Live at Monterey!
Live album by The Johnny Otis Show
Released 1970
Recorded 1970
Genre R&B
Length 72:17
Label Epic
Producer Johnny Otis
Live at Monterey! is a recording of an historic performance by The Johnny Otis Show at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1970. An all-star cast performs great R&B songs.
Professional reviews:
Robert Christgau B+
Review by Robert Christgau:
In-concert compilations are often incoherent, but the blues-style hard jive beloved of performer-turned-majordomo Johnny Otis has such formal integrity that this R&B spectacular moves smoothly for four sides. Some of the featured players are no more than Otis' hired hands, including guitarist Shuggie Otis, Roy Milton, Big Joe Turner, Ivory Joe Hunter, Little Esther Phillips, Roy Brown, and Cleanhead Vinson, are a cast that beats anything Richard Nader's ever put into the Garden.
Notes taken from the original album release:
The Historic Rhythm & Blue Extravaganza That Rocked the 1970 Monterey Jazz Festival
The blues never has been, to my recollection, the occasion for a more joyous celebration of its uniquely vibrant spirit than on a certain day in the late summer of 1970, when Johnny Otis brought his entire azure-indigo caravan of giants to spread their talents over an afternoon on the fairgrounds at Monterey, California.
Here was the consummate proof that where today's music may set up communication and generation gaps, the blues destroys them. On stage, where Shuggie Otis, 16; rhythm guitarist Jim (Supe) Bradshaw, 23; singers Margie Evans and Delmar "Mighty Mouth" (no relation) Evans, both in their 20's; and the rest of the singing and blowing battalion representing every decade on up to Pee Wee Crayton and Big Joe Turner, both in their very late 50's, and Roy Milton, who's up there at the Social Security borderline.
The same with the roaring receptive, over capacity audience. Those who stood up on their seats hollering and testifying, or boogalooed along the aisles, were mostly in the 15-25 bracket, while others, less extroverted, exchanged reminiscences about the first time they had heard the call of the blues, perhaps at some half-remembered dance in the 30's, or on a 78 record player at high school in the 40's and 50's.
That's what this album is all about. This is no gallery of museum pieces set up to rekindle a lost past, no futile exercise in nostalgia; instead it is a meeting ground were ages, races, and backgrounds coalesce, where grooving together is all that matters.
All the other instrumental touches are emotionally strong, tonally robust products of the synthesis forged during the 1940s between jazz and R&B.
Through it all, Johnny Otis remains in firm control, opening the show by reviving his 1958 hit "Willie And The Hand Jive;" soloing and comping on vibes or piano, emceeing and directing his exuberant band through its casual, largely spontaneous arrangements.
There was a lot of love in the air that day. We all felt it, exchanged not only among musicians and singers, but from bandstand to audience and back. Wondering one moment why so many of the true blues pioneers had been short-changed by society, you asked yourself the next minute how a Shuggie Otis or a Supe Bradshaw could align himself so naturally with a music some thought was obsolescent.
On this day the vitality of the blues was triumphantly reaffirmed. It happened in Monterey - and not long ago. Thanks to Johnny Otis, who put it all together, and the festival's Jimmy Lyons, who brought it onstage, the whole world of the blues burst on us like sunshine on that bright September afternoon.
- Leonard Feather
(Author of The New Encyclopedia of Jazz)
LP track listing
Side One
1. "Willie and the Hand Jive" (Johnny Otis) - 3:14
2. "Cry Me a River Blues" (arranged by Little Esther Phillips) - 4:50
3. "Cleanhead's Blues" (Eddie Vinson) - 4:53
4. "I Got a Gal" (Joe Turner) - 2:43
5. "Since I Met You Baby" (Ivory Joe Hunter) - 2:58
Side 2
6. "Baby Don't You Know" (Roy Milton) - 2:55
7. "Preacher's Blues" (Gene Connors) - 3:13
8. "Good Rockin' Tonight" (Roy Brown) - 3:44
9. "The Time Machine" (Shuggie Otis) - 3:28
10. "Margie's Boogie" (Johnny Otis) - 3:43
Side 3
11. "Little Esther's Blues" - 6:45
a) "Blowtop Blues" (Leonard Feather, Jane Feather)
b) "T Bone Blues" (Les Hite)
c) "Jelly Jelly"
12. "Kidney Stew" (Eddie Vinson, Leona Blackman) - 3:11
13. "The Things That I Used To Do" (Eddie Jones) - 4:54
14. "R. M. Blues" (Roy Milton) - 3:15
Side 4
15. "Shuggie's Boogie" (Johnny Otis, Shuggie Otis) - 4:03
16. "You Better Look Out" (Delmar Evans, Johnny Otis) - 4:10
17. "Goin' Back To L. A." (Delmar Evans, Johnny Otis) - 2:47
18. "Plastic Man" (Len Chandler) - 4:52
19. "Boogie Woogie Bye Bye" (Johnny Otis) - 2:39
Personnel
* Richard Aplanalp - soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone
* James Bradshaw - rhythm guitar, harmonica
* Roy Brown - vocals
* Gene Connors - trombone
* Pee Wee Crayton - guitar
* Lawrence Dickens - bass
* Delmar Evans - vocals
* Margie Evans - vocals
* Leonard Feather - piano
* Ivory Joe Hunter - piano, vocals
* Paul Lagos - drums
* Little Esther - vocals
* Preston Love - alto saxophone, baritone saxophone
* Roy Milton - vocals
* Melvin Moore - trumpet
* Johnny Otis - drums, piano, vibraphone, vocals
* Shuggie Otis - bass, guitar
* Esther Phillips - vocals
* Clifford Solomon - tenor saxophone
* Roger Spotts - piano
* Big Joe Turner - ocals
* Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson - alto saxophone, vocals
* Big Jim Wynn - baritone saxophone