Joe Jammer

This choice chapter in the Memphis Slim story delivers an exciting taste of what a modern electric blues band sounded like in live performance during the early '70s. This reissue includes a bonus track featuring Hammond B-3 organist Deacon Jones and formidable electric guitar wizard Freddie King. The year 1973 was particularly exciting as blues, soul, funk, and rock & roll began to blend in ways that had only been hinted at during the 1960s. This cultural explosion was inevitable as music festivals were expanded to include a wide range of styles and genres. The 1973 Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival, for example, featured One String Sam, Victoria Spivey, Roosevelt Sykes, John Lee Hooker, and Ray Charles on the same weekend as Yusef Lateef, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, and the Sun Ra Arkestra. The 1973 jazz festival held in Montreux, Switzerland, underwent comparable dilation…

A funky killer from this legendary European group - a record that's filled with as much funk and soul as the Latin elements you might have guessed from the title. El Chicles may have been a studio project, but they were a heck of a funky one - with hard drums, tight bass, and mixed-up Latin funky groove that was always pretty right on, no matter what the material happened to be! This cold little jammer from the early 70s features the group riffing hard on funky covers of "Viva Tirado", "Ode To Billy Joe", and "I'm A Man" - and grooving even better on the original tracks "Drug Bay" and the break-heavy "At Nee-Ko". There's some excellent organ in the mix, and the whole thing's packaged in a very cheesy cover.

Alto saxophonist Pete Brown has been showing up on Keynote and Savoy reissues for years, but seldom if ever has there been an entire package devoted to recordings made under his name. The Classics Chronological series has accomplished many impressive feats, but this disc deserves special attention. Brown brought excitement and sonic ballast to nearly every band he ever sat in with. His works with John Kirby and especially Frankie Newton are satisfying, but this CD contains the very heart of Brown's artistry. It opens with "Cannon Ball," a boogie-woogie from 1942 sung by Nora Lee King. This relatively rare Decca recording features Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Hamilton, and Sammy Price, the pianist with whom Brown would make outstanding music a bit further on down the road. Similarly rare and even more captivating are two extended jams recorded in Chicago in April of 1944. Brown's quartet on this date consisted of electrically amplified guitarist Jim Daddy Walker, bassist John Levy, and drummer Eddie Nicholson.