Swing Music

I'm not going to spend much time with the rest. The first 6 tracks are remakes of some of Armstrong's great early triumphs, and don't really add anything much. They're well - played, sophisticated and a bit glib. But 2 tracks, What Is This Thing Called Swing? and Harlem Stomp, send this disc soaring into the realm of the essential. What happened to this band in the recording studio? Nothing much prepares you for the brilliance of thes two cuts. Sid Catlett's drumming is out of this world. I hate to use the term "ahead of its time" but it is at least that. The hookup between Armstrong and Sid is white hot and outrageous. Would that there were more ! I guess I'm duty-bound to mention that the live cuts have very amateurish sound. But hopefully that won't stop anyone who wants to experience them.

I'm one of those "wet behind the ears" types who caught on to Cab Calloway after the 90s swing revival craze (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Cherry Poppin' Daddies and other scenesters kept pointing to him as an influence). I already owned "Are You Hep to the Jive? (ASIN:B0000029FN) and wanted to check out some of his other material, so I snagged this at my local library.

The recordings here come from two separate live dates in 1940 (a radio broadcast from Meadowbrook, Cedar Grove,NJ,7/27/40) and 1945 (another radio broadcast, this time from Club Zanzibar,Los Angeles, CA, 7/30/45). The sound quality is good for the vintage, though the 1940 tracks sound cleaner. Another interesting note here is very early performances by Dizzy Gillespie (he takes a solo on "Hard Times").

The bad news,if you're mostly a fan of Calloway's hepcat slang and loose vocals, is that there are only 4 vocal numbers on here and one of them is the saccharine ballad "I'll Pray for You" (slow numbers aren't really Cab's bag..) But the band is smoking hot on many of the instrumentals, making it a worthwhile investment.

Highlights here are the rollicking "Limehouse Blues" with some fantastic stickwork from Cozy Cole, "15 Minute Intermission"...a snappy call and response with the band begging leader Calloway for a quick R&R, and I loved Cab's take on "St. Louis Blues".

The low spots are few. "I'll Pray for You" I've already mentioned. I felt the moody instrumental "Cupid's Nightmare" was overlong and not that interesting. "Boog It" was chockablock with scatting, and that's something personally I only enjoy in moderate doses (though I'm sure some will be ecstatic).

This one is definitely not for the Cab novice..I'd say "Are you Hep to the Jive?" is that disc. But once you've bought that one and loved it, you'll find some more of that Calloway magic here.

Casual Cab Calloway fans might be somewhat put off by this collection of radio broadcasts from the 1940s, but there's a lot to like here for the serious Calloway devotee. Tracks 1-6 are from a 1940 radio broadcast, while tracks 7-12 were recorded in 1945, with very good sound quality from both dates. At first I was disappointed that only five of the twelve tunes feature Calloway on vocals. However, the more I listen to it, the more I appreciate the talents of Calloway's sidemen (including Dizzy Gillespie, Chu Berry, J.C. Heard and Cozy Cole). Among the vocal tracks, highlights include "Hard Times," "15 Minute Intermission" (featuring a call-and-response vocal with the band) and "Boog It." Instrumental highlights include "Limehouse Blues," "Cruisin' with Cab" and "Russian Lullaby." The band swings in high gear throughout this disc, proving that Calloway was not only a great singer and bandleader, but also a fine judge of talent.

If you know who John Kirby was and what the band was about, then there's no point reading any reviews. If you're here because you're randomly bopping around Amazon looking for interesting music, then I encourage you to buy this album. There's nothing but fun here: it's pure joy to listen to. Pop classical passages set to classic swing orchestrations by a super-tight ensemble - what more could you want? It's fantastic. Listen to this music and beautiful people will fall in love with you.

John Kirby had a nice combo, with a trumpet, alto sax and a clarinet playing the melody lines. The nice thing to listen is how they play together. They start at the same point, wander off and come back. If you like swing, this band is a must !