(Modern Blues) Heritage Blues Orchestra - And Still I Rise - 2012, MP3, 320 kbps

With a distinctly contemporary and adventurous vision, Heritage Blues Orchestra takes its audience on a rare musical ride. The group carries us over the main highways and big-city streets as well as the dusty back roads of the American south while weaving its way to the crossroads where Blues and the roots of early Jazz were born. H.B.O. draws its sound from field hollers, work songs, spirituals, soaring gospel voices and the hard-driving rhythms of the deep Blues from the delta and the hill country of northern Mississippi. The group is driven by three voices, two guitars, drums/percussion, harmonica and a fiery four piece horn section (tuba, 2 trumpets, trombone, saxophone). Spotlighting male and female voices, bold brassy sounds of New Orleans as well as modern jazz horn sounds and a heavy back beat, H.B.O. serves up a powerful and compelling new take on America’s Blues heritage. With an emphasis on musical exploration, Heritage Blues Orchestra digs into innovative musical territory making a unique and exhilarating contribution to the African-American musical canvas.

And Still I Rise features mostly old blues material given a serious jolt of modernist energy, but without sacrificing any of the original character. The Heritage Blues Orchestra are like a more potent Carolina Chocolate Drops, their basic guitar, harmonica and handclap grooves given further colour and character by bustling drums and the inventive horn arrangements of French saxist Bruno Wilhelm. Their potent thump, twang and honk injects wallop into Son House's "Clarksdale Moan" and a fast, hard-rolling feel to Muddy Waters's "Catfish Blues". Elsewhere, railroad shuffles, swampy slide-guitar throbs, gospel call-and-response chants and a reggae-like take on Rosco Gordon's jump-blues slouch are applied.