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Reviewers: Tony Augarde [Editor], Steve Arloff, Nick Barnard, Pierre Giroux, Don Mather, James Poore, Glyn Pursglove, George Stacy, Bert Thompson, Sam Webster, Jonathan Woolf



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HENRY RED ALLEN

Ride, Red, Ride!
His 44 finest, 1929-1962

RETROSPECTIVE RTS 4248

 

 

CD1

1. It Should Be You

2. Feeling Drowsy

3. Jersey Lightning

4. Song of the Swanee

5. Louisiana Swing

6. Dancing Dave

7. Singing Pretty Songs

8. Patrol Wagon Blues

9. Stingaree Blues

10. Bugle Call Rag

11. Sweet Sorrow Blues

12. King Porter Stomp

13. Queer Notions

14. Night Life

15. Nagasaki

16. Heartbreak Blues

17. Ol' Man River

18. Rug Cutters' Swing

19. Rosetta

20. Body and Soul

21. Ride, Red, Ride!

22. Algiers Stomp

23. When My Dreamboat Comes Home

24. The Mood That I'm In

25. Swingin' at the Lido

CD2

1. I'm on My Way from You

2. Down in Jungle Town

3. Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble

4. Sweet Substitute

5. Slippin' and Slidin'

6. The Blues

7. Love Is Just Around the Corner

8. Let Me Miss You, Baby

9. I Cover the Waterfront

10. Ain't She Sweet?

11. I've Got He World on a String

12. In the Mood

13. Lazy River

14. I Got Rhythm

15. Ballin' the Jack

16. Biffly Blues

17. I Ain't Got Nobody

18. There's a House in Harlem for Sale

19. Trumpet Conversation

Henry Red Allen (trumpet) with orchestras and accompanists

RETROSPECTIVE RTS 4248 [78:41 + 79:28]

If you’re looking for a compact twofer charting the musical course of Red Allen’s life this could be a fine port of call. It starts with his first solo on It Should Be You, with his New York Orchestra in July 1929. This was, in effect, a rump of the Luis Russell Orchestra with the leader lending his support at the piano and sidemen joining in – but what sidemen: JC Higginbotham, Albert Nicholas, Charlie Holmes, Pops Foster and Paul Barbarin on the drums. Red pays homage to Louis Armstrong’s playing on West End Blues. A day later Barbarin’s vibraphone gently opened the classic recording of Feeling Drowsy with its Ellingtonian voicings for the wind choir. It’s sometimes easy to overlook just how radical were elements of the New York scene in the late 20s to early 30s, and that the instrumental groundwork had been laid by bands like Luis Russell’s, one of the furnaces of the things to come. Of all the soloists in the band Charlie Holmes is the most underestimated but his snaking lines in ensembles and his urgent solos are indices of his superiority as a tonalist and soloist.

Allen recorded with the fading King Oliver, another New Orleanian, and we hear the King’s ‘talking duck’ stunt solo on Stingaree Blues as well as Red’s fine blues solo, which far eclipses the vaudeville antics of the erstwhile monarch. There is one Billy Banks side (only) and one with Spike Hughes ( Sweet Sorrow Blues) and they reflect his musical associations with Pee Wee Russell (Banks) and Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry (Hughes). His important period with Fletcher Henderson is documented, rightly, by four tracks including, inevitably, the harmonically taxing and forward-looking modernism of Queer Notions.

Other partnerships, more or less fleeting, more studio than club-based sometimes, are included. One of the most important is his playing for Billie Holiday as a member of Teddy Wilson’s little band in February 1937 (The Mood That I’m In). The 1939 side with Lionel Hampton features a truly all-star band – Allen, Higginbotham, Earl Bostic, Clyde Hart, Charlie Christian, Artie Bernstein and Sid Catlett. Those were the days. The 1940 side - Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble - where Allen is a member of drummer Zutty Singleton’s band is an intriguing example of archaism, whilst we also hear a little of Sidney Bechet’s imperious form in the 1941 sessions that produced Slippin’ and Slidin’ where Red, sounding understandably inhibited, snatches choruses when he can. Tyree Glenn rather surprised me with his down home solo with the Allen-Tony Parenti band in 1955. I’d not come across this track before and it whetted my appetite. But the great 1957 band – Allen, Higginbotham, Buster Bailey, Hawkins – deserve the five tracks they’re allocated. These are amongst the most consistently inventive and important tracks on the twofer, a release that doesn’t lack for great playing. I’ve always loved the sides Allen made with Kid Ory in 1959, and even love the metronomic drumming of Alton Redd, a man for whom the suspicion of a change of pulse clearly meant death. It’s also salutary to be reminded of Allen in quartet sides from 1962 where he remains as inventive, spirited and alive as ever.

Digby Fairweather’s notes set the seal on a well transferred set though I add my usual caveat that I prefer a more open sound on 78s.

Jonathan Woolf

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