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Ma Rainey
“Mother of the Blues”
The first popular stage entertainer to incorporate authentic blues in her song repertoire, Ma Rainey performed during the first three decades of the twentieth century, enjoying widespread popularity during the blues craze of the 1920s. Her consistency over her five year recording career and the high quality of her accompanist’s portray her talents as far more worthwhile than those of many blues singers.
Gertrude Pridgett was born on April 26, 1886, in Columbus, Georgia. Her parents were minstrel show performers, and she went right into the entertainment business since a young age. She worked at the Springer Opera House in 1900, performing as a singer and dancer in the local talent show, "A Bunch of Blackberries." Around 1902 she heard a ‘strange and poignant lament’ while traveling through Missouri, and afterwards started bringing blues into her act. Pridgett married traveling singer William "Pa" Rainey in 1904 and billed as “Ma and Pa Rainey” the couple toured Southern tent shows and cabarets. By 1915, the Raineys were touring with Fat Chappelle's Rabbit Foot Minstrels. They were billed as the "Assassinators of the Blues" with Tolliver's Circus and Musical Extravaganza. Separated from her husband in 1916, Rainey subsequently toured with her own band, Madam Gertrude Ma Rainey and Her Georgia Smart Sets, featuring a chorus line and a Cotton Blossoms Show, and Donald McGregor's Carnival Show.
Already a popular singer in the Southern theater circuit; Rainey entered the recording industry as an experienced and stylistically mature talent. She had a deep contralto voice and sang with great power and feeling, in broad impressive sweeps of sound. Her songs were boisterous, yet melancholic and her low down meaning blues were without rival. She gave the public a distinctly Southern folk based music, singing about life’s joys and sorrows in a poetic but simple direct language. All the years on the road performing in tent shows at a close personal level with her audience carried over to her recordings, giving them credibility.
Ma Rainey first recorded for the Paramount label in 1923. Her first session, cut with Lovie Austin and Her Blue Serenaders, featured the traditional number "Bo-Weevil Blues". That was followed by the release of "Moonshine Blues," again with Austin, and "Yonder Comes the Blues" with Louis Armstrong. That same year, Rainey recorded "See See Rider," which has since become a blues standard. Ma Rainey’s was the first recording of that song, giving her a hold on the copyright, and one of the best of the more than 100 versions.
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New Releases and Celebrations for Blossom Dearie, Ma Rainey and More
by Mary Foster Conklin
This broadcast features new releases from the Steven Feifke Big Band, the Alpha Rhythm Kings, Nicki Parrott, Esperanza Spalding, Chien Chien Lu, Norah Jones and the Art of Time Ensemble with birthday shoutouts to Mother of the Blues Ma Rainey, Blossom Dearie, Shirley Horn, Connie Crothers, and Mary Ann McSweeney, among others. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by purchasing their music during this time of lockdown. Playlist Nora Germain Candy" from Nora Germain ...
Continue ReadingErnie Watts, Chuck Rainey, Liane Carroll, Impossible Gentlemen For Sligo Jazz Project 2015
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Sligo Jazz Project
Sligo Jazz Project is now taking bookings for its 10th Anniversary summer school and festival event, 21-26 July 2015. Its stellar 2015 15-tutor faculty, which includes Grammy winning US saxophone legend Ernie Watts, award winning UK vocalist Liane Carroll, Band-in-Residence The Impossible Gentlemen and recording legend Chuck Rainey (Steely Dan/ Aretha Franklin, etc.), will preside over an intense but inspiring week of workshops, masterclasses, concerts and jam sessions. All tutors will perform concerts at Sligo's unique jazz festival. The faculty ...
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STLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Improvising with Laubrock, Rainey and Damon
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Today, we've got a series of videos featuring saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, drummer Tom Rainey and drummer Tyler Damon, who will be the visiting performers at New Music Circle's final concert of the season at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, May 20 at the William S. Kerr Foundation, 21 O'Fallon St. on Laclede's Landing. Active in the NYC and international improvised music scenes, Laubrock and Rainey played in St. Louis last year as part of pianist Kris Davis' group. This time, they'll do ...
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Jazz This Week: Bucky Pizzarelli and John Pizzarelli, Tatsuya Nakatani, Bhob Rainey, Dave Dickey Big Band, and More
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This weekend's calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis includes a few final chances to hear some holiday jazz, as well as music from a famed father-and-son team of guitarists and two evenings featuring touring free improvisors. Let's go to the highlights... Tonight, guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli and John Pizzarelli open a four-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro, continuing through Saturday. While John Pizzarelli is a St. Louis favorite who has appeared here many times at the Bistro ...
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Jazz This Week: Bhob Rainey, Dogtown All-Stars, John King, Joe Mancuso, Kasimu Taylor, and More
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Holiday hustle and bustle will be in full effect for the next couple of weeks, but if you've got time to get out and hear some live jazz this weekend, here are some upcoming gigs in and around St. Louis to consider.... Tonight, guitarists Eric Slaughter and Tom Byrne will co-lead a quartet at Troy's Jazz Gallery, the recently opened venue on Olive just west of Taylor in the Central West End . On Friday, the Dogtown All-Stars begin a ...
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Bhob Rainey to Perform Sunday, December 23 at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
In what's become a holiday tradition, improvising saxophonist Bhob Rainey will be back in St. Louis just before Christmas to perform at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. The concert at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 23 also will include sets from composer Jack Callahan and epicycle, featuring Travis Snyder and Mark Sarich. This is the eighth year running that Rainey (pictured) has played a late-December date at LNAC. A prolific collaborator both live and on record, his most recent album is ...
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Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson Opening at Huntington Theatre Company in Boston on Friday, March 9
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MassJazz: Jazz in Massachusetts
Huntington Theatre Company is presenting August Wilson's award-winning play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Boston University Theatre, from March 9 through April 8, 2012. The play is part of Wilson's Century Cycle, and was Wilson's first Broadway hit. In the play, legendary 1920s blues singer Ma Rainey and her musicians gather in a run-down Chicago studio to record new sides of old favorites when generational and racial tensions suddenly explode. Find ticket information here. See a full schedule of ...
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This Week On Riverwalk Jazz: Blues Queens Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey
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Don Mopsick
This week on Riverwalk Jazz, actor Vernel Bagneris and singer Topsy Chapman join The Jim Cullum Jazz Band in a tribute to Ma Rainey, her Rabbit Foot Minstrels and blues shouters of the Deep South in the 1920s. The program is distributed in the US by Public Radio International, on Sirius/XM sattelite radio and can be streamed on-demand from the Riverwalk Jazz website. Long before Mamie Smith had the first hit blues recording in 1921, blues shouters" in traveling tent ...
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Jazz This Week: Bhob Rainey, Rodney Lancaster and Doug Bert, Marcus Baylor and Free Day, and More
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
As one might expect given that a number of local venues are closed for the Christmas holidays, the calendar of live jazz and creative music in St. Louis is a bit sparse over the next week, but there still are a few performances worth noting wrapped around the holiday weekend. Let's go to the highlights... On Thursday night, the annual Noel-A-Thon" concert takes place at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups. The seven-hour show features an eclectic mix of St. Louis ...
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Bhob Rainey to Play Thursday, December 23 at Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This just in: Saxophonist Bhob Rainey (pictured) will return to St. Louis for a performance at 8:30 p.m. this Thursday, December 23 at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center. According to Rainey's website, this will be the eighth year in a row that the Boston-based improvisor has done a pre-Christmas show at LNAC. Working with extended techniques, multiphonics and standing resonant frequencies, Rainey 'plays the room' more literally than any performer you will ever see," says the news release from LNAC. ...
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Tom Rainey Trio - Pool School (Clean Feed)
Source:
Master of a Small House
A much-belated case of giving the drummer some", Tom Rainey's debut as a leader is long-overdue formal recognition of his substantial talents. Leave it to the relentlessly prolific Clean Feed label to recognize and rectify the lapse. Rainey's appeared on a number of the imprint's releases over the years and his gig docket remains reliably full via projects with Tim Berne and a host of others. Typical to form and true to the press blurb on the CF website, this ...
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