New Orleans Piano Legends Dr. John and Henry Butler Come Together for the First Time!
By: A.A. Cristi Jun. 07, 2017
Concert Closes The Town Hall's Most Extensive and Eclectic Presenting Season
The biggest stars of the Big Easy will cap The Town Hall's most extensive and wide-ranging spring season to date. On Thursday, June 15th, pianists and singers Dr. John and Henry Butler, accompanied by Dr. John's legendary backing band, The Nitetrippers, bring the heat, the songs and the swing of New Orleans to Manhattan for a one-of-a-kind musical summit. The show is part of Blue Note Jazz Festival 2017
Dr. John (© James Demaria) Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, 76, better known as Dr. John, is one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from New Orleans over the past 50 years. In fact his work stretches back to the late 50s, when Mac Rebennack became an in-demand producer, player and songwriter working with artists such as James Booker, Professor Longhair and Art Neville. Gris Gris, his 1968 debut album released under the pseudonym Dr. John Creaux, served notice, featuring a combination of voodoo rhythms and chants, jazz, rock and other sounds from the New Orleans music tradition. It was an early highlight of an astonishing career, both as a solo artist and session man, that has earned Dr. John six GRAMMY awards and a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Last year, producer Don Was spearheaded a tribute concert to Dr. John at New Orleans' historic Saenger Theatre. The resulting 2-CD live set, The Musical Mojo of Dr. John: A Celebration of Mac and his Music, featured guest appearances by Bruce Springsteen, John Fogarty, and Mavis Staples, as well as New Orleans stars including Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux.
Reviewing his 2015 tribute show to Louis Armstrong, Rolling Stone critic David Fricke wrote, "Dr. John remains a formidable performer, and force of nature and invention.....a voice pitted with life and trouble but also loaded with the weathered assurance that there is still no place like his home."
Henry Butler (© James Demaria) A ten-time Pinetop Perkins (formerly W. C. Handy) Best Blues Instrumentalist Award nominee, the music of pianist and singer Henry Butler, a Brooklyn resident since 2009, is a thick, spicy gumbo made of blues, jazz, Caribbean rhythms, classical music, pop and R&B. Blinded by glaucoma at birth, Butler has been playing the piano since he was six years old. By the age of twelve he was not only performing regularly but arranging and composing for New Orleans combos while attending elementary school by day.
An exceptional technique and an "encyclopedic New Orleans flair" (The New York Times) allows Butler to move with ease from ragtime and gospel to swaggering second-line rhythms. He is considered the premier exponent of the great New Orleans jazz and blues piano tradition. Butler's most recent recording, 2014's Vipers Drag, with trumpeter and arranger Steven Bernstein and The Hot 9, featured revamped classics by Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton. Reviewing the CD, Jazz Times proclaimed that Butler "personifies the Bayou tradition, past and present." For this historic performance, both pianists will be supported by Dr. John's noted backup band, the Nitetrippers on guitar, bass and drums.
The Town Hall concert will be part of Blue Note Jazz Festival 2017.
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