Listening to Prestige 340: Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis - Shirley Scott

Ballads, standards, moods for Moodsville, and a couple of novelties for a 45 RPM release and the Christmas trade.

This is mostly Eddie Davis's album. Shirley Scott plays a supporting role, and a lot of it,  session log to the contrary, is on piano. Her piano solos show that if she had chosen to stay on that instrument, she would have had a very fine jazz career.

"It Could Happen to You" was written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke. First recorded in 1943 by Jo Stafford, it moved into the jazz repertoire in 1951 when both Errol Garner and Bud Powell cut it, and since then, it has been beloved by jazz musicians. Burke also co-wrote "What's New" with Bob Haggard for a 1938 Bing Crosby recording, and it became a jazz standard in the early 1950s with recordings by Milt Jackson and Errol Garner before it really became a pop standard. Although both of these entered the jazz repertoire as piano pieces, Davis dominates here, and he is a fine ballad player, sensitive and atmospheric, Scott's solos are shorter, but she packs a lot into them, Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" has never wanted for performers, either vocal or instrumental, to take on its subtle loveliness. This track is Davis's throughout, with Scott providing support. The Gershwins are responsible for "The Man I Love," and it's even older, going back to the 1920s and Adele Astaire, and if anything even more popular, with over 300 recorded versions.

"The Very Thought of You" (Ray Noble), "Serenade in Blue" (Harry Warren) and "I Cover the Waterfront" (Johnny Green) can't quite match Kern and Gershwin, but they're also well-loved standards.

"Man With the Horn" was written by Bonnie Lake, one of the most successful woman songwriters of her era, and dedicated to her husband and co-composer, Jack Jenney, a trombone player who would die not long after. It became a staple for horn players, although Jenney may have been its only trombonist, and Davis recorded it more than once.

Scott goes back to the organ for the two Christmas songs. I think I prefer "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," which is sprightly and doesn't take itself too seriously, to Mel Tormé's "The Christmas Song," which has always thought of itself as a better song than it probably is. Scott does some very clever organ fills on it, though.

The Moodsville album is simply and eponymously title Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Shirley Scott, because at this point "Moodsville" was the prominent feature on the new label's covers. The Christmas songs were not included. They had their own niche as a seasonal 45.

VERY CLOSE TO BEING READY TO TAKE ORDERS FOR LISTENING TO PRESTIGE VOL 3!