The mystique of a Blue Moon Marquee record lies as much in the atmosphere generated as in the music itself. Put A.W. Cardinal and his guitar’s single-string adoration of T-Bone and Django together with Jasmine Colette’s thumping standup bass, then add a few but significant accompanists as catalysts, and thick, vintage ambiance crystalizes naturally.
Their blues—original as well as recast—come scuffed, torn around the edges, sneeringly tough, and hauntingly stranded in a time and place of their own making. Not the proverbial Chicago club, though. Nor the southern juke joint. Not even the neighborhood taproom. Too classy; too bright; too commonplace.
Nah, these New Orleans Sessions proudly reek of dingy austerity. This is the flashback soundtrack you’d expect coming from inside cramped, sordid taverns lining the grungy margins of Skid Row. Or filling the dank interior of rickety, wood-framed drink-shacks along the waterfront, down by the docks. Or, for that matter, anywhere the night has a thousand eyes and a cast of hard-boiled outcasts seeking temporary escape in a swig and a song. Starting aptly enough with “Black Rat Swing,” these 38 minutes are here to provide such a getaway.
“Let’s Get Drunk Again” could well be the rallying anthem, restoring faith in the goodness of the bottle and fellowship. Sloshing back and forth at midtempo, Cardinal and Colette tag team the singing with one securing the gritty, low ground while the other rises above. As an upright piano rumbles heavily off in the corner and a baritone saxophone patrols the perimeter like a muscle-bound bouncer, the plan gets hatched:
“I’ll get the whiskey; you get the gin.
Let’s get together and let’s get drunk again.”
While the room swirls all the more, the impropriety sinks deeper:
“I’ll get the washcloth; you get the tub.
Let’s get together and let’s rub, rub, rub.”
Perfect. Just perfect for when cheap liquor, cigarette ashes and ear-to-ear grins convene—regardless if you tie one on.
The two of them will share a song like that from time to time, also splitting vocals on, for instance, the briskly fishtailing “Shake It and Break It,” the old Delta proposition proffered by Charley Patton. But Memphis Minnie’s aforementioned rodent romp that greets you at the Sessions door is Colette’s alone. That leaves the lion’s share of the set solely under Cardinal’s jagged purview. “Trickster Coyote,” like “Red Dust Rising,” brings out the squalid, quasi-Tom Waits rasp in his throat. Not to be outdone, his guitar generates its own serrated, tube-warmed force field to match. Joining him in the gutbucket is an amped-up harmonica on the former, whereas that 700-pound saxophone remains the enforcer for the latter.
Within this netherworld, “Saint James Infirmary,” a deathly, stone-cold dirge as old as dirt, is also compatibly welcomed into the fold, along with Lonnie Johnson’s throbbing “Got the Blues So Bad” and Lead Belly’s swinging “Ain’t Going Down.” Kindred spirits when given the Marquee treatment of spare yet just-right antiquation. You’ll not run into versions like these elsewhere.
Adding to the mystique, New Orleans Sessions was recorded live, off-the-floor, everyone playing together, in the same room, at the same time. No overdubs. No digital hoodoo. “Radical!” or “Foolhardy!” would be the outcry from today’s preening producers. But old-school hardliner Jon Atkinson, who did the recording and flew the guest harp, wisely knows that music—especially blues—is best made instinctively, like a reflex.
So, when “What I Wouldn’t Do” begs for a slow dance, or at least a tipsy sway, in the faint, bare-bulb light, know that that intoxicating moment could well have transpired with the crew playing away in one of those old dive bars. Cardinal roughs out his lines about boundless devotion into the mic while his fingers finesse snarls out of the guitar. Colette paws the bass. The piano trickles constantly. The sax geysers up. Drums modestly plug any gaps. And, just like that, Blue Moon Marquee again drops the listener into a no-name joint with the most interesting house band around.
Label: Blue Moon Marquee Music
Release Date: 9/27/24
Artist Website: bluemoonmarquee.com
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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