It’s 1982. Let’s say you’re visiting New Orleans
and you want to get out of the touristy French Quarter, past the scammers
telling you they know where you got your shoes and into some less dressed up
version of the city. Maybe you find yourself heading a little bit west to the
Uptown neighborhood of Carrollton and you drop into the legendary Maple Leaf
Bar on Oak Street. Maybe you weren’t even planning to do it, but the sounds of
a piano spilling out into the street and a wild, high, bluesy voice drew you
in. And there, inside the small and loosely crowded bar, a vocally enthusiastic
crowd is swinging, clapping, and snapping to the loopy rhythms of a skinny man
with an eye patch seated at the piano. That man, you find out, is James Booker,
and he’s been the house pianist here from the mid-70s until today.
Asking around a bit you find out that he is, to be kind, a bit of
an eccentric with a widely-acknowledged drug problem. Sometimes he’ll stop
mid-song and stare forward at something nobody else can see, sometimes he won’t
touch the piano but will sit there talking into the mic (much to the
consternation of the crowd who are there to hear him play), sometimes he doesn’t
show up at all. But tonight he’s there showing off his prodigious,
classically-schooled chops and it’s a hot set, bouncing from classics like
“Junco Partner” (which he absolutely owns and could’ve written about himself) and
“St. James Infirmary” to Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona to Chopin’s “Minute
Waltz” in the blink of an eye. And those are just the songs he plays in their
entirety; there are also the medleys.
Normally, you’d think, a
medley is a showcase meant to edit down familiar hits the artist is tired of
playing to satisfy their regular fans. Not so, here - they’re the highlights,
with Booker’s broad tastes (and humor, definitely his sense of humor) in full
effect as he makes associations that lead him through a nearly 10-minute
grouping that hits two Larry Williams tunes, a Stax staple followed by a Motown
staple, and then ends on his own “Classified.” The title? - “Medley: Slow
Down/Bony Maronie/Knock On Wood/I Heard It Through The Grapevine/Classified.”
And it’s a glorious demonstration of his dazzling timing, his vocals that veer
from resolutely soulful to a wild yodel, his ornately filigreed piano style,
and once again, his timing, with its deep-in-the-pocket funk even when it’s lurching
or careening forward at a rocketing tempo. And that crowd, oh, the crowd –
they’re with him for every beat, eating right out of the palm of his hand. It’s
a masterful way to kick off the album and it rolls right into the seven and a
half equally rollicking minutes of “Tico Tico” mixed with Booker’s own terrific
“Papa Was A Rascal.” And then it just keeps going for 72 minutes total.
And now it’s 2018. This
CD, with every aforementioned performance (and more), was released 25 years
ago, collected from over 60 hours of performances recorded on the Maple Leaf’s
house system between 1977 and 1982, the year before Booker passed away at only
43. Somewhere in there while playing at the club Booker met Harry Connick Sr.
and took a very young Harry Connick Jr. under his wing as a student and
protégé, teaching him piano technique, sometimes inviting him up to play
alongside him on the piano bench. Dr. John was once heard to describe him as "the
best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever
produced." And though his recording career was sporadic - a few studio
sessions and some live (mostly) European dates interrupted by stretches in jail
- Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah (and
its nearly-as-good all-instrumental companion piece Spiders on the Keys) showcase Booker’s genius in a succession of
high points without the inconsistencies that nearly everyone who talks fondly
about Booker notes as a result of his problems
with drugs and alcohol. It’s how you can imagine he would be on a good night,
and you can easily put yourself right into the Maple Leaf on a warm night in
1982, listening to him masterfully work the keyboard with his over-the-top
flourishes skirting right on the edge of absurdity, but somehow keeping it all
right in the pocket. It’s a beautiful thing and a great tribute to this
troubled genius.
-
Patrick Brown
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