Sonny Stitt - Gimme, Gimme Good Lovin' (single)

Sonny Stitt has earned half a dozen posts so far -- and here's another one. Scroll down to the search box on the right hand side if you're interested in reading more about and listening to more of Stitt.

It's not that the saxophonist is a particular favorite. It's just that I happened to pick up a bunch of his 45s a number of years ago that I'm now revisiting.

This record isn't the jazz side of Sonny Stitt. This is a musician looking for some pop/R&B airplay by covering hits of the mid to late 1960s. Gimme Gimme Good Lovin' was a 1968 hit for Crazy Elephant while the flip side of the 45 was a version of Mendocino, which the Sir Douglas Quintet had placed on the charts in 1969. Both tracks come for Stitt's LP Come Hither (1969), on which he plays the Varitone electric sax, accompanied by guitarist Billy Butler, organist Paul Griffin and Jerome Richardson on sax and flute.

Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'



Come Hither has not received a CD or legal download release, so it's down to searching the vinyl bins if this album appeals to you.

The Gladiators - Tovarich (single)

The Gladiators started out as Nero & the Gladiators and managed two chart records during the British instrumental boom of the early 1960s -- In the Hall of the Mountain King and Entry of the Gladiators.

The group was fronted by pianist Mike O'Neill, who billed himself as Nero and wore a toga on stage. The rest of the group (guitar, bass and drums) wore Roman legionnaire costumes.

Their two hit singles were recorded for Decca and after a third unsuccessful 45 for that label, the group switched to HMV for what proved to be their final outing, Bleak House/Tovarich (1963). Although O'Neill still led the group, the "Nero" billing had disappeared. No keyboards are evident on Tovarich, a stomper fronted by guitarist Colin Green.

Tovarich



Tovarich has appeared on several CD compilations over the years. One that's still available is Les Geants de la Guitares, a four-CD box from Magic Records in France. Guitar instrumental hits and obscurities from both Europe and the U.S. are included in this first-rate set.

I can't find any evidence that Tovarich is available as a legal download, although the title is frequently misspelled as "Tovaritch," so that may help you track it down.

In the meantime here's the "A" side of the Tovarich single by The Gladiators, featuring the piano of Mike O'Neill.

For a full account of the career of Nero & the Gladiators, visit the Obscure Bands of the 50's and 60's blog.

The Moments - The Other Side of the Moments

I always tend to cast a jaundiced eye towards albums in which a pop or R&B/soul star decides to redo some prime selections from the standards songbook. The misfires far outnumber the successes, often because the artist has little or no affinity for the material.

Happily, The Other Side of the Moments (1972, Stang) is one of those that does succeed, due to a combination of the group's genuine feel for the songs and the out-of-the-park arrangements by Sammy Lowe.

Lowe's roots lie in the big band era, during which he played with and arranged for the Erskine Hawkins orchestra. He would go on to arrange and conduct on one of James Brown's biggest hits, It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World (1966), and dozens of other chart singles and LPs by the likes of Nina Simone, Sam Cooke, The Tokens and Della Reese.

In 1972 came Lowe's work on The Other Side of the Moments, a New Jersey soul group who topped the R&B charts twice in the 1970s, with Love on a Two-Way Street (1970) and Look at Me (I'm in Love) (1975).

Included on the LP was Lowe's most unusual arrangement of Blues in the Night, composed in 1941 by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. The MP3 is sourced from the original LP.

Blues in the Night



The Other Side of the Moments can be had as a download from iTunes and other sources. The album has received two releases on CD, the easiest of which to obtain is a 2006 release from the Collectables label that pairs it with another Moments release, My Thing. Reasonably priced copies are available in the Amazon Marketplace.

Here's one of The Moments' chart-topping hits.

Shelly Manne & His Men - Checkmate

The TV series Checkmate ran for 70 episodes on CBS from 1960-62, with Anthony George and Doug McClure playing the owners of a San Francisco detective agency, Checkmate Inc. They were aided by a criminologist portrayed by Sebastian Cabot.

The complete series was released on DVD in 2010, but with prices hovering in the $50 range I'd probably think twice about parting with my cash. I suspect it would make pretty tame (boring) viewing today.

Nonetheless Checkmate featured a fine jazz-tinged score by young composer Johnny Williams, who as the more mature-sounding John Williams would go on to write the scores for Star Wars, Superman, the Harry Potter films and other blockbusters.

Among the musicians appearing on the soundtrack of Checkmate was drummer Shelly Manne (1920-1984), a veteran of the West Coast jazz, studio and soundtrack scene. He was already the go-to guy for Henry Mancini and had performed on his classic TV scores for Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky.

Manne also turned out his own version of the Peter Gunn score for the Contemporary label in 1959. The group was billed as Shelly Manne and His Men, a moniker that was also applied when the drummer turned his attention to the Checkmate score, again for Contemporary, in 1962. The other members of the group were tenor saxophonist Richie Kamuca, trumpeter Conte Condoli, Chuck Berghofer on bass and Russ Freeman on piano. The LP contained a wonderful ballad, Fireside Eyes.

Fireside Eyes



Shelly Manne's Checkmate was available briefly on CD via a 2002 release on Original Jazz Classics. A copy now will set you back $40-50. There is a download available from iTunes in some countries but its origin is highly suspect.

To close, Manne and his men tackle the title theme from Checkmate.

R. Frechette - Sexy Sax

What can I tell you about R. Frechette? Not much, except that his first name was Roger, he played sax and was from Quebec. Perhaps the name is a pseudonym.

In any case there were half a dozen albums credited to R. or Roger Frechette in the 1960s and '70s. Among them were three volumes of Sexy Sax, all with cheesecake covers, issued by Franco FD Inc., a Montreal company. The first volume is pictured above. Some of the tracks had been issued earlier on LPs on the Trans-Canada Royal label.

The packaging of the LPs, and the music therein, were obviously aimed at the people who bought the seemingly never-ending series of albums by Italian saxophonists Fausto Papetti and Gil Ventura, which were quite popular in Canada, particularly in Quebec.

All that aside there's some great light jazz on the first Sexy Sax LP. Martha features some interesting guitar work and solos from both the sax and trumpet. None of the musicians are credited.

Martha



None of the Frechette tracks appear to have made it into a digital format although it's possible they may have been repackaged under another name.

Charles Blackwell and His Orchestra - Freight Train (single)

Producer and arranger Charles Blackwell certainly had his pulse on what British record buyers were looking for in the 1960s. At the age of 22 (that would be about 1965) , according to the All Music Guide, Blackwell was averaging one Top 10 hit a week in the British charts. Among his successes was Engelbert Humperdinck's Release Me (1967).

Blackwell recorded a few items under his own name, including this 1962 single for Columbia in the U.K. Death Valley was on the flip side and you can read about and listen to that tune in this previous post.

Freight Train was written early in the 20th century by Elizabeth Cotton. According to her she was 12 years old when she composed it. Cotton -- and Freight Train -- were rediscovered in the late 1950s during the folk music revival in North America and the boom in skiffle music in Britain. Country singer Rusty Draper had a hit with it in the U.S. in late 1957, while in the U.K. a version by the Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group featuring Nancy Whiskey made the charts.

In his recording Charles Blackwell featured a rock 'n' roll sax over a bouncy pop beat.

Freight Train



Neither side of this single is available on CD or via download. However, Blackwell did record another version of Freight Train for legendary producer Joe Meek that is included on the CD Those Plucking Strings, which is easily obtained.

Here's another Charles Blackwell single from 1962 in which he tackles the exotica standard Taboo. It's produced by Joe Meek.

Floyd Cramer - Night Train

Night Train, a 1967 release on RCA's budget Camden imprint, gathered some early to mid-1960s recordings by Nashville pianist Floyd Cramer (1933-1997). Most had not appeared on LP previously and most are not available on CD or as downloads, although a few, such as Woodchopper's Ball and Night Train, turned up on a 1988 CD on the Pair label, Country Classics.

It has been out of print for years but used copies are fairly easy to find online as are vinyl copies of Night Train.

The LP is well worth picking up for tracks like Town Square, a jaunty little tune by fellow Nashville pianist Jerry Smith. It had appeared in 1965 as the "B" side of the single Long Walk Home. Both tracks had been recorded at the RCA Victor Studio in Nashville in January of that year, with Chet Atkins producing.

Town Square



Town Square has an almost honky-tonk feel to it, which isn't surprising since composer Jerry Smith played in a pop-flavored version of the honky-tonk style on his recordings. As a matter of fact so did Cramer on early recordings (1957) he made for MGM. There was none of that smooth countrypolitan sound that characterized most of his RCA discs.

Here's the title tune from the Night Train LP.

Carlos Montoya - From St. Louis to Seville

Guitarist Carlos Montoya (1903-1993) was the driving force behind the acceptance of flamenco as a serious form of music. Traditionally, flamenco was used to accompany gypsy folk singers and dancers, but in the late 1940s Montoya became the first flamenco guitarist to tour with symphony orchestras and perform his own guitar recitals. He often included blues, jazz and folk tunes in those performances.

So we come to this 1959 LP for RCA Victor, From St. Louis to Seville, split evenly between jazz and blues influenced numbers and flamenco.

Flamenco is not really my cup of tea, so let's consider the pop side of the LP, which includes a version of the standard Blues in the Night. This Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer tune served as the title song for a 1941 film.

Montoya's version is certainly interesting, with the guitarist in a bluesy jazz mode in the first half of the tune then morphing into flamenco just past the halfway point. The transition doesn't really work for me, but I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this interpretation of Blues in the Night holds together.

Blues in the Night



The complete From St. Louis to Seville LP is included in Flamenco Fury, a two-CD set released last month by the U.K.-based Jasmine label. The album is also available as a download in the U.K. and Europe but not in the U.S. or Canada, so far.

There is an iTunes download album available in North America called The Very Best of Carlos Montoya that includes the tracks on From St. Louis to Seville, but it seems to me to be of dubious origin.

Here's Montoya's take on St. Louis Blues, from the original From St. Louis to Seville LP.

Billy Mure - Fireworks

Guitarist Billy Mure recorded Fireworks in 1957 as the followup to his debut album on RCA Victor, Supersonic Guitars in Hi-Fi. Unlike its predecessor Fireworks was recorded in RCA's "Living Stereo," allowing for some pretty amazing fretboard pyrotechnics. (For more information on Billy Mure read this earlier post.)

Added to Mure's multitracked guitars were three drummers and eight vocalists. The guitarist contributed four original numbers to the album, including the opening track Firecrackers.

Firecrackers



Fireworks is not available on CD and the download version being offered by iTunes and others is, according to online comments, a substandard dub from a mono LP. Mure recorded a third album, Supersonics in Flight, for RCA and a similar LP for MGM, Supersonic Guitars. All of these are highly sought after by collectors.

Mure made other albums for MGM, Everest, Kapp and Strand, but those featuring his "Supersonic Guitars" are the ones to get.

Here's a track from that first RCA album, Supersonic Guitars in Hi-Fi.



FOOTNOTE:
Billy Mure passed away in Vero Beach, Fla., on Sept. 25. He was 97.

Trumpet Melody (Cassette, Switzerland)

In the 1980s a raft of cheap cassettes from Switzerland invaded discount store bins in Canada, and probably in the U.S. as well. Many of these were repackaged and distributed by the Quebec-based Madacy company, which is still in business.

No artist is listed on a lot of these tapes and the origin of the recordings is unclear, other than the fact they came from Europe. It's also unclear why Switzerland was the source for these cassettes, although the reason may have had something to do with copyright and licensing laws.

Trumpet Melody is one of those uncredited cassettes. The music will appeal to those who like European trumpeters such as Nini Rosso (Il Silenzio), Eddie Calvert (Oh, Mein Papa) and Jean-Claude Borelly (Dolannes Melody).

The string accompaniment sounds electronic to me, but fortunately it's kept mostly in the background.

Ma Trompette Pleure (My Trumpet Cry)



I can't find any other reference to the sample tune, Ma Trompette Pleure, so I guess it's either an original or something that has been retitled. If you liked it you'll probably also enjoy this by Jean-Claude Borelly.

Cal Collins - Forty Miles of Bad Road (single)

                                             (Photo from Dumpster Dive 45's blog)

A cover of Duane Eddy's 1959 rock 'n' roll hit Forty Miles of Bad Road may seem an odd choice for an up-and-coming jazz guitarist to record, but that's the case here with Cal Collins's 1968 recording.

Collins (1933-2001) was still a decade away from recording his highly-regarded albums for the Concord Jazz label when he made this single. Forty Miles of Bad Road was the "B" side of the 45, but the "A" side was also interesting -- a medley of the standard Peg O' My Heart, which dates from Ziegfeld Follies of 1913, and Santo and Johnny's Sleepwalk (1959). Hopefully we'll get to that side in a future post.

Collins was based in Cincinnati and the single was recorded for the Airtown label, based in Richmond, Ind., about an hour's drive northwest of the Ohio city. Airtown was owned by saxophonist and bandleader Tommy Wills, whose style resembled that of the more well-known, Memphis-based Ace Cannon who had played with Bill Black's Combo before registering the hit single Tuff in 1962. Wills may well have had a lot to do with choosing the tunes and the arrangements on Collins's single. This is certainly a funky take on Forty Miles, as you can hear below.

Forty Miles of Bad Road



This single was Cal Collins's only recording for Airtown, a label which lasted for barely two years after it was established in 1967. The label released only 45s, no LPs, and those seemed to be designed mainly for jukebox and radio play rather than retail sales.

For contrast here's Duane Eddy and the Rebels miming to the original 1959 recording of Forty Miles in a performance on the Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show hosted by Dick Clark.