covered here<\/a>) and Etta James. The latter set is culled from recordings made in 1977, 1978, \u201889, \u201890, and \u201893. With a powerful voice and outsize personality, James would have been rapturously received in Montreux. Her material transcended genre, but the one thing she didn\u2019t really pursue was a career as a jazz singer. It\u2019s a testament to the wide net cast by Nobs that James was on the bill. The magnitude of her talent explains the fact that she played there six times.<\/p>\nThe fidelity on these recordings is superb; even the \u201877 recording sounds as if it were made yesterday. And the band always included top-flight players; keyboardist Richard Tee, drummer Steve Ferrone and guitarist Brian Raqy (currently Paul McCartney\u2019s lead guitarist) were all part of the band in July 1977. Nobs himself was onstage in \u201878, \u201890 and \u201893 on harmonica.<\/p>\n
But those players were there to back up Etta James, and they did that. High-energy soul and r&b is the oder of the day on much of this set, though subtlety is on display on numbers like \u201cA Lover is Forever\u201d (1993) and a 1989 recording \u201cDamn Your Eyes.\u2019 the latter was a song off James\u2019 then-current release Seven Year Itch; its inclusion underscores the fact that James wasn\u2019t \u2013 and wasn\u2019t treated like \u2013 a \u201clegacy performer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supercharged tunes like \u201cTell Mama\u201d find the singer in top form, backed by a powerful, classy band. When she digs into the blues (\u201cRunning and Hiding Blues,\u201d \u201cStormy Monday\u201d and others) James does it with conviction and spirit. She and the band rock hard on \u201cBeware,\u201d and she makes tunes popularized by others (\u201cRespect yourself,\u201d \u201cDust My Broom\u201d) her own.<\/p>\n
Of course she turns in a performance of \u201cAt Last,\u201d her signature tune. But the way in which it\u2019s approached shows that James was a forward-looking artist, not content to trade on past glories. The song appears \u2013 in a 1989 performance \u2013 as part of a medley. \u201cI\u2019d like to do a medley of songs I recorded in the early sixties,\u201d she tells the audience.\u201d At that point, I think they thought I was gonna be a jazz singer.\u201d As the medley demonstrates, she could have been. But she was so much more.<\/p>\n
Bob Merlis\u2019 succinct liner note essay hits the high point and puts the Montreux dates into the context of Etta James\u2019 career. The packaging \u2013 mimicking a CD-sized hardcover book \u2013 is superb. Everything about Live at Montreux is spot-on. Here\u2019s looking forward to future releases in the series; with this and the Nina Simone release, BMG has set a high standard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Announced in March 2021, an archive of historically significant musical recordings is now beginning to be shared with the wider listening audience. Run by Claude Nobs, the highly regarded Montreux […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21512,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,42,49,60,62,65,69],"tags":[4630],"class_list":["post-21511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-jazz","category-new-release","category-rb","category-rawk","category-review","category-soul","tag-etta-james","cat-9-id","cat-42-id","cat-49-id","cat-60-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21513,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21511\/revisions\/21513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/etta_james_montreux.jpg\")
Announced in March 2021, an archive of historically significant musical recordings is now beginning to be shared with the wider listening audience. Run by Claude Nobs, the highly regarded Montreux Jazz Festival hosted some of the biggest names in jazz (and beyond) in Switzerland for its annual concerts. In a new arrangement with BMG, selected concerts are seeing release on CD, digital and vinyl.<\/p>\n