The Robert Cray Collection (review) Michael Adams

Notes, Volume 66, Number 3, March 2010, pp. 647-648 (Review)

Published by Music Library Association DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/not.0.0282

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/376366

[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] Video Reviews 647

Billie Holiday: The Life and Artistry of Lady Day. DVD. Andorra: Idem Home Video, 2002. IDVD 1115. $19.95.

Is twenty-seven minutes too little time to only is it still in print after fifty years, but present the life and artistry of the best jazz also has been reissued dozens of times. vocalist in music history? Certainly, but Musical film clips include those from the some contemporary viewers view twenty- feature film New Orleans in which Billie re- seven minutes as a lifetime, itself. It is diffi- luctantly agreed to play a maid in order to cult to convince a modern audience to appear and perform with her friend Louis watch or listen to artists just for what they Armstrong; rare television appearances in- have contributed, no matter how massive cluding her final one singing “Fine and the artistic contributions are. Perhaps the Mellow” from the Voice of Jazz CBS special fact that it contains some of her most mem- (1957) with Roy Eldridge, Doc Cheatam, orable filmed performances is thanks Vic Dickensen, Lester Young, Ben Webster, enough for Billie Holiday: The Life and Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan, Mal Artistry of Lady Day. All the biographical Waldron, Danny Barker, Milt Hinton, and facts are there, presented in a straightfor- Osie Johnson, and the dazzling though in- ward manner with archival photographs complete “Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody and narration: rape at age ten, prostitution of Negro Life” with Duke Ellington. The at fourteen, racism, the drugs and alcohol. sound throughout the DVD is remastered But also here are the artistic triumphs that (smoothed) and the video quality of the defined a style of music and singing ad- clips varies. Extras like the discography and mired by the entire world. Even in here last bibliography are woefully incomplete. years, sadly her early forties, her voice rav- Though Billie Holiday: The Life and Artistry of aged from time and abuse, the best jazz Lady Day is a good introduction, a much musicians, producers, arrangers still wanted better choice for a comprehensive collec- to work with Lady Day. Her voice was never tion is Lady Day–The Many Faces of Billie the best. Ella and others outshone her Holiday (Kultur, D1292; 2003, 1991). tone. But her masterpiece record album Lady in Satin proved phrasing and interpre- Gerald A. Notaro tive creativity wins artistry every time. Not University of South Florida, St. Petersburg

The Robert Cray Collection. DVD. Directed by Bill Bowman. London: Cherry Red Films and Pearson Productions Limited, 2009. PPCR025. $19.95.

The Robert Cray Collection, originally re- video styles from that era, a mixture of un- leased on VHS in 1991, consists of nine mu- adorned performances and those attempt- sic videos, with the singer-guitarist offering ing to illustrate what Cray is singing about, brief, mostly banal comments between each as with the feeble dramatizations in “Conse- number. Cray was one of the first in a short quences” and “The Forecast (Calls for line of younger blues musicians, which Pain).” Much better is the animation of Cray later included such performers as She- and his beloved in “Acting This Way,” fea- mekia Copeland and Keb’ Mo’, who have turing primitive efforts to blend animation tried to keep alive the traditions of Robert with live action. The enjoyable “Nothin’ But Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, a Woman” features another cliché of the pe- Jimmy Reed, and Koko Taylor. While tradi- riod: the very attractive woman, obviously a tional blues is gritty and bawdy, full of sex, model, prancing about to make the music violence, and the laments of loneliness, seem sexier and even pretending to play a Cray offers a much more polished ap- music instrument, that phallic favorite the proach, which some might label slick. saxophone in this instance. Cray’s blues lends itself well to the music Four of the videos, including “The video format, especially that of the easy- Forecast (Calls for Pain)” were directed by going, non-threatening 1980s. The Robert Oley Sassone, who has gone on to an undis- Cray Collection offers a microcosm of music tinguished career making direct-to-video 648 Notes, March 2010

movies and directing episodes of such tele- Robert, and what can be done about it? He vision series as Xena: Warrior Princess. The mentions his bandmates only briefly and no-frills treatment, beyond tilted camera says nothing about the musicians who influ- angles, of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” enced him. No direct connection is made is by the more accomplished Dominic between his comments about gospel and Sena, auteur of the sublime guilty pleasure rhythm and blues and what is heard in the Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000). videos. The best of the videos is Peter Care’s This forty-one-minute compilation will “Smoking Gun,” Cray’s most widely known, serve, nevertheless, as an adequate intro- song because it captures the vitality of duction to Cray’s music, though it focuses Cray’s stage performances while having on only a portion of his career. The videos him sing and play in several locations. may also be of interest to students of the Unfortunately, most of Cray’s comments stylistic development of the genre. between the videos are along the lines of “If you’re into it, do it” and “Young folks Michael Adams don’t hear much blues.” Why is that, City University of New York Graduate Center

Clark Terry Quartet and the Duke Jordan Trio Live in Copenhagen 1985. DVD. [Vista, CA]: Storyville Films, 2009, 1985. 26028. $14.99.

While Paris is well known as a refuge for of four Ellington classics (“In A Mellotone,” many expatriate American jazz musicians “Mood Indigo,” “Just Squeeze Me,” and (most notably Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, “Satin Doll”), and a pair of standards asso- Johnny Griffin, and Dexter Gordon), ciated with Billie Holiday (“God Bless the Copenhagen also bolstered a healthy popu- Child”), and Ella Fitzgerald (“Oh, Lady be lation of veteran American jazzmen from Good”). The second half of the DVD fea- the 1960s up until the 2000s. Among the tures Jordan’s trio set with Jesper Lund- first were Kenny Drew and Ben Webster, gaard on bass and Åge Tanggaard on who in the early ’60s left their careers in drums. The trio also paid tribute to America to settle in the Danish capital, a Webster with arrangements of Billy Stray- path on which many American jazz musi- horn’s “Lush Life,” Ellington’s “Solitude,” cians would embark in later years, includ- supplemented by two Jordan originals ing Thad Jones and Ed Thigpen. This (“Dances a ball” and “Jordu”), and the Storyville Films 2009 DVD release docu- 1937 Allie Wrubel standard “Gone with the ments a 1985 concert featuring Duke Wind.” Missing from the DVD is what Terry Jordan (piano) and Jimmy Woode (bass), announces during his set as the highlight who in the 1980s were among the most no- of the evening, a showcase of seven tunes table American jazz musician expats resid- featuring Terry’s longtime friend and ing in Copenhagen. The concert took Copenhagen resident Ernie Wilkins (Terry place at Club Montmartre in Copenhagen and Wilkins had been close friends since on Easter Sunday, 7April, which also coin- their childhood days in 1930s Kansas City). cided with the birthday of the late Duke Storyville Records released the Wilkins por- Ellington band alum Webster (Webster also tion of the concert on CD in 2003. served as the leader of the Montmartre Sixty-five-year-old Terry is the unequivo- house band after moving to Denmark in cal star of the show, alternating effortlessly 1964). Woode and Jordan were joined by between trumpet and flugelhorn (often trumpet legend and former Ellington side- during the same tune) while entertaining man Clark Terry. the crowd with his signature “mumbles” The DVD features two of the three scat style and eloquent spoken introduc- Montmartre sets performed on that day, tions to the Ellington/Strayhorn standards. the first of which spotlights a quartet com- The trumpeter’s seasoned professionalism prising Terry, Jordan, Woode (another for- most notably shines through at a point in mer Ellington sideman), and Svend E. the set (“Just Squeeze Me”) where Woode’s Nørregaard on drums. Terry and friends equipment failure throws the bassist into a honored the occasion by performing a set confused panic. Terry, in classic form,