Black & Blue is the debut solo album of British-American tenor Joshua Blue. Recorded at Big Orange Sheep in November 2022, and produced by Steven Blier and Jonathan Estabrooks, Black & Blue explores themes of racial equality and human resilience, in songs spanning over five decades. The disc includes two songs receiving their first-ever recordings: Freedom Train and Negrita. Blue performs together with NYFOS Artistic Director Steven Blier at the piano, showcasing their long-standing artistic relationship.  

“In the past few years, Josh Blue and I have established an incandescent musical partnership,” Steven Blier said. “This is due as much to Josh’s soaring vocalism as to our repertoire, which includes a few mainstream pieces like Black & Blue and Day Dream, but also a number of extraordinary songs that haven’t been heard in many decades, including Freedom Train, Red Beans and Rice, The Yellow Dog Blues, and Negrita. Most of the composers and lyricists on our CD are Black, and several of the songs will be receiving their first-ever recording. All of them are unforgettable, and speak to the issues of our time with surprising power.”

The title track, Black & Blue, was written in 1929 by Broadway lyricist, Andy Razaf, and his writing partner, “Fats” Waller. Razaf was coerced at gunpoint by NYC mobster “Dutch” Schultz into writing a “comic song about how hard it was to be Black”; the song, a passionate lament,  received an ovation upon its premiere and a grudging, affirming nod from Schultz. Similarly Freedom Train, written by Langston Hughes in 1947 and set to music by Thomas Hayward, explores themes of racial tension during the post WWII era. Receiving its first recording by Blue and Blier, the song was inspired by a cross-country Freedom Train tour that was meant to unite Americans in the post-war era, but also exposed racial inequality in several Southern cities that insisted on segregated viewing. The resulting controversy inspired Hughes to write his famous poem.

Performed alongside well-known works including Paul Simon’s American Tune and Lewis Allen’s Strange Fruit, Negrita is a sizzling rumba that was published by W.C. Handy in 1935. Blier and Blue have collaborated on many of Handy’s songs for NYFOS concerts, who is best known for his career as the “Father of Blues” with songs like St. Louis Blues and Memphis Blues.

“This album to me is about two things,” Joshua Blue said. “An opportunity to share the magic that happens when Steve and I perform together with the world, and a celebration of the music that shaped me as an artist before opera was even a blip on my radar. From Big Brother to Black and Blue to Ride on King Jesus, these songs and musical styles helped make me, well, me.” 

This recording was funded, in part, by a generous grant from Martin Fridson and Elaine Sisman. Our deepest gratitude to them, and to all our founding NYFOS Records supporters.

A Picnic Cantata is the result of a one-time collaboration between the piano-duo team of Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, the composer Paul Bowles, and the poet James Schuyler. Originally premiered at New York’s Town Hall in 1953, A Picnic Cantata was well-received, but never published.

The seven-movement work balances sensuality with innocence and lightness with hints of foreboding. In its hyper-realistic world, a picnic basket seems to hold the entire contents of Zabar’s and a car materializes on cue, as four friends—two sopranos and two altos—magically gather together. Bowles’ music dips into the exotic sounds of Morocco and Ceylon, Poulenc-style post-impressionism, and pure American tunefulness to paint the journey, and Schuyler’s libretto melds the directness of Gertrude Stein with the fantasy of Maurice Sendak, allowing simple things to become paradoxical and mysterious. 

Having wanted to make a studio recording of the work for over three decades, Mr. Blier said, “Paul Bowles’ A Picnic Cantata has been something of a NYFOS signature since the early 1990s. Alternatively spiky and lyrical, utterly unpredictable, and oddly graceful, Bowles’ music won me over. Coming home to Paul Bowles’ music and James Schuyler’s words has been a pleasure and something of a revelation. In the 25 years since we first encountered A Picnic Cantata, we’ve learned more about both the composer and the poet. Its colors seem more vibrant than ever.” 

Featured singles from the album:

‘Round Midnight
by Thelonious Monk / Bernie Hanighen,
arr. Ricky Ian Gordon performed by Blythe and Blier

Take the Moment
by Richard Rodgers / Stephen Sondheim; performed by Burden and Blier