TBGB Reviews…William Warfield with Bill Carter’s Jazz Band

Bill Carter’s Jazz Band Presents William Warfield
Something Within Me

Delmark 2004
http://www.delmark.com/

Jazz and black sacred music have been dallying for many decades. Ignoring for the moment how gospel music was breathed into life by jazz, there have been many examples of the two together. The teams of Bunk Johnson and Ernestine Washington, Duke Ellington and Mahalia Jackson, Chris Barber and Alex Bradford, Chris Barber and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and the Dukes of Dixieland with Clara Ward come immediately to mind. I’m certain I’m forgetting many more examples.

All things considered, it made sense that when seeking a headliner for a centennial celebration of New Orleans Jazz to be performed in San Francisco in October 2000, conductor and clarinetist William Carter selected the octogenarian William Warfield. Although best known for his “Old Man River,” Warfield performed a great many spirituals in his successful career.

Before teaming up on stage for the centennial celebration, however, Carter and Warfield took their new collaboration into Bay Records in Berkeley to make Something Within Me for Bob Koester’s Delmark label. The two take turns in the spotlight: about half of the tracks showcase Carter’s Jazz Band delivering delicious Dixieland jazz; Carter’s clarinet and Leon Oakley’s trumpet are especially strong and effective on the sacred and secular, the slow drags and the stomps. The group’s performance of “When the Saints Go Marching In” is their finest here, following as it does the cadence of the New Orleans funeral march: half somber, half joyous.

The remainder of the project features Warfield singing spirituals, hymns, and gospels, including the Lucie Campbell-penned title track. The great revelation here, one that was thankfully captured for posterity, is Warfield accompanying himself on piano. Like Carter, I did not know Warfield was a pianist, yet he plays with the sensitivity of a career accompanist. In the liner notes, Carter explains that Warfield’s father was a Baptist preacher, and “literally at his mother’s knee [Warfield had] grown up playing churchy piano as much as singing.” And on at least one track, the jazz ensemble and Warfield combine forces to make heavenly music.

True, Warfield’s baritone is more strident than one will remember from Showboat, but let’s all hope we are singing, playing piano, and performing on stage with as much verve as Bill Warfield when we turn 80. And given that Warfield passed away two years later, the timing couldn’t have been better to capture the legend before he was lost to us forever.

Two and a Half of Four Stars