9 March 2009
Allen Toussaint
Q&A at the Grammy Museum Celebrity Series
Melissa Berry
Contributing Writer
Allen Toussaint is a conjurer, and I was truly conjured by him this particular evening, although I have been for years with his songwriting and record producing. But now, in person, alone in an intimate setting with a black Baby Grand expectantly waiting for his magical touch, as were we all, it felt like a kind of time travel. The only other presence on the stage was Robert Santelli, the knowledgeable and charming executive director of the GRAMMY museum, who hosted the evening. It was all so relaxed and cozy.
All I could think when I heard Mr. Toussaint’s mellifluous and genteel…make that buttery, syrupy, honeyed voice was, “Come on, Allan, gimme a little sumpin’, sumpin’.” And he did. After “Workin’ in a coal mine, goin’ down, down, down,” we “Went to the fortune teller, had my fortune read,” and then went to the “Land of a thousand dances.” It was a truly exhilarating musical journey through “Nawlins” which left me wanting gumbo, warm powdery beignets, and coffee with chicory, even though I’ve never been there. Some of the R&B standards that I’ve known forever from Dr. John the Night Tripper (and his satchel of gris-gris and Mama Roux!), Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, Lee Dorsey and others with that “Nawlins” riff, unbeknownst to me, have Mr. Toussaint to thank. There’s something so special about hearing music directly from the source in tandem with the history that goes with it.
Informal, conversational and informative, this evening was being filmed for the GRAMMY Museum archives. Mr. Toussaint wasn’t shy about the subject of racism and segregation and how it affected his music. From what he said, it seemed that in New Orleans, after WWII but before integration, there were “shotgun houses” with “their commonalities.” I guess that means everything that goes with it. He explained that a “shotgun house” typically has one room leading into the next without hallways. Although people often say these are called shotgun houses because a bullet fired through the front door would go right out the backdoor without hitting a wall, there’s also the theory that suggests that this name is actually a corruption of the word “shogon.” In West Africa, “shogon” means “God’s House.”
Mr. Toussaint and his buddies knew where they could go and where they couldn’t go, but it wasn’t a problem. He said they’d say to each other, “Oh no, can’t go there.” But they’d follow it with, “Don’t wanna go there anyway.” They had what they wanted right where they were, so he doesn’t remember it as the taste of such a bitter pill. They were as “poor as Job’s turkey,” but there was live music, if you knew where to look, with that “jango” blues and “that trumpet kind of thing,” and lastly boogie woogie. He told us when he heard it, he said to himself, “I have to have some of that.” To add to this, he was captured by radio and that music which was there for him whenever he wanted it, which was all of the time.
New Orleans was musically piano-based, and fortunately, his parents bought an old piano for one of his siblings which he immediately took a shine to. He’d learn music off the radio and immediately put it to the piano. He laughingly told us about one big piece of classical music that he learned by ear, but since the piano was out of tune, instead of learning it being in the key of A as it was written, he put the whole thing one-half step up to B flat minor to match what he heard on the radio. This meant that not only was the piece transposed, but the piano was so out of tune anyway that it sounded like the whole thing was being played on a “tack piano,” which is a piano intentionally given a tinny sound. Obviously, this was still music to his ears and didn’t deter him at all.
And then, along came Professor Longhair, the “Bach of Rock.” He was called the Bach of Rock and Roll for the clarity, varied and extremely accurate and “funky” syncopation, and the beautiful tone of his piano playing. Mr. Toussaint compared Professor Longhair’s music to the Bach 2 and 3 Part Inventions. Apparently Professor Longhair said that he felt musically much more removed from his own “inventions” than he felt from the Bach Inventions.
It seems that the more Mr. Toussaint knew about music, the more “intensively/intensely” he wanted to know it. The harmonics of acoustic instruments and their possibilities fascinated him. “They put a little snog on debonair.” Snog? Snog: To interface passionately with another being, creating a field of physical obsession and focused arousal + centered on the lips, mouth and tongue. That needed no further explanation -– I got it. In fact, I think I’ve even had it.
With the introduction of acoustic instruments to his musical bouillabaisse, the recordings started with him writing out all the parts. Two tracks. One for vocals and one for the band. We all know that then was then and now is now, and now is way removed from two tracks. His studio experiences make for an abundance of touching adages. He quoted Quincy Jones as saying, “Leave the door open so God can walk in,” and Elvis Costello summing up their collaboration on “River in Reverse” “not as a drowning but as a baptism.”
Without us even realizing it, he gracefully and skillfully segued into “Southern Nights” and hypnotized us with a tale about his family as he accompanied himself on the piano — his left hand never losing contact with the keyboard while his right hand seductively conducted us through the story. His music moved us dreamily through the journey. His story told us about his own family with a background not unlike what his father had said about putting all sorts of music together. His father had told him that “if you were going to do things your way, stubbornly maintaining what you mistook for your integrity, it wasn’t going to happen.” He mentioned another family member who never said anything because she knew everything anyway. And isn’t that the way it usually is with a cadre?
After all this, there was a brief Q&A session. I couldn’t imagine what anyone would need to ask. I know I felt perfectly and peacefully sated. But of course, there was some blowhard in the audience who just had to ask Mr. Toussaint a very academically serious question about his use of the pentatonic scale. Toussaint got him good. He simply told him to always use the black keys and you’ll have the perfect pentatonic scale for the music of any culture. And he’s absolutely right. So there’s a little sumpin’ sumpin’ for you, Mr. Ethnomusicologist-type person.
