Snooks Eaglin - With His New Orleans Friends

This is a review that I wrote in Fall 2006 and published in the November-December 2006 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 288). I will be posting other reviews from this every few days in next couple weeks.

Universal Music on the Verve label has released the second batch of CDs in its series, The Sonet Blues Story. These sides make available albums from the 1970s that were issued in Europe on the Sonet label although some were imported in the United States and some were even issued in the US, as GNP-Crescendo issued The Legacy of the Blues recordings stateside. This latest batch includes more from that series along with other albums that Samuel Charters had produced for Sonet. I will be posting these reviews every few days.

Snooks Eaglin was represented by a prior volume in this series playing solo. The 1977 recordings represented on this latest album is With His New Orleans Friends who include the great Clarence Ford on tenor sax, George French on bass and background vocals, Bob French on drums and Ellis Marsalis on piano for a set of New Orleans R&B in the mode of Eaglin’s Imperial recordings.

The songs include Down Yonder, a Smiley Lewis number that Eaglin would keep in his repertoire decades later, Roscoe Gordon’s No More Doggin’, J.B. Lenoir's Talk to Your Daughter, Fats Domino’s Going to the River and Let the Four Winds Blow, James Wayne’s Traveling Mood (which Eaglin recorded for Imperial), Fat’s Domino’s Going to the River, and even Sir Mack Rice’s Mustang Sally (which comes off as tolerable in Eaglin’s hands. 

The band plays solidly behind Eaglin here, although not quite as inspired as the bands Snooks would have on his Black Top recordings. Charters notes how Eaglin insisted on his fuzzy tone for his guitar and there is plenty of his unique guitar playing with the band playing solidly behind him and these enjoyable sides foreshadows his spectacular Black Top recordings that started a decade later. 

I likely received review copies from Jazz & Blues Report. This may still be available new or used and as downloads. Here is a Snooks Eaglin performance

Jeff Chaz No Paint

Jeff Chaz
No Paint
JCP Records

This new release by New Orleans based blues musician, Jeff Chaz, is his first in three years and first with his trio of bass guitarist Augie Joachim and drummer Rick Jones. Chaz is a triple threat as a singer, guitarist, and songwriter, and he wrote 9 of the ten songs heard here.

I found Chaz a striking guitarist and a very robust singer with gravelly delivered shouting suggestive of Omar Dykes. At times it might sound a bit overbearing as on "You Ain 't Shackin' No More," but generally, his robust delivery is very satisfying. The opening track, a cover of the old Tyrone Davis hit "Turn Back the Hands of Time," is one of the high points as he hammers out chords along with single notes runs. A straight blues original "The Stars Are Out," where he pours out his heart in his vocal. His use of dynamics in his guitar playing is notable as he plays tremolo-laced bass lines to high-end single note flurries. A similar track is "Lowdown, Dirty Blues."

Chaz is a witty lyricist who wrote some memorable verses, such as the tagline of the song "Life Is Like Coffee," "Life is like coffee, it never tastes as good as it smells." For "Blues Buffet," he wonders what blues she is serving up today as he recalls what she served last night, and he is really trying to make things work while she works overtime. He takes a very imaginative and impressive solo on this.

A rhythm guitarist or a keyboard player may have added to the range of tonal colors. Still, his playing is impressive, as are Chaz's engaging performances on a fascinating recording.

I received my review copy from a publicist. This review appeared in the January-February 2020 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 388), although I have made some clarifying changes. Here is "Blues Buffett" from the album.