Motley Moose – Archive

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”.

OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.

CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and …… well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend.

ART NOTES – an exhibition entitled From Houdini to Hugo: The Art of Brian Selznick is at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington through January 11th.

WHILE VERY LATE in coming, finally a draft bill to outlaw domestic violence in China seems set to pass.

HAIL and FAREWELL to the child actor who portrayed Pugsley on the old Addams Family television show, Ken Weatherwax – who has died at the age of 59 …… and to the woman whose case led to the requirement that law enforcement officers get a warrant before conducting a search, Dollree Mapp – who has died at the age of 91.

THURSDAY’s CHILD has been named Fiona the Cat – a kitteh from the Black Sea resort town of Varna, Bulgaria … whom locals assumed was the victim of cruelty by vandals and set up a Facebook group called ‘Punishment to the the perpetrator of this criminal act’. But it is now understood that this stray cat developed a green hue … because it usually sleeps on an abandoned heap of synthetic green paint in a garage. Earlier this week it was feared to have gone missing … but who now has been seen again in public.

POLITICAL NOTES – the recently elected Social Democratic government in Sweden fell when the growing strength of a far-right party demanded (and did not receive) a commitment to cut immigration by 90% … and one of the center-right parties may nominate a woman to be its candidate for prime minister.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is Ulric the Cat – a 30-lb. British kitteh who only began to lose weight … when his family adopted a Pug-cross named Dennis (who keeps Ulric in shape via vigorous play).

BRAIN TEASER – try this Quiz of the Week’s News from the BBC.

THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at the old TV series Hogan’s Heroes – if you’re asking, “Hogan, what is the meaning of this?!?!?” …. well, it’s a look at the back-story of the sitcom, including the fact that several key actors had in fact escaped the Holocaust …. and recalling the rather sordid end for the show’s lead actor.

FATHER-SON? – veteran musician Christopher Cross (“Sailing”, “Arthur’s Theme”) and TV/film star Chris Pratt (“Parks & Recreation”, “Guardians of the Galaxy”).

   

……and finally, for a song of the week …………… while I’ve always considered the ‘founding fathers’ of rock-n-roll to be Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley: if there is such a thing as a ‘grandfather of rock-n-roll‘ – then very likely it is Louis Jordan who broke out of big band jazz to help found the idiom of R&B, and lay the groundwork for the rock-n-roll that followed. Except for a 1990’s Broadway play, he is little known today – yet left his mark not only in music but in acting as well. And you can see his influence in many performers who followed, right up to today.

The Arkansas native was born in 1908 and attended Arkansas Baptist College. He was a prolific instrumentalist, with the alto saxophone his primary one. He moved with his family to Philadelphia in 1932, and later to New York. There, he joined the Chick Webb Orchestra for whom a then-unknown Ella Fitzgerald was his featured vocalist. Quickly Louis Jordan’s voice and showmanship led to his being seen as a co-bandleader, and his duet singing with Ella Fitzgerald helped shape his own bandleading, which he began after a two-year stint with Webb in 1938. He was, in fact, fired by Webb: for trying to convince Ella to join Jordan’s proposed new band (Webb died shortly thereafter, with Ella assuming leadership of his orchestra).

The new band he formed – Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five – was one of the most successful bands of the 1940’s. Some of their features: (a) they helped hasten the post-war demise of the big band in favor of smaller ensembles, (b) they helped popularize jump blues – a swinging, dance-oriented mix of jazz, blues and boogie-woogie, (c) their use of electric guitar and organ was followed by many other bands, and (d) their call-and-response vocals (often with humor) – as well as the extended story-telling Jordan did – foreshadowed later works from Bob Dylan to Grandmaster Flash to modern hip-hop. His recordings for the Armed Forces Radio helped introduce his music to a white audience who may never have heard him otherwise.

From 1942-1951, Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five had 57(!) hit singles in the R&B charts, with several crossing-over into the mainstream pop charts. After Duke Ellington and Count Basie: there was no more successful African-American bandleader of the time. Some of his most popular songs (noting which also made the pop charts) were Ain’t That Just Like A Woman (#6 on the pop charts), “Five Guys Named Moe”, Choo Choo Ch’Boogie (#7), Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens (#6), G.I. Jive during the war years (#1), Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby? (#2) … and the song Caldonia (#6) with its memorable chorus, “Caldonia! Caldonia! What makes your big head so hard?!?” which has been covered by many performers.

He also had a #6 hit in 1949 with a duet of Frank Loesser’s Baby It’s Cold Outside which had him reunited with Ella Fitzgerald. Not for nothing was he known as the Jukebox King during the 1940’s.

Jordan also appeared in many wartime-era short films: “Look Out Sister” and “Reet, Petite and Gone” (which was the inspiration for the Jackie Wilson hit Reet Petite of the 1960’s) as well as the feature-length film Follow the Boys from 1944. His energetic, humorous self came across on screen as much as it did on-stage or on vinyl.

Yet the very types of music that he helped inspire (R&B and the new rock music) would be what brought down his career later in the 1950’s. Although he still found work performing live, his record sales began to slide by 1953 and he was dropped by Decca Records (where his label-mate Bill Haley started his rise to stardom, very much influenced by Jordan). Years later, Jordan expressed some bitterness about rock music supplanting his own (which B.B. King noted wasn’t uncommon amongst his peers, at least at first).

But for awhile, he tried to adapt. A young Quincy Jones produced a 1956 album, with rousing versions of “Let The Good Times Roll”, with Mickey Baker (of Mickey & Sylvia’s “Love is Strange” fame) on guitar. Ray Charles always cited Jordan as an influence (and in gratitude signed him to his Tangerine label in 1962). And Jordan also returned to his jazz roots and released some critically acclaimed albums during modern jazz’s heyday from the latter half of the 1950’s to the early 1960’s. Yet in the end, his time had passed him by. His last album was recorded in 1972 – now, with the Mac Davis tune I Believe in Music as the title track, if you can believe that.

Louis Jordan died in February, 1975 at the age of 66. His legacy is quite extensive:

(a) The play Five Guys Named Moe helped bring Jordan’s name to a contemporary audience in Britain as well as Broadway.

(b)  He was named by Billboard Magazine as the 5th most popular African-American recording artist of the 20th Century. And he spent more weeks at #1 on the R&B charts than anyone else (113 vs. Stevie Wonder’s 70).

(c)  Besides Bill Haley and Ray Charles: others citing him as a career influence were Little Richard, Chuck Berry and James Brown – who said “Jordan influenced me in every way”.

(d)  There is a 1997 biography of him entitled Let The Good Times Roll – the same title as a tribute album to Jordan from B.B. King – as well as a US postage stamp issued in 2008: the centennial of his birth.

(e)  And finally, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an “Early Influence” in 1987.

   

One of his last hits on the pop charts (as well as the R&B charts) was late 1949’s Saturday Night Fish Fry – an epic-length song (for the time) that had to be released on two sides of a 78 rpm record. It has been (plausibly) argued as possibly the first rock and roll record: containing many of the genre’s key ingredients: a distorted electric guitar, an early use of the word rocking, party-themed lyrics, and danceable, uptempo music.

I wouldn’t go quite that far (as the lyrics are aimed clearly at an adult African-American audience, rather than at rock’s generic youthful audience) but you sense that it helped blaze a trail that Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley would soon follow. And below you can listen to it.