Harlem Blues
LP Verve 2332 079
Do I like this album? Yes! Do I prefer other earlier versions of the Ory band and other musicians at his side? Yes!
But still, I’m glad that he could make a classy and swinging album this late in his life. I think that I have the same to say about this album from 1959 as the one with the same subject from 1954, “Louis Armstrong plays W. C. Handy.” I like the band and the concept more than the individual musicians; the band leaders/protagonists excluded. And that is meant as a good compliment.
I don’t know what happened next to the Kid Ory Creole Jazz Band, but I think that if a band would tour for years with these arrangements, it could sound tired after some time, but here it’s fresh, and that is much thanks to the lead of Teddy Buckner. He doesn’t play my favorite New Orleans style, but I admire his power when he is leading the band.
Some of the tunes were already in the band’s book for years, but others, like this one, are quite seldom played.
The musicians along with Ory and Buckner are Caughey Roberts, clarinet; Cedric Haywood, piano; Frank Haggerty, guitar; Charles Oden, bass and Jesse John Sailes on drums.