Gig of the Week: Craig Brenner CD Release Party

GIG OF THE WEEK: CRAIG BRENNER CD RELEASE PARTY

from the now-defunct entertainment weekly Out & About

By Barney Quick

On Friday, May 30, at 8 PM at the John Waldron Arts Center, you may find yourself having visions of wrought-iron balconies and narrow cobblestone streets. Craig Brenner will give Bloomington a taste of his heavily New Orleans-influenced R & B piano stylings in celebration of the release of his new album, Man At the Piano.

This is a man clearly juiced about the event. "We'll have lots of great stuff going on," he beams.

The show will start with three percussionists from his youngest son's band playing a piece directed by Bob Dubinski, South High School's band director. Brenner will then play some of the album's more introspective solo pieces, having the "good fortune to play the Waldron's grand piano," as he puts it. Then tuba player Harvey Phillips will join Brenner for "Georgia On My Mind" and some other tunes.

Lauren Roberts, vocalist for Mojo Hand, has told Brenner she'd drop by. She contributes the bluesiest moments on Man At the Piano, belting out "You're A Hog For Me" with equal parts raw eroticism and tipsy good humor.

David Wierhake will also be on hand with his accordion. He plays live with the Crawdads whenever a gig is going to involve a lot of zydeco.

The show starts at 8 PM; admission is $6, which includes beer from Bloomington Brewing Company and "as much food as my [Brenner's] budget will allow."

The CD boasts some delights which can't be part of the show on May 30. The conga parts were performed by former Professor Longhair sideman Alfred "Uganda" Roberts and recorded in New Orleans at the Boiler Room.

That studio's engineer is Mark Bingham, who was a major force in Bloomington music during the 1970s. His band, the Screaming Gypsy Bandits, towered over the local scene for years. He produced records for several artists on the old Bar-B-Q label as well. Since leaving Bloomington, he's been based in Louisiana and has worked with many blues and zydeco greats. "It was pretty much of a coincidence that he participated in this album," says Brenner. "Mark Hood [of Bloomington's Echo Park, who worked with Bingham on Bar-B-Q projects] suggested him as the one to record the conga parts."

Brenner is a Florida native. He arrived in town in 1976, intending to study jazz andclassical piano at I.U. School of Music (which he did). He didn't know much about the musical scenes of the two cities which have turned out to be elemental in his post-Florida life. That part of his education began when he met the musicians with which he formed The Rhythm Method, the first recognized New Orleans-type band in Bloomington. Soon he met players like guitarist Gordon Bonham, with whom he formed the Blues-rock/rockabilly band Ragin' Texans in the early 1980s, and some of the local jazz crowd.

In 1979, he made a fateful first trip to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the pieces of the puzzle really began to fit. "While I was growing up in the Miami area," he recalls, "the radio stations would be the first to play the R&B hits, so I heard Barbara George and Aaron Neville and all that, but I didn't understand that it was part of a scene." At the festival, he heard Fats Domino and other giants of the New Orleans tradition and his course was set.

He began corresponding with Professor Longhair's widow and daughter, sending them tapes of his material. On trips to the Crescent City, he would meet with them and solicit their feedback.

Though he loves New Orleans music, it's important to Brenner that listeners detect other elements in his style. He incorporates boogie-woogie, for instance, which is different from the rolling feel of New Orleans piano. "Boogie-woogie is based on an eight-note rhythm and a strong left hand playing an ostinato figure over and over." One can also hear stride piano, a New York-based style, in Brenner's playing.

Brenner's JWAC show will be a celebration of what Bloomington does best with music. There will be ample respect for tradition, but the flavors will be combined in tantalizing and unexpected ways.

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