The Legends of Specialty Part 3

Among recent reissues in Fantasy's The Legends of Specialty series are the second volumes devoted to Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, Jimmy Liggins and Percy Mayfield along with a volume of Art Neville's Specialty recordings. Another reissue, Shouting the Blues, includes Joe Turner's recordings for the Texas Freedom label Big Maceo's Specialty sides, and recordings by Smilin' Smokey Lynn and H-Bomb Ferguson. Musically, most of these recordings date from the heyday of jump blues, the late forties through the mid-fifties. All six releases contain Billy Vera's perceptive annotations and discographical information. 

By virtue of his success with his brothers today, Art Neville is perhaps the best known of any of these artists. His Specialty Recordings: 1956-58 collect the recordings he made after recording Mardi Gras Mambo with the Hawketts for Chess. These early sides include some demos along with such sides as Oooh Wee-Baby, Cha Dooky Doo, with its famous distorted guitar and a duet with Larry Williams on Rocking Pneumonia and Boogie Woogie Flu. These sides did not enjoy great commercial success when initially issued, and while there is unquestionable historical interest to some of these sides, and fans of New Orleans R&B will be interested, this is one of the weaker Specialty reissues. 

Shouting The Blues is dominated by some great jump blues by Joe Turner and Smilin' Joe Lynn. Turner's eight songs were initially issued on the Houston Freedom label and three (including the rocking Adam Bit the Apple) include Goree Carter's T-Bone Walker inspired guitar and a great jump band. Big Maceo had suffered a stroke and was unable to play at the time he recorded his enjoyable, but not essential 1949 Specialty recordings. On these, his protege Johnnie Jones took the piano chair. Smilin' Smokey Lynn was a Los Angeles based shouter heard with trumpeter Don Johnson's band. He is an enjoyable singer, if not in the same league as Turner. Many of his performances are rehashed versions of R&B hits. State Street Boogie reworks James 'Widemouth' Brown's Boogie Woogie Nighthawk, the torrid Run Mister Rabbit, Run, derives from Hot Lips Page, and Feel Like Ballin' Tonight, derives from Roy Brown's Good Rockin' Tonight. The imaginative Chesterfield Baby, celebrates Lynn's women who satisfies his soul. Closing with two previously unissued tracks by H-Bomb Ferguson, this is an interesting but not essential collection. 

This review appeared in Jazz & Blues Report in 1993. I am splitting it up and will include this top paragraph with all three parts. I received my review copies from Fantasy Records. I am not sure about the availability of these albums, although one might check ebay. Here is Art Neville's Specialty Recording of Cha Dooky Doo.

After Katrina, Moving to a Higher Ground

In April 2006 I wrote reviews on several post-Katrina benefit albums. This is the second review of those I am posting. Here is the first which originally appeared in the April 2006 (issue 281) of Jazz & Blues Report as well as the April 2006 DC Blues Calendar, then the DC Blues Society’s newsletter. I likely received a review copy, not sure if from the record company, a publicist or Jazz & Blues Report.

Jazz at Lincoln Center did one of the first TV benefit shows, Higher Ground, Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert, which has been made available on Blue Note. Given that the Artistic Director of Jazz From Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis Wynton Marsalis, is from New Orleans as well as the city’s seminal place in the history of jazz and American popular music, it is not surprising that they came out early to help try to help the cradle of jazz recover.

Despite being presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center, the music presented here includes much that is not strictly jazz including a marvelous gospel number by Shirley Caesar and lively number by Buckwheat Zydeco. Art & Aaron Neville revive Professor Longhair’s Go to New Orleans with Allen Toussaint on piano, Art Neville on organ, an uncredited guitarist, Wes Anderson on alto and Wynton Marsalis on trumpet on a spirited recording followed by Dianna Krall rendering Basin Street Blues, with a nice traditional jazz feel to the backing evoking Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

James Taylor’s simple solo rendition of his Never Die Young, and Dianne Reeves treatment of The House I Live In both give the lyrics special meaning in light of the performance context as does Norah Jones on a solo performance of Randy Newman’s I Think It’s Going To Rain Today. Terence Blanchard’s performance Over There may be the strongest straight jazz performance with its somber mode, whereas the music of New Orleans is celebrated by Marcus Roberts on Jelly Morton’s New Orleans Blues and Wynton Marsalis’ revival of Dippermouth Blues, from the first recordings made by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band with a young second cornet player whose nickname was Dippermouth.

Trumpeter Irvin Mayfield plays a marvelous Just a Closer Walk With thee, just backed by pianist Ronald Markam, Bette Midler is marvelous on Is That All There Is, which some may be familiar of from Peggy Lee. The closing Come Sunday with Mark O'Connor on violin is a moving treatment of a composition originally part of Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige, and later done by another legend from new Orleans, Mahalia Jackson.

Like the city celebrated here, the performances contain a variety of styles, idioms and moods.