Rusty Bryant - Fire Eater (45 single)

The tenor saxophone of Rusty Bryant (1929-1991) graced some fine soul-jazz albums for Prestige in the late 1960s and early '70s. He'd come up through the rhythm-and-blues ranks in the '50s, recording several sessions that were issued on Dot. Among the tunes recorded was a frantic version of Night Train that was re-titled All Nite Long and became something of a jukebox hit.

But ... back to those Prestige recordings. Fire Eater was the title tune of a 1971 album that included Wilbert Longmire on guitar, Leon Spencer and Bill Mason alternating on organ and Idris Muhammad on drums.

For jazz DJs Prestige issued a single, Fire Eater/The Hooker, with severely truncated versions of those album tracks -- three minutes as opposed to about nine minutes on the LP. Here's the Fire Eater single. Mason is the organist on this track.

Fire Eater



Fire Eater and another Rusty Bryant album from 1971, Wildfire, were combined on a 1991 Prestige CD, Legends of Acid Jazz, Vol. 2. You'll have no trouble scoring a copy of this as cheap copies (some for less than $5) abound online.

From YouTube here's a sample of Bryant's hard driving R&B style from 1956.