Ramsey Lewis Trio - "Iracy Blues"

Here again is the Ramsey Lewis Trio, doing a little thing called "Iracy Blues". I love the stand up bass lines, which I believe were played by Eldee Young.

Lewis performing at JazzFe 2006. Photo by Tomas Forgac

Percy Mayfield - "Loose Lips"

Here is the other side of this record. This was the side that dad always played. I imagine that these were somewhat risqué lyrics for the time.

Mose Allison - "Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me"

Here is the B side to Mose Allison's "The Seventh Son", which I posted about a year ago.

Prestige Records tried to market Allison as a pop star, but Columbia Records and later Atlantic Records tried to market him as a blues artist. Because he sang blues, Jet magazine thought that he was black and wanted to interview him. I thought he was too when I first heard him as a kid.

Mose is still with us and his March 2010 album, The Way of the World, "marked his return to the recording studio after a 12-year absence."

Lionel Hampton - "Railroad No. 1"

You could not spend a better 9 cents than on this record by Lionel Hampton and his orchestra. This record swings a jazzy, instrumental blues groove that will have you bopping in no time.
This is the B side to this post from last year.

Gus Jenkins - "Road Runner"

As promised, here is the A-Side of "Road Runner" by Gus Jenkins.

Dizzy Gillespie - "Over The Rainbow"

This big band version of the famous song from The Wizard Of Oz features Austin Cromer on vocals and was recorded in 1957.

Comer was an enormously powerful singer, who was a member of The Ravens in the middle 'fifties, sang and recorded with Dizzy Gillespie in 1956-57, was rediscovered by Atlantic Records working on a labor crew in Columbus in 1965, released a solo album, then "disappeared".

Clef Records was an American Jazz record label founded by Norman Granz in 1946. It was later absorbed into Verve Records.

Chuck Berry - "Down Bound Train"

Here is the flip side to "No Money Down" which I posted last February.
Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986, with the comment that he "laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance." Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists, including being ranked fifth on their 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll included three of Chuck Berry's songs: "Johnny B. Goode," "Maybellene," and "Rock and Roll Music." Today, at the age of 87, Berry continues to play live.