Jerry Portnoy
Down In The Mood Room
Tiny Town Records – 2011
Released – 2001
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also available on amazon
This aptly named disc by a former member of The Muddy Waters Blues Band and a featured member of The Eric Clapton Band is a great departure from the work of those 2 band leaders, however that is not a negative. He took what he could from his stints with those two legendary bands and transformed it into his own vision. This is not Chicago Blues as we think of it, yet it is a moody smoky blend of many of the roots of the blues with a strong dose of Memphis rhythm and mood that is steeped in the jazz idiom that came up the Mississippi from the Crescent City. This disc owes more to the jazz/blues fusion influence of Louis Armstrong, than the hard charging rhythm of Chicago. A look at the song list with the Horace Silver classic. Doodlin’, leading off, and tunes such as Lullaby of Birdland, and
Stormy Weather following in the mix. The blues he espouses here is the big band sound and with this he is very ably assisted by Duke Robillard and his band including the nonpareil horn work of Doug James and Gordon “Sax” Beadle. A very good and open set filled with scintillating musicianship by one of the modern masters of the harmonica who is helping to point it back in the direction of the jazz idiom.