Ted Gioia

A preeminent music historian and critic presents a global history of music from the bottom up

HEY LOCO FANS – On March 8, 1940 blues guitarist Bukka White recorded “Fixin’ to Die Blues” in Chicago for record producer Lester Melrose. The song was written just days before, along with eleven others, at Melrose’s urging.

You can understand why musicians cover entire albums when the subject is an epic like Kind of Blue or A Love Supreme. It’s a little harder to see what would prompt someone to do a track-by-track remake of saxophonist Hank Mobley’s Soul Station. It may be Mobley’s best record, but it doesn’t crack the 200 recommended recordings in either Ben Ratliff’s book of essential LPs or The Rough Guide to Jazz, and Mobley merits barely a passing mention in Ted Gioia’s landmark book The History of Jazz. Israeli saxophonist Eli Degibri, however, says Soul Station is his touchstone and lifelong inspiration. His challenge in covering the whole thing is to find something new to say through it.