A NEW record by Mac Rebennack, a k a
Dr. John,
the blues-and-roots potentate, is no big thing per se; it happens every
few years. Neither is Dr. John returning to his late-’60s coordinates
of super-informed funk, representing the rhythmic trip of West Africa to
the Antilles to the American Gulf Coast; he did that recently on
“Tribal,” released a year and a half ago.
But “Tribal” probably didn’t go far beyond Dr. John’s own specialized listenership. What’s newsworthy about
“Locked Down,”
his new album, to be released by Nonesuch on April 3, is that he’s
being nuzzled by someone young and much listened-to: Dan Auerbach,
singer and guitarist of the Black Keys, the post-garage band that
recently sold out a Madison Square Garden show in 15 minutes. Mr.
Auerbach collaborated with Dr. John in a set at the Bonnaroo festival
last June that I liked very much, with two drummers, backup singers and
the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. In it Dr. John sang old songs with
twisted histories, and the show vibrated with bass, organ, low brass and
quiet funk.
Soon after that they recorded “Locked Down” — Mr. Auerbach produces and
plays guitar — which is a bit more preening and academic. It’s all
original songs, clearly grown out of studio jams. There’s a single
drummer here, one of the two from the Bonnaroo show: Max Weissenfeldt,
of the German rare-groove band Poets of Rhythm. The keyboardist and
bassist, Leon Michels and Nick Movshon, are from the El Michels Affair,
one of the bands associated with Dap-Tone records from Brooklyn and the
world of retro-funk that brought you the sound of Amy Winehouse’s “Back
to Black” record. (They’ve also both played in the touring version of
the Black Keys.) The guitarist Brian Olive, once of the Soledad
Brothers, whose own solo album “Two of Everything” was produced last
year by Mr. Auerbach, is part of the same fraternity of backward-looking
obsessives.
This record will find some fans among those who loved “Back to Black,”
and it should. But have you ever wondered how hip is too hip? “Locked
Down,” with its down-cold James Black drum rhythms, distorted Fender
Rhodes keyboards and free-range, organically farmed reverb, is a useful
test case. (By the way, go back and listen to Dr. John’s complicated,
spaced-out record “The Sun, Moon & Herbs,” from 1971, when all
recordings were analog: are we trying to out-hip that on its own terms?)
If Dr. John weren’t grounding it with his casual essence, it might
collapse under the weight of its own studied scuff.
But some of it is beautiful, and I look forward to hearing it live. One
can do that right around the release date of the record, when Dr. John
comes to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for
“Insides Out,”
a residency spread across three weekends. March 29 to 31 he’ll perform
in “A Louis Armstrong Tribute,” which is just what it sounds like but
different, including performances from Arturo Sandoval, Rickie Lee Jones
and the Blind Boys of Alabama. April 5 to 7 he’ll be performing “Locked
Down” with Mr. Auerbach and band; and April 12 to 14 he presents “Funky
but It’s Nu Awlins,” with guests from his hometown, including Donald
Harrison, Davell Crawford, Ivan Neville, Irma Thomas and the Dirty Dozen
Brass Band.
