Sophie Tucker Photo Courtesty Red Hot Jazz Archive

'St. Louis Gal' performed by The Jim Cullum Jazz Band with special guest Topsy Chapman Segment Feature Courtesy Riverwalk Jazz

Sophisticated Ladies & Red Hot Mamas
Heartbreakers, man-takers, vamps, tramps, and the girl next door; through the centuries, they¹ve all shown up in song. New Orleans’ Topsy Chapman joins The Jim Cullum Jazz Band in a concert at The Landing to separate the "sophisticated ladies" from the "red-hot mommas."

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Heartbreakers, man-takers, vamps, tramps, and the girl next door; through the centuries, they've all shown up in song. It seems that songwriters are forever trying to decipher the feminine mystique. And singers never tire of crooning about the many aspects of the female spirit.

This week on Riverwalk Jazz, New Orleans' Topsy Chapman joins The Jim Cullum Jazz Band at The Landing to separate the "sophisticated ladies" from the "red-hot mommas."

For thousands of years, philosophers, poets, playwrights—and even comedians— have labored to crack life's greatest mystery. Women have been mystifying men since the beginning of time. Songwriters often take their inspiration from the many aspects of the female spirit. And it takes a versatile artist like Topsy Chapman to cover such a broad range of style and mood—from the growl of "aggravatin' poppa don't you two-time me" to the purr of "time on my hands and you in my arms."

Topsy says she thinks of herself, as on a movie set, when she performs songs like these. She says, "I step into character and just feel whatever she's feeling." On Riverwalk Jazz this week, we'll let Topsy be our guide through a program of hot numbers, the blues, and a torch song or two.

Sophie Tucker (1884-1966) billed herself as "The Last of the Red Hot Mommas," but she wasn't the first woman to build a career telling off-color jokes and belting out bawdy songs. Her act was inspired by the success of blues queens like Gertrude "Ma" Rainey and her Rabbit Foot Minstrels, in the Deep South.

Offstage, Tucker was a fiery union organizer and great philanthropist. And through the decades, she blazed a trail for other finger-shaking hotties—from Bessie Smith to Tina Turner and Madonna.

Topsy Chapman celebrates the spirit of "red hot mommas" everywhere with the irreverent "'Tain't Nobodys' Bizness If I Do," a classic of early blues recorded in 1923, by both Alberta Hunter and Bessie Smith, two giants of that genre.

Also on the bill are songs about home, like "Back in Your Own Back Yard" and the haunting "I've Got the Blues for Home Sweet Home." The Jim Cullum Jazz Band offers instrumental rendtions of "Sophisticated Lady" and "There Ain't No Sweet Man Worth the Salt of my Tears." And Topsy sings the classic love songs "In My Solitude" and "Time on my Hands."