Lou Donaldson
Live: Fried Buzzard (GRP Chessmates GRD-829)

Another freewheelin' set from Lou Donaldson, full of bluesy jazz, jazzy blues, and humorous song quotes in the middle of other songs. Live: Fried Buzzard is a reissue of a 1965 live album that not only bears the greatest name for a live album ever, but demonstrates Donaldson's complete command of an audience.

Critics routinely dismiss him as a good-time blues blower, but I say, what's wrong with that? Few jazz cats have made so many records that are so consistently fun to listen to. I feel sorry for those jazz fans who listen to the music like it needs to be analyzed to death. I say they should get off their white asses and learn how to boogaloo.

Er, not that I know how. Anyway, the album is comprised of six tunes culled from a weekend at the Bon Ton Club in Buffalo, New York. It's one of those records that actually takes you there, not necessarily because the playing is so passionate and brilliant, but because it is an accurate account of a typical jazz show circa 1965. Reading about Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, et al., you get this idea that every freakin' show was classic. Naw, man, and even if so I'd hate to have to stick only to the classics.

Listening to Lou Donaldson is more like being at a show where the real jazz fans are at: I mean, everybody digs Bill Evans, but those who know, know Lou. Dismissing him as a second-tier player just because he never made a Sketches of Spain or a Blue Train is plain wrong, you dig.

Nowadays, going to see a jazz show has got to be a shadow of what the experience once was. For one thing, audiences are mostly white, and for another a lot of the "big names" will end up playing places like Symphony Center instead of the smoky little clubs they once would pack.

People don't know how to have a good time at a jazz show anymore, it's become "romantic" mood music for yuppies. The audience on Fried Buzzard is experiencing Donaldson's band for what it's worth: good music for a good ass time. This is the crowd I want to hang with. And I'd fit in all right!

Er, sure I would. Anyway, the band is kinda loose, kinda tight. Lou introduces the band and makes clever asides throughout the album (when he's not making clever asides with his alto sax). Trumpeter Bill Hardman is introduced as having played with Philly Joe Jones, Charles Mingus, Freddie & the Dreamers, and the Dave Clark Five. Makes you wonder if they ever considered doing "Do the Freddie" in the set. I'd pay a mint to see that.

Billy Gardner is on organ, Warren Stephens on guitar, and the great Leo Morris (later Idris Muhammad) on drums. They smoke through the six soul jazz tunes with no pretentiousness. Lou's trademark song quoting is in full force: "the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out" makes its way into "Summertime" (which is actually played instead of quoted itself), and the "Popeye" theme starts off "We."

Lou Donaldson embodies the spirit of Charlie Parker while remaining flat on the ground. This is a man who knew what he was all about, and just went ahead being what he was always going to be.

The set: "Fried Buzzard," "Summertime," "Peck Time," "The Thang," "The Best Things in Life are Free," and "We." The band takes you from blues to bebop to soul and back, and the audience is literally whipped into a frenzy in a couple places (chanting "Go! Go! Go!" during Donaldson's solo on "The Thang"). This is fun-ass music, I'd recommend it for all you white-ass punks with no groove in your shake and no boogaloo in your rumproll.

"Put on your space cap!" shouts Lou before going into "The Thang." I've got mine on, dig!

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Review by Chubbo Fenderson