Louis Jordan Music

I bought this cd as a birthday gift for my 14-year old nephew who is a huge fan of big band/swing music. It was greatly enjoyed by everyone at his party - including his grandparents. The music has a classic swing party feel! The lyrics to the songs are fun - you find yourself singing along. I think I could become a big fan of Louis Jordan. I plan on ordering several more copies as Christmas gifts. Highly recommended!

I wandered into this CD while checking out the many great boxed sets that JSP Records has to offer. I knew very little about Louis Jordan before hearing this, and now I'm hooked! For anybody whole loves to hear the building blocks of modern music, this is for you. If you like to hear things like Bob Wills, Milton Brown, Louis Armstrong, This is for you.

Simply put, for its value this is one of the greatest collections of CD's of utter joy and happiness around.

This multivolume set covers the early music and musical peak of the musical and comical link between Bert Williams and Louis Armstrong (LJ's dad was a friend of Bert's and used his records to inspire his son, and Satch was a mentor and occasional collaborator with LJ) and the first generation of R&B rockers (Ray Chalres, the Godfather, B.B. King, and Little Richard have all sang their praises to LJ).

Some of his really rare early music is found on the early discs. It took him a while to find his style of humorous stories told to a beat and inspired sax playing, but there are still some diamonds in the rough here. "Swinging in the Coconut Trees" is an amusing and atmospheric instrumental, "Keep a Knockin" was later covered by Little Richard, "Do You Call That a Buddy" is a good comical blues with some nice background singing by the T-5, "June Teenth Jamboree" is probably the first record to deal with this early black holiday (LJ was astudent of Black folklore, and incorporated it into his music), and "What's the Use of Gettin' Sober" is the kind of wild, authentic black humor that would put Amos & Andy's "PseudoNegro" antics to shame.

Later on, we get into the familiar bits of inspired nuttiness and great musicianship. "Caldonia," "Sat Nite Fish Fry," "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie," "Beware" (and its sequel "Look Out Sister" which has some hilarious early rapping), and what is to me the funniest R&B record of all time, the knee-slapping floor-pounding classic BEANS & CORNBREAD.

We also get some of the calypso tunes with Jordan's expertly delivered "Jafakean" accent such as "Run Joe," "Early in the morning," "Stone Cold dead in the Market," and "Push Ka peesh Kee Pie." The West Indians were flattered by these tunes and LJ made succesful tours of the West Indies.

However, the set ends at about 1950, just before our man's career peaked. But his later material is available elsewhere on Amazon. In either case, whenver you come home from a hard day at work, put this set on your CD player. It'll put your psychologist out of work!

Don't think twice-- buy it! Great collection goes on and on, and never runs out of steam. Louis Jordan was at his peak when these were recorded. I repeat: buy!

The sound quality on this set is great with one exception: "Five Guys Named Moe" sounds horrible! It sounds like it was dubbed from an out-of-round record! What's most puzzling is that this is the only track that sounds bad, and that this was one of Louis Jordan's biggest hits, with many superior transfers available. JSP usually does a stellar job with sound - what happened here?! Luckily, I still have my LP version. Otherwise I'd give this set 5 stars.

Wolf Shadow, great review. Louis Jordan was my uncle and I have almost all of these great cuts on original 33 1/3s and even 45s and 78s. I will buy this CD to preserve my Louis collection which I hardly ever played in the past 40 years.

I give it four stars instead of five because his grearest blues hit "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" is not included in over 130 cuts.

There are others I would have liked to have seen included like 'School Days', which we loved as kids years ago. Plus more of his blues solos. Lots of people did not consider my uncle a "serious" musician, which he surely was.

All in all, a great box set well worth the price.

There are a lot of really rare hard to find R&B tunes on here that are usually on Boxed sets costing lots more money. Mainly music out of the 50s but still sounds good today.

After getting the first Louis Jordan's greatest hits, the next compilation of wild jump-swing and humorous rapping jams, and mellow jazz numbers is Five Guys Named Moe. Many of these songs feature the ensemble who sang in the play of the same name. So, what else is on there aside from the title track, which was also on the first greatest hits?

"Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby" is a slow trumpet and piano number and one of Jordan's bigger hits. This would be later done by Renee Olstead on her self-titled album.
Given the collapse of my personal life last October, I oughta take "Safe Sane and Single" as a personal anthem. Using some of "Oh Susannah"'s rhythms, this fast jam details how women become vicious once married-"a woman and a man came to a parting of the ways/the judge gave her the bank account and gave him 90 days." How true.

The two Louises, Jordan and Armstrong, wax on the poetry of life in "Life Is So Peculiar." It's basically wondering about the obvious basics and facts in life "you get so wet in the rain", "when I get up in the morning there's nothing to breathe but air", "a fork belongs with a knife." and how there's nothing to brood about.

"Open The Door Richard" features a character named zig who was "booted with liquid", "abnoxicated", "inebriated", "well, he was just plain drunk" and his stream of consciousness rants. A funny line involves the landlady demanding back rent and him saying, "she'd be lucky if she got some front rent."

"Boogie Woogie Blue Plate" is about the stuff a waitress asks the cook for at a diner. The upbeat "Pettin' and Pokin'" has some fast-talking jams from Jordan about a bickering couple named Jack and Jill who were "always petting and poking and jabbing and joking and cooing and crackin and neckin and knockin and singin and sockin" and so on. Now try and rap that fast! Jordan sings to a girl with "big blue eyes" why "(You Dyed Your Hair) Chartreuse." That girl definitely went too far in that beauty booth!

Given 2000 and 2004, "Jordan for President" seems a comforting anthem, a rap where Jordan says what he'll do if elected, and a satire on politicians in general, with a chorus of people cheering him on. "If you send me to Washington as your leader, I'll personally see to it that every living American will get their portion-after I get mine." With rhyming name-dropping of Estes Kefauver, MacArthur, Truman, Eisenhower, Stassen, and Robert Taft, it's clear this was sung during the 1952 election. "If you want a hipster who won't take no sassin', vote for Stassen." Yes, that's Jordan on the swing ticket-notice the pun. I'll vote for him, as he promises new shoes so we can all go dancing and forget those blues.

"Look Out (Sister, Look Out)" is a response to "Brother Beware" and uses the same rhythm, where in his jive-talking schitck, he gives advice to women on no-good men the same way he tried to men on women who wanted commitment. Jordan's preference on women is done in the sax and piano boogie of "I Like `Em Fat Like That," while he has another go on calypso on "Push Ka PeeShee Pie," which is the new calypso bebop.

Two numbers more on the leisure side is "Azure Te" with its accompanying piano, and the first song I ever heard by Jordan back in a documentary (I didn't know it was him), and the lightly swinging "G.I. Jive," written by Johnny Mercer during American involvement in WW2, on the life of the GI.

Most of the better songs ended up on the first compilations, but there are many worthwhile nuggets here worth jamming to. So, is you is or is you ain't gonna get this CD?

This is a very enjoyable album, full of jumping small-group swing and jive music. The music is from the 1940s and early 50s, but the recording quality is really fine, the music is timeless, and Jordan's lyrics are still clever and funny. I get the sense that the "swing revival" has probably peaked, but Jordan's music will never go out of style.

This CD a companion to "The Best of Louis Jordan" (MCAD-4079), with only one song that overlaps that #1 greatest-hits album. If you buy only one Louis Jordan CD, make it "The Best of Louis Jordan." On the other hand, if you DO buy that album, you're likely to want this one too.

Best songs here: "G.I. Jive" (a terrific WWII song), "Life Is So Peculiar" (a duet with that Louis Armstrong), "Azure Te," and "Boogie Woogie Blue Plate". No duds. Buy it, but get "The Best of Louis Jordan" first.