Duke Robillard And His All Star Band – Blast Off!
12 songs – 53 minutes
Any release by the legendary Duke Robillard is cause for celebration, whether it’s one of his 35+ solo albums, his membership of bands such as Roomful Of Blues and The Fabulous Thunderbirds or when he’s contributing to or producing albums by the likes of Johnny Adams, Al Basile, Bob Dylan or Joe Beard as a sideman. He is a top drawer singer, songwriter and producer, and a stellar guitar player.
The cover of Blast Off! is intriguing, with an inherent conflict between the explosive, uplifting album title (complete with exclamation point!) and the image of Duke floating in space, nonchalantly relaxing with a guitar in an old leather armchair. And that incongruity continues into the music itself, if the listener is expecting Blast Off! to be a guitar-lover’s utopia, as so many of Duke’s previous albums have been. Instead, what we have here is Duke as band-leader, a role he has played off-and-on since his Roomful days, with a varied but also very traditional collection of songs from many of the genres he has mastered over the years, including blues, swing, jazz and R&B. There are a few tasty guitar solos throughout the album, but the focus here is very much on the ensemble, with a lot of room for the horn players to stretch out. Further, Duke only sings on one track (and that is a duet), handing over the vocal duties to Chris Cote (who absolutely nails a wide range of styles).
Blast Off! features nine well-chosen covers and three originals, including two instrumentals as well as “Feel My Cares”, the first recording of a minor key blues song that Robillard wrote 60 years ago. The two instrumentals are the guitar-driven title track, which cleverly builds tension through repeated key changes, going up by half a step a time, and the Steve Cropper homage by way of The Meters, “Galactic Grease”. The covers range from Floyd Dixon’s swinging “When I Get Lucky”, Guitar Slim’s “Stand By Me” and Tampa Red’s “Look a There Look a There” to wonderful obscurities such as the Rocking Brothers’ mid-50s instrumental, “Play Boy Hop”, on which James’ muscular sax playing really shines, or Allen Toussaint’s “Confusion” where Bear’s piano is to the forefront. There’s even a raucous, gut-bucket cover of Tom Waits’ “Lowdown”.
Robillard produced the album, which was recorded and mixed by John Paul Gauthier at Lakewest Recording, East Greenwich, RI, with mastering by John Mailloux at Bongo Beach Productions, all of whom deserve credit for capturing some masterful performances in crystalline clarity but with plenty of the necessary grit and grim these songs require.
The aptly-named All Star Band comprises Robillard’s longtime musical cohorts, Bruce Bears (keyboards), Marty Ballou (bass) and Mark Teixiera (drums), together with Cote (vocals and guitar and lead guitar on the soul ballad, “Warm And Tender Love”), Doug James and Mark Earley on sax, plus Jeff “Doc” Chanonhouse on trumpet and Billy Novick on clarinet on a killer version of Louis Armstrong’s “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead (You Rascal You)” – Novick also adds clarinet to Count Basie’s “The King”.
Blast Off! is an absolute delight from start to finish. This is an album that rewards repeated listening. Great stuff.
