The Belgian Jazz Pour Tous (jazz for all) series, that ran in the decade from 59’ to 69’, should be lauded for preserving gems such as this concert featuring Sunnyland Slim, Wilbert Harrison and Curtis Jones. All three have the blues running through their veins and take it in turns to weave magic on the piano.
The show starts with Sunnyland, a man described as a living piece of folk history before his death in 1995. He sets the tone, cigarettes still burning in the ashtray on the piano, with “Call You Baby” and “Tin Pan Alley.” Next up is Wilburt Harrison who delivers the famous “Kansas City” and “Stagger Lee,” a rock 'n' roll-blues song that recounts the murder of a Missouri man at Christmas in 1985. Lastly, Curtis Jones steps up, closing out the show with poise and endless charm on three themes.
For many of these tracks the song titles are all we have, their composers' original names long-since lost in the dim and dusty history of 19th Century American music. Instead they were passed down from musician to musician, valued for being capsules for that singular and evasive feeling: the blues.
