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MITCH WOODS WITH THE LAZY JUMPERS - JUKEBOX DRIVE

  It was during on of his European tours that Mitch Woods stoped by Barcelona city to team up with Spanish Jump Blues aces The Lazy Jumpers and record the 12 tracks of Jukebox Drive for El Toro Records.
Mitch Woods and The Lazy Jumpers sound on this new album as the jumpin' n' jivin', shoutin' n' honkin', pumpin' n' poundin' bands of the late 40' s and early 50' s; Louis Jordan, Wynonie Harris, Joe and Jimmy Liggins, Amos Milburn, Roy Milton... Adding a healthy dose of New Orleans rhythm and blues, piledrivin' piano, and some of his own contemporary playful lyrics

Track Listing :
1. Jukebox Drive
2. Drunk
3. Boppin' The Boogie
4. Blue Light Boogie
5. Saturday Night Boogie Woogie Man
6. Blues Hangover
7. Boogie Woogie Bar-B-Q
8. Tipitina
9. Boom Boom
10. Parchman Farm
11. Swell Lookin' Babe
12. Mitch's Boogie

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 Thursday, December 13, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
NIGHTLIFE/Mitch Woods Whether playing solo or with his bands, Bay Area
pianist rockets to New Orleans and back, then around the world
Derk Richardson


Mitch Woods is cruising. His boogie-woogie chops regularly propel
the Bay
Area pianist-singer to France, Switzerland and Spain. He gets suits
custom-fitted in Hong Kong at Sam's Tailor, whose clients have included
James Brown and Bill Clinton. And next month, after a bunch of hometown
gigs, Woods sets sail on the Legendary Blues Cruise through the eastern
Caribbean.
"That's my life," Woods said with a jet-lagged laugh the day after he
returned from a jaunt through Thailand. "I'm home a month, then gone a
month." The Legendary Blues Cruise, which also sails out of San Diego in
October, is especially fun for Woods; he hosts the after-hours Mitch
Woods Club 88 piano bar. "It's the late, late, late show," he said, and such
cruise stars as Taj Mahal, Hubert Sumlin and Charlie Musselwhite sit in on
the spontaneous till-dawn sessions.
Classically trained on piano growing up in Brooklyn, Woods started
navigating his course into roots music about 38 years ago, jamming in
clubs around the State University of New York at Buffalo. "I was just
naturally playing the blues, but people would comment that I sounded like
the old boogie-woogie guys," Wood recalled. "So I started asking around
about those guys, and I started buying up all the records I could find by
Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons and Champion Jack Dupree. I really fell
in love with it." When he migrated to California in 1971, people told Woods he
reminded them of Louis Jordan, of "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" fame. "So I
went out and got all the Louis Jordan albums I could find. He wrote great
lyrics, he was a great entertainer - he was a big inspiration."
As he widened his performing circle to shows and festivals outside the Bay
Area, Woods met and played with such giants as John Lee Hooker, James
Cotton, Johnnie Johnson, Earl King and Lee Allen (who all joined him on
his all-star 1996 CD, "Keeper of the Flame"). One of the biggest turning
points came in 1981, on Woods' first trip to New Orleans, when he got
to open for the storied pianist James Booker at the Maple Leaf. "After
that, forget it," Woods said. "For the last 25 years it's been like my second
home." In 2006, Woods released his "Big Easy Boogie" CD, featuring members
of rock 'n' roll pioneer Fats Domino's bands, including saxophonist Herb
Hardesty, drummer Earl Palmer and producer Dave Bartholomew. Now he
performs his trademark "rock-a-boogie" sound solo, with his Rocket 88s
and with his Big Easy Boogie band, always serving as a booster for Crescent
City culture. "Half the city is still destroyed, and a lot of musicians
have left," he acknowledged of post-Katrina New Orleans. "It's a
tragedy. But the clubs and restaurants are all open, and the people there are
determined to bring it back. I always tell people to go - you'll have a
great time." Woods knows that subject as well as anyone.

- Derk Richardson, 96Hours@sfchronicle.com
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Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle
 

"Woods rocks the joint with some of the jumpin 'est piano we've heard.

"Mitch Woods...give heart and soul to jump blues... Woods sings with smooth ebullience

and hammers the piano keys with the unchecked gaiety of mentors Professor Longhair and Amos Milburn."

 

-- Frank-John Hadley, Downbeat

 

"Piano master Mitch Woods [is one of the brightest exponents of West Coast swing,

Kansas City boogie-woogie, and Chicago blues. Woods also has a fine touch for

New Orleans' piano polyrhythms."

 

 --Scott Jordan, Offbeat

 

"1t's not east to play that Professor Longhair piano lick - those rippling rumba triplets

in the right hand against a driving, eight-to-the-bar boogie in the left - but San Francisco's Mitch Woods plays it as well as anyone outside New Orleans ever has... This may be  complicated music to play, but it's very easy music to hear. There's something about the syncopated bounce of boogie-woogie that lifts one's spirits even as it shifts one's shoulders and hips."

 

 --Geoffrey Himes, Washington Post

 

"Few pianists around have better captured the definitive boogie-blues, eight-to-the-bar

styles of Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, Otis Spann, Meade Lux Lewis...and all the rest -

Woods is one of them"

 

 --Philip Elwood, SF Examiner

 

"One of the top boogie/blues piano men around..." Dan Aquilante, NY Post 

 

"...As a keeper of the flame, Woods has always been able to blast headlong through

the inferno on the strength of his dazzling boogie-woogie chops.

 

-- Derk Richardson, SF Bav Guardian

 

" 'Keeper Of The Flame  has to be one of the most uplifting recordings to have vibrated

my woofers in a long time...it's like witnessing one of those breathtaking moments of music where the unspoken communication and the resulting musical dialogue can raise a goose bump or two. .It has the power to charm and to entertain the power to inspire and to motivate. ...Definitely do not miss out."  Maureen DelGrosso, Blues Revue

"If it takes 88 keys to open the door to your heart, then pianist Mitch Woods ought to be your doorman"

 

 --Bill Kisliuk, Southland Blues

           Thank you and the Rocket 88’s for a great performance. You brought the crowd right out of their seats, exactly how I had hoped!!

             -- Dan DeWayne Strawberry Music Festival

          On behalf of the San Francisco Symphony, thank you for performing at the Black & White Ball. I know that everyone loved your set…

          it was one of the most popular venues

      --Queenie Taylor, The Black & White Ball

      Your sets were a definite highlight at the packed Regency Center that night….the audience clearly loved your high-energy, exuberant performance.

-    -Randall Kline, Executive Director, San Francisco Jazz Festival

    Your music was great as always! That last set I thought the floor was going to cave in so many people were really dancing their hearts out.

    You added a great spirit to the evening and everyone enjoyed your music so very much. Thank you and thank you again.

    --Charlene Telford-Tims, Event Chair, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

       It is always a pleasure to have you play at the Giftcenter. You guys were great. Thank you for rocking the party!

        --John Keenan, Giftcenter Pavillion

 

 

You Gotta See This...Check It Out!!

 
The Times-Picayune

Legendary artists put new spin on old R&B

New tracks modeled after 1950s sound

By Keith Spera
Music writer/The Times-Picayune
 

The barrelhouse piano, honking saxophones and driving rhythm could have originated in the back room of J&M Recording, the primitive North Rampart Street studio where Fats Domino made rock 'n' roll history 50 years ago.

But this music bounced earlier this week off the thick brick walls of the Boiler Room, a modern recording facility tucked away in an old Gert Town factory.

It recalled the classic J&M sound for good reason. San Francisco pianist Mitch Woods, a dedicated student of New Orleans rhythm and blues, had written a batch of material modeled after Domino's 1950s hits. To best approximate the sound of those recordings, he went right to the source, enlisting some of the surviving players from the original sessions and current members of Domino's band.

They got together to make music Monday and Tuesday and, in the process, made a little history as well.

Assembled in the Boiler Room were Dave Bartholomew, the producer who orchestrated the Domino sessions and co-wrote many of his hits; Herb Hardesty, the saxophonist on those early recordings; and Earl Palmer, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer who put the beat behind Domino, Little Richard and many others. Rounding out the band were bassist Erving Charles, saxophonists Fred Sheppard, Reggie Houston and Clarence Johnson, and guitarist Jimmy Moliere.

"This is a style of music that I've been playing and studying and learning for years," Woods said. "Obviously, I'm 50 years later than when it was put down. What a treat to be able to have some of those guys who created the music still around, and I could play with them.

"The first day, I was nervous -- this is pretty heavy company. But then all the creative juices started flowing. It was beyond my expectations. I knew it was going to be great, whatever happened, because all the ingredients were there."

To Woods, this was the Big Easy version of the Buena Vista Social Club. Just as American guitarist Ry Cooder rounded up several legends of Cuban music for the Buena Vista project, Woods wanted to show that the surviving originators of New Orleans rhythm and blues were still potent.

Oysters and the blues

Palmer's participation was essential. He is perhaps the most recorded drummer in rock history. His hundreds of credits range from the Domino hits of the early 1950s to the "Tom and Jerry" cartoon theme music. He's worked with Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra, Ritchie Valens and Jan and Dean. His playing on Little Richard's "Lucille" and "Good Golly Miss Molly" is considered a key stepping stone in the evolution of rhythm and blues into rock 'n' roll. In January, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its newly created side-men category.

At 76, Palmer is still recording in Los Angeles; his most recent session was with blues legend B.B. King. The Woods project gave him a reason to return to New Orleans, stock up on oysters and play the sort of rhythm and blues he mastered early in his career.

"I haven't played this kind of stuff in 45 years or so," Palmer said. "I was getting tired -- I'm a lot older now. But you don't ever forget how to do it. It's physical music, of course, but it wasn't that much of a problem. I kept telling the guys, 'There's only one more take in the old man.'

"This wasn't complicated at all, as it shouldn't be. You don't want to complicate this kind of music -- that's what made it last so long."

Palmer and Bartholomew hadn't been in a recording studio together since 1957, the year Palmer moved to Los Angeles. As they joked and reminisced after Tuesday night's session, it was apparent the three still shared an obvious warmth and deep bond.

"We still see each other and keep in touch," Bartholomew said. "They're like family, and I don't forget where I come from."

Bartholomew, who is mostly retired from recording, initially declined Woods' invitation to participate. But when he learned his old friends Hardesty and Palmer were involved, he couldn't resist.

"I had to come," Bartholomew said. "These two guys (Palmer and Hardesty) are my right hand men. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be nothing. They're responsible for my success."

"This man here made us what we are today," Hardesty said, returning Bartholomew's compliment.

Learning the tricks

As expected, Bartholomew became an integral part of the recording process. Sitting in the main room alongside the musicians, he slipped into his role of conductor and coach, offering suggestions on arrangements and individual parts.

"I arranged a few little things, helping out, raising hell with (Woods), telling him he isn't black," Bartholomew said, laughing. "Trying to teach him how to sing the blues. Telling him how to feel it more, that sort of thing."

Jokes aside, Bartholomew was all business during the recording. "Watching him work," said Boiler Room owner Mark Bingham, "you get a sense of why all those hits happened. You see all the trademark stuff, all the little tricks. What he taught everybody around here is really something. And he's still doing it."

The meaning of some of Bartholomew's old-school expressions were lost on Woods. "He'd say, 'Put a goose egg on it,' and I didn't know what he was talking about," Woods said. "It's a whole note that the saxophones do.

"The chemistry that happened . . . Dave came in and he's like, 'Do this, try this,' " Woods said. "He's a great producer. He knows how to get (the best) out of all the guys, and they totally respect him. And he worked with me on my vocals. He'd say, 'Sing it like Charles Brown,' or 'Do this thing that Fats does.' "

A previously recorded Woods album is slated for release early next year on Blind Pig Records; his contract with that label forbids him from releasing another album for at least nine months, so his New Orleans project likely won't be in stores until late next year.

In addition to the Woods originals, they covered one Domino song, "I'm Ready."

"It came out pretty good," Bartholomew said. "I was very well pleased."

And Woods was ecstatic. "My whole idea was to get the guys who created this music, the same elements, to put in these songs," Woods said. "The songs I wrote were right up their alley. They're like, 'Oh yeah, this is what we do here.' "

© 2000, The Times-Picayune. Used with permission.

Bookings & Questions To Mitch Woods:
(email) 
rocket88@gte.net

Mitch Woods & his Rocket 88's
PO Box 545 Mill Valley Ca. 94942
Telephone
(415) 332-1882
FAX
(415) 332-5065