Dr. John Brings a Dose of Voodoo Funk from New Orleans to Royce Hall

Jonny Whiteside

New Orleans pianist Dr. John is one of the most distinctive, liberated, prolific and well-schooled musicians in American music. A stylist whose pedigree runs from raw Rhythm & Blues, ragtime, boogie-woogie to intense psychedelic funk to elegantly expressive straight-ahead jazz, Dr. John’s musical odyssey through that fabled city’s mystical underworld has been consistently mesmerizing. A certifiable Wildman, the good Doctor, in his youth, also engaged in a kaleidoscopic range of vice, brawling and out and out criminality resulting in numerous arrests and some hard prison time, while working with and learning from some of finest jazz and blues players, an unusual mixture that lends his music an experiential depth that is his alone.

Born Malcolm John “Mac” Rebennack on Nov. 21 1940 in New Orleans, he was hooked after hearing Big Joe Turner’s classic “Piney Brown Blues”. He began playing piano while still in elementary school and as a teenager he’d hang around the famed Cosimo Matassa recording studio. Before long, he was working as a session musician, as well as leading his own band and later producing records for local blues & R&B acts and generally absorbing the majestic funky music of New Orleans, particularly the evocative, rhumba-tinged style of Professor Longhair.

However, he was also a major hell-raiser and drug addict who operated brothels and sold dope to pay for his own habit, which, after a bust for heroin possession, resulted in his incarceration in a Texas penitentiary. Following his release in 1965, he split for Los Angeles, resumed his musical career, and soon adopted the fabulously eccentric, hallucinogen-informed Dr John persona. As the Nite Tripper, he developed an extravagantly groovy new sound, and his 1968 debut “Gris-Gris” cemented his reputation as the leader in psychedelic voodoo funk.

Despite ongoing struggles with addiction, Dr John’s recorded output and stream of collaborations (with everyone from the Rolling Stones to Curly Simon, Eric Clapton and Neil Diamond) has been dizzyingly prolific. The six-time Grammy winner and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member remains as flexible and free thinking to jump from projects like the rocked up funk of 2012’s “Locked Down,” produced by the Black Keys Dan Auerbach to his current pure jazz set “Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch,” a freewheeling tribute to Louis Armstrong.

He is also a show-stopping entertainer, and his live shows often feature everything from Mardi Gras Indians, snake dancers and atmospheric voodoo trappings. At the heart of it all, though, is own warm, magnificent piano playing and signature leathery hepcat croaking vocals, which invariably combine to ignite an exciting bonfire of high-altitude musical expression the likes of which you’ll hear nowhere else

Dr. John & The Nite Trippers will perform at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Dec. 6. Tickets are available here.