Listening to Prestige 390: John Wright

How does one get a recording contract? Or how did one, back in the day? John Wright was playing a gig in his native Chicago. There was a Sunday jam session at a club near the hotel where most of the touring big bands stayed, and players from the Hampton or Ellington band, or whatever band was passing through Chicago, would come and jam. After one of these sessions,

a fellow walked in and said, “I’m from New York, I’m a hiring man for one of the companies in New York, and I’ve got a spot for you. Would you like to come to New

York and record?” Well, I’ve heard of Prestige Records and Riverside, Coral, and Blue Note, those were the most prestigious jazz records back in the day. Quite naturally, I said yes. So, he gave me a plane ticket and $500. In August 1960, I went to New York City and that’s where I got to record five albums on Prestige Records.

Why not? Wright brought his regular trio with him, and he brought a breath of Chicago with him--not the breath that was hog butcher to the world, but the one that came out of the jazz clubs on the South Side.  As Wright ran it down in a later interview, the album

...was talking about the streets of Chicago; South Side Soul; Sin Corner (Sin Corner was about every corner); Amen Corner (Amen Corner was the churches); 63th and Cottage Grove; 35th Street Blues, 47th Street (47th street was a red-light district) and LaSalle Street was the financial district. The blocks on State Street, Wentworth, and Cottage Grove, were always storefront churches. It was about two or three storefront churches in every block.

One might expect such a thematic album to be entirely self=composed, but such is not the case.

Wright takes composing credit for the red light district and "63rd and Cottage Grove." bandmate Wendell Roberts contributes the "35th Street Blues" and the "Amen Corner." The financial district after hours and the sin corner were the product of another composer, and an understandable pairing, since who knows what goes on in the financial district of a large metropolis after hours, especially in those days, when the big brokerage offices were macho central? The composer was Armand "Jump" Jackson, a jazz and rhythm and blues drummer and all-around entrepreneur and impresario. "South Side Soul," which became the album's title, Wright's signature song, and part of his name--from then on he was John "South Side Soul" Wright, appears not to have been written by a Chicagoan at all. Composer credit goes to producer Esmond Edwards, and since Edwards did not make a regular habit of slapping his name on other people's compositions, it seems likely that the credit was deserved.

By the end of the 1950s, Chicago had started to make a significant name for itself as the home of the electric blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, but Wright was making South Side soul of a different sort, the kind of piano trio jazz that Chess Records songwriter-producer Willie Dixon started out in, and that Ahmad Jamal was making in the more upscale part of the city.

But if Wright wasn't making quite the kind of hard-edged blues that Chess artists like Otis Spann were making, his South Side sound was funkier and bluesier than the uptown jazz of Jamal. The blues penetrate every note he plays, and it makes for some very good listening.

Wendell Roberts and Walter McCants are South Siders who remained part of the Chicago scene without making broader waves in the jazz world, but they know about the blues and provide sympathetic support to Wright. McCant's son Nolan has made a name for himself as a photographer.

"Sin Corner" and "Amen Corner" were released as a 45 RPM single.