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| Louis Jordan was born in Brinkley, Arkansas into a musical family. He was raised by his grandmother and aunt due to his mother’s early death and his father’s career as a bandleader, minstrel, and music teacher. He played clarinet, then the saxophone, and majored in Music at Arkansas Baptist College. He was in a minstrel band with his father in the early 1920s. By the late 1920s, he was playing professionally and the 1930s found him playing in a few Big Band/Swing bands in Philadelphia and New York City. He broke off from the Big Band and went to form the Tympany Four (later Tympany Five) and basically created Jump Blues by mixing the rural Blues of his youth with the Swing of Big Bands. I was very surprised to learn the number of Blues Standards that were written by Louis Jordan. By the mid-40s, Jordan and his Tympany Five had recorded with Bing Crosby and he and his band were featured in a few movies including “Swing Parade”. In 1946, The Tympany Five recorded and filmed “Caldonia”, a song covered by… oh, everyone! Other songs written by Louis Jordan include: “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens”, “Saturday Night Fish Fry”, “Keep A Knockin’ (But You Can’t Come In)”, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” with Ella Fitzgerald, and “Let the Good Times Roll”. Buddy Guy’s version of “Saturday Night Fish Fry” is one of my favorites, what is yours? |