Ron Carter Esperanza Spalding - Downbeat

Miche Braden
(left) and
Keith Loftis
John Quilty
Caught
Devil’s Music Evokes Bessie
Smith’s Bluesy Spirit
It’s 1937. The Empress of the Blues saunters
into an intimate Memphis parlor with her
three-man band for a night of music and storytelling.
This is the setting for The Devil’s
Music: The Life And Blues Of Bessie Smith—a
play celebrating the life of the blues legend.
Written by award-winning playwright
Angelo Parra and staged by accomplished
director Joe Brancato, The Devil’s Music stars
musician/actress Miche Braden, the founder
and former lead singer of the all-female group
Straight Ahead. Braden was a protégé of pianist
Harold McKinney as well as Motown
musicians Thomas “Beans” Bowles and Earl
Van Dyke. She is also musical director of the
production and wrote the arrangements.
The Devil’s Music is set in a buffet flat on
the eve of Smith’s tragic death from a car accident.
Braden paints vivid scenes from Smith’s
tumultuous life while interjecting risqué banter
to the musicians and the audience.
“Bessie lives through me,” Braden said.
Her compelling performance captures Smith’s
brassy, soulful vocals and boisterous, fiercely
independent personality, balancing her wild
side and penchant for hard drinking with
moments of tenderness and raw emotion. The
play tackles racism, Smith’s sexuality (she was
bisexual) and alcoholism. In his Playwright’s
Notes, Parra refers to the play as “our love letter
to Bessie.” It’s a testament to her achievement
of excellence in the face of adversity, to
the way she broke musical and societal barriers,
to the personal price she paid, and to her
influence on the blues greats who followed.
Born into a poor family in still-segregated
Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1894, Smith began her
career in vaudeville. After moving to New
York in 1923, she was signed by Columbia,
garnering instant success with her first recording;
her session sidemen included luminaries
such as Louis Armstrong. Smith was the
highest-paid black entertainer of the time,
but with the blues falling out of fashion, the
mismanagement of her affairs and Smith’s
heavy drinking, her career waned. She was
dropped by Columbia but continued fairly
steadily, playing the Apollo Theater in 1935.
Brancato presents this biographical information
through Braden’s monologues, intermingled
with Smith’s most memorable tunes.
Brancato and Braden conceived the production
at a diner in Manhattan’s Upper West
Side. Following a yearlong collaboration with
Parra, the play was staged in 2000 at the
Penguin Repertory Theatre in Stony Point,
N.Y., and later at New York’s St. Luke Theatre,
as well as several regional theatres across the
United States. It earned rave reviews during
its seven-day run at this year’s Festival
International de Jazz de Montréal. Braden was
nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best
Actress in a Musical.
Braden’s sidemen are bassist Jim
Hankins, dynamic saxophonist Keith Loftis
(alternating with Anthony E. Nelson Jr.)
and pianist Aaron Graves. The trio skillfully
accompanies Braden on “St. Louis
Blues,” “I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl,”
Smith’s own “Dirty No-Gooder’s Blues” and
“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down
And Out.” Braden taps into The Empress’
commanding voice and her capacity to
express meaning through subtle emphasis.
“This has been a generous collaborative
effort,” Brancato said. “I have no doubt that
Miss Bessie’s spirit has blessed our journey.”
Performances are scheduled at the Cleveland
Playhouse on Feb. 15–March 10, 2013.
—Sharonne Cohen
DECEMBER 2012 DOWNBEAT 17