Quote:
For me, Giant Step is a 'comfort record', taking me right back to the days of my youth ... and beyond.
Probably one of the first black artists I really got into maybe because his brand was kinda easy listenin' blues. I hadn't been turned on the great bluesmen such as Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, etc, at that stage. Taj also had an infectious sense of fun which differentiated him from most heavy-duty, hard-core bluesmen. Black or white. He was fun to be around. He was cheeky. He was sassy. And he warm spirited. Plus his band of white journeymen really cooked. Six Days Upon the Road ... what a great bouncy ballsy number that is. Couldn't help but put you in a good mood. Plus the lyrical sentiment was all upbeat and comfort, starting with the title song ... 'Remember the feeling as a child when you woke up and morning smiled ...'
Disk 2, De Ole Folks at Home, takes you into some fabled time down in Dixi someplace ... back on the slave plantation with the old folks, whistlin' Dixi, pluckin' the banjo on the front porch, eatin' chitlins, and giving women the wink. A mythical realm as foreign to Taj Mahal as to his largely white audience. He was after all born in Harlem, New York, and grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. But the appeal of the plantation has deep roots in American culture. 'I Wish I Was in Dixie' was the best-known song to have come out of blackface minstrelsy. It became the Confederate states' anthem at the beginning of the Civil War. And yet it was written by a Northerner - Ohio-born minstrel Dan Emmett. By the end, Northern Unionists and Southern Confederates alike were bellowing out their own versions and all wishing they were in Dixiland. Taj taps right on in there to that mythical land beyond time.
But Taj didn't really have the typical bluesman's pedigree. His dad was a West Indian jazz arranger and piano player. Hence, no doubt, Taj's lifelong penchant for reshaping the blues by fusing it with non-trad forms such as the sounds of the Caribbean, Africa, and South Pacific.
But Taj is totally his own man. He fashioned a unique role for himself in the great American Blues tradition. One that draws on the mighty roots of the music down with de ole folks on the plantation, through the long migration north up the Mighty Mississipi, right back to Africa, and beyond. But he never lost that sense of fun and frivolity that first appealed to a pimply faced white boy looking for an identity of his own.
I just never understood why he used the stage name Taj Mahal. What was wrong with Henry Saint Clair Fredericks? Either way, Taj deserves a ranking up there with the Blues and R 'n B greats.
BTW, take a good listen to A Little Soulful Tune ... it'll teach you everything you need to know about syncopation. I'm sure that's where Steve Reich learned the art. But he never did anything with the sense of fun that Taj does.
