Jumpin' the boogie !
The album includes only titles “covered” by Domino, some previously sung by Wynonie Harris or Jackie Brenston, as well as two Woods originals with a Domino mood (though one is rather an adaptation). In fact more than a tribute to Fats, it's a tribute to Nawlins piano and pianists by a pianist who's not from the Crescent City. But of course this tribute couldn't take place anywhere else but in New Orleans, Domino's home town, at the prestigious Jazz & Heritage Festival 2018 which took place only five months after Domino's passing.
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| Amadee Castenell |
He is a great keyboard technician and also a lively showman. For this recorded show, he is accompanied by a dream team of Nola musicians : tenor sax players Amadee Castenell & Brian “Breeze” Cayolle (Allen Toussaint's sidemen), baritone sax Roger Lewis (Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Tremé Brass Band), guitarist John Fohl (Dr John), bassman Cornell Williams (John Cleary) and drummer Terence Higgins (ex-Dirty Dozen Brass Band, John Scofield, Ani DiFranco, Tab Benoit). The band is tight as can be and delivers a groove like only New Orleans musicians can produce.
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| Woods with Dave Bartholomew & Dr. John |
“We gonna roll the boogie this afternoon !” shouts Woods in the middle of his swinging “Solid Gold Cadillac” boogie-woogie opener. His exuberant performance continues with the humorous “Down Boy Down” which was recorded by Wynonie Harris in 1953.
The next track, Woods' “Mojo Mambo” is nothing else than a winking revisit of the famous Professor Longhair's rejoicing trills of “Big Chief”. Only the whistling is missing but Fohl's short (too short) guitar solo makes up for it ! The shadows of the Mardi Gras Indians are not far on that one.
Roger Lewis
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| Fats Domino |
“Crawfishin'”, a song written by Leon René about an iconic image of Nola culture, is taken on a hot jumping rock'n'roll tempo, illuminated by horns riffs, by Roger Lewis' baritone sax solo and Fohl guitar.
Domino appears at last through three iconic titles he sung : Dave Bartholomew's “Blue Monday” is rolling in a kind of lazy swampy tempo, again enlightened by Lewis' sax solo and the horns of his two mates.
Next comes the world famous Hank Williams' “Jambalaya” in a white hot version carried by the band's pounding jumping beat.
Like the previous “Blue Monday”, the nostalgic “Walking To New Orleans”, a famous tune written by Robert Charles Guidry aka Bobby Charles, is played in a laid-back swinging mood.
The fast and solid rocking “Rocket 88” hasn't much to do with Domino except for his piano jumping style which opened the path to rock'n'roll. The song, based on the 1947 Jimmy Liggins' song "Cadillac Boogie", was originally recorded in 1951 in Memphis by Jackie Brenston, a saxophonist from the Ike Turner band and it is often considered as the first rock'n'roll record. Brenston was officially credited as the author, but the music could be the work of Turner according to different sources.
Finally, Woods closes the show with the jumping boogie “The House Of Blue Lights”. The song was written by Don Raye and Freddie Slack, and first recorded in 1945 by Slack with singer Ella Mae Morse. Woods transforms it into a stirring moment to conclude this incandescent album. ■
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| Fats and Bartholomew |
Like Professor Longhair, Domino was playing a rich mixture of musical styles found in New Orleans : traditional jazz, Latin rhythms, boogie-woogie, Cajun music and blues. Domino's personal synthesis of these influences involved lazy, rich vocals supported by rolling piano rhythms. On occasion his laid-back approach was at odds with the urgency of other R&B and rock artists and the Imperial label engineers would frequently speed up the tapes before Domino's singles were released !
He was given his nickname by bandleader Bill Diamond for whom he was playing piano in honky-tonks as a teenager. In addition to a reference to Domino's corpulence, Diamond used to say that the youngster's technique reminded him of two other great piano players : Fats Waller and Fats Pichon.
Domino had left school at the age of 14 to work in a factory by day, and play in bars by night. He was soon accompanying such New Orleans luminaries as Professor Longhair and Amos Milburn, when Dave Bartholomew, an agent for Imperial Records, spotted him and had him signed by the label in 1949. He became his bandleader, producer and songwriting partner, overseeing most of his Imperial hits (1).
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| Fats and Elvis |
He surfed on top of the charts in the 1950s and early 1960s. In the 1950s he was the second biggest records seller just behind Elvis Presley.
In 1963, Domino unfortunately moved to ABC-Paramount Records. The label dictated that he record in Nashville rather than in New Orleans, and assigned him a new producer, Felton Jarvis, and a new arranger, Bill Justis, putting an end to Domino's long-term
successful collaboration with Bartholomew. This combined with the “British Invasion” rang the end of his golden years.
During the next decades, he was still recording and touring, but with much less successful hits, considered as a respected “oldie”, even if a shower of awards and medals fell upon him in the 1990s.
His last album, “Alive And Kickin'”, in support of New Orleans musicians after Katrina, dates back to 2006.
When Hurricane Katrina hit, Domino chose to stay at home with his wife Rosemary because of her poor health. He was rescued from the roof of his home by a coastguard helicopter or a boat according to contradictory sources. His house was ruined by the flood, and he moved to the south bank of the river, in Harvey, where he died at home in October 2017. He was 89 years old and left about the same number of albums to posterity. ■
The rescue after Katrina
(1) “A lot of people think I wrote 'Blueberry Hill' but I didn't. That number was wrote [sic] in 1927 and I recorded that song in 1957”, said Domino once. In fact he recorded it in 1956, and the song dates from 1940 : the music was composed by Vincent Rose and the lyrics written by Larry Stock and Al Lewis.
■ … and the others
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| On this album the line-up was almost identical to that on "A Tip Of The Hat To Fats": John Fohl (guitar), Herb Hardesty, Brian "Breeze" Cayolle & Amadee Castenell (saxes), Cornell Williams (bass). Front row : Woods & Eric Bolivar (drums) |
Videos
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| With his great elder, Pinetop Perkins |
► New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2011, highlights : https://youtu.be/b2WkwvDX-yU
► The Coliseum, St Petersburg, FL, 2015 : https://youtu.be/GyEhPUQkX6o |
| With Kenny Neal |
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| On the right, John Fohl on guitar |
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