Bobby Forrester, Jazz Warrior: Bobby's Blues

Toward the end of Bob Porter’s excellent book Soul Jazz, there’s a paragraph that rounds up all of the great jazz organists who never quite made the commercial splash that the musicians covered in his earlier chapters managed to achieve, and Bobby Forrester is one of them. For many years, he was Ruth brown’s accompanist and music director, and gigged around New York with many of the greats of jazz, R&B, and rock (think Bonnie Raitt) before his untimely death in 2002 at the age of 55. Like many jazz musicians, to paraphrase the poet John Davidson, he “fell, face forward, fighting, on the deck.”

Before he left town, though, he recorded several albums, including Bobby’s Blues. There are no liner notes, but the copyright data indicates it was recorded and mixed in 1993 and mastered in 2013. Forrester is accompanied by Joey “G-Clef” Cavaseno on alto, William Ash on guitar, and Clarence “Tootsie” Bean. It’s a classic slice of soulful organ combo music. Forrester has a distinctive style and digs deep, as in the title track. Ash is technically proficient but can get down with the best on the blues. Cavaseno, like the others on the date, is a stalwart of the NYC scene, and Bean provides strong rhythmic support throughout. I was a bit unsure when I looked at the song list, but even a chestnut like I’ll Never Smile Again gets a grits-and-greens makeover.

Check out Bobby Forrester―I’ll be doing so in the future, believe me. Here are a couple of the tastier tracks, but if you like music from the golden age of soul jazz, you’ll like all of Bobby’s Blues. Note: I hope to write more about Porter’s Soul Jazz in a future post.

Charles Earland: Cooking at the Key Club

In the 1960's and 1970's, Newark, New Jersey was a hotbed of organ trio goodness. I was around then but paid too much attention to the jazz critics and not enough to my ears, so I lost a big opportunity.  Charles Earland’s Living Black, live at Newark’s Key Club on September 17, 1970 is the closest I’ll ever get to that scene. Earland’s first Prestige album, Black Talk, included his original version of More Today Than Yesterday by the Spiral Staircase, which proved so popular that the album even charted on Billboard’s Top 100 pop album chart. Bob Porter, who produced Black Talk, decided to do a live album with Earland but ran into a last-minute snag when the band’s tenor player left unexpectedly the night before the recording date. No problem―the Mighty Burner knew a guy in Philadelphia who could make the gig: Grover Washington, Jr., who thus made his recording debut.

Washington, trumpeter Gary Chandler, guitarist Maynard Parker drummer Jesse Kilpatrick, and conga player Buddy Caldwell all came out charging hard that night: the opening Key Club Cookout, a nice workout on Westbound #9, a strong reprise of More Today Than Yesterday and a heartfelt and still relevant Message from a Black Man (the last two bonus tracks on the CD). I was especially impressed by Washington and Earland on Killer Joe and the whole band’s display of its jazz chops on Milestones.

Here are Killer Joe and Milestones―feel free to shout along with the audience! 

Killer Joe:

Milestones: