Frommer's New Orleans 2011, 4 Edition

JSP's New Orleans Guitar compiles four CDs of performances by Smiley Lewis, Guitar Slim, and T-Bone Walker. It's hard to go wrong with these 102 recordings cut between 1947 and 1955. The tracks have been remastered, making the majority of this material sound great. Unlike other packages of this type, the liner notes are informative, listing personnel, dates, and a concise history without going on ad nauseam. As an extra bonus this is a budget-priced set, making it highly recommended, especially for the blues novice.

Country Boy Down in New Orleans collects 23 tracks Snooks Eaglin recorded in the '50s. During this time, he was a street musician, playing with just one guitar or as a one-man band. On these tracks, he is accompanied by a couple of washboard players and a harpist. As expected, the sound is stripped-down, but it is exciting. Eaglin's early repertoire included a broad variety of blues, folk, and gospel songs and all of these genres are covered thoroughly on this delightful single disc. It may not be the ripping electric blues of his best-known records, but it is just as enjoyable.

Toweringly influential New Orleans pianist, vocalist, songwriter, and vital bridge between jazz, rock & roll, and R&B.
Justly worshipped a decade and a half after his death as a founding father of New Orleans R&B, Roy "Professor Longhair" Byrd was nevertheless so down-and-out at one point in his long career that he was reduced to sweeping the floors in a record shop that once could have moved his platters by the boxful.
That Longhair made such a marvelous comeback testifies to the resiliency of this late legend, whose Latin-tinged rhumba-rocking piano style and croaking, yodeling vocals were as singular and spicy as the second-line beats that power his hometown's musical heartbeat…

Like many black American blues and R&B artists, New Orleans singer and pianist Champion Jack Dupree found more respect and recognition in Europe than he did in his homeland, and he relocated to Europe in 1959, only rarely returning to the U.S. He cut several albums there, including the two included in this double-disc set from Beat Goes On, From New Orleans to Chicago, recorded in London in 1966, and Champion Jack Dupree and His Blues Band, tracked in the same city a year later (both were originally released on London Decca). Of the two, the latter release is the stronger (thanks in no small part to guitarist Mickey Baker), although From New Orleans is probably better known, mainly for the presence of Eric Clapton and John Mayall at the sessions…

Trumpeter Nicholas Payton is teamed up with Wessell Anderson (who doubles on sopranino and alto), pianist Peter Martin, bassist Christopher Thomas and drummer Brian Blade for an unusual set of music that shifts between hard bop and New Orleans jazz. While "Rhonda Mile" (which uses the chord changes to "Indiana") is pure bop, other selections combine the two idioms and "Four or Five Times" (listed as an Anderson original but actually a standard from the 1920s) is strictly Dixieland. A highpoint is the 16-minute "He Was a Good Man, Oh Yes He Was" which musically depicts a New Orleans funeral. Throughout, Anderson (particularly on the sopranino which he plays like a clarinet) and Payton work together quite well in the exciting ensembles and show impressive knowlege of earlier forms of jazz while carving out their own individual voices.