Well now, Mom, Dad, some of you kiddies too, y'all know how a Stone Mountain-high billboard promoting the Allman Brothers Band's upcoming Hooterville show should read: "RETURN of the vanguard '70s Southern Rock, polyrhythmic, solar-systemic, all-tyme blues-tattooed-jazz-jam stars, eating peaches, 'shrooms and doom for breakfast and lunch too! Death-dogged dawgs, still death-defying, yet sometimes own-breath-they-frying Kings Of the Road for 35 years!" But ne'mind, Clementine: rat now, in Indian Summer '05, I yam floating through an '03 visitation of "Mountain Jam," which peacefully and peachfully loops me back through pre-Legendary days in Tuscaloosa, where I sat on a dusty-carpeted, hardwood floor with some of these guys, friends of a friend. We pointed at and jabbered about information found on the back of album covers. They were really into Mongo Santamaria, who made what was still called Afro-Cuban music. He employed (as players, and sometimes also as arrangers and composers) up-and-coming progressos like Chick Corea. (Results tended to be more fun than, say, listening past Herbie Mann's flutings, with an ear stretching toward Larry Coryell and/or Sonny Sharrock, buzzing down in the mix, but I think we did some of that too.) John Coltrane had covered Mongo's "Afro Blue," which led ABBabies from one kind of jazz to another. (Or vice versa. Really was a while back.) In late 1970 or early '71, they came back to play, in the auditorium of Morgan Hall, home of the University of Alabama's English Department. It was a setting in gray, quaint contrast to the lurid musical Godzillathon onstage. In early 1972, when, for various reasons (like Vietnam), the world seemed as gray and mottled as the pavement that had just claimed Duane, the surviving ABB returned to Tuscaloosa, unveiling the elegiac "Les Brers In A Minor," which was as bold and eloquent as any other moment spent with (all) such spirits. 1973: Once again in T-town, when the Crimson Tide was at its peak (and the war was going from mainly ground to primarily air, and backroom), the Brother hoodz seemed most appropriately viewed through the white line fever-visions of "Ramblin' Man." Of a late night appearance at Charlotte's mad '74 (Watergate Summer) Speedway mudfest, The International Carolina Jam (AKA August Jam, this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Jam) I wrote, " Their sound's the air and everything in it." And, "I look straight up. The night sky winks." (Like sorry, but it's true.) Meanwhile, back in '03, the "Jam" is still revolving/ evolving, and, while listening to the disc of it in '05, I taste traces of jazzy goodies from the crispy late 60s/early 70s cusp: Mongo's version of "Watermelon Man," Wes Montgomery's "Bumpin' On Sunset," perhaps War's "Low Rider," surely the sleight return of Jimi's "Third Stone From The Sun," near the end, but not before Gregg's Hammond B-3 almost gives it up for "Boogaloo Down Broadway," by The Fantastic Johnny C! Gregg also plays the piano part on "Layla" like he's marching punks into Reform School assembly, but it works, and the guitars re-ignite right on cue. As in recent decades, he sings like Gran'paw 'Metheus in chains, but must have been taking his Geritol, because he puts across every word, and even the tribal "Ahh-ahh, ahh-aah-aah, ahh-ahh, aah-aah" 's on "Black Hearted Woman." Nevertheless, Warren Haynes' singing is a welcome change, especially on his deep blue "Patchwork Quilt," where "tears of sorrow, tears of rage" are, I think, for the late great Allen Woody, the bassist who, along with guitarist Haynes, is given deserved credit for reviving the Allman Brothers Band. (Even if they did eventually have to make their Gov't Mule side-project a full-time job, but that worked out for the best.) Now Warren's back (replacing ditched Dickey), with the ever-budding prodigy, Derek Trucks. (Who, on this '03 set, shapes the fluidity of his main themes with a scraping punctuation.) This is a team that Robert Christgau, Dean of American Rock Critics, and ABB nut from the get-go, even prefers to Duane and Dickey! I think that, in this context(in '03, anyway, when playing *together* in ABB was still new to them), obliged to perform much (though certainly not all) the same material that D.& D. defined, Warren and Derek don't project as much of their own musical personality as the Dawgfathers did. (Though the Dereks Trucks Band and Gov't Mule are something else again.) But the ABB's cliches are theirs, while Moe's three-disc live set, Warts And All, Volume 4 is a vigorously excruciating demonstration of every generic jam band cliché, evah. Hoedowns, a touch of reggae, almost-Bo-Diddley beats; nerdy, sub-Dylan-y complaints; sub-Robert Hunter philosophizin'; sub-"Dark Star" guitar detours, no-o-o! Still, I do like "Happy Hour Heros," about wryly rolling your eyes, and getting through a tiresome performance.(PS: 1) This is one of those Instant Live sets, sold Instantly at gig they've just documented, then, if there ever was any excessive crowd noise, as I've occasionally read about other sets, it's been tweaked from this nice-priced Charlotte 03 joint, at least, before it reappeared on ABB-authorized hittinthenote.com; 2)the only time on here when Allman cliches become a problem: when a reflexive slide YEEHHAAWS in midst of "Good Morning Little School Girl" 's sneaky grooves; 3) the proto-ABBabies were also into some country, as would later become more apparent when "Ramblin' Man" actually got played on 70s country radio, the first such crossover I can recall. But even early "Statesboro Blues" suggests early country. (Never heard the original, which might also, perhaps something like MS. Sheiks' delta-blues-to-honky-tonk crossover experiments?)I'm thinking of the vaudeville-ish country on some sides Jimmie Rodgers and Emmett Miller cut with accompaniment by say, Louis Armstrong, and the Dorsey Brothers, I think. Also come to think of it, Dickey did "Blue Yodel #3," wasn't it, with New Orleans horns, on Tribute To Jimmie Rodgers. (And epic glide "Kissimee Kid," with Vassar Clements, The King Of Hillbilly Jazz, it says here [RIP, again], on Dickey scuse me *Richard Betts'* great solo debut, Highway Call.) While in ABB,of course he would often raise a big dipper of blue slide-emulating-country-steel-emulating-Hawaii(hawaya)(Haveya seen that TV commercial, in which "Melissa" winds and calls all round the winding look the actress gives the actor when he finally shows--talk about your country.)
¶ 9/21/2005
