314 Results for "otis johnson"

If you've never heard Blind Willie Johnson, you are in for one of the great, bone-chilling treats in music. Johnson played slide guitar and sang in a rasping, false bass that could freeze the blood. But no bluesman was he; this was gospel music of the highest order, full of emotion and...

Otis Spann may not have been the lues, but he was sure close to being the lues pianist. Spann provided wonderful, imaginative, tasty piano solos and better-than-average vocals, and was arguably the best player whose style was more restrained than animated. Not that he couldn't rock the...

This CD reissue brings back one of tenor saxophonist Budd Johnson's best showcases. Featured in a quintet with his brother Keg Johnson on trombone, pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist George Duvivier, and drummer Charlie Persip, Budd starts off with a allad feature ("Serenade in...

The title says it all. This is the essential Otis Rush, the singles recorded for Eli Toscano's Cobra label between 1956 and 1958. If Rush had never recorded another note, his legendary status would remain intact based solely on these recordings. With backing from players like Willie Dixon...

An essential Tommy Johnson collection, Document's Complete Recorded Works (1928-1929) features 17 songs from the Delta blues pioneer, including two alternative takes and a pair of previously unissued songs known respectively as "Morning Prayer Blues" and "Boogaloosa...

Boasting fellow Chicago blues dynamo James Cotton on both harmonica and lead vocals, The Blues Never Die! is one of Otis Spann's most inspired albums. When this session was recorded for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary in 1964, Spann was still best known for playing acoustic piano in...

This recording session was not released until five years after it was done. One can imagine the tapes practically smoldering in their cases, the music is so hot. Sorry, there is nothing "wrong" about this lues album at all. Otis Rush was a great lues expander, a man whose guitar...

Thankfully, Otis Clay is an artist who refused to change with the times. When the R&B audience embraced disco and, later, urban contemporary, the hard-edged belter wisely stuck with the type of raw, unapologetically Southern-sounding soul that put him on the map. Though he calls Chicago...

This CD starts off with a potentially very interesting session, the first-ever recording of a New Orleans brass band. Bunk Johnson heads a group consisting of two trumpeters (the other is Kid Shots Madison), trombonist Jim Robinson, George Lewis on the eerie E flat clarinet, Isidore Barbarin on...

Most of the 18 songs on this fine, if slightly lackluster, compilation come near the end of Spann's 15-year run with Muddy Waters, placing them in the mid- to late '60s. There's plenty of talent here and some of the songs are among the best of Spann's solo efforts, but too...

Otis Taylor might well be the best and most inspired of contemporary bluesmen. His White African album was a masterpiece -- which makes the task of following it doubly difficult. With Respect the Dead, however, he does a superb job -- the man is still very much on a roll. Kicking off with the...

This release includes 16 rare and previously unissued Otis Spann tracks recorded between 1964 and 1969. Featuring the lues piano genius in both a solo context and supporting a bevy of Chicago artists in a variety of settings, this plows through Pete Welding's old Testament tape vaults to...

Pianist Otis Spann played in Muddy Waters' band from 1953 to 1970, and was instrumental in creating the electric Chicago blues sound. These 11 tracks were recorded in the mid-'60s by Down Beat magazine editor Pete Welding, and were previously released as Otis Spann's Chicago Blues...

Although Otis Spann will always be known as the piano player in the Muddy Waters Band, his solo work should not be overlooked. Possessing a beautifully expressive voice, Spann was also a facile songwriter, and freed of the restrictions inherent in a working electric blues band, his solo sides...

This Impulse set (which was given the catalog number of A-1 when it first came out) was the first recorded reunion of trombonists J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding. Given a straight reissue on CD (the original liner notes are reproduced so small as to be largely unreadable), the music still sounds...

Taken from the same five sessions that resulted in the earlier CD The King of the Blues, these 14 numbers include six never previously released and a variety of mostly alternate renditions. The erratic but significant trumpeter Bunk Johnson leads what would be the future nucleus of the George...

Enrico Pieranunzi has worked on an occasional basis with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron since the early 1980s. These 2004 sessions add trumpeter/flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler, a perfect choice for this tightly knit group. Pieranunzi has long been one of the top jazz pianists in Europe...