Slim Gaillard......Loved him all the way back to listening to my mom's 78s of his...some of which are in this list, today. I just thought the records were funny as a kid....by high school, I realized I had to be smoking weed to actually "get" him.....sometimes I still think that...lol. If you don't know of him, here's a little bit of bio, courtesy of Wikepedia:
Along with Gaillard's date of birth, his family lineage and place of birth are disputed. One account is that he was born in Santa Clara, Cuba of a Greek father and an Afro-Cuban mother [1]; another is that he was born in Pensacola, Florida to a German father and an African-American mother [2]. Adding to the confusion, the 1920 U.S. Census lists a 19-month-old named "Beulee Gaillard" in Pensacola, but born in Alabama.[3] He grew up in Detroit and moved to New York City in the 1930s.
According to the obituaries in leading newspapers, Gaillard's childhood in Cuba was spent cutting cane and picking bananas, as well as occasionally going to sea with his father. However, at the age of 12, he accompanied his father on a world voyage and was accidentally left behind on the island of Crete. After working on the island for a while, he made his home in Detroit. In America, Gaillard worked in an abattoir, trained as a mortician and also had been employed by Ford's Motor Works. Gaillard first rose to prominence in the late 1930s as part of Slim & Slam, a jazz novelty act he formed with bassist Slam Stewart. Their hits included "Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy)", "Cement Mixer (Puti Puti)" and the hipster anthem, "The Groove Juice Special (Opera in Vout)". The duo performs in the 1941 movie Hellzapoppin'.
Gaillard's appeal was similar to Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan in that he presented a hip style with broad appeal (for example in his children's song "Down by the Station"). Unlike them, he was a master improviser whose stream of consciousness vocals ranged far afield from the original lyrics along with wild interpolations of nonsense syllables like MacVoutie O-reeney. One such performance is celebrated in the 1957 novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
Gaillard later teamed with bassist Bam Brown; Slim and Bam can be seen in a 1948 motion picture featurette—with the Gaillardese title O'Voutie O'Rooney -- filmed live at one of their nightclub performances.
In the late forties and early fifties, Gaillard frequently opened at Birdland for such greats as Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, and Coleman Hawkins. His 1945 session with Parker and Dizzy Gillespie is notable, both musically and for its relaxed convivial air. Gaillard could play several instruments, and always managed to turn the performance from hip jazz to comedy: he would play the guitar with his left hand fretting from the top of the neck, or would play credible piano solos with his palms facing up.Gaillard also wrote the theme song introducing the Peter Potter radio show.
Gaillard appeared in several shows in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Marcus Welby, M.D., Charlie's Angels, Mission Impossible, Medical Center, and Along Came Bronson. He also appeared in the 1970s TV series Roots: The Next Generations and reprised some of his old hits on the NBC primetime variety program, The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show. By the early 1980s he was touring the European jazz festival circuit, playing with such musicians as Arnett Cobb. He also played with George Melly and John Chilton's Feetwarmers, appearing on their BBC television series.
He later appeared in the musical film Absolute Beginners (1986) singing "Selling Out".
In 1992, the Belgian group De Nieuwe Snaar released an amusing ode (in Dutch) to Gaillard, on their CD William. Arabic is sprinkled about Gaillard's songs. The song "Yep-Roc-Heresay" 3:07 - 1945 is a good example. This song is made up almost entirely of Arabic food names. The title of the song is taken from the first two words of the song, which are "yabraq" or in Arabic "يبرق" (pronounced "يبرأ" "yabra'" in the Levant, and mostly in northern parts of today's Syria), which is another name for the Turkish Dolma or stuffed grape leaves. The second word is "[harisseh]," which is a sweet desert made from semolina flour - recipe.
Other Arabic words used in the song are: Burghal (burghal), Mahshi (stuffed), kibbeh siniyyeh (kibbe in a tray), anna biddi (I want), Masari bahh (No money), banadoura (tomato), ruzz (rice), eidi maksura (I am broke), Arak (Arabic: عرق, pronounced [ʕaraq]) (a liquorice liquor), lahame mishwie (grilled meat), basal (onion).
This may be the first jazz song in Arabic. Some say he was reading from a menu of an Arabic restaurant, but this does not explain for his use of phrases such as, "no money" or "I am broke."
In the 1940s, the song was "banned in the radio for being suggestive", for its suspicious lyric references to drugs and crime.
The actual origin from these phrases comes from his time living in Detroit. He was out of money by the time he made it to Detroit and was turned down a job at Ford. An Armenian woman named Rose Malhalab (last name indicates connection to Aleppo, Syria) took Slim in, where he lived in the basement of her and her husband's beauty shop on Woodward Avenue. She cooked much Arabic food for him, explaining Slim's entire song.
Gaillard's daughter Janis Hunter is the ex-wife of R&B/soul legend Marvin Gaye, and the mother of actress and singer Nona Gaye and Frankie Christian Gaye.
Alrighty then.....here's some tunes....this is pt. 1 of 5...yes, 5......I've gotta lotta Slim....there will be some repeat titles, but (see notes) they will be different versions of songs....ENJOY!
Slim and Slam-Harlem Hunch
Slim and Slam-Tutti Fritti
Slim Gaillard-
Chinatown, my Chinatown
Flat foot floogee
My Darling (it's only you)
8, 9, qnd 10
A well-a take 'em Joe (crapshooter's song)
Beatin' the board
Boot-Ta-La-Za
Buck dance rhythm
Cause my baby says it's so
Chicken rhythm
Chinatown, my Chinatown
Dancing on the beach
Dopey Joe
Ferdinand the bull
Humpty Dumpty
It's getting kinda chilly
Jump session
Laughin' in rhythm
Look-a there
Oh, lady be good
Sweet Safronia
Swingin' in the key of C
That's a bringer-That's a hanger
That's what you call romance
Flat foot floogie
There's no two ways about it
Ti-Pi-Tin
Tutti Frutti
Vol vist Du Gaily Star
No comments:
Post a Comment