Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play The Blues

[Larry Kart]

He was a year behind me in junior high. Here's a story that involves Bloomfield, as I told it last October to former junior-high classmates who were about to gather for our 50th high school reunion (we had a junior-high reunion the same weekend):

Anyone remember, from the class behind us at Central [school], Mike Bloomfield and Bob Greenspan? Bloomfield, of course, became a renowned blues-rock guitarist before coming to a sad end; Greenspan sang with Mike; both of them were working hard on a "rebel" aura (Greenspan IIRC was rather tall and good-looking and had cultivated an impressive greaser pompadour). I recall once going over to Greenspan's house with my parents and sister for dinner; I was in eighth grade. Afterwards, Mike and Bob and I were in the basement rec room, sort of at a loss for what to do next (we didn't really know each other that well) when Bob said, in a kind of sullen, neo-Brando manner, "Let's go into town and see if we can find some action." At this, I almost cracked up -- the idea that there might be "action" of the melodramatic sort implied (or action of any sort, other than changing stoplights) at 8:30 p.m. on a Sunday night in downtown Glencoe, Il., in 1955-56 seemed absurd. But perhaps I just didn't know the right places to look, and they did.

P.S. Glencoe (pop. then about 8,000) was an affluent bedroom suburb north of Chicago. There was literally one stoplight and maybe three business streets in town and NO possible "action" at that time on a Sunday night. And they couldn't have meant Chicago, which was some 25 miles to the south, rather a long ways to walk (we were in 7th and 8th grade and had no access to a car). It was all posing.

I wondered after telling that story last year what it was that brought me and my parents to Greenspan's house that one and only night. Near as I can guess, on the one hand it was because Greenspan's father -- to quote from the Bloomfield book -- "was one of the major political pollsters in Chicago, a behind-the-scenes political figure, one of those smoke-filled backroom guys," while my father was a politically connected in some ways real estate tax attorney, so they knew or knew of each other. On the other hand, I think that I might have been one of the reasons for the invitation (it may even have been a "summons," if Greenspan's father was that much of a power) because I was a seemingly ordinary kid who got good grades, and both the Greenspan and Bloomfield families were very concerned that their rebellious and/or goofy sons (Bloomfield was overweight, clumsy, a target of bullies, and often in trouble) were dangerously out of kilter and could use a more "normal" new friend to straighten them out by association or example. Sounds crazy, but I wouldn't be surprised. Certainly my sister, then age 9 or 10, and I had never before accompanied my folks to any dinner party before at the home of anyone but relatives or family friends.

BTW, Bloomfield's family was quite well off -- more so than Greenspan's and certainly more so than mine. For instance, they had a live-in maid, whose husband also lived in as the family handy man, and this maid, who was close to Mike, a virtual second mother, became his initial entree to black Chicago and its music scene. The grandfather was a by-his-bootstraps entrepreneur who made and lost several fortunes, finally cashing in for good with some bright restaurant supply ideas for which he bought the patents -- e.g. the plastic cases where they display pies on counters and the glass sugar containers with the little metal flap. One son was in charge of manufacturing these and other items, the other son was in charge of selling them. Says Mike's younger brother Allen: "The work ethic was something that was given [in the family].... My dad, when he was 14, had a gas station. If you didn't have the ability to add and calculate quickly and find the leverage point, that was regrettable." By all accounts, his father despised Mike.

[AllenLowe]

Bloomfield was my kinda guy - a wise-ass insomniac. A Real Jew, as they said in Annie Hall.

[medjuck]

Al Kooper's autobiography tells a very funny story about Bloomfield and the making of "Super Session". AFter they cut what became one side of the record Bloomfield (who IIRC was staying with Kooper) went back to Chicago without telling anyone. Kooper had to start frantically phoning around for another guitar player finally ending up with Stephan Stills.

Kooper also told a nice anecdote about Bloomfield on Fresh Air. Kooper showed up at the Like a Rolling Stone session with his guitar, took one listen to the guitarist already there and decided to be an organ player. (He blew the story by never mentioning that the guitar player was Bloomfield and for some reason Terry Gross never asked.)

Griel Marcus is extremely condescending to Bloomfield in his book about LARS. He seems to have no idea of who Bloomfield is and what else he did except that late in his sad life he showed up at a Dylan show and didn't play very well.

[jazzbo]

That story about the Like a Rolling Stone session is also in the "No Direction Home" cd liner notes. Great story.

[Hot Ptah]

Al Kooper's autobiography tells a very funny story about Bloomfield and the making of "Super Session". AFter they cut what became one side of the record Bloomfield (who IIRC was staying with Kooper) went back to Chicago without telling anyone. Kooper had to start frantically phoning around for another guitar player finally ending up with Stephan Stills.

Kooper also told a nice anecdote about Bloomfield on Fresh Air. Kooper showed up at the Like a Rolling Stone session with his guitar, took one listen to the guitarist already there and decided to be an organ player. (He blew the story by never mentioning that the guitar player was Bloomfield and for some reason Terry Gross never asked.)

Griel Marcus is extremely condescending to Bloomfield in his book about LARS. He seems to have no idea of who Bloomfield is and what else he did except that late in his sad life he showed up at a Dylan show and didn't play very well.

In the Bloomfield book it says that he played great at the Dylan show, around 1978.

[fasstrack]

I just posted a heartfelt reminiscence of growing up a white boy blues guitarist, thought I was a bad MF, who my heroes were, what they meant--the best fucking writing I've done on here, only to accidently f-ing delete it. Highlights: Canarsie teen years-lot of talent there ca. 1970, Butterfield to the Kings, Jimmy Reed, SB Williamson (my friend Gary and I still don't say 'hi', we say 'Little village, motherfucker, little village') etc., hearing all the blues acts at the Fillmore (sneakin' in the back through the open window of a Hippie pad!), Butterfield, Buzzy Feiten--still a MF w\the best time feel and SO soulful, 2 great bands, Full Moon and The Electric Flag (integration!). I'm still a blues guitarist, via the ASB and fancier harmony. No blues, no me. Shit, no US. ('talkin' 'bout My Generation'). That's the gist. Hope somebody feels me. Bloomfield got us in the ground floor and this Jewboy bows in gratitude...

[fasstrack]

One of us AKs should write a book on Jews and (black) blues, how we came together as pie-eyed rebels. Guess I should. WTF, it's only my life. After the 1st one on the NYC 1970s-80s jazz scene. To those rebels! 'Our kind of Sabi'!

[cih]

...SB Williamson (my friend Gary and I still don't say 'hi', we say 'Little village, motherfucker, little village') etc.,...

- somebody who Clapton didn't enjoy playing with. this old article from the Independent has stuck in my mind because of Paul Oliver's description of Sonny Boy:

But if [Muddy Waters'] beaming, Cheshire-cat grin made him seem comparatively benign, Sonny Boy Williamson was more like the heart of darkness you feared the blues might really be about. "That was hard-core experience and quite frightening," Clapton says of backing him. "It could almost have turned me off... we didn't hit it off too well." You can understand how the older man might have seemed a little testy to young Englishmen not long out of school. "Seeing him perched on the back of a chair or hovering over a microphone, Sonny Boy Williamson reminded you of a buzzard," the blues historian Paul Oliver wrote. "He had the mien of a French diplomat, the distinction of D'Annunzio - and a certain Mephistophelean wickedness in the eyes which was not at variance with the European tradition of schemers, manipulators and men of letters." He carried a knife and drank continually from a hip flask full of whiskey.

As if to counter this fearsome reputation, Sonny Boy liked to dress to impress. He had an English tailor make him a two-tone harlequin suit in black and charcoal grey, and wore it with rolled umbrella, bowler hat and kid gloves, as if in parody of The Avengers' John Steed, or Evelyn Waugh's Chokey. He liked the English beat clubs and the teenage bands who backed him, it's said, because they made no pretence to folksiness or blues purism. He hoped to return to England to live.

Edited September 16, 2011 by cih

[AllenLowe]

Fasstrack, we may have seen that same Butterfield band with Buzzy Feiten - I saw them in Central Park, '68 or '69, with Sanborn, Gene Dinwiddie, maybe Phil Wilson.

Edited September 16, 2011 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

Bloomfield got us in the ground floor

So that's who the white guy was out picking cotton in Greenville, Tx ca.1963. Always wondered who that guy was!

[Fer Urbina]

Here's a related story that that was prompted by a friend, after he heard about this recording:

... Arban was this celebrated cornet player in the mid

19th century who liked to write really tough exercises in the

classical or fantasia or popular music style of the day. I still

remember hurting my lip over a lot of them.

Now, Arbans is great if you are giving a classical masters class, or

maybe doing a brass concert in high school. I mean it's technical

trumpet stuff, and it's from over a hundred years ago.

But what Wynton was doing is he was taking patterns out of etudes and

rearranging them a bit harmonically and rhythmically and playing them

in his solos...

Excellent story Marcello. Funny, his "After the Dead" (on Reel Time) has always sounded to me like a blues built on Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man".

F

Edited September 16, 2011 by Fer Urbina

[paul secor]

...SB Williamson (my friend Gary and I still don't say 'hi', we say 'Little village, motherfucker, little village') etc.,...

- somebody who Clapton didn't enjoy playing with. this old article from the Independent has stuck in my mind because of Paul Oliver's description of Sonny Boy:

But if [Muddy Waters'] beaming, Cheshire-cat grin made him seem comparatively benign, Sonny Boy Williamson was more like the heart of darkness you feared the blues might really be about. "That was hard-core experience and quite frightening," Clapton says of backing him. "It could almost have turned me off... we didn't hit it off too well." You can understand how the older man might have seemed a little testy to young Englishmen not long out of school. "Seeing him perched on the back of a chair or hovering over a microphone, Sonny Boy Williamson reminded you of a buzzard," the blues historian Paul Oliver wrote. "He had the mien of a French diplomat, the distinction of D'Annunzio - and a certain Mephistophelean wickedness in the eyes which was not at variance with the European tradition of schemers, manipulators and men of letters." He carried a knife and drank continually from a hip flask full of whiskey.

As if to counter this fearsome reputation, Sonny Boy liked to dress to impress. He had an English tailor make him a two-tone harlequin suit in black and charcoal grey, and wore it with rolled umbrella, bowler hat and kid gloves, as if in parody of The Avengers' John Steed, or Evelyn Waugh's Chokey. He liked the English beat clubs and the teenage bands who backed him, it's said, because they made no pretence to folksiness or blues purism. He hoped to return to England to live.

If you check out Sonny Boy Williamson on The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966 Vol. 1 , he had the stage presence of a trained actor - amazing to see.

[JSngry]

It's got to be!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0rRvfwrrGc

[Fer Urbina]

Re: Sonny Boy II and Clapton, the latter seems quite paralized by the former here:

F

[paul secor]

It's got to be!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0rRvfwrrGc

Thanks for posting that, Jim.

[JSngry]

You're welcome...that's long been a favorite clip of mine...amazing on so many levels...

I first saw it on the old Night Music show, btw. Getting a little hard to imagine life w/o YouTube now, but....

[Hot Ptah]

He was a year behind me in junior high. Here's a story that involves Bloomfield, as I told it last October to former junior-high classmates who were about to gather for our 50th high school reunion (we had a junior-high reunion the same weekend):

Anyone remember, from the class behind us at Central [school], Mike Bloomfield and Bob Greenspan? Bloomfield, of course, became a renowned blues-rock guitarist before coming to a sad end; Greenspan sang with Mike; both of them were working hard on a "rebel" aura (Greenspan IIRC was rather tall and good-looking and had cultivated an impressive greaser pompadour). I recall once going over to Greenspan's house with my parents and sister for dinner; I was in eighth grade. Afterwards, Mike and Bob and I were in the basement rec room, sort of at a loss for what to do next (we didn't really know each other that well) when Bob said, in a kind of sullen, neo-Brando manner, "Let's go into town and see if we can find some action." At this, I almost cracked up -- the idea that there might be "action" of the melodramatic sort implied (or action of any sort, other than changing stoplights) at 8:30 p.m. on a Sunday night in downtown Glencoe, Il., in 1955-56 seemed absurd. But perhaps I just didn't know the right places to look, and they did.

P.S. Glencoe (pop. then about 8,000) was an affluent bedroom suburb north of Chicago. There was literally one stoplight and maybe three business streets in town and NO possible "action" at that time on a Sunday night. And they couldn't have meant Chicago, which was some 25 miles to the south, rather a long ways to walk (we were in 7th and 8th grade and had no access to a car). It was all posing.

I wondered after telling that story last year what it was that brought me and my parents to Greenspan's house that one and only night. Near as I can guess, on the one hand it was because Greenspan's father -- to quote from the Bloomfield book -- "was one of the major political pollsters in Chicago, a behind-the-scenes political figure, one of those smoke-filled backroom guys," while my father was a politically connected in some ways real estate tax attorney, so they knew or knew of each other. On the other hand, I think that I might have been one of the reasons for the invitation (it may even have been a "summons," if Greenspan's father was that much of a power) because I was a seemingly ordinary kid who got good grades, and both the Greenspan and Bloomfield families were very concerned that their rebellious and/or goofy sons (Bloomfield was overweight, clumsy, a target of bullies, and often in trouble) were dangerously out of kilter and could use a more "normal" new friend to straighten them out by association or example. Sounds crazy, but I wouldn't be surprised. Certainly my sister, then age 9 or 10, and I had never before accompanied my folks to any dinner party before at the home of anyone but relatives or family friends.

BTW, Bloomfield's family was quite well off -- more so than Greenspan's and certainly more so than mine. For instance, they had a live-in maid, whose husband also lived in as the family handy man, and this maid, who was close to Mike, a virtual second mother, became his initial entree to black Chicago and its music scene. The grandfather was a by-his-bootstraps entrepreneur who made and lost several fortunes, finally cashing in for good with some bright restaurant supply ideas for which he bought the patents -- e.g. the plastic cases where they display pies on counters and the glass sugar containers with the little metal flap. One son was in charge of manufacturing these and other items, the other son was in charge of selling them. Says Mike's younger brother Allen: "The work ethic was something that was given [in the family].... My dad, when he was 14, had a gas station. If you didn't have the ability to add and calculate quickly and find the leverage point, that was regrettable." By all accounts, his father despised Mike.

Great story, Larry, and very interesting information about Bloomfield's background, more than I have read in other sources.

Somewhere in an online forum, and I can't find it, a member posted that in the late 1960s he worked in the factory where the Bloomfield family patented items were manufactured, and that the workers routinely referred to Bloomfield as "that kid with the combo."

This was after Bloomfield had played with Butterfield, played on "Highway 61 Revisited", recorded "Super Session", and led the Electric Flag.

[fasstrack]

Allen: I don:t know if I went to that one. Maybe. I definitely saw them at Woodstock and the FE. Buzzy I think as good as any guitarist to play blues or pop. He

[AllenLowe]

Feiten told me in an email a few months ago that the Central Park concert was the first one he did with Butterfield. He was smokin' - I remember that sound - can only get it with a nice tube amp.

[cih]

You're welcome...that's long been a favorite clip of mine...amazing on so many levels...

fantastic - I get pathetically mesmerized by his face. Theres that clip on Youtube somewhere with Muddy growing visibly annoyed with SBW for playing his harp too long - gesturing for him to quit, and then just giving up and smiling.

[MomsMobley]

yo Canarsie!!-- I grew up Avenue L next door to the theater-- if dude is really from Canarsie look out, these fuckers will argue about ** EVERYTHING **-- and make no mistake, it ** is ** partly personal but there's a large aspect of sport of it. Germans, the Irish, Southerners and most Jews who who remember Don Rickles on Dean Martin roasts understand this; Limeys and po' faced Midwesterners usually don't. Dutch and Beglians are largely aghast. Italians are still laughing.

hey fassrack, you ever get into adult movies like fellow Canarsie guitarist Warren Cuccurrullo? you ever meet Jerry Butler? you should have done the soundtrack to "Raw Talent!"

only the strong survive (Clapton only lives from vampirism, he has NO SOUL or essence of his own and the REAL Don Williams is Esquirita x Dick Haymes by comparison),

Moms

Allen: I don:t know if I went to that one. Maybe. I definitely saw them at Woodstock and the FE. Buzzy I think as good as any guitarist to play blues or pop. He

[cih]

Limeys

racist bastard

(joke)

Edited September 16, 2011 by cih

[fasstrack]

[sorry, double posted. JF

Edited September 16, 2011 by fasstrack

[fasstrack]

Allen: I don:t know if I went to that one. Maybe. I definitely saw them at Woodstock and the FE. Buzzy I think as good as any guitarist to play blues or pop. He

I never got to finish what I wanted to say, and killed my cell phone battery for this. That's dedication!

Now, from a computer, and that we're all friends again, I want to finish my original point, in a kinder, gentler way than before, and explain why I went off the way I did. I really think a lot about heroes and doers.

They inspire me. They inspire you. Buzzy and others were boyhood heroes. They made me want to play, especially him b/c he was my age. If he could do it, so could I. If one guy makes it we all make it in a way. Wynton Marsalis may not be your favorite musician. I never said he was mine. He sure can play his ass off, though. It's not the point, anyway.To young kids especially he found a way to preach about jazz and make it fun.

I had a conversation about this with my friend, the late Chuck Clark---a great saxophone player and composer. His exact words were (Wynton's) 'sure getting a lot of young cats playing'. To that I would add that makes him heroic in the sense that he could have taken the fame and money and stayed home and got laid, etc. Instead he did not only the above but carved out a place for jazz---maybe not currently the most forward-looking---but nonetheless there's a place for jazz in not only a place, Lincoln Center, that had virtually none, but in one of the most expensive pieces of real estate maybe in the world, certainly in Manhattan. There is a lot of money needed and he has raised plenty. We have to think about the future, and if he helps popularize jazz and get people in the tent recording with Clapton, Willie Nelson, or Lou Ferrigno, and it works, well shit, I'd say good for him, and for us. Lincoln Center is a museum. It's never gonna be cutting edge, let's get real. It's a MF of a political balancing act to even do what he did, admit that at least. And if young musicians look up to him as a hero or leader, instead to that hip hop bullshit, or other shit that's really killing music IMO, again, is that bad? So, again, if one makes it--even if they have opinions etc. you or I might not share, we still all have hope we didn't before. This country, to make a larger but inevitable point is very good at disunity. Look no further than the lack of cooperation with a man named Barack Obama to get my point. If you'd rather grumble that's your business. I say get behind the guy in the spotlight who's at least doing something for the popularity and future of jazz. Take what you can get, even if it ain't perfect or to your liking, and run like a MFing thief.

Comes down off soapbox. As you were, ladies and Germans.

And now I will listen to some Sweets Edison. Then Robert Johnson.

Edited September 16, 2011 by fasstrack

[fasstrack]

yo Canarsie!!-- I grew up Avenue L next door to the theater-- if dude is really from Canarsie look out, these fuckers will argue about ** EVERYTHING **-- and make no mistake, it ** is ** partly personal but there's a large aspect of sport of it. Germans, the Irish, Southerners and most Jews who who remember Don Rickles on Dean Martin roasts understand this; Limeys and po' faced Midwesterners usually don't. Dutch and Beglians are largely aghast. Italians are still laughing.

hey fassrack, you ever get into adult movies like fellow Canarsie guitarist Warren Cuccurrullo? you ever meet Jerry Butler? you should have done the soundtrack to "Raw Talent!"

only the strong survive (Clapton only lives from vampirism, he has NO SOUL or essence of his own and the REAL Don Williams is Esquirita x Dick Haymes by comparison),

Moms

Allen: I don:t know if I went to that one. Maybe. I definitely saw them at Woodstock and the FE. Buzzy I think as good as any guitarist to play blues or pop. He

E 87th, N and Seaview. That Canarsie enough for your ass, MF?

yo Canarsie!!-- I grew up Avenue L next door to the theater-- if dude is really from Canarsie look out, these fuckers will argue about ** EVERYTHING **-- and make no mistake, it ** is ** partly personal but there's a large aspect of sport of it. Germans, the Irish, Southerners and most Jews who who remember Don Rickles on Dean Martin roasts understand this; Limeys and po' faced Midwesterners usually don't. Dutch and Beglians are largely aghast. Italians are still laughing.

hey fassrack, you ever get into adult movies like fellow Canarsie guitarist Warren Cuccurrullo? you ever meet Jerry Butler? you should have done the soundtrack to "Raw Talent!"

only the strong survive (Clapton only lives from vampirism, he has NO SOUL or essence of his own and the REAL Don Williams is Esquirita x Dick Haymes by comparison),

Moms

Allen: I don:t know if I went to that one. Maybe. I definitely saw them at Woodstock and the FE. Buzzy I think as good as any guitarist to play blues or pop. He

Here we go. I grew up with Warren. Do I have stories? Don't get me started.........

yo Canarsie!!-- I grew up Avenue L next door to the theater-- if dude is really from Canarsie look out, these fuckers will argue about ** EVERYTHING **-- and make no mistake, it ** is ** partly personal but there's a large aspect of sport of it. Germans, the Irish, Southerners and most Jews who who remember Don Rickles on Dean Martin roasts understand this; Limeys and po' faced Midwesterners usually don't. Dutch and Beglians are largely aghast. Italians are still laughing.

hey fassrack, you ever get into adult movies like fellow Canarsie guitarist Warren Cuccurrullo? you ever meet Jerry Butler? you should have done the soundtrack to "Raw Talent!"

only the strong survive (Clapton only lives from vampirism, he has NO SOUL or essence of his own and the REAL Don Williams is Esquirita x Dick Haymes by comparison),

Moms

Allen: I don:t know if I went to that one. Maybe. I definitely saw them at Woodstock and the FE. Buzzy I think as good as any guitarist to play blues or pop. He

Here we go. I grew up with Warren. Do I have stories? Don't get me started......... Edited September 16, 2011 by fasstrack