It's almost too easy to like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (B.B.V.D.), a nine-piece big band steeped in jump blues; jazz; rhythm and blues; and bop. That these guys hit the Mayne Stage in fedoras, double-breasted suits and two-toned shoes may have made them seem like a trendy retro act but that's not what went down here (Trendy? Nononononooooooo... B.B.V.D. has been around since 1989). The look may have been circa 1944, but the attitude was jovial, unsentimental and anything but retro. Of course, none of that meant much to the SRO crowd at this show because they were too busy shaking their asses to care about details.
Now in the midst of recording a new album, B.B.V.D. seemed to pop up because, for lack of a better motive, it seemed like a nice night for it. And, yeah, you could quibble that the band's mix of originals and vintage classics offers nothing new or unexpected but it can't be argued that this bunch is a shitload of fun. So yeah, it was great to hear a modernized "Minnie the Moocher" or a mock-serious take on "The Reefer Man" that would have made Cab Calloway proud or "Jumping Jive" blasted through with a near-feral horn section. (Hey Joe Jackson: This is how it's done.)
However, it was even better to hear Scotty Morris and his crew bounce and hard bop through "I Wanna Be Like You" from Walt Disney's forgotten animated Jungle Book (1967) and inspired (visually as well as musically) by the equally forgotten Louis Prima. But where Prima used to shuck and jive through his performances, and this song in particular, Morris let his wide-eared grin and the horn section punch drive the mirth. Sorry, these guys make fun too easy.
If B.B.V.D., for all its jolliness and musical muscle, seem infatuated with the past, blues rocker Johnny Winter is the genuine article. Winter and his younger brother, Edgar, got their start in the 1950s singing Everly Brothers songs on local Texas television to great acclaim. Never mind that they were both albinos or pre-teens, the Winter brothers, with Johnny's love of Delta blues (and Muddy Waters, in particular), were ultimately key figures in bringing the blues to an audience in the millions who probably would have never heard the music.
Thanks to a laudatory focus on him in an article on Texas musicians in Rolling Stone magazine in 1969, Johnny nabbed a label deal with CBS Records that was purportedly astronomical for the time. He also signed with Steve Paul as manager (whose other client at the time was Tiny Tim) and the rest is history. There were platinum-selling albums of hard brutal blues; a gig at some festival called Woodstock; Grammy nominations aplenty; a partnership with his hero, Waters; and a peer group that included Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and "Slow Hand" himself, Eric Clapton.
Now at the tender age of 67, it was a bit of a shock to see Winter playing A Taste of Lincoln Avenue, a festival that tends to book things like Sister Hazel and 16 Candles. However, although Winter doesn't come through Chicago often and if he does it's with Clapton's overstuffed "Crossroads Guitar Festivals, it really didn't matter. What did matter was that Winter still plays with a stinging articulation that can best be described as deliberate and savage. Where Clapton and Richards play with a honeyed flavor that reeks of whiskey, Winter seems to dip his fingers in grain alcohol, and it was almost as fascinating to watch them glide on the guitar strings as it was to hear him.
Although most of his set was made up of his decades-old classics they still sounded vital, raw and fresh. Winter sang Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" in such a way that you could literally hear him smirk while his cover of Jon Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson's "Good Morning Little School Girl" had a delicious saucy raggedness that made it hard to believe he had been singing it for more than 30 years. For me the highlight was a positively brain frying rip through the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter," a song with a history and lyric steeped in desperation, fury, and despair. That Winter, in a cloud of lacerating guitar runs, pushed the lyrics into even darker tones than Jagger could only dream of made this a blues song appropriate for this era.
However, if B.B.V.D. and Winter seemed to wallow in ghosts from another era, out saxophonist Dave Koz celebrated them. Koz—who keeps proving himself to be more than just a mere musician (headling yearly all-star cruises, hosings a radio show, and owning a wine label, among other things)—has, with his new album Hello Tomorrow, assumed the title of "Prince of Smooth Jazz." But "low key," "drowsy" and "staid"—three adjectives that routinely describe smooth jazz—are certainly not what Koz brought to The Venue last week and this show was an entirely different kind of flashback.
Not only did it call to mind the '70s and '80s, where a virtual army of artists straddled polished jazz, soul and pop while creating a new popular hybrid (think Chuck Mangione, Gino Vanelli and George Benson) but also the '60s, where package tours from Motown, James Brown or Sam Cooke would bring a cavalcade of stars to your local theater and turn the town out. However, with Koz it didn't feel like a reinvention or a throwback. Driven, upbeat perfectionist that he is, he somehow made the ideas new again.
Making his entrance from the back of the auditorium while serenading the audience with a sublime "What You Leave," Koz started cracking jokes from the get go but once he got onstage his affability got positively infectious. "Put the Top Down" (which was streamlined kicky funk-soul with a serrated guitar solo from David Jenkins) and "Together" (which was playful and light) set a vibe of unhurried musical pyrotechnics while "Let It Free" set the bar for Koz' mellow tones. "Anything Is Possible" with Koz's telling introduction ("Right now is the time when things can happen...") and his declaration that the song is about change got a hard-edged and appropriate lift when the song's finish morphed into a hard boiled take on Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground." However, if the sounds oozing out of Koz's horn weren't enough the man just wouldn't stand still. Wandering the stage or indulging in some slightly goofy choreography with Jenkins and bassist Andre Berry, Koz revealed himself as an artist who defies the pretention and stone-faced seriousness of the "jazz artiste" label and seems custom made for a wider audience.
If Koz came off as energetic and spry in his spotlighted sections of the show he displayed a seemingly spontaneous wisdom in his choices of co-headliners on this tour. First up was Bobby Cadwell, who came out in a black suit and tie and got right down to business. Not only did "Heart of Mine" and "Next Time" (songs that Caldwell wrote that became hits for Boz Scaggs and Peter Cetera, respectively) get passionate readings but the Aaron Neville chestnut "Tell It Like It Is" got a careful, patient handling that made it the most dramatic song of the night. Caldwell proved without a doubt that it certainly is the singer and not the song.
Sheila E. got giddy and goofy faster than Koz and it wouldn't have been out of place if she had brought a confetti cannon with her on stage. (Her running joke was to keep asking if anyone had any double-stick tape since "there's always a wardrobe malfunction when you play timbales in an evening gown...") "Nothing Without You" may have been slick pop, but "All Around," both of which are from the brand-new Now and Forever, was a playful romp of calypso and tropical rhythms blended through a 1940s-era big band. Grabbing embarrassed members of the audience out of their seats, including Niecy Nash, and dragging them onstage to dance with her Sheila pushed the show into an out and out house party which had the effect of electrifying the whole room. Of course, there was "The Glamorous Life" with Sheila simultaneously whacking her drum kit with the business end of fury, playing cat and mouse with Koz on the solos, and looking stunningly hot while doing it. "Smooth Jazz," my ass...
