miss kim, ray reed, and the b.t.a. band
saw that the insiders gig at the stagecoach ballroom had canceled, so i was looking forward to a quiet evening at home, maybe a movie, when i got a call from lady pearl's blues sangin' dtr, miss kim. she, her uncle ray reed, and the b.t.a. band were playing at the bluebird over on horne and wellesley, five minutes from my house. kim's sounding kinda beat down these days, with a new dayjob that has her walking a factory floor for 12 hrs a day and constantly shifting schedules -- never a picnic -- plus her son's in navy training on the west coast somewhere. still, she brought the show to robert ealey's old house, to a better crowd than she had the last time we saw her there a coupla months back. it seems like the new bluebird is taking off, which is good news for blues fans and anybody with a sense of the fort's musical history.
they were setting up when we got there and i immediately noticed a coupla new faces. regular bassist quincy brown and keyboardist oscar spruill were absent; in their places were a cat who was introduced as herb on 6-string bass, and another named c.b. on gtr. ray's 18-yr-old son is still playing drums and sounded a lot more solid and assured than he did last time, even tho he insists he's only played the drums three times since then, "and one of them was _last night_." he's really learning how to hit 'em, and more importantly, to _listen_ to what's going on around him. a tight little drummer.
there were the requisite number of equipment probs, as usual centered around the band's temperamental p.a. (pearl was always the only one who knew how to operate it, and unfortunately, she took her secrets with her when she checked out), but the first set was pert near perfect -- i've never heard b.t.a. sound so big and powerful. ray was playing his sister's old 335, which cut through like i've never heard it do before, and he himself was playing lots more assertively and precisely than i've grown used to hearing him. c.b. was a great gtr foil for him, too, growling out the riddim chords or singing sweetly like b.b. on the single-note stuff. he plays with great economy and taste; david blankenship, the cat i used to sub for in b.t.a., was there and commented on how compared to the rawk cover bands he plays in now, the blues world seems like an alternate universe where no one ever overplays and kills the groove. i second that emotion.
when kim got up to sing near the end of the set, she was using a corded mic in place of her malfunctioning cordless and sang with an authority i'd never seen her display before -- relying more on those powerful pipes and less on the over-the-top dancing that's her trademark. her mom's portrait is still a fixture on the b.t.a. stage, but it's migrated from up front to the backline. can't help thinking that somewhere, pearl's smiling when she looks down and sees her dtr work it.
at the start of the second set, ray started calling up the sit-ins, starting with me and david. david had brought his own strat, but i never bring a gtr to a b.t.a. show 'cos i know ray always has a spare gtr and amp onstage and will let me use 'em if he wants me to play. we started out with david playing pearl's 335 and me playing ray's sg (which i usedta do a lot back at the swing club).
it's a lot different playing with these folks than it is at the wreck room on wednesday nights. i had to consciously work at editing my playing and not stepping on the other cats' toes. later on i found out that neither herb nor c.b. had been playing regularly for a few yrs. herb had probs with a couple of the forms, and ray actually shut down one toon because it wasn't coming together. c.b. musta misheard ray's shouted instructions, 'cos he started in the wrong key a coupla times, but always managed to recover quickly. i'm perfectly happy to lock it in the pocket in these situations, but when i solo, i always feel like i play too much, perhaps recalling the keyboard player in vernon garrett's band who asked me, "do you _fuck_ like a whiteboy, too?" after hearing me make yards of spaghetti at a rehearsal. c.b. told me later, "i can't play all those notes" and he seemed to like it when i replied, "that's 'cos you only play the good ones -- you leave out all the bullshit notes." true dat.
this white dude who was apparently from roswell, nm, got up and blew some harp. his best number was a little walter-like instrumental with lotsa stops. then this giant mofo -- i mean it, he made ray reed look small while ray was on the stand, and ray's not a small cat -- got up and wanted to sing "mustang sally." inasmuch as that toon's at or near the top of my list o' songs i never wanna hear / have to play evereverever again, i didn't drop the gtr and go running off into the night -- that woulda been rude. thankfully, the audience was unresponsive to the giant cat's attempts at soliciting their participation, and after timely pause, he went back to his seat to sulk a bit before leaving.
high point of the evening for me was riding two chords on the extended tag to "steal away" while miss kim did her distinctive thang, to include picking up money that some of the neighborhood sistas in the audience threw at her. there was also a woman named brenda (i think) who got up to sing an r&b toon that had the infamous Imaj7 / IIm7 change i hadn't played since the "kunsan crusaders" showband in korea. i love the showbizzy aspects of black blues clubs; they make the lantern-jawed gtrslingerismo of their white counterparts seem pretty silly.
kim and ray are among the sweetest ppl i know, and i still have fond memories of playing with them in b.t.a. i'll go and see 'em anytime they're back at the bluebird, and i'll keep sitting in with 'em until ray reed (whom i saw without his hat tonight for the first time ever) stops asking me to.
they were setting up when we got there and i immediately noticed a coupla new faces. regular bassist quincy brown and keyboardist oscar spruill were absent; in their places were a cat who was introduced as herb on 6-string bass, and another named c.b. on gtr. ray's 18-yr-old son is still playing drums and sounded a lot more solid and assured than he did last time, even tho he insists he's only played the drums three times since then, "and one of them was _last night_." he's really learning how to hit 'em, and more importantly, to _listen_ to what's going on around him. a tight little drummer.
there were the requisite number of equipment probs, as usual centered around the band's temperamental p.a. (pearl was always the only one who knew how to operate it, and unfortunately, she took her secrets with her when she checked out), but the first set was pert near perfect -- i've never heard b.t.a. sound so big and powerful. ray was playing his sister's old 335, which cut through like i've never heard it do before, and he himself was playing lots more assertively and precisely than i've grown used to hearing him. c.b. was a great gtr foil for him, too, growling out the riddim chords or singing sweetly like b.b. on the single-note stuff. he plays with great economy and taste; david blankenship, the cat i used to sub for in b.t.a., was there and commented on how compared to the rawk cover bands he plays in now, the blues world seems like an alternate universe where no one ever overplays and kills the groove. i second that emotion.
when kim got up to sing near the end of the set, she was using a corded mic in place of her malfunctioning cordless and sang with an authority i'd never seen her display before -- relying more on those powerful pipes and less on the over-the-top dancing that's her trademark. her mom's portrait is still a fixture on the b.t.a. stage, but it's migrated from up front to the backline. can't help thinking that somewhere, pearl's smiling when she looks down and sees her dtr work it.
at the start of the second set, ray started calling up the sit-ins, starting with me and david. david had brought his own strat, but i never bring a gtr to a b.t.a. show 'cos i know ray always has a spare gtr and amp onstage and will let me use 'em if he wants me to play. we started out with david playing pearl's 335 and me playing ray's sg (which i usedta do a lot back at the swing club).
it's a lot different playing with these folks than it is at the wreck room on wednesday nights. i had to consciously work at editing my playing and not stepping on the other cats' toes. later on i found out that neither herb nor c.b. had been playing regularly for a few yrs. herb had probs with a couple of the forms, and ray actually shut down one toon because it wasn't coming together. c.b. musta misheard ray's shouted instructions, 'cos he started in the wrong key a coupla times, but always managed to recover quickly. i'm perfectly happy to lock it in the pocket in these situations, but when i solo, i always feel like i play too much, perhaps recalling the keyboard player in vernon garrett's band who asked me, "do you _fuck_ like a whiteboy, too?" after hearing me make yards of spaghetti at a rehearsal. c.b. told me later, "i can't play all those notes" and he seemed to like it when i replied, "that's 'cos you only play the good ones -- you leave out all the bullshit notes." true dat.
this white dude who was apparently from roswell, nm, got up and blew some harp. his best number was a little walter-like instrumental with lotsa stops. then this giant mofo -- i mean it, he made ray reed look small while ray was on the stand, and ray's not a small cat -- got up and wanted to sing "mustang sally." inasmuch as that toon's at or near the top of my list o' songs i never wanna hear / have to play evereverever again, i didn't drop the gtr and go running off into the night -- that woulda been rude. thankfully, the audience was unresponsive to the giant cat's attempts at soliciting their participation, and after timely pause, he went back to his seat to sulk a bit before leaving.
high point of the evening for me was riding two chords on the extended tag to "steal away" while miss kim did her distinctive thang, to include picking up money that some of the neighborhood sistas in the audience threw at her. there was also a woman named brenda (i think) who got up to sing an r&b toon that had the infamous Imaj7 / IIm7 change i hadn't played since the "kunsan crusaders" showband in korea. i love the showbizzy aspects of black blues clubs; they make the lantern-jawed gtrslingerismo of their white counterparts seem pretty silly.
kim and ray are among the sweetest ppl i know, and i still have fond memories of playing with them in b.t.a. i'll go and see 'em anytime they're back at the bluebird, and i'll keep sitting in with 'em until ray reed (whom i saw without his hat tonight for the first time ever) stops asking me to.
posted by stashdauber at 11:55 PM
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