these songs to the Tiny Desk: First, is the celebrated blues hit, “Hound Dog,” first recorded by not by Elvis Presley but by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton in 1952. What makes this presentation special is not only Bridgewater’s sultry and soulful interpretation, but her adorable Daisy, perhaps the cutest “Hound Dog” to ever bless this song.

 

Watch Tiny Desk Concert here

Dee Dee Bridgewater on TKA

Giovanni Russonello for THE NEW YORK TIMES – The saxophonist Ravi Coltrane has spent much of his career standing apart from the heavy legacy of his father, John Coltrane, who died when he was not yet 2 years old. Of late, the younger Mr. Coltrane has turned much of his attention toward his mother, the pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane, whose influence is less ubiquitous in jazz.