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Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Dr. John, Back in the Day and Blindfolded

June 7, 2019 by Howard Mandel

Dr. John the Night Tripper — Mac Rebbanack, New Orleans’ musical fabulist, dead June 6 at age 77 — dazzled me at one of the first rock shows I recall attending, at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom circa 1969.

Dr. John, Vienna 2011, photo by Sánta István Csaba

I was then enthralled by Gris-gris, his murky, obscure and carnivalesque debut album, having never heard anything like it (and I still haven’t — thanks perhaps to the great, less- heralded producer Harold Battiste). I was thrilled to Blindfold Test Mac for DownBeat in 1984. He came to listen in my grubby East Village apartment. Years later he rented the front flat on the floor of another EV building I lived in.

During my teenage listening I dug Dr. John’s croaking voice and scary stories, the background singers wailing on “I Walk On Gilded Splinters” (whatever that meant — their chorus has always

sounded to me like “Dear Operator” but there is no agreement at various internet posts about those lyrics),the sweet, dirty swing of “Mama Roux” and the swirling “danse” instrumentals with harpsichord, mandolin, flute or warped guitar leads, sudden otherworldly screeches, clattering drums.

At the Aragon back in the day, where I believe he headlined after sets by singer Tim Buckley with band and Linda Rondstadt with the Stone Poneys, Dr. John stood with guitar strapped on, “singing” and occasionally dipping into a satchel of “gris-gris powder,” dusty stuff (it didn’t seem to be either spiked or toxic) to toss on those of us standing close. The ensemble was motley; I remember another guitarist, dressed like a stereotype of Injun Joe in overalls, no shirt and a tall, broadbrimmed black hat sitting on the stage lip, and a small possibly Mexican electric bassist. I don’t recall the keyboard player or drummer, but there were two wasted-looking backup singers, one dark-skinned and shapely, the other lissom and pale unto pallid.

I followed Dr. John’s career through his immediate followup albums: Babylon which struct me as weird but not as mellifluous; The Sun, Moon and Herbs which was disappointing; redemption with Gumbo, and his emergence as an important member, promoter and preserver of the Crescent City’s glorious line of piano players.

That’s the role he wore well for the rest of his life and it fit just fine, though the New York Times obit reports he made his fortune writing jingles. Of his later recordings I recommend Dr. John: The Best Of The Parlaphone Years. And I’ll never forget stepping into the hall one day to get the mail and seeing in the vestibule, ringing his bell, those two backup singers from Gris-gris come to visit.

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Filed Under: main Tagged With: Blindfold Test, DownBeat, Dr. John, Howard Mandel, jazz, Mac Rebbenack

Comments

  1. Alan says

    June 7, 2019 at 2:47 pm

    What a great memory. I had the pleasure of photographing him opening for Alice Cooper in 1972 at the Auditorium Theater. One of the first concerts I shot.

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  1. A Few Weeks On, Gauging How Very, Horribly Dark That 'Game Of Thrones' Ending Was | Daily Program Newspaper says:
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Howard Mandel

I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

About Jazz Beyond Jazz

What if there's more to jazz than you suppose? What if jazz demolishes suppositions and breaks all bounds? What if jazz - and the jazz beyond, behind, under and around jazz - could enrich your life? What if jazz is the subtle, insightful, stylish, … [Read More...]

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