Surface and Synfbol
The Emerald’s weekly arts and entertainment supplement Thursday, April 28, 1977
Crusaders bring renowned jazz to Mac Court
For 23 years these studio sidemen have played together
By BOB WEBB
Of the Emerald
Dubbed by their peers as the
"musician's musicians," the
Crusaders, with special guest
Joan Armatradmg will appear in
concert at Mac Court on Monday
at 8:30 p.m
The Crusaders, collectively and
individually (Wilton Felder, tenor
sax; Nesbert "Stix” Hooper,
drums; Joe Sample, keyboards;
Robert "Pops Pop well, bass; and
newest member Billy Rogers,
guitar), have garnered almost
every award available for a musi
cal group — from gold records to
the Playboy Musician s Poll. For
23 years this band has pushed the
limits of music, blending jazz with
be-bop to get rock and blending
rock with the classics to get mel
low memorable sounds.
It would probably be safe to say
that each week there will be at
least one piece of music in the Top
10 with which at least one member
of the Crusaders had something
to do with — be it playing, writing,
or even producing Collectively
the band's members have been
personally involved, to one de
gree or another, in the making of
over 200 gold albums
The power and respect of this
group is evidenced from their tour
ing which has moved from
smoke-filled jazz toilets to huge
20,000 seat stadiums The Rolling
Stones asked the group to do an
English tour with them in 1975,
and the Crusaders agreed, thus
making them the first and only in
strumerrtal group to tour with the
Stones.
Hooper, Sample and Felder
were born in Houston, Texas. It
was there, in 1952, that Hooper
convinced the other two, along
with several other musicians, to
form the "Swingsters,” a group
which concentrated on playing the
blues of B.B. King, Lightenin’
Hopkins and Bobby Blue Bland,
and the jazz of Dizzy Gillespie,
Max Roach, Charlie Parker and
Stan Kenton The basic blues and
jazz roots were blended into a dis
tinctive Crusaders style of sound
which Hooper calls "Gulf Coast."
Texas crowds were going crazy
over the emotional quality and
sense of rawness the group con
tinued to achieve. Hooper felt the
time was nght for the group, then
consisting of the three plus Wayne
Henderson, to venture to Los
Angeles to make a record deal
enabling them to bnng their brand
of music to the masses.
The beginnings, however, were
rough and the individual members
made ends meet by doing studio
session work. Word began to get
around about the quality of their
music and soon they were in de
mand for more sessions than they
could handle
This success led to their even
tual recording contract as The
Jazz Crusaders. A problem they
briefly encountered was that they
were being ignored by the public
because of the word jazz" in their
name, and by many critics be
cause they were not playing tradi
tional cerebral jazz. They quickly
corrected this “problem" by drop
ping “JAZZ” from their
name. Soon the Crusaders
began receiving AM airplay,
heavy pop sales, and critical ac
claim for their sound which
bridged jazz, funk and rock.
Early in 1976, the Crusaders
added Atlanta bassist Robert
“Pops” Popwell to the group. Prior
to this time, they had never had a
full-time bass player, as Felder
PtxXo credit A & M records
Joan Armatrading will open the show for The Crusaders Monday night
in Mac Court at 8:30 p.m.
Casting completed for this
summer’s Oregon
Shakespearean Festival
Recently, directors for the Oregon Shakes
pearean Festival in Ashland met until 3 a m. one
morning in order to complete casting for the 1977
summer season of plays.
The choices for the title roles in Anthony and
Cleopatra, announced by Director Robert Loper, will
be by Equity guest artists Ted D'Arms and Elizabeth
Huddle. Thomas Oleniacx, who returns to the Festi
val after an absence of several years, is cast as
Enobarbus. Jahnna Beecham will play Octavia,
Catherine Butterfield is Iras, Mimi Carr is Charmian,
Robert Smith is Caesar and Joh Tyson, Lepidus.
King Henry VI will be played by Larry Ballard,
Mimi Carr is Queen Margaret. Joseph DeSalvio is
cast as York; his three sons, Richard Clarence and
Edward will be played by Michael Santo, Richard
Farrell and William Moreing, respectively. Festival
Production Coordinator Pat Patton directs this third
part of the Elizabethan serial about the War of the
Roses.
Streetcar Named Desire will join The Rivals and
Measure for Measure in the Bowmer Theatre, and is
directed by Elizabeth Huddle. Mary Turner will play
Blanche, Bruce Williams, Stanley. Festival newcom
ers Terry Hays and John Procaccino are cast as
Stella and Mitch.
Moon for the Misbegotten, directed by Festival
Producing Director Jerry Turner, will take the stage in
the Festival's new theatre, the Black Swan. Denis
Arndt is James Tyrone, Jean Smart, Josie Hogan,.
Jack Cantwell will play Phil Hogan, her father.
Roles for The Merchant of Venice, the season s
opener were announced previously, and include:
James Edmondson as Shylock, Christine Healy as
Portia, Joseph DeSalvio as the Duke of Venice, Dan
Kremer as the Prince of Morocco, Jahnna Beecham
as Nerissa, Keith Grant as Lorenzo, Kenned Maclver
as Jessica, Rex Rabold as Old Gobbo, Michael
Santo as Tubal. Barry Mullholland is Bassanio.
Preview week for the summer season begins
June 11. The Feast of the Tribe of Will and formal
opening is June 17.
Tickets for the summer season are $7, $5, and
$3.50. They go on sale Monday at the EMU Main
Desk.
would play sax and the bass lines
on their records. At this same
time, Henderson exited the group
to pursue other interests which in
cluded record producing (one of
the groups he is now producing is
a Portland band called Pleasure).
Today, the Crusaders are tak
ing to the road more often, thereby
necessitating a cut-back on their
session work with other artists.
The group recently completed
their first tour of Europe (Sep
tember, 1976) receiving much crit
ical and commercial acclaim
wherever they performed. Future
plans call for more recordings as
well as solo efforts from all five
band members.
Appearing with the Crusaders
will be singer/songwriter Joan
Armatrading.
Armatrading was born in St.
Kitts on December 9,1950, one of
a family of six children. The family
left the West Indies when she was
seven, and she grew up in the less
exotic climes of Birmingham. The
family were not musical, but Joan
spent her childhood glued to the
radio, playing guitar, and writing
songs.
After several narrow escapes in
school-concerts, she was eventu
ally persuaded to start performing
by a guitarist friend, and she
played colleges, hotels, and clubs
around Birmingham, singing
Dylan, Paul Simon, and some of
her own songs.
She came to London via Bristol
five years ago and started col
laborating with poet/lyricist Pam
Nestor, which resulted in her first
abum, Whatever’s For Us. She
spent the next two years in a state
of artistic hiatus, trying to extricate
herself from record and manager
ial contract, before finally record
ing Back to the Night in 1975.
Last year also saw her first con
certed bout of performances — a
season at Ronnie Scott’s and
tours with Supertramp and Nils
Lofgren—an experience that won
her critical acclaim and gave her a
sense of purpose and resolve as a
performer.
“I've always thought of myself
as a songwriter rather than a
singer, she said in a recent press
release. “But the tours really gave
me more confidence. Obviously,
you don't just go wham’ and
you're suddenly there. But you
make up your mind to do the best
you can bit-by-bit, and you find
you re getting better. Now that I've
got the sort of attitude where I
realize I’ve got to get on with it, I
enjoy it a lot more."
The paucity of female guitarists
in rock has led, by association, to
an undervaluing of her abilities in
this direction. “I'm used to people
thinking it’s a guy playing guitar on
my abums when it's actually me,”
she says. “I suppose a lot of girls
think they re expected to just
strum along — to get by — but it
annoys me that people should au
tomaticaiy think that's the extent
of my capabilities, too."
She says she’s not a feminist,
she's just herself. “I’ve never
thought of taking a feminist stand
or anything like that when I write a
song, I just write it; not to champ
ion a certain group or viewpoint.
Actually, I never think about it until
I'm asked. It’s the same when
somebody asks who are you in
fluenced by?' when you’ve just
been going along all your life not
thinking you're influenced by any
one in particular, just writing your
songs the way you write them."
Tickets for this Double Tee
Cultural Forum event are $4.50 for
University students, and $6 for re
served seats and at the door.
They are available at the EMU
Main Desk and at Everybody’s
Records.