Otis Spann performs “Nobody Knows My Trouble & Cold Feeling Blues”

In this clip from the 1968 Copenhagen Jazz Festival Muddy Waters’ pianist Otis Spann seizes an opportunity, fronting the band for two full songs.

An integral member of the nonpareil Muddy Waters band of the 1950s and ’60s, pianist Otis Spann took his sweet time in launching a full-fledged solo career. But his own discography is a satisfying one nonetheless, offering ample proof as to why so many aficionados considered him then and now Chicago’s leading post-war blues pianist. Spann played on most of Waters‘ classic Chess waxings between 1953 and 1969, his rippling 88s providing the drive on Waters‘ seminal 1960 live version of “Got My Mojo Working” (cut at the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival, where Spann dazzled the assembled throng with some sensational storming boogies).