Two Miles High Music

No Description Available.Genre: Jazz MusicMedia Format: Compact DiskRating: Release Date: 15-AUG-1989

With 20 originals from Louis Jordan's '40s and early '50s heyday at Decca Records, Best Of is the definitive collection of the blues-jazz bandleader-singer's work. Most of the cuts are up-tempo jumpers with lyrics that tell sly tales of the black experience in midcentury: the house-partiers in "Saturday Night Fish Fry" end up in the slam, while the institution of marriage occasions a warning in "Beware." Jordan also dabbled in Latin and Brazilian rhythms on "Run Joe" and "Early in the Morning," and even added a major ballad, "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Cryin'," to the standard repertoire. A major influence on Ray Charles, James Brown, and Chuck Berry, Jordan is a must-hear. --Rickey Wright

Think five discs and 131 songs is too much Louis Jordan? Not a chance. Not for a man who so consistently and so definitively achieved the elusive and delicate combination of musicianship and accessibility. Not for a man who paved new and vital musical roads without ever losing his sense of style or his appetite for fun. Covering Jordan's historic (not to mention commercially successful) Decca tenure (1938 to 1950), this amazing collection finds the alto sax player, songwriter, and singer building blues and swing into a hot mix that came to be known as R&B, producing hit after hit with topnotch bands behind him, streamlining the big-band concept without diminishing the music's force. Much has been made of his role in the development of R&B--and as a result, rock & roll--and his importance as a musical pioneer can't be underestimated. But all ideas about "historical importance" fade away as these vibrant, insistent, irresistible tracks roll by. --Marc Greilsamer

102 slices of prime Jordan are included in this 4 CD set and the 40 page booklet tells the story and provides session detail along with many rare photographs. 4 standard jewel cases in a hardcover slipcase. 2002.

The two-disc, 46-cut Good Times does a great job of demonstrating how singer and saxophonist Louis Jordan's music evolved from the fairly straight swing of his early Decca sides to the jump blues that made him a father of rock & roll and soul. "Ain't That Just Like a Woman," for instance, features guitarist Carl Hogan giving birth to one of Chuck Berry's signature licks, while the likes of "Beware" and "Choo Choo Ch' Boogie" balance punch and elegance like the work of few bandleaders before or since. It would've been nice to see the mightily syncopated "Early in the Morning" (later covered by both Ray Charles and Harry Nilsson) taking the place of, say, "The Two Little Squirrels," but there really are few complaints to be made about this collection. --Rickey Wright