"Glad y'all appreciate classical singing," Lou Donaldson said after delivering his lurching, strangled-parrot blues Whisky Drinking Woman. He said it the same way, in the same place, and after the same song last year. Donaldson, a good-humoured 75-year-old alto saxophonist from Carolina, stopped trying to reinvent himself around 1967, when he had his biggest hit with the soul-jazz anthem Alligator Boogaloo. It hardly matters. The show still works.
As last year, Donaldson is accompanied by his Dr Lonnie Smith, a Methuselah-bearded, turban-topped Hammond organ player, and it's still Smith's stagey juggling with the dynamics and shrewd pacing of the organ's firepower that dominates. On Wednesday Donaldson restricted himself to perfunctory summaries of the catchy, stripped-down riffs of his hit tunes, and occasional bursts of the sharp-toned double-time bop runs that tip a hat to Charlie Parker. But, as a group performance, it was a much more varied and animated affair than a year ago. Even Donaldson's, seen- it-all physiognomy registered satisfaction with his young audience's obvious affection.
Grant Green-like guitarists are essential to the 1960s organ/sax band sound and, in Randy Johnston, Donaldson had an excellent one, succinct and percussive on the chord-playing and fleet and light on the solos. Meanwhile, Donaldson sang as much as he played, sounding like Jools Holland with laryngitis.
Smith displayed some sly stagecraft on the ensemble's staple fare, the mid-tempo funk groove. He likes a murmuring, bass-heavy tone while building up a solo, as well as much repetition of a few churchy sounds. Recycling figures and trills emphase that all-important jazz-funk landmark, the big, don't-miss-it chord-change. These overtures make even a noisy audience crane to listen, and when Smith finally bursts out of the shadows into the scorching daylight of a flat-out Hammond blast, theimpact of the pyrotechnics is redoubled.
He demonstrated considerable uptempo virtuosity as the set progressed, and confirmed his walking-bass prowess on the pedals in a special request for the gospelly Reverend Moses. An increasingly effervescent Donaldson threw When the Saints Go Marching In into that, and Flight of the Bumble Bee (a favourite Donaldson quote) into Turtle Walk. That, by the way, is a new release, and it's a piece of... well, I'll be damned... mid-tempo jazz-funk. Hallelujah.
