Urbane Before It Was Fashionable To Be Urban

It's fair to say that while Lonnie Johnson is not exactly neglected these days, he does not really have the stature in the blues hierarchy that he deserves. My guess as to why would be that he is a little too sophisticated, urbane before it was fashionable to be urban and willing to mix styles and genres outside of a strict twelve bar. The four disc box set "Lonnie Johnson The Original Guitar Wizard" is a real bargain. Johnson was a native New Orleanian who also spent much time in New York and Chicago during the musical part of his career. So he isn't in any way country blues, despite being an early exponent and playing largely acoustic guitar. There is much solo work here, the songs often have a misogynistic bent like much blues but the lyrics are clearly sung and easily understood. They return often to common themes like the cheating woman, the lazy woman, the venality of pimps and natural weather related disasters. The guitar fills and solos are jazz inflected and pre-shadow much of Django as well as later electric bluesmen like T-Bone Walker. Johnson's much more raw violin style features on a couple of tracks and he is often accompanied by piano. There are some songs backing lady masters of the double entendre such as Victoria Spivey and also sides which feature him as a member of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five era combo. Perhaps the most rewarding tracks are the duets with white jazz guitarist Eddie Lang which showcase masterful interplay. Towards the end of the final disk, Johnson has turned to an electric guitar in an early version of an r'n'b band though the amplification is used purely for volume and not to investigate any special effects. The box set doesn't feature anything from Lonnie Johnson's sixties re-discovery but it provides much enjoyment and justifies the title.

Distinctive Take On A Choral Tradition

The BBC Music magazine Christmas edition boasts a cover disk with seasonal connections, the main work being Britten's choral piece St Nicolas. This was a commission for Peter Pears's old school Lancing College and this recording is from a live concert given back in the chapel at that venue last year. The forces concerned are the BBC Singers, Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral and the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Paul Brough with tenor soloist Daniel Norman. The instrumental scoring is distinctive for strings, piano and percussion and creates an evocative sound world. Britten weaves small elements of exoticism in with spare characteristically spiky sections and settings of two familiar old style straight ahead hymn tunes. Apart from the traditional connection of St Nicolas with cuddly old Santa, there isn't anything particularly Christmassy here, the libretto seems to be based on the life story of the saint; his calling, works and death. There isn't a libretto with the booklet however ( well, it is a freebie after all )and the notoriously plummy intonation of the BBC Singers makes it difficult to discern what is being sung. That drawback also applies to the filler where Andrew Carwood directs them in Howells's Three Carol-Anthems. These are attractively tuneful but the singers might just as well be singing wordlessly, I could just make out the word lullaby in the second setting since it is repeated so often.