St. James Infirmary at the 2019 Grammy Awards

Photo of Jon Batiste from his 2018 album,
Hollywood Africans

St. James Infirmary is up for a 2019 Grammy Award!

New Orleans jazz pianist, Jon Batiste, has recorded at least two versions of "St. James Infirmary." First, in 2013 with his band Stay Human. And this year, 2018, he reinterpreted the song for a solo album. (Batiste is an accomplished, nuanced, inventive, deeply committed musician and arranger.) Both recordings are remarkable.

His earlier SJI is the more anguished of the two, the most thick with sound, opening with an Arvo Part-like piano theme but ultimately driven by a relentless percussion that unfolds into an exuberant jazz abstraction.

His 2018 SJI is reflective, an interior monologue with apparently simple piano but unfolding with profound melancholy in orchestration and chorus. Deeply felt and intensely communicated.

The category for Batiste's recording is "best American roots performance."

There is another category called "best American roots song." I think the difference is that the song needs to be an original, contemporary composition with a rootsy flavour, while the performance might or might not be. Looking at the nominees, "St. James Infirmary" is the only actual olden-days song listed. All others in both categories are (arguably) in the "roots" style, but contemporary. For instance, Willie Nelson's "Last Man Standing," another contender in the  performance category, was written by Willie for his 2018 album of the same name.

Here's Batiste's 2018 interpretation of this timeless song:



SJI, eh?

The Hot 8 Brass Band (and SJI)

Image from the Hot 8 website http://www.hot8brassband.com/

The Hot 8 Brass Band is a New Orleans staple. They have been playing for twenty years, and have stayed together through tragedies that include Hurricane Katrina, and the shooting deaths of four band-mates. They made their first recording in 2007, and have recently released their fourth album ... which includes a dynamic interpretation of "St. James Infirmary."

The Hot 8 Brass Band have embarked on a European tour which will take them to Germany, France, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, and the U.K.

There is something special about The Hot 8 Brass Band. You can hear/see this special musicality in the video below.

(YouTube videos on this blog lose the edges, for some reason - double-click to see it in its full size ... or click here.)

Simon Prager performs "St. James Infirmary Blues" at the Ye Olde Rose & Crown pub

Image of Ye Olde Rose & Crown Theatre Pub copied from Google Maps

Ye Olde Rose & Crown, one of London's finest olde pubs, stands at 53 Hoe Street. The Walthamstow Folk Club operates out of the pub's back room/theatre on Sunday evenings. On one of those evenings the London roots musician Simon Prager (who finds inspiration in the music of the Rev. Gary Davis) took the stage. A song from that night was - you guessed it - a stirring rendition of "St. James Infirmary."

(You might have to double-click on the image to view in its intended perspective.)

In Celebration - Another Look Out Mama

I am looking back this evening. Reminiscing.

The final edition of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary was printed in November, 2015, six months ago. A month later Pam and I moved from our acre of land in the village of Val Marie, Saskatchewan, to a three-storey walk-up in the metropolis of Victoria on Vancouver Island.

Once before - at the New Year of 2013 - I ventured away from the principal theme of this blog to post a song by Look out Mama, the trio I belonged to in Val Marie. We held a very occasional gig at the Val Marie Hotel, attended by tens of people (actually, not a bad audience in a village of a hundred souls).

So, in celebration of the second and final edition of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, and of (approximately) the eighth anniversary of this blog, I am posting another Look Out Mama performance. James Page on lead guitar, Colleen Watson on rhythm guitar, myself on percussion and lead vocal.

As with the song "Look Out Mama" (not to be confused with the name of our trio, Look Out Mama), I wrote this ditty. The lyric is based upon the initial meetings between the philosophers G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky in 1914 Moscow. In earlier years Ouspensky (Dan) had experimented with drugs like ether (in the lyric, Esther) and hashish (Mary Jane) - but soon abandoned them. Lots of poetic license here, and apologies to the real world for that.

This was our first performance of the song (it became more nuanced in later versions). Many thanks to Pam Woodland for the video, recorded live at the Val Marie Hotel in 2013. (Double-click on the video the get the full image.)

Dan & Van

Dan had been traveling with Esther and Mary Jane
But one day they left him standing out in the rain
Bells were sounding across the river
Through the mists he could see
That all of this time they'd been moving through the same country
               

Where do you want to go, where are you going to stay           
You know it's all the same 
Place you are in, place with a different name

Van once trained tigers in Turkestan

Herded horses in Montana and Saskatchewan
He'd worked on the trains, drove camels across the plains
Picked grapes from the vines
Dug for coal and gold down in the mines

Where do you want to go, where are you going to stay           

You know it's all the same 
Place you are in, place with a different name

Dan met Van in an ice palace in Rome

Dan said to Van I've been searching for my home
Van told Dan, better sit down here
You've no place left to go
Keep your eyes open for the next hundred years or so
Try to your eyes open for the next hundred years or so
Try to keep your eyes open, you've nowhere left  to go

Yo Yo Ma, Rhiannon Giddens, Michael Ward-Bergeman, The Silk Road Ensemble, and St. James Infirmary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Readers of this blog might recall an entry, three years ago, about a gypsy variation of St. James Infirmary.  The New Orleans composer, accordionist (well, multi-instrumentalist), and performer Michael Ward-Bergeman wrote to me back then: "when I started doing 'St. James' I always felt there was a gypsy music connection both spirit and music-wise." As you can hear on his GIG 365 CD, "St. James Infirmary" sounds ready-made for gypsy musicians. As in much Roma music this SJI begins slow and melancholy, eventually opening into an exuberant, energizing celebration of life that will have you dancing in the streets (or in your living room) - reminiscent of New Orleans funeral music, although with different instrumentation.

Yo Yo Ma and his Silk Road Project commissioned Ward-Bergeman to arrange a version for them. With Yo Yo Ma on cello, Ward-Bergeman on accordion, the Silk Road Ensemble on an assortment of world instruments (for instance, the Roma cymbalom was replaced with a combination of marimba and yangqin, a Chinese hammered dulcimer), and Rhiannon Giddens on vocals, they collaborated on a penetrating version of SJI that transcends both time and place.

The musicians of Silk Road Ensemble are international and eclectic, presenting an amalgam of music that reflects our multicultural world. This new album from Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble will be available April 22. Called Sing Me Home, guest artists include many favourites of mine, including African Kora master Toumani Diabete, North Indian sitarist Shujaat Khan, U.S. banjoist Abigail Washburn, and many many other outstanding musicians from around the globe.

As a taste, here is a just-released video of Yo Yo Ma, Rhiannon Giddens, Michael Ward-Bergeman, and the Silk Road Ensemble performing St. James Infirmary. If this is any indication, the album will be outstanding!


(If you double-click on the video below, you can see it in its proper proportion.)

A new album to celebrate Groanbox's tenth anniversary!

The roots / world music band, Groanbox, has long been a friend of this blog. If you search through these pages you will find them playing “St. James Infirmary” with flair and authority. You will find (from when they were a duo called “The Goanbox Boys”) a song called “Darling Lou,” which has SJI as its base. You will find Groanbox accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman performing SJI with a gypsy band in Bucharest, and with an experimental classical chamber group in Chicago. And now, Groanbox – grown into a quartet – are celebrating their tenth anniversary with the release of a self-titled CD.

This might be the strangest, the most ambitious of their six releases – and also their most accessible. Two years in the making, it started in 2013 in the forests of Northern Ontario where they found inspiration in the percussive possibilities of fallen trees. “Deep tree diving, oh.” In the echoes of deep bat-rich caves. “Adios Plato.” In the sounds and the quiet of the wild spaces, where a chipmunk took them far from the noise of the Demon Trucks that carry away the harvest of the forest. “Ohhh don’t press your luck, run run away from the demon truck.” In an encounter with a boulder split by the slow-growing root of a tree. “The prisoner of war will break free of the stocks/The root will one day split the rock.” Time spent in an abandoned cabin, said to have once been a hideout for Al Capone. “We’re all dressed in our best luck ... In the older days this room would be filled with smoke ... Ah, I just need a blanket for these bloody finches in my head.” And then into New Orleans earlier this year with its famous ninth ward that is still recovering from catastrophic flooding a decade ago. “Barefoot in the ninth....” With its continuing echoes of Katrina. “Katrina, I wish you’d come and listen to the music coming up through the floor.” That song features guest musician, New Orleans trumpeter Kenneth Terry (written about previously on this blog). Velvet-voiced Venezuelan singer Yulene Velasquez adds vocal flourishes that shape the “The Face That You Deserve” into a sweet exotic charmer. “Each and every drop never stops, till it’s found it’s way/Every single beam finds its meaning in another’s eye.”

There are four instrumental pieces on this album of eleven songs. With titles like “Orchestrated Entropy” and “Graveyard of Pines,” they bristle with original ideas, unusual transitions, atypical harmonies. And with an instrumental arsenal that includes banjo, guitar, assorted hand percussion, accordion, trombone, bells, fife, throat-singing, thumb piano, bird calls, fiddle, piano, and the famous Freedom Boot, these multi-instrumentalists have created a sound that rewards close listening. This is stellar musicianship in which one can hear touches of Eric Satie, gypsy music, African and Middle Eastern rhythms and melodies, blues, New Orleans roustabouts, avant-garde experimentation ... and  much more.

Groanbox took a big risk here. Most of this album was recorded extemporaneously, and the band has rewoven the fabric of their music.

(You can investigate further at the Groanbox site.)


Below, I have been given permission to post an as yet unreleased video about the making of this album. Double-click in order to view it full-frame, or go to YouTube.

Ward-Bergeman and eighth blackbird at the Curtis Institute of Music

I know noble accents
And lucid inescapable rhythms:
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

That is the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

The chamber group, eighth blackbird (lower case is deliberate), are an adventurous sextet with three Grammy trophies who explore the edges of the modern repertoire, from Reich and Lerdahl to, well, "St. James Infirmary." Clarinet, flute, violin, viola, percussion, piano, cello . . . this is a virtuosic ensemble of great depth and feeling.

Recently they met with composer, singer, accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Chicago, for a rendition of a Ward-Bergeman arrangement of SJI. Readers of this blog know of Michael Ward-Bergeman as an accomplished composer of contemporary classical music, as well as a musician deeply committed to roots music, blues, Americana ...

The link below is via YouTube. You can also access this video through Ward-Bergeman's site at http://compmjwb.blogspot.ca/ In fact, he has recently posted the score for this performance on his site. You can read it by clicking here. The performance is eight minutes of stellar musicianship and takes us to many places, including a lively gypsy campfire.

Porter Grainger on film?

Porter Grainger pops up frequently on this blog, partly as the composer of "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues," partly because so little is known about him, and I hold hope that someone will come forward with more information.

I am aware of only two photographs of Grainger - in one of them he is part of a large group of black composers in the 1930s, including Jelly Roll Morton and W.C. Handy. It is likely that he also appeared in a short film.

Yesterday I was reading an updated Wikipedia entry on Grainger which included these words: "He was also Mamie Smith's accompanist in the 1929 film short Jailhouse Blues." I found the video on YouTube, as an Italian upload. The pianist is briefly visible at the beginning of the film. So ... what do you think? Is this Porter Grainger?

The film lasts just over one minute. Smith was forty-six when this film was made. She was one of the pioneers of early blues recording; in her heyday she was immensely popular, appearing on stage in extravagant dresses while dancers and acrobats spun around her. Grainger was thirty-eight, and at the height of his career.

A cappella SJI: performance video

A couple of months ago, I posted an article about, and a link to, sheet music for an a cappella version of SJI. The composer, Everett Howe, with the JUUL Tones, recently performed this at a church in San Diego. So, first we had the sheet music, now an actual performance (clicking here will take you directly to the video on YouTube; the embedded version below is unfortunately truncated). Enjoy!

St. James Infirmary for Solo Accordion

Photo by Gerson Matos

I recently wrote about a gypsy version of SJI, featuring Michael Ward-Bergeman on accordion. This time, there's no gypsy band. Just MWB.

Okay. St. James Infirmary. For solo accordion.

Here, from Toronto's Ideacity concert hall, which has as its motto "The Smartest People - The Biggest Ideas . . . a constellation of top talent in the world," is accordion wunderkind Michael Ward-Bergeman performing "St. James Infirmary."

Enjoy.
ps You will get a fuller video view  by going directly to the YouTube site.

Groanbox and a variation on SJI - prepare to be dazzled

Since posting the previous article, I have received more information about "Groanbox" and feel a need to update you.

The video in the previous post was made before "The Groanbox Boys" included a percussionist (check out that link), thereby expanding the duo into a trio and modifying their name to Groanbox. Man, they work well together!

So . . . about this video. Michael, the accordionist, wrote that they had every intention of recording their version of "St. James Infirmary," but "at the last minute I managed to come up with some new words, and a few new chords to turn it into an 'original' composition." Bravo! This is what songs like SJI  - had it remained in the public domain from the start (where it belonged) - should have been inspiring all along.

The version below differs quite a bit from the one on their pre-trio album, Fences Come Down, but I think both are stellar performances. Here, about three minutes in, the singer intones "I wake up and she's gone gone gone," as the percussionist mimics a bird flying away, and then, led by the banjo, the group launches the song into a kind of uptempo gypsy jazz.

It's not easy to make music like this.

So, without further ado, here is Groanbox with their SJI inspired "Darling Lou." Prepare to be dazzled.

(And if you like this song, please show your support of Groanbox, they are a unique and rewarding experience!)

Contemporary performances

With this blog I have always (with one exception) been careful to limit my postings to matters referring to the early days of SJI. That was largely due to my respect for Rob Walker's very fine No Notes blog  which, for over six years, has been tracking the evolution of the song and (among other things) referring us to its most recent variations. Sadly, Rob recently decided to put his blog on hiatus, and until further notice will not be writing further articles.

And so, every now and again, until Rob returns, I shall be posting links to more recent interpretations on the "St. James Infirmary" song, as well as to other songs intimately related to SJI. In fact a number of postings are already waiting in the wings, including some wonderful MP3s from Max Morath, an artist I have already referred to several times.

Today we are introducing (at least as far as this blog is concerned) a version of SJI that was posted on YouTube. This is by a duo (I think now a trio) called The Groanbox Boys. One of the Boys recently purchased a copy of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary and informed me of this video. And, you know, it is really good! At about 1:45 into the song they pick up the pace and with accordion, banjo, and vocals launch into the stratosphere.

I have already ordered a copy of a Groanbox CD. You might want to look into this group too. Here they are with "St. James Infirmary."