Blues Bash

Duke Robillard is more than half a century into a career as one of the globes finest blues guitarists. While the blues lie at the heart of everything he does, he is also more than adept at jump, jazz, swing, and roots rock & roll. His desire for Blues Bash was simply to make a straight vintage style blues album...danceable blues with plenty of bright-sounding Fender guitar like the blues records I bought when I was a kid.... To that end, he created a party atmosphere. He reunited with the original Roomful of Blues horn section (saxophonists Rich Lataille, Greg Piccolo, and Doug James), enlisted old friends, including vocalists Michelle Evil Gal Willson and Chris Cote, harp wizard Mark Hummel, stride piano great Mark Braun (aka Mr. B), a second horn section with cornettist Al Basile and tenor man Sax Gordon, and of course, his core band -- keyboardist Bruce Bears, drummer Mark Texiera, and bassists Jesse Williams or Marty Ballou. The music here is continuously joyous, loose, and raucous. Opener Do You Mean It, with a killer vocal from Cote, is modeled on Ike Turners original; Robillard goes to pains to emulate the composers guitar tone and style. The horns swing like mad, and the stops underscore a ringing piano and kit shuffle while Robillard adds wicked whammy bar fills and a biting solo. Cote also delivers an inspired vocal on the rowdy cover of Roy Miltons jump blues What Can I Do, which includes a fine duel/conversation between Lataille and Bears. Robillard reprises Al Kings 1966 Sahara single Everybody Aint Your Friend, which he first recorded it in 2006 with Ronnie Earle and Jimmy McGriff for a Stony Plain compilation; he goes easy on the six-string pyrotechnics in favor of a punchy balance with the horns. Instrumental Rock Alley offers a deep, twanging guitar break and greasy dialogue with Piccolos tenor. Willson lends her commanding vocal to the strolling You Played on My Piano, underscored by a slippery Robillard guitar break and James punchy baritone solo. Aint Gonna Do It is pure NOLA R&B with the Basile/Gordon horns ablaze as Mr. Bs piano pays homage to Huey Smith and Professor Longhair simultaneously while Robillard growls the lyric. Cote plays blues shouter to Robillards canny evocation of his hero T-Bone Walker on You Dont Know What Youre Doin as gritty horns swing it on home. Set closer Just Chillin is a ten-minute instrumental based in smoky, late-night jazz blues, fueled by Bears sultry, humid B-3 -- his solo is a set highlight -- steamy, moaning tenor sax from Piccolo, and Robillard slipping and sliding along the fretboard in complete control of the band, to send Blues Bash off with a sly, satisfied grin. Fans can argue forever about which of Robillards many albums is best, but Blues Bash, with its good-time vibe and relaxed approach, ranks among them. ~ Thom Jurek