This album of BB King at the Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival from October 7, 1977 is a treasure in that it captures the blues giant at a time when he was quite under-recorded on his own. During this period, he did a couple albums with singer Bobby “Blue” Bland and one with the Crusaders, but nothing with his own working band. This album is a gap filler!
I actually saw this band back in the day, and King had a good mix of R&B, boogie, swing and soul with Walter King/ts, Cato Walker III/as, Eddie Rowe/tp, Jams Toney/prg, Milton Hopkins/g, Joe Turner/b and Calep Emphrey Jr/dr. The band had a mix of showmanship and down home swamp, and they sure could get down@ King opens up with Thelonious Monk’s “Blue Monk” and jumps to Louie Jordan’s “Caldonia” before getting down on “Sweet Little Angle” and “I Like To Live The Love”. He does an impressive job of his hit “The Thrill Is Gone” and takes on the pop charts with Stevie Wonder’s “To Know You Is To Love You” while getting down and dirty on “Sweet Sixteen” while his guitar work sizzle throughout, as on a pair of blues instrumentals. This was when BB was truly “The Dynamic Gentleman of the Blues”, and he knew how to work a crowd.