Tad Richards' odyssey through the catalog of Prestige Records:an unofficial and idiosyncratic history of jazz in the 50s and 60s. With occasional digressions.
Shakey Jake Harris's first Prestige outing put him together with two of the label's soul jazz all stars, Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings. This time he's given Robert Banks, who has played keyboards on a wide variety of blues recordings for Prestige, and Leonard Gaskin, one of the label's most reliable bassists. But the real sound here is pure Chicago, with Harris's harmonica and vocals, Jimmie Lee Robinson's guitar, and John "Junior" Blackmon's drums.
Prestige had used Robinson once before, on Al Smith's first album, where he also worked with Robert Banks, but this is his real wheelhouse. He was a Chicago bluesman, playing with Freddie King, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf and Harris's nephew Magic Sam, before retiring to a certainly blues-traditioned career: running a Chicago neighborhood candy store. Blackmon was also from Chicago, and considered a reliable session man for blues recordings. Between the three of them, they bring pure Chicago to Englewood Cliffs, in the style of Magic Sam or Jimmy Reed, but very much his own man.
The songs are mostly by Harris. There's one by Armand "Jump" Jackson ("Angry Lover"), another Chicagoan, and one by producer Ozzie Cadena ("Things Are Different Baby"). There's an unusual instrumental ("Jake's Cha Cha"), a slower and soulful instrumental
("Mouth Harp Blues," which is Robinson's even more than Harris's, and has some nice piano by Banks), and a lot of solid Chicago blues, the sound that had fired up the rhythm and blues charts in the 1950s, and would rule the world as it began to be discovered by a younger generation in far-off England. Shakey Jake would never cash in on the popularity of Chicago blues the way some of his contemporaries did, but he would have a solid career, as musician, nightclub owner and crapshooter.
Mouth Harp Blues is the title of the album.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon. The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT. – Terry Gibbs And Listening to Prestige Vol. 4 is not far off!
In presenting Shakey Jake (also known as Shakey Jake Harris, to distinguish him from the other Shakey Jake--yes, there was another one) continued three Prestige blues traditions. The first was to produce strikingly good records by first rate blues musicians. The second, unfortunately, was to consistently back the wrong horses. Shakey Jake would make two albums for Prestige Bluesville, then only three more, and a small handful of singles, over the next quarter century, so while he had the chops to ensure longevity, he wasn't able to break through the way his nephew Magic Sam did. A good part of his career was as a harmonica-playing sideman to Sam and other Chicago blues acts.
The third Prestige blues tradition was experimentation, mixing traditional blues artists with Prestige jazz artists, and if the results weren't a commercial breakthrough, they're artistically satisfying. The jazz voices are Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings, No drummer, which is interesting, because Jake comes out of the Chicago blues tradition, not the Delta, and he's certainly accustomed to working with some serious percussion. So here we have a most unusual conjoining of traditions: the folk blues sound of a very raw voice and harmonica with the modern but eclectic sensibilities of two jazzmen. Both McDuff and Jennings have played plenty of rhythm and blues, but that's not what they're doing here. They're finding new ways to augment a basic blues style. Especially Jennings. Every time he contributes a lick you find yourself listening to him, and yet he's not taking you away from the song as a whole. A pretty damn good trick. It's too bad that Shakey Jake didn't make it bigger. It's almost inexplicable that Bill Jennings didn't make it bigger.
The 45 RPM release from this session was "My Foolish Heart"
and "Jake's Blues," interesting choices. "My Foolish Heart" is, of course, not the syrupy Victor Young ballad from a movie of the same name, a tearjerker with Susan Hayward. And you know that comedy routine about what you can and can't do in the blues? You can't drive a Volvo or a BMW, and "persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, Auburn, and Rainbow can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis." Well, you probably can't build a blues around a phrase like "My Foolish Heart," either, and even Shakey Jake doesn't altogether succeed, although he growls it like Screamin' Jay Hawkins and manages to be pretty entertaining. The same comedy routine says you can get a good blues name out of a physical infirmity, but Shakey Jake got his name a different way: from his fondness for shaking the dice. Reportedly, when he cut his first record, he didn't get paid for the session, but made up for it by winning $700 off the record label's owner shooting craps.
"Jake's Blues" is one of three instrumentals on the record--"Just Shakey" and "Bluffin' and Puffin' (possibly "Huffin' and Puffin'") are the others. I love all of them. The three instruments are great together. Jake is a decent harmonica player, magnificently supported by McDuff and Jennings--again, especially Jennings.
The Bluesville album was titled Good Times. Esmond Edwards produced.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 3 makes a great Christmas gift for the jazz fan who has Volumes 1 and 2! And for those who haven't, the complete set makes a fabulous gift!
