Awaiting Jungle Room Episode 1, I thought I would post about a project I’ve taken upon myself.  Anyone familiar with Orson Wells’ Citizen Kane might recall a stellar Jazz performer reciting the lines “it can’t be love because there is no true love” during the climax of the film.  Though many have identified the song as “In A Mizz”, a composition originally brought to prominence by Duke Ellington, there has been very limited recognition of the vocalist for the Citizen Kane rendition.  My research has uncovered that he is Alton Redd, a Jazz drummer with a hidden talent for bluesy vocals and father to Jazz vocalist Vi Redd.  As a member of  the Cee Pee Johnson Blues Band, Alton delivered this brilliant cut and went unnoticed, as was only given minor credits in subsequent re-releases, originally having been left out of the original theatrical credits.

I decided to email the Library of Congress in an attempt to determine if any existing recording of this version was in their archives.  No such copy exists for Public viewing.  Some initial research I had done delivered the same information there librarian provided me with.  I am still eager to discern whether any original recording of the Cee Pee Johnson Blues Band performing this number exists.  The hunt continues.

I am happy to announce that I am now equipped to podcast efficiently thanks to my Blue Snowball microphone.  The Jungle Room’s episodes will feature a combination of Jazz classics and offbeat cuts, compilation and reissue reviews, and anecdotal segments about performers.  Altogether, it will be a casual but thoughtful adventure.  Hope you’ll join me. Regards, Congo Steve
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I am happy to announce that I am now equipped to podcast efficiently thanks to my Blue Snowball microphone.  The Jungle Room’s episodes will feature a combination of Jazz classics and offbeat cuts, compilation and reissue reviews, and anecdotal segments about performers.  Altogether, it will be a casual but thoughtful adventure.  Hope you’ll join me.

Regards,

Congo Steve

INSIDE SCOOP: The Cal Tjader Trio - The Cal Tjader Trio Fantasy, 2013 Record Store Day Re-Release (Orig 1953) People have spent every grain of sand in their hourglasses to posture themselves as “cool”.  Though the word usually has something to do with an association with people admired for their bold lifestyle, there is no concise definition.  Coolness develops.  It follows trends up until their peak of popularity and suddenly vanishes to some secret insider corner of fancy.   Around the late 40s was when the word “Cool” came to prominence in  Jazz  informality.  It was a distinctive way of talking about a Jazz style popular on college campuses, much like  Cal Tjader’s own San Francisco state.  The University brought him to work with like-minded eventual greats like Dave Brubeck and his Dave Brubeck Octet, who Tjader joined for his first recorded release in 1950.  Though an accomplished Jazz drummer, Tjader’s real passion in music blossomed from his combined gift for melodic and rhythmic improvisations.  With this asset he excelled as a vibraphone player.  Though Brubeck and his peers often gravitated to muted and savvy sounds of Cool Jazz, Tjader began to resonate with growing trends in Latin styles of Jazz. The Cal Tjader Trio was Tjader’s first was his first recording with a group all his own.  While his initial recorded release with the Dave Brubeck Octet leant itself to the subtle gloominess of blending classical technique and careful improvisation, this one surely allows his melodic intuitions to flourish.  Also this record is Vince Guaraldi’s debut as an accompanist, and his playfully frantic chords are an excellently syncopated foreground for Tjaders Vibraphone meanderings.  The LP kicks off perfectly with a tickling  mambo rendition of Chopsticks that features bongos as the primary lead instrument.  It’s a statement of finding beauty in keeping a simple form to express a deviation from convention.  This was as ‘outside of the box’ as a multi-instrumentalist could get back in ‘53.  Unlike his peers, Tjader pursued his convictions for Latin music by resorting to this model when finding his own voice; somewhere between Jazz and Latin folk rhythm.  Despite the fluctuation in popularity of Latin Jazz , he would continue to play and peddle his own definitive brand that would later give inspiration for Exotica composers like Les Baxter and Arthur Lyman in the latter half of the 1950s.   Coolness may often be about knowing the right people, but is also about finding a way to distinguish yourself from them.  In a way this is the story of Cal Tjader’s career.  With his sharp bohemian connections and an undying inner narrative informing his skills, Tjader’s contributions came from being an exception an eventual rule for latin improvisational Jazz.
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INSIDE SCOOP: The Cal Tjader Trio - The Cal Tjader Trio

Fantasy, 2013 Record Store Day Re-Release (Orig 1953)

People have spent every grain of sand in their hourglasses to posture themselves as “cool”.  Though the word usually has something to do with an association with people admired for their bold lifestyle, there is no concise definition.  Coolness develops.  It follows trends up until their peak of popularity and suddenly vanishes to some secret insider corner of fancy.  

Around the late 40s was when the word “Cool” came to prominence in  Jazz  informality.  It was a distinctive way of talking about a Jazz style popular on college campuses, much like  Cal Tjader’s own San Francisco state.  The University brought him to work with like-minded eventual greats like Dave Brubeck and his Dave Brubeck Octet, who Tjader joined for his first recorded release in 1950.  Though an accomplished Jazz drummer, Tjader’s real passion in music blossomed from his combined gift for melodic and rhythmic improvisations.  With this asset he excelled as a vibraphone player.  Though Brubeck and his peers often gravitated to muted and savvy sounds of Cool Jazz, Tjader began to resonate with growing trends in Latin styles of Jazz.

The Cal Tjader Trio was Tjader’s first was his first recording with a group all his own.  While his initial recorded release with the Dave Brubeck Octet leant itself to the subtle gloominess of blending classical technique and careful improvisation, this one surely allows his melodic intuitions to flourish.  Also this record is Vince Guaraldi’s debut as an accompanist, and his playfully frantic chords are an excellently syncopated foreground for Tjaders Vibraphone meanderings.  The LP kicks off perfectly with a tickling  mambo rendition of Chopsticks that features bongos as the primary lead instrument.  It’s a statement of finding beauty in keeping a simple form to express a deviation from convention.  This was as ‘outside of the box’ as a multi-instrumentalist could get back in ‘53. 

Unlike his peers, Tjader pursued his convictions for Latin music by resorting to this model when finding his own voice; somewhere between Jazz and Latin folk rhythm.  Despite the fluctuation in popularity of Latin Jazz , he would continue to play and peddle his own definitive brand that would later give inspiration for Exotica composers like Les Baxter and Arthur Lyman in the latter half of the 1950s.  

Coolness may often be about knowing the right people, but is also about finding a way to distinguish yourself from them.  In a way this is the story of Cal Tjader’s career.  With his sharp bohemian connections and an undying inner narrative informing his skills, Tjader’s contributions came from being an exception an eventual rule for latin improvisational Jazz.

INSIDE SCOOP: “Long Live Boogaloo” SecretStash Records, 2012 The word change has always had powerful implications.  In American culture it seems as though it has been used to describe almost every development since the country’s inception.  The 1960s were perhaps one of the most notable periods of change for american youth.  Discussions about what exactly occurred then typically boil down to baby boomer organ-pumping about Civil Rights, sexual experimentation, drug use, and of course, music.  The image handed down to us through textbooks is one of a tormented nation seeking redemption.  The recounting of Kennedy’s Assassination and the Million Man March often preclude stories of Woodstock and Haight Ashbury.  Rock’n’Roll was in full force throughout the 60s and was becoming the fiercest assault on America’s status quo, indirectly tied in with discussions on freedom, equality, and the threat of nuclear disaster.   Like any eventful decade, there were trends in the 60s that deviated from the most saturated of cultural trends.  While Rock’n’Roll and Motown expanded nationally in popularity, other musical styles from the era remained more localized.  Latin Boogaloo was a styling that emerged from Harlem’s Latin and African American communities during the mid sixties.  While most of America’s homogeneous pale-faced masses were turned onto the British invasion and ensuing Psychedelic mania, Black and Latin club musicians were looking to find common ground on stage, much to the dismay of seasoned Latin music artists.   Long Live Boogaloo is a definitive representation of the unique blending of styles that occurred over the course of a decade. Blending the rhythmic boldness of Soul music and the rich subtle textures of Mambo is as unexpectedly delightful as the alternation between English hip-talk and Spanish lyrics.  Artists featured on this release are every bit as talented and charismatic as greats such as Perez Prado and Tito Puente, but with a style that their more accepting forefathers would adapt out of necessity.  Those that saw these teenage performers as a threat to the Latin Music establishment leveled heavy blows against them.  They worked with dancehalls, radio DJs, record companies, and promoters to effectively blacklist every artist associated with Boogaloo.  Many records fell to obscurity and were quickly forgotten.  Secret Stash has outdone themselves with this release by honoring the efforts of artists like Bobby Valentin, Willie Bobo, and Louie Ramirez, while not pandering to those better known for the slight popularization of the genre.   Though many promising careers of these Harlem musicians we halted and their legacy all but extinguished, it is perhaps best to view Boogaloo for the value it had in unifying communities in an exchange of cultural histories during some of the greatest trials America had ever seen.  As it is said in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, “It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.” - Congo Steve
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INSIDE SCOOP: “Long Live Boogaloo”

SecretStash Records, 2012

The word change has always had powerful implications.  In American culture it seems as though it has been used to describe almost every development since the country’s inception.  The 1960s were perhaps one of the most notable periods of change for american youth.  Discussions about what exactly occurred then typically boil down to baby boomer organ-pumping about Civil Rights, sexual experimentation, drug use, and of course, music.  The image handed down to us through textbooks is one of a tormented nation seeking redemption.  The recounting of Kennedy’s Assassination and the Million Man March often preclude stories of Woodstock and Haight Ashbury.  Rock’n’Roll was in full force throughout the 60s and was becoming the fiercest assault on America’s status quo, indirectly tied in with discussions on freedom, equality, and the threat of nuclear disaster.  

Like any eventful decade, there were trends in the 60s that deviated from the most saturated of cultural trends.  While Rock’n’Roll and Motown expanded nationally in popularity, other musical styles from the era remained more localized.  Latin Boogaloo was a styling that emerged from Harlem’s Latin and African American communities during the mid sixties.  While most of America’s homogeneous pale-faced masses were turned onto the British invasion and ensuing Psychedelic mania, Black and Latin club musicians were looking to find common ground on stage, much to the dismay of seasoned Latin music artists.  

Long Live Boogaloo is a definitive representation of the unique blending of styles that occurred over the course of a decade. Blending the rhythmic boldness of Soul music and the rich subtle textures of Mambo is as unexpectedly delightful as the alternation between English hip-talk and Spanish lyrics.  Artists featured on this release are every bit as talented and charismatic as greats such as Perez Prado and Tito Puente, but with a style that their more accepting forefathers would adapt out of necessity.  Those that saw these teenage performers as a threat to the Latin Music establishment leveled heavy blows against them.  They worked with dancehalls, radio DJs, record companies, and promoters to effectively blacklist every artist associated with Boogaloo.  Many records fell to obscurity and were quickly forgotten.  Secret Stash has outdone themselves with this release by honoring the efforts of artists like Bobby Valentin, Willie Bobo, and Louie Ramirez, while not pandering to those better known for the slight popularization of the genre.  

Though many promising careers of these Harlem musicians we halted and their legacy all but extinguished, it is perhaps best to view Boogaloo for the value it had in unifying communities in an exchange of cultural histories during some of the greatest trials America had ever seen.  As it is said in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, “It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.”

- Congo Steve

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Calypso / Primal Funk / Japanese R’n’R