I Believe In Music

Performer: Louis Jordan
Engineer: Dominique Samarcq
Distributor: Select-O-Hits

Notes: Personnel: Louis Jordan (vocals, alto saxophone); Louis Myers (guitar); Irv Cox (tenor saxophone); Duke Burrell (piano); Dave Meyers, John Duke (bass); Archie Taylor, Fred Below (drums). Reissue producer: Jerry Gordon. Recorded at Barclay Studio, Paris, France on November 6, 1973. Includes liner notes by Fred Bouchard. Recorded in a single Paris session on November 6, 1973, for the French label Barclay Disques, I BELIEVE IN MUSIC finds jazz vocalist Louis Jordan just barely a year prior to his death at the age of 67. In poor but not frail health, Jordan sounds somewhat subdued but hardly sickly. What's interesting about this date is that Jordan sings comparatively little, preferring to focus his energy on his under-appreciated alto saxophone skills. A blues honker in the Jimmy Forrest/King Curtis tradition, Jordan blows the hell out of his axe, trading lines with tenor Irv Cox while a hot piano-guitar-bass-drums rhythm section pounds behind them. Jordan revisits a few of his own classics, like "Saturday Night Fish Fry" and "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby," but mostly he prefers to explore other standards like Duke Ellington's "Take the A Train." The closing "Something For Louis" is a tender farewell to the recently deceased Mr. Armstrong, an old friend and cohort of Jordan's.

The most successful and influential purveyor of saxophone-driven jump blues, Louis Jordan was also one of the crucial transitional figures between the swing era and R&B. Although he started out mainly as a saxophonist with bandleaders such as Bessie Smith, Chick Webb, and Louis Armstrong, he found a niche singing blues and novelty tunes. After a string of hits throughout the 1940s, Jordan eventually found himself outpaced by the very rock & roll he had helped inspire.

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