Igor Prado Band with Raphael Wressnig and J. J. Jackson
Although very young, Igor Prado has already an impressive career and is a great name of the blues. With his talent recognized by many blues experts, Igor has played and recorded with great names of the genre and participated in major blues festivals around the world. In early 2015, the Igor Prado Band hit the #1 position in the Living Blues Chart — the most important worldwide blues chart. The following year, they were also nominated for Best New Artist Album in the 37th Blues Music Awards — the first South American band to achieve such result.
Alongside the extraordinary Austrian organist Raphael Wressnig, Igor and his band — his brother Yuri Prado on drums and Rodrigo Mantovani on bass — got on the stage to show their album Soul Connection.
They opened with Rudy Toombs’ classic “Young Girl,” followed by the incredible “Mustard Greens,” showing they were here to get everybody jumping to their music. This composition of Raphael Wressnig seems to have been made decades ago based on the best that’s been done in the genre. With his Hammond organ plugged into a Leslie speaker (a classic combo), the guy shows that he’d spent a lot of time listening to the best of all time Soul and Rhythm ’n’ Blues.
After “The face slap swing n.5” and another instrumental, they played the R’n’B classic “Trying to live my life without you” (famous in the interpretation of Otis Clay), “Home at Last” and “Suffering with the Blues” (all from 1956, which gives a good idea of where the guys’ heads are). These three songs were performed with American singer JJ Jackson on the stage. Jackson is a charismatic showman. He lives in Brazil since the 90s and has an excellent voice. He talked to the audience in Portuguese the whole concert.
After singing “Do not cry no more”, Jackson left the stage so the band could perform another pair of instrumentals, a shuffle and the sensational “It’s your thing”.
Yuri Prado and Rodrigo Mantovani held everything together so Igor and Raphael could fly. I liked especially the pulsing fat lines Mantovani got from his old Kay bass.
At the end of the show, JJ Jackson returns to the stage to sing tyrone Davis’ “Turning Point” (great bass line!), and “Stand by me” — a song usually performed by JJ to finish his concerts.
Igor Prado’s albums can be found on streaming platforms as well as on You Tube, where you can even find his appearances on television shows. For tour dates, videos and more information about his career, you can visit the band’s website.
Raphael Wressnig also has plenty of videos on You Tube, including live incendiary performances like “It’s your thing”.
J. J. Jackson has a well-built website and also a Facebook page where you can have plenty of information about his tour dates and career.
For more photos of this show, take a look at the album (30 photos) that I uploaded to my Flickr account.
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