Pistol Packin’ Mama
OK, two days ahead of Mother's Day here is a great and important song. Al Dexter began recording in 1937 and his approach draws on western swing, among other things, and his music from 1938 into the early 1940s is considered one part of the foundation of honky tonk music. It is also, in some ways, western swing, though with some limitations much of that music does not have. Whatever. This is classic and about a special kind of "mama"!
Read MoreJonah's Wall
Though he played and recorded with many different bands, trumpeter Jonah Jones is probably best known for his work in the 1930s with the superb violinist Stuff Smith and his time during the 1940s with Cab Calloway. This track comes from one really hot session and it features (in order) Dave Rivera on piano, Rudy Powell on clarinet, Milt Hinton on bass, Tyree Glenn on trombone, Ike Quebec on tenor sax and finally Jones, whose hot touch is enlivened by the drum bombs of Kansas Fields. While all the solos are quite fine, note the hard blown squall from Quebec and the bristling, wicked tone Jones has! In many ways, this is swinging jazz during the 1940s at its best, embracing elements that were around in the 1920s, and some that just emerged at the end of the 1930s. It moves, its is hot and it shows a little anger! From September of 1946
Read MoreGravier Street Blues
In the era of 78s, an album was an oversized book containing several, often it was at least six, 78s. Sometimes the packages were devoted to a single artist, and sometimes to a set of related artists, or to related music. In 1940 the Decca label released such an album consisting of older musicians associated with the thriving jazz scene of New Orleans during the 1920s. One of the discs was credited to Johnny Dodds, often considered the most important clarinet player of the 1920s. He, sometimes with his drummer brother Warren 'Baby' Dodds, recorded with Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and many, many others. The side posted has a beautiful solo by guitarist Lonnie Johnson, who was from New Orleans, though many blues fans probably do not associate him with NOLA. It is during his solo that the piano, played by Richard M Jones (his name is attached to Trouble In Mind!) can be heard. Jones and Johnson sound great together, though everyone plays beautifully!
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Read MoreSmall Package
I really liked the early records by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, though I suffered for it as their image (and some of their music) was quite ridiculed back them. To me they had many great talents on record: incisive lead guitar, cool organ and very good vocals and vocal arrangements. Eventually the vocal side sort of too over, and I didn't really like their later, middling pop hits, such as Barefoot In Baltimore. But even as late as 1969 they were capable of some groovy psyche, with hot lead guitar and very well done vocals. This track is a great example, and it has a very surprise ending, too!
Read MoreOut & About
When I was in junior high and the beginning of high school, despite their recording success, in many circles Boyce and Hart were not cool. This was in part because of all their work for the Monkees, and many kinds and young adults thought the band was, well, fake, in a way. That Boyce and Hart appeared on an episode of the Singing Nun didn't help their image. I liked their 45s and when I got their three albums, I found that there was some pretty sophisticated and wonderful rock on them, and they certainly had a great band. Of their three top 40 national hits, I think I like Out And About the best. It just did crack the national top 40, reaching #39 on August 12, 1967. On a different note, my experience interviewing Dolenz, Jones, Boyce, and Hart was pretty much a disaster. The only bright note was how friendly Micky Dolenzwas before he ran off after somebody or something! And there I was with Boyce and Hart and all they wanted to do was complain about being in STL on New Year's Eve! Jeez guys, I didn't want to have been there either!
Read MoreC.V. Jump
The beginnings of bebop were from early 1944 forward. By the start of 1945, Dizzy Gillespie was making his own records. Soon Charlie Parker would as well. In many ways bop gathered creative energies that had been emerging in NYC, at jams, and at a club called Minton's. The cats out in LA, however, were not clueless. This great side from March of 1945 was under the name of Charlie Ventura (note that it is misspelled on the label) who had been in Gene Krupa's big band. He teamed (and would continue to do so in the future) with Howard McGhee, who had been with the bands of Andy Kirk and Charlie Barnet. They cut this very bopish track which also features fine piano from Arnold Ross and a very strong solo by Dave Barbour, who is best known, perhaps, for his relationship with Peggy Lee. So while Hollywood was hardly the incubator of bebop, it was there and in early 1945!
Oozin’ Soul
The Dore label, started by Lew Bedell, had pop rock hits with The Teddy Bears and Jan & Dean before 1960. The label also had a hit that was basically manufactured and played by session musicians around Ernie Freeman, Percolator (Twist). It was copped from a Maxwell House coffee jingle. The made up band was called Billy Joe & the Checkmates, and the label continued to release records under this name well into the late 1960s, and perhaps into the early 1970s! My favorite of them is a crushing, and mildly comic, slab of grungy rock-funk, Try It, You'll Like It. But is is nowhere to be found to post. So here is my second favorite, from early 1968 (?), it has a southern feel, like something by the Bill Black Combo, with cheeky organ and a wonderful, bluesy guitar solo.
Read MoreMy new show tonight at the Soul Station is all about the B3. I feature tracks from two records by Greg Hatza that he made at the end of his teens! His fellow players are Eric Gale and Grady Tate. The debut, The Wizardry of Greg Hatza tracks are mono and sound amazing! He has some moves that you will not hear on other organ jazz records from the 1960s, especially on Charlene. In between the two Greg Hatza sets, I spin tracks from Lonnie Smith's debut, also in mono. These feature King Curtis, Blue Mitchell and George Benson! Also in MONO! This is one very sizzling show. So tune in, 7pm tonight. You know where!
Read MoreDoggone It Baby
From Richmond, Virginia, the Rock-A-Teens hit with an instrumental in 1959 and their label allowed them to make a whole album, and though it featured several other instrumentals, much of it was stone-ground rockabilly, like this track which was also the A-side of the band's second 45. Written by lead singer Vic Mizelle, it has an irresistible quality, in part because of Mizelle's vocal. The great guitar work also helps!
Read MoreTemptation
Bassist John Kirby led a successful sextet for nearly 8 years. It had great original material, much of it furnished by trumpeter Charlie Shavers. The group also had a very original way of playing and breaking down pop hits that had already been successful by other artists, usually outside the jazz field. Such is the case with the band's marvelous arrangement of Temptation. It was originaly from the 1933 film Going Hollywood and was very popularized by Bing Crosby in the same year. The Kirby version adds a blue mood to the song that really wasn't there before. Some of this comes from a five note bass line Kirby plays (it starts at 0:16); Though a very simple line, it has resonance with another song, a hit, from that day, the piano blues After Hours. So the arrangement goes forward with a bit of piano (it was prominent in the Crosby hit) and clarinet, while the tension increases just a bit and that bass line becomes more clearly audible before the end. It really is beautifully constructed and the blues element, while it is not directly dveloped quite adds to the performance.
Read MoreStardust
Coleman Hawkins, one of the greatest and most important jazz sax players, very much wanted to tour Europe in the 1930s, and after several planned trips fell through, he still found a way. He toured there for five years and did not return to the US until 1939. He made recordings in the UK as well as France and indeed, one of the most memorable on those discs is his version of Stardust. Stardust had been famous since the early 1930s and made very memorable by Louis Armstrong. The Hawkins version is a spare, beautiful affair, with Stephane Grappellion piano and Django Reinhardt on guitar. In my estimation, it is just as unforgettable as the one by Armstrong.
DJ Pi/Paul Yamada
Read MoreWe’re Not Gonna Take It
Tommy by the Who is 50 years old this month. Yes, it was released in late May of 1969. It certainly was a milestone and a crossroads for the Who. Starting in 1970, they were becoming their own version of a hard rock band, while Tommy was, in many ways piano and acoustic guitar driven. I remember seeing an all Tommy show in late 1969 and then seeing the Who again in early 1970 and the Tommy material was much different, much harder, more rock and very like what is on the extended Live At Leeds. I don't know how popular Tommy is anymore, though I still like it and like comparing the original to the live tracks on Live At Leeds.
Read MoreDo It Like Mama
The Chicago soul-funk duo Simtec (Walter Simmons) And Wylie (Wylie Dixon) had a bunch of 45s (and one album) from the late 1960s into the 1970s. They excelled at a hard edged, funky kind of soul that vocally relied on Sam And Dave. The band on several of their records was more or less led by guitarist Bobby Pointer, and he and a few others moved on from the duo to become the Southside Movement. Although the two singers had more success with their second 45 on Shama, this is the one that hits me, and when they keep singing mommy my eyes roll as much as my feet move!
Read MoreMy new show at the Soul Station features the Standells and the Count Five. Their music makes a very interesting comparison and contrast. Some the hits are there, but so are many other records that are not as well known and deserve attention, like the Count Five doing You Must Believe Me (Impressions) as well as a Standells original, Poor Shell Of A Man and their version of Wicked Pickett's Ninety-Nine And A Half. I also feature the original of Soul Drippin’ by the Standells, which, when covered by Chicago's The Mauds, became the closest record that band had that was a national hit! So do tune in. a rockin' must tonight at 7pm!
Read MoreTruck Stop
Hamilton Bohannon grew up in GA and went to college there all the while working as a drummer. He was recruited to join the touring band of Stevie Wonder and thus he moved to Detroit in 1967. Eventually he led a band that backed other artists as was billed as Bohannon & The Motown Sound. He did not move to California when Motown essentially fled Detroit. He started his own band and went after a unique guitar based, dance-funk style. Initially he had Ray Parker, Jr and Dennis Coffey playing on his records. In 1974 he had his first hit, but only in the UK. Into the early 1980s, his music was consistently in the r&b charts, though he had only one big hit, Let's Start The Dance, in 1978. I love his insistent beat and all those guitars, many of them very fly and wah-wah. Sometimes the dancers have other instrumentation, as on this 1974 number, which has harmonica. It was a B-side to a track from his first album released the previous year. Be prepared to move.
Read MoreDon Byas went to Europe with Don Redman in the fall of 1946 and he and many members of that band stayed in Europe. By October Byas was recording with a largely African American band mostly drawn from the group he arrived with. During his first Paris session, he used Herbert Lee 'Peanuts' Holland (trumpet), Tyree Glenn (trombone) and Billy Taylor (piano). One of the best numbers they cut is Glenn's Working Eyes, which Duke Ellington turned into Sultry Serenade and claimed for himself, at least on the record label. Ellington's version was the B-side of Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me on Columbia. Perhaps this got straightened out later, perhaps after Glenn left the Duke's employ. I say this because later Herbie Mann recorded it and there the ascription goes to Glenn and NOT Ellington. It is a great tune and the original is great, with fine solos all around.
Read MoreMamita Cambia
Although he came to the US in 1940 and stayed, the great singer Miguelito Valdes continued to return to Cuba to perform and occasionally record, at least until the revolution. This particular recording seems to come from one of his last trips, and probably dates from 1957. He is backed by a very late version of Orquesta Hermanos Castro, a large band that was active and recording as early as 1931. This is a really great record, and by its arrangement, someone was quite influenced by the Perez Prado brass sound and how it makes a mambo or mambo like dance music really work!
Read MoreThe Chase
Producer and label owner George Goldner is mostly known for the many vocal r&b records he cut in the 1950s, but he did not ignore tougher, raunchy rock'n'roll. He produced this rough gem for his Gone label at the end of 1959, and the Bill on it, guitarist Bill Emerson shows off hot ideas and a gritty tone. Some moments of this rocker even get as gnarly as Link Wray! A great way to rev up for what looks to be a foggy, and eventually wet (again) morning!
DJ Pi/Paul Yamada
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