Allen Toussaint's email to producer Joe Henry arrived unexpectedly last fall. The message from the veteran New Orleans producer, songwriter, pianist and arranger was short and to the point.
"He wasn't a man who used email conversationally," Henry said. "He responded like a man who was sending a telegram and paying by the word."
Toussaint, in Switzerland at the time, was writing to express a recent obsession with playing "Lotus Blossom" by composer Billy Strayhorn.
The track is part of Toussaint's American Tunes album, released posthumously June 17, in which Toussaint applies his distinctive pianistic touch to a selection of songs by Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Professor Longhair and Paul Simon, among several others.
The goal with American Tunes was to create an extension of the work Henry and Toussaint had done in 2009 on the album The Bright Mississippi. On that collection, Toussaint interpreted compositions by jazz greats, including Jelly Roll Morton, Django Reinhardt, Thelonious Monk, Sidney Bechet, Ellington and Strayhorn.
"We were both intent on expanding that conversation, which was complete unto itself," Henry said. "We were not interested in simply creating a Part 2."
Henry was stunned to receive word Nov. 10 that Toussaint had had a heart attack and died at age 77 shortly after a performance in Madrid. He was one of the prime architects of New Orleans R&B, funk and rock music over the last 60 years.
He wrote, produced, arranged and played on hits including the Pointer Sisters' "Yes We Can Can," Glen Campbell's "Southern Nights," Lee Dorsey's "Working in the Coal Mine," Ernie K-Doe's "Mother-in-Law" and "A Certain Girl," Benny Spellman's and, later, the Rolling Stones' "Fortune Teller," Irma Thomas' "It's Raining" and the instrumental "Java," which trumpeter Al Hirt turned into a pop hit.
What started with Toussaint spotlighting the songs of his New Orleans role model, Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd, aka Professor Longhair, soon expanded into a far-reaching exploration of music from many of the greatest American composers.
"We'd been trying to imagine how to do that authentically for the past six years," Henry said. "Beyond that, there was something absolutely cosmic to me to the fact that for everybody we wanted to be involved, there was really only one window in the foreseeable present time that we all might be in a room together.
"After he passed, I was keenly aware of how close we came to not getting there," he said. "I was as gratified as I was rattled by that."
Henry recalled a moment during the recording sessions after Rhiannon Giddens had sung the Ellington composition "Come Sunday." Her roots spread from string band, country and folk, to Celtic music and opera. She expressed concern that she sounded too classical -- not earthy enough.
"Allen's response was immediate and heartfelt on behalf of African American composers," Henry said. "He said it's important that people understand that African American music is so much more than just gut-bucket blues, and that there is a long history of African Americans singing classical interpretations of the spirituals. And he said that the way she had sung it was absolutely perfect."
Then there is the album's closing number, Simon's American Tune, written in 1973 during the Watergate scandal. Simon's song questions the state of the union. Toussaint began including it in his shows after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast in 2005.
It's the only song on the new album that includes Toussaint's voice as well as his piano playing.
Style on 06/26/2016