The “pages” of BLUES JUNCTION are filled with references to Otis Spann. There isn’t a pianist with whom I have spoken who doesn’t hold his playing in the highest regard. From Fred Kaplan to Barrelhouse Chuck, it is hard to imagine doing it the right way without at least a nod to this legendary musician. In the current edition of our “publication,” I conducted an interview with Jim Pugh. He said about growing up in Chicago and learning the piano, “I tried to play like Otis Spann. I still try and play like Otis Spann when I play the piano.”

In the archive section of our site you will find the recent interview I conducted with pianist Anthony Geraci, whose brand new album comes out on October 16, 2015. Anthony was kind enough to contribute an essay (also in the archives) entitled, Essential Listening. He selected several albums which fit that lofty designation. He began the piece by stating, “Trying to pick just one Otis Spann record is like trying to pick only one recipe from the Joy of Cooking! Chicago pianist Otis Spann is probably the greatest blues pianist of all time. He has graced records with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Rogers, Buddy Guy, Floyd Jones and his own solo recordings.” He went on to cite the album, Otis Spann is the Blues as one of his essential listening picks.

Well that did it. Otis Spann is the Blues is the subject of this month’s Re-Visited feature.

Otis Spann is to the blues piano vernacular what Robert Lockwood Jr. is to the guitar. The album entitled, Otis Spann is the Blues features the pianist of course and his only accompanist is Robert Lockwood Jr. For forty four minutes it is hard, maybe even impossible, to imagine blues music or music of any kind for that matter being any more exhilarating.

Under the supervision of renowned jazz writer and critic Nat Hentoff, Otis Spann is the Blues was recorded in New York City on August 23, 1960. It is the first album Spann released under his own name. It is the first single artist release on Hentoff’s new and short lived Candid label. The 30 year old Spann had already established himself as an important player and an integral part of the Muddy Waters Band, who just had their triumphant performance at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 3^rd, a few weeks earlier.  

It was Spann who actually closed that show as he sang the hastily written Langston Hughes tune Goodbye Newport Blues. Nat Hentoff wrote. “It was the first time I’d heard Spann sing and I was struck by the fact that he is as naturally individual a vocalist as he is a pianist.” That statement of course says a lot. More importantly it is spot on.  

As for Robert Lockwood Jr., by 1960, the 45 year old was also an established commodity. He had been the longtime collaborator with Sonny Boy Williamson 2. By the 50’s he was also recording with Little Walter as well many of the biggest names in the blues field.  

It has been widely acknowledged that Lockwood was the only guitar student Robert Johnson ever had but the nickname “Robert Junior” Lockwood which was attached to him would become a source of irritation for the dynamic and innovative guitarist and vocalist.

Lockwood almost immediately developed his own voice on the guitar. His great contribution on his instrument was his ability to work in an ensemble setting. His backing of harmonica players is still considered the gold standard. Here he demonstrates he is equally effective working with a pianist. He is also a terrific vocalist as evidenced on this recording.

As for Johnson, he was a virtual unknown who had been dead for 28 years before Columbia released the album entitled, Robert Johnson The King of the Delta Blues Singers in 1961. The John Hammond produced album was met with such fanfare that it helped to usher in the folk/blues movement of the early 60’s where pre-war country blues men from the back woods were rediscovered. The ethno, and to some extent geo, centric nature of this movement aside, for better or for worse, white America had discovered the blues.

On the other hand Otis Spann and Robert Lockwood Jr. had never left. Their brand of blues was not dependent on any current trend of esoteric acceptance from a white academic standpoint. It had an audience which Spann described this way, “Most people who come to see us, work hard during the day. What they want from us are stories. The blues for them is something like a book. They want to hear stories out of their own experiences and that’s the kind we tell.”

On the other hand those audiences were described using the parlance of the day by French jazz critic Jacques Demetre as being “...just Negros among Negros. Not only do the white people ignore them (the artists), but practically nobody in American Negro High Society cares for them.”

So the blues of Otis Spann, Robert Lockwood, Jr., even Muddy Waters and others, were relegated to the jazz writers who were just “slumming” it. It wasn’t long before blues was passed onto the rock press from which it was (and still is) viewed through that prism. So the blues went from being the rented mule of the jazz press to a misunderstood afterthought of the rock press. This, I suppose, is in part at least a contributing factor to the genre being fairly misunderstood by the general public. I always thought it deserved better, but what the heck do I know?

Yet the beauty of the music comes in part from the fact that it was created in this American segregated racial vacuum which wasn’t even attempting to reach a mainstream audience, let alone the press. It wasn’t trying to appeal to commercial interests. It was made for “the hard working people” who would come out to hear the blues at Smitty’s Corner on 35^th and Indiana Avenue on Chicago’s Southside. The great irony is that decades later this music speaks to everyone.

In addition to the tracks on this album, which were laid down on August 24, 1960, a whole other batch of material from those sessions would eventually appear on the album, Walkin’ the Blues which also features vocalist Saint Louis Jimmy. All of these sides along with bonus tracks are gathered up and appear on a two disc 40 track album which also includes some random sides Spann cut as a sideman with Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Little Walter and others entitled, Ebony and Ivory Blues.

Spann would continue to make compelling music throughout the decade of the 1960’s both as a leader and sideman. He recorded with various combinations of musicians and instrumental accompanists for several different labels. Spann amassed over this period of time a recorded legacy that stands as a monument to his prodigious talent.

Spann, as much as any single player, helped to develop the language of the piano in the blues idiom and then continued to speak in that dialect with exceptional, articulated eloquence for the duration of his short life.

Otis Spann died on April 24, 1970, of liver cancer at the age of 40. He was buried in an unmarked grave at Burr Oak Cemetery in the Chicago suburb of Alsip, Illinois. On June 6, 1999, nearly thirty years later in a private ceremony a marker was placed on the grave that read, “Otis played the deepest blues we ever heard - He’ll play forever in our hearts.” Anyone who has ever heard Otis Spann is the Blues already has this epitaph engraved on their soul.

- David Mac