Sucessos + Boleros = Walter Wanderley

Astrud Gilberto & Walter Wanderley - A Certain Smile A Certain Sadness (1966) {Verve Originals 0602517679245 rel 2008}
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© 1966, 2008 Verve / UMG | Verve Originals Series | 0602517679245 | LP V6-8673
Jazz / Latin / Bossa Nova / Brazilian Jazz / Brazilian Traditions / Mood Music

In 1966, the bossa nova craze was at a peak, and A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness marked a collaboration between two of its biggest stars – vocalist Astrud Gilberto, brought to fame by her classic rendition of "The Girl from Ipanema," and organist Walter Wanderley. Even though the album is good, it is not as exciting as one might hope. While the music is remarkably innocent and sweet, with just a little underlying touch of sadness beneath the joyous, even naïve, surface, Gilberto and Wanderley do not always seem to work together on these tracks – it often appears as if each is performing in a universe of his or her own.

Walter Wilhelm Gieseking (5 November 1895 – 26 October 1956) was a German pianist and composer.

An expert in the delicate art of miniature, Walter Gieseking excelled in short evocative pieces in which his technical mastery and unique sensitivity worked wonders. The numerous albums of Lyric Pieces by Edvard Grieg were a constant source of inspiration for him: he recorded some selections on many occasions, and added excerpts to his concert programs with the same enthusiasm. This album includes the complete set recorded at the very end of his life, coupled with some earlier renditions from the 1948 sessions.

The album we have here is interesting, even great at times. It is made up of never before released material which, given Horton’s meager output, makes it important by that count alone. Here is Horton doing a spirited instrumental on Big Walter’s Boogie, then steaming in with Hard Hearted Woman, his rough-edged voice and the solid beat exactly what you’d hear in raucous blues clubs on Chicago’s southside, the band trying to overpower a hard-drinking audience.
There are a number of other songs you’re going to like, and you’ll like Walter Horton, something he never seemed to understand. He was oddly unbelieving in himself, despite being held in such high esteem by his contemporaries and by hordes of European rock stars of the sixties and seventies, who were themselves worshipped, but knelt in awe of this quiet, gentle man from Mississippi…

Big Walter Horton was one of the key architects of modern blues harmonica. Blues legend Willie Dixon referred to him as "the best harmonica player I ever heard." Along with Little Walter Jacobs and Sonny Boy Williamson II, he is considered to be one of the most influential harpists ever. He was capable of both intense power and fragile delicacy, often in the same song. He was endlessly melodically adventurous, and always unpredictable. His only Alligator Records album, - "Big Walter Horton With Carey Bell", came out in 1972. It paired him with his young protégé, who had played under Walter's tutelage since Bell's arrival in Chicago. Walter's long-time partner Eddie Taylor joined them on guitar. It was Alligator's second-ever release, and received widespread critical acclaim, especially for the fiery harp duets that pitted the two harmonica masters against one another.

It is no exaggeration to call Little Walter the Jimi Hendrix of the electric harp: he redefined what the instrument was and what it could do, pushing the instrument so far into the future that his music still sounds modern decades after it was recorded. Little Walter wasn't the first musician to amplify the harmonica but he arguably was the first to make the harp sound electric, twisting twitching, vibrant runs out of his instrument; nearly stealing the show from Muddy Waters on his earliest Chess recordings; and so impressing Leonard Chess that he made Muddy keep Walter as his harpist even after Waters broke up his band. Chess also made Walter into his studio's house harpist and started to release Little Walter solo records with the instrumental "Juke" in 1952. "Juke" became a smash hit and turned Little Walter into a star, making him a steady presence on the '50s R&B charts.

If there's a blues harmonica player alive today who doesn't have a copy of this landmark album in their collection, they're either lying or had their copy of it stolen by another harmonica player. This 12-song collection is the one that every harmonica player across the board cut their teeth on…