Photo by Paul Natkin
I love poring over photos of studio situations and live performances. As I would listen to a new piece of music, I’d stare at album cover collages, trying to put myself into the place and time and imagining the conversations and feelings that led to the music I was hearing. How cool would it be to stand in the front row as Ozzy hoisted Randy Rhoads and his polka dot Sandoval Flying V over his head. Imagine seeing the amp setups and microphone placements when Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac recorded at Chess Records in Chicago! Luckily, we have two new books of photography that can scratch that itch.
Firstly, there’s Paul Natkin’s The Moment of Truth, 288 pages of images that tell the story of live music on stage. Natkin has spent his life slogging through the trenches of every genre of music you can imagine, blending in and getting the goods. He once told me that to be a good photographer, you had to know that the right moment was coming, because if you waited to see it, you’d be too late. That skill, honed over decades of study, has allowed Natkin to capture the essence of the performance. It’s no wonder that his work has graced the pages of every periodical you can name, from major newspapers to rock magazines, both current and those lost to the ages.
You’ve probably seen some of these photographs before, like Mick and Tina ripping it up together, or Springsteen sweating on his trusty Telecaster. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He reckons he’s shot 10,000 concerts, and I believe him. We worked together to create catalogs and advertisements for Hamer Guitars, and I’d rarely go to a show where he wasn’t already backstage, ready to make introductions and watch the fun begin. My only complaint with this book is that Natkin’s exquisite portrait work isn’t fully represented here. The ability to catch the glimmer in Keith Richard’s eye, or the steady confidence of Buddy Guy’s expression is no mean feat. We can only hope that the publisher sees fit to issue a volume two. In the meantime, you can savor the moments Natkin knew were about to happen.
Another book that deserves your attention is Fleetwood Mac in Chicago by Jeff Lowenthal and Robert Schaffner—a must for early Mac fans. I’d known of photographer Lowenthal, primarily from the studio photographs on the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s album of the same name, recorded at Chess Studios in 1969. Lowenthal was hired to capture images of the session at the last minute, much like many of the musicians employed for the gig.
More associated with his photos of jazz artists and authors like Nelson Algren and Saul Bellow, Lowenthal stepped into an ad hoc session with a rotating crew of Chicago blues musicians surrounding Fleetwood Mac’s core lineup of Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, and Jeremy Spencer—all unknown to the young photographer. Armed with his trusty Leica, Lowenthal shot about a dozen rolls of 35 mm film as the music coalesced around him.
Imagine seeing the amp setups and microphone placements when Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac recorded at Chess Records in Chicago!
During the day-long session, bluesmen, including Otis Spann, Shakey Horton, and Honeyboy Edwards, would arrive feeling out the British musicians, as Lowenthal captured the temperature in the room, which he described as “workmanlike—everybody was there to do a job.” The book also features Robert Schaffner’s interviews with well-known musicians who give their take on the significance of the recordings. For those of us who peered at the thumbnail black-and-white photos on the original record jacket, to see over 150 full-size photos (including 50 never-before-published, some in color) is a revelation of detail.
When I got my copy, I put on the recordings as I thumbed through the pages, finally imagining being in the room in high definition. It’s all there to see: the body language, as well as clear views of the guitars and amps. This book is for Peter Green and Danny Kirwan fans, or fans of blues music history, and Paul Natkin’s tome is a fine companion piece as well. I suppose these books will be available digitally eventually, but I cherish the tactile experience of turning the pages as the music washes over me. You can stream the music as you read, but buy the physical books and enjoy.
Duke Ellington, Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, the Stones, Miles Davis, Prince, Zeppelin … all the music John Bohlinger loves was born from the trailblazing jazz and blues of Bessie Smith (above) and Satchmo.
Similarly, look at European art from the medieval times, or the Middle Ages, from the 5th century to the 15th century. Much of it is cartoonish—flat, distorted, and unrealistic. Baby Jesus almost always looks like a weird little man, not an infant. No wonder they called it the Dark Ages. Then Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and others, inspired by the ancient Greeks, built on this realism and brought about the Renaissance, pushing the world forward and making art come to life. I look at Ancient Egyptian art and feel nothing. I look at Michelangelo’s Pieta and weep. That’s what art is about.
I recently rewatched Ken Burns’ 10-part miniseries, Jazz. Sometime during the 2,280 minutes of running time, it occurred to me that American music went through a similar evolution as the world of visual art. Much as the Renaissance artists brought realism to art, jazz musicians— specifically Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong—brought realism to music. Here’s a little backstory.
“I listen to vaudeville; I feel nothing. I hear Armstrong and I weep.”
In 1877, when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, he was looking for a way to improve telegraph communications, going for what he called a “speaking telegraph.” Maybe it’s because Edison’s first recording was of him singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” but quickly people figured out that if you’re going to record something, music is probably a solid option.
Partly fueled by Edison’s game-changing inventions, the United States was becoming a true superpower, leading the world in industry, tech, finance, etc. The Burns documentary suggests this was when U.S. leaders, trendsetters, and titans of industry thought that it was time for an American Bach to legitimize the nation’s contribution to the world’s music. They looked to the universities, the military, and the establishment to provide this musical genius.
One of the earliest recording artists (in the late 1800s) was John Philip Sousa, “the March King” of America. With all due respect, it’s amazing that records caught on. I’m as patriotic as the next person, but who in their right minds pours a class of wine and cranks up “The Stars and Stripes Forever” to relax at the end of a long day? Sousa’s marches feel as stiff and lifeless as an ancient Egyptian wall painting.
Louis Armstrong: When it comes to authenticity and swing, the buck starts here.
A decade later, in the early 20th century, vocalists dominated record sales. They were mostly vaudevillians like Billy Murray and Arthur Collins, who had hits like “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” “Give My Regards to Broadway,” and “The Yankee Doodle Boy.” They were theater performers, trained to act melodramatically while singing and speaking in a loud, affected manner so they could be understood in the back of a theater. It was a stage voice—not the voice of someone genuinely communicating or expressing emotion.
Then, in the 1920s, music took a contrapposto step in an unlikely way. One of the biggest artists of the early 1920s was Al Jolson, who performed in blackface, stealing bits from African-American culture and making it more palatable to a xenophobic white audience. Based on Jolson’s success, Columbia Records execs thought, “Hey, instead of a white guy in blackface singing a white guy’s interpretation of Black music, why not record the people they’re stealing from?”
“The powerful were looking to themselves for the answer when what they sought came from slaves and their poorly treated descendants. The poetry of it all.”
Columbia found and recorded Bessie Smith, a Black orphaned blues singer who grew up supporting her impoverished family by busking on the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Smith’s genuine performances connected with record buyers. The “Empress of the Blues” became a wildly successful entertainer, which opened the gate for Louis Armstrong. Not only did Armstrong introduce the world to a swinging groove, his genuine, conversational voice made those trained, affected voices seem wooden by comparison. I listen to vaudeville; I feel nothing. I hear Armstrong and I weep.
It’s the classic unlikely origin story, like baby Jesus being born in a manger. The necessary hero/savior rarely comes from the establishment. The powerful were looking to themselves for the answer when what they sought came from slaves and their poorly treated descendants. The poetry of it all.
Duke Ellington, Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, the Stones, Miles Davis, Prince, Zeppelin, Clapton, and pretty much everything I love descended from the jazz and blues of Bessie Smith and Satchmo. When Duke Ellington was asked how he felt when he couldn’t stay at the hotels where he performed, he replied, “I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.”
Some see a rusty oil drum—a byproduct of Trinidad's oil industry. Others see a musical opportunity.
My family’s story is similar to many of African heritage from this hemisphere, whether from Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Guadeloupe, Brazil, St. Lucia, or the U.S. Throughout this collective history, the African diaspora, with little means or opportunity, they became accustomed to creating something from nothing. During slavery, our ancestors’ drums were not only used for ceremonies, but also as a form of covert communication, relaying messages to neighboring plantations about escapes and revolts. As a result, slave masters banned traditional drums. Thus began the quest to create homemade instruments from whatever they found: tools, kitchen utensils, bamboo trunks, washtubs, bottles, etc. Some musicians, such as the great Wilbur Ware, began their musical careers on homemade instruments—in his case, the gut-bucket-bass—and then transferred their unique approach to other instruments, like the double bass, as they became masters of metamorphosis.
Perhaps one of the most amazing examples of ingenuity is the steel pan. In Trinidad, descendants of emancipated slaves, without instruments or the means to acquire them, made music with tuned bamboo trunks, 24"–60" long, which players would bounce upon the ground and alternately strike with a stick. They formed Tamboo Bamboo orchestras to create rich tapestries of rhythm, similar to what would eventually become the classic calypso rhythm.
The pitch from a well-tuned bass pan set is clear, defined, and deep, with lots and lots of low end, almost as if the pans had been miked and put through a giant bass stack.
Later, orchestras slowly introduced more durable metal instruments, such as car brake drums, oil drums, kitchen pots, and biscuit tins. Around 1940, a musician named Winston Simon and some others had the innovative idea to repurpose 55-gallon oil drums—byproducts of T&T’s oil industry—by cutting and tuning them, thus creating the steel pan. This family of instruments would eventually cover the entire pitch gamut of a typical Western orchestra.
Many innovations followed: raising the metal in places to produce more defined pitches, tuning the drums in a “spider” lattice of 5ths, making the pan concave so that more pitches could be accommodated, wrapping the playing sticks in rubber to give a wider dynamic range and more melodic tone, hanging the drums from mechanically isolated stands that allow the free vibration of the pan, etc.
In 1951, the BBC broadcasted a concert featuring the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO) that eventually reached millions across the globe, and the fascination with steel pan orchestras and Calypso music began. If you’ve ever heard a steel pan orchestra play, then you already understand just how awesome their sound can be. But, for me, it’s all about that bass!
Hanging the drums from mechanically isolated stands allows the free vibration of the pan.
Bass pans are the largest in the steel pan family, consisting of no fewer than six tuned 55-gallon full-depth oil drums per player and covering a range from Bb1 to Eb3—approximately two-and-a-half octaves. The sound bass pans produce is far too awesome to describe in words, but if I were to search for one, it would be … bombastic! The undertone is metallic, but the pitch from a well-tuned bass pan set is clear, defined, and deep, with lots and lots of low end, almost as if the pans had been miked and put through a giant bass stack. With four to six sets per orchestra, these are the 808 of the steel pan world. As children, my parents took my siblings and I to the London Notting Hill Carnival, annually. At age 6, I even got to hear orchestras play in T&T! The shuddering sound of the bass pans, as what seemed like hundreds of steel pans played, was always the highlight of those trips. There’s still nothing like it—and this is without discussing the amazing costumes and dancers!
Like the rest of the world, T&T was greatly impacted by the pandemic. This year will mark the third year that there will be few official carnival events. Understand that these orchestras set their clocks by the yearly occurrence of carnival: making new or repairing and tuning older instruments, training new players, selecting repertoire, and rehearsing. However, this trip may still have a slight silver lining. The word on the street is that some pan orchestras will be playing at “the Savannah” (a massive green field in the middle of downtown Port of Spain) tonight! It goes without saying that I will be there to bear witness.
Bass pans may have begun life as abandoned oil drums, but through the enduring desire of a people to express themselves musically, they have become uniquely Trinidadian instruments.
Trinidad All Stars - Woman On The Bass
A YouTube video won’t give you the full physical experience of standing in front of a steel pan orchestra, so you’ll have to use a little imagination, but this 1980 performance of “Woman on the Bass” by the Trinidad All Stars will give you an idea what it’s all about—and make you wanna dance!