Search - Louis Jordan :: The Later Years 1953-1957

Latter-day LJ is still okay

Andre M. | Mt. Pleasant, SC United States | 02/26/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Fans of the super lunatic madman supreme, the king of Jazz comedy, sultan of saxophone and storytelling, and the grandfather of soul Louis Thomas Jordan will enjoy this selections of tunes made past his more popular period.



This set begins with some 1954 tunes for Aladdin records. perviously available on the cd ONE GUY NAMED LOUIS, these are done in our man's usual style of jazzed up comedy story songs. A DOLLAR DOWN is a tale of woe of bad credit, MESSY BESSY is about a crude and wild girlfriend-a 1950s hoochie mama (I recall my mther using the expression "Messy Bessy" to describe such women), IF I HAD ANY SENSE I'LL GO BACK HOME is some wry commentary about the migration of Southern blacks to Northern cities. GAL YOU NEED A WHUPPIN would outrage the humor-deprived politically correct crowd who would take this domestic violence spoof all too seriously. There are also some brilliant instrumentals-GOTTA GO (with bits of "Don't Worry About the Mule" thrown in for hardocre fans) and THE DRIPPER, a frantic dance number.



From 1955 upward, our hero does a nice food number with BANANAS (pronounced "Bo-na-nos" here) and a tip to the then current trend in music ROCK AND ROLL CALL. Not bad, but our hero sounds a bit too old for this kind of thing-the lyrics are more Chuck Berry's style. Imagine Tony Bennett doing Jay-Z and you get the idea. This is followed by some of his calssic tunes done 1950s style. Not bad, but a bit jarring for those who prefer the originals. Some are done a bit too fast. But the slower tunes such as "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" and "Sweet Lorraine" are quite fine. Quincy Jones produced a few numbers here, such as BIG BESS.



This set would mean that much of the Jordan canon is now available to CD buyers. However, I for one would like to see the ultra-rare Ray Charles produced records Jordan did for Tangerine Records in the early 60s available on Cd. Hopefully, this will encourage that idea."