Piano Blues

This Charles Brown session from early 1992 finds the singer sounding just as natural as he did in the early '50s. Brown is in a typically soulful mood, crooning like a gritty modern day Nat "King" Cole. Backing up the piano and vocals of Brown are soul-groove saxophonist Houston Person, whose smokey tenor chops were an excellent match for Brown's blues. Danny Caron on guitar, Ruth Davies on bass, and Gaylord Birch round out the rhythm section. These ten tracks consist of five originals and five covers featuring a brief version of Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight," showing off Brown's ability to play straight jazz.

Amazingly, many of the recordings guitarist Tampa Red made for RCA Victor and Bluebird in the '40s and early '50s never saw reissue until this 2015 double-disc by Ace. As John Broven points out in his rightly evangelical liner notes for Dynamite! The Unsung King of the Blues, CD-era reissues of Tampa Red usually began at the beginning, which for the guitarist meant 1934, and petered out by the late '40s, which is when Tampa Red eased away from hokum and into earthy guitar-and-piano blues that had substantial influence on the electric blues of the '50s. On Dynamite! The Unsung King of the Blues, the interaction between Tampa Red and his pianists Big Maceo Merriweather and, later, Maceo's protégé Little Johnnie Jones certainly points the way to the classic sound of Chicago blues - particularly when it's paired with a big, swinging drumbeat - and the bluesman's repertoire was also cherry-picked by B.B. King…

Meade Lux Lewis - Cat House Piano (1998) {Verve Elite 314 557 098-2 rec 1954-1955}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 253 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 166 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 30 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1954-55, 1998 PolyGram / Verve Elite Edition | 314 557 098-2
Jazz / Jazz Blues / Boogie-Woogie / Piano Blues

This single CD from 1998 has all of the music from boogie-woogie pianist Meade Lux Lewis' two Verve LPs of 1954-1955. The earlier date is a set of duets with drummer Louie Bellson, while the later session finds Lewis accompanied by bassist Red Callender and drummer Jo Jones. The packaging is perfect, and with 76-and-a-half minutes of playing, the amount of music is generous. The only problem is that there is a definite sameness to the 14 selections (which mostly clock in between four and seven minutes), the majority of which are medium-tempo blues romps. None of the melodies (all Lewis originals) are at all memorable. The romping momentum of the music overall is difficult to resist, but it is advisable to listen to this set in small doses.

Here's a very reasonable compromise between the pricey Mosaic box and EMI's incomplete single-disc treatment of Milburn's Aladdin legacy: a three-disc, 66-song package that's heavy on boogies and blues and slightly deficient in the ballad department (to that end, his smash "Bewildered" was left off). Everything that is aboard is top-drawer, though - the booze odes, many a party rocker, and a plethora of the double-entendre blues that Milburn reveled in during his early years.