Customer Reviews

Rock 'n Roll Gumbo

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This is a truly remarkable collection of music, with taut, blistering versions of many of Professor Longhair's best-known songs. Excellent guitar work by Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown adds some extra spice to the mix and the Professor is cranked -- extraordinarily energetic performances, but always with that syncopated swing -- never just fast and frenetic.

I don't even think I could pick a favorite song on this one... the version of "Stagolee" is a real standout. No matter how many half-hearted renditions you've heard by other artists, you can feel the lowlife menace of the lyrics. But then there's "How Long Has This Train Been Gone." And the cleverly re-worked "Rum & Coke." And a great "Junco Partner." And so on.

It's amazing to contemplate that this stuff was recorded when the Professor was relatively old and not all that healthy -- and according to the liner notes, only a few days after his uninsured house burned down. He sounds absolutely on top of the world and at the top of his form.

Fess has been gone now for exactly twenty years. We'll not see the likes of this titan again.

Try to get a handle on this man's greatness. More than any other musician, he defines a whole genre of music. Dr. John, Earl King, everyone of any consequence on the New Orleans musical scene, the whole lot of them owe him everything.

The guy spent much of his life struggling to make ends meet, employed as a janitor. Listen to the rolling opening bars of "Tipitina's" on this disc and wonder how this could possibly be.

Everyone says that Crawfish Fiesta is his best album. I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't get any better than this. "Doin It," "Big Chief", "Junco Partner," "Mess Around," they're all here.

You really, really need to listen to this disc if you have any interest at all in New Orleans music and where it comes from.

This is the album that got Profesor Longhair back into the spotlight of the New Orleans musical scene. He'd been a popular bandleader years before, but had landed on hard times. The producers of this collection heard he was still around and found him working for minimum wage sweeping floors. They swept him away, helped him put together a band and this classic album resulted.

Fess pulled together elements of blues, jazz, boogie, rhumba and calypso and melted into his own Creole stew. This collection includes many tunes that never sounded better than when played by Fess. His take on "Rockin' Pneumonia" will get your toes a tappin' in no time. "Hey Now Baby" shows off his unique blues approach, as does "Mean Ol' World". Excellent interpretations of "Jambalaya" and "Stag-O-Lee" and some originals (Tipitina and Dr. Professor Longhair) mix well with the rest to yield a can't miss New Orleans classic. The boys may have called him Dr. Professor Longhair, but the little girls must have known him better.

Very impressed with the sound quality and performance. If this album does not make you smile and rock, you must be in a coma.

This is "The Professor" at his finest. This is a wonderful "rhomp-n-stomp" accross his best songs. The recording is crystal-clear, and his piano has been boosted up so you can hear New Orleans' FINEST musician!

Professor Longhair was and still is an inspiration to myriad New Orleans piano players. Without a doubt, this is his best recording. More than any other of his albums the complete essence of Fess's talents stand out on RNR Gumbo. Here is where you know where Dr. John, MArcia Ball, Art Neville, and many others got their inspiration. On track after track Fess's distictive talents shine. From the position of a non-piano player like myself, part of the magic in this album is trying to figure out how in the world his left and right hands act so independently and so in synch. Credit must also be given to Clarence Gatemouth Brown and the rest of the band for supporting Fess on this masterpiece. This album is what I imagine seeing Fess live must have sounded like. Its alive, inspiring, and should be required listening for all aspiring pianists. My s\choice for best tracks: Rum and Coke and Tipitina.

Enjoy

I was on traveling backroads on business in Texas when an obscure little AM station played "Mess Around". I stopped at the next phone and called the station. The DJ told me it was from Professor Longhair's "Rock & Roll Gumbo". I bought it that afternoon. It is without a doubt the definitive New Orleans Party CD. I hear it and I want to suck heads and dance my be-hind off! Remastered and remixed by pianist George Winston, this 1987 release gives me great hope there is a heaven, with a good piano, and Fess is there bangin' away. If you're reading this, and you had the chance to see him live, how I envy you!

I've owned this album as a 33 rpm, a tape and now a CD. Whatever the next medium is, I'll own it on that too. It is the best New Orleans party album ever.

George Winston, the producer of this CD, was a top seller on Windham Hill records during the 1980s and early '90s. In case you've forgotten Winston (and he was eminently forgettable), he played soft, innocuous cocktail music on the piano which he was pleased to call "jazz," but for some reason unknown to Mankind, one of his idols was Fess Byrd, a.k.a. Professor Longhair, whose style was about as related to George Winston's as Charles Mingus' is to Kenny G.

This was my intoduction to Professor Longhair, and what an introduction it is. The man played the piano as if it were a tuned conga drum; when jazz legend Art Tatum heard him play in the early 1950s, he was mesmerized by his style. No, Fess was no Tatum, not even close, but WOW what a great, asymmetric piano style he had!! Highly recommended.

With out a doubt this is the best of Professor Longhair. The album notes about Fess are worth the price of the album