Summary.
An unlikely contributor to the hippy civilization was
the eclectic jazz and rhythm'n'blues pianist
Dr John (Mac Rebennack),
heir to the glorious New Orleans tradition,
who had moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1965.
Dr John concocted
Gris Gris (1968), an exuberant carnival of creole folklore that runs the
gamut from orgiastic jams to swamp/voodoo blues, from African rhythms
to Mardi Gras-style fanfares, notably the seven-minute
I Walk on Guilded Splinters.
Dr John would endorse the relaxed soul-funk-rock of the "realignment" age, for
example on In the Right Place (1973), and eventually land a career
as a distinguished jazz musician, notably with
the solo piano collection Plays Mac Rebennack (1981).
Full bio.
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Dr John is a picturesque character who married hippie civilization to the colorful folklore of Mardi Gras, heedless of the obvious contradictions in terms, and armed with a musical eclecticism that has few rivals. His prodigious musical cannibalism brought him to the forefront of both rock and jazz, with the suspicion that in the latter he might have achieved far greater success.
During the 1960s Mac Rebennack, a white pianist in the purest black tradition of New Orleans, was a session musician, composer, and arranger for many of the city�s performers. In the 1950s he wrote famous hits in the New Orleans milieu: Lights Out, What's Going On, Lady Luck. He was only 17 when he recorded Storm Warning (1959). In 1965 he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for Phil Spector and many others. Meanwhile he was forming small bands with bizarre names, in keeping with the freak practices of the time, also recording Zu Zu Man (A&M, 1965), and practicing the voodoo religion. In 1968 he arrived at the most ingenious invention of his life, the alter ego of Dr John Creaux, nicknamed the �night tripper.� In that guise, and surrounding himself with a tribe of New Orleans exiles, he recorded Gris Gris (Atco, 1968), a festive fresco of New Orleans Creole folklore, rendered through tribal and orgiastic jams such as Gris Gris Gumbo (where swamp blues meets Hare Krishna aesthetics), Croker Courtbouillon (built on a classicizing harpsichord-and-flute riff), and I Walk On Gilded Splinters (seven minutes), jams devastated by the leader�s maniacal howls and wrapped in a web of funky, Middle Eastern, and African vibrations, which live turned into carnivalesque rituals reminiscent of Mardi Gras parades (Danse Kalinda Ba Doom and Danse Fambeaux).
The tracks on Babylon (1969) emphasized rhythm�n�blues and soul stereotypes, dimming the brilliant madness of the debut. Influenced by San Francisco acid rock, Dr John bastardized that pyrotechnic sound and those arcane atmospheres with tasteless psychedelic effects, even filling one side of Remedies (1970) with a shapeless Angola Anthem. After The Sun Moon And Herbs (1971), which features Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, and Gumbo (1972), a revival of his local piano mentors through New Orleans classics, the hit Right Place Wrong Time from In the Right Place (1973) propelled a calmer �fonk� (tribal, spirit-possessed funk) into the charts. Desitively Bonaroo (Label M, 1974) tried to repeat the success with Rite Away and Quitters Never Win, but merely demonstrated the weakness of the idea. Hollywood Be Thy Name (UA, 1975), recorded mostly live, even tried to color his funk with hard rock. The old hippie had by then taken everything back, even voodoo, and was producing nothing more than second-rate commercial music.
City Lights (Horizon, 1978) and Tango Palace (Horizon, 1979) are the albums that in effect inaugurated his jazz career, although the material is largely rhythm�n�blues and the arrangements flirt with dance music. The solo piano album Plays Mac Rebennack (Clean Cuts, 1981) resurrected him. Half of Brightest Smile In Town (Clean Cuts, 1983) continues that line. These spaced-out piano solos also brought him to the attention of jazz critics (on the first stands out Memories of Professor Longhair).
But silence fell once again on Dr John, broken only by a record of pop covers, In a Sentimental Mood (Warner, 1989).
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
His jazz ambitions became more serious with
Bluesiana Triangle (Windham Hill, 1990), featuring Art Blakey on drums
and David Newman on sax, and Bluesiana II (Windham Hill, 1991), that
replaces Blakey (who had died) with another bunch of jazz musicians.
After paying tribute to the New Orleans sound on
Goin' Back to New Orleans (Warner, 1992),
Dr John delivered a technically impeccable collection,
Television (GRP, 1994), which features few originals
and many covers, and
Afterglow (Blue Thumb, 1995), another dose of pop and jazz covers, even
arranged for big band, mixed
with a few tasty originals.
A number of young British musicians paid tribute to Dr John on
Anutha Zone (Virgin, 1998).
Dr John, in turn, paid tribute to Duke Ellington
and then released Creole Moon (2001).
N'Awlinz (Blue Note, 2004) is another tribute to New Orleans
(sixteen covers of classics and two originals).
The Best of the Parlophone Years (2005) is an anthology of the 1998-2004
period.
Sippiana (2005) containes the four-movement suite Hurricane Suite,
dedicated to the victims of the "Katrina" hurricane that destroyed New Orleans
in 2005.
Mercenary (2006) is a tribute to lyricist Johnny Mercer.
City That Care Forgot (2008) was basically an angry rant following the
hurricane that destroyed the city.
Tribal (2010) went beyond the anger and the sorrow and returned Dr John
to the Feel Good Music of his roots.
This album was a sort of tour de force for him, including
a horn section, a string section and a vocal trio.
The sound was one of the best of his career, and the eclectic romp through
so many styles seemed to be a self-tribute to his endless curiosity.
Behind every experiment lay his roots in psychedelic blues-rock, the common
thread throughout his career.
Locked Down (2012) was a bit less spectacular in its revisitation of
the Sixties, but added sophisticated production and arrangement nuances that
owed something to Afro-pop and dub (Revolution, Ice Age).
Ske-Dat-De-Dat (2014) was
a tribute album to Louis Armstrong.
Dr John died in 2019 at the age of 77.
