{"id":684,"date":"2013-11-06T12:02:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T20:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2013\/11\/the-genius-of-james-booker.html"},"modified":"2013-11-06T12:02:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T20:02:00","slug":"the-genius-of-james-booker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2013\/11\/the-genius-of-james-booker.html","title":{"rendered":"The Genius of James Booker"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

IT’S long been something of a clich\u00e9 to talk about what a head-spinning musical and cultural melting pot New Orleans is. But there\u2019s no other way to frame the protean New Orleans pianist James Booker (1939-\u201883), who is very near the top of my list of most individual\/ accomplished musician who very few people know about. His musical vocabulary was an odd blend of bordello and concert hall: He didn\u2019t sit squarely in any tradition but drew from the blues, gospel, funk, jazz and classical piano (especially Chopin; an 18-year-old Booker met Arthur Rubinstein and knocked him out with his playing). Booker\u2019s long, improvised piece went in all kinds of directions and reminds me of the old phrase, \u201cthe sound of surprise.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
My all-time favorite of his is a solo live album recorded at his hometown’s Maple Club in the late \u201870s and early \u201880s called Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah<\/i>. (If I may sound 20th century for a moment, I looked for that record in half the store — in blues, R&B, jazz, etc. — before a helpful clerk told me it was in the “New Orleans” section.)<\/p>\n

But nearly as good \u2013 and to some, the great Booker album \u2013 is the 1982 studio release Classified<\/i>, which Rounder has just reissued with a bunch of lost material.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Classified: Remixed and Expanded<\/i> is not quite as rambling and ornery as the live stuff, but he shows off his tremendous range and the weird melange he made of it all. You get Doc Pomus\u2019 \u201cLonely Avenue,\u201d Allen Toussaint\u2019s \u201cAll These Things,\u201d a (new) medley that includes \u201cPapa Was a Rascal,\u201d a lovely interpretation of the jazz standard \u201cAngel Eyes,\u201d Roger Miller\u2019s \u201cKing of the Road,\u201d and on and on. You hear his roots in Professor Longhair, and you hear how deep he went on his own trip.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Much of it is solo, with a saxophone, bass and drums on some tracks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
His life is a very long story as well, and a new documentary, Bayou Maharajah<\/a>: The Tragic Genius of James Booker<\/i>, has started to appear on the festival circuit. (I\u2019ve not seen it.)\u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Booker \u2013 a homosexual who lost his eye attacked by a bodyguard he failed to pay, and whose late-\u201860s heroin bust stalled what was a developing career — generally thought of himself as an R&B musician:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cThere is nothing I don\u2019t like about rhythm and blues,\u201d he once said. \u201cThe rhythm, makes you dance and the blues make you think.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Here is a bit from an odd-seeming documentary (note the early-’80s fonts.)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
What I hear when I listen to Booker is an unbridled and kind of boundless musical imagination, one in a push-pull of creative tension with his training and discipline. Long may his flag fly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IT’S long been something of a clich\u00e9 to talk about what a head-spinning musical and cultural melting pot New Orleans is. But there\u2019s no other way to frame the protean New Orleans pianist James Booker (1939-\u201883), who is very near the top of my list of most individual\/ accomplished musician who very few people know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,42,58,57,59],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blues","7":"category-jazz","8":"category-music","9":"category-new-orleans","10":"category-piano","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}