Johnnie Bassett

The career of a working blues musician is rarely one of continued long term ascendancy. In fact, music careers routinely include more bumps and bruises than those of professionals in law, finance, education or medicine. Those disciplines have a continually rotating clientele with the same needs. They don't have to deal with the problems encountered by musicians. Little, annoying, repetitive occurrences such as getting stiffed by a promoter, getting stiffed by a club owner or getting stiffed by a record label, for openers. This is just the beginning: stolen instruments, a van that breaks down, an audience that wants to hear "Sweet Home Chicago" all night. You get the picture.
And a blues performer utilizes the memory of ALL such events at some time or another in his appearances. The ability to integrate experience into musical performance is one way a blues musician can channel his feelings into his songs. There is no doubt in my mind that Johnnie Bassett uses such methodology, yet he uses it so naturally and with such ease, that you might think he never HAD the blues.
Things started out so well for him. By 1955, still a teenager, he hooked up with pianist Joe Weaver and became part of the house band at Fortune Records, the largest Motor City independent label of the era. Johnnie played on Weaver’s “Baby I Love You So’ as well as hit records by Andre Williams (“Jail Bait”), Nolan Strong and the Diablos and other Detroit groups of the time. He managed to play on some of the early recordings of Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. All that came to an end with a letter from his Uncle Sam inviting him to join the United States Army.
Johnnie was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington for two years and he moved to Seattle upon his discharge where he worked with Johnny “Guitar” Watson and Little Willie John among others. He returned to Detroit in 1965 and began working his own organ trios, as well as playing as a sideman in various local blues bands. In the time-honored tradition, he could provide “music for all occasions”. Or as veteran Detroit radio man Ed Love puts it, “Johnnie is the jazzy side of blues and the bluesy side of jazz.”
So Johnnie operated deep beneath the radar of those outside Detroit until he met up with drummer R.J. Spangler at the 1992 Montreux/Detroit Jazz Festival. Out of that meeting came the blues Insurgents, a band co-led with organist Bill Heid and including tenor man Scott Peterson. When Heid decided to do other things, Johnnie took over the Insurgents adding Chris Codish on organ in 1994 and Keith Kaminski on tenor the following year. This band proved to be one of the finest blues units of the 1990s. Later members included pianist Al Hill and bassist Pat Prouty. There were four CDs by Johnnie, three by Heid that featured Johnnie, and appearances on projects by Joe Weaver and Alberta Adams. When Bettye LaVette scooped up some of these players and Johnnie’s record label went bust, things wound down very quickly.
Some us wondered whether we had heard the last of this remarkably versatile musician. Yet recent evidence suggests that, if anything, Johnnie Bassett is getting even better. Johnnie and Chris Codish have reunited and there is telepathy between them that comes only from the deep understanding of how the other operates. When Al Pryor of Mack Avenue Records heard the group, he was surprised at the strong local following Johnnie had gathered and instantly understood what Ed Love was talking about. When Gretchen Carhartt, owner of Mack Avenue Records, heard Johnnie at the Dirty Dog Jazz Café, the deal was done. She was impressed with Johnnie’s treatment of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia,” the kind of ballad rarely performed by a blues band.
Se we come to THE GENTLEMAN IS BACK, a project three years in the making which includes the involvement of friends old and new. The new sound here is the horn section, which swells to four pieces on five of the nine tracks which feature horns. The material is an admirable mixture of originals from Codish and his father Bob, as well as “Georgia” and individual contributions from Duncan McMillan and Leonard King. Given what you now know about Johnnie Bassett, it should come as no surprise that there are a variety of different grooves; the good time party feeling of “Keep Your Hands Off My Baby,” the organ shuffle of “I Love The Way You Look,” the sly humor of “Meat On Them Bones” and the soulful rendering of “A Woman’s Got Ways” and “I’m Lost.” There are some superlative solo moments from Chris Codish (on organ and piano) and Keith Kaminski (on tenor and baritone) but it is the man on guitar who, rightfully, commands most of the attention.
His guitar sound is the cleanest on the planet. No jive, no distortion, no tricks. He doesn’t waste a note, no flash-all content. It is a jazzman’s touch amidst the deeply felt blues sensibility that makes one think of another Detroit guitar icon, Kenny Burrell.
Even though he would tell you that he never went anywhere, THE GENTLMAN IS BACK and for many of us, that fact comes not a moment too soon.
-Bob Porter, WBGO