Dupree

"But it's Shakespeare's coffin!" Dupree exclaimed when he saw the enormous grand piano awaiting him in the studio on July 21, 1971, where on one of his numerous visits to Paris he had been asked to record. But regardless of the piano his puncher’s hands worked out on - usually it was a humble upright - Champion Jack Dupree expressed the essence of the blues.
During his prolific career Dupree often paid tribute to men he admired by improvising a blues to their memory. So he recorded The Death of Big Bill Broonzy, The Death of Luther King, President Kennedy Blues, and The Death of Louis, which gives its title to the present collection. Armstrong had died a few days earlier, on July 6, and Dupree evokes with feeling their days together as children in the Waifs’ Home…

Champion Jack Dupree’s expressive voice and natural feel for the piano made him one of the greatest of the barrelhouse blues genre, the New Orleans native making a name for himself on the Chicago music scene, his stage name acquired after a stint as a champion boxer in Detroit, encouraged by Joe Louis. Dupree spent time in Europe in the late 1950s, which resulted in collaboration with a number of noteworthy British blues men, and following the success of From New Orleans To Chicago, featuring John Mayall and Eric Clapton, Mike Vernon brought Dupree onto his Blue Horizon label for When You Feel The Feeling You Was Feelin,’ another excellent set from 1968, this time with guest contributions on the B-side from guitar god Paul Kossoff and drummer Simon Kirke of Free, Pretty Things bassist Stuart Brooks and Fleetwood Mac associate, Duster Bennett on harmonica…

In their debut recording for harmonia mundi, the young viola prodigy Timothy Ridout and his musical accomplice Frank Dupree celebrate the power of love, with selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, performed in Borisovsky’s popular arrangement, and with their own transcription of Schumann’s Dichterliebe. The voice of the heart and the soul of candour, here the viola displays an astonishing range of emotions and expressive colours – from boisterous to tender or introspective in the Prokofiev excerpts, while also mirroring the myriad nuances of Heine’s poems in Schumann’s sublime musical love letter to his Clara.

New Orleans pianist who was a master of hard-driving boogie and blues. A formidable contender in the ring before he shifted his focus to pounding the piano instead, Champion Jack Dupree often injected his lyrics with a rowdy sense of down-home humor. But there was nothing lighthearted about his rock-solid way with a boogie; when he shouted "Shake Baby Shake," the entire room had no choice but to acquiesce.

Just do it: That was the motto when Simon Höfele and Frank Dupree decided to devote themselves to a red hot iron. They are hardly allowed to really live out their repertoire: the gulf between classical and jazz is still too big, the prejudices too insurmountable, the musical approach too different. They did it anyway and, together with close musical friends, put together an album that doesn't want to show any opposites, but rather creates musical connections and puts people in a good mood.

"But it's Shakespeare's coffin!" Dupree exclaimed when he saw the enormous grand piano awaiting him in the studio on July 21, 1971, where on one of his numerous visits to Paris he had been asked to record. But regardless of the piano his puncher’s hands worked out on - usually it was a humble upright - Champion Jack Dupree expressed the essence of the blues.
During his prolific career Dupree often paid tribute to men he admired by improvising a blues to their memory. So he recorded The Death of Big Bill Broonzy, The Death of Luther King, President Kennedy Blues, and The Death of Louis, which gives its title to the present collection. Armstrong had died a few days earlier, on July 6, and Dupree evokes with feeling their days together as children in the Waifs’ Home…

Although Dupree seldom paused at any one label for very long, the piano pounder did hang around at Cincinnati-based King Records from 1951 to 1955 - long enough to wax the 20 sides comprising this set and a few more that regrettably aren't aboard. By this time, Dupree was a seasoned R&B artist, storming through "Let the Doorbell Ring" and "Mail Order Woman" and emphasizing his speech impediment on "Harelip Blues" (one of those not-for-the-politically correct numbers). Most of these tracks were done in New York; sidemen include guitarist Mickey Baker and saxist Willis Jackson.

The New Orleans barrelhouse boogie piano specialist's earliest sides for OKeh, dating from 1940-1941 and in a few cases sporting some fairly groundbreaking electric guitar runs by Jesse Ellery. Dupree rocks the house like it's a decade later on two takes of "Cabbage Greens" and "Dupree Shake Dance," while his drug-oriented "Junker Blues" was later cleaned up a bit by a chubby newcomer named Fats Domino for his debut hit 78 "The Fat Man."