Junior "Driving Wheel" Parker, the first of the great Southern Soul singers leads off the week, we follow with UK/Gambia kora player/vocalist/composer Sona Jobarteh, and we conclude with 12 versions of J. J. Johnson’s "Lament" featuring Hazel Scott, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, Alex Harding, Jerry Gonzalez & The Fort Apache Band, Jessica Williams, Milt Jackson with J. J. Johnson & Ray Brown, Poncho Sanchez, Ron Kischuk, Miles Davis, Kenny Burrell, Mark Murphy, and Tete Montoliu.
Think of this as some Jack Black (i.e. Jack Daniels Scotch Black Label) rather than moonshine rotgut or quarter-twice Thunderbird; highly polished Stacy Adams wing-tips rather than steel-toe, unshined brogans; a stingy brimmed, felt sky-piece with a little peacock feather rather than a hardhat or red, polka-dot bandana; and of course, a sharkskin suit with slanted side pockets rather than well-worn overalls.
This is the music of blues people in transition: easily recognized as blues but done up with a strutting elegance befitting someone who worked indoors stocking a warehouse or behind a counter rather than plowing acres behind a mule’s ass. We was still Black and blue but we wasn’t country. Houston, Memphis, Jackson, Montgomery, New Orleans, even Atlanta, way over to Savannah, we had left the fields for big city bright lights but we were the ones who didn’t set off north or west, we stayed south and created a big city sound that reflected our new south conditions. Junior Parker was the John the Baptist of Soul music heralding the soon coming good news of Soul music.
—kalamu ya salaam