Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Hot Damn! Sweet Lou Live


I've been trying to track this one down for a while. You'd think that since it was reissued on CD it would be around, but no, Lou Donaldson's The Scorpion: Live at the Cadillac Club has been more elusive than a lot of vinyl. But alas, here is this fine 1970 live session from Newark, NJ that features the great Melvin Sparks (guitar), Idris Muhammad (drums, duh), Fred Ballard (trumpet), Lou (sax) and the oft-overlooked Leon Spencer Jr. (organ).

According to Melvin Sparks, Spencer moved back to Texas and made a nice living as a promoter/booking agent for rap artists. Too bad that the music alone couldn't sustain him because he's amazing; find me a funkier left hand on the B3...you can't.

The whole band cooks on this one but Idris Muhammad deserves special mention. It's so cool to hear a live recording from his heyday on Blue Note. He's just as funky as ever, but he's really pushing and stretching. Alligator Boogaloo is a 13 minute Muhammad workout, complete with a long drum break/solo over which Donaldson repeatedly shouts "Boogaloo!" Classic.

Link in comments

5 comments:

Bill Carbone said...

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DFS9P8YK

Aweng Moral - Basco said...

Nice posts..

Very interesting artists that you feature.

:)

trumpetaaa said...

many many thanks for all the great music you share here

johnv said...

Wow! I've never seen this one before but it sure looks funky. Thanks for sharing, B3.

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