Great Blues LPs in the Jazz Section

[Rabshakeh]

 

Inspired by a post by @jazzbo in the Listening to Thread. 

Due to industry norms that assume that "Blues" is a thing played by a man with a guitar, possibly backed by bass and drums, some of the greatest Blues LPs are found not in the Blues section of your hypothetical local record shop, but hidden in the Jazz section.

Obviously, the dividing line between what is Blues and what is Jazz is nebulous and sometimes it is a pointless distinction.

What I am looking for are (i) records that feature Blues singers, (ii) singing with groups of any size, (iii) playing compact Blues tunes without much in the way of expansive Jazz song structures, (iv) which are classed as "Jazz" by the music industry, but (v) which any Blues fan of taste would immediately recognise as being within the wider Blues "genre" that he/she loves.

This is a different thing from a jazz musician who "plays the blues" or is a Blues specialist.  I am thinking about records that would appeal to a lover of Muddy Waters who is not interested in Charlie Parker, Jimmy Smith, or the 3 Sounds.

Some examples:

Earl Hines & Jimmie Rushing - Blues & Things

Eddie Cleanhead Vinson - You Can't Make Love Alone

Count Basie - At Newport 

What other examples of classic blues records (LPs only, no compilations) can you think of that hide out in the jazz section?

[BillF]

[medjuck]

24 minutes ago, BillF said:

Never head of this.  Is it as good as it looks?  (I once was working with someone from WEA records and got him  to make me cds of all the Witherspoon records on Reprise that had not come out on CD  including the great one with Webster.) 

[Big Beat Steve]

Some spontaneous ideas:

- Confessin' The Blues - Jay McShann feat. Walter Brown (reissued on Affinity)

- All the post-Basie Jimmy Rushing LPs on Vanguard and Columbia

- "Joe Williams Sings Everyday" on Regent (reissued as "Everyday I Have the Blues" in the Savoy Jazz LP series)

- Joe Turner "Big Joe Rides Again" (Atlantic) - while I have a hunch that his hit-making record compilations on National and Atlantic might make it into the blues/R&B or even r'n'r racks this late 50s LP might more likely end up in the jazz section.

Anyway ... about what you consider "blues", and looking beyond the "low-down sitting in the gutter country blues" clichés, where would you draw the line between blues and R&B? And since you mention "a lover of Muddy Waters" I am not quite if a typical lover of Muddy Waters would't find the above a bit too "slick" ...

Edited February 24, 2022 by Big Beat Steve

[Dan Gould]

I think its kind of silly to think of these categories when discogs is rife with sellers putting any album with "blues" in the title under "blues". Having said that there are other Witherspoon releases that fit:

https://www.discogs.com/master/659091-Jimmy-Witherspoon-With-Jay-McShann-And-His-Band-Goin-To-Kansas-City-Blues

https://www.discogs.com/master/633115-Jimmy-Witherspoon-Singin-The-Blues

Cleanhead:

https://www.discogs.com/master/338062-Eddie-Cleanhead-Vinson-Cleanheads-Back-In-Town

Maybe these really don't fit because they probably go under blues?

Edit to add: But these all have what I think of as jazz accompaniment.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Dan Gould

[Dub Modal]

Not the entire record of Billy Bang Quartet's Spirits Gathering but the song Blues In E would fit the bill. 

[Rabshakeh]

I never know with r&b vs blues, which really does seem quite case by case. I think that journalists and record shops do seem a little better at thinking across the imaginary boundaries in that case.

[Dan Gould]

https://www.discogs.com/release/10090110-Joe-Williams-Havin-A-Good-Time

There's a full length LP of this, I do believe, but can't find:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2226114-Count-Basie-Joe-Williams-Just-The-Blues

[BillF]

1 hour ago, medjuck said:

Never head of this.  Is it as good as it looks?  (I once was working with someone from WEA records and got him  to make me cds of all the Witherspoon records on Reprise that had not come out on CD  including the great one with Webster.) 

Yes, great stuff!

Pleased I was around early enough to catch Spoon, Ben and Mel in person - though not together, of course! 

And you can't beat this:

 

[JSngry]

 

Does it all sound the same? Of course it does. that's kinda the point of it. It never stops sounding like something you don't want to leave.

Besides - Lee Allen.

[Rabshakeh]

2 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

I think its kind of silly to think of these categories when discogs is rife with sellers putting any album with "blues" in the title under "blues". Having said that there are other Witherspoon releases that fit:

https://www.discogs.com/master/659091-Jimmy-Witherspoon-With-Jay-McShann-And-His-Band-Goin-To-Kansas-City-Blues

https://www.discogs.com/master/633115-Jimmy-Witherspoon-Singin-The-Blues

Cleanhead:

https://www.discogs.com/master/338062-Eddie-Cleanhead-Vinson-Cleanheads-Back-In-Town

Maybe these really don't fit because they probably go under blues?

Edit to add: But these all have what I think of as jazz accompaniment.

I mean, that Cleanhead record's definitely what I was talking about.

I'm imagining the old multistorey megastore record shops of my CD buying youth (those blue remembered 1990s hills...). Often jazz and blues were sharply delineated in terms of physical space. Typically jazz was in a basement next to the classical section. Blues was next to the folk and/or rock 'n' roll sections, maybe on an entirely different floor. For whatever reason, Rushing singing with Basie would be in the Jazz section and not in the Blues section. If you were a Blues fan who wasn't into Jazz, you would never know about it. 

That's the past now, and as you say vendors on the internet tend to use as many tags as its necessary to flog the product. But the delineation does still exist: I don't think I have ever seen Rushing mentioned by a journalist or interviewee in an article suggesting blues recommendations ("Top Ten Blues Deep Cuts" etc), despite him being, very obviously, one of the great blues singers. As noted above, the line seems slightly more permeable for R&B and Soul).

3 hours ago, BillF said:

Got this on now. It is really good.

[Teasing the Korean]

I can't add to the thread, but this has inspired some similar threads which I will start after this one makes an exit!

Edited February 25, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[JSngry]

 

[John L]

There is also the jazz / blues of the classic blues singers (Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Chppie Hill, Carla Smith etc.) and their bands recorded at a time when jazz and blues recordings were seamlessly one and the same.    In the 40s, we had recordings made under the leadership of people like Sammy Price, Hot Lips Page, and Tiny Grimes that fit this description, 

 

[Rabshakeh]

7 hours ago, JSngry said:

 

Oh yeah. Another good one. I haven't listened to Phillips in a while.

7 hours ago, John L said:

There is also the jazz / blues of the classic blues singers (Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Chppie Hill, Carla Smith etc.) and their bands recorded at a time when jazz and blues recordings were seamlessly one and the same.    In the 40s, we had recordings made under the leadership of people like Sammy Price, Hot Lips Page, and Tiny Grimes that fit this description, 

I was thinking more about the LP era. I agree with you on these artists being from a place where the borderline really can get meaningless - what even were blues and jazz at that point?

[BillF]

[danasgoodstuff]

Jimmy Witherspoon ft. Ben Webster - roots (Full Album) - YouTube

I prefer this studio Spoon with Ben album to their live ones.

[Rabshakeh]

Thinking about it, a lot of the categorisation was so basic that it was almost entirely down to instrumentation: Guitar? Blues. Piano? Hmmm. Saxophone? Probably jazz if it's not rocky enough. Trumpet? Jazz. Big band? Scarily jazz. I could have titled this "Great Blues LPs backed by big bands".

Anyway, some really great recommendations above.

[BillF]

No mention of blues on the cover and no vocals, but 5 of the 6 tracks are blues of the deepest tinge. 

[Dan Gould]

11 hours ago, John L said:

There is also the jazz / blues of the classic blues singers (Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Chppie Hill, Carla Smith etc.) and their bands recorded at a time when jazz and blues recordings were seamlessly one and the same.    In the 40s, we had recordings made under the leadership of people like Sammy Price, Hot Lips Page, and Tiny Grimes that fit this description, 

 

https://www.discogs.com/release/9237961-Sammy-Price-His-Bluesicians-Featuring-Doc-Horse-The-Blues-Aint-Nothing-But-A-Good-Man-Feelin-Bad

 

[Big Beat Steve]

13 hours ago, John L said:

There is also the jazz / blues of the classic blues singers (Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Chppie Hill, Carla Smith etc.) and their bands recorded at a time when jazz and blues recordings were seamlessly one and the same.    In the 40s, we had recordings made under the leadership of people like Sammy Price, Hot Lips Page, and Tiny Grimes that fit this description, 

 

As far as your post-WWII recommendations are concerned, you are walking straight into R&B/Jump Blues territory. A classic case of where the boundaries of blues (in its POPULAR 40s form, i.e. R&B) and jazz blur heavily and it's a matter of personal taste where you file what.

Example: I do not distinguish between blues (from down-home to electrified) and R&B (rhythm and blues/jump blues/honkers & shouters, etc.) and file all these in one and the same section. So you have Memphis Minnie next to Roy Milton, etc.
And all of my Louis Jordan and Buddy Johnson records are racked up there too because most of their recordings that I have would rather tend towards the R&B end of jazz. A personal quirk, maybe, but that's the way it is.
Hot Lips Page, OTOH, is in the Swing section because most of his recordings I have clearly are better placed there.
Not to mention that there are artists whose recorded opus covers both more straight-ahead blues and R&B-ish recordings, cf. Brownie McGhee and Jimmy McCracklin (and I am certainly not one of those who'd blame those artists for having "sold out" by recording R&B - like many folksies did back in the day).

As for what I have observed in record shops (at the time when there was NEW vinyl) and more recently (in secondhand collector record stores) is that most shop staff seem to be very, very unsure of where to file all-out typical post-WWII R&B of, say, 1945 to 1960. I usually found and find these vinyls in the jazz section whereas even in secondhand collector shops classic R&B still is conspicuously absent from the Blues section (the stocks of which often veer between down-home and Chicago-type electrified blues or "white" blues). Maybe this is because most R&B I tend to look out for was reissued on subculture collector labels that rarely seem to find their way into secondhand stores but still the dividing line that seems to exist is baffling ...

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

It's all Black Music. Not that all Black Music is this, but all of this is Black Music. The dividing lines are imposed from without.

It's more fun (and for me, meaningful) to look at the Venn Diagrams.

Reminiscing about his early years, composer and pianist Andrew Hill suggests the respect many jazzmen felt for a variety of musical contexts: Hill says that in Chicago, 'before the music got separated', he could 'sneak up on a gig with Gene Ammons, play accordion, or back up some rhythm and blues singers like the Flamingos.

[Rabshakeh]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

It's all Black Music. Not that all Black Music is this, but all of this is Black Music. The dividing lines are imposed from without.

It's more fun (and for me, meaningful) to look at the Venn Diagrams.

Reminiscing about his early years, composer and pianist Andrew Hill suggests the respect many jazzmen felt for a variety of musical contexts: Hill says that in Chicago, 'before the music got separated', he could 'sneak up on a gig with Gene Ammons, play accordion, or back up some rhythm and blues singers like the Flamingos.

I don't fully understand this as a series of connected statements.

Either there is a natural separation between genres (not necessarily the music industry's), with spaces in between on a Venn diagram, or is there is no real separation and it is artificial.

I don't think it's possible to reach an answer since both views are wrong and right. Clearly music is neither a monolithic thing nor is it cleanly divided among any generic lines, let alone those used by mainstream vendors in the 1990s. 

I personally favour your Venn diagram analogy. That fits how I personally listen. The old record store division into genres, whilst based on something that did exist somewhere, is clearly too artificial to reflect reality.

But my main issue with it is that so much is lost in this cut up approach. Precisely those Venn diagram overlap areas.

This thread is aimed at precisely that: there are so many records that your average Muddy Waters fan would love but which he/she will not hear, because they are presented as forming part of esoteric, difficult, jazz.

[Ken Dryden]

The big problem was that record stores wanted neat "one size fits all" categories for LPs and CDs. That's why you'd have to look for all of the Benny Goodman in the big band section, the Nat King Cole in the easy listening section, etc. Even in today's used stores, that happens a lot, so I have to remember to check easy listening for jazz vocal LPs/CDs. Blues/R&B and mixes of Blues & Jazz didn't fit easily into their filing systems.

I miss the days when knowledgeable record store employees would make suggestions about other artists to check out if they saw me looking intently through the jazz section. That's how I met then-UGA student Rob Gibson at the Atlanta Peaches in 1978, who would go on to a career with Jazz at Lincoln Center for a time.

 

[JSngry]

59 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

I don't fully understand this as a series of connected statements.

Either there is a natural separation between genres (not necessarily the music industry's), with spaces in between on a Venn diagram, or is there is no real separation and it is artificial.

I look at it (and hear/feel it) as really a continuum. Like, you know, it might not SEEM that Big Joe Turner and Anthony Braxton are connected at all, but....they are. It's not something you necessarily see at ground level, though. But ground level is not all there is, even if it initially seems like you're walking out of New York to get to Hawaii and what are you going to do about that ocean in between. amd not just across physical spaces, but time spaces as well.

By now, I'm pretty much In Braxton I Trust when it comes to stuff like this.