OUR NEW COLUMN LOOKS AT LEGENDARY JAZZ AND BLUES MUSICIAN, LOUIS JORDAN
Louis Jordan is an absolute legend. He was a ground-breaking American jazz and blues musician, who released dozens of hit songs in the 1940s and who became known as "The King of the Jukebox" long before Elvis appeared on the scene!
Not only was he one of the most successful African-American musicians of the 20th century, but he was also enormously popular with white audiences, and was one of the first black recording artists to have crossover success with several Top Ten hits on the white pop charts. His duets with big names like Bing Crosby ("Five Guys Named Moe") and Ella Fitzgerald (the brilliant "Stone Cold Dead In The Market") helped him achieve at least four million-selling hits during his career.
Not content with being a hugely talented and successful singer, Jordan was also a major personality in his own right. He was incredibly charismatic, a true "entertainer," and fronted his own band for more than twenty years. In fact, after Duke Ellington and Count Basie, he was probably the most popular and successful black bandleader of his day. But it doesn't end there! He was also an actor, appearing in dozens of "soundies" (promotional film clips), and even starring in two musical feature films made especially for him!
Jordan's larger-than-life character is very evident in his songs, and his records are glossaries of social commentary and 1940s black hipster slang. He popularized the use of the word "chick" meaning "woman," and his fantastical way with words makes his lyrics incredibly descriptive and vivid. Many of his songs are pretty risqué, with such thinly-veiled sexual lyrics that they make you wonder how he was able to release them at that time! Favorite themes of his include food, drink and women, and he recorded a strangely disproportionate number of songs about chickens, "Chicken Back," A Chicken Ain't Nothin' But A Bird" and "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" to name but a few!
Although Louis Jordan began his career in big band swing jazz in the 1930s, he actually became famous as one of the leading innovators of "jump blues," which was a swinging, up-tempo hybrid of jazz, blues and boogie-woogie, and which is seen as one of the prototypes of rock and roll. He's one of several black performers who are often credited with having invented rock and roll, or at least laying the foundations for it. As Jordan himself said, he "made the blues jump," and his songs are so fun and exuberant that they never fail to get people dancing during our Broken Hearts DJ sets.
If you want to hear Louis Jordan's music we'd recommend you start with "Saturday Night Fish Fry," "At the Swing Cat's Ball," "Chicken Back" or "Stone Cold Dead in the Market," all of which are available to download from iTunes. But really he very rarely put a foot wrong, and the vast majority of his tracks are fantastic party songs. Have a listen and let us know what you think. We're pretty sure you'll love him as much as we do!
