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
CD Reviews
RETROSPECTIVE RTS 4248
