Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five “Go Blow Your Horn”

I used to be, more often, anyway, in a Louis Jordan mood—maybe because his songs have a novelty element—up-tempo, energetic, accessible, humorous—and I went through a Louis Jordan phase when I had some really good stuff on a cassette (don’t remember where from, originally). This record seems to be a good representation of his style—it’s from 1957—he had a long recording career through several evolving eras of popular music—tons of singles—played sax and sang—played with lots of big stars and legendary musicians. This record, with his Tympany Five (intriguing name)—a loose group of usually more than five—horns, more horns, piano, bass, drums, and early rock’n’roll guitar. The songs here all sound great—fast, short, and highly entertaining—Jordan singing on all but three (honking, high-energy, sax instrumentals) of the twelve songs. No songwriting credits, but there’s no shortage of great lyrics, throughout, especially on songs like “Fat Back and Corn Likker”—it’s questionable, with that spelling, that it’s not even more sinful—not that that’s the question here. It’s so exuberant, it got me hungry for fatback—and pretty thirsty as well—and ready to “Put Some Money in the Pot” (beer run song—well, “juice run”—not sure if that’s “juice o’ the vine”—or could be anything with alcohol). In a song about catching his woman with another man, the character goes off so vehemently and for so long, it’s like he exhausts himself out of anger and just becomes ridiculous. Same strategy in “Gal, You Need a Whippin’”—which starts out accusing his gal of doing nothing all day but drinking whiskey and eating barbeque (see above), but by the end of the song, the “whippin’” now means sexual intercourse! In “Whiskey Do Your Stuff”—well, self-explanatory—you get the idea. “Some folks drink for pleasure, some drink ’cause it’s wet”—great line! “It’s Hard to Be Good” is a bluesy ballad—quietest and prettiest song here, and very nice.

I don’t remember if I’ve encountered the “Score” label previously—very old-fashioned, silver printing on a dark label that’s somewhere between brown and maroon. There’s an elongated oval (that says “Full Range Fidelity”) that looks like either a stylized quarter-note or a golf putter. The vinyl is so heavy it almost feels like an old 78—and it sounds great—this record is older than me, and scratchy, been played a lot—but just sounds so good—so you get that time-travel feeling. It’s from Los Angeles—the address on bottom—5352 West Pico Blvd.—what’s there now? Well, a tax service—but in the “street view,” the building has an exceptionally nice op-art mural covering the entire building, incredible—if I was in LA, I’d head over there and take some pictures. Maybe do my taxes. It says “Teach Peace” on front—yet there are some (stylized paintings of) men coming at us with machetes! Brief liner notes history of Louis Jordan, and a b&w photo of him on back. The front album cover is one of the better ones I’ve seen lately—more red than you’ll ever see on one place. Under the “go blow your horn” in white script, it says “jazz gems” which is kind of funny. You can barely make out the images in the red haze, but there’s two disembodied saxophones. And then, in the middle, toward the top, there’s a topless woman, dancing—I mean, you can just barely make her out—just a ghost image—but you can tell she’s wearing a sarong with a flowered pattern, and nothing on top. You can’t tell who she is, and she could be Black or Asian—it’s the kind of sexy image you’d see on a Hawaiian music or Exotica record. Anyway, it’s like the whole cover is obscured by this red fog, or I don’t know, viscous fluid—it even fills the bells of the horns. It’s a bold, eye-catching, but very weird cover.

2.21.25