Rock and Pop Review - Booker T
June 4, 2010
Booker T
at the Jazz Cafe
by DAN CARRIER
DIDN'T he sound wonderful – and didn't he look good?
Hammond organ legend Booker T may be into his seventh decade, but judging by his performance at the Jazz Cafe on Friday night, this man has plenty of gas in the tank.
It helps, of course, to have a name that means any self-respecting funk musician will bend over backwards to secure a spot on stage with him, and the guitarist who played lead was incredible to watch, as was his bassist, drummer and assorted others.
Booker T's reputation was forged through his session work at Stax records, the home of Motown, and the soul music he was behind still sounds as fresh today as it did back then.
He had stood at the front, and played the guitar to some of the classics: Hold On, I'm Coming, I've Been Loving You Too Long and Who's Making Love – and while it was nice to hear such classics played by a legend and backed by a seriously funky band, it wasn't what we had really come for: the fun properly started when he sat back down at his Hammond organ (which my friend Colin said looked like a very large fitted kitchen) and began to work his way through some the later hits.
The funky loops of Melting Pot, the title track of a 1970 album that took Booker T and the MG's away from Motown and kick started new York's funk scene (it was a classic played at block parties), upped the pace and gave the musicians – Booker of course included – more scope to show off.
The Jazz Cafe does a good line in hosting the men and women who have created a sound that still reverberates through the decades: the likes of Lee Scratch Perry and Ginger Baker have appeared in recent times, and their booking policy brings together those who have made a stamp, and others who are in the process of doing so. Booker's stamp is obvious. He brought the Hammond out of Gospel Sunday sessions in churches and made it move. He's lost none of that magic today.