Reviews

Donaldson showcases decades of artistry

By Howard Reich

Chicago Tribune critic

August 9, 2008

In an earlier era, jazz musicians didn't play just their instruments—they played the audience.

Reaching out to listeners with casual repartee, they took pains to make a sometimes elusive music that much more accessible.

Perhaps no veteran jazz artist working today epitomizes this tradition more charmingly than alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, who drew smiles for his stage banter and ovations for his instrumental prowess Thursday night at the Jazz Showcase.

"This is not for fusion artists; this is not for confusion artists," Donaldson quipped before launching into a characteristically complex number.

"You have to practice to play this kind of music."

Indeed you do—not that practice alone will vault many altoists into Donaldson's league. A bebop veteran whose gleaming tone and bluesy sensibility always distinguished him from peers, the octogenarian virtuoso has lost little to the passing decades.

He proved as much with his opening number, "Blues Walk," a cocky, strutting tune that has served as an anthem for him for roughly half a century. To this day, though, Donaldson infuses it with the slightly overripe timbre and plaintively sighing phrases that are his musical signatures. With an organ swelling behind him, Donaldson played as if the late '50s and early '60s—his heyday—never went away.

If Donaldson's band didn't match his level of intensity or technical mastery, at least organist Akiko Tsuruga, drummer Fukushi Tainaka and guitarist Eric Johnson didn't get in the way.

The Lou Donaldson Quartet plays at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Saturday; 4 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Sunday at the Jazz Showcase, 806 S. Plymouth Ct.,; $20; 312-360-0234.

hreich@tribune.com

Often sampled, never duplicated

By BRITT ROBSON, Special to the Star Tribune

August 9, 2008

Lou Donaldson has a sugar mama, and her name is Madonna. The 81-year-old alto saxophonist has never met the Material Girl, nor heard much of her music. He doesn't know which Madonna song sampled his music -- triggering the royalty checks he gets now -- or, for that matter, which tune she sampled.

"There's about 15 or 20 acts that have done it but Madonna is the big one, her and Mary J. Blige. I'm not bragging, but I've made some money off it. I don't have to work if I don't want to," Donaldson said by phone from his New York City apartment.

But there's never been any question about Lou Donaldson going to work. Even as he spoke of Madonna and Mary J., he was packing his bags to play a jazz cruise, then take his quartet to Chicago for four nights before arriving in Minneapolis to play the Dakota Jazz Club on Monday and Tuesday. He's been a road warrior for more than half a century, and constantly putting himself in front of an audience has shaped the way he sounds.

Like almost every altoist who emerged in the 1950s, Donaldson's style is indebted to the torrid bebop flights of Charlie Parker. His early recordings and musical associations were with seminal boppers such as Horace Silver, Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk, but Donaldson, who was born and raised in rural North Carolina, didn't want to stay put in the city. So he worked the phones along with a like-minded guitarist and another guy moonlighting from a booking agency and built his own itinerary.

"I was in clubs nobody was working but me, what I call 'ghetto clubs' in black neighborhoods, a circuit from New York to California," he said. "We had Rochester, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, down south and out west; we played about 20 clubs twice a year. It wasn't a lot of money, but it kept us busy. But that bebop didn't work right away in the ghetto clubs, and so we had to moderate it down, like in the chitlin circuit. They wanted to hear the blues and some swing -- danceable music. Once I got them in my corner, then I could sneak in some of that other stuff."

Then in the mid-1960s, "everyone had started using Fender basses and electric pianos," Donaldson explained. "But there was a problem getting amplification in some of these clubs that didn't have the electrical setup. So that's when I started working with a B-3 [organist]."

Pop hits and cover songs

The serendipitous result was Donaldson's now-classic blend of razor-sharp bop and down-home blues and gospel. His rich tone has always been sweeter than that of most other Parker acolytes, and meshes well with the soulful but funky bottom generated by the rumbling organ. Taking advantage of the organ-jazz vogue, Donaldson wrote two pop hits during the '60s, "Alligator Boogaloo" and "Midnight Creeper," which, along with another minor hit, "Blues Walk," are still part of his repertoire.

And then there are the samples. Donaldson said that when Liberty Records bought out the Blue Note label in the late '60s, "they had people who suggested we do cover tunes. They were paying good money -- Blue Note had just paid us scale -- so we did it." One of those covers, of the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing," includes the riff sampled by Madonna, as well as by rappers De La Soul and Brand Nubian.

Donaldson has kept the same template for decades now, spooling out songs that simultaneously relax and energize. Occasionally he'll throw in a new wrinkle.

"I've got a blues I sing that is very political and very funny, about George Bush and his mistake starting the war, that people really seem to like," he said.

Even better news is that Donaldson seems to be playing better than ever. At the beginning of the summer, he was an emergency replacement at New York's Village Vanguard, and played a week at the hallowed club backed by a piano trio, garnering rave reviews.

"It revitalized me, that people were going crazy because they didn't know I could still play that way," Donaldson said. So you can expect the bebop -- the stuff he "sneaks in" -- to be especially fresh.

"I tell you I'm really feeling good," he enthused. "I'm 81 and I went out the other day and shot a 41 for nine holes, so you know I'm feeling good. Tell the people in Minneapolis that I appreciate the affection they show me. When they come to the club they know my music, and last time after I left there I sold a lot of records. That's not easy because I don't bring any with me [to sell at the show].

"You see, there's over a hundred of them with my name on them -- another 50 with me as a sideman -- so I wouldn't know which ones to take."

Tenor sax legend Lou Donaldson strolled out cool and casual onto the Kilbourn stage in a black suit promising nothing but straight-up jazz. "No fusion, no confusion," he said. He and his quartet then launched into a sweet take on his 1957 "Blues Walk" where he let Akiko Tsuruga, the little lady behind the B3, swell, swirl, and swing. By the time they were into the second tune -- essentially a Charlie Parker piece, even though according to Donaldson, Bird stole it -- the guitarist was playing so fast he almost fell off his stool. At 81 Donaldson still exhibits incredible tone and seemingly effortless phrasing. He comes from the hard-bop school, and with this early set he proved to be its headmaster. Pure jazz with enough hairpin turns to keep it interesting, and a few straight-aways to lure the rookies...

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Office of Lou Donaldson on June 17th, 2008

Correction: Lou Donaldson is an alto saxophonist. Glad you enjoyed the show!

JAZZ BLOG 08, DAY 4: They put on a show

By Ron Netsky on Jun. 17th, 2008 at 5:29am 0 Comments

...I also had to see Lou Donaldson, one of the greats on saxophone, at Kilbourn Hall. Donaldson is old school, from the days when a jazz musician was an entertainer. So he told jokes, sang a blues tune, and kidded his Japanese band members about coming from Alabama and Mississippi. It was corny but endearing coming from him.

Those band members, Fukushi Tainaka on drums and Akiko Tsuruga on the Hammond B3 organ, were quite incredible. Tainaka played most of the set keeping a steady inauspicious beat, but when called upon to solo he became Ginger Baker on steroids. Tsuruga played the organ like Jimmy Smith. Her technique was formidable, and she knew how to wring every ounce of emotion out of the instrument.

Guitarist Eric Johnson was also excellent, playing some Wes Montgomery-style solos and, at one point, going wireless and walking through the audience and even out of the hall while continuing to play a scorching blues solo. Like I said, they put on a show.

Of course, Donaldson was the best of all. He's got his history, dating from the 1950's, and he's still got his chops. It was great to hear his simple, catchy hits like "Blues Walk" and "Alligator Boogaloo," but Donaldson also played some challenging songs like "Cherokee" and "We" with an unmistakable flair.

And he was wonderfully opinionated, introducing his encore, "Bye Bye Blackbird," by saying, "This is a tune Miles Davis did when he was playing jazz."...

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JAZZ REVIEW