Louis Jordan was brilliant, funny and one of the bridges from jazz to rock and roll. Check out the play list below.
Here is the beginning of this profile at The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, into which he was inducted in 1987:
He has been called “the Father of Rhythm & Blues” and “the Grandfather of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” In the Forties, bandleader Louis Jordan pioneered a wild – and wildly popular – amalgam of jazz and blues. The swinging shuffle rhythms played by singer/saxophonist Jordan and his Tympany Five got called “jump blues” or “jumpin’ jive,” and it served as a forerunner of rhythm & blues and rock and roll. In fact, it has been plausibly argued that “Saturday Night Fish Fry,” is worthy of consideration as the first rock and roll record, containing many of the genre’s key ingredients: a distorted electric guitar, an early use of the word rocking, party-themed lyrics, and danceable, uptempo music. Similarly, with their breathless, manic spoken delivery, both “Look Out” and “Saturday Night Fish Fry” – released in 1947 and 1949, respectively – can be seen as early examples of what would come to be known as rap. (Continue Reading…)
Here is more from Wikipedia:
Jordan was a talented singer with great comedic flair, and he fronted his own band for more than twenty years. He duetted with some of the biggest solo singing stars of his day, including Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Jordan was also an actor and a major black film personality—he appeared in dozens of “soundies” (promotional film clips), made numerous cameos in mainstream features and short films, and starred in two musical feature films made especially for him. He was an instrumentalist who played all forms of the saxophone, but specialized in the alto, in addition to playing piano and clarinet. A productive songwriter, he wrote or co-wrote many songs that became influential classics of 20th-century popular music. (Continue Reading…)
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