Jazz
CD1: 56:33 min.
CD2: 56:08 min.
Postwar America's big Blues Bands and small Jump Jive groups gave the world boogie piano rhythms, powerhouse percussion and honking horn players backing extrovert lead singers out front performing with humour and often wild exuberance. Metro Doubles' Jump'n'Jive turns the spotlight right up on Savoy Records'unrivalled archives for the best and brightest star performers from these exciting years.
In the euphoric mood of postwar America, the clubs and bars of the big new industrial cities spawned suitably loud electric music to sustain the country's party atmosphere and satisfy the needs of hungry workers in search of entertainment. Just as the rough and ready honky tonks sprang up to encourage the growth of newly amplified country music, so similar urban venues appeared to provide a home for the jumping sounds of raucous blues bands, sometimes trimmed down of necessity to compact small group size. The big band format, though it continued through into the 50s, could at times be inappropriate for these environments and a whole new music came about as a result, utilizing the best elements of the previously dominant prewar sound : its basis in boogie piano rhythms, strong percussion, powerful horn playing and charismatic lead vocalists with particular emphasis on humour and showmanship. Louis Jordan with his Tympany Five had scored a big hit in this style with Choo Choo Ch'Boogie as early as 1942 and Illinois Jacquet played his famously repetitive sax on Lionel Hampton's anthem Flying Home a year later, still with full orchestra backing. Immediately postwar it was those who had learned most from the more extravagant 1930s bandleaders - Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder, Jay McShann and Jimmie Lunceford in particular - who quickly came to star in both the new pared-down outfits and in the surviving big blues bands.
Savoy Records gathered together an enviable artist roster of mostly black popular music to build on the label's historic recordings of the beginnings of modern jazz, and many of the very finest blues shouters, authentic jazz singers, screaming saxophonists and extrovert soloists can be found here. Savoy especially nurtured the career of bandleader and talent spotter Johnny Otis, and several tracks at the close of this collection are reserved for some of the great star guests who worked in his enduring touring band.
CD1
1. Pete Johnson - Atomic Boogie (Johnson) Copyright Control 1946 - 2:50
2. Big Joe Turner - My Gal's A Jockey (Turner) Screen Gems-EMI Music Ltd.1946 - 3:13
3. Big Joe Turner - I'm In Sharp When I Hit The Coast (Turner) Copyright Control 1946 - 3:02
The real beginnings of these 1946 recordings can be traced back almost two decades earlier as Pete Johnson had been one of the three leading exponents of boogie-woogie piano playing, along with Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons, establishing the form long before the "craze" of 1938-41 led to full recognition of Johnson's prowess. His story is inextricably linked with Big Joe Turner, as both men grew up in the hedonistic honeypot of Kansas City which thrived particularly during Prohibition, and worked together at the Hawaiian Gardens and Sunset Crystal Palace Gardens clubs in the 30s. John Hammond took the pair to try their luck in New York and, at the second attempt, they were a success through their participation in the Spirituals To Swing concert of 1938 which prompted a boom in their music's popularity. Turner had graduated from singing in local big bands of the calibre of Andy Kirk and Count Basie and did much to patent the style of the blues shouter, a form in which he was both the first and the best as he performed with immense dignity and strength while conveying deep emotion in his singing. His version of Shake Rattle and Roll in 1954 was outsold by Bill Haley's weaker, cleaned-up version, as his image, material and delivery were altogether too adult for the new music's young white target audience. My Gal's A Jockey was, however, a very fine earlier example of Turner's talent and Johnson's Atomic Boogie sounded similarly incendiary recorded with a tight octet featuring Hot Lips Page.
4. Billy Eckstine - I Love The Rhythm In A Riff (Eckstine/Valentine) Copyright Control 1945 - 2:50
5. Billy Eckstine - Oop Bop Sh'Bam (Gillespie/Fuller) Bosworth & Co.Ltd. 1946 - 3:03
6. Helen Humes - Airplane Blues (Jackson/Kelson) Savoy-Music Co Inc. 1950 - 2:30
7. Helen Humes - Helen's Advice (Humes/Milton) AH-Music 1950 - 2:44
"Billy Eckstine's band changed my life." So said Miles Davis of the occasion in St. Louis in 1944 when a trumpet player fell ill and gave the very young Miles the chance to deputize for a week. Mr.B's BeBop band also featured, at various times, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, as this explosive outfit had a big, full sound with a strong jazz content in the vocals with occasional scat interludes, yet always retained a firmly accessible base, enjoying hits with the high quality urban blues of Jelly Jelly and Stormy Monday. Gillespie had recorded his own version of Oop Bop Sh'Bam several months earlier, as co-author of the song, and Dexter Gordon, too, led his own band and provided the backing for the two R &B numbers featured next here by Helen Humes. A highly rated ballad singer who had recorded with James P. Johnson and Harry James as well as Count Basie, replacing Billie Holiday and making the popular If I Could Be With You, Humes could also perform excellent jump blues material, as these songs amply demonstrate. She achieved recognition as a soloist, too, with Bill Doggett on Be Baba Laba and does the suggestive lyrics full justice on both Airplane Blues and Helen's Advice.
8. Big Maybelle - Ring Dang Dilly (Mendelsohn) Screen Gems-EMI Music Ltd. 1956 - 2:15
9. Big Maybelle - That's A Pretty Good Love (Lucas/Mendelsohn) EMI Music Publishing Ltd. 1956 - 2:32
As Big Joe Turner should be considered the best of the male blues shouters, so Big Maybelle would surely be a contender for the female crown as her similar style made a powerful impact on the pop hit Candy, but preference here goes to these two high tempo, more bluesy songs with Mickey Baker's guitar adding a cutting edge. Like Big Joe, too, Maybelle made a Rock & Roll record which was outgunned by the white version - in her case, the first recording of Whole Lotta Shakin' made two years before Jerry Lee Lewis stormed the charts in 1957. She later became popular on the chitlin' circuit of black clubs, as her career lost its way somewhat in the 60s with Beatles' covers and her stab at 96 Tears, the pop success for ? and the Mysterians.
10. H-Bomb Ferguson - Bookie's Blues (Ferguson) Screen Gems-EMI Music Ltd. 1952 - 2:25
11. Tiny Bradshaw - Take The Hands Off The Clock (Glover/Theard) Copyright Control 1947 - 2:23
12. Billy Wright - Married Woman's Boogie (Wright) Copyright Control 1950 - 2:33
13. Gatemouth Moore - I Ain't Mad At You, Pretty Baby (Moore) Screen Gems-EMI Music Ltd. 1945 - 2:47
Four performers who fit together follow, beginning with H-Bomb Ferguson, also known as The Cobra Kid and later as Wiggy, who was an all-round talent easily able to incorporate humour into his lively act. His long career included sessions with Jack "The Bear" Parker for Esquire and Prestige before Savoy spotted him at Harlem's Baby Grand club and recorded this number with some great boogie piano. Tiny Bradshaw was an exuberant blues shouter and bandleader with an obvious jazz influence in his hard-swinging sound, and another with a gift for showmanship learned from Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan ; the latter's Let The Good Times Roll was written by New Orleans veteran Sam Theard who also penned Take The Hands Off The Clock. The Billy Wright number was another high-spirited R&B fast boogie of the time by a lesser-known artist who was a star attraction at Atlanta's 81 Theatre, where rival performers learned to be reluctant to follow his show ; an extrovert with high pompadour hair and heavy make-up, fellow Georgian Little Richard took much from Wright's stagecraft. Gatemouth Moore leaned a little more towards pop styling than blues, gaining a following in travelling shows around the Midwest which led to to this moderately popular recording with its infectious swing-style riffing. Gatemouth decided to reinvent himself later as Reverend Dwight Moore, however, as his version was outsold by others.
14. Doc Pomus - My Good Pott (Pomus) Global Music Ltd. 1947 - 2:40
15. Sonny (Jackie) Wilson - The Rainy Day Blues (Mitchell/Wilson) Copyright Control 1952 - 2:25
16. Little Miss Sharecropper (LaVern Baker) - I Want To Rock (Baker) Copyright Control 1950 - 2:42
Next up are three artists who went on to different things, very much so in the case of Doc Pomus, here found as a performer before his distinguished career took off as a songwriter who, in partnership with Mort Shuman, wrote witty and imaginative hits for Ray Charles, Elvis, Dion, the Drifters and many more. Pomus idolized Big Joe Turner and here sings a rolling jump blues with typically strong lyrics, backed by Dizzy Gillespie sidemen Ray Abrams and Jesse Powell. Sonny Wilson later became Jackie, of course, enjoying his finest moments on Reet Petite and Higher And Higher, but this 1952 recording for Savoy was made under his original name and was backed by the Billy Mitchell band ; at that time a boxer who had just started winning talent shows for his singing, this mellow blues clearly shows his promise. LaVern Baker became famous through Jim Dandy and Tweedle Dee but got her first break in 1949 through her aunt Memphis Minnie, before recording I Want A Lavender Cadillac and joining Todd Rhodes' band. Born Dolores Williams, she sang I Want To Rock in 1950 as Little Miss Sharecropper.
17. Tommy Brown - Double-Faced Deacon (Magid) Campbell Connelly & Co Ltd. 1951 - 2:55
18. Tommy Brown - V-8 Baby (Brown) Copyright Control 1951 - 2:54
19. Nappy Brown - That Man (Bateman) Screen Gems-EMI Music Ltd. 1954 - 3:02
20. Nappy Brown - The Night Time Is The Right Time (Carr/Sykes) Tristan Music Ltd, Universal/MCA Music Ltd. 1957 - 3:00
Tommy Brown joined the Griffin Brothers band where he made his best-known record Weepin' And Cryin', before cutting a vocal version of Bill Doggett's Honky Tonk and later co-owning the label responsible for Gladys Knight's first hit Every Beat Of My Heart. The two numbers chosen here are Double-Faced Deacon, a sly composition on the familiar theme of hypocritical churchmen in the style of Wynonie Harris, and the car song V-8 Baby, in the tradition of Jimmy Liggins' Cadillac Boogie and Ike Turner's highly influential Rocket 88. Unrelated namesake Nappy was an uncompromising, gospel-drenched singer who followed Savoy's advice to him never to "go white" and his five years spent in the Selam Jubilee Singers gave him the ideal training to heed this instruction. The obvious choice would be the 1955 pop hit Don't Be Angry but he excels more on the menacing jive of That Man, where he sings two roles, and the Roosevelt Sykes blues The Night Time Is The Right Time, which gave him his last major success and completes CD1.
CD2
1. Jimmie Lunceford - Shut Out (Thomas) Copyright Control 1946 - 2:41
2. Jimmie Lunceford (vocal Joe Thomas)- Call The Police (Cole) The International Music Network 1947 - 2:57
3. Louis Prima - Brooklyn Boogie (Prima/Bostic) Memory Lane Music Ltd. 1944 - 2:56
Shut Out opens CD2 and this straightahead tune from 1946, played by one of the most highly respected and blues-based of all the big bands, noted for tight ensemble playing with few star soloists, shows the strong influence of this style on some of the smaller outfits just springing up at this time, while reciprocally the following year's Call The Police features a vocal which owes much to Louis Jordan in the ironic tone of its performance. Lunceford himself died suddenly of a heart attack two months after this recording, symbolizing the passing of the dominance of the "Sixteen Men Swinging" period. Louis Prima had also led a top big band during the war and immediately afterwards, and was one of the earliest white jump players who actually influenced Roy Milton and Wynonie Harris ; this 1944 outing was co-written by honking saxman Earl Bostic.
4. Slim Gaillard - Flat Foot Floogie (Gaillard/Stewart/Green) Peter Maurice Music Co Ltd. 1945 - 2:30
5. Babs Gonzales - Get Out Of That Bed (Gonzales) Copyright Control 1953 - 2:18
6. Babs Gonzales - The Boss Is Back (Ornithology) (Parker/Harris) Marada Music Ltd. 1953 - 2:40
Hipster humour was never far away from Jump'n'Jive, and Gaillard and Gonzalez were two of the best practitioners. Slim Gaillard wrote Flat Foot Floogie in 1937 and two years later claimed that it was one of three songs placed in a time capsule at the World's Fair, together with Rhapsody In Blue and Stars And Stripes. "Great honour. I never knew I wrote a historic song." Such a story is archetypally bizarre and Slim's deliberately incomprehensible language of "vout" perpetuated his novelty image while simultaneously masking the creativity which lay in his use of nonsense English, scat, mock foreign vocabulary and parody. Gonzales, too, had what Valerie Wilmer understatedly called "an exuberant personality" as she described his gesture of wearing clogs to stamp his feet when drummers dragged the tempo. On another occasion,"I was determined not to fight for this racist country", he railed in his autobiography, and described how he dressed in women's clothes, complete with lipstick and perfume overkill, for his interview at the Army Induction Centre : rushed to the psychiatrist, he soon had his papers stamped with the desired 4FH. Uninhibited wit naturally courses through these three contributions.
7. Dallas Bartley - You're The Greatest (Bartley) Copyright Control 1947 - 3:08
8. Dallas Bartley - I Know What It's All About (Bartley/Hickman) Copyright Control 1947 - 2:35
9. Harold Land - Swingin' On Savoy (Land) Screen Gems-EMI Music Ltd. 1949 - 2:36
10. Harold Land - San Diego Bounce (Land) Copyright Control 1949 - 2:39
Dallas Bartley worked with Louis Jordan in the 40s, so he too was never lacking in humour, and he shows a strong jive influence on both these intriguing songs - "I ain't Clark Gable, but I know what it's all about." An inventive writer, he provided hits Early In The Morning for Jordan (and later, oddly, for Harry Nilsson), West Side Baby for T-Bone Walker and New Year's Resolution for Roy Milton. Harold Land was more closely associated with the straighter end of jazz, but he was an unjustly neglected tenor player who became a member of Jimmy Liggins' driving R&B band, and cut these extrovert 1949 sides in classic jump style. He was highly skilled on infectious blues tunes and came to Los Angeles from San Diego, hence the title of the track.
11. Big Jay McNeely - Man Eater (McNeely) Bug Music Ltd. (GB) 1949 - 3:03
12. Redd Lyte- The Little Red Hen (Otis) Copyright Control 1949 - 2:28
13. Redd Lyte - Good Time Blues (Hollis/Otis) Copyright Control 1950 - 2:40
14. The Robins - The Turkey Hop (Pt.2) (Trad/Arr. Bass/Otis) 1950 - 2:41
15. Marilyn Scott - Beer Bottle Boogie (Scott) Screen Gems -EMI Music Ltd. 1950 - 2:40
Five performers backed by the fabulous Johnny Otis band follow, opening with the explosive saxophonist Big Jay McNeely. Allegedly fond of one hour solos, tearing off his jacket and lying on the floor still blowing, before going out on to the street to continue honking while his sidemen carried on riffing on stage, McNeely epitomized the wildest reaches of saxophone "cutting contests" and extremes of outlandish showmanship. At the Golden Gate Drive-In in Los Angeles, Big Jay performed on roller skates, wore a toga out of Ben Hur and was apparently arrested on the charge of "exciting Mexicans". Singer Redd Lyte runs through the next two selections, with McNeely continuing in the backing band joined by Otis's other tenor mainstay James Von Streeter, and was himself the brother of blues singer Jimmy "T-99" Nelson and part-time comic and MC. The Robins were the former A-Sharp Trio plus Bobby Nunn (later of the Coasters), bolstered by Otis stalwart Devonia "Lady Dee" Williams who brought her feisty gifts to the band on piano and vocals for many years : The Turkey Hop was also covered by Lionel Hampton and Les Brown. Marilyn Scott appears in the secular guise of The Carolina Blues Girl, which alternated with her strictly religious gospel persona as Mary DeLoatch, with the first name clearly more suitable for Beer Bottle Boogie.
16. Little Esther - Cupid's Boogie (Otis) Copyright Control 1950 - 2:36
17. Little Esther - Wedding Boogie (Otis) Copyright Control 1950 - 2:54
18. Jimmy Rushing - Jimmy's Round The Clock Blues (Bryant) BMG Music Publ. Ltd. 1945 - 3:09
19. Johnny Otis - New Orleans Shuffle (Lewis/Otis) Screen Gems-EMI Music Ltd. 1949 - 2:39
20. Johnny Otis - All Night Long (Otis) Screen Gems-EMI Music Ltd. 1951 - 2:35
Influenced by Dinah Washington, the young Esther Phillips was known until 1962 as Little Esther, and was another from the Johnny Otis stable, discovered by him at his Barrel House Club in Los Angeles and swifly making the Top Ten in the R&B charts with Cupid's Boogie ; the teenage prodigy followed up in the same year (1950) with Wedding Boogie, recorded again with Mel Walker and this time also Lee Graves sharing vocals. Critic Donald Clarke described her as "probably the best early-teen singer of all time". Otis himself had always dreamed of having his own band like Count Basie's and in 1945 got to play briefly with him, as a result of which he was able to engage Jimmy Rushing, regular lead singer for Basie, to perform Round The Clock with him, and Mr. Five By Five didn't disappoint with his suitably mellow performance. Otis himself, still going strong with his regular band, provides the last two selections with the instrumental New Orleans Shuffle followed by the leader's first recorded vocal on 1951's All Night Long.
Neil Kellas
Based in Greenwich, South London, Neil Kellas is a freelance compiler and music writer responsible for over 400 CDs. |
