Journeyman

Duke Robillard is headed home

by Michael Caito

"Christmas and New Year's around Boston and Providence is always a great thing," guitarist Duke Robillard said last week from his Kentucky home. "My show will be from all parts of my career as it usually is."

Both parts of that statement are cause for celebration, as the Westerly native returns for a semi-annual visit with bassist Marty Ballou, drummer Marty Richards, Mark Braun on piano and saxophonist Gordon Beadle. Duke's latest, Dangerous Place (Pointblank), will probably spend a good deal of time on the Billboard charts, as did its predecessor, Duke's Blues. And the Roomful co-founder has contributed music to films (Jack Nicholson's Blood & Wine) and television (Homicide). This in addition to the blinding array of recording invites -- Bob Dylan, Jimmy Witherspoon (a '95 session which also included Scott Hamilton), Ruth Brown and Kansas City royalty, pianist Jay McShann.

Many have heard the Muddy Waters quote about Duke ("If I had Duke, I'd rule the world!"), but it's Waters' band alum Jerry Portnoy who makes an appearance on Dangerous Place's "Can't Remember to Forget." The newest record is, as has been the case for a while now, another highlight reel of impeccable phrasing and swinging, blessed with a splash of self-deprecation. Try "I May Be Ugly (But I Sure Know How to Cook)." What else will we hear? Let's check the source.

Duke Robillard: The ways things usually work with me is I can take left turns at any time into any different avenue I've explored. The main focus is on the last two albums, but every now and then a tune or two that I recorded with Roomful, or Igo back to my original solo album. But then I'm always one for pulling out an obscure blues tune. Jump and swing is always a part of that too.

Q: You've heard about the latest Roomful revamp?

A: I heard a little, but don't quite know what's going on.

Q: I can listen to [departing singer/harmonica player] Ray Norcia all night. What an amazing voice. And [departing trombonist] Carl Querfurth had done a lot of production on their recent releases which did quite well. [note: that duo's farewell show with Roomful is New Year's Eve at Rhodes with the High Rollers opening]. But anyway . . . .

Q: Do your ears burn a lot from hearing so many blues, R&B and, increasingly, jazz musicians referring to you as a contemporary, definitive authority? Did you teach while you were living here?

A: There was a time when things were very slow for me . . . the early '80s, when electronic music was very popular. Igot to about 16, 17, 18 students and did that for a year or two, then things started taking off with my first album. I found I had a huge following in, of all places, Scandinavia, and started touring there and around the world. I don't know how good I was at [teaching]. I always tried to give as much information as I could. I remember a few people leaving my house with an hour lesson feeling like they learned what it took me 20 years to learn.

Q: If you took an aspiring guitarist shopping . . .

A: Oh, God . . .

Q: Are there specific instruments which have remained special to you throughout your career?

A: I trade guitars, because I like to experience all the different things that are out there, different vintages and new instruments. Iwould say my Gibson L-5 is one that, for several years now, has never done me wrong, always sounded great and performed perfectly, even though it was crushed in an airplane baggage hold. Not enough to destroy it, but Ihad all the cracks fixed and it never changed a thing. I'm very fond of old Epiphones. My favorite American factory production guitar is a vintage Epiphone. They had a special way of making arch-top guitars, especially acoustic ones, '30s-'40's style. Of course, I'm never without a Stratocaster; Teles I love, though I don't own one at the moment. I'm currently playing a brand new American Standard Stratocaster. Great guitar.

There was a void in the '70s when all the major companies were doing pretty shoddy jobs, and they were disrespecting the aesthetics of their own. And they got hip to that -- that collectible guitars were what everybody wanted, and a lot of the companies went back to making things and upping the standards to be consistent. Besides that, companies like Gibson and Fender started custom shops for people who wanted a new guitar built just like it was in the 1950s. That's the way it should be, though now they cost quite a bit more, maybe eight times more than in the '50s.

Q: So you'd recommend trying different styles of instruments?

A: No, it's a personal thing. I personally admire the guitarist who picks the guitar up off the rack, buys it, never sets it up. If that works for them that's great. Which is kind of a coincidence for me . . . Iworked at the Guild guitar factory in Westerly right after I got out of high school. Worked on and off for about a year-and-a-half. I learned a lot, and one thing was that they were sometimes made by people who didn't know a lot about them. Learning that sent me on a quest.

Q: For the Holy Guitar Grail.

A: It's a curse, but I've been lucky to have success doing something I love to do.

Q: What of the physical and mental demands of years touring worldwide?You must need time for sanity maintenance.

A: Number one important thing is livin' a clean life. That's absolutely number one. You have to care of yourself to get to be rested as you grow and mature. People who come hear me play the guitar deserve that, and I'm thankful. There were times when they didn't . . . you know, guys sitting at a bar then walking out and they don't really care who you are. To have a fan base of people who love what I do, I really appreciate that.

Q: And they're all over the world. Have you played the Far East?

A: We went to Hong Kong twice, though I don't know when we'll go back, given the economic problems they're having right now. Last year we went to Australia and New Zealand . . . Brazil three times.

Q: Numerous jazz composers have incorporated Brazilian elements. Were you tempted?

A: I appreciate it when I hear it, but it doesn't seem to touch my roots, though I recently heard in Louisville Mark Davis and Marilynn Mair [a.k.a., the Mair-Davis Duo], and they invited me to a Classical Mandolin Convention. That was an incredibly beautiful experience. They performed in this acoustically perfect hall, their son played bass, and it really hit home to me -- the soul of the music. They're great musicians.

Q: They're playing with Clean & Friendly on First Night if you're around.

A: I'll be in Schenectady.

Q: Unfair question:with whom do you want to record?

A: Oh, there's tons. I'll be doing another one with Jay McShann [following this year's Hootie's Jumpin' Blues (Stony Plain)].He is Kansas City jazz, which represents what I'm about . . . blues with really good melody and improvisation and riff jazz with very basic progressions with a lot of feel and swing. That'll be another great experience. Somebody like B.B.King . . . that's always been a dream of mine, but Iguess you have to reach a certain commercial level for that to happen. I love Billy Boy Arnold -- a great blues writer. And there's lots of them out there who are still alive and who still play, but you don't hear about them any more. Jazz, too, guys from out of the Basie Band and the Ellington Band. And a lot more have come from Rhode Island than people know about. There's a history there, guys like Bobby Hackett, one of the world's leading cornet players in Louis Armstrong's style. Right from Providence. He played guitar first, taking lessons at DiPippo's.

Q: On Federal Hill.

A: Yeah, way down the end. They used to tell me stories when I'd go over there. The list goes on and on.

The Duke Robillard Band headline at the Call on Friday, December 26.

HOOKED ON POLYPHONICS. Back again, this time with product, the vocal ensemble Zorgina arrive Sunday at St. Martin's on Orchard Avenue on the East Side. Those unfamiliar with their far-flung canon may be unnecessarily frightened off by the promise of rarely-heard early and medieval music, but the trio -- Vienna's Ruth Eiselsberg, Montreal's Rebecca Bain, and Providence's Ellen Santaniello -- take pains to imbue their ancient vocal forms with contemporary wit, occasional sorrow and humor. A quick glimpse at their respective side projects shows a deep regard for taking trad forms and turning them inside-out, whether through Eiselsberg's improvisatory musical group XX Music in Switzerland or the Austrian fusioneers T.M.G., Bain's work with respected French ensembles Mora Vocis and the more contempo group TAMIA, or Santaniello's drumming and accordion work with Clean & Friendly juxtaposed with her singing in the Boston Camerata. Individually, they're so multi-faceted that if Giovanni Boccaccio had happened upon the women of Zorgina in his time, he would've probably had to re-title his 14th-century masterwork the Duodecameron, certain that his tales would be unfinished without this trio's inclusion. They perform the oldest documented three-voice polyphonic piece, from the Codex Calixtinus, then shift to a 16th-century madrigal, then to a traditional Macedonian women's song, then the avant-garde (well, for the 14th-century it was) "Fumeux Fume," which was originally intended to be sung only by men.

Their debut Polyphonics (Ohmnibus Verlag) was recorded near Eiselsberg's home in an old Austrian farmhouse, which explains why it is such a happy departure from the tried -- and trite -- Benedictine-monk-esque production values which clobber listeners with the unnecessary fact that the music happens to be long in the tooth.

After hearing their two most recent area performances in late '95, Iwas rendered a stammering idiot. OK, more of a stammering idiot. And be warned, it could happen to you. This new Zorgina program will, typically, examine tradition and take note of the contradictions implicit in such traditions. And if Christmas and the winter solstice isn't a good time for these examinations, I don't know when is. If delivered by anyone other than those versed in the "ancient arts," historical accuracy would be compromised. Here, it isn't. If handled with less grace, it would be maudlin instead of melancholy. And again Zorgina -- which kinda rhymes with Virginia -- succeed. The record, somehow, captures it all. See you Sunday, and maybe again at Clean & Friendly on First Night, when the trio appear as apparitions in the C&F show at the Shepard Building.

PARTY LIKE IT'S 1998. At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, we enter the centennial of the death of Gershwin, so it's apropos that at that instant pianist Judy Stillman and the Rhode Island Philharmonic will be performing "Rhapsody in Blue." Making her first appearance with RIPO since the days of Alvaro Cassuto, Stillman will rejoin Francisco Noya and the orchestra in February for a Saint-Saens piece as part of the Philharmonic's Family Series. "Gershwin always sought to amalgamate the jazz idiom into the concerto form," explained Stillman last week, before recounting a story about the 30-something composer. He craved compositional counsel through Ravel, who proffered "Why be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?" and then Stravinsky, who asked Gershwin how much money he had made in the last year. You can ask Stillman what happened then after this First Night event at Vets. Some of Stillman's 1998 itinerary includes Visiting Scholar positions at Rider University and Arizona U. in Phoenix, sandwiched between helping out at the Gordon School and taking part in a multi-disciplinary program of performing arts at RIC (with Dance Professor DelGuidice and David Burr, director/father of area rockers Pete (Mother Jefferson) and Aaron (ex-Delta Clutch).

This week's words are dedicated to Kathleen. Thanks.