Blues People (Ropeadope)
Logan Richardson
Released April 12, 2018
New York Times Best Jazz Albums of 2018
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mIm2H-HPA1v9ZDv2iwktxJ4Vz5ibvSKHQ
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1NiurgmhnleI0kzC1qW3lX?si=2x4nlXcHTIaA8YCoLK-4QQ
About:
Logan Richardson returns to Kansas City for his fourth studio album. Taking in the world experience, the LIFE experience, and the current state of humanity on the planet earth, Logan presents Blues People. Recorded in Omaha and mixed in KC, the album features local musicians Ryan Lee on drums, DeAndre Manning on bass, Justus West on guitar, and the Berlin based, Ukrainian guitar player Igor Osypov.
Blues People begins with an assault on the senses – heavy guitar sets the tone for what will be an excursion into the mind of Logan Richardson. If you were hoping for a nice Jazz lounge evening sipping brandy, you are immediately informed that this will not be the case. Logan stands in front of the heavy intro and states his intent with a quote from Donny Hathaway: ‘I like to do blues as a reflection on a period, past and present, in Black people’s lives. … It is a complete negative… on the secular side, of the religious music that we had in church.’ Logan further informs us ‘ I’m a country and western freak… I dig the simplicity’
And so we are forewarned and also welcomed: Logan tells us that this is chapter 2 of Shift and to an extent we agree. It is a chapter in his life, and a reflection on his personal experiences. Yet Blues People tells the story of a man’s place in history, with a perspective that can only be obtained by being Logan Richardson. In this personal way it becomes universal, as we all have a story to tell.
Track Listing:
1. Blues People (Logan Richardson) 00:59
2. Hidden Figures (Logan Richardson) 04:57
3. 80’s Child (Logan Richardson) 04:10
4. Country Boy (Logan Richardson) 01:27
5. Underground (Logan Richardson) 03:43
6. Black Brown & Yellow (Logan Richardson) 06:37
7. Anthem (To Human Justice) (Logan Richardson) 05:29
8. Hunter of Soul (Logan Richardson) 08:13
9. Class Wars (Logan Richardson) 03:55
10. The Settlement (Logan Richardson) 08:59
11. Rebels Rise (Logan Richardson) 02:34
12. With U (Logan Richardson) 04:16
13. Urban Life (Logan Richardson) 05:35
14. Pure Change (Logan Richardson) 04:41
Personnel:
Logan Richardson: alto saxophone
Justus West: electric guitar
Igor Osypov: electric and acoustic guitars
Deandre Manning: electric bass
Ryan Lee: drums
Recorded July 11 – 17, 2017, at Make Believe Studios, Omaha, Nebraska, USA, by Jeremy Deaton
Mixed and Mastered by Justin Wilson
Producers: Dominique Sanders and Logan Richardson
Comic Illustration: Tomoe Tago
Graphic Illustration: Brainchildworld
Review:
“The emergence of classic blues and the popularization of jazz occurred around the same time,” observes Amiri Baraka in his landmark Blues People: Negro Music in White America. Published in 1963, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, it’s a book that set out to trace a responsive soundtrack to black life in the New World, from the African drums of Congo Square to the cacophonous yawp of Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz.
Logan Richardson, a saxophonist born and raised in the blues mecca of Kansas City, Mo., had to be thinking about Baraka’s argument when he named his new album Blues People. On the album’s title track, an invocation spiked with distorted guitars, Richardson quotes an analogous line by the soul singer Donny Hathaway: “I like to do blues as a reflection on a period, past and present, in black people’s lives.” That might make it seem as if Blues People, the album, prioritizes theory over practice. In fact, something like the inverse is true.
At 37, Richardson has had a full arc of experience as a jazz musician — conservatory training, mentorship from the elders, influence within a peer group — but he can give the impression of someone straining against constrictions of style. This feeling was already percolating on his previous album, SHIFT, a state-of-the-art jazz dispatch featuring a pair of marquee sidemen, guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Jason Moran.
On Blues People, his fourth album, Richardson expresses his restlessness in earthier terms. Rather than famous jazz musicians, he enlisted rhythm aces mostly from around Kansas City: Justus West on guitar, DeAndre Manning on bass, Ryan Lee on drums. (An additional guitarist, Igor Osypov, is a Ukrainian national living in Berlin.) Their rapport is tough and direct, more conducive to a snarling riff than to any flight of improvisational fancy. And while the blues are a focal point, there’s an implicit critique of “authenticity” in this music; on an interlude called “Country Boy,” listen for how a bottleneck guitar part acquires a digital stutter, like an EDM single.
By design, too, Richardson’s alto saxophone often functions more like a lead vocalist than as a virtuoso solo instrument. He’s a good conduit for soaring, plaintive melody, notably on a track like “Hidden Figures” or “Anthem (To Human Justice).” And however the band surges or thrashes around him, there’s a feeling of urgent communion in this music. (It’s a communion that honestly doesn’t need exposition, which is one reason West’s vocals on “Black Brown and Yellow” strike a rare false note here.)
In that passage from Blues People about the linked trajectories of jazz and blues, Baraka, writing then under his given name, LeRoi Jones, goes on to suggest that “jazz is easily the most cosmopolitan of any Negro music, able to utilize almost any foreign influence within its broader spectrum.” Richardson may not have set out to illustrate that point with this album, but the music carries the argument nonetheless.
Nate Chinen (npr)
