Customer Reviews

Number Ones

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent way to familiarize yourself with Louis Jordan, the clown prince of jaz and r&b in the 40s and 50s. This is filled with some of Jordan's best (and funnniest) story songs mixed with LJ's wailing sax and the jumping jive of the Tympany Five.

This includes fall-down on the floor funny classics such as "Beans and Cornbread", Jordan's wildly hilarious sermon on friendship. If you can listen to this without falling down the floor in uncontrollable laughter, something is seriously WRONG with you! We also have the dancing laugh-riot "Saturday Night Fuish Fry," a jiving farce about a police raid at a ghetto party. "Jack You're Dead" is a clever double-entendre about impotence and one could see the roots of Little Richard's scream in "Caldonia." Jordan and his former bandmate Ella Fitzgerald have their "Jafakean" accents intact for "Stone Cold Dead in the Market." Apparently, the West Indians were not offended as Jordan was VERY popular in the West Indies and many calypso singers would copy "Run Joe" in later years.

Louis Jordan was heavily influenced by Bert Williams, the foundation of modern American comedy and the father of the funny story-song. Listen to this and pick up other Jordan box sets and anthologies and keep them around for when you come home after a bad day. Good for what ails you.

A dose of Louis Jordan's music is like a little sunshine in your day. Great, jumpin' stuff...don't be sucked in my lame cover versions..this collection covers all the must have items in LJ's repertoire, from Saturday Night Fish Fry to Jack, You're Dead.

Get it in time for your next party!

I am surprised that Louis Jordan is not more well-known. It could be argued that the Big Band Swing musician is the root of Rock and Roll. "Beans and Cornbread" and "Saturday Night Fish Fry #1" really move.

Brilliant. In the forties the roots of rock'n'roll. Still sounds good. These number ones are real number ones !

Thanks to Ken Burns for introducing me to Louis Jordan in his "Jazz" documentarama.

I dare you to listen to this CD without smiling to beat the band.

Over the decades I've probably purchased hundreds of 45s, 33s, 8-tracks, cassettes, and CDs, and this one is in the top 10 (a "desert island" pick - assuming the desert island has a working CD player).

If you enjoy R&B, or blues, or even rock, soul, or funk, you've GOT to check out Louis Jordan. If you like roots music or are a musicologist, the same: No Louis Jordan, no Chuck Berry; no Chuck Berry, no rock as we know it today (or as we knew it in the 60s and 70s, anyway, before it all became way too commercial, insipid, and overproduced).

Gr8 stuff!