B. B. King in France in 1977

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

At the beginning of this month, I learned about a new label produced by Zev Feldman, Deep Digs Music, which has a partnership in Spain with Elemental Music, produced by Jordi Soley and Carlos Agustin Calembert. I cite this European connection because this coming Friday Deep Digs will offer a B. B. King album of previously unreleased tracks. The full title of the album is In France: Live at the 1977 Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival; and, as most readers may expect, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for processing pre-orders.

Ironically, I was once in the south of France at the same time as King. I was part of a committee that had organized a conference entitled Informatique/Culture ’83, at which papers were delivered about potentially useful encounters between the arts and information science. Following the conference, my wife and I meandered across the south of France before heading north back to Paris; and, as I recall, we were passing through Carcassonne when we learned that King would be performing there on the evening when we arrived. I am pretty sure that, by the time we were aware of this show, all the tickets had been sold!

As a result, this new album came to my attention to remind me that King brought his approach to the blues to audiences on an international scale. When one listens to the audience response following each track, it is easy to appreciate how well he was received! Those aware of his performances know that he supplemented his guitar work with vocals. However, I have always been more interested in the instrumental side of the blues tracks, particularly as it involves the plethora of improvised riffs that embellish the relatively straightforward harmonic progressions.

There is no shortage of those riffs on the In France album. These come not only from King but frequently from drummer Caleb Emphrey, Jr. and James Toney at the organ keyboard. The tracks include enough audience reaction to make it clear that this was an enthusiastic and joyous occasion. I should also confess that this is the first time that I have added one of his albums to my collection, even though I have been enjoying his music since my undergraduate years (influenced in part by his having visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during my freshman year)!