Album Review: Opera Troubador Joshua Blue Proves Those Who Sing Can Also Jam On His New Album BLACK & BLUE

Heigh Ho, dear lovely rainbow tribe, welcome back to Bobby's CD sandbox where we offer our broken-down breakdowns of new music releases. So, strap in and get ready, as Bobby goes on the record ABOUT the record.

This week's album entry in the BobbyFiles comes from a bonafide opera singer. Joshua Blue lives the life of a true itinerant tenor, globe-trotting from place to place, country to country, opera house to opera house, including the big stages like our own Metropolitan Opera where he played Peter in Gershwin's PORGY AND BESS, The Los Angeles Opera as the Evangelist in Bach's ST. MATTHEW PASSION, and Opera Philadelphia as the Duke of Mantua in the Lindy Hume production of RIGOLETTO... so this young man's chops are no joke. With his new album BLACK & BLUE, Joshua spreads his vocal wings outside the genre in which he is becoming a star and dives into several musical pools where few "Legit" singers have swum successfully. Very often opera singers who try their hand at jazz, for instance, tend to sound like opera singers singing jazz. An operatic MOONGLOW or BEGIN THE BEGUINE is pretty for a few measures but the weight of the voice, ultimately, can drag it all down. These singers are the bodybuilders of the vocal world, after all, training for years to build their voice, and for more years to build the correct repertoire for that voice. Not so very long ago, any serious opera singer would never consider any kind of prolonged performances of music outside of "The Repertoire." To seek to make any other kind of music with your voice was a sacrilege not to be thought on, and those that tainted their throat with Rock, R&B, Jazz, Blues, and the like were looked down upon or even shunned. But over the last two-ish generations of the grand stage, more and more of these heavyweights, including some of the great stars, are taking on other styles and allowing themselves to make choices outside their operatic vocal production.

This is all by way of saying, my dearlings, that Joshua Blue is one of these rare birds that has made a success of this bold move for himself. BLACK & BLUE is a mix of R&B, Jazz, Blues, and spirituals, all recorded with Joshua's long-time collaborator and director of the New York Festival of Song, Steven Blier. Acting as arranger, musical director, and pianist, Blier has kept things simple, using other instruments quietly and sparingly, mostly opting for the album to be just him and Joshua. This brings out the essence of what Blier calls their "Incandescent musical partnership," showcasing the purity of Joshua's voice... or should we say voices? On his opening number, BIG BROTHER, Joshua's raw R&B sound to this Stevie Wonder cover is nervy but in a clear, bright voice that is open but not "OPERA" sounding - beautiful in range and tone, much like The Wonder himself. Many of the songwriters on BLACK & BLUE are Black, and two of these cuts are receiving their first-ever recordings: NEGRITA, a rhumba with that rhumba beat, is a fun dance song where Blue's tenor training shows a bit more within the Cuban rhythms reminiscent of the great Desi Arnaz - and FREEDOM TRAIN, a bonafide spiritual where he uses his full opera training to convey deeply felt emotions for freedom within the black experience, and where his perfect southern flavor belies his British origins.

Much of this album is a study in the history of Black protest music and a word must be said about the title song, Fats Waller's BLACK AND BLUE. This one is hard-core blues about being black and beaten down in this country, where the lyrics are a direct indictment of white America. "I'm white on the inside..." cries Blue/Waller and the lyric "My mark of ham" references a Biblical story used down through generations of racism to justify centuries of African slavery and white supremacy. Ham, the son of Noah, laughed and ridiculed his intoxicated father (whom he saw nude) and, so, was cursed to be the founding father of a race of slaves ... so chilling it hurts, and in the wail of Joshua's thrilling voice, it is even more so. RED BEANS AND RICE is a stand-out as well, as it's another Blues song (with a more upbeat tempo) for which, interestingly, Blue has kept the male pronouns so the song, here, is a man singing about his man. These are the blues of supporting that man of mine, yet he must be spending it all on another man, and so we're eating red beans & rice because of our poverty, despite all the work I do for that man... blues. Then there is STRANGE FRUIT - a song said to have been the beginning of the civil rights movement. Billie Holiday originally performed it at Café Society, the first integrated club in NYC, and it is a bitter song with bitter images, a stirring protest song about the lynchings of black men in the South. Here, Joshua and Blier's performances lean on the purity of the notes and words: it's just the two of them, with Blier playing chords softly under Blue's cry in the wilderness.

All in all, dear Bobby readers, Joshua Blue and Steven Blier have created an album of tremendous importance and beauty. Is it "Fun" to listen to? Probably not, but it is necessary and gorgeous and a must-have for lovers of music. Blue's voice moves in and out of several styles expertly, and Blier's arrangements heighten the listening experience wonderfully. And, so, we suggest you get your copy, have a sit-down and listen to what Joshua Blue has to say on BLACK & BLUE because...

This one gets 5 Out Of 5 Rainbows.

Purchase To Own Your Copy: HERE

Put This One In Your Spotifies: HERE

You Can See And Hear Everything About Joshua Blue On His Webbysite: HERE

Follow Steven Blier & The NY Festival Of Song: HERE

To post a comment, you must register and login.