THE alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson burst on the jazz scene around 1950 with a bebop style that many listeners likened to Charlie Parker’s. A few years later, he adopted a more basic blues approach that evolved into a popular, and profitable, jazz corollary to the work of soul singers like James Brown.
Today, at 82, he remains a leading exponent of this soul-jazz approach. But even at its bluesiest, his playing remains informed by bebop. If the economics allowed it, he said, he would delve more into the bop canon.
“I’d like to be playing that every night,” he said. “But unfortunately, that’s not the case today.” At most of his outdoor concerts, he said, the audience demands his soul-jazz favorites — and he delivers. Those favorites, he said, will figure prominently on Aug. 18, when he brings his quartet to Mount Vernon for a free set, produced by Jazz Forum Arts and Jazzmobile, in City Hall Plaza.
The Mount Vernon performance, he said, will closely resemble the quartet’s lunchtime show for more than 800 people late last month in the garden of the Newark Museum. It will be heavy on the kind of 12-bar blues and free-flowing patter to which Mr. Donaldson’s fans have become accustomed.
And like most of his shows, the Mount Vernon one will begin with his theme, “Blues Walk.” Recorded in 1958, the piece anticipated the soulful turn his sound would take a decade later, when he released his biggest seller, “Alligator Boogaloo.”
By the time Mr. Donaldson serves up what he calls “sufferin’ music” — down-home blues like “Whiskey Drinkin’ Woman” and “It Was a Dream” — the audience is usually under his sway. On these tunes, he tends to sing lustily but play sparingly, leaving the improvisational heavy lifting to the guitarist Randy Johnston, his sideman off and on for nearly 12 years.
Today, at 82, he remains a leading exponent of this soul-jazz approach. But even at its bluesiest, his playing remains informed by bebop. If the economics allowed it, he said, he would delve more into the bop canon.
“I’d like to be playing that every night,” he said. “But unfortunately, that’s not the case today.” At most of his outdoor concerts, he said, the audience demands his soul-jazz favorites — and he delivers. Those favorites, he said, will figure prominently on Aug. 18, when he brings his quartet to Mount Vernon for a free set, produced by Jazz Forum Arts and Jazzmobile, in City Hall Plaza.
The Mount Vernon performance, he said, will closely resemble the quartet’s lunchtime show for more than 800 people late last month in the garden of the Newark Museum. It will be heavy on the kind of 12-bar blues and free-flowing patter to which Mr. Donaldson’s fans have become accustomed.
And like most of his shows, the Mount Vernon one will begin with his theme, “Blues Walk.” Recorded in 1958, the piece anticipated the soulful turn his sound would take a decade later, when he released his biggest seller, “Alligator Boogaloo.”
By the time Mr. Donaldson serves up what he calls “sufferin’ music” — down-home blues like “Whiskey Drinkin’ Woman” and “It Was a Dream” — the audience is usually under his sway. On these tunes, he tends to sing lustily but play sparingly, leaving the improvisational heavy lifting to the guitarist Randy Johnston, his sideman off and on for nearly 12 years.
