Along with Bessie Smith, Gertrude Ma Rainey has come to be recognised as one of the towering figures of early blues, pioneering the recording of blues by female artists during the earliest years of electric recording. Born in 1896, she became popular as a travelling minstrel, and during her touring across the southern states in the early years of the 20th century absorbed blues songs which she incorporated into her act. Turning to the vaudeville stage, she was heard in Chicago theatres and signed in 1924 by J. Mayo Williams at Paramount, for whom she recorded for the next five years, working solo, or with piano or guitar accompaniment, or more often with jazz ensembles, which were billed on record as her Georgia Jazz Band. Her accompanists during that time featured some of the luminaries of the early jazz scene, including Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Coleman Hawkins, Buster Bailey and Don Redman as well as blues musicians like Tampa Red, Blind Blake and Thomas Dorsey.

This great-value 94-track 4-CD collection comprises all of the titles she recorded for Paramount during her career (she recorded more than one take of some titles, but we only include one of those versions), until the Wall Street Crash and the Depression put an end to her recording. It naturally features classics like See See Rider, Ma Raineys Black Bottom, Stack O'Lee Blues and Jelly Bean Blues. Its a comprehensive showcase for one of the most important personalities of early blues.

REVIEWS

The indisputably great Ma Rainey, great in every sense, may well have been the first professional feamle blues singer. Her recording career for Paramount is brief but prolific and, on this splendid four CD collection which is indeed entitled to call itself definitive, we have the opportunity to hear all the sides she cut for this label between December 1923 and September 1928. Not for nothing was she knoen as the Mother of The Blues, and these recordings allow us to see her reapid development and what of the music through that brief fertile period. A bonus is to hear some true jazz greats in accompaniment, including Jimmy Blythe, Don Redman, Buster Bailey, Coleman Hawkins, Claude Hopkins, a further measure of her standing. But, of course, it's the voice we now want to hear and she gives it her all on every recording she ever made. An ideal CD set to have as companion to the movie on Netflix, Ma Rainey's Black Bottome, starring Viola Davis. - Andrew Liddle (Just Jazz Issue 274)