Encores and Other Choices: Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five, originally featured 11/18/2009 Born in Brinkley, Arkansas in 1908, Louis Jordan left local blues music to join Chick Webb’s swing band from 1932 to 1938. With Webb’s group, he played alto sax and participated in comedy routines. Jordan was one of the most successful black musicians of the 20th century, ranking fifth in the list of all-time most successful black recording artists according to Billboard magazine. He regularly topped the R&B “race” charts, and was one of the first black recording artists to achieve significant “crossover” popularity into the mainstream (predominantly white) American audience—scoring simultaneous Top Ten hits on the white pop charts on a number of occasions. A talented singer with great comedic flair, he fronted his Tympany Five band for more than twenty years. He performed duets with some of the biggest solo stars of his era, and was also an actor and major black film personality—appearing in dozens of “soundies” (promotional film clips), making cameos in mainstream features and shorts, and starring in two musical feature films made especially for him. Jordan began recording for Decca Records with his own band, The Tympany Five, in 1938—staying with the label until 1953. After playing in Chicago at the Capitol Lounge in 1951, Jordan and the group caught on with a larger, more mainstream audience—helping to pioneer the move from big-band swing music to smaller group “jump” and early R&B. He had his first million-seller in 1944, with “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby?”. His second comparable his was “Caldonia (What Makes Your Big Head So Hard)”—featured in the 11/18/2009 TMMB—followed in 1946 by two million-sellers, “Beware, Brother, Beware”, and his biggest hit, “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”. Backed by competent musicians, Jordan recorded a string of hits, many of which are still enjoyed today. The Tympany Five work includes a number of fine solos, from both Jordan and his trumpeters. In all of this music, he pursued a basic rhtytm of Shuffle Boogie, later evolved into early Rock ‘n Roll. As he described it, he “made the blues jump”—and, in doing so, influenced a number of early rock artists. Jordan was always proud of the fact that the Tympany five’s music was just as popular with white audiences as it was with blacks. For our encore Jordan feature, I think we have to go with his biggest hit, “Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie”—
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 16:17:04 +0000
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