Listen To:


Selected MP3s of guitar instrumentals, jazz, big band, and classic easy listening from the original vinyl.

Welcome to Guitars & All That Jazz

Welcome to Guitars & All That Jazz

Guitars & All That Jazz was a radio station that webcast via Live365 for 11 years, ending in June 2011. The playlist consisted of guitar instrumentals, jazz, big band, early rock 'n' roll, lounge music and classic easy listening.

I hope to share some of this music with you via this blog. Most of it will be taken from the original vinyl (LPs and 45s) , cassettes and the occasional commercially unavailable CD.

Here's hoping you'll find something to enjoy. Please note files are available only for a limited time.

I urge you to purchase the digital version of the albums featured, either on CD or via download, wherever possible.

Listen to the Music
There are now two music streams. Click the appropriate player to the right.
1. Guitars & All That Jazz: Five hours of the best in jazz, guitars and other instrumental gems. New songs are added weekly.
2. Tiki Shores: Music to sweep you away to a tropical isle, a South American dance floor or a bossa nova on the beach at Rio. About 4.5 hours of classic exotica music, Latin rhythms and bossa nova.
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Sunday, September 14, 2014

Lenny Dee - Dee-licious!


Many listeners tend to dismiss organist Lenny Dee (1923-2006) as a purveyor of bland easy listening. It's true that most of his albums from the late 1960s on tend to fall into that category. But his detractors probably aren't familiar with his early recordings for Decca, with whom he signed in 1954.

Dee's early LPs are laced with vintage boogie-woogie, swing and jazz tunes. For instance, his first album Dee-lightful! (1954) contains versions of Birth of the Blues, Little Brown Jug and Sweet Georgia Brown. It also includes his own Plantation Boogie, which made the Top 20 in 1955. Dee wrote the song in honor of the Plantation Inn in Nashville, where singer Red Foley had heard the organist playing and recommended that Decca sign him.

Dee's second LP, Dee-lirious! (1956) includes Chinatown, My Chinatown, Caravan and Twelfth Street Rag. And from the third, Dee-licious!, also released in '56, comes Honky Tonk Train Blues, the famous boogie-woogie from pianist Meade (Lux) Lewis.

Honky Tonk Train Blues



Many of Lenny Dee's early Decca tracks have been released on a pair of double-CD releases from the U.K.-based label Jasmine, Double Dee-Light and Lenny Dee in Dee-mand. Don't pay the inflated prices on eBay and Amazon. Used copies of both can be had for less than $5 from independent sellers on Amazon and elsewhere.

As well, a lot of Dee's vinyl LPs, including the early ones, still turn up frequently in thrift stores and bargain bins at record stores.

To close, here's Dee's only significant chart entry, Plantation Boogie.


1 comment:

  1. decent boogie woogie style organ solo by this popular organist from the fifties and sixties. I like his upbeat swingin style!

    ReplyDelete