Swingin’ Live at the Church in Tulsa

Now in his 80s, Taj Mahal is the grand old man of American roots music and follows 2022’s old-timey Get On Board with Ry Cooder with a set recorded before a live audience at the late Leon Russell’s Oklahoma studio known as The Church. Backed by bass, drums, lap steel and dobro and with singer Trey Hensley sharing vocals, the ten songs range across the multiple genres Taj has explored during an adventurous career that has seen him release more than 40 albums. There’s trad blues on ‘Betty and Dupree’ and ‘Mailbox Blues’ (the latter of which he first recorded exactly half a century ago) and southern country-soul on ‘Lovin’ in My Baby’s Eyes’. ‘Queen Bee’, which has been in his repertoire most of his life and which he famously recorded on 1999’s Kulanjan with Toumani Diabaté, is revived and given a joyous Caribbean lilt. Other highlights include the slack key instrumental ‘Twilight in Hawaii’ and a ten-minute blues jam on T-Bone Walker’s ‘Mean Old World’. Elsewhere there are touches of Cajun, gospel, R&B and jazz, all blended into his own uniquely seamless vision of the music of the Black Diaspora.