DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

That is FRESH AIR. 2020’s COVID lockdown was onerous on Chicago pianist Erwin Helfer, a lifelong scholar and likewise a trainer of early jazz and blues piano kinds. His early mentors included hometown pianist Clarence Lofton and Sunnyland Slim and New Orleans’ Billie Pierce. Final 12 months, simply earlier than the lockdown and the short-term despair it introduced on for him, Helfer recorded a jam session with some Chicago buddies. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says it’s totally old-fashioned.

(SOUNDBITE OF ERWIN HELFER AND CHICAGO BOOGIE ENSEMBLE’S “BIG JOE”)

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Erwin Helfer on the piano in early March 2020 at age 84 – his keyboard contact, his economical phrasing, the entire really feel of his music join this white conservator of blues and older jazz kinds with African American piano masters lengthy gone. There aren’t many left who do what Helfer does with such unshowy authority.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE CHICAGO BOOGIE ENSEMBLE AND ERWIN HELFER’S “BIG JOE”)

WHITEHEAD: Erwin Helfer would not carry his information like a burden. He has some enjoyable with it, as on a jam session with some bluesy buddies heard on his album “Have fun The Journey.” Most alternatives pull him away from straight blues. His 4 helpers, billed because the Chicago Boogie Ensemble, play bass and drums and twin tenor saxophones. However you would not mistake their jam for a contemporary jazz session, not once they name tunes so outdated they’re principally claimed by Dixielanders, like Irving Berlin’s first hit from 1911, a syncopated music with a naked trace of the blues, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” That is John Brumbach on tenor sax.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE CHICAGO BOOGIE ENSEMBLE AND ERWIN HELFER PERFORMANCE OF IRVING BERLIN’S “ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND”)

WHITEHEAD: A few different tunes Erwin Helfer and mates play come from the 1920s, “St. James Infirmary” and “‘Tain’t No one’s Enterprise If I Do.” The youngest oldie on Helfer’s new album is Sonny Rollins’ “Doxy” from the early 1950s, and even that shares its chord sequence with the 1924 hit “How Come You Do Me Like You Do?”

“Doxy” exhibits how blues and jazz musicians might method the identical materials fairly otherwise. Helfer roots his solo in his personal bluesy idiom. He would not improvise in lengthy strains as trendy jazzers usually do.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE CHICAGO BOOGIE ENSEMBLE AND ERWIN HELFER PERFORMANCE OF SONNY ROLLINS’ “DOXY”)

WHITEHEAD: Skinny Williams on tenor there with just a little gospel saxophone rasp in his tone, backed by Lou Marini on bass and Davide Ilardi on drums. There are extra gospel echoes from Erwin Helfer’s crew once they play an evergreen religious recorded by blues musicians, Dixieland bands and a few jazz modernists, “Down By The Riverside” – John Brumbach on saxophone once more.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE CHICAGO BOOGIE ENSEMBLE AND ERWIN HELFER’S “DOWN BY THE RIVERSIDE”)

WHITEHEAD: Erwin Helfer quoting there from Thelonious Monk’s “In Walked Bud,” simply as he sneaks bits of the identical composer’s “Blue Monk” and “Misterioso” into different solos right here. Monk tunes aren’t precisely new music, however they’re just a little extra trendy than the pre-World Struggle II kinds the chief favors. He could also be old-fashioned, but it surely’s not like he lives in a cave. For Erwin Helfer, classic piano dialects reside traditions, not museum reveals. Honest due to him for serving to to maintain these traditions alive and for passing that information on.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE CHICAGO BOOGIE ENSEMBLE AND ERWIN HELFER’S “POOCH PIDDLE”)

DAVIES: Kevin Whitehead is the creator of the brand new e book “Play The Means You Really feel: The Important Information To Jazz Tales On Movie.” He reviewed “Have fun The Journey” by Erwin Helfer and the Chicago Boogie Ensemble.

On tomorrow’s present, we’ll speak about essentially the most far-reaching anti-poverty program enacted by Congress in many years. We’ll communicate with The New York Instances’ Jason DeParle. He says the expanded youngster tax credit score included within the stimulus invoice will present month-to-month checks for tens of millions of households and minimize youngster poverty by 45%, although it is unclear whether or not this system will final past the pandemic. I hope you may be part of us.

Our interviews and critiques are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner and Kayla Lattimore. Our affiliate producer of digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. For Terry Gross, I am Dave Davies.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE CHICAGO BOOGIE ENSEMBLE AND ERWIN HELFER’S “POOCH PIDDLE”)

Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional info.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced utilizing a proprietary transcription course of developed with NPR. This textual content might not be in its last kind and could also be up to date or revised sooner or later. Accuracy and availability might range. The authoritative document of NPR’s programming is the audio document.