066 | Roy Eldridge | Happy Time | Pablo 2310 746 | 1975
There’s that superb footage of Billie Holiday performing ‘Fine and Mellow’ for TV audiences back in the 1950s, where the singer surrounded herself with the cream of the crop for one night only and viewers got the distinct impression that these key players were giving it their best shot just for Lady Day. All the great sax men were there, including Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan and Lester Young of course, but there was also a performance by a trumpet player, who at one point in his solo, blew a note scarcely ever reached before, which took every ounce of energy in his body. That man was Roy Eldridge, and some of that same magic can be found on this much later LP from 1975. Happy Time not only features Eldridge’s fine chops as a first rate trumpet player, but also showcases his vocal prowess, with a selection of fine performances in the same sort of vein as Louis Armstrong. He makes it sound easy, almost as if he’s just having fun, a happy time indeed. Helping him out are Oscar Peterson on piano, Joe Pass on guitar, Ray Brown on bass and Eddie Locke on drums. The ten selections feature one or two well-known standards such as ‘Makin’ Whoopee’, ‘The Sunny Side of the Street’ and ‘Stormy Monday’, but also one or two not so familiar numbers, such as ‘Sweet hearts on Parade’ and ‘Let Me Off Uptown’, whereupon Eldridge takes both the male and female part, better performed perhaps by Anita O’Day.
Playlist:
Pairing Off – Phil Woods (Pairing Off)
On the Sunny Side of the Street – Roy Eldridge (Happy Time)
Basin Street Blues – Miles Davis (Seven Steps to Heaven)
J&B – Billy Mitchell (This is Billy Mitchell)
Willow Weep for Me – Roy Eldridge (Happy Time)
Mystic Journey – Azar Lawrence & Al McLean (Frontiers)
Let Me Off Uptown – Roy Eldridge (Happy Time)
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374 | Amazing Blondel | A Few Faces | Bell SBLL 131 | 1970
I haven’t seen a copy of Amazing Blondel’s 1970 debut album on the original Bell label for under three figure prices for quite a while. I think the last time I saw one was a few years ago on the wall of a record shop in Elsecar, which I believe had a £200 tag. I’d already collected four of the band’s early albums without any knowledge of this album, always having believed Evensong to be the band’s first, released in the same year. Perhaps the band wanted to keep it quiet, as this was an early incarnation of the band that didn’t come to prominence on the British rock scene having been joined by a third member (Eddie Baird) and signing to Chris Blackwell’s Island label after being introduced to the label boss by the band Free, who were keen fans. Both Free and Mott the Hoople would invite the band to support them on tour and to this day, I can’t imagine what a Mott fan would make of them. A Few Faces is really the link between John Gladwin and Terry Wincott’s previous rock band Methusaleh and the pseudo-Elizabethan minstrel outfit named for the French trouvère and poet/musician from the Middle Ages, Blondel de Nesle. Early signs of the move towards this delicate and idiosyncratic music can be spotted with such songs as ‘Season of the Year’, which wouldn’t have been out of place on their next album Evensong, though the album opener ‘Saxon Lady’, with it’s heavy use of the Indian sitar, is markedly different from anything that would follow in Amazing Blondel’s later repertoire. The album also includes an early version of ‘Shepherd’s Song’, which would become a staple of the later trio’s live set, which they soon referred to as their ‘fun number’, introducing the song with jokes about the use of the crumhorn. ‘Love Sonnet’ also shows an early indication of the musical route the band would soon take once signed to Island. Unlike the band’s next three albums, the trio of Gladwin, Wincott and Baird are joined here by a handful of friends, Gary Taylor on bass, Chris Karan on Congas, Percussion and Tabla and Clem Cattini on drums, with further arrangements by none other than Big Jim Sullivan. A much overlooked album.
Playlist:
John – Methuselah (Methuselah)
Saxon Lady – Amazing Blondel (A Few Faces)
Pavan – Amazing Blondel (Evensong)
Spring Season – Amazing Blondel (Evensong)
Celestial Light – Amazing Blondel (Fantasia Lindum)
Seascape – Amazing Blondel (England)
A Spring Air – Amazing Blondel (Live Abroad)
Shepherd’s Song – Amazing Blondel (Live Abroad)
Young Man’s Fancy – Blondel (Blondel)
Benedictus Es Domine – Amazing Blondel (Restoration)
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