SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SPRING, 2018
VOLUME FIVE NUMBER THREE
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
DOROTHY ASHBY
(April 21-27)
MILFORD GRAVES
(April 28-May 4)
LOUIS JORDAN
(May 5-11)
JOSEPH JARMAN
(May 12-18)
OTIS BLACKWELL
{May 19-25)
MARION BROWN
(May 26-June 1)
THE ROOTS
(June 2-8)
CHARLIE PATTON
(JUNE 9-15)
STEFON HARRIS
(JUNE 16–22)
MEMPHIS MINNIE
(June 23-29)
HAROLD LAND
(June 30-July 6)
WILLIE DIXON
(July 7--13)
The supreme ruler of Forties R&B.
Louis Jordan topped the R&B charts for a total of one hundred thirteen weeks, an unheard of accomplishment. His classic “Saturday Night Fish Fry” is an early example of rap and possibly the first rock and roll recording.
ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME
INDUCTEE: Louis Jordan
INDUCTED: 1987
Category:
Early Influences
The supreme ruler of Forties R&B.
Louis Jordan topped the R&B charts for a total of one hundred thirteen weeks, an unheard of accomplishment. His classic “Saturday Night Fish Fry” is an early example of rap and possibly the first rock and roll recording.
Biography
To the topLouis Jordan
(1908-1975)
Artist Biography by Bill Dahl
Effervescent saxophonist Louis Jordan was one of the chief architects and prime progenitors of the R&B
idiom. His pioneering use of jumping shuffle rhythms in a small combo
context was copied far and wide during the 1940s.
Jordan's
sensational hit-laden run with Decca Records contained a raft of
seminal performances, featuring inevitably infectious backing by his
band, the Tympany Five, and Jordan's own searing alto sax and street corner jive-loaded sense of humor. Jordan was one of the first black entertainers to sell appreciably in the pop sector; his Decca duet mates included Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald.
The son of a musician, Jordan
spent time as a youth with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and majored in
music later on at Arkansas Baptist College. After moving with his family
to Philadelphia in 1932, Jordan hooked up with pianist Clarence Williams. He joined the orchestra of drummer Chick Webb in 1936 and remained there until 1938. Having polished up his singing abilities with Webb's outfit, Jordan was ready to strike out on his own.
The saxist's first 78 for Decca in 1938, "Honey in
the Bee Ball," billed his combo as the Elks Rendezvous Band (after the
Harlem nightspot that he frequently played at). From 1939 on, though, Jordan fronted the Tympany Five,
a sturdy little aggregation often expanding over quintet status that
featured some well-known musicians over the years: pianists Wild Bill Davis and Bill Doggett, guitarists Carl Hogan and Bill Jennings, bassist Dallas Bartley, and drummer Chris Columbus all passed through the ranks.
From 1942 to 1951, Jordan
scored an astonishing 57 R&B chart hits (all on Decca), beginning
with the humorous blues "I'm Gonna Leave You on the Outskirts of Town"
and finishing with "Weak Minded Blues." In between, he drew up what
amounted to an easily followed blueprint for the development of R&B
(and for that matter, rock & roll -- the accessibly swinging
shuffles of Bill Haley & the Comets were directly descended from Jordan; Haley often pointed to his Decca labelmate as profoundly influencing his approach).
"G.I. Jive," "Caldonia," "Buzz Me," "Choo Choo Ch'
Boogie," "Ain't That Just like a Woman," "Ain't Nobody Here but Us
Chickens," "Boogie Woogie Blue Plate," "Beans and Cornbread," "Saturday
Night Fish Fry," and "Blue Light Boogie" -- every one of those classics
topped the R&B lists, and there were plenty more that did precisely
the same thing. Black audiences coast-to-coast were breathlessly
jitterbugging to Jordan's jumping jive (and one suspects, more than a few whites kicked up their heels to those same platters as well).
The saxist was particularly popular during World War
II. He recorded prolifically for the Armed Forces Radio Service and the
V-Disc program. Jordan's
massive popularity also translated on to the silver screen -- he filmed
a series of wonderful short musicals during the late '40s that were
decidedly short on plot but long on visual versions of his hits
(Caldonia, Reet Petite & Gone, Look Out Sister, and Beware, along
with countless soundies) that give us an enlightening peek at just what
made him such a beloved entertainer. Jordan also cameoed in a big-budget Hollywood wartime musical, Follow the Boys.
A brief attempt at fronting a big band in 1951
proved an ill-fated venture, but it didn't dim his ebullience. In 1952,
tongue firmly planted in cheek, he offered himself as a candidate for
the highest office in the land on the amusing Decca outing "Jordan for
President." Even though his singles were still eminently solid, they
weren't selling like they used to by 1954. So after an incredible run of
more than a decade-and-a-half, Jordan moved over to Eddie Mesner's
Los Angeles-based Aladdin logo at the start of the year.
Alas, time had passed the great pioneer by -- "Dad Gum Ya Hide Boy," "Messy Bessy," "If I Had Any Sense," and the rest of his Aladdin output sounds great in retrospect, but it wasn't what young R&B fans were searching for at the time. In 1955, he switched to RCA's short-lived "X" imprint, where he tried to remain up-to-date by issuing "Rock 'N' Roll Call."
Alas, time had passed the great pioneer by -- "Dad Gum Ya Hide Boy," "Messy Bessy," "If I Had Any Sense," and the rest of his Aladdin output sounds great in retrospect, but it wasn't what young R&B fans were searching for at the time. In 1955, he switched to RCA's short-lived "X" imprint, where he tried to remain up-to-date by issuing "Rock 'N' Roll Call."
A blistering Quincy Jones-arranged date for Mercury in 1956 deftly updated Jordan
's classics for the rock & roll crowd, with hellfire renditions of
"Let the Good Times Roll," "Salt Pork, West Virginia," and "Beware"
benefiting from the blasting lead guitar of Mickey Baker and Sam "The Man" Taylor's muscular tenor sax. There was even time to indulge in a little torrid jazz at Mercury; "The JAMF," from a 1957 LP called Man, We're Wailin', was a sizzling indication of what a fine saxist Jordan was.
Ray Charles had long cited Jordan as a primary influence (he lovingly covered Jordan's "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" and "Early in the Morning"), and paid him back by signing Jordan to the Genius' Tangerine label. Once again, the fickle public largely ignored his worthwhile 1962-64 offerings.
Lounge gigs still offered the saxman a steady
income, though, and he adjusted his on-stage play list accordingly. A
1973 album for the French Black & Blue logo found Jordan covering Mac Davis'
"I Believe in Music" (can't get much loungier than that!). A heart
attack silenced this visionary in 1975, but not before he acted as the
bridge between the big band era and the rise of R&B.
His profile continues to rise posthumously, in large
part due to the recent acclaimed Broadway musical Five Guys Named Moe,
based on Jordan's bubbly, romping repertoire and charismatic persona.
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/louisjordan
At the height of his career, in the 1940s, bandleader and alto saxophonist Louis Jordan scored 18 Number One hit records. Jordan exhibited a brilliant sense of showmanship that brought audiences first-rate entertainment without any loss of musical integrity. He performed songs that appealed to millions of black and white listeners. Able to communicate between these two audiences, Jordan emerged as one of the first successful crossover artists of American popular music.
Born on July 8, 1908, in Brinkley, Arkansas, Jordan was the son of Jim Jordan, a bandleader and music teacher. Under the tutelage of his father, Jordan began studying clarinet at age seven, then saxophone. His first professional engagement was with Fat Chappelle's Rabbit Foot Minstrels, playing clarinet and dancing throughout the South. At Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, Jordan majored in music. After school he played local dates with Jimmy Pryor's Imperial Serenaders.
Moving to Philadelphia in 1930, Jordan worked with trumpeter Charlie Gaines's orchestra and tuba player Jim Winters's band. Two years later, Jordan traveled to New York with Gaines's group, where he took part in a recording session with pianist Clarence Williams's band. In New York he briefly worked with the bands of Kaiser Marshall and drummer Joe Marshall. His most important job, though, came in 1936 when he joined drummer Chick Webb's orchestra, a 13-piece ensemble that featured singer Ella Fitzgerald; Webb hired Jordan as a singer, sideman, and announcer. In 1937 Jordan recorded his first vocal with Webb's band, a song titled “Gee, But You're Swell.” During his stint with Webb Jordan developed his skills as a frontman. In the summer of 1938, Jordan left Webb's orchestra to form his own, nine-piece, band; although Jordan enjoyed performing as part of large jazz ensembles, he embarked on a career as a bandleader and more general entertainer. Billing himself as “Bert Williams,” Jordan played shows at the Elk's Rendezvous at 44 Lenox Avenue, in Harlem. His long residency at the club eventually prompted him to name his group the Elk's Rendezvous Band.. In 1939, this group recorded several sides for the Decca label; one was “Honey in the Bee Ball.”
Changing the name of his band to the Tympany Five, Jordan reduced the size of the unit to six members (later it would number seven or eight). The real turning point in Jordan's career came when he performed at a small “beer joint” called the Fox Head Tavern in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Distanced from the demanding crowds of Chicago and New York, Jordan found he was freer to experiment with new material. At the Fox Head he assembled a large repertoire of blues and novelty songs. On his return to New York, Jordan became a sensation. In January of 1942 he hit the charts with a rendition of the blues standard “I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town.”
From 1942 to 1951, Jordan scored an astonishing 57 R&B chart hits (all on Decca). Some of which are: “Let The Good Times Roll,” “Caldonia,” “Buzz Me,” “Choo Choo Ch' Boogie,” “Ain't That Just Like A Woman,” “Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens,” “Five Guys Named Moe,” and “Saturday Night Fish Fry.” Jordan was rarely absent from the Harlem Hit Parade. Over the following ten years he recorded more than 54 rhythm-and-blues best-sellers.
Aside from the universal appeal of his material, the key to Jordan's success lay in his tight organization and the use of talented arrangers such as pianists Wild Bill Davis and Bill Dogget. Though he exhibited a casual manner, Jordan was a serious bandleader who demanded that his outfit be well dressed and thoroughly rehearsed. In the mid-1940s, Jordan's Tympany Five drew thousands of listeners to white nightclubs and black theaters. Traveling by car caravan, the band toured constantly. In black movie houses, Jordan's releases were featured in film shorts, many of which became so popular that the regular features often received second billing. Around this time Jordan also appeared in several motion pictures, including ‘Meet Miss Bobby Socks,’ ‘Swing Parade of 1946,’ and ‘Beware,’ which was advertised as “the first truly great all-colored musical feature.”
After World War II, when the big bands began to disappear, Jordan's small combo continued to find commercial success. The band became so popular, in fact, that Jordan toured with such sought-after opening acts as Dinah Washington, Ruth Brown, Sarah Vaughn, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. In the early ‘50’s Jordan changed course, disbanding the Tympany Five and forming a 16-piece big band. But this group did not live up to the sound or favor of the earlier unit. On leaving the Decca label in 1954, Jordan largely lost the steady stream of material, sidemen, and producers that had helped him maintain his national celebrity. However, in 1956 a fine Quincy Jones-arranged date for Mercury deftly updated Jordan's classics for the rock & roll crowd, the whole session benefiting from the lead guitar of Mickey Baker and Sam Taylor's muscular tenor sax. By the early ‘60’s Ray Charles, who had long cited Jordan as a primary influence, and covered Jordan's “Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” and “Early in the Morning,” paid him back by signing Jordan to his label. Though he produced some fine recordings from ’62-’64, the audience was not there. Throughout the 60s and early 70s, Jordan worked only sporadically as his health deteriorated, and performing became difficult.
During this period he devoted his time to playing occasional month-long engagements in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and New York. He revived the Tympany Five, and started to do performances in ‘67 and ’68, receiving enthusiastic responses. At the 1973 Newport Jazz Festival, crowds gave him a warm reception. In October of 1974, Jordan suffered a heart attack while performing in Sparks, Nevada. He returned home to Los Angeles, where he died on February 4, 1975.
In 1990 Jordan's work was celebrated in the hit stage production “Five Guys Named Moe,” a rollicking look at a man whose “whole theory of life” was to make audiences “smile or laugh.”
Louis Jordan is a pivotal figure in the rise and popularity of R&B, bringing it from the big band swing era, and liberating the music. Developed from black sources, it embodied the fervor of gospel, the vigor of boogie woogie, the jump beat of swing, and the sexuality of life.
Source: James Nadal
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/louisjordan
Louis Jordan
At the height of his career, in the 1940s, bandleader and alto saxophonist Louis Jordan scored 18 Number One hit records. Jordan exhibited a brilliant sense of showmanship that brought audiences first-rate entertainment without any loss of musical integrity. He performed songs that appealed to millions of black and white listeners. Able to communicate between these two audiences, Jordan emerged as one of the first successful crossover artists of American popular music.
Born on July 8, 1908, in Brinkley, Arkansas, Jordan was the son of Jim Jordan, a bandleader and music teacher. Under the tutelage of his father, Jordan began studying clarinet at age seven, then saxophone. His first professional engagement was with Fat Chappelle's Rabbit Foot Minstrels, playing clarinet and dancing throughout the South. At Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, Jordan majored in music. After school he played local dates with Jimmy Pryor's Imperial Serenaders.
Moving to Philadelphia in 1930, Jordan worked with trumpeter Charlie Gaines's orchestra and tuba player Jim Winters's band. Two years later, Jordan traveled to New York with Gaines's group, where he took part in a recording session with pianist Clarence Williams's band. In New York he briefly worked with the bands of Kaiser Marshall and drummer Joe Marshall. His most important job, though, came in 1936 when he joined drummer Chick Webb's orchestra, a 13-piece ensemble that featured singer Ella Fitzgerald; Webb hired Jordan as a singer, sideman, and announcer. In 1937 Jordan recorded his first vocal with Webb's band, a song titled “Gee, But You're Swell.” During his stint with Webb Jordan developed his skills as a frontman. In the summer of 1938, Jordan left Webb's orchestra to form his own, nine-piece, band; although Jordan enjoyed performing as part of large jazz ensembles, he embarked on a career as a bandleader and more general entertainer. Billing himself as “Bert Williams,” Jordan played shows at the Elk's Rendezvous at 44 Lenox Avenue, in Harlem. His long residency at the club eventually prompted him to name his group the Elk's Rendezvous Band.. In 1939, this group recorded several sides for the Decca label; one was “Honey in the Bee Ball.”
Changing the name of his band to the Tympany Five, Jordan reduced the size of the unit to six members (later it would number seven or eight). The real turning point in Jordan's career came when he performed at a small “beer joint” called the Fox Head Tavern in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Distanced from the demanding crowds of Chicago and New York, Jordan found he was freer to experiment with new material. At the Fox Head he assembled a large repertoire of blues and novelty songs. On his return to New York, Jordan became a sensation. In January of 1942 he hit the charts with a rendition of the blues standard “I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town.”
From 1942 to 1951, Jordan scored an astonishing 57 R&B chart hits (all on Decca). Some of which are: “Let The Good Times Roll,” “Caldonia,” “Buzz Me,” “Choo Choo Ch' Boogie,” “Ain't That Just Like A Woman,” “Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens,” “Five Guys Named Moe,” and “Saturday Night Fish Fry.” Jordan was rarely absent from the Harlem Hit Parade. Over the following ten years he recorded more than 54 rhythm-and-blues best-sellers.
Aside from the universal appeal of his material, the key to Jordan's success lay in his tight organization and the use of talented arrangers such as pianists Wild Bill Davis and Bill Dogget. Though he exhibited a casual manner, Jordan was a serious bandleader who demanded that his outfit be well dressed and thoroughly rehearsed. In the mid-1940s, Jordan's Tympany Five drew thousands of listeners to white nightclubs and black theaters. Traveling by car caravan, the band toured constantly. In black movie houses, Jordan's releases were featured in film shorts, many of which became so popular that the regular features often received second billing. Around this time Jordan also appeared in several motion pictures, including ‘Meet Miss Bobby Socks,’ ‘Swing Parade of 1946,’ and ‘Beware,’ which was advertised as “the first truly great all-colored musical feature.”
After World War II, when the big bands began to disappear, Jordan's small combo continued to find commercial success. The band became so popular, in fact, that Jordan toured with such sought-after opening acts as Dinah Washington, Ruth Brown, Sarah Vaughn, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. In the early ‘50’s Jordan changed course, disbanding the Tympany Five and forming a 16-piece big band. But this group did not live up to the sound or favor of the earlier unit. On leaving the Decca label in 1954, Jordan largely lost the steady stream of material, sidemen, and producers that had helped him maintain his national celebrity. However, in 1956 a fine Quincy Jones-arranged date for Mercury deftly updated Jordan's classics for the rock & roll crowd, the whole session benefiting from the lead guitar of Mickey Baker and Sam Taylor's muscular tenor sax. By the early ‘60’s Ray Charles, who had long cited Jordan as a primary influence, and covered Jordan's “Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” and “Early in the Morning,” paid him back by signing Jordan to his label. Though he produced some fine recordings from ’62-’64, the audience was not there. Throughout the 60s and early 70s, Jordan worked only sporadically as his health deteriorated, and performing became difficult.
During this period he devoted his time to playing occasional month-long engagements in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and New York. He revived the Tympany Five, and started to do performances in ‘67 and ’68, receiving enthusiastic responses. At the 1973 Newport Jazz Festival, crowds gave him a warm reception. In October of 1974, Jordan suffered a heart attack while performing in Sparks, Nevada. He returned home to Los Angeles, where he died on February 4, 1975.
In 1990 Jordan's work was celebrated in the hit stage production “Five Guys Named Moe,” a rollicking look at a man whose “whole theory of life” was to make audiences “smile or laugh.”
Louis Jordan is a pivotal figure in the rise and popularity of R&B, bringing it from the big band swing era, and liberating the music. Developed from black sources, it embodied the fervor of gospel, the vigor of boogie woogie, the jump beat of swing, and the sexuality of life.
Source: James Nadal
https://www.npr.org/2011/06/20/4541280/louis-jordan-the-best-of-louis-jordan
https://www.npr.org/2008/03/04/87905064/louis-jordan-jukebox-kingReview
Louis Jordan: 'The Best of Louis Jordan'
MURRAY HORWITZ, American Film Institute: I'm Murray Horwitz and that music not only just makes you feel good, it's a reminder of a time when jazz was part of the dominant popular culture - and I do mean "popular." It's from The Best of Louis Jordan and it is our latest entry into the NPR Basic Jazz Record Library.
[MUSIC]
HORWITZ: Nowadays, we make all these distinctions among swing and bebop and hard bop and funk and hip-hop. But between 1942 and 1951, when Louis Jordan's music dominated the black music charts, you'd find him on the same jukeboxes as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Nat King Cole. It's great jump jazz, played with integrity and style, and sung with wit and swing. And, it's just flat-out fun to listen to.
[MUSIC]
HORWITZ: That's one of his biggest hits, "Caldonia." But most of the titles are more colorful than that — "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens," "What's the Use of Getting Sober (When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again)?" and other tunes used in the hit Broadway show, celebrating Louis Jordan, Five Guys Named Moe. One of them, I've always thought of as the story of my own life: "Blue Light Boogie."
[MUSIC]
HORWITZ: You could say that we're putting Louis Jordan into the NPR Basic Jazz Record Library because he was among the first black entertainers to be successful in a wider pop market. You could say it's because he and his Tympany Five influenced bands like Bill Haley and the Comets. And, his music is often cited as one of the roots of rock and roll. You can say we're doing it because Louis Jordan is an underrated jazz musician, who was a fine clarinetist and alto saxophonist. But, you know what? We're doing it because this music is guaranteed to put a smile on your face.
[MUSIC]
HORWITZ: And, that is the reason we include The Best of Louis Jordan on MCA Records in the NPR Basic Jazz Record Library. For NPR Jazz, I'm Murray Horwitz.
Louis Jordan: 'Jukebox King'
Louis Jordan, ca. 1950. George Pickow/Getty Images
In the late '30s and early '40s, Jordan made a conscious decision to turn away from the big band sound, a dominant trend in popular music of the day. His smaller, tighter groups — the Tympany Four and Tympany Five — developed a loose, hard-driving sound that came to be known as "jump music." Jordan's musical departure fueled a successful string of novelty swing hits through the '40s and early '50s, and created a bridge to the pop music that arrived in the second half of the 20th century. Chuck Berry, James Brown and Ray Charles all cited Jordan's influence on their work.
Born in tiny Brinkley, Ark. in 1908, Jordan learned to play the saxophone from his father, a bandleader for a leading vaudeville minstrel group called the Rabbit's Foot Company. After playing with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels as a youth and attending college as a music major, Jordan moved to Philadelphia, eventually joining up with bandleader Chick Webb. Jordan performed with Webb's band for two years, but when he tried to leave the group, with singer Ella Fitzgerald and two others in tow, Webb fired him. Jordan left the gig at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom and never looked back.
Within three months of the firing, Jordan and the newly formed Tympany Four had earned top billing at the Elks Rendezvous club, where they played regularly. Performing only a few blocks from the Savoy, Jordan tapped into his Southern past — and created a musical revolution. According to historian John Chilton, Jordan amalgamated "the music of his childhood, the rural blues, with the jazz music which was then popular in nightclubs." This new form earned the moniker "jump music," or "jump blues," because it literally made its listeners jump to its pulsing beat.
Jordan coupled his musical ability with a gift for comedy and a dynamic, theatrical stage presence. His colorful delivery and stage antics during songs like "Deacon Jones" were straight out of the minstrel show canon. Jordan's dramatic presentation became popular with white audiences at a time when other black acts had not yet gained crossover appeal.
After only four months at the Elks Rendezvous, Jordan's band, now the Tympany Five, landed a recording contract with Decca Records. It wasn't long before fellow Decca artist Bing Crosby took note of Jordan's rising star and asked to record with him. In 1944, when Jordan and Crosby recorded their duet number, "Your Socks Don't Match," Jordan solidified his unprecedented strength in the pop market.
Jordan then moved into movies, when he found his band being filmed by Universal Pictures during a recording gig in Hollywood. Universal used the footage in a feature and Jordan made the most of the opportunity, appearing in the films Meet Miss Bobby Socks and Swing Parade.
In 1946 Jordan completed a world tour by taking his band into the studio to record their landmark hit, "Caldonia." Three months after the recording date, Jordan made "Caldonia" into a 'soundie' — a type of three-minute film that presaged the modern music video. Jordan's musical film career reached its zenith with the recording of "Beware, Brother, Beware!" The song's talking, lyrical style evokes today's rap recordings, and its title was later used for a full-length, one-hour film featuring Louis Jordan.
Jordan's appeal peaked in the late '40s. "Buzz Me" sold more than 800,000 copies, and when Jordan melded country 'n' western with the blues in "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie," the album reached an unthinkable two million in sales.
Louis Jordan had helped to redefine popular music, but by 1950 the revolution he fostered began to overtake his own success. Manager and friend Berle Adams left him, and Jordan's ill-advised attempt at fronting a big band failed. By the time he returned in early 1953 with his Tympany Five, rock 'n' roll had captured the world's attention, and Jordan's jumping R&B became a thing of the past. Reacting to the new power of rock, Decca released Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan to clear the path for its new star: Elvis Presley.
Jordan never again achieved the popular success he enjoyed in the '40s, but that never dulled his artistic passion. In the '60s and '70s Jordan switched from alto to tenor saxophone as he searched for a deeper sound. Jordan hired a female singer to accompany his Tympany Five, and the band also dabbled in calypso music. In 1973, jazz impresario George Wein staged a successful comeback tour for Jordan that included performances in Europe and at the Newport in New York Jazz Festival. Jordan spent time living and working in New Orleans, where he often played with trumpeter Wallace Davenport.
When Louis Jordan died in February of 1975, the world lost a musical giant. His creativity broke down both musical and social barriers. Jordan's eminently danceable music, steeped in southern blues, contained an undeniably organic potency. His influence is still heard in broad segments of contemporary music, and even today his profile continues to rise.
Link to NPR's Basic Jazz Record Library:
Louis Jordan: The Best of Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
The King of the Jukeboxes
by J.P. Gelinas
(August 2007)
Louis Jordan was one of the musical greats who emerged from the swing era to leave a permanent mark on American music. In addition to being an accomplished saxophonist, Jordan is best remembered as a vocalist of immense vitality whose combination of down home earthiness and comical patter played an integral part in the evolution of rock and roll music. Born in Brinkley, Arkansas on July 8, 1908, Jordan’s earliest musical influence can be traced to nearby Memphis, which was a center of activity for bluesmen in the Delta. No doubt, as a youngster, Louis was exposed to the classic blues of songwriter W.C. Handy and classic shouter Memphis Minnie among others. Prior to moving to Philadelphia in 1929 to begin his professional career, Louis studied music with his father and attended the Arkansas Baptist College at Little Rock.
Primarily a jazz musician in his formative years, Jordan worked in the bands of Kaiser Marshall, Leroy Smith and Charlie Gaines. In 1936, he joined The Chick Webb Orchestra, playing alto and soprano sax while taking on occasional vocal duties. During his two years with Webb, Jordan was given few opportunities to solo. A notable exception is his soprano sax work on "The Mayor of Alabama", which can be found on Chick Webb, Strictly Jive/1936-1938 (Decca/MCA-Germany).
In 1938, Jordan formed The Tympany Five, a "jump" blues band, which emphasized his fast paced vocal delivery and guttural sax style. The name of the band was inspired by drummer Walter Martin, who always used tympani drums during the band’s live shows. While leading The Tympany Five, Jordan would achieve widespread popularity, playing before packed houses and releasing a string of hit records. During this time, Jordan signed with the Decca label and released his first record, "Honey in the Bee Ball."
Jordan’s career received a major boost in 1941 when the General Arts Corporation (GAC), an influential talent agency, took over his personal management. His band began to open shows for such artists as The Mills Brothers. During this period, Jordan and The Tympany Five were working at a club called The Fox Head Tavern in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was during this extended residency that important elements of Jordan’s musical style were formed. Jordan later stated that the band’s gigs at The Tavern were the turning point of his career. In the following years, Jordan’s live performances with The Tympany Five achieved legendary status as the band began to experiment with novelty routines in their live act.
One of the biggest influences on Louis Jordan’s career was Fats Waller. Waller, a popular jazz artist from the 20’s and 30’s, was well known for songs that employed silly wordplay and that displayed a larger than life persona. Such songs as "Ain’t Misbehavin," "Your Feets Too Big," "The Joint is Jumpin," and "I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" were big hits based on their novelty appeal. In addition to being a prodigious live entertainer, Waller was also a highly skilled musician. Jordan, like Waller, felt that it was important to entertain an audience as well as dazzle them with his musical chops.
During studio sessions in 1942, Jordan recorded one of his most popular songs, "Five Guys Named Moe"; this is one of the first of his recordings to employ the energetic call and response style that had become a staple of his live shows. Around the time of these sessions, Jordan and the band moved to California. Due to his growing popularity, Jordan also appeared in a number of "Soundies," which were an early form of music video. These short films were formatted to play on specially designed jukeboxes. Jordan’s work in these "Soundies" helped increase the demand for live appearances as well as increase his record sales. Louis Jordan and The Tympany Five were on their way to becoming one of the most important African-American bands of the 20th century.
The 1940’s proved to be a pivotal decade in the development of black music. Emerging from the vaudeville era, a variety of artists began to create music that reflected the urbanization of black people in America. The pop harmonies of The Mills Brothers, the be bop jazz of Charlie Parker, the hard rocking rhythm & blues of Wynonie Harris and the smooth cocktail lounge style of the Nat King Cole Trio were just some of the sounds that had begun to redefine black music’s role in popular culture. Jordan’s music, however, drew its power from several different sources. Unlike Wynonie Harris, whose music was rooted in traditional blues song structure, Jordan combined elements of both jazz and rhythm and blues in an effort to create a unique musical style.
By the early Forties, Jordan’s musical style had become a unique synthesis of jazz and blues. To attract the attention of the record buying public, Jordan began to feature comedic wordplay and catchy choruses in such songs as "Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby," "Caledonia," "What’s the Use of Gettin Sober (When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again)," "Choo Choo Ch’Boogie," "Jack You Dead," "Barnyard Boogie" and "Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens". Starting in 1942, Jordan began an 8 year streak, during which he scored 57 R&B chart hits (an incredible achievement), including 18 number one hit records. During this amazing chart run, people began referring to Jordan as "The King of the Jukeboxes."
During World War II, Jordan’s activities included releasing V discs (records recorded specifically to raise the morale of the armed forces), appearing on Armed Forces Radio and performing for the troops. The release of such topical songs as "Ration Blues" and "G.I. Jive" increased Jordan’s fan base during the wartime years. By 1948, Jordan began to experience health problems due to his heavy schedule of tour dates.
Much of the material that Jordan recorded featured his trademark narrative style of storytelling. A good example of this would be "Saturday Night Fish Fry," a song in which the singer finds himself at a wild party in New Orleans that gets busted up by the cops. The song displays several elements of early rock & roll styles; the distorted sound of an electric guitar, heavy drums and an insistent chorus that declared that the place was "rockin." Recorded in 1950, "Saturday Night Fish Fry" features a talking vocal style that is enhanced by Jordan’s syncopated delivery. Remarkably, when listening to this song, one can hear the earliest roots of present day rap music.
When defining Louis Jordan’s role as a pioneer in the development of rock & roll, it’s important to cite his enormous influence over such seminal rockers as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Bill Haley. Chuck Berry, in particular, gravitated towards using a narrative songwriting style similar to the one developed by Louis Jordan. Instead of recreating Jordan’s roadhouse tales of gambling, drinking and chasing women, Berry transformed Jordan’s subject matter into songs about the everyday concerns of teenagers with material that focused on high school romance and hot rods, thus laying the ground work for rock and roll.
As the 1950's began to unfold, and rock itself took hold, tastes in popular music had changed and Jordan began to experience weak record sales. After disbanding The Tympany Five, he formed a Count Basie/Duke Ellington styled big band outfit in 1951. This proved to be a commercial failure as this style of music had become unpopular in post-war America. This period of Jordan’s musical development is captured on Silver Star Series Presents Louis Jordan And His Orchestra (MCA-Coral/Germany). Sadly, this entire project lacked the lively personal touch that characterized Jordan’s earlier records. Much of the music came off sounding as if it lacked coherence. Jordan broke up the big band and retired to his home in Phoenix, Arizona after suffering from continuing ill health while on tour.
Jordan soon became restless, however, and decided to return to the music business. In an effort to keep up with the times, Jordan left his long standing record label, Decca records, and signed as a solo artist with the Mercury label in the mid '50's. The resulting album, Louis Jordan: Choo Choo Ch’Boogie (Phillips International) was a solid effort featuring arrangements by Quincy Jones and a backing ensemble consisting of Sam "The Man" Taylor, Budd Johnson and Jimmy Cleveland. The record was largely a reprise of Jordan’s past hits but featured an updated sound that reflected the current sounds of rock & roll. While this record was a commercial disappointment, Jordan’s voice and sax work sparkled with their usual irrepressible quality. Short stints at the Aladdin, Warwick and Tangerine record labels soon followed but most of these releases went unnoticed.
In 1962, Jordan toured England with trombonist/bandleader Chris Barber, receiving an excellent reception from fans and critics alike. His work with Barber, which can be heard on Louis Jordan Swings (Black Lion) which was an uninspired mixture of Barber’s traditional jazz leanings and Jordan’s jump blues style.
Returning to the United States after the tour, Jordan moved to Los Angeles and put together a revived version of The Tympany Five. His shows continued to receive favorable notices throughout the middle of the 1960’s. In 1967, Jordan toured Asia to great success. He formed his own record label, Pzazz Records, in 1968. His best studio effort for this label was Santa Claus, Santa Claus, which was cut with a big band that was conducted and arranged by Teddy Edwards. On this record, Jordan seemed to resolve his earlier lackluster attempt in the big band genre. During this same period, Jordan released One-Sided Love, which proved to be largely inconsequential. Jordan’s last recording session took place in 1972.
Throughout the early 1970’s, Jordan was frequently booked to play the lounge clubs of Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe where he continued to perform his past hits. One of the more memorable live gigs during this time was a solid performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1973.
On February 4th, 1975, Jordan suffered a massive coronary at the age of 65 and died instantly. He is buried at the Mt. Olive Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.
For those of you who want to check out Louis Jordan’s music, I highly recommend Let the Good Times Roll: The Complete Decca Recordings 1938 – 1954; a nine compact disc set released in 1992 by the Bear Family label.
In recent years, Louis Jordan’s music has experienced a revival of sorts. Several artists, such as Joe Jackson, have recorded cover versions of his songs. In 1987, Jordan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The biggest tribute came in 1992 when the musical Five Guys Named Moe, based on Jordan’s music, opened to great acclaim and had a successful run on Broadway. It was also a useful reminder of not just a pioneer in R&B music or precursor to rock and roll and rap but also a great entertainer.
https://www.courttheatre.org/about/blog/louis-jordan-jukebox-king/
Louis Jordan, the Jukebox King
Photo: Louis Jordan, ca. July 1946. William P.
Gottlieb/Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund Collection, Music Division,
Library of Congress.
Louis Jordan, the Jukebox King, the founding father of Rhythm and Blues. We hear his sound in all the music of the 20th century—through the work of his jazz and big band contemporaries, to his rock and roll descendants.
As a young adult, Jordan would spend his nights after his live shows staying up until all hours listening to the radio and absorbing the hits of the week. Big bands, pop hits, and feats of instrumental solos: he heard it all, and emulated it in his Tympany Five. He was able to revolutionize music that sparked the creation of rock and roll. Jordan added an electric guitar to his act in 1951 and kept up the versatility of his sound, consistently playing with genre and tone.
Godfather of Soul James Brown once said, “Jordan influenced me in every way. He could sing, he could dance, he could play, he could act. He could do it all.”Chuck Berry’s opening riff of “Johnny B Goode” is even a direct rip from Louis Jordan’s “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman (They’ll Do It Every Time)”.
In the sampling of music below, we can hear what Jordan would have heard—the masterful solos by Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong. The big band style of Duke Ellington. The gender politics of “The Lady is a Tramp” (arguably the antithesis to Jordan’s “Brother, Beware!”). We have the privilege of hearing Jordan’s first vocal solo “I Can’t Dance Got Ants in My Pants,” and his early work in the Chick Webb Orchestra.
Finally, we can hear the artists who have paid tribute to Jordan through their rock and roll careers. We hear it in the work of Bill Haley, who shared a producer with Jordan and used his shuffle rhythms and riffs in rehearsal. Little Richard’s “Lucille” reminds us of the whooping “Caldonia!” in Jordan’s “Caldonia Boogie”. And, to end, that famous Jordan tribute in Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”.
Enjoy this playlist before you come to Court Theatre’s production of Five Guys Named Moe, playing from September 7 to October 8, 2017 to celebrate the music and influence of Louis Jordan!
The playlist:
Or, enjoy the playlist on iTunes.
- “Stars Fell on Alabama/Lazy River” by Sidney Bechet
- “Basin Street Blues” by Louis Armstrong and His All Stars
- “Ko-Ko” by Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra
- “The Lady is a Tramp” by Ella Fitzgerald & Buddy Bregham and His Orchestra
- “The Other Woman” by Sarah Vaughan
- “Stormy Weather” by Billie Holiday
- “Long, Long Ago” by Dean Martin ft. Nat King Cole
- “I Can’t Dance Got Ants in My Pants” by the Clarence Williams Orchestra
- “Rusty Hinge” (ft. Louis Jordan) by Chick Webb and His Orchestra
- “Your Socks Don’t Match” ft. Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five by Bing Crosby
- “Baby It’s Cold Outside” by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan
- “Let the Good Times Roll” by Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five
- “Please, Please, Please“ by James Brown and his Famous Flames
- “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis
- “See You Later Alligator” by Bill Haley
- “What’d I Say” by Ray Charles
- “Lucille” by Little Richard
- “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry
https://www.splicetoday.com/music/the-legacy-of-louis-jordan
The Legacy of Louis Jordan
Stephen Koch’s biography Louis Jordan looks to correct an historical error. “Somehow,” writes Koch, “the name Louis Jordan hasn’t stuck. Never strictly a blues artist…too pop for jazz…too jazz for pop” and “too early to be considered an R&B or rock performer,” Jordan has been mostly ignored “by all the variety of musical genres in which he’s played a major part.” Koch, determined to fight this ignorance, shows up armed with reams of details about the man’s career and testimonials from famous successors, ready to give an artist his due.
Jordan, born in 1908 in Arkansas, quickly gravitated to music. His mother died when he was young, and his grandmother influenced his choice of instrument—“She didn’t like that blaring sound [of the trombone],” so he moved on to clarinet, and eventually, saxophone. As a 19-year-old, he played in booming oil towns, where, according to Koch, “Alcohol, blood and other bodily fluids flowed through the dirty streets.”
It didn’t take long for Jordan to make his way to the northeast, where he started impressing the right people. He recorded a session backing Louis Armstrong and earned the respect of the bandleader Chick Webb. Webb eventually brought Jordan into his orchestra, two months after adding a young Ella Fitzgerald as a vocalist. While Fitzgerald’s talents brought more attention to singers in big bands, Jordan benefitted from the opportunity to work with crack musicians. He also carried on an affair with Fitzgerald and soon had the bright idea of starting his own group—with some of Webb’s players. Webb canned him.
Not to be deterred, Jordan found musicians and began to mold a group. Like James Brown years later, Jordan would fine players for mistakes or sloppy dress. Things really started to click when he connected with the producer Milt Gabler and earned his first number one hit, “What’s The Use Of Getting Sober (When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again),” in 1942 for Decca Records. His influential style began to cohere on songs like “5 Guys Named Moe,” driven by a relentless piano and drum combination.
If you’re not leading a trend, it often pays to be fighting it: this was the big band era, but when Jordan rolled through your town, it was just him and the Tympany Five. Despite being the smallest band around, the Tympany gang became “one of the highest-paid and best-regarded live bands” in just two years. Jordan had a steady stream of hits like “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t (My Baby),” which even became a number one on the country charts. He was also good at cross promotion—he played “Is You Is...” in the movie Follow The Boys, and appeared on screen many times. Jordan was especially beloved by the armed forces during the war. In fact, Bing Crosby was the only artist whose songs appeared more frequently than Jordan’s in a poll of the army’s favorite tunes.
But if there’s one constant across pop history, it’s that no artist dominates forever. The very best—the Beatles say, or Prince—have a peak creative period of almost a decade. Jordan’s lasted about the same, from the early 1940s to around 1951, when he logged his last number one, “Blue Light Boogie.” A number of factors played a part in his decline. After Jordan left Decca, Gabler started working with younger, up-and-coming (white) artists such as Bill Haley—in the book, Jordan’s manager calls Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” “an out-and-out steal.” Inexplicably, Jordan also began playing with a big band, after doing so much to “put an end to the big band era.”
Changing times didn’t do Jordan any favors either. Bebop arrived, and “the revolution it created in jazz would leave [Jordan] dismissed in jazz circles.” Sonny Rollins, a famous bebopper, loved Jordan, considering his music the “bridge between the blues and jazz.” But Rollins also notes that the new wave of artists “didn’t want to be ‘entertainers’” like Jordan; they “wanted to be serious musicians.” Race relations were changing too, and Jordan stayed silent on racial injustice at a time when black music was becoming increasingly intertwined with the struggle for equality. In addition, pop criticism didn’t really get going as a field until the 60s, at which point Jordan was seen as a has-been. Looking backwards, critics mainly valorized the outsiders, often obscure bluesmen. They didn’t care as much for the innovators hiding in plain sight—the man competing with Bing Crosby in armed service popularity polls.
So Jordan “ended up falling through most every single crack.” But Koch has a formidable array of musicians testifying to Jordan’s influence. Chuck Berry created his signature riff listening to Jordan’s “Salt Pork, West Virginia.” James Brown believed that he loved “Caldonia Boogie” (a track Jordan record in 1945) so much that actually he performed it more than Jordan did. “Caldonia” was also the first non-religious song Little Richard remembers hearing. (Jordan’s sudden high screams anticipate Richard’s and Brown’s—meaning they’re grandparents to the yips and yelps of Michael Jackson and Prince.)
It’s easiest to illustrate connections between Jordan and foundational figures in rock and soul, but that doesn’t capture the extent of his influence. In 1947, Jordan recorded two important calypso songs, including “Run Joe.” Alton Ellis, the “Godfather of Rocksteady,” later noted in an interview that “ska came from American music…songs by people like Louis Jordan.” B.B. King declared that Jordan’s spoken word intros and incessant rhyming put him “so far ahead of his time—what he was doing became the origins of rap.” Jordan died in 1975, without receiving the second burst of interest sometimes accorded to older artists. He somehow managed a remarkable feat: ignored both for being too popular and for being way out in front of the curve.
—Follow Elias Leight on Twitter: @ehleight
Louis Jordan: king of the jukeboxes
Louis Jordan, one of the most inspirational musicians of the 20th century, died on February 4, 1975
Louis Jordan died on February 4 1975
Louis Jordan
is one of the most successful musicians of all time. During the eight
years that Jordan was 'King Of The Jukeboxes' (1943-1950), his songs
occupied the No1 spot on the R&B charts for 113 weeks. He had 18
No1s and 54 top-10 hits, including Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby,
Caldonia and Choo Choo Ch'Boogie, second only to James Brown's 58 in the
all-time records.
Jordan, who died
on February 4 1975, sang, danced and played the alto saxophone and
pioneered an amalgam of jazz and blues that earned him the name 'The
father of rhythm and blues'. Jordan said of his Tympany Five bamnd that
"with my little band, I did everything they did with a big band. I made
the blues jump."
His 1949 song
Saturday Night Fish Fry was perhaps the first rap song and his use of
rocking electric guitar has led many critics to argue that he was the
man who helped invent rock 'n' roll.
Jordan, who was born July 8, 1908, inspired a generation of musicians including Bill Haley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Ray Charles
and Bing Crosby. Posthumously, Jordan's name reached a new audience in
the Nineties through the Broadway and London West End show Five Guys
Named Moe.
Louis Jordan
"Rock 'n' roll was a form of music older than modern jazz and had been with us for a long time. Louis Jordan had been playing it as long as I could remember, long before Elvis Presley."
DIZZY GILLESPIE in his autobiography To Be or Not to Bop
"Louis Jordan was one of my main inspirations and I was so pleased I was able to record a whole album of his music. He was a super musician who taught me so much about phrasing."
Blues musician BB KING
"Louis Jordan is one of the 20th-century's great musicians"
Former US President BILL CLINTON, who was a dedicated saxophone player as a youngster in Arkansas – the state in which Jordan was born – attending band camp in the Ozark Mountains every summer.
"He really was as close to perfection as it was possible to be. He was the best presenter of a song by movement and action that I have ever seen. At the time he was 55 and we were in our thirties, yet it was like being dragged along by a wild horse."
CHRIS BARBER, English bandleader and trombonist who toured with Jordan in the Sixties.
"Louis Jordan was such an important influence on music and so ahead of his time."
NAT KING COLE
"Louis Jordan was such an influential character. When I started to write for that musical, I was blown away by the amount of people, from right across the board, who paid homage to Jordan: Elvis Presley, James Brown, BB King and Chuck Berry among them. Like Count Basie, Jordan just has a natural musical bounce. I really dug Jordan because he was so funny and my sense of humour in music comes from him. I can still remember being about seven and watching black and white cartoons that were using the music of Jordan, witty songs like There Ain't Nobody Here but us Chickens. He had a remarkable career that spanned from minstrel times through to the Sixties. How I wish I could have had even just 10 minutes talking to him."
CLARKE PETERS, the star of The Wire and Treme, who wrote the award-winning revue Five Guys Named Moe, an Olivier-winning musical based on Louis Jordan's music.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/louis-jordan-biography-songs.html
Louis Jordan was an American rhythm
and blues musician and the leader of the band Tympany Five. His musical
style influenced rock and roll. This lesson will discuss his life,
music, and influence.
Louis Jordan: Jukebox King
You're on a hot date in 1948. It's been a perfect evening. You just saw the Hitchcock thriller Rope and now you're seated in a booth at the diner for an ice cream sundae. Your date wants to hear some music. You saunter to the jukebox and pop in a quarter, looking for a song. Hmmm, there's a Louis Jordan song. There's another, and another, and another. Is there anything here but Louis Jordan? With a sigh you punch one of his tunes. Good thing you like his music.
Early Life and Career
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Those road trips rambling all over the Unites States were fertile ground for Jordan's musical mind. He heard Delta blues, New York jazz, big band swing, and other popular musical styles. After majoring in music at Arkansas Baptist College, Jordan moved to Philadelphia to start his career in earnest.
Tympany Five
In Philly, Jordan played in a swing band led by Chick Webb. Upon learning that Jordan was planning to break with the band and take a few other performers with him, Webb fired him. This was okay with Jordan. Within months he had moved on to New York City and started his own group, the Tympany Four, which later became the Tympany Five.
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Jordan's new band was small and adaptable. They played tighter, hard-driving swing rhythms. This style became known as jump music or jump blues, due to its bluesy background and danceable rhythms that made people jump. Soon Jordan and the Tympany Five were playing all the clubs in Harlem and landed a fat record deal with Decca Records.
Decca Recordings
Decca Records sent Jordan's music across the country. In the 1940s Jordan and the Tympany Five released 57 singles onto the rhythm and blues (R&B) charts. Many of them became huge hits, including 'Choo Choo Ch'Boogie', 'Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens', and 'Caldonia'. From 1943 to 1950, Jordan and the Tympany Five owned the number one hit on the R&B charts for an unprecedented 113 weeks. Jordan was called 'King of the Jukebox' because so many of the songs played on the jukebox were his.
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Musical Influence
Jordan's forays into syncopated jump rhythms with a small combo provided the bridge from big band swing to rhythm and blues, and from there to rock and roll. Important early rock and roll musicians acknowledged their debt to Jordan, including Bill Hailey, Ray Charles, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry. Jordan's hit song, 'Beware, Brother, Beware!', is an early precursor of rap music with it's fast, lyrical talking style.
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The Man That Jazz Forgot
Louis Jordan and the birth of R & B.
In 1973, Ebony magazine ran a story titled “Whatever Happened to Louis Jordan?” Two decades earlier, the genial singer-saxophonist was one of America’s biggest pop stars. Not only did 18 of his 78s reach the top of the black pop charts between 1942 and 1950, but several of them, including “Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens,” “Caldonia,” and “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby,” “crossed over” and became hits with white listeners as well. In addition, Jordan was widely admired by his colleagues. In his heyday, he made duet recordings with Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, and Ella Fitzgerald. His later fans included James Brown, Ray Charles, and B.B. King—as well as Sonny Rollins, the celebrated jazz saxophonist, who called Jordan “a fantastic musician” and “my first idol.”
But the Tympany Five, Jordan’s combo, fell out of fashion in the mid-1950s, and Jordan himself was largely forgotten by the time of his death in 1975. It was not until 1992 that Five Guys Named Moe, a Broadway revue whose score consisted of two dozen of his hits, triggered a revival of interest in his music that continues to this day. Even so, his career has been ignored by jazz scholars, and if any of the major histories of jazz mentions him, it is only in passing1.
Today Jordan is mainly remembered as a pioneer of rhythm and blues, while pop-music historians see his music as a precursor of rock and roll. Yet he started out as a jazz musician, and much of the music that he played in the 40s and 50s is indistinguishable from the jazz with which he grew up in the 20s and 30s. Why, then, has his work been overlooked by historians of jazz?
To some extent, their lack of interest can be explained by Jordan’s enormous popularity. As the critic Max Harrison has observed, “People do not object to artists deserving success—only to their getting it.” But it is also true that to call Jordan’s music “jazz” is to ignore certain of its most important characteristics, and to overlook the equally important fact that he reached the peak of his popularity just as America started to turn its back on jazz. Anyone who wants to understand what happened to jazz after World War II could do worse than to ask why Jordan and the Tympany Five appealed to listeners who took no interest in Dizzy Gillespie or Charlie Parker.
Born in 1908 in a small, isolated town in eastern Arkansas, Jordan was the son of a music teacher who played in touring minstrel shows. Determined to become a professional musician, he went on the road with his father when he was still a child. By 1927 Jordan was a full-time saxophonist, and in 1936 he joined the big band of Chick Webb, one of the top drummers of the swing era.
When Jordan struck out on his own in 1938, it was in a direction determined in part by his theatrical experience. A superbly accomplished alto saxophonist, he was also an engaging, good-humored vocalist whose work in minstrel shows had taught him the value of showmanship. Although he was committed to jazz, he sought to play it in a way that would appeal to the working-class audiences whose uncomplicated tastes he’d come to know through his years on the road: “I wanted to play music on stage that made people forget about what they did today.”
To this end, he put together a small ensemble of the kind known in the late 30s as a “cocktail combo.” The Tympany Five, as he called the band, was modeled on the much-admired John Kirby Sextet, which specialized in instrumental versions of pop songs and light classics. Like Kirby’s group, the Tympany Five played hard-swinging, carefully rehearsed arrangements that made extensive use of “riffs,” the short, punchy unison phrases employed by most swing-era bands. But Jordan, unlike Kirby, spotlighted his own vocals, and his group’s repertoire was dominated by light-hearted blues songs whose lyrics usually had a humorous twist.
Jordan’s emphasis on the blues was unusual for a cocktail combo. In this respect, the Tympany Five emulated such blues-oriented “jump bands” of the period as the Harlem Hamfats. But Jordan eschewed their rougher-hewn sound, insisting that his sidemen play with the same precision as a big band. In addition, his singing had a cool, smooth-surfaced polish similar to that of his saxophone playing. This, along with his clean enunciation, allowed him to sing pop material effectively, and it also helped make his music more accessible to middle-class whites.
It took Jordan three years to develop and perfect the Tympany Five’s formula for success. The first step was to find suitable material. He steered clear of straight ballads and darkly melancholy blues, instead presenting himself as a comic character, a “regular guy” who is a slave to his sensual appetites (a surprisingly large number of his songs, including “Beans and Cornbread” and “Boogie Woogie Blue Plate,” are about food) but who rarely gets the upper hand when it comes to love.
Having chosen the right songs, Jordan and the Tympany Five presented them in the most vivid way possible, wearing flashy uniforms and performing with flamboyant verve. According to Berle Adams, his manager, “Louis wanted to be thought of primarily as a fine musician….I said to him, ‘Look, you’re never going to be a Johnny Hodges or a Willie Smith—be a showman.’” Indeed, he lacked the musical creativity of Hodges, Smith, and Benny Carter, the leading alto saxophonists of the swing era. What he did have in abundance was showmanship, and his willingness to incorporate it into his stage act was central to his mass appeal. In the words of one of his sidemen:
What Louis was trying to do was to present his audiences with a Technicolor picture of a live band….The wild colors, the movement, the exaggerated gestures, the whole thing came over like a scene from a movie and that’s what Louis wanted.At the same time, the Tympany Five always remained true to its jazz roots. In “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town” (1941), the band’s first hit record, the rhythm section lays down a no-nonsense medium-tempo walking-bass beat atop which Jordan plays a spare, elegantly phrased saxophone solo. Then he puts down his instrument and assumes the role of a husband who doubts his spouse’s faithfulness: It may seem funny, honey/It may be funny as can be/But if we have any chill’un/I want ’em all to look like me. He sings with amused detachment, and the results strongly resemble the way in which Jimmy Rushing, whose jazz pedigree was unimpeachable, performed songs like “Good Morning Blues” with Count Basie’s band.
In up-tempo numbers like “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie,” Jordan often made use of a bouncy “shuffle” beat derived from boogie-woogie but lighter in feel, and after 1945 he would concentrate on such high-spirited novelty songs as “Barnyard Boogie” and “Saturday Night Fish Fry.” In a sense, these latter recordings constitute a simplification of swing-era jazz—though another way of putting it is to say that Jordan took care never to let his music become so complicated that it ceased to be danceable. This new style was soon dubbed “rhythm and blues,” a term coined by record producer Jerry Wexler in 1947 and adopted by Billboard two years later as the name of its black pop chart. Jordan, Lionel Hampton, and other musicians who adopted a similar style in the 40s were not working in a vacuum. They were responding to their fans—and to the music of another group of young musicians who longed to make postwar jazz more complex, not less.
It is impossible to grasp the historic significance of rhythm and blues without recognizing that it emerged simultaneously with bebop, the avant-garde style of jazz developed in the mid-40s by a group of virtuoso instrumentalists who felt that big-band swing had run its course. The boppers believed jazz to be an art form comparable in seriousness to classical music, and they resented the fact that nightclub owners insisted on promoting it as commercial entertainment.
In fact, jazz had started life as a genuinely popular music, a utilitarian song-based idiom to which ordinary people could dance if they felt like it. Hence the growing popularity of Jordan and the other pioneers of rhythm and blues, much of whose music can be understood as an explicitly populist variant of jazz and as a response—conscious or not—to the refusal of younger musicians such as Gillespie and Parker to continue playing in an audience-friendly style.
No musician, however popular he may be, stays in fashion forever. Jordan’s last record to reach the top of the black charts, “Blue Light Boogie,” came out in 1950. From then on, the mainstream of American popular music was dominated by white balladeers, some creatively vital and others bland and insipid, while black rhythm and blues grew hotter and more frankly sexualized, thereby pointing the way to the next pop-music innovation, rock and roll.
As it happened, Jordan had added an electric guitarist, Carl Hogan, to his band in 1945, around the same time he began emphasizing the R & B–flavored novelty tunes in his repertoire. Hogan’s presence in the band prefigured the sound of early rock, so much so that it is startling to hear him launch “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman,” a boogie blues recorded by the Tympany Five in 1946, with the same guitar riff that Chuck Berry, one of Jordan’s biggest fans, “borrowed” 12 years later in “Johnny B. Goode.” But that was as far as Jordan was willing to go: “Decca asked me to get on that rock thing, you know, with a big beat. They wanted me to honk on a tenor [saxophone]. I was a little too old for that.”
Decca responded by dropping Jordan from its roster in 1953. Around the same time, the label signed a white pop group called Bill Haley and His Comets and put Milt Gabler, Jordan’s longtime producer, in charge of its records. Gabler encouraged the Comets to incorporate elements of Jordan’s style into their music, and the records they made with him soared to the top of the pop charts. “They got a sound that had the drive of the Tympany Five and the color of country-and-western,” Gabler recalled. The same combination would soon make Elvis Presley an even bigger star than Haley.
Trapped between the “big beat” of Haley and Presley and the sophisticated balladry of Nat Cole and Frank Sinatra, Jordan found himself at a loss. He was forced to become a nostalgia act, recycling his hits for a shrinking audience of aging fans. Toward the end of his life, he made a series of well-received concert appearances under the auspices of the jazz impresario George Wein, but his death prevented him from capitalizing on the exposure that they gave him, and two decades went by before Five Guys Named Moe introduced a new generation of listeners to his ebullient music.
Jazz critics and scholars remain ill at ease with Louis Jordan, but there is no shortage of younger commentators on rock and R & B who recognize his stature. Compilations of his 78s still sell briskly, and no doubt a time will come when the jazz establishment deigns to acknowledge what Sonny Rollins meant when he called Jordan “a bridge between the blues and jazz.” Much like Fats Waller, another pop-music giant whose unapologetic populism made the highbrows squirm, he knew how to please the public without demeaning himself—or his music. The buoyant records of the Tympany Five overflow with the spirit of delight, and anyone who can listen to them without rejoicing is the poorer for it.
1 Jordan is, however, the subject of a solid journalistic biography, John Chilton’s Let the Good Times Roll: The Story of Louis Jordan and His Music (1994), on which I have drawn in writing this essay. In addition, 46 of his best 78 sides are collected in Let the Good Times Roll: The Anthology 1938–1953 (Geffen, two CDs).
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/22/news/adna-jordan22
Straining to hear Louis Jordan's music
The 1940s king of 'jumpin' jive' is honored in Arkansas. But some think he still hasn't gotten his due.
BRINKLEY, ARK. — Is you is or is you ain't a Louis Jordan fan?
The famed 1940s vocalist, band leader and saxophonist from Arkansas gave the world a "jumpin' jive" sound that influenced Ray Charles, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, James Brown and others. Jordan's mix of jazz and blues, playful lyrics and strong rhythms excited audiences and made him among the first black performers to have crossover appeal with whites.
Called the "King of Rhythm and Blues," Jordan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and celebrated in the Broadway hit "Five Guys Named Moe."
In this centennial year of Jordan's birth, July 8, 1908, the U.S. Postal Service plans next month to issue a postage stamp in his honor, one of five in the service's Vintage Black Cinema series.
The famed 1940s vocalist, band leader and saxophonist from Arkansas gave the world a "jumpin' jive" sound that influenced Ray Charles, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, James Brown and others. Jordan's mix of jazz and blues, playful lyrics and strong rhythms excited audiences and made him among the first black performers to have crossover appeal with whites.
Called the "King of Rhythm and Blues," Jordan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and celebrated in the Broadway hit "Five Guys Named Moe."
In this centennial year of Jordan's birth, July 8, 1908, the U.S. Postal Service plans next month to issue a postage stamp in his honor, one of five in the service's Vintage Black Cinema series.
Fans
in Jordan's home state of Arkansas pay tribute to him at festivals,
museums and on the radio. A documentary about his life, "Is You Is . . .
The Louie Jordan Story," is due out this fall. Still, music lovers say
appreciation of Jordan's cultural contributions to the world is
underwhelming.
"Maybe it's too much historical excavation for people," says Little Rock musician Stephen Koch, who features Jordan's music regularly on his "Arkansongs" radio program that airs on National Public Radio affiliates. "Maybe it's too far gone."
In the place Jordan knew best, his hometown, he is part of the blurry past as residents deal with the region's present-day poverty and unemployment. Jordan's boyhood home is rotting and falling down, and weeds and tall grass surround the building. A homemade sign reads: "Historical Site -- Boyhood Home of the Legendary Musician Louis Jordan."
The city has condemned the property, and the mayor is waiting for the City Council to appropriate the $2,000 or so needed to tear the house down. The owner, who lives in Ohio, insists he will sell it.
"There's really nothing left to restore," Mayor Barbara Skouras said. "One good snow storm or wind storm . . . that's going to be the end of it."
Brinkley is in one of the poorest regions in the country, and many of its 4,000 residents live on government assistance. City promoters say rather than advertise as Louis Jordan's birthplace, they would do better to draw people to the prairie lands for hunting, fishing, bird watching and a search for the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker.
Ask a young employee at a local Western Sizzlin' if she knows who Jordan is and she draws a blank; same reaction from a hotel clerk at the America's Best Value Inn. Only band students at Brinkley schools, those studying jazz and blues, learn about Jordan, who was 66 when he died Feb. 4, 1975, in Los Angeles.
Local history buffs five years ago opened the Central Delta Depot Museum in a renovated train station and began holding annual Choo Choo Ch'Boogie festivals, named after a Jordan hit. This year's festival in May featured gospel and rhythm and blues singers. About 500 people turned out, a mix of black and white residents.
A bronze bust of Jordan, now inside the museum, will be relocated outside if the historical society can find the money to pay for a move.
Jordan was still an infant when his mother, Adell, died in her 20s. Under the tutelage of his musician father, James Jordan, and aunt Lizzie Reid, he began playing music as a boy and became part of his father's traveling show. As he matured, he toured regionally with several groups before heading to Philadelphia and New York.
"Maybe it's too much historical excavation for people," says Little Rock musician Stephen Koch, who features Jordan's music regularly on his "Arkansongs" radio program that airs on National Public Radio affiliates. "Maybe it's too far gone."
In the place Jordan knew best, his hometown, he is part of the blurry past as residents deal with the region's present-day poverty and unemployment. Jordan's boyhood home is rotting and falling down, and weeds and tall grass surround the building. A homemade sign reads: "Historical Site -- Boyhood Home of the Legendary Musician Louis Jordan."
The city has condemned the property, and the mayor is waiting for the City Council to appropriate the $2,000 or so needed to tear the house down. The owner, who lives in Ohio, insists he will sell it.
"There's really nothing left to restore," Mayor Barbara Skouras said. "One good snow storm or wind storm . . . that's going to be the end of it."
Brinkley is in one of the poorest regions in the country, and many of its 4,000 residents live on government assistance. City promoters say rather than advertise as Louis Jordan's birthplace, they would do better to draw people to the prairie lands for hunting, fishing, bird watching and a search for the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker.
Ask a young employee at a local Western Sizzlin' if she knows who Jordan is and she draws a blank; same reaction from a hotel clerk at the America's Best Value Inn. Only band students at Brinkley schools, those studying jazz and blues, learn about Jordan, who was 66 when he died Feb. 4, 1975, in Los Angeles.
Local history buffs five years ago opened the Central Delta Depot Museum in a renovated train station and began holding annual Choo Choo Ch'Boogie festivals, named after a Jordan hit. This year's festival in May featured gospel and rhythm and blues singers. About 500 people turned out, a mix of black and white residents.
A bronze bust of Jordan, now inside the museum, will be relocated outside if the historical society can find the money to pay for a move.
Jordan was still an infant when his mother, Adell, died in her 20s. Under the tutelage of his musician father, James Jordan, and aunt Lizzie Reid, he began playing music as a boy and became part of his father's traveling show. As he matured, he toured regionally with several groups before heading to Philadelphia and New York.
Jordan's
good-natured showmanship and vitality made him and his Tympany Five
royalty. Also called the King of the Jukebox, Jordan had 54 hits on the
charts during the 1940s. Eighteen of them went to No. 1, including "Is
You Is or Is You Ain't (Ma Baby)," "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens,"
"Caldonia" and "Saturday Night Fish Fry." His short "soundies" provided
popular entertainment and are considered forerunners of today's music
videos.
A few among the older generation in Brinkley remember his visits home.
Harold Thomason, 71, who worked as a young man in his parents' grocery store, said Jordan often returned to visit his father and friends. Jordan would drive into town in a big white Cadillac, swoop up some dusty children as they played outdoors and buy them candy or ice cream.
Thomason said Jordan always sent his father money, and once bought some land in town so the black children would have a park to play in.
A few among the older generation in Brinkley remember his visits home.
Harold Thomason, 71, who worked as a young man in his parents' grocery store, said Jordan often returned to visit his father and friends. Jordan would drive into town in a big white Cadillac, swoop up some dusty children as they played outdoors and buy them candy or ice cream.
Thomason said Jordan always sent his father money, and once bought some land in town so the black children would have a park to play in.
The Immortal Jukebox
A Blog about Music and Popular Culture
Louis Jordan : Jukebox King! Choo, Choo, Ch’boogie!
We’re the greatest band around, make the cats jump up and down,
We’re the talk of rhythm town’ (Louis Jordan, Five Guys Named Moe’)
‘Louis Jordan was one of my main inspirations … He was a super musician who taught me so much about phrasing’ --(B.B. King)
‘He could sing, he could dance, he could play, he could act. He could do it all.’
--(James Brown)
‘He really was as close to perfection as it was possible to be. He was the best presenter of a song by movement and action I have ever seen. (Playing with him) was like being dragged along by a wild horse!’ -- (Chris Barber)
According to the Panjandrums at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Louis Jordan was the Father of Rhythm & Blues, the Grandfather of Rock ‘n’ Roll and probably a pioneer of Rap!
And, I have to say, I am happy to add the immense authority of The Immortal Jukebox to the encomium of those august authorities in Cleveland.
Louis Jordan did indeed have it all.
He was the complete entertainer; astoundingly assured in the roles of Bandleader, saxophonist, songwriter, vocalist and, comedian.
He was an inescapable presence in 1940s America. Every Jukebox in every roadhouse, tavern or Honky-tonk with a black clientele from sea to shining sea would have been stuffed with Louis Jordan records.
He was omnipotent in the Black music charts. In the 1940s he had 18 (!) Number 1 singles on the R&B charts along with 54 top 10 entries.
Being on Decca’s, ‘Sepia’ label, along with his dazzling appearances in person, on the radio and on film, gave him exposure to the wider white audience and this led to hits lodged on the country, folk and pop charts too.
OK, enough pontificating!
Here’s Louis with an all time classic he cut in 1945, ‘Caldonia’.
The song was credited to Louis’ then wife, Fleecie Moore (who ended up stabbing Louis in a marital spat!) though that was surely a matter of hiding income for Louis from publishers rather a true statement of authorship.
If this don’t move ya I have to say, ‘Jack, you’re dead!’
Louis was backed by The Tympany Five which, at all times, included agile musicians who brought big band power and swing to the bandstand. Amazing how so few could produce so full and powerful a sound.
Great players like Carl Hogan on guitar (a clear influence on Chuck Berry), Will Bill Davis and Bill Doggett on piano and organ, Shadow Wilson on drums and Dallas Bartley on bass provided Louis with the launch pad for the effervescent vocals, saxophone smarts and sheer showmanship which slayed audiences everywhere.
Once the band kicked in Louis’ personality and charisma did the rest. I don’t care whether you call it Jump Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Boogie-Woogie, Cabaret Jazz or Rock and Roll!
What counts is that Louis will, most assuredly, make you jump, jive and wail ’til the cows come home!
Louis was born in July 1908 in Brinkley, Arkansas. Drawing on the influence of his musical father he soon became proficient on clarinet and piano before settling on his premier instrument – the Alto Sax.
It is clear that Louis was a hardworking musician able to absorb a wide range of influences and musical styles in search of an amalgam which would become known as the Louis Jordan sound.
The experience he gained in the 1930s working with Jazz giants like Clarence Williams and especially with Chick Webb at New York’s Savoy Ballroom stood him in very good stead when he felt ready to launch his own band.
He learned about commanding the stage, about arrangements and how to pace a show. Above all, he learned that his greatest asset was himself. Louis was one of those rare artists that audiences immediately take to – probably because, whatever kind of day, week or year you were having, listening to Louis just made you glad to be alive!
Now, let’s turn to a moody masterpiece from 1944 that sold by the million to every kind of audience, the wonderfully titled, ‘Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby’.
Ain’t that a question most of us have had to hazard a time or two!
The relaxed intimacy of Louis’ vocal and the superb individual and ensemble playing of the band make this this one of the great, ‘after hours’ songs for me. Pour yourself a superior malt whiskey and lose yourself!
One of the many great pleasures when listening to Louis Jordan is his brilliant delivery of a lyric. He can be louche, sly, comic or confiding. He can inhabit the role of the outraged husband, the yearning lover, the regular guy or the guy who has the inside dope.
He’s the guy with all the latest gossip expressed in the latest jive talk. When he talks you lean in and listen!
In a previous post, (‘Elegy for Vincent http://wp.me/p4pE0N-7J) I wrote about our habit of greeting each other with quotations from our favourite Irish traditional songs.
I had a similar experience when I used to meet my friend, ‘Slim’ (who was, of course, a man of mighty size) at a blues bar in deepest Soho.
We would invariably try to outdo each other with our recall of tasty Louis Jordan lines:
‘What makes your big head so hard?’
‘You take your morning paper from the top of the stack
and read the situations from the front to the back
The only job that’s open needs a man with a knack – so put it right back in the rack, Jack!’
‘Lot took his wife down to the cornerstore for a malted – she wouldn’t mind her business, boy did she get salted!’
‘Why, I’ll go back in that joint and take a short stick
and bust it down to the ground!
Open the door Richard!’
‘Those other chicks leave me cold
You can’t compare brass to 14 carat gold,
After they made her they broke the mold,
Cause she’s reet, petite and gone!’
‘Tomorrow is a busy day,
We got things to do, we got eggs to lay,
We got ground to dig and worms to scratch,
It takes alot of settin’ gettin’ chicks to hatch’
‘Sure had a wonderful time last night,
Come here, feel this lump on my head!’
I have to confess I’ve had my fair share of, ‘Lump on the head’ nights.
I found when I got home, in the wee small hours, as I searched for the ice pack and contemplated a kill or cure, ‘hair of the dog’ solution that Ol’ Uncle Louis had the perfect song that could soothe the addled head and even have me slippin’ and a slidin’ across the parquet floor playing imaginary Cuban percussion!
The original version of, ‘Early in the Mornin’ is from 1947. Look out as well for the, you have to see it to believe it, version featured in a 1949 film, ‘Look Out Sister’ where Louis appears as a cowboy!
I am going to conclude this brief introduction to the majesty of Louis Jordan’s catalogue with one of my all time favourite records, ‘Choo, Choo, Ch’Boogie’, a monster hit from 1946, which sounds wonderful 70 years on and is sure to sound just wonderful in 600 years time.
This is a pure product of America. America at its best.
Generous, democratic, thrillingly alive.
When I hear America singing it is very often Louis Jordan I hear.
And, I rejoice.
Notes:
The breadth and depth of Louis Jordan’s recorded output is best captured by the 131 track compilation on JSP Records, ‘Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five’.
Believe me, you will find yourself enjoying every last one of the 131 sides!
After his great years in the 1940s Louis continued to perform with brio and when the circumstances were right he could still produce superb recordings.
I love, ‘Somebody Up There Digs Me!’ from 1956 which benefited from Quincy Jones involvement and, ‘Man we’re Wailing’ from 1957.
Louis was extensively featured in, ‘Soundies’ and these have been collected on DVD.
The English eminence grise of Jazz scholarship, John Chilton, has written a typically well researched and sympathetic biography, ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ published by The University of Michigan.
The influence of Louis on succeeding generations of musicians is undoubtedly immense.
Look out for a follow up post featuring artists of the stature of B B King, Van Morrison, Asleep at the Wheel, Ray Charles and Willie Nelson to name but a few!
http://beachmusichof.com/louis-jordan
Louis Jordan
"The King of the Jukebox"
Jordan’s songs celebrated the ups and downs of black urban life. He infused his lyrics with cheeky humor and his music with a driving jitterbug energy. His rabid alto sax and stage persona had a massive influence on the development of rock n roll. Jordan was also a major black film personality and a music video pioneer producing the 1st “soundies”.
In 1936, Jordan’s career began to zoom when he joined the influential Savoy Ballroom orchestra, led by drummer Chick Webb. Come 1938 Jordan formed the Tympany Five and left Webb’s circle. Jordan said about his small band, “I did what the big bands do with my little band, I made the blues jump.” Bill Honky Tonk Doggett was part of Jordan’s jumpin band.
Late 1938 saw the band’s 1st recording date with Decca Records. Their 1939 session produced Keep-A-Knockin. This song, originally recorded in the 1920s, later became a Little Richard smash. Recording sessions in late 1939 produced two more Jordan classics: You’re My Meat and You Run Your Mouth and I’ll Run My Business. Jordan became a cross-over hit long before they invented the phrase.
In 1941, Jordan and his Tympany Five began a stint at the Fox Head Tavern in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In that looser environment, the creative band was able to master the novelty aspect of repertoire and performance. Jordan later identified the gig at the Fox Head Tavern as the turning point of his career. While there, he found several songs that became early hits, including If It’s Love You Want Baby, Ration Blues & Inflation Blues.
After returning to New York, a 1941 Decca session produced Jordan’s first hot-selling record, I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town. 1942 resulted in the answer record, I’m Gonna Leave You on the Outskirts of Town. This song reached #2 on Billboard’s Harlem Hit Parade. His next side, What’s the Use of Getting Sober became Jordan’s first #1 hit, topping the Harlem Hit Parade in December 1942. The band’s next major side, the comical call-and-response, Five Guys Named Moe was one of the 1st recordings to solidify the fast-paced, swinging R&B style that became a Jordan trademark. Back when Hadicol was a cure-all, this song reached #3 on the race (R&B) charts.
At the next Decca session, Jordan re-recorded Ration Blues, which had new timeliness because of World War II. Ration Blues spent 6 weeks at #1 on the Harlem Hit Parade and stayed in the Top 10 for a remarkable 21 weeks. Dozens of hit songs were released during the 1940s including his swinging boogie Saturday Night Fish Fry which sold a million breakable shellac 78s to anyone who had a Victrola no matter their race.
Saturday Night Fish Fry, a rollicking 2-sided 78 rpm hit, is one of the earliest recordings to include all the essential elements of classic rock n roll. And certainly one of the first hit songs to use the word “rocking” in the chorus and feature a distorted electric guitar.
Other successes followed: Blue Light Boogie, Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens, Buzz Me, Ain’t That Just Like a Woman and the million seller Choo Choo Ch’Boogie which had penny loafers tearing up sandy dance floors.
One of Jordan’s biggest hits was Caldonia, with its chorus’d screaming punch line, banged out by the whole band, “Caldonia! Caldonia! What makes your big head so hard?” Numerous other artists, including Woody Herman and Muddy Waters, cut their own versions of this song. But covering a Louis Jordan hit was a tough row to hoe. Jordan could weave together poetic lyrics like the baddest rappers of today.
The prime of Louis Jordan’s recording career, 1942-50, was a period of intense radio segregation. Despite this, he kept scoring crossover #1 singles like G.I. Jive/Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby. During the 40s, Jordan scored a staggering 18 #1 singles and 54 Top Tens. To this day, Louis Jordan ranks as the top black recording artist of all time in terms of the total number of weeks at #1. His records spent an incredible 113 weeks in the #1 position (runner-up: Stevie Wonder with 70 weeks). From 1946 through 1947, Jordan had 5 consecutive #1 songs, holding the top spot for 44 straight weeks.
Louis Jordan is described by the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame as “the Father of Rhythm & Blues” and “Grandfather of Rock and Roll”. He is one of the black performers credited with providing many of the building blocks for the music. Huey Piano Smith said, “If you ask me rock n roll started with Jordan.” Other Jordan fans were Little Richard and Chuck Berry. Jordan’s guitarist, Carl Hogan, was possibly a direct influence on Berry’s guitar licks. Hogan’s single-note solo on the 1946 hit Ain’t That Just Like a Woman was lifted almost note-for-note by Berry as his iconic opening riff on Johnny B. Goode.
Maybe Chuck Berry said it best. “The music was here long before Jordan but Louis Jordan was the first one I heard play rock n roll.” As Jordan might say, “Nuff said”, for one of the most influential artists who transitioned from jazz to blues to R&B. We proudly welcome this pioneer into the Beach Music Hall of Fame.
https://www.arktimes.com/RockCandy/archives/2014/04/04/a-qanda-with-stephen-koch-author-of-louis-jordan-son-of-arkansas-father-of-randb
Interviews A Q&A with Stephen Koch, author of 'Louis Jordan: Son of Arkansas, Father of R&B'
by Will Stephenson
April 4, 2014
Arkansas Times
Stephen Koch, the Little Rock musician, writer and all-around Arkansas music advocate, has long been fascinated by the singer, saxophonist and bandleader Louis Jordan, who was born in Brinkley, Arkansas, in 1908 and was one of the most beloved popular musicians of the 1940s. His new biography, "Louis Jordan: Son of Arkansas, Father of R&B," is a record of this fascination and an impressive feat of research, tracing Jordan's career from his early days playing gigs in Hot Springs to his death in 1975, in between detailing his classic collaborations with Ella Fitzgerald, his pop stardom and movie career, his front-page-news stabbing (at the hands of his wife) and his indelible impact on the pioneers of rock, funk, bebop and even ska.
How did you first get interested in Louis Jordan?
I can't recall a time when I wasn't interested in Louis Jordan and his music. I bounced on my dad's knee to "Beans and Cornbread." It's great music for kids. But as I grew up, I seemed to be the only person, young or old, even among music fans, that had even heard of him. He was such a shadowy figure, and you never saw his records. There was no statue of Louis Jordan in his hometown. If it hadn't been for finding the occasional Tympany Five 78 in a junk shop, I would have thought I dreamed the whole thing.
When did decide to write the book — and what was the research process like?
My initial, actual research in Louie started when I was living in Los Angeles and Nancy Williams asked me to write his biographical entry for "Arkansas Biography." I'd wanted to write a full-length biography of Louie and his music and influence for a long time, but got sidetracked — mostly by other Louis Jordan projects, ironically (a documentary, a musical, radio special, tribute concerts, etc.). Finding a good publisher in History Press took a lot longer than writing the book.
What was the musical context for Jordan's initial rise to fame?
Louis Jordan had a small pre-R&B / rock-style combo, his Tympany Five, in the midst of the Big Band era — to me, this is part of what makes him so innovative. And his songs seem rife with hedonist abandon compared to his staid contemporaries —- and even to those who followed in his wake.
This 2013 quote from Robbie Robertson address that point in the book: “I’ve had the opportunity to sit with Chuck Berry and say, ‘OK, on Tuesday, it was Teresa Brewer and Patti Page singing popular music. On Thursday, something happened and there you were, and Little Richard and Fats Domino. Were you guys just waiting in the wings? How did rock ‘n’ roll explode that quickly? What happened?’ And Chuck Berry said because the real father of rock ’n’ roll had taught us something we couldn't wait to share with everybody, and that guy’s name was Louis Jordan.”
What was Jordan's most important or distinctive contribution to pop music at the time?
During the time when Jordan was riding high, I would say beyond his musical innovation, it was his chart success (50+ top ten hits!) with that musical innovation and incredible chart success coupled with his chart longevity (songs at number one for weeks and weeks). Some years in the 1940s, if you didn't like Louis Jordan's music, you would have had to become a monk to escape it.
What did you learn about him that surprised you the most?
Not to cop out, but just how good Louis Jordan really was, and how influential Louis Jordan really was. You expect to hear more clunkers as the years wear on. And you expect there to be an aspect of entertainment, or some musical genre, where Louis Jordan didn't have some impact.
What are the essential Louis Jordan songs, if you can narrow it down, or what are your favorites?
Stepping beyond his 1940s "King of the Jukeboxes" era to hear him slow down enough to enjoy the ride is always more interesting to me: "Rock Doc" from his 1950s Mercury period is a lost gem. "If I Had Any Sense, I'd Go Back Home" on Aladdin in the early 1950s. "Fifty Cents" and "A Man Ain't A Man" from 1962. "The Amen Corner," "New Orleans and A Rusty Old Horn" and his version of the theme to "Bullitt" from 1968 are great. "Every Knock Is A Boost" and "I Believe In Music" from 1973. And he was a great ballad singer: "Just Like A Butterfly That's Caught In the Rain," "I'll Never Be Free," "Baby, It's Cold Outside."
Jordan was incredibly influential — you include accolades and endorsements from Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, B.B. King, Sonny Rollins, James Brown, etc. — why is he not better known, or as culturally omnipresent as those figures who idolized him?
That's the eternal question with no definitive single answer. A collective wish to put the war years behind us? Poor management in the 1950s and 1960s? The postwar creation of youth culture? Divorces, bad health and poor financial outcomes? Probably all this and more ... but maybe most interestingly and tellingly, is that Louis Jordan's music is too bluesy/jazzy for pop, too pop for jazz and too jazz for blues — and too soon for R&B or rock.
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1685
Louis Thomas Jordan (1908–1975)
Louis Thomas Jordan—vocalist, bandleader, and
saxophonist—ruled the charts, stage, screen, and airwaves of the 1940s
and profoundly influenced the creators of rhythm and blues (R&B),
rock n’ roll, and post–World War II blues.
Louis Jordan was born on July 8, 1908, in Brinkley (Monroe County). His father, Dardanelle (Yell County) native James Aaron Jordan, led the Brinkley Brass Band; his mother, Mississippi native Adell, died when Louis was young. Jordan studied music under his father and showed promise in horn playing, especially clarinet and saxophone. Due to World War I vacancies, young Jordan joined his father’s band himself. Soon, he was good enough to join his father in a professional traveling show—touring Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri by train, instead of doing farm work when school closed. Show venues included churches, lodges, parades, picnics, or weddings; bands had to be ready to handle Charlestons, ballads, and any requests.
Jordan briefly attended Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the late 1920s—he was later a benefactor to the school—and performed with Jimmy Pryor’s Imperial Serenaders in Little Rock. He played saxophone and clarinet with the Imperial Serenaders and Bob Alexander’s Harmony Kings in El Dorado (Union County) and Smackover (Union County) during their boom lumber and oil eras, getting twice the going five-dollars-per-gig rate in Little Rock. The Harmony Kings then took a job at Wilson’s Tell-’Em-’Bout-Me Cafe in Hot Springs (Garland County); Jordan also performed at the Eastman Hotel and Woodmen of the Union Hall and with the band of Ruby “Junie Bug” Williams at the Green Gables Club on the Malvern Highway near town, as well as at the Club Belvedere on the Little Rock Highway. He rented a room at Pleasant and Garden streets in Hot Springs.
The lengths and legitimacy of his marriages are in some dispute. He first married Arkadelphia (Clark County) native Julia/Julie (surname unknown). He met Texas native singer and dancer Ida Fields at a Hot Springs cakewalk and married her in 1932, though he may have still been married to his first wife. He and Fields divorced in the early 1940s when he took up with childhood sweetheart Fleecie Moore of Brasfield (Prairie County), a dozen miles from Brinkley. They married in 1942. Moore is listed as co-composer on many hit Jordan songs, such as “Buzz Me,” “Caldonia Boogie,” and “Let the Good Times Roll.” Jordan used her name to enable him to work with an additional music publisher; he had cause to regret it later, however, after she stabbed him during an argument, and though they reconciled for a time, he ended up divorcing her. Jordan married dancer Vicky Hayes in 1951 (and separated from her in 1960) and singer and dancer Martha Weaver in 1966.
In the 1930s, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jordan found work in the Charlie Gaines band—playing clarinet, and soprano and alto sax, in addition to doing vocals—which recorded and toured with Louis Armstrong. The two Louises would later play duets when Jordan became a solo star. Jordan learned baritone sax during this period. In 1936, he joined nationally popular drummer Chick Webb’s Savoy Ballroom Band. Ella Fitzgerald was the band’s featured singer; Jordan played sax and got the occasional vocal, such as “Rusty Hinge,” recorded in March 1937. In 1938, Jordan was fired by Webb for trying to convince Fitzgerald and others to join his new band.
Jordan’s band, which changed American popular music, was always called the Tympany Five, regardless of the number of pieces. The small size of Jordan’s Tympany Five made it innovative structurally and musically in the Big Band era. Among the first to join electric guitar and bass with horns, Jordan set the framework for decades of future R&B and rock combos. Endless rehearsals, matching suits, dance moves, and routines built around songs made the band; Jordan’s singular brand of sophisticated yet down-home jump blues and vocals made it a success. His humorous, over-the-beat monologues and depictions of black life are a prototype of rap; his crossover appeal to whites calcified his popularity. Jordan charted dozens of hits from the early 1940s to the early 1950s—up-tempo songs like “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” (number one for eighteen weeks) and “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” (number one for seventeen weeks), and ballads like “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t (My Baby).”
With Jordan’s clowning for crowds, often overlooked was his musical talent. He could play a solo and delve into a rapid-fire vocal or routine without missing a beat. He demanded no less from his groups, among the most polished of their peers. Although Jordan’s songs could depict drunken, raucous scenes—like “Saturday Night Fish Fry” (number one for twelve weeks) and “What’s the Use of Gettin’ Sober?”—he did not drink or smoke and could be quiet and aloof, in contrast to the jiving hipster he portrayed. Jordan was also a fine ballad singer—as songs such as “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and “I’ll Never Be Free,” sung with Ella Fitzgerald, show. He helped introduce calypso music to America and toured the Caribbean in the early 1950s, fooling natives with his faux West Indian singing accent.
Jordan said he chose to play “for the people”—no be-bop or self-indulgent solos, just Jordan’s unique, fun urban blues. He also starred in early examples of music video—“Soundies,” introduced in 1940—and longer films based around his songs, such as Beware! (1946), Reet, Petite, and Gone (1947), and Look Out Sister (1948). He cameoed in movies like Follow the Boys (1944) and Swing Parade of 1946 (1946). Loved by World War II GIs, and selected to record wartime “V-discs,” he remains known overseas today.
The sounds Jordan pioneered conspired to slow his record sales as R&B and rock and roll emerged. His more than fifteen years on Decca—not counting his time there with Webb—ended in 1954; he sold millions of records for the company and performed duets with Armstrong, Bing Crosby, and Fitzgerald. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jordan released consistently engaging material, but for a variety of labels (Aladdin, Black Lion, RCA’s X, Vik, and Ray Charles’s Tangerine) and to decreasing results. Jordan continued to tour, including Europe and Asia in the late 1960s. He returned to Brinkley in 1957 for Louis Jordan Day. He spent much of the late 1960s and early 1970s without a recording contract. In 1973, Jordan issued a final LP, I Believe in Music, on the Black & Blue label.
Just over a year later, on February 4, 1975, he died in Los Angeles, California. Jordan is buried in St. Louis, hometown of his widow, Martha.
A host of prominent musicians claim his influence, including Ray Charles, James Brown, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry. His songs have appeared in commercials, on TV, and in movies and have been recorded by dozens of popular artists. Tribute albums include Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s Sings Louis Jordan (1973), Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive (1981), and B. B. King’s Let the Good Times Roll (1999).
Jordan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and named an American Music Master by the Hall in 1999. A musical revue of Jordan’s songs, Five Guys Named Moe, played on London’s West End and Broadway in the 1990s. A nine-CD Decca retrospective was released by Germany’s Bear Family in 1992. In Little Rock, the first Louis Jordan Tribute concert was held in 1997, with proceeds benefiting a Jordan bust in Brinkley by artist John Deering. Jordan was inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2008, the U.S. Postal Service released a stamp featuring Jordan as he appeared in the 1945 short film Caldonia. Act 810 of 2017 designated U.S. Highway 49 from Brinkley to Marvell (Phillips County) the Louis Jordan Memorial Highway. In 2018, Jordan was posthumously honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
For additional information:
Chilton, John. Let the Good Times Roll: The Story of Louis Jordan and His Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.
Feather, Leonard. The Encyclopedia of Jazz. New York: Horizon Press, 1955.
Jancik, Wayne, and Tad Lathrop. Cult Rockers. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Koch, Stephen. Louis Jordan: Son of Arkansas, Father of R&B. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2014.
Sampson, Henry T. Blacks in Black and White: A Source Book on Black Films. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1995.
This entry, originally published in Arkansas Biography: A Collection of Notable Lives, appears in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture in an altered form. Arkansas Biography is available from the University of Arkansas Press.
Louis Jordan was born on July 8, 1908, in Brinkley (Monroe County). His father, Dardanelle (Yell County) native James Aaron Jordan, led the Brinkley Brass Band; his mother, Mississippi native Adell, died when Louis was young. Jordan studied music under his father and showed promise in horn playing, especially clarinet and saxophone. Due to World War I vacancies, young Jordan joined his father’s band himself. Soon, he was good enough to join his father in a professional traveling show—touring Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri by train, instead of doing farm work when school closed. Show venues included churches, lodges, parades, picnics, or weddings; bands had to be ready to handle Charlestons, ballads, and any requests.
Jordan briefly attended Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in the late 1920s—he was later a benefactor to the school—and performed with Jimmy Pryor’s Imperial Serenaders in Little Rock. He played saxophone and clarinet with the Imperial Serenaders and Bob Alexander’s Harmony Kings in El Dorado (Union County) and Smackover (Union County) during their boom lumber and oil eras, getting twice the going five-dollars-per-gig rate in Little Rock. The Harmony Kings then took a job at Wilson’s Tell-’Em-’Bout-Me Cafe in Hot Springs (Garland County); Jordan also performed at the Eastman Hotel and Woodmen of the Union Hall and with the band of Ruby “Junie Bug” Williams at the Green Gables Club on the Malvern Highway near town, as well as at the Club Belvedere on the Little Rock Highway. He rented a room at Pleasant and Garden streets in Hot Springs.
The lengths and legitimacy of his marriages are in some dispute. He first married Arkadelphia (Clark County) native Julia/Julie (surname unknown). He met Texas native singer and dancer Ida Fields at a Hot Springs cakewalk and married her in 1932, though he may have still been married to his first wife. He and Fields divorced in the early 1940s when he took up with childhood sweetheart Fleecie Moore of Brasfield (Prairie County), a dozen miles from Brinkley. They married in 1942. Moore is listed as co-composer on many hit Jordan songs, such as “Buzz Me,” “Caldonia Boogie,” and “Let the Good Times Roll.” Jordan used her name to enable him to work with an additional music publisher; he had cause to regret it later, however, after she stabbed him during an argument, and though they reconciled for a time, he ended up divorcing her. Jordan married dancer Vicky Hayes in 1951 (and separated from her in 1960) and singer and dancer Martha Weaver in 1966.
In the 1930s, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jordan found work in the Charlie Gaines band—playing clarinet, and soprano and alto sax, in addition to doing vocals—which recorded and toured with Louis Armstrong. The two Louises would later play duets when Jordan became a solo star. Jordan learned baritone sax during this period. In 1936, he joined nationally popular drummer Chick Webb’s Savoy Ballroom Band. Ella Fitzgerald was the band’s featured singer; Jordan played sax and got the occasional vocal, such as “Rusty Hinge,” recorded in March 1937. In 1938, Jordan was fired by Webb for trying to convince Fitzgerald and others to join his new band.
Jordan’s band, which changed American popular music, was always called the Tympany Five, regardless of the number of pieces. The small size of Jordan’s Tympany Five made it innovative structurally and musically in the Big Band era. Among the first to join electric guitar and bass with horns, Jordan set the framework for decades of future R&B and rock combos. Endless rehearsals, matching suits, dance moves, and routines built around songs made the band; Jordan’s singular brand of sophisticated yet down-home jump blues and vocals made it a success. His humorous, over-the-beat monologues and depictions of black life are a prototype of rap; his crossover appeal to whites calcified his popularity. Jordan charted dozens of hits from the early 1940s to the early 1950s—up-tempo songs like “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” (number one for eighteen weeks) and “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” (number one for seventeen weeks), and ballads like “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t (My Baby).”
With Jordan’s clowning for crowds, often overlooked was his musical talent. He could play a solo and delve into a rapid-fire vocal or routine without missing a beat. He demanded no less from his groups, among the most polished of their peers. Although Jordan’s songs could depict drunken, raucous scenes—like “Saturday Night Fish Fry” (number one for twelve weeks) and “What’s the Use of Gettin’ Sober?”—he did not drink or smoke and could be quiet and aloof, in contrast to the jiving hipster he portrayed. Jordan was also a fine ballad singer—as songs such as “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and “I’ll Never Be Free,” sung with Ella Fitzgerald, show. He helped introduce calypso music to America and toured the Caribbean in the early 1950s, fooling natives with his faux West Indian singing accent.
Jordan said he chose to play “for the people”—no be-bop or self-indulgent solos, just Jordan’s unique, fun urban blues. He also starred in early examples of music video—“Soundies,” introduced in 1940—and longer films based around his songs, such as Beware! (1946), Reet, Petite, and Gone (1947), and Look Out Sister (1948). He cameoed in movies like Follow the Boys (1944) and Swing Parade of 1946 (1946). Loved by World War II GIs, and selected to record wartime “V-discs,” he remains known overseas today.
The sounds Jordan pioneered conspired to slow his record sales as R&B and rock and roll emerged. His more than fifteen years on Decca—not counting his time there with Webb—ended in 1954; he sold millions of records for the company and performed duets with Armstrong, Bing Crosby, and Fitzgerald. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jordan released consistently engaging material, but for a variety of labels (Aladdin, Black Lion, RCA’s X, Vik, and Ray Charles’s Tangerine) and to decreasing results. Jordan continued to tour, including Europe and Asia in the late 1960s. He returned to Brinkley in 1957 for Louis Jordan Day. He spent much of the late 1960s and early 1970s without a recording contract. In 1973, Jordan issued a final LP, I Believe in Music, on the Black & Blue label.
Just over a year later, on February 4, 1975, he died in Los Angeles, California. Jordan is buried in St. Louis, hometown of his widow, Martha.
A host of prominent musicians claim his influence, including Ray Charles, James Brown, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry. His songs have appeared in commercials, on TV, and in movies and have been recorded by dozens of popular artists. Tribute albums include Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s Sings Louis Jordan (1973), Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive (1981), and B. B. King’s Let the Good Times Roll (1999).
Jordan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and named an American Music Master by the Hall in 1999. A musical revue of Jordan’s songs, Five Guys Named Moe, played on London’s West End and Broadway in the 1990s. A nine-CD Decca retrospective was released by Germany’s Bear Family in 1992. In Little Rock, the first Louis Jordan Tribute concert was held in 1997, with proceeds benefiting a Jordan bust in Brinkley by artist John Deering. Jordan was inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2008, the U.S. Postal Service released a stamp featuring Jordan as he appeared in the 1945 short film Caldonia. Act 810 of 2017 designated U.S. Highway 49 from Brinkley to Marvell (Phillips County) the Louis Jordan Memorial Highway. In 2018, Jordan was posthumously honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
For additional information:
Chilton, John. Let the Good Times Roll: The Story of Louis Jordan and His Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.
Feather, Leonard. The Encyclopedia of Jazz. New York: Horizon Press, 1955.
Jancik, Wayne, and Tad Lathrop. Cult Rockers. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Koch, Stephen. Louis Jordan: Son of Arkansas, Father of R&B. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2014.
Sampson, Henry T. Blacks in Black and White: A Source Book on Black Films. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1995.
Stephen Koch
Arkansongs
Arkansongs
Last Updated 1/29/2018
https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/l/Louis_Jordan.htm
Louis Jordan
2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Performers and composers
Louis Jordan swinging on sax, Paramount Theatre, NYC, 1946
Paramount Theatre, NYC, 1946(Photo: William
P. Gottlieb)
Louis Jordan ( July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician and songwriter who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as The King of the Jukebox, Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the later years of the swing era.
Overview
Although he began his career in big band swing jazz in the 1930s', Louis Jordan became famous as one of the leading practitioners and popularisers of " jump blues", a swinging, up-tempo, dance-oriented hybrid of jazz, blues and boogie-woogie. Often performed by smaller bands (typically five or players), jump music featuring shouted, highly syncopated vocals and earthy, comedic lyrics on contemporary urban themes. Musically it placed strong emphasis on the rhythm section of piano, bass and drums, which (from the mid-1940s on) was often augmented by electric guitar.
After Duke Ellington and Count Basie, Louis Jordan was probably the most popular and successful black bandleader of his day, but in contrast almost all of his colleagues (black or white) he was a major personality in his own right, an all-round entertainer of enormous and diverse accomplishments.
He was a talented singer with great comedic flair, and he fronted his own band for more than twenty years. He was also an actor and a major black film personality, appearing in dozens of "soundies" (promotional film clips), making numerous cameos in mainstream features and short films, and starring in two musical feature films made especially for him. He was an instrumentalist who specialised in the alto saxophone but played all forms of the instrument, as well as piano and clarinet. He was a productive composer, and many of the songs he wrote or co-wrote are now acknowledged as 20th-century popular classics.
Jordan is notable in the history of American popular music for being one of the first black recording artists who achieved a significant "crossover" in popularity into the mainstream, (predominantly white) American audience, and he was one of the first black artists to score hits on both the (black) "race" charts and the mainstream (white) pop chart, and he duetted with almost some of the biggest solo singing stars of his day, including Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald. Jordan is acknowledged as one of the most successful African-American musicians of the 20th century, ranking fifth in the list of the all-time most successful black recording artists. He scored at least four million-selling hits during his career, regularly topping the "race" charts, as well as scoring simultaneous Top Ten hits on the white pop charts on several occasions.
With his dynamic Tympany Five bands -- which also pioneered the use of electric guitar and electronic organ -- Jordan mapped out the main parameters of the classic R&B, urban blues and early rock'n'roll genres with a series of hugely influential 78 rpm discs for the Decca label that presaged virtually all of the dominant black music styles of the 1950s and 1960s and which exerted a huge influence on many leading performers in these genres.
Early life and musical career
Louis Jordan was born in Brinkley, Arkansas, where his father was a local music teacher and bandleader. Jordan started out on clarinet, and also played piano professionally early in his career, but alto saxophone became his main instrument. However, he became even better known as a songwriter, entertainer and vocalist.
In 1932, Jordan began performing with the band of Clarence Williams. In late 1936 he was invited to join the influential orchestra led by drummer Chick Webb. Based at New York's Savoy Ballroom, Webb's orchestra was renowned as one of the very best big bands of its day and they regularly beat all comers at the Savoy's legendary " cutting contests". Jordan worked with Webb until 1938; and it proved a vital stepping stone in his career -- Webb (who was physically disabled) was a fine musician but not a great showman. The ebullient Jordan often introduced songs as he began singing lead; he later recalled that many in the audience took him to be the band's leader, which undoubtedly boosted his confidence further. This was the same period when the young Ella Fitzgerald was coming to prominence as the Webb band's lead female vocalist; she and Jordan often duetted on stage and they would later reprise the partnership on several records, by which time both artists were major stars.
Jordan left the Webb band in 1938, by which time Webb was already seriously ill with tuberculosis of the spine. Webb died after a spinal operation on 16 June 1939, aged only 30; following his death, Ella Fitzgerald took over the band.
Early solo career
Jordan's first band, drawn mainly from members of the Jesse Stone band, was originally a nine-piece, but he soon scaled it down to a sextet after landing a residency at the Elks Rendezvous club at 464 Lenox Avenue in Harlem. The original lineup of the sextet was Jordan (saxes, vocals), Courtney Williams (trumpet), Lem Johnson (tenor sax), Clarence Johnson (piano), Charlie Drayton (bass) and Walter Martin (drums).
The new band's first recording date for Decca Records (on 20 December 1938) produced three sides on which they backed an obscure vocalist called Rodney Sturgess, and two novelty sides of their own, "Honey in the Bee Ball" and "Barnacle Bill The Sailor". Though these were credited to The Elks Rendezvous Band, Jordan subsequently changed the name to the Tympany Five due to the fact that Martin often used tympany drums in performance. (The word tympany is also an old-fashioned colloquial term meaning "swollen, inflated, puffed-up", etymologically related to timpani, or "kettle drum", but historically separate.)
The various lineups of the Tympany Five (which often featured two or three extra players) included Bill Jennings and Carl Hogan on guitar, renowned pianist-arrangers Wild Bill Davis and Bill Doggett, "Shadow" Wilson and Chris Columbus on drums and Dallas Bartley on bass. Jordan played alto, tenor and baritone saxophone and sang the lead vocal on most numbers. The band's sound was similar to that of Fats Waller and his Rhythm, but with a touch of the Caribbean sound commonly called "the Spanish tinge".
Their next recording date in March 1939 produced five sides including "Keep A-Knockin'" (originally recorded in the 1920s and later covered famously by Little Richard), "Sam Jones Done Snagged His Britches" and "Doug the Jitterbug". Lem Johnson subsequently left the group, and was replaced by Stafford Simon. Sessions in December 1939 and January 1940 produced two more early Jordan classics, "You're My Meat" and "You Run Your Mouth and I'll Run My Business". Other members who passed through the band during 1940 and 1941 included tenorist Kenneth Hollon (who recorded with Billie Holiday); trumpeter Freddie Webster (from Earl Hines' band) was part of the nascent bebop scene at Minton's Playhouse and he influenced Kenny Dorham and Miles Davis.
In 1941 Jordan signed with the General Artists Corporation agency, who appointed Berle Adams as Jordan's agent. Adams secured an engagement at Chicago's Capitol Lounge, supporting The Mills Brothers, and this proved to be an important breakthrough for Jordan and the band.
The Capitol Lounge residency also provides a remarkable yardstick of the scale of Jordan's success. During this engagement, the group was paid the standard union scale of US$70 per week -- $35 per week for Jordan and $35 split between the rest of the band. Just seven years later, when Jordan played his record-breaking season at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco during 1948, he reportedly grossed over US$70,000 in just two weeks.
During this period bassist Henry Turner was sacked and replaced by Dallas Bartley. This was followed by another important engagement at the Fox Head Tavern in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Working in the looser environment of Cedar Rapids, away from the main centres, the band was able to develop the novelty aspect of their repertoire and performance. Jordan later identified his stint at the Fox Head Tavern as the turning point in his career, and it was also while there that he found several songs that became early hits including "If It's Love You Want, Baby", "Ration Blues" and "Inflation Blues".
In April 1941 Decca launched the Sepia Series, a 35-cent line that featured artists who were considered to have the "crossover potential" to sell in both the black and white markets, and Jordan's band was transferred from Decca's "race" label to the Sepia Series. alongside The Delta Rhythm Boys, the Nat King Cole Trio, Buddy Johnson and the Jay McShann Band.
By the time the group returned to New York in late 1941, the lineup had changed to Jordan, Bartley, Martin, trumpeter Eddie Roane and pianist Arnold Thomas. Recording dates in November 1941 produced another early Jordan classic, "Knock Me A Kiss", which became a significant jukebox seller, although it did not make the charts. However Roy Eldridge subsequently recorded a version, backed by the Gene Krupa band, which became a hit in June 1942, almost a year after the Jordan recording came out; it was also covered by Jimmie Lunceford.
These sessions also produced Jordan's first big-selling record, "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town", originally recorded by Casey Bill Weldon in 1936, although again it did not make the charts. It too was covered by Lunceford, in 1942, whose version reached #12 on the pop charts, and it was also covered by Big Bill Broonzy and Jimmy Rushing.
Sessions in July 1942 produced nine prime sides, allowing Decca to stockpile Jordan's recordings as a hedge against the American Federation of Musicians' recording ban. Declared the same month, it led to Jordan's enforced absence from the studio for the next year and it also (regrettably) prevented many seminal bebop performers from recording during one of the most crucial years of the genre's history. It had been imposed in order to secure royalty payments for union musicians for each record sold.
"I'm Gonna Leave You on the Outskirts of Town" was an "answer record" to Jordan's earlier "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town," but it became Jordan's first major chart hit, reaching #2 on Billboard's Harlem Hit Parade. His next side, "What's The Use of Gettin' Sober (When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again)" became Jordan's first #1 hit, reaching the top of the Harlem Hit Parade in December 1942. A subsequent side, "The Chicks I Pick Are Slender, Tender and Fine" reached #10 in January 1943.
Their next major side, the comical call-and response number "Five Guys Named Moe" was one of the first recordings to solidify the fast-paced, swinging R&B style that became the Jordan trademark and it struck a chord with audiences, reaching #3 on the race charts in September 1943. The song was later taken as the title of a long-running stage show that paid tribute to Jordan and his music. The more conventional "That'll Just About Knock Me Out" also fared well, reaching #8 on the race charts and giving Jordan his fifth hit from the Decemebr 1942 sessions.
In late 1942, just before the U.S. entered World War II, Jordan and his band relocated to Los Angeles, working at major venues there and in San Diego. While in L.A., Jordan began making " soundies, the earliest precursors of the modern music video genre, and he also appeared on many Jubilee radio shows and a series of programs made for the Armed Forces Radio for distribution to American troops overseas.
Decca was one of the first labels to reach an agreement with the Musicians' Union and Jordan returned to recording in October 1943. At this session they recorded "Ration Blues", which dated from their Fox Head Tavern days, but which had become newly timely with the imposition of wartime rationing. It became Jordan's first crossover hit, charting on both the white and black pop charts. It was also a huge hit on the Harlem Hit Parade, where it spent six weeks at #1 and stayed in the Top Ten for a remarkable 21 weeks, and it reached #11 in the general "best-sellers" chart.
The Forties
In the 1940s, Jordan released dozens of hit songs, including the swinging " Saturday Night Fish Fry" (one of the earliest and most powerful contenders for the title of " First rock and roll record"), "Blue Light Boogie", the comic classic "Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens", "Buzz Me," "Ain't That Just Like a Woman", and the multi-million seller "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie".
One of his biggest hits was "Caldonia", with its energetic screaming punchline, banged out by the whole band, "Caldonia! Caldonia! What makes your big head so hard?" After Jordan's success with it, the song was also recorded by Woody Herman in a famous modern arrangement, including a unison chorus by five trumpets. Muddy Waters also cut a version. However, many of Jordan's biggest R&B hits were inimitable enough that there were no hit cover versions, a rarity in an era where poppish "black" records were rerecorded by white artists, and where many popular songs were released in multiple competing versions.
Jordan's raucous recordings were also notable for their use of fantastical narrative. This is perhaps best exemplified on the freewheeling party adventure "Saturday Night Fish Fry", the two-part 1950 hit that was split across both sides of a 78. It is arguably one of the earliest American recordings to include all the basic elements of the classic rock'n'roll genre (obviously exerting a direct influence on the subsequent work of Bill Haley) and it is certainly one of the first songs in popular music to use the word "rocking" in the chorus and to prominently feature a distorted electric guitar.
Its distinctive comical adventure narrative is strikingly similar to the style later used by Bob Dylan in his classic "story" songs like "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" and "Tombstone Blues". "Saturday Night Fish Fry" is also notable for the fact that it dispenses with the customary instrumental chorus introduction, but its most prominent feature is Jordan's rapid-fire, semi-spoken vocal. His delivery, clearly influenced by his experience as a saxophone soloist, de-emphasises the vocal melody in favour of highly syncopated phrasing and the percussive effects of alliteration and assonance, and it is arguably one of the earliest examples in American popular music of the vocal stylings that eventually evolved into rap.
Jordan's original songs joyously celebrated the ups and downs of African-American urban life and were infused with cheeky good humor and a driving musical energy that had a massive influence on the development of rock and roll. His music was popular with both blacks and whites, but lyrically, most of his songs were empahtically and uncompromisingly 'black' in their content and delivery.
Loaded with wry social commentary and coded references, they are also a treasury of 1930s/40s black hipster slang, and through his records Jordan was probably one of the main popularisers of the slang term "chick" (woman). Sexual themes often featured strongly and some sides -- notably the saucy double entredre of "Show Me How To Milk The Cow" -- were so risqué that even now it seems remarkable that they were issued at all.
Among Jordan's biggest fans were Little Richard and Chuck Berry, who clearly modelled his musical approach on Jordan's, changing the text from black life to teenage life, and subsituting cars and girls for Jordan's primary motifs of food, drink, money and girls. Jordan was also an obvious and substantial influence on British-based jump blues exponent Ray Ellington, who became famous through his appearances on The Goon Show.
Jordan reached Number Four on Billboard Magazine's chart for R&B in 1950 for a cover version of Ruth Brown's hit " Teardrops from My Eyes".
"King of the Jukeboxes"
The prime of Louis Jordan's recording career, 1942-1950, was a period of segregation on the radio. Despite this he was able to score the crossover #1 single "G.I. Jive"/"Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?" in 1944, thanks in large part to his performance in the Universal film Follow the Boys. Two years later, MGM had its cartoon cat Tom lip-sync Jordan's recording of "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?" in the 1946 Tom & Jerry cartoon short Solid Serenade.
Jordan also placed another more than a dozen songs on the national charts. However, Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five dominated the 1940's R&B charts, or as they were known at the time, the "race" charts. In this period Jordan scored a staggering eighteen #1 singles and fifty-four Top Ten placings. To this day Louis Jordan still ranks as the top black recording artist of all time in terms of the total number of weeks at #1 -- his records scored an incredible total of 113 weeks in the #1 position (the runner-up being Stevie Wonder with 70 weeks). From July 1946 through May 1947, Jordan scored five consecutive #1 songs, holding the top slot for forty-four consecutive weeks.
As well as his hit Decca sides, Jordan's popularity was further boosted by his prolific recordings for Armed Forces Radio and the V-Disc transcription program, which helped to broaden his popularity with white audiences. He also starred in filmed a series of short musicals, as well as making numerous " soundies" for his hit songs. The ancestor of the modern music video, "soundies" were short film clips designed for use in audio-visual jukeboxes. Jordan also had a cameo role in the Hollywood wartime musical Follow The Boys.
Influence on Popular Music
Jordan is one of a number of seminal black performers who is often credited with, if not inventing rock and roll, certainly providing most of the building blocks for the music. He was the progenitor and foremost practictioner of the jump blues style, later to be followed by Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris, Tiny Bradshaw. etc. Jump blues was a direct precursor of rock 'n roll. Aside from the aforementioned influence on Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Jordan also strongly influenced Bill Haley & His Comets, whose producer, Milt Gabler, had also worked with Jordan and attempted to incorporate Jordan's stylings into Haley's music. Haley also honored Jordan by recording several of his songs, including "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" (which Gabler co-wrote) and "Caldonia."
James Brown has also specifically cited Jordan as a major influence because of his multi-faceted talent. In the 1992 documentary Lenny Henry Hunts The Funk, Henry asked Brown how Jordan had influenced him; Brown replied "Oh, in every way: he could sing, he could dance, he could play, he could act. He could do it all."
Jordan's vocal style was arguably an important precursor to rap. His 1947 track "Look Out (Sister)", entirely delivered as spoken rhyming couplets, can arguably be classified as one of the very first true "raps" in popular music. "Saturday Night Fish Fry" (1950) also features a rapid-fire, highly syncopated semi-spoken vocal delivery that is strongly reminiscent of the modern rap style.
Decline of popularity
In 1951, Jordan put together a short-lived big band, at a time when big bands were on their way out ; this is considered the beginning of his commercial decline, even though he reverted to the Tympany Five format within a year. By the mid 1950s, Jordan's records were not selling as well as they used to and he began switching labels. At Mercury Records, Jordan managed to update his sound to full rock and roll with such non-charting songs as "Let the Good Times Roll" and "Salt Pork, West Virginia". After this, however, Jordan's popularity waned and he recorded only for a small following of enthusiasts. He seldom recorded at all after the early 1960s. Jordan died in Los Angeles, California from a heart attack on 4 February, 1975. He is buried at Mt. Olive Cemetery in his wife Martha's hometown of St. Louis, Missouri.
During an interview late in life, Jordan made the controversial remark that rock and roll music was simply rhythm and blues music played by white performers, which contradicted the likes of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, both black artists playing what they considered to be rock and roll.
Although Jordan wrote (or co-wrote) a large proportion of the songs he performed, he did not benefit financially from many of them. Many of his self-penned biggest hits, including "Caldonia" were credited to Jordan's then wife Fleecie Moore as a means of avoiding an existing publishing arrangement. The marriage was acrimonious and shortlived -- on two occasions, Moore stabbed Jordan after domestic disputes, almost killing him the second time -- and after their divorce Fleecie retained ownership of the songs. However, Jordan was also apparently not above taking credit for songs written by others -- Jordan is credited as the co-writer of "Saturday Night Fish Fry", but Tympany Five pianist Bill Doggett later claimed that in fact he had written the song.
Hit singles
Tributes and collections
There are many collections currently available, so this only mentions some of the most notable.The Broadway show, Five Guys Named Moe was devoted to Jordan's music and this title is given to both soundtrack (tribute) and original music collections.
The Bear Family label in Germany has released a comprehensive 9-CD collection of Jordan's work (Let the Good Times Roll: the Complete Decca Recordings 1938-1954).
The Proper Records label in the UK has also released a low priced 4-CD 102 track compilation (Jivin' With Jordan) that includes all of Jordan's seminal work from his Decca years.
Blues Guitarist B.B. King recorded an album called "Let The Good Times Roll-The Music of Louis Jordan"
http://teachrock.org/article/louis-jordan/
Louis Jordan
The King of Jive Who Made The Good Times Roll
IF BILL HALEY AND ELVIS PRESLEY have to be dubbed the father and king of rock’n’roll, then Louis Jordan must be considered its godfather. Practically all of the black American rhythm and blues, rock’n’roll and early soul stars who upset the Fifties have cited Jordan as the main man of their youth and several of the white rock’n’rollers have acknowledged his influence or recorded his songs. Certain elements of rock’n’roll were developing even before Jordan appeared on the scene and others cropped up after his heyday. But most were completely and successfully defined by Jordan.
In much the same way that James Brown stood out from the Sixties soul scene to inspire and influence the Seventies generation of new funk stars, Louis Jordan exemplified the crystallizing core of urban rhythm and blues music which was to be the major force in the emergence of rock’n’roll in the Fifties and beyond.
Born in Brinkley, Arkansas, on 8 July 1908, Louis Thomas Jordan was the son of an itinerant musician who encouraged his boy’s interest in music by coaching him on clarinet and saxophone and introducing him to the world of the then-popular traveling minstrel shows. During the school vacations of his early teens, Louis was already performing as musicians and dancer in southern minstrel shows, notably with the famous Rabbit Foot Minstrels and reputedly with the equally renowned Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, commonly remembered as ‘The Mother of the Blues’. Coming out of down-home roots with a vaudeville swagger, the minstrel shows were a rich source of both music and showmanship. These elements were encapsulated by Jordan and then greatly exaggerated by rock’n’roll.
From such earthy foundations, Louis Jordan graduated to full-time professional gigs with several hot jazz and swing ensembles, before securing a plum job in 1936 at the Savoy ballroom in New York as alto-ist and occasional singer with Chick Webb’s band. Jordan enjoyed over two years of contributing to and learning from the band at its peak of popularity, before striking out with his own group in 1938 shortly before Webb’s premature death the following year.
Birth of the Tympany Five
Jordan originally called his group the Elks Rendezvous Band after the New York nightspot where he first established a reputation for boisterous showmanship. Before he’d even begun to take off, however, he’d quickly redubbed his accompanists the Tympany Five, a name that stuck until 1954 despite numerous personnel changes and fluctuations in size.
For most of that time the group consisted of one or two trumpeters and tenor saxmen, one of them usually doubling on clarinet, plus a pianist/organist, bassist and drummer. All shouted asides and choruses behind Jordan shuckin’ and jivin’ upfront on vocals, alto and occasionally tenor sax and much athletic looning about; high-kicks were a specialty. In 1945 he added a regular electric guitar player to the line-up, in 1949 a couple of extra trumpeters and in 1951 he briefly toured and recorded with a 15-piece big band before completely stepping out of character for one session in 1953 with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. But it was the compact horn and rhythm section format that was Jordan’s métier: tightly-knit arrangements for ‘jumping’ musicians, most notably including keyboard players Wild Bill Davis and Bill Doggett.
Jordan’s early recordings in his own right were often light and lively variations of the current swing sound. But he was also performing and recording a fair amount of straight blues material and, by 1941, had begun to develop a fuller, more forthright sound than his immediate predecessors and contemporaries by accentuating the shuffle rhythms of boogie-woogie in his repertoire.
King of the Harlem Hit Parade
In the early Forties he scored the first of an amazing run of hits in the jukebox ‘Race’ charts, then newly-created by American trade magazine Billboard. As Arnold Shaw noted in his authoratitive survey of the pre- rock’n’roll era, Honkers and Shouters (Collier Books, 1978):
"For almost a decade after 1942, Jordan’s records were seldom off the Harlem Hit Parade, as black charts were then typed in Billboard. Not infrequently he monopolized a majority of the slots with three or four discs, placing no fewer than 11 recordings in the best-selling category in 1946. That he was able to sell over a million copies of ‘Choo Choo Ch’Boogie’ and close to that of ‘Saturday Night Fish Fry’ suggests the breadth of his appeal. You could not sell that many discs in the years from 1946 to 1950 to black buyers alone. Even when he was not selling a million, his 1944 discs of ‘GI Jive’ and ‘Is You Is Or You Ain’t My Baby’ were pop jukebox as well as ‘race’ hits. And ‘Is You Is’ was heard in no fewer than four Hollywood films."
During his heyday in the mid-Forties to early-Fifties, Jordan was not just the most popular and influencial black artist among black audiences, he was perhaps the first to take an early combination of some of the roots music that made up rock’n’roll to a substantial white audience.
On the one hand he was a popularist, an irrepressible extrovert and showman with a disarming fund of humor, jive talk and appealingly novel songs. As he himself admitted: "‘I wanted to play for the people, for millions, not just a few hep cats." At the same time he was a more than capable singer and saxman with a knack for picking fine accompanists; beneath the jive, too, he dealt with the musical and social themes of everyday black America.
Radio and jukebox promotion
At least three other factors contributed to his success and influence. Firstly, unlike the majority of wartime/postwar rhythm and blues artist who shaped rock’n’roll, Jordan was signed to a relatively large record company, Decca. By the peak of his career in the immediate postwar years, this would not necessarily have been an advantage: the late-Forties rise of the ‘indies’ against the establishment’s conservatism was one of the keys that released rock’n’roll. But in the early part of his recording career it could only have helped, for although Decca was then barely a major company it had a lot more national influence with radio stations, jukebox operators and promoters than did any local label. Of all the major record companies, Decca probably had the most progressive musical outlook.
Secondly, once it became apparent that Louis was a hot property, there seems to have been an unprecedented amount of what is now called ‘marketing and promotion’ effort put behind him (unprecedented, that is, for a raunchy black artist). Jordan and his Tympany Five were solid-booked throughout America in the Forties into every conceivable type of venue, from ghetto theatres to white supper clubs. Furthermore, between 1942 and 1947 he reportedly appeared in about 20 film shorts and four or five full-length movies, many of the former titled after and promoting his hit records. He was also able to make several important radio broadcasts and even appeared in an early Ed Sullivan television show in 1949, seven years before Elvis caused a ruckus in the same slot.
It is to Louis Jordan’s credit that his music did not suffer during those hectic years. On the contrary, with increased success his records became consistently stronger. Many were rock’n’roll in all but name, notably the immortal ‘Caldonia’ (1945), ‘Ain’t That Just Like A Woman’, the aforementioned ‘Choo Choo Ch’Boogie (1946) and the 1949 classic ‘Beans And Cornbread’.
Responsible for the overall sound and release of these and other hits was the third important ‘other factor’ in Jordan’s success and influence: one Milt Gabler, Decca A&R man and producer of virtually all of Jordan’s Decca recordings.
The ‘positively negative’ approach
As far as Jordan’s success goes, Gabler’s assistance towards it might be termed a ‘positively negative’ approach, in that he appears to have had the rare good judgement to try to coax the best out of Louis without attempting to influence his style. Jordan said: "One good thing I had in my life [was] that the people who associated themselves with me let me portray mytalent. Milt Gabler of Decca: he’s one of the main fellows in my life. If we were recording a tune and I said, ‘I would like to do it this way,’ he never said, ‘No, don’t do it that way.’"
Within three months of Jordan’s last session for Decca in January 1954, Gabler found himself in charge of the company’s newest recruits, Billy Haley and the Comets. From their first session came ‘Rock Around The Clock’ soon followed by ‘Shake, Rattle And Roll’ and a string of hits nearly as long as Jordan’s and somewhat greater in total sales, Gabler explained how he worked with Haley:
"We’d begin with Jordan’s shuffle rhythm … you know, dotted eighth notes and sixteenths, and we’d build on it. I’d sing Jordan’s riffs to the group that would be picked up by the electric guitars and tenor sax [man] Rudy Pompilli. They got a sound that had the drive of the Tympany Five and the colour of country and western."
Jordan’s musical offspring
Apart from Haley and the Comets, the most obvious of Jordan’s offspring were the sax-led jump blues combos and gusty singers – the ‘honkers’ and ‘shouters’ of Arnold Shaw’s survey – that included artists like Wynonie Harris, Roy Brown and to some extent Fats Domino, and culminated in the extremes of Little Richard and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Louis Jordan’s influence also passed through rock’n’roll to the blues and soul of singers like Ray Charles and James Brown.
Less apparent, perhaps, in musical terms is that Jordan was even a marginal influence on the Memphis and Chicago-based blues scenes. B.B. King and Muddy Waters both cite Jordan as an early inspiration and more directly relevant to rock’n’roll, so do Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry. The latter once went so far as to say: "I identify myself with Louis Jordan more than any other artist. I have a lot of flighty things like Louis had, comical things and natural things and not too heavy."
Finally it should be noted that even at the centre of rockabilly – Sam Phillips’ Sun studio – Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis both recorded versions of Jordan’s hits; meanwhile in Britain, long before Tommy Steele appeared, while Lonnie Donegan was still emerging as king of skiffle, Ray Ellington regularly performed Louis’ brand of prototype rock’n’roll on the weeklyGoon Show.
Alas, the man himself didn’t greatly benefit from the evolution of his music: during the vital years between DJ Alan Freed promoting rhythm and blues as rock’n’roll and the music’s international break-out, Louis was off the road and out of the running, stricken with exhaustion and ill-health, and a little too dated by then to compete with his brash, young successors.
Hard gigging and fast living
Judging by the themes of many of his records, in his formative and prime years Jordan was as wild offstage as on. But a couple of decades of hard gigging and fast living took their toll and he was forced to settle into a more sedate way of life, although not, by all accounts, much less energetic on stage – just appearing far less often.
He soon proved he hadn’t totally burned himself out with some splendidly vigorous re-cuts of his hits for Mercury in 1956 and continued to perform and record intermittently for a further 20 years, including a tour of England in 1962, recordings for Ray Charles’ Tangerine label during 1963-64 and a lively session in Paris in 1973.
In the years immediately before Louis Jordan died of pneumonia in Los Angeles of 4 February 1975, the British pub-rock scene saw many a group reviving his material. Indeed, his music returned to the charts in mid-1981 when new wave vocalist Joe Jackson covered several of Jordan’s compositions on an album entitled Jumpin’ Jive. It is probable that in any week of any year, somebody somewhere is performing ‘Caldonia’, ‘Choo Choo Ch’Boogie’, ‘Let The Good Times Roll’ or some other hardy perennial from Louis’ irrepressible repertoire.
© Cliff White, 1982
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THE
MUSIC OF LOUIS JORDAN: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF
RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS
WITH LOUIS JORDAN:
