6/1/2009

Dan Willging

Bridges as metaphors have infinite possibilities. In the case of Portland blueswoman Mary Flower, the title of her latest sonic offering refers to how several of her session sidemen had previously never met until this project, despite the city's relatively small size and abundant, fertile scene. But even more than that, the title symbolizes how Flower bridges to other eras, concepts, idioms, and styles. Using the Piedmont finger-picking style as her foundation, she also bridges to influential figureheads Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Gary Davis, and her late contemporary, the sighted John Cephas, with her own inimitable, articulate delivery.

Even though the Piedmont style is prevalent throughout, this is hardly an acoustic guitar blues record. Depending on the track, the varied arrangements and instrumentation include piano, tuba, clarinet, sax, lap slide guitar and even accordion. She bridges time-honored tunes written/popularized by Bessie Smith, Fats Waller and vaudevillian black-faced performer Emmett Miller to 20s jazz - the kind Louis Armstrong often referred to as blues. She bridges to gospel, something that's frequently overlooked by today's performing bluesmen, as well as fragments of jug band and ragtime. On originals "Portland Town" and "Columbia River Rag", she bridges to her adopted home of five years with pride. But with various instrumentals (mostly originals) showcasing her knockout, bass-string snapping, string-bending, ascending-up-the-neck passages and delicate fingers dancing merrily across the strings, Mary Flower also bridges to amazing.